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Panel



Charles Max Wood


Christopher Beucheler


AJ O’Neal



With Special Guest: John Somnez

Episode Summary

John is the founder of Bulldog Mindset andSimple Programmer, which teaches software developers soft skills, and the author of a couple books. He specializes in creating a personal brand and marketing. He addresses the rumors of him leaving software development and gives an introduction to marketing yourself as a software developer and its importance. The panel discusses their experience with consulting and how marketing themselves has paid off. John talks about the importance of having soft skills. In his opinion, the most important soft skills for programmers are communication, persuasion and influence, people skills and charisma. He talks about highlight those soft skills. The truth is, more and more people are hiring for people skills rather than technical skills. The panel discusses more about the importance of people skills.

John talks about ways to build your personal brand. One of the easiest ways is blogging but he talks about other methods like podcasts YouTube, writing books, and others. A key to building a personal brand is choosing something that you can become the best at, no matter how small it is. The panel shares their experiences of what things have gotten them attention and notoriety and talk about how other influential programmers got famous. They talk about interacting with central platforms like Medium and Github. Building a personal brand for software developers is the same as any other personal brand, such as having a consistent message, consistent logos and color schemes, and repeated exposure). Most people in the software world aren’t willing to do what’s necessary to build a personal brand, so it makes you stand out when you do it. John talks about the importance of controlling your image so that companies want to hire you. John gives a brief overview of his course How to Market Yourself as a Software Developer. 

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Links



John Somnez’s books


Data Grid Girl


Follow JavaScript Jabber on Facebook and Twitter



 

Picks

Charles Max Wood:



To Sell is Human


How to Win Friends and Influence People



John Somnez:



Follow John at bulldogmindset.com and simpleprogrammer.com


The Little Book of Stoicism


Training Peaks



Christopher Beucheler:



Strasborg, France



AJ O’Neal



Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy


Parallels


Cam Slide


Special Guest: John Sonmez.