Will Strohl's Blog

There are tons of topics and ideas where people feel confused.  For some of us it’s financing.  For others, it’s stocks.  Some people get confused with sports.  Not everyone understands why or how football works the way it does.  In fact, nearly all of us use English words incorrectly every day.  Simply put, we often take knowledge for-granted.  In addition, if you hold a management or leadership title, it’s possible that you might not realize the difference.  Being a leader and being a manager is not the same thing.  Not by a longshot. 

We all have that “thing” that everyone around you knows you for.  For whatever reason, I’ve been the person my entire life that everyone I know goes to for advice.  It’s always flattering to be trusted in that way, but it also means that I continue to do my best to keep myself fed with information.  Probably the most common piece of advice I get asked is, “I have this great job offer. Do you think I should take it?”  That’s never an easy question to answer, but here’s what I tell my friends…

Personal branding is very important.  More and more, you’ll realize this.  If you’ve ever known or been a hiring manager, you know all too well how hard it is for a single applicant to stand out in that tall stack of résumés when a job is open.  You’re the proverbial needle in the haystack.  Here are a few easy ways to get out of the haystack and in front of that next great opportunity.

There is an overwhelming truth that you need to realize… No one is looking out for you.  No one.  From the moment that you took your first job, you and your career have been in your hands.  Even in the best companies in the world, your boss isn’t looking out for you.  They probably already know this secret.  That’s how they became your boss.  Here’s a few tips on why you need to be thinking about your future every day.

We’ve all been there.  It’s a group setting – most likely a meeting at work.  Several of our colleagues are there, including our boss and maybe even the boss' boss.  The topic.  Anything.  It might be something seemingly trivial, or a new direction for the business to follow. The inevitable question is asked by someone in the room, “What do we think we should do about X?”  The ominous letter X.  It’s used in math and everywhere else as a placeholder.  Similarly, this could be any decision and it’s often made before the group realizes it.

Have you ever boiled water?  Sure you have.  It’s easy.  First, you get a saucepan (preferably a clean one).  Next, you turn on the water and fill the sauce pan about 3/4 of the way.  Now you turn a burner on your stovetop between medium and high heat.  Finally, you wait.  Easy.  But that’s not what this article is about.  It’s about the pouring of hot water, and how it’s related to being a great leader.

In this episode, we have the pleasure to speak with another veteran of the DNN community, Mandeep Singh.  Mandeep is the CEO and founder of Mandeeps, one of the most successful and seasoned vendors in the DNN ecosystem.  Like some of our previous guests, Mandeep has been using DNN since the beginning – and it shows.  He and his team have been extremely successful in building up a large following of customers due to their focus on usability and support.  As you’ll soon find out, they are raising the bar with the latest Live Forms release.

Practice makes perfect, right?  At least that’s what “they” say.  In this case, we attempted to do a special edition DNN Hangout about DNN and GitHub.  Unfortunately, the first time we did it, we only showed a single screen.  So we did it again!  In this hangout, we focus on the process and steps that are performed when you contribute to the DNN GitHub project.  This will be helpful to not only understand the process, but also get some ideas for process in your own projects.

It’s been several years since I last updated the skin on my site.  Thanks to Ralph Williams, the site is looking really good again and it’s responsive.  If you need a new design for your site, I highly recommend him.  However, the process to get to this blog post was quite tumultuous – chock full of hours troubleshooting and continuous frustration spread over the past week.  Simply put, my site “appeared” to be loading okay whenever I came to it, but I rarely browsed my own site.  The process of rolling out my new design had revealed to me that this couldn’t be further from the truth. 

I’ve been in the software industry for much longer than I’d care to admit at this point.  That’s another blog post though.  Much of it has been centered around building products.  One of the things that seems to not go away is the expectation that a software trial is infinite, or free.  Regardless to whether you pay a single penny, trials aren’t free.  They cost companies money - even if you’re evaluating it on your own computer.  The moment you move from evaluation to development, you’re hurting the company that builds the software.  Here’s how…