2009 Plans for Buck the Coder Blog

2008 is drawing to a quick close and like most people I am taking some time taking stock of where I am in my all parts of my life.

As part of that, I thought about this blog. Buck the Coder is a blog I created a while back to begin to find my professional voice outside of the comfortable work environment and try to become a more active part of the community that, as a .NET developer, I gain a lot of value from.

I read a fair amount of blogs and other web content everyday and find lots of it useful, enlightening, inspirational and entertaining. I also find a lot that is infuriating and contrary to what I think or have found from experience and often I take some time and investigate further to determine what is correct and change my opinions as needed. Most of these insights I have a tendency to keep to myself or share with a few of my colleagues when the topic comes up.

I have never been the most outspoken person, usually I am the quiet person that only speaks up when I am sure of my position or when I am comfortable with my surroundings and confident of how it will be received. I have been on my team for a long time and have a fair amount of past success in my career so at work I have a place where I can find my voice in most cases. Outside of that though there are very few places I can feel comfortable raising my voice.

I have decided that using this blog to begin to find my voice is a sound idea, if only I can get myself to actually do it and to that end I am going take the following steps:

Clearly Define Why I am Doing It

For most anything you try to accomplish, if you are going to succeed you need a clear view of why you should do it. If you don’t have that in mind it is unlikely that you will get very far.

My key goal with this blog is to share my experiences of being a .NET developer as well as any insights or questions that are found along the way with the hope of either making someone else's path a little easier.

Make Time For It

I have a lot going on in my world and so if this is going to happen and be worth anything, I need make sure there is a process and time for doing it. So I am going to do the following:

• Write down any thoughts or ideas I have as I go about my day.
• Each night I will sit down and pull together those notes save the ones that are worthy of more thought.
• For any short thoughts or ideas that I think are either useful or worthy of discussion I will post a quick entry.
• For ideas that need more examination I will decide what the next step is and set aside time to do that.
• There are a few high level goals I have for next year, like getting my certifications, I will blog about these in more detail.

Blog as a Fellow Traveler

One of the roadblocks I have had in the past is my not feeling like an expert and seeing why anyone should care what I write. What I have found though is that the blogs I read and get the most value out of are the ones from people who are just sharing what they do and think and readily admit they don’t have all the answers. So I will write what I do and think, welcome others to tell me what they think and listen to what they say.

I wish anyone reading this a Happy New Year and invite you to take some time now and again to read this blog and provide me any feedback you may have.

Buck