Panel: Charles Max Wood

Guest: Erik Dietrich

This week on My Ruby Story, Charles talks to Erik Dietrich who is a consultant and a business owner. After he left the IT life, he is a partner for a content marketing company among others.

In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

0:52 – Greetings! It’s another story on Ruby Stories.

1:04 – We have had you on Episode 296.

1:28 – Guest: I did in my blogger days, but over the course of time but I ran into management roles and then left. That definitely skewed my topics that I talked about.

1:59 – Chuck: Introduce yourself for people. 

2:53 – Chuck: Let’s talk about your career or even further back. How did you get into programming?

3:24 – Guest: My father introduced me into my project. Into my educational background I do remember banging away at my computer because there weren’t any courses offered (at the time).

4:13 – Chuck: Let’s talk about computer science.

4:22 – guest: I had to apply to the computer science program to the college I went to. I knew I wanted to do something cutting-edge.

4:42 – Chuck: After college where did you end up?

4:55 – Guest: I graduated in 2001 from college. I did some odd jobs. Thankfully, the economy was stronger for me to be a software engineer title. Then from there...

5:57 – Chuck: When I graduated I started off with Tech Support then Q/A.

6:12 – Chuck: It sounds like you worked all over the place? Is it deliberate when you chance course within your career?

6:36 – Guest: Actually, it was full circle for me. At some point, I did get more career-minded.

8:01 – Chuck: How did you end up there – the programming job?

8:13 – Guest: My mom left, but worked at X company. The co. knew that she had a son that finished a computer science degree.

9:10 – Chuck: The recruiters should be use to that at some point.

9:23 – Guest added some more thoughts.

9:50 – Chuck: Talk about the progression you’ve made. I know Ruby is not your primary focus of your background. Take people on a tour. I’m curious if we can talk about how you got into the consulting and marketing roles that you fill these days.

10:28 – Guest: Whistle stop of my career, here we go. The first 10 years, it was pretty standard. Across a few different companies went from one position to another up to the architectural role. Then, I went through job-hopping. I ended up doing independent consulting and freelance works. I didn’t know really, though, what I wanted to do. Coaching people is what I did for a while. There I discovered something – I enjoyed that coaching work. More opportunities that I had, and then I realized it was a good fit. Over the course of time, I had the blog, which was reflecting anything I was doing. If I am writing about x, y, z, I was blogging about it.

14:28 – Chuck: How do you know which opportunity to pursue?

14:38 – Guest: General, I was say...

15:52 – Chuck: What are you most proud of?

16:04 – Guest: The blog.

17:28 – Guest: My book. Check it out. Amazon and Leanpub.

17:47 – Chuck: What are you working on now?

17:58 – Guest answers this question.

21:12 – Chuck: Any other thing you’d like to talk about?

21:27 – Guest chimes in with his ideas.

24:25 – Guest: Whatever adds to your happiness.

24:36 – Chuck: I get to choose what I want to work on. I find that the freer that I am to make my own decisions the happier I am.

25:09 – Guest: I had a hard time being told to do things from senior roles in the job.

25:42 – Chuck: I think more companies will be willing to bring some people in for a specific project/job.

26:39 – Guest: I get into trend projection into my book.

28:04 – Chuck: One more question that I have. As people are coming into this pool – what do you advise those people to see where the industry is going? Where to get a job? Long-term?

28:35 – Guest: To get a job in the entry level is kind of hustling. If you are struggling then write about a blog. Get there a social profile that makes you different from all the others. Does the company have the faintest idea of who you are and what you can do? Position yourself as an expert. If you can show that you are standing out from your peers then your career will advance much more quickly. Not necessarily being “better then them.” How are you different?

30:23 – Chuck: Yep, these things I push people toward in my new course. Meet the right people; build those relationships. They probably get dozens or dozens of applications. They can find someone to write code but it’s the underlining stuff that they are looking for.

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Charles

Jamie