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Success in Programming: How to Gain Recognition, Power, and Influence Through Personal Branding
Why should you, a competent software developer or programmer, care about your own brand? After all, it’s not like you're an actor or musician.
In fact, as Success in How to Gain Recognition, Power, and Influence Through Personal Branding demonstrates in many ways, it’s never been more important for you to think about yourself as a brand. Doing so will provide rocket fuel for your career. You’ll find better jobs and become the "go-to" person in various situations. You’ll become known for your expertise and leadership, and you'll find it easier to strike out on your own. People will seek out your advice and point of view. You’ll get paid to speak, write, and consult. What’s not to like about becoming a rock star developer?
The good news—as Mozilla’s senior technology evangelist, Frédéric Harper, writes—is that it’s never been easier to improve your skills, stand out, share more quickly, and grow your network. This book provides the tools you need to build your reputation and enhance your career, starting right now. You'll learn what personal branding is and why you should care about it. You’ll also learn what the key themes of a good brand are and where to find the ingredients to build your own, unique brand. Most importantly, you'll understand how to work your magic to achieve your goals and dreams. You’ll also
How to use sites like StackOverflow and Github to build both your expertise and your reputationHow to promote your brand in a way that attracts better-paying jobs, consulting gigs, industry invitations, and contract workHow to become visible to the movers and shakers in your specific category of developmentHow to exert power and influence to help yourself and othersSuccess in How to Gain Recognition, Power, and Influence Through Personal Branding shows you how to scale your skills, gain visibility, make a real impact on people and within organizations, and achieve your goals. There’s no need to become a marketing expert or hire a personal branding guru; this book and a desire to grow personally and professionally are all you need to leap to the next level of your career.
In fact, as Success in How to Gain Recognition, Power, and Influence Through Personal Branding demonstrates in many ways, it’s never been more important for you to think about yourself as a brand. Doing so will provide rocket fuel for your career. You’ll find better jobs and become the "go-to" person in various situations. You’ll become known for your expertise and leadership, and you'll find it easier to strike out on your own. People will seek out your advice and point of view. You’ll get paid to speak, write, and consult. What’s not to like about becoming a rock star developer?
The good news—as Mozilla’s senior technology evangelist, Frédéric Harper, writes—is that it’s never been easier to improve your skills, stand out, share more quickly, and grow your network. This book provides the tools you need to build your reputation and enhance your career, starting right now. You'll learn what personal branding is and why you should care about it. You’ll also learn what the key themes of a good brand are and where to find the ingredients to build your own, unique brand. Most importantly, you'll understand how to work your magic to achieve your goals and dreams. You’ll also
How to use sites like StackOverflow and Github to build both your expertise and your reputationHow to promote your brand in a way that attracts better-paying jobs, consulting gigs, industry invitations, and contract workHow to become visible to the movers and shakers in your specific category of developmentHow to exert power and influence to help yourself and othersSuccess in How to Gain Recognition, Power, and Influence Through Personal Branding shows you how to scale your skills, gain visibility, make a real impact on people and within organizations, and achieve your goals. There’s no need to become a marketing expert or hire a personal branding guru; this book and a desire to grow personally and professionally are all you need to leap to the next level of your career.
- GenresProgrammingNonfiction
168 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 1, 2014
About the author
Frédéric Harper
1 book33 followersAs the Principal Developer Advocate at Kubefirst, Frédéric Harper helps Developers, and DevOps be successful with their Kubernetes journey. Fred has shared his passion for technology on the stage at multitudinous events around the world. He’s helped build successful, and healthy communities at npm, Mozilla, Microsoft, DigitalOcean, and Fitbit. He is also the author of the book Personal Branding for Developers at Apress. Behind this extrovert is a very passionate individual who believes in the power of communication... and cat videos.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 9, 2016
The good things about IT is that it's not just about learning technical things: a language, a protocol or the rationale behind that new technology everyone is talking about. IT is also about building a team, being a team member and growing both personally and professionally. This means that any decent book store has a section, among the IT books, where we can find titles dedicated to the personal side of the profession. And if, like me, you both love developing and have half a hour commute to get to work, Success in Programming is one of those books that you pick up when you see it on that shelf. The title sounds both interesting and relaxing, with no code to try out and focus on. On top of that, it combines several keywords that we all like to hear about us: success, recognition, power and influence. Wise choice, Frederic. You certainly know how to get your book to stand out.
While it's certainly easier to get through a book like this, rather than one about GCC optimization, reviewing a title such as Success in Programming is harder than it looks since, in the end, each of us feels it in a different way. De gustibus... For this reason, I will tackle this by analyzing the book first objectively (as much as I can), that is its content as it is; then subjectively. Here I will share my personal thoughts.
Before getting into the content itself, let's say that Success in Programming is well laid out and errors free, suggesting proofreaders did a good job. Don't get me wrong if I highlight this aspect. There are many titles out there with errors already in the preface or the author(s) section, suggesting hurry and/or poor care. That's a little detail that, overall, lowers the value of the product.
Success is Programming has been written by an ex developer, now evangelist. The author targets developers. Not any developer, but those that are interested in building an important presence in their field, that is, interested in building a personal brand. Those developers that are interested to come up in the results in the first page of a Google search with content that speaks for themselves, highlighting professionalism and quality.
We can roughly divide the book into two parts: the first is about what I have just mentioned: what is personal branding, why the reader should care about it and when he should not. The second part of the book does instead explain the many different ways a developer can build that brand, both with and without the social media.
The key point of this first part (spoiler!) is motivation. Being motivated drives this process which does not take a week to show results. It takes time and dedication. And a motivation, which can be personal recognition, a better job or a better salary. Frederic makes it clear that building a personal brand is not something for everyone. He is also supported by other professionals, mostly evangelists, who share their ideas and thoughts on specific topics.
The second part of the book is instead dedicated to how to build this personal brand. The author divides this in social media and real life personal activities. The former includes how to get the spotlight on Twitter, Linkedin and GitHub so that Google comes up with many results with your name whenever someone dares searching about you; the latter discusses the importance of nurturing connections and being part of local activities, such as groups dedicated to a particular language or technology and/or taking part to conferences. The author here highlights the importance of talking to people. Talking means connecting and having a strong network is key to getting known and noticed. Frederic here points out the importance to be seen with the big guns of the company, as well as knowing when to say no when people ask for our support. He highlights the importance to optimize time, which is a limited resource, so that it is always spent towards a goal: building a personal brand. A diagram showing how to decide whether to say yes or no when someone comes asking for help really stands out among the content.
Time for some personal thought. First thing first, I did not personally like very much the book. It's easy to read and I do agree with most of the content. But still, I don't feel I walk away having learned something. That aforementioned diagram is what caught my attention but I do not share that vision. It feels too Machiavellian. I do agree with the author on the importance of both having a strong profile on Linkedin and working on open source projects, with GitHub being our card to the public. But throughout the years, I have noticed that their effect is quite relative. A couple of examples: most of the HR professionals hold a degree in psychology, not computer science. They have no idea what a race condition or a decorator is. They do not check what you commit on GitHub and even if they do, they mostly won't be able to understand the goodness of your commits. Most often than not, despite you make it clear in your curriculum that you started open source projects, you are asked, during an interview, if you have ever worked in any open source project. And even technical leads being part of the hiring process won't waste time checking your commits. Similarly, while it is true that Linkedin nowadays replaced the good old curriculum vitae in PDF format, it is also true that most HR professionals won't get through it and will ask you silly questions whose answers lay there, scrolling down your profile.
Frederic says something true: do epic shit. If you do it then you aren't likely to pass through the standard hiring process though. If you don't, HR won't waste time with your Linkedin profile or GitHub page.
Wrapping it all up, a well written title. I was expecting something different, though.
As usual, you can find more reviews on my personal blog: http://books.lostinmalloc.com. Feel free to pass by and share your thoughts!
While it's certainly easier to get through a book like this, rather than one about GCC optimization, reviewing a title such as Success in Programming is harder than it looks since, in the end, each of us feels it in a different way. De gustibus... For this reason, I will tackle this by analyzing the book first objectively (as much as I can), that is its content as it is; then subjectively. Here I will share my personal thoughts.
Before getting into the content itself, let's say that Success in Programming is well laid out and errors free, suggesting proofreaders did a good job. Don't get me wrong if I highlight this aspect. There are many titles out there with errors already in the preface or the author(s) section, suggesting hurry and/or poor care. That's a little detail that, overall, lowers the value of the product.
Success is Programming has been written by an ex developer, now evangelist. The author targets developers. Not any developer, but those that are interested in building an important presence in their field, that is, interested in building a personal brand. Those developers that are interested to come up in the results in the first page of a Google search with content that speaks for themselves, highlighting professionalism and quality.
We can roughly divide the book into two parts: the first is about what I have just mentioned: what is personal branding, why the reader should care about it and when he should not. The second part of the book does instead explain the many different ways a developer can build that brand, both with and without the social media.
The key point of this first part (spoiler!) is motivation. Being motivated drives this process which does not take a week to show results. It takes time and dedication. And a motivation, which can be personal recognition, a better job or a better salary. Frederic makes it clear that building a personal brand is not something for everyone. He is also supported by other professionals, mostly evangelists, who share their ideas and thoughts on specific topics.
The second part of the book is instead dedicated to how to build this personal brand. The author divides this in social media and real life personal activities. The former includes how to get the spotlight on Twitter, Linkedin and GitHub so that Google comes up with many results with your name whenever someone dares searching about you; the latter discusses the importance of nurturing connections and being part of local activities, such as groups dedicated to a particular language or technology and/or taking part to conferences. The author here highlights the importance of talking to people. Talking means connecting and having a strong network is key to getting known and noticed. Frederic here points out the importance to be seen with the big guns of the company, as well as knowing when to say no when people ask for our support. He highlights the importance to optimize time, which is a limited resource, so that it is always spent towards a goal: building a personal brand. A diagram showing how to decide whether to say yes or no when someone comes asking for help really stands out among the content.
Time for some personal thought. First thing first, I did not personally like very much the book. It's easy to read and I do agree with most of the content. But still, I don't feel I walk away having learned something. That aforementioned diagram is what caught my attention but I do not share that vision. It feels too Machiavellian. I do agree with the author on the importance of both having a strong profile on Linkedin and working on open source projects, with GitHub being our card to the public. But throughout the years, I have noticed that their effect is quite relative. A couple of examples: most of the HR professionals hold a degree in psychology, not computer science. They have no idea what a race condition or a decorator is. They do not check what you commit on GitHub and even if they do, they mostly won't be able to understand the goodness of your commits. Most often than not, despite you make it clear in your curriculum that you started open source projects, you are asked, during an interview, if you have ever worked in any open source project. And even technical leads being part of the hiring process won't waste time checking your commits. Similarly, while it is true that Linkedin nowadays replaced the good old curriculum vitae in PDF format, it is also true that most HR professionals won't get through it and will ask you silly questions whose answers lay there, scrolling down your profile.
Frederic says something true: do epic shit. If you do it then you aren't likely to pass through the standard hiring process though. If you don't, HR won't waste time with your Linkedin profile or GitHub page.
Wrapping it all up, a well written title. I was expecting something different, though.
As usual, you can find more reviews on my personal blog: http://books.lostinmalloc.com. Feel free to pass by and share your thoughts!
October 5, 2017
Very inspiring book which is quick and easy to read.
The book is full of good advices to create (identify and precise your goals) and grow you Personal branding using online and offline tools.
In the Author's Words: "You have a brand, you had better be in control of it"
The book is full of good advices to create (identify and precise your goals) and grow you Personal branding using online and offline tools.
In the Author's Words: "You have a brand, you had better be in control of it"
October 20, 2015
A sad little story about a world where being an evangelist for The Next JavaScript Framework is The Goal. Spoiler alert: at the beginning of the book the author says it's not a book about him. That's a lie. It's entirely composed of "this one time at the music camp...".
April 23, 2021
You can apply this to basically everything in your life. Creating your own brand is the most essential thing to move forward in life. Be known for something. Be the go to. Read this to know how.
January 30, 2019
It was straight forward and to the point in most cases. Am reading this book a few years after it was published and a good chunk of the advice it gives still rings true. I feel that it was written to include everyone and thereby losing its appeal to someone like me who is mostly on the coding side and not really keen on getting into more marketing related side of the business.
December 17, 2017
A very helpful book for all the geeks out there. If you don't have a personal brand, this book is for you.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews