Silence is golden…….get rich!
Mr. Broadway my high school chemistry teacher would get frustrated with us for talking too much but instead of telling us to shut up, he would say "silence is golden.....get rich". This goes well with one of my favorite quotes from Abe Lincoln.
“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.”
― Abe Lincoln
With twitter, facebook, blogs, etc.. everyone has a podium that they can now step up to and shout to the masses every little thing that is on their mind. I should know... I certainly use these mediums to share information and my thoughts too. But what troubles me is the complete lack of a filter for some folks. Way too many people simply spew useless and sometimes tasteless information out there. I will freely admit that I am not innocent of this, as there have been many times when I let the moment get away from me and say things that I wished that I had not. I am not especially proud of this, but I will accept responsibility for my actions. As I creep up in years I would like to think my filter has improved and while the rash thoughts my still fill my mind, I keep them to myself....well... I may call up Jason and vent.... but I do not post them on the web.
The best laid plans of mice and men
Over the past few months there have been several great articles about the amazing projects, mentors, and students over at the Analysis Exchange. This post is not going to be like those. Yes, the project was for a great cause, The Peoples Charter, and the mentor Ridder Manzanet, is fantastic. The student however....... me ...... did not do the project, or the Analysis Exchange justice. In short, I failed.
There are many excuses I could list, or hide in the shadows and hope that no one else would find out about this, but I won't. I knew when I took on this project that I did not have the time right then to work on the project and I should have not signed up for the project, but I did. Thankfully, Ridder, was totally committed to the project stepped in and did all of the work for the client. I sent my apologizes on to the client, my mentor, and even to Eric Peterson. All of which were extremely professional and really speak to the quality of the work and people contributing to the Exchange. It is because of this quality that I wanted to write this post. I truly do feel bad for the position that I put both my mentor and the Analysis Exchange in, but the more I thought about it the more I felt it really echoed what happens on many, many projects out there in the real world.
Things happen, deadlines are missed, and projects fail. That is a fact of life, not just in the confines of the measure community but in all aspects. I can not change the things that have happened in the past, all I can do is to accept responsibility for my inability to contribute on the project and make damn sure that does not happen again. Fail faster is a phrase you hear frequently in the measure community, now having earned that badge :/ it is time to try again. And try again I will. But this time I will be better prepared. I will take more time to evaluate the project before putting my name in. I will make sure I have the time to commit to the project. I will strive to make a positive impact on the project.
If you have already contributed to the Analysis Exchange, thank you for all that you have done. If you have not, don't be afraid to fail. Try it! If it does not go well, accept it, figure out what went wrong, fix it, and try again.
-Rudi
Web Analytics + Beastie Boys???
What do web analytics and the Beastie Boys have in common? More than you might think! I will be writing a post in the next few days about my time at Omniture Summit 2010, but for now I want to leave you with this! The top two executives of Omniture rocking it out with the other attendees. How is this for being accessible? Are there any other top execs that would do this? I don't think so.
Omniture/SalesForce Integration Part 1.5 : Waiting
So this is note really an official step in the process, at least I do not think it is, but as of now we are waiting on the initial load of our data from SalesForce into Omniture.
While this is not a fun part of the process, I understand that there are some things that take time.
-Rudi
Standards
Josh Adams, Sr. SE ColdFusion Specialist for Adobe, posted a blog about something that has been near and dear my heart: Scoping. In most languages, especially ColdFusion, my language of choice scoping the variables is crucial.
Golden Rule of Scoping: scope all references to all variables all the time
Makes perfect sense to me! But it got me thinking, the basic concept of scoping is simple, easy to implement, and lord knows it makes it easier to debug later. From a lack of scoping variable to not formatting your code to other complete lack of adherence to any kind of standards, sloppy code litters code bases across the Internet. I know that I have been guilty of these things in the past, but the more time I spent in the code and having to go back and maintain not only my code, but the code of other team members as well, the more I understand and appreciate the value of standards.
Standards are not meant to be obstacle to developers, they are there to try and ensure that the code deployed is stable, runs efficiently, and is easy to maintain. I find the older I get, the more passionate I get about trying to do things better than I did in the past.
How about you? Do you believe in code standards? Have you encountered resistance to implementing or adhering to them?
-Rudi
Archives
- Episode 53 – Google Analytics Premium with Phil Mui
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Recent Posts
- Standing Firm
- Writing in the margins
- Calling a tail a leg dosen’t make it a leg
- There is no I in Team
- Silence is golden…….get rich!
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Recommended Reading
- Industry Veteran Hila Strong Joins Keystone Solutions | Benzingacom
- Not There
- Career Napalm – 3 Jobs in 2 Years
- Guest Post: Thoughts on Teaching Passion
- Merchandising eVars [Omniture]
- WAA Web Analyst Certification Program
- Rudi Shumpert: New Keystone Blog Post- Omniture Campaign Best Practices ...
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