Clarke Ching - Split Infinitives and Beyond.

New book ?

I'm going to call my next book "In Search of Excrements" and change my name to Tim Peters so that it sits next to it's namesake on the shelves. I'm going to fake most of my data and say lots of things that people *want* to hear.

Dilbert widget

On the subject of recommendations ... I suspect that in years to come we will look back and ask "Who made the biggest difference to the world in 2008?" and we will all agree that it was Scott Adams. He is a profoundly funny and clever man. For a vegetarian. Enjoy his widget.

Putting your arse on the line ...

1.  Laurent Bossavit and Brian Marick have just gone live with www.WeVouchFor.org - a website where people in the agile community can add concrete testimonials about people they've worked with.  I reckon they have earned a big virtual hug and an even bigger round of applause for this.

The key to making something like this work is that people are putting their own reputations on the line transparently, in a public place - and that's not something  that people will do lightly.

2.  Now, I'm going to go one step further.  While Kevin Rutherford and I were preparing the latest NakedAgilists.com mini-conference  he mentioned that he'd recently worked himself out of a job and he is currently "available" for contract work.  He's putting his downtime to good use writing an agile  book he'll be publishing in 2009.  I know Kevin personally and professionally (although I've never worked with him on a project) and I am willing to put my reputation on the line, transparently and in public, and recommend that if you're looking for a contract Agile Coach or Scrum Master (or even Software Developer) within 90 minutes commute of Maccelsfield, in the UK, then I'm promising you that he will do a fantastic job for you.

In fact, even if you are not looking for someone like Kevin, do you know someone who might be? 

In either case, contact Kevin via his website or me if you'd like to know a little more about him. 

Note: Kevin and I have no commercial  ties.  None. I asked Kevin if he'd mind if I post this and he said that being English he found it all horribly embarrassing but he gave me his permission, nonetheless.  Speaking as a Kiwi, who lives in Scotland and has an Irish wife, I'd be more embarrassed about being English ... :)

Do you know of a project which is missing out because they don't know that Kevin is "available".

Am I thick or what?

I just learned 2 minutes ago - at the ripe old age of 38 - that tinned tomatoes are already cooked. 

NakedAgilists podcast

Here's the first part of the Naked Agilists conversation on January the 19th, 2008.
And here's the 2nd part.

The session was organised by Kevin Rutherford and chaired by Clarke Ching (me).

The agenda:
    * Servant Leaders -- Nancy van Schooenderwoert
    * wevouchfor.org -- Laurent Bossavit
    * Fit4Data -- Adrian Mowat
    * Shared data for unit tests -- Paul Wilson
    * Let them Eat Cake -- Brian Marick

You can find out more information - including slides - at  http://www.nakedagilists.com/jan-08.

Why 2 parts?  I put my skype session on hold by accident for about 10 seconds and my recording software stopped recording.  Apologies to Nancy for the lost 10 seconds.

Also, Nancy's session is a little hard to hear, but the following sessions are much easier.  We'll try to do better in future!

Another lesson learned: when you are doing a naked podcast ... it's a lot better to use a headset microphone than one of the tie clip models.  Still got the bruises.

Call to Action: Make "The Goal" number 2, in 10 seconds.

The folks at 800ceoread (a us book seller who specialise in business books) a running an online poll to rank the top 100 business books of all time.  They're writing a book about the books and they'll use the ranking from the poll.  It should be a good book - the authors come across as honest and reputable.

The poll has just started and until about 5 minutes ago "The Goal" was position 75.  My one vote bought it up to number 4. 

Number 4?  That's outrageous.  That booked changed my life. 

We should do something about this.  We will not get to position 1 because Seth Godin, author of the purple cow book, has a much bigger international online audience.  But I do reckon we could get number 2 - without cheating.

All you have to do is click on the link below, find "the goal", and click on vote.  About 10 seconds work.

http://800ceoread.com/bookvote/

 

If you've ever wonder what happens to a plane after it crashes then ...

If you've ever wonder what happens to a plane after it crashes then click here.

Prism - web applications in their own window

I've just started using PRISM, from mozilla, which allows me to run web applictions in their own window as if they were, ummm, PC applications.

So, what that means is that I can launch GMail, GCal and GReader from the start menu and they each run – elegantly – in their own window. 

Doesn’t sound that exciting … but it really does feel different and better.  I’ve only been using it for a couple of days but I am sold!

It’s still under development but it runs well.  There are a few obvious improvements – more ommissions, really  – which I’m sure the developers will be adding soon , but nothing life threatening.

Agile Development - Outside-In - Jeff Patton

I chatted for a while with Jeff Patton at xpday in London.  Very interesting - and very nice - guy.  His keynote presentation was fantastic.

He's currently writing a book and you can read it on-line as he increments (writes) and iterates (rewrites) it.  The book is called "Agile Development - Outside In - What you need to know to deliver useful, usable, and valuable software in an Agile environment". 

 

Looks fantastic based on my quick skim.

Odd Venn Diagram number 2

Sticking with heroes.  Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to reach the summit of Everest, died last week. 

From the Telegraph: 

Of Sir Edmund's many qualities, his humility particularly endeared itself to his countrymen.

Despite his celebrity status, his home address and number remained listed publicly in the Auckland telephone directory.

Perhaps the most telling tribute came from Ollie Bradshaw, who as a schoolboy 12 years ago famously rang Sir Edmund for help with his homework.

"Out of all the very important people in the country, the fact I could call up the greatest New Zealander out of the blue and have him yarn to a 14-year-old pretty much sums the guy up," Mr Bradshaw said.

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