Professional and Personal Development

When I read the article Daniel referred to in his Apgar score post, and I came away with a different lesson. My central observation was that simply by tracking the Apgar score, doctors and hospitals became more interested in reviving babies that they might previously have diagnosed as stillborn.

This morning I was reading the Oct 9, 2006 issue of The New Yorker magazine, which contains an interesting article called "The Score: How childbirth went industrial." The article is about the process of childbirth, and more specifically, the medical techniques and industry, for lack of a better word, that have developed around childbirth. When I started reading the article, I was not expecting to encounter an intriguing idea related to software development--but ideas often spring from unexpected sources.

Chris Morris's recent post about self-management techniques has provided good food for thought. In particular, one idea from Chris's list--saying "Thank you" in response to someone's discovery of a defect in your code--reminded me of a lesson that took me many years to learn for myself: being open. What I mean is, being open to a direction or idea that is suggested or inspired by someone else. It's easy to remain "closed," a state in which the default posture is defensiveness, or insecurity, or fear, or control, a state in which the default answer is "No."

Working in an IT firm means long hours usually. There is something more to it. Uncertainty and market pressures keep one on toes. Survive to the best of your ability even if companies don't.