Special Memorial Day Blog - Now on Sale!

Almost 320 million Americans celebrate this federal holiday, remembering the men and women who died while serving in the country's armed forces. A sad day!

As Israelis we are always looking up to the US, admiring our "big brother Sam" and learning what and how things should be done when you are big (X45 big)!

As Israeli's we are also holding our-own Memorial Day. Every year a day before Israel Independence Day we honor those who have died and allowed us our country and home!

For 24 hours everything turns sad, radio stations will change their playlist, TV (national and cables) channels will dedicate their on-air time to cover the stories of those who fought for our country, at 11am exactly at this day, a two-minute siren is being sounded across Israel, in these 2 moments of dead-silent everything stops to remind us the fallen soldiers of Israel. Businesses go as usual but go silent! The country is mourning in grief over the death of its sons and daughters, and everyone "hug" the bereaved families of Israel. 

Today is the US Memorial Day, it should have been a said day, instead the only thing you hear is "don't miss this sale...", radio stations keep jingling the "special ONE day sale", shopping centers and malls are packed for the special memorial day festival...

Americans; it's one day a year on which you can STOP everything and honor your fallen children, respect and hug their families.

"Home of the brave" is how the US national anthem ends. It is also the home of the brave ones, who never came back, those who fought and died and created the "land of the free"... 

America should look up to Israel and learn how to cherish the memories of the loved ones.

It's just my sudden thoughts in this sad day... 

 

Techie? You might want to follow these 10 commandments if you want to be employed after the age of 40!

I'll be 40 in two months, which made me think about the ungrateful high-tech market that employs more than 15M software developers worldwide. At this age, software developers face the tremendous stress of being too young to retire, yet too old to continue in their profession.

These techies will find themselves and their families in a place that they need to get used to the fact that although they have much more to contribute, their position is under the threat of age.

Now I know that you are thinking to yourself after reading the first few lines of this blog, "Well, there are anti-age discrimination laws." or "In the worse case scenario, I'll be back in a developer position." Nevertheless, believe me, time flies and before you can say "interoperability", you will find yourself trying to convince your HR department that you can take that open position published in your company's job portal.

If you're still reading this blog, it means that you either knew the guy in the next cubicle that didn’t show up after the age of 40 or that you are looking for a way to remain employable beyond this age.

For the past 10 years, I've worked in various management positions, all in the high-tech industry. I've held positions from senior HR to CEO in small-to-medium sized companies, and from start-ups to a huge IT services provider.

Drawing on my experience, I've gathered the "10 commandments" of staying young and innovative while becoming older and wiser.

The 10 commandments of building a techie career – recommended reading before the age of 40!

1. Don’t marry the first on: Ill start with the toughest – by the age of 40 you should be ready for "marriage". You should come to this relationship after you have had one or two mates. In doing so, you not only gain experience, but you will be able to choose the right "mate" for you. Don’t misunderstand me; this first commandment does not suggest that you should move between companies yearly, but I strongly recommended that you search for a new place every 4 to 7 years. You might be lucky and even get promoted or learn new material.
2. The Core: Be connected to your organizational core; don’t be in a position which merely supports other "important" projects or systems. Be there to create your company's revenue, be there to support the customer; think billable!
3. Open your mind: Switch to another technology, at least once in 10 years. It doesn’t matter what you think about the software language you use, it’s a fact that software changes. Anyway, if you were good, you can always switch back. On the other hand, if you only know one language, you might find yourself trying to speak French, just because it was there before.
4. Manager or Guru: Every software developer reaches a point at which he either chooses to be an architect or a technical guru within his zone, or leaves software behind and becomes a manager. If you have been a developer for more than five years and didn’t get to this point yet, get your resume ready for the age of 40!
5. Tools and technologies: You must know more tools than what you use! I mean that it doesn’t matter that you are using FireFox, Windows, Linux, or whatever internal framework your company implemented; know them all, know the alternative; so it will generate activity around you in times of change and much more than that – you might lead a change!
6. Open Source: At least once in your career be committed, or even better, create an open source project; you will be surprised at the amount of help you can receive from fellow developers, new ideas, and the quality of code you can create. In addition, it will help you to respect the following commandment…
7. Networking: It's not about you, but the people you connect with, and NO, I don’t mean just your friends but their friends as well. Get into LinkedIn, Facebook, Naymz, or others to build your professional network – market yourself every day, and get more connected.
8. Change management: Always be familiar with new technologies out-there, I remember when C++ or Cobol developers were laughing about Java saying "There is no need to know this Internet-oriented language" and they didn’t update their knowledge when it replaced the software at their bank or insurance company. You might ask yourself while reading this section if you know what Scala, Fantom, Objective C or Ruby are?!
9. Social engagement: Keep going to the company's social events even though you sometimes feel too old for that.
10. Stop saying "Cobol will be here forever"!!!  

Well, I'm 40 in just a couple of months; I'll probably write from an entirely different aspect in another 10 years. ;)

Good luck!