Failure to Communicate

I'm writing you on my birthday, a great time to reflect. I got a note from my daughter thanking me for giving her some good advice that I'm going to pass along. She's graduating from her Associate of Arts degree and is hitting that stage where she's stressed about her future. Like many kids she's trying to decide what she should study.

Because I'm a developer, I recognize a pattern when I see one, specially when I've been there myself. Here's the thing...what she chooses at this point in her life isn't that important; it's her ability to adjust that matters. Here's what the Washington Post had to say:

Only 27% of college grads have a job related to their field

-- The Washington Post

It was true for me, I got a degree in Journalism. Although I got a job for the Tribune Network of newspapers, it was really as a Web Designer/Developer. Evidently it's the truth for most people.

One of the most ridiculous sayings I hear is:

Failure is not an option

-- Ignoramus

It's almost as bad as the misuse of the word literally (which I covered last week). Failure is not only always an option, it's sometimes the best option. I'm still happy I quit the basketball team once I realized I was only five foot six and couldn't shoot. That's how I discovered my love for helping others by joining the computer science lab as an Aide.

The real solution for failure, as the clever Mythbusters used to say, is to revisit, re-analyze. Find out what you did wrong and feel free to make changes when something changes.

I told my daughter...pick something you like and it will be a great starting point, but not an end point. It's ok to change your mind later. Mistakes will be made, choices will be wrong and that's fine. The most important thing she can learn is the best time to make a change.

Failure to Launch?

I had a failure last week (boy, I love these transitions) because of a horrible cold that made me lose my voice. Thankfully, I'm back with the first recording of a three part series on the Bootstrap Carousel.

I recorded this one at my office instead of my home. That was a lot harder since my setup is way more complex and isn't as optimized. Plus, I tried to record on multiple cameras. Right now, I have a Atem Mini recorder, but it hard-codes the camera angles into the recording, so my birthday present is a new Extreme ISO with a crazy 8 inputs and recording multiple inputs to separate outputs.

Embracing Live Action

Part of my journey with all this extra posting is to learn how to create videos with different styles of content. I realized, however, it's a whole new way of teaching.

A TV Studio is no longer necessary to produce quality live action. LinkedIn and YouTube have democratized the ability to publish video. Cameras are cheaper and the rest of the equipment is better and more affordable than it's ever been. But, with great power, comes the responsibility of learning the differences in how you teach using live action. Differences in structure, editing and how you go about approaching the lesson.

So, I've been trying different categories of posts. You may have seen some of them like JSL (JavaScript as a Second Language which is a graphically driven, fun approach at teaching something complex; Apply, a video first approach to what would normally be screen capture programming courses; The Launch, a celebration of my course launches that helps promote new courses and engage with people trying to learn.

The biggest failure is to forget to adjust. If you don't make changes, someone else will make them for you. If you don't catch the wave, then you're bound to be caught by it. It's a recipe for true failure.