My highlights from 100 LinkedIn articles
A couple of weeks ago I published the 100th article on my LinkedIn blog. This article is actually number 102. Over the past few years, this blog has covered everything from examining the best practices of companies’ digital transformations, evaluating new technologies such as Google Flutter, interviewing leading women in technology, to celebrating awards won by Belatrix.
By blogging frequently, it enables both myself and more broadly, Belatrix, to be more transparent with our clients, employees, prospects, and the wider market. It’s also a great way to get feedback and comments on new ideas.
So, in no particular order, here are my top three posts from the past few years:
1. Are we nearing the end of Hadoop and Big Data?
In this widely-read post, I explored the merger of Cloudera and Hortonworks which the two companies had just announced. I argued that the merger represented how big data was simply becoming data to most companies; and that the ageing Hadoop technology was starting to look dated given the variety of different options available to organizations today. As I wrote at the time, “when I talk with our clients, whether leading retailers or financial services organizations or in other industries, the conversation rarely touches upon big data. Instead, executives focus on how they can deliver powerful digital experiences to their users and customers in a world dominated by artificial intelligence and machine learning”.
2. Why I’m not betting on the uberization of software development
A couple of years ago I wrote about the emergence of freelance software development services, mirroring what we’re seeing in other industries, such as with TaskRabbit and Uber. Such services enable companies to hire loose programmers from anywhere in the world, and at first glance can appear an attractive proposition.
However, I argued that taking this approach could have serious implications for organizations, and that taking this “on-demand” strategy is not the right solution for solving complex challenges in software development. This is because teams, not individuals, ship high quality code quickly. Software development is becoming more complex - so you need highly qualified, experienced teams working on your core environment. You need effective knowledge transfer processes to deal with attrition. As I wrote, “It’s a brave executive who plans to bring together a mix of contractors with no cultural alignment, no consistent processes, and no long-term interest in you, your company, or your product”.
3. Successful women in tech: Silvana Gaia
Last year we ran a series of articles during our “Successful women in technology” week. The idea was to highlight some of the many successful women at Belatrix, whilst also aiming to dispel some of the stereotypes and myths about what it is like to work in the technology industry. I wanted to give some color to what life is really like on a daily basis at a tech company.
In this interview, Silvana Gaia spoke eloquently about why she decided to study software engineering, some of the challenges she has faced, and her recommendations for other women thinking about embarking on a similar career path.
I hope you have enjoyed reading the blog, and here’s to another 100 articles!