When I created this site on October 30, 2007, I had no idea what I was getting
myself into. This site is not about winning awards. It’s about bringing
attention to a big big problem that we all face, staying competitive in a global
economy.
On Staying Competitive...
The only way to get ahead and stay ahead in this challenging job market is to
constantly distinguish yourself from the competition by demonstrating great
performance and maintaining highly marketable skills.
Thanks Mr. Spock...
Star Trek caught my attention and Mr. Spock was my hero. He could solve just
about any and every problem with technology and pure logic. He’s the one who got
me hooked on computers! “Live long and prosper.”
The Conundrum
I wanted to take my first computer course in 1968 while at Lindblom Technical
High School in 1968 and the closest I could get to it was electrical engineering
where I learned how to repair radios. Since then not much has changed. High
school students still can’t learn the latest technology. It’s nobody’s fault. By
the time the curriculum is updated the technology has already changed. This same
conundrum applies to college students. And believe it or not, even seasoned IT
professionals like me face the same challenges. We have to stay current with the
market demand or get left behind.
I cut my teeth on the mainframe when COBOL and BAL were hot. I coded BASIC, FORTRAN, Lisp and PL1, C, C++ and HTML and earned a pretty good living as a developer for over 20 years. These skills are worthless now, but to make matters worse, the job market changes so fast that the useful life of technology skills has shrunken down to months not years. Case in point. Ruby on Rails is a hot new programming language who’s adoption rate is growing fast. But if you learned version 1.0 a few months ago, your skills are already stale because version 2.0 has many significant enhancements. That’s right, version 1.0 is legacy code!
And technologists are not alone. Whether you are a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer, or an accountant, the world is changing so fast that continuous, life long learning is the new mandate for the 21st century knowledge worker and social networking is the new 21st century chic magnet that pulls this all together.
Our Genesis
Blacks Gone Geek came to life by following a few simple rules:
1. KISS – Keep It Super Simple. If you’re spending to much time thinking about it and talking about it then you're wasting time. Just do it!
2. Don’t reinvent the wheel! Everything you need to know is already on the web. There are plenty of blogs, discussion groups, wikis and podcasts that share best practices and teach solutions. Just find it, promote it and build on past successes.
3. Make it a labor of love! You can do all this stuff for free. No kidding, This website is free, my blog is free, my podcast is free. All you need is a little time and ingenuity.
4. There’s a Hero In All of Us! Everybody loves a hero. There are tons of people out there who are already doing great works in the community. These are my heroes and I’m dedicated to helping them share best practices and success stories.
1. KISS – Keep It Super Simple. If you’re spending to much time thinking about it and talking about it then you're wasting time. Just do it!
2. Don’t reinvent the wheel! Everything you need to know is already on the web. There are plenty of blogs, discussion groups, wikis and podcasts that share best practices and teach solutions. Just find it, promote it and build on past successes.
3. Make it a labor of love! You can do all this stuff for free. No kidding, This website is free, my blog is free, my podcast is free. All you need is a little time and ingenuity.
4. There’s a Hero In All of Us! Everybody loves a hero. There are tons of people out there who are already doing great works in the community. These are my heroes and I’m dedicated to helping them share best practices and success stories.
Current Initiatives
1. Promote the use of web 2.0 social networking tools (blogs, podcasts,
websites, wikis, Facebook) to educate, instigate and “beat the drums” for
positive social change.
2. Grow a Following: Use this forum to attract others to the cause. I’m especially interested in growing our BDPA member ranks and raising money for BDPA and look to grow our online presence to over 20,000 strong.
2. Grow a Following: Use this forum to attract others to the cause. I’m especially interested in growing our BDPA member ranks and raising money for BDPA and look to grow our online presence to over 20,000 strong.
3. Blacks Gone Geek (BGG) Knowledge Management Team: The BGG Knowledge
Management Team creates and maintains knowledge articles in the BGG Knowledge
Base. The BGG Knowledge Base is a central information repository that provides
how to guides, responses to frequently asked questions and other information
useful for promoting careers for African Americans in IT.
4. BGG Consulting Services: We help grow your business by using Microsoft Office
365 cloud computing platforms to support your web/portal, collaboration,
communications and content management needs.
"That's all folks!"
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