Happy New Year!

Wow - what a wrap up! 2009 to me seemed to be there year when open source went mainstream. Drupal in particular shined, not because it is the most popular CMS out there, but it's adoption by numerous government agencies - most notably the White House.

I know that it is customary to make goals this time of year - so I thought I would share some of mine....

1. For Starters I would like to continue my work in Open-source software for web-development.

2. I would like to better evangelize how important an Open-source and Social media strategy is to the success of any organization today - be it educational, health care, retail or non-profit. I hope to do this by publishing a book in the area to be released sometime in 2011. I will post a website shortly to help promote the book and you will be able to have a hand in its creation.

3. I would like to shatter the "programmers are nerds and out of shape" stereotype - lol, personally I need to start with myself, being a slightly overweight nerdy programmer...If anyone has any good ideas let me know. I am currently using the Couch to 5K, 100 Pushups and 200 situps apps - you can encourage me by following me on facebook www.facebook.com/roberttwobears

4. For many of us in software our work becomes less of a job and more of a lifestyle, which is great, it means many of us love our jobs. The downside is we are "always on" and sometimes our families and loved one pay the price. The effect of this is twofold, creating the feeling of when you are working you should be spending time with your family and when you are with you family you should be at work - this doesn't even get into the time you need as an individual to work on yourself so you have something left to give in the first place. This can be even compounded more by the fact that a larger percentage of us developers have the opportunity to work remotely than other fields. I've heard that women are better multitaskers than men somewhere ;) but I even think female developers would be more effective if they were able to work on only one thing at a time. So what's an aspiring CTO to do?

Some compartmentalization I think is necessary, but the nature of our work makes a hard division near impossible. You can't control inspiration. Part of my answer is to go back to my military roots and (enter dramatic music here) get up earlier. A 4am wake up gives me the time I need to take care of myself in the morning - to work out, prepare for the day and keep my house in order. It also gives me some quiet time in the morning to do some important self development work. By the time work starts I have all MY stuff done and have my work day organized and prepped. Work, though it tend to spill out, is to be done between the hours of 8 and 5 - more may be required if there are deadlines looming or some big deal to close, however if this becomes the norm it is time to examine my processes in order to eliminate deficiencies in my best practices. Time after 5 then is open for family and recreation.

If anyone has ideas on how to accomplish them four things - Expert, Author, Fitness, Balance let me know ;) Thanks for reading

Robert