I was fortunate to be at Devup again this year as an attendee. Last year I took a shot at documenting my notes here on ye old blog. That “kinda” happened. That is to say, I started, then fizzled out.
This year I’m doing it again. But now with more enthusiasm! Writing, I mean. Not fizzling out.
The opening keynote this year was by Dona Sarkar from Microsoft.
Prior to this keynote, I’d never had the pleasure of hearing Dona speak – heck I honestly didn’t know who she was. I am very glad I did not miss her keynote remarks.
The main takeaways I heard from Dona’s talk, the ones that struck a chord with me were:
- It’s all about the customer … talk to them. Know them. Care about what is important to them.
- The same playbook does not apply to everything. Don’t be afraid to think in a new way or do things differently.
- Be a builder, not a coder. Think of yourself as someone who makes things, who builds, not just as a coder (or in my case, a .NET guy).
Dona was very engaging with the crowd, funny, nerdy, obviously very creative and generally just a great person to kick off our beloved Devup conference.
I was able to catch up with Dona in the hallway between sessions later on the first day of Devup. Two reasons I did were:
- I had some genuine questions about career which I wanted to ask her, in particular, because I knew I would have a lot of respect for any insights/advice she might share.
- Also, I wanted to talk to her because I was terrified to do so.
I mean she works at Microsoft of all places – my dream place. It’s like she hangs out in Asgard doing high magic and slaying Frost Giants and I’m stuck on Midgard, hitting up Stackoverflow to figure out stuff for my daily bread.
Anyway. It’s intimidating. So I needed to do it.
She was kind enough to talk to me and not run away from the freaky old coder asking her questions. And she gave me some great advice which I made copious notes about as soon as I could.
Dona Sarkar really does seem to be a champion of the people, encouraging us all to succeed with a “We got this!” and helping out if she can.
I’m so glad to have met her and even more happy that Devup is able to bring in people like her to inspire us all to #DoTheThing.
“Empower others. Let them be heroes. Be a mentor to the customer. We build for others.”