A Geek Leader Podcast - inspiring technical and creative leaders around the world

Today on the show we have Alan Stevens.  I heard Alan speak at a local conference on leadership many years ago and he is one of the people that first sparked my interest in leadership.  I was honored to have him on the show.   Alan is an advocate of open spaces and today we talked about how to get fired… that’s right. About Alan Stevens Alan Stevens is a passionate software developer w...

Joe Topinka, a career CIO, is a dynamic author, speaker, and coach and a three-time CIO-of-the-year award winner. He has over 35 years of success leading IT organizations and driving meaningful business results in the process. His game-changing IT Business Partner Program bridges the chasm between business stakeholders and IT organizations. Joe is a frequent keynote speaker on this subject where h...

What’s your Plan for______?   I decided to do another short solo show for those of you that might have missed the earlier format of A Geek Leader shows.  This is a quick tip that I picked up from a parenting course.  Now before you rule out using parenting techniques at work, let me confess and say that I use them all the time… and they work.  This one is is called “What&#82...

Today we have Kent C. Dodds on the show.  He and I talked about lots of things including how he got started developing software and some of his early work in automation.  We talked about some of his mistakes and why its important to share your mistakes so that others can learn from them.  We talked about giving back to the community, teaching to learn and many more topics. This is a fantastic conv...

Today on the podcast we’ve go Jay Harris.  I met jay a few years back at a conference.  I’ve heard Jay speak several times and thought he would be a good guest for the show and he did not disappoint.  He came with good topics and the ideas of celebrating our own expertise as a well to improve overall mental health and confidence in our own abilities.  This is a must listen to show for...

Scott Drake – VP of Technology Scott Drake is on a mission to help great technologists become great leaders. His 20-year career includes stops at Microsoft in Redmond, Wash., at startups in Silicon Valley, and he is currently the Vice President of Technology for a medical education company in his hometown of Louisville, Ky. He is the author of “ The Programmer Hiring Playbook: A Crash...

Derek Doepker is a 7 time bestselling author and consultant on leadership, personal development, and entrepreneurship. His team at Influencing Millions helps companies improve their sales, increase employee retention, and improve performance by teaching principles of behavior change, habit development, and influential communication. You can learn more at  http://influencingmillions.com  and  http:...

Today on the show have Andrew May with a cameo from the one and only Brad Miller .  Andrew May, originally from Phoenix, AZ, started in computing when he was twelve years old, writing windows applications to assist in quick email responses. Throughout his scholastic endeavors, he continued to focus on computing; moving from desktop applications to web applications. Andrew attended Arizona State Un...

Today on the show we’ve got Jeff Roberts.  Jeff  has more than 20 years of experience leading Information Technology for top financial services and real estate firms.  Since 2015 he has served as the first-ever Chief Information Officer of HFF (NYSE: HF), a commercial real estate capital intermediary, where he is leading a digital transformation and technology platform upgrade.  Prior to joi...

Today on the show we have Arthur Doler. Arthur (or Art, take your pick) has been a software engineer for 14 years and has worked on things as exciting as analysis software for casinos and things as boring as banking websites. He is an advocate for talking openly about mental health and psychology in the technical world, and he spends a lot of time thinking about how we program and why we program,...

Today on the show we have Tom Cooper .  I met Tom a few years ago while we were both speaking at a conference. Tom and I served on the board of advisors for the Interface Security Conference in Charlotte, NC last year.  During this chat, Tom and I discuss the 4 levels of thinking as a geek leader. Tom has put together some special resources, just for A Geek Leader listeners.  Check them out at  br...

Today on the show I have Daniel Argandona, Managing Director for Fortalice Solutions, LLC .  Fortalice is a boutique, white glove, cyber security services firm. In this episode we talk about Dan’s journey through his career and how he got started into the cyber security and eventually found himself as the managing director for a cyber security firm in Washington D.C. While talking today, we...

Today on the show we’re honored to have bestselling author Todd Henry on the show. Todd   teaches leaders and organizations how to establish practices that lead to everyday brilliance. He is the author of four books ( The Accidental Creative , Die Empty , Louder Than Words , and Herding Tigers ) which have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and he speaks and consults across do...

I read, well listen to, a lot of leadership books.  Most of the leadership books I read are either very theoretical, with little practical advise, but very good theory, or very practical, with steps you can take, but not much on the “why” those steps really work.  This book, Herding Tigers, by Todd Henry is the best of both worlds.  I was telling Todd the other day that his writing see...

Today I had the opportunity to talk to Microsoft MVP , Richard Taylor. He’s a super cool guy, with great leadership stories and an epic beard. We talked about his journey into leadership and the values from working on building your team for the longterm instead of writing code to fix short-term problems.  Richard brought lots of energy and great stories of his journey into leadership. Richar...

The Leadership Journey is a book by Jim Holmes.  Jim joins me today for a great talk about his journey through leadership, his book, and some struggles and adversity he’s been through and how he’s working to overcome them. You can read about Jim and his writings on his blog Frazziled Dad. Jim’s beginnings start from a farming background, then a time in the Air Force learning tech...

General John E. Michel I’m really stoked about our guest today.  Retired General John E. Michel, from the US Air Force is joining us to talk about the power of Positive Leadership.  Now that he’s retired from the US Air Force,  John serves as the Executive Director of Skyworks Global Inc ., Council Member of U.S. Council on Competitiveness, Chairman of the Board for DemandTrans , co-fo...

Today we have Andy Davis from Venturi Group on the podcast. Andy is the host of Venturi’s Voice podcast ( itunes ) and currently the Director of Marketing at Venturi Group, an IT Recruitment agency based in the UK, New York & Berlin. Andy has an interesting story and background.  He started out working for seed level startups and even worked on the now famous Hyperloop project that was spawned...

Today we have one of my favorite people, Nicole Greer, with us from Vibrant Coaching.   Nicole Greer works with leaders in organizations who want to develop their talent, increase the bottom line, and coach individuals to engage with the vision. As the principal coach and CEO of Vibrant Coaching, she helps individuals, corporations, government entities and non-profits become the people they were c...

Energy If you’re like me, you wish you had more energy to tackle the things you want to tackle in a day.  I hope that this episode (last in our 5 day blitz) will help you discover a few ways to manage the finite amounts of energy that we have a little better. Below are some tips for getting more energy throughout the day.  Remember, I’m an IT Geek, not a doctor.  Consult your doctor or...

Time I get asked about time management more than I do any other question.  People ask, how is it that you have time with your family, work a full-time job, teach part-time, build apps, host a podcast, and do side hustles regularly?  Well, its all about time management.  We all have the same finite amount of time.  24 hours in a day.  We choose to spend it differently. One thing I recommend before...

Assets What’s your biggest asset?  Could it be your programming skills?  Your education?  Your experience? For me its the people I surround myself with. At home and in life its my wife.  She’s my biggest asset.  At the office, its my team.  I have a great team of people and they are by far my biggest asset. So, how do you manage your assets?  Well I’m going to list some common as...

Focus We all have a finite amount of focus.  We may think of focus as something you do, but I think it is something you have.  You either have focus for something, or you don’t.  And focusing on something is like contracting a muscle.  It uses energy and wears on you.  And the longer you focus on something, the more tired you get and the harder it is to keep focusing.  I notice this when I d...

Today I’m going to do something totally different.  I’m going to do a blitz week.  5 episodes in 5 days .  These will be on the topic of managing your F.A.T.E.  The acronym F.A.T.E stands for your finite resources, your Focus, Assets, Time and Energy. I first heard about this from Toddy Henry, host of The Accidental Creative . I highly recommend you check out his podcast and his books....

It’s easy to stop a train that’s not moving…But its hard to stop one that has already started. Velocity is defined as the speed of something in a given direction.  Have you ever started on a project, task, program, or something and got into the “ flow ” state?  What is flow you ask?  Flow is being in the Zone .  If you’ve played or watched basketball you’r...