Developers' Corner
I was tempted to head this page "Developers, developers, ... developers!" And if you catch the reference, then you're just who this section is for.
I am a nerd. Always have been, always will. I got fed up with the canned choices for making this web site and despite the obvious priorities on my time, munged an off-the-shelf template (because like most nerds, I have no artistic design talent) to use a framework (Dance) in my favorite language (Perl) so I could write the nifty bits myself. (This is why the quote of the day on the home page is picked at random and that is probably why the pages take so darn long to load.) And so I can edit my content in Emacs (bring it on).
So what's a nice nerd doing in an industry like coaching?
Two reasons. First, because I looked at so many projects that expended enormous capital to squeeze out a little extra technical efficiency (nerds love to overoptimize for performance, technical management just enshrines that principle in an extra layer of respectability) only to have those gains utterly eclipsed by problems in communication, organization, and interpersonal dynamics. You know, the soft stuff. Except that they're really, really hard, not least because they're not amenable to objective and numerical measurement. Much. It only makes sense that if you want to optimize the efficiency of something, you need to focus on the areas that contribute the most to its cost, right?
Second, because I have always had a foot in two camps: the technical (rational, scientific) and the artistic (intuitive, personal). I took weeks at a time off from my programming job to work and study with personal development trainings.
For the longest time I hid each world from the other: the people I knew in each world didn't understand the other, and I didn't want to defend my membership in the other world to them, so I minimized my other-world involvement.
But now I want to bring those worlds together. In becoming a coach I have discovered a mission
to bridge those two worlds to foster understanding and solve problems. And I have discovered a purpose
(see the Next Revolution section) that requires that I
do that. So even though I risk approbation, mockery, and indifference from both sides, here I am.
My name is Peter, and I am a geek! (And bonus points for catching that reference also.)