Talk: Skillfull Hands - Tech Angle

Event

I share references that augment my talk at the 2nd edition of Skilful Hands program led by the TOT Y-church (Tent of Testimonies Youth Church)

Overall advice

Learn how to get stuff done, 44th USA President, Barack Obama

Video link

It's on Youtube, 🎉
I start here and it continues here (the first 5 minutes)

Tech, defined

Key:
TLDR: Too Long Don't Read (Summary)

TLDR: Tech, defined

Tech - tooling to get things done

Long form: Tech, defined

Tech is short for technology.

The etymology of techno-logy From Greek tekhnologia meaning 'systematic treatment', which comes from:

• tekhnē (Greek word meaning 'art, craft')
• -logia (from French -logie or medieval Latin -logia) denoting a subject of study or interest

Of course, most won't think about systematic treatment when they hear the word technology or rather tech. The term has morphed over time and I think it still will.

In one way, tech is connoted as the new way of doing things and one's vantage point relative to this. Consider high-tech, low-tech, technophobia (the fear of new technology), ...

In another, on a common speak level, tech connotes computing devices, their use. Consider "Nowadays tech products are ubiquitous"

I think the definition, will still morph in the future.

Digital literacy

TLDR: Digital literacy

Digital literacy - literacy of tools 🔥

Long form: Digital literacy

Literacy of tools like:

• Mobile
• Email use
• Google Suite, and equivalent
• Understanding technology - CS50

Tech Skills

• Media

  • Photography

• Digital Marketing

  • Social Media

• Content

  • Copywriting
  • Technical content

• Programming

  • Web
  • Systems
  • Game dev

• CyberSecurity

• Digital Products (Career options + progressions)

  • Engineering
    • CTO
    • EM (Engineering Manager)
  • IT
  • PM (Product manager)
  • UX (User experience)
  • CX (Customer experience)
  • DX (Developer experience)
  • Community management
  • PD (Product Designer)

• Business angle

  • Business stage - Start-up, Enterprise
  • Business type - B2B, B2C
  • Funding - investment rounds

The list continues...

Considerations

• Skill inflation
  refers to the phenomenon where the average level of knowledge and competencies required for a particular job role or industry increases over time

  Therefore, you need a growth mindset

• Tech adjacent areas

• Pivoting from other careers

• Product to market

Learning to code; Programming

WHY

There’s value in learning how to code. It's a high-demand skill that pays well.

Video link - EVERYTHING you need to know about learning to code in 2023

Options:

• Self-taught
• University

How

Like learning anything new, it's a process that requires discipline. There's the place of talent and exposure but overall, attentive repetition 🔁.

When you start out coding, you'll:

• Spend more time reading code than writing it
• Readable code is better than code that looks smart
• Breaking things is going to be part of your life

Web programming

• HTML, CSS, JS
  • Framework
• API - CRUD
• Databases
  • SQL/ NoSQL
  • Relational DBs scale better in the long term
• Backend languages
• CMS
• Algorithms
• Design

Pitfalls

• Tutorial hell

  • How to take notes
    Only note those things that come around and bite you!

• Keep up the momentum

• Keeping up w/ the status quo (This is general)
  What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Mark 8:36

  Because, it can get stressful, many have coping mechanisms to get a high quickly and get back to the grind. These are prevalent:

  • drugs (psychedelics - mental clarity, fight depression etc.)
  • porn
  • drinking (Even PFA has shared stories about his campus days of doctors getting into drinking to cope)
  • etc

Stages of competence

• Do 1 thing - Happy path
• Do the 1 thing well (improve)
• Edge cases
  • Breaking something then fixing it
  • You find yourself at a stage in the flow
  • Something is not working as expected
• How did we get here
• Compare
• Know enough to be opinionated

Jobs, Interviews

Jobs, interviews, it's about:

• putting your best foot forward
  • Credentials (Free, Sponsorship, Paid) English Credential
  • Portfolio From internships From tutorials
• consider the market
  • competition (Think of it like Real Estate comp)
  • popular tools eg. REACT

Keep in mind; You're employed to be deployed!

Leverage experience to get ahead - Think of it like staircase steps.

Extra

Structural Engineering analogies

Architect

An architect starts from:

• stone - other materials - cement, wood
• wall - other features - roof, windows
• bungalow
• duplex
• apartment building

Plumbing

DevOps - Pipelines (CI/CD)

Homework 😃

• Some relevant podcast episodes from TOT
  • Wisdom for the Market place
  • Discerning the Will of God Pt 1
  • Discerning the Will of God Pt 2
• Other talks I've done