BUILDING YOUR BRANDKevin Coughlin TCNJ `12

Monday, September 23, 13

EXPERIENCES & LESSONS LEARNED WHILE TRYING TO

BECOME A BETTER DEVELOPER

Or...

Monday, September 23, 13

HOW TO EMPTY YOUR ENTIRE NETFLIX INSTANT QUEUE THE

2 MONTHS BEFORE YOU START WORK.

Or...

Monday, September 23, 13

OBJECTIVEProvide you with at least one useful piece of information.

Monday, September 23, 13

ME• Degrees:

• Computer Science

• Economics

• Employers:

• Verizon (VSO)

• Bank of America Merrill Lynch

• Development:

• JavaScript

• Node.js

• HTML5

• Android

Monday, September 23, 13

SOCIAL MEDIA & YOU

Monday, September 23, 13

TWITTER

• Incredibly powerful communications tool

• Distribute your ideas to the world

• Distribute others’ ideas to the world

• ‘Meet’ others, work with others, build relationships

• Idea generation machine

Monday, September 23, 13

MY PROBLEMS WITH TWITTER

• Signal-to-Noise Ratio

• Curation (Use Lists)

• Time-sink

• Character-limit

Monday, September 23, 13

HOW I USE TWITTER

• To complain

• To share my discoveries

• Follow my inspirations

• Communicate with ‘team’ members

• To share my projects

• Follow Project Members

• Follow Blogger

• Evangelists

• Engineers

Monday, September 23, 13

• FREE

• Paid == More accounts & unlimited posts

• Connects Twitter, Facebook, App.net, LinkedIn Accounts

• Browser Extensions and Mobile Apps

• ‘Buffer’ your posts for later

• Sync buffer schedule with your followers

Is Hiring!

Monday, September 23, 13

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GITHUB• USE IT NOW.

• git based repository hosting

• Top-notch UX

• Social discovery

• Trending, search, etc.

• Native clients

• It’s fun.

• Feel part of a community.

• Resume 2.0 (AWS)

• O’Reilly Opportunity

• Leads to opportunities

• Also a web host

• Alternatives: Bitbucket, SF

Monday, September 23, 13

GOOGLE+

• $$ = Communities

• Discovery Potential

• Tech. Groups

• HTML5

• Javascript

• International Presence

• Good Traffic Driver

• Great Curated News Resource

• Opportunity Cost == Time

Monday, September 23, 13

LINKEDINBe on it. But don’t obsess over it.

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CREATE > CONSUME

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CREATE OFTEN“Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the

thing you do that makes you good.”

- Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

Monday, September 23, 13

CODE

• Challenges?

• /r/dailyprogrammer

• Project Euler

• Games?

• Ludum Dare

• /r/gamedev

• Other Projects?

• Hackathons

• Friends

• API Mashups

• Mobile apps

• School Work*

Monday, September 23, 13

WRITE• Tumblr

• Wordpress

• Blogger

• Squarespace

• Posthaven

• Octopress

• Jekyll

• Svbtle

• Poet.js

• Ghost.js

• Dropbox-hosted

• Amazon S3

• Homebrew

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SHARE

• Include Graph Properties

• Plug-in your analytics

• Gaug.es

• Chartbeat

• Mixpanel

• KISSmetrics

• Share to Twitter, Facebook, Google+, App.net, etc.

• Newsletter

• Watch your traffic

• Rinse and Repeat

Monday, September 23, 13

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS

• Wrote one post (poorly) on D3.js

• Tech. Review D3.js Cookbook Offer

• Receive regular traffic ~10-20 / day

• Job offers

Monday, September 23, 13

MANDATORY UNION BREAK

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KEVIN, I CAME OUT OF THE WOMB TWEETING...

HOW ABOUT YOU TELL ME SOMETHING USEFUL.

LIKE HOW TO GET A JOB?!Monday, September 23, 13

FAIR ENOUGH.

Monday, September 23, 13

PREPARE

Monday, September 23, 13

READ

Monday, September 23, 13

READ FREQUENTLY

• Hacker News

• Paul Graham’s Essays

• The Verge, Slashdot, Google News

• Blogs

• Reddit

Monday, September 23, 13

BLOGS LIKE...

• http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/

• http://www.androiduipatterns.com/

• http://www.hanselman.com/

• http://scobleizer.com/

• http://nerds.airbnb.com/

etc.Monday, September 23, 13

+1 YOUR TECH SKILLS

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• Client-side: JavaScript, HTML, CSS

• Server-side:

• PHP

• Python

• Ruby

• APIs

• YOU can contribute

Is Hiring!

Monday, September 23, 13

• Free Month*

• $25/month

• Discount Rewards

• Paths

• Ruby, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, iOS

• Screencasts

Monday, September 23, 13

• Web: Front / Middle / Back

• Mobile: Android / iOS

• Software Development

• Business Development

• Price: $25 - 49

• Job Board

Monday, September 23, 13

ONLINE CLASSES

• Coursera - https://www.coursera.org/

• MIT - http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/index.htm

• Khan Academy - https://www.khanacademy.org/

• Others:

• http://www.quora.com/Coursera/What-are-some-websites-similar-to-Coursera

Monday, September 23, 13

NOTABLE MENTIONS

• Cracking the Code

• Career Cup - http://www.careercup.com/

• SO Freely Available Programming Books

• SO Most Influential Programming Books

• Reddit Youtube

• Railscasts by Ryan Bates

Monday, September 23, 13

PRODUCE

Monday, September 23, 13

INTERVIEWSTREET

• Candidate Screener

• Code Pairing

• Question Bank

• Development Environment

• Used as a tool by tech. companies

Monday, September 23, 13

• ‘Data science as a sport.’

• Platform for data science and machine learning

• Competitions

• Monetary Prizes

• Recruiting

• Examples:

• Facial Recognition, Predictive Modeling, OptimizationMonday, September 23, 13

• Repository of Questions

• Algorithms, Games, AI, Theory

• Weekly Online Hackathon

• Prizes

• Leaderboards

• Supported Languages

• Open SourceMonday, September 23, 13

• 588k+ Members

• Tutorials

• Algorithm, Software, etc.

• Competition

• Design, Development, QA

• Leaderboards

• Payment

• Businesses source top coders

• Recruitment

• Topcoder ranking is worth value

Monday, September 23, 13

HACKATHONS• Surrounded by intelligent

peers

• Extreme focus and determination

• Prizes

• Social

• REDBULL!! & Caffeine Muffins

• Employers

• New Technology

• Finding:

• Use social media, networks, and tech journals to find

• HackerLeague

• PennApps

• Michigan Hacks

Monday, September 23, 13

OTHER EVENTS

• Meetup

• http://www.meetup.com/ny-tech/

• http://www.meetup.com/njtech/

• http://www.meetup.com/Princeton-Tech/

• http://www.meetup.com/njtechgals/

• New Jersey Tech

• http://www.njtechlist.com/

• https://twitter.com/NJTech

• Google

• Google Code Jam

• Google Summer of Code

Monday, September 23, 13

TCNJ

• Get involved.

• Talk to faculty, discover their interests and pair-up

• You will grow more during an independent study than any class or website.

• It leads to more opportunities

• Academia & Industry

• IT’S (USUALLY) FUN!

• You teach faculty a few things.

Monday, September 23, 13

PROFIT

Monday, September 23, 13

• Fundraisers

• Goal

• Share

• Reward

• Bounties

• Bugs & Features

• Earn $$$

• Connects to Github etc.

$10 - Add AJAX spinner

Monday, September 23, 13

• 100% Open Source

• Small Weekly Cash Gifts

• Charged on Thursdays

• Distributes Weekly Balance

• Self-sufficient

• People receive $1 - $500 weekly

• Notables:

• @fat

• @mdo

• @jeresig

Monday, September 23, 13

• FREE

• Anonymous matching

• Speed dating for your career

• Low-risk

• Accept / Pass

• Technology-oriented

Monday, September 23, 13

• FREE / Currently invite-only

• I have 19 invites, email me.

• Top-quality employers

• Syncs with StackExchange, Github, etc.

• Resembles LinkedIn without the Spam

• Medium-to-Large Companies

• Apply or be Approached

Monday, September 23, 13

APPLY!Corporation vs. Startup

Monday, September 23, 13

[INSERT `80’S ACTION MONTAGE]

Monday, September 23, 13

BANK OF AMERICACareer Fair - October 2nd Interviews - October 15th

Monday, September 23, 13

OTHER OPPORTUNITIES

• http://www.crunchboard.com/jobs/

• http://jobs.gigaom.com/

• http://www.dice.com/

• tech@nyu

• Job Board

Monday, September 23, 13

YOU QUESTION, I’LL ANSWER

Monday, September 23, 13

CONTACT

• Homepage www.kevintcoughlin.com

• Twitter @kevintcoughlin

• Email kevintcoughlin@gmail.com

• Skype kevintcoughlin

• Carrier Pidgin (approved on a case-by-case basis)

Monday, September 23, 13