I am currently reading the book “Fierce Conversations” by Susan Scott. I am on hiatus from teaching my leadership course this year, so I am taking the opportunity to refresh my content and my perspectives. The basis of the book is fairly simple: Our work, our relationships, and our lives succeed or fail one conversation…
Milestones, Goals, and the Power of No
It’s been a few weeks since I hit my latest milestone, but life was fairly full in the immediate aftermath. On the plus side, the extra time was good for reflection. The milestone to which I am referring is that, on October 27, 2019, I ran the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC. The race…
Reclaiming Twitter
Approximately six months ago, I was at a crossroad with Twitter. Unfiltered, it has become too toxic and negative to continue to allow into my life. My dilemma is that, after 11 years on the platform, there are a host of people I’ve never met “IRL” whom I consider friends or with whom I want…
Ron Lake – The Man In the Arena
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who…
Hello, Discipline, My Old Friend
It wasn’t that long ago that I was “always on” in terms of work. There is a certain ethos in the DC area that rewards that outlook and I was fairly good at it. This was compounded by the fact that I was a partner in my company and the buck always stops with the…
Evolution and Leadership
My first management position was at a restaurant. It was a chain steakhouse in a one-horse town in Maryland. A few months into that role, I was the sole manager on duty for a weekend night shift that was going poorly. Feeling my frustration mounting, I did the most mature and leaderly thing my 19-year-old…
Miles to Go
This blog started as my lifeline. Fifteen years ago, I was working on a project that wasn’t particularly compelling in an environment that wasn’t conducive to collaboration. I wasn’t doing geospatial work and I was worried that it would slip away. This blog was the mechanism that motivated side projects that kept me in touch…
Podcast Episode 3 – FOSS4G and Stuff
Episode 3 of the “Cageyjames and GeoBabbler” podcast is now available. In this one, we talk vicariously about FOSS4G-NA. We also discuss Polaroid and how I don’t do enough to keep his computer running. Check it out here or on Apple Pocasts, Play Music, or Spotify.
Catching Up with Microsoft
Recently, I’ve gotten back in touch with .Net in the form of .Net Core. I’ve been shaking off some the coding rust and building some tools to help with data handling related to the Foresight data service at Spatial Networks. It’s been fun to get my hands dirty again and also interesting to see how…
The One About PostGIS
James Fee and I released the next episode of our podcast this week. This month, we are taking a closer look at PostGIS and how you can get started with it. We’re both longtime users and huge fans of PostGIS, so it was fun to dig into it a little. You can check it out…