I write several articles every year, some here on Medium, some internal to IBM. People whom I mentor often ask me “do you find writing is important for your work and your career?” to which the answer is “absolutely, yes.” …

For background on the purpose of these notes, and other notes (eventually), see my entry “Learning in public.” About Media: Paper Availability: free, electronically How I came to study this I’ve been interested in the topics of software engineering and the development of software-centric systems since my first year of undergrad at Penn State University in 1996…

I study often, both out of personal interest but also to support my work at IBM. …

Enterprises today are working hard to embrace artificial intelligence (AI) to compete. The greatest challenge they face is that AI represents a true paradigm shift for how we solve problems using software and data. Not only must your organization acquire or build new skills, but it must also unlearn patterns…

For me, the best thing about being a manager is bringing together remarkable individuals and, through coaching and experimentation, molding them into remarkable teams. For an employee to do their best work, their work and role must be well aligned with their intrinsic motivations. …

Background: My oldest son and daughter go to the same North Carolina middle school. The middle school Vice Principle asked me to give a talk to a group of top students and their parents on the topic of superpowers (strengths) and Kryptonite (weaknesses). …

Over the past two and a half years, I’ve led a project at IBM that deployed a new set of tools to help improve the company’s product development efforts. What is the benefit of providing better tools to employees? A first answer is that it helps increase employee productivity. While…

Today Slack announced its long-awaited Enterprise product: Slack Enterprise Grid. During the announcement, IBM’s CIO Jeff Smith (my boss’s boss) talked about IBM’s use of Slack. …