Meeeting the Mucky-Mucks

I'm not going to name names. Suffice it to say that if you've been around software development at all you would be familiar with the guys I am talking about. They all have written books. They speak at conferences. They sell name-recognition consulting services.

So it was neat. I don't get to meet folks like that generally. Usually I'm the guy giving the training sessions, helping the teams, doing the one-on-one coaching.

Would they come out and start saying things completely different than I had? Would these guys turn out to be complete jerks, interested in themselves and not others? Would they have egos so big they would have a hard time relating to regular folks?

I had nothing to fear. They had a great day on-site with our shared customer. At one session, they spoke to over 500 people. Even better -- what they said perfectly jived with the advice we have been providing all along. It was all goodness.

Better still they seemed like normal blokes. Perhaps a bit more self-promoting than I am, but you don't live in that world without having some of it rub off on you. I really enjoyed meeting some of the industry alpha nerds and spending time with them.

But even more interesting was watching my customers. Since I don't do seminars, I am completely new to the idea of celebrity nerds. When the alpha males came in, there was free books, people asking for autographs, people who were obviously fans. Over dinner the night before they were joking that one of the guys even had a very attractive "groupie"

That really impressed on me how out-of-touch I am with the high level of my industry. These guys are in the business of top-tier consulting. I am more of a workaday Joe just helping my teams out.

So in a way it was humbling. I'm probably not going to be the next John von Neumann, at least unless I change my style. I'm probably a lot more like Ralph Kramden the bus driver. But that's okay with me. My passion is start-ups and making concrete things of value for folks. The coaching gig is just a way to take the things I've learned from high-performing teams, validate it and share it. I'm in this gig to save up some money for another round of start-ups, that's it.

Plus -- I think the farther I stray from immediate feedback, the less my finger is on the pulse of the industry, and my skills begin to drift. I don't know. Perhaps that's a bit of self-serving philosophy, a bit of sour grapes, but I guess people are like that. It might be fun to have a name-brand business. It might be fun to write a book. Heck -- I've got this great idea running around in my head right now trying to get out. But for the time-being I'm very happy not being a mucky-muck.