You DON’T Know Me Enough To Judge Me
…or my book
“You are NOT technical enough.” This was a comment that I received from a recruiter a few years ago.
During my career, I have been doing it myself, reviewing, and leading engineering teams. In addition, I have instructed more than 70+ courses in mostly technical subjects. Yet, I am best described as a blend of soft and hard skills.
Why would I say that?
Many people with my background in engineering would always proudly label themselves technical. They have put in the time and their mindset is one that simply focuses on technical over other dimensions.
I have always followed the Henry Ford model of striving to be more of a generalist than a specialist. By knowing enough of different industries and disciplines, along with people skills, I believe my contributions to team success outweigh the abilities I could contribute as a technical lead.
BUT one thing that I always pride myself on is having the ability to question different disciplines thinking and outputs in order to establish that nothing got missed. I do not even claim technical expertise in electrical even though I majored in that area.
SO why did I publish a technical ebook this weekend?
Well, just because I pride myself on being multi-disciplinary it does not mean that I should not sharpen the saw once in a while. Even if I never use the saw, it should stay sharp.
The ebook I wrote, the cover photo above, is a small book that connects two different areas: digital logic (with hardware) and artificial neural networks(with software). With this ebook, I wanted to explain the building blocks of digital logic,0 and 1, and how those could be modeled in artificial neural networks. This is something I have been playing around with and thought that it would be of value to others.
I am also playing around with possibly writing another ebook. A short book that would show the connection between fuzzy logic and artificial neural networks. Fuzzy logic, unlike the 0 and 1 boolean logic, allows for more levels between 0 and 1. This introduces additional complexity BUT that could also result in simplicity if executed well.
As someone that has enjoyed building my skills in different subjects, I am really enjoying spending time on areas that I studied for my doctoral work and seeing these areas as opportunities where maybe connections have been missed.
So do I want to become a technical lead?
No, I still like my niche of leading people and projects BUT the world is changing, and having more machine learning tools in my arsenal can only help and not hurt. I respect people that only enjoy the technical BUT I am not one. In my work, I need to be able to understand enough that I can make a decision BUT not allow myself to direct the decision.
I would appreciate it if you would consider spending the 0.99 cents, for the Kindle version or 2.99 for a paperback, and pick up my ebook. I think you will be amazed at how well you will see the connections between these areas. Even if you have limited interest in machine learning and AI it will give you some insights into these areas.
My four cents…
The book can be purchased at:
