This document discusses the importance of intentionality, choice, mastery and focus. It suggests that one should deliberately practice skills through goal setting, failing, getting feedback and repeating until mastery is achieved. While mastery may not always be required, mediocrity and adequacy should be embraced. The document also focuses on choosing to specialize in certain skills like software, platforms and frameworks rather than spreading resources too thin.

1. Intentionality
Choice
and
Mastery
bensco'ield
–
viget
labs
ruby
hoedown
3
september
2010

2. Why
are
you
here?

10. Mastery

11. Deliberate
practice

12. Set
a
goal

13. Fail

14. Ask
for
feedback

15. Repeat

16. Practice
isn’t
easy

17. Practice
isn’t
fun

19. Practice
isn’t
useful

22. How
vs.
That

25. Mastery
isn’t
required

27. Mediocrity

28. Adequacy

29. Excellence

30. Companies

33. Things
we
do

34. Design
Development
Marketing
Project
management
User
experience

35. Things
we
don’t
do

36. Print
design
CMS
implementations
Email
marketing
.NET

37. Hosting
Accounting
Legal
...
stuff

41. Focus

43. Software

44. Platform

45. Framework

48. Functionality

49. Authentication/authorization
Markup
generation
Image
processing
Data
persistence
...

52. You
and
me

53. 78.2

55. 76,700

56. 7

57. Maintenance?

58. What
does
it
mean?

61. We
are
DEFINED
by
our
CHOICES

62. Live
INTENTIONALLY

63. Embrace
ADEQUACY
(and
mediocrity!)

64. bensco'ield
@bscoLield
ben.scoLield@viget.com
http:/ /spkr8.com/bsco'ield
http:/ /viget.com/extend
http:
/bensco'ield.com
/