Professional Development Articles
We’re curious people by nature. And we love to teach others what we’ve learned. So explore our blog to gain fresh insights from our expertise in areas ranging from culture to AI.
SEP Selected as a Nominee for TechPoint’s Innovation Mira Award
TechPoint has announced the nominees for its 25th annual Mira Awards, highlighting the most innovative companies, universities, and organizations in Indiana’s tech sector. The awards celebrate achievements across various categories, including the Innovation Partner of the Year. Nominees in this…
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If you’ve read Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, or even if you’ve just seen a diagram like this one and it inspired you to figure out which activities put you in flow… boy, do I have a blog post for you ???? I have to admit I never read the book, […]
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What Does It Mean to be a Senior Engineer?
As a team lead, I coach and mentor many junior engineers. One topic that always comes up is “What does it mean to be a Senior Engineer?” That’s easy, you just… have a four-year degree from an accredited college? Work for 10 years and don’t get fired? Learn 3 front-end technologies? Check some boxes on […]
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Introducing the Professional Development Canvas
It is a developed skill to take all the different things in my life and answer two questions, “What should I learn next,” and “How am I going to learn it.” I’ve had twenty years to figure out how to self-direct my learning. In addition, I’ve had some semi-professional experience in developing my training materials […]
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Why We Started Book Clubs at Work
We started book clubs at SEP over a decade ago. Since then, we’ve had over 100 book clubs, with more than 75% of the company participating in at least one book club! Book clubs have been such an integral part of SEP’s group learning for a long time – how did this happen anyways? Why […]
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Why We Look for Professional Development When Hiring
Let’s start with a situation that’s familiar to me working with SEP as a recruiter. I’ve woken up at five-thirty in the morning so that I can make it to a college campus by seven-thirty. We expect our first student candidates to meet us at eight. We’re a bit early so we need to wait. […]
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Conference Talk Roadmap
Co-authored by Jordan Thayer and Robert Herbig Presenting information to your peers is an important part of an any career, especially engineering: Teaching a subject reinforces your own understanding and mastery Presentation and communication skills are essential to team based work Sharing knowledge helps improve the teams you’re working on It helps bring in new […]
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Why we invest so much in Professional Development
We are living in a technological renaissance. It is a period of change only last seen between the fourteen and seventeenth centuries when Europe moved from the middle ages to modern times, leading into the industrial revolution. The last twenty years have led to unimaginable changes in the way we conduct our lives and our […]
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Challenge Your Favorites
I’ve written about the many benefits of personal projects before. One nice aspect is being able to try out tools & frameworks in a low-risk environment. In this post I’ll explain one such trial I’m doing and how the tool Comby made switching easy. Are My Go-To Tools Stale? As we gain experience on projects […]
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Why the Inside Man (KnowBe4 Training) Changed My Opinion of Security Training
The “Inside Man” is a 12-episode show produced by the training company, KnowBe4. In a show where everyone is british except one shady, well-dressed, American villain, there is a hacker, hired to steal company secrets. The hacker ends up enjoying his very average job, and his very average co-workers. Hijinks ensue. Lessons are learned. I […]
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