Professional Development – 2023 – Week 23

Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/54585499@N04/

.NET

Writing C# in VS Code Is Finally Awesome! (via Nick Chapsas)

  • Look for the C# Dev Kit extension (and IntelliCode for C# Dev Kit).
  • You can create a .NET Project in one click, choose a project template, and give it a name.
  • Now there’s a Solution Explorer where you can right-click and build/clean/restore.
  • There’s also a test explorer.
  • Caveat: It’s closed-source so if you’re a company, you’ll need to pay for licenses. This is more expensive than Rider and Visual Studio.

AI/ML

Managing the Risks of Generative AI (via HBR)

  • Focus areas: accuracy, safety, honesty, empowerment, sustainability
  • Tips for integrating: use zero-party or first-party data, keep data fresh and well-labeled, ensure there’s a human in the loop, test test test, get feedback

Culture

To Build a Top Performing Team, Ask for 85% Effort (via HBR)

  • Create a “done for the day” time
  • Ask for a little less than 100% capacity
  • Ask “how am I making your work more stressful than it needs to be?”
  • Encourage 85%-right decisions
  • Watch out for high-pressure language
  • End meetings 10 minutes early
  • Set your own intensity level to 85%

Management

7 Ways to Make Employees Feel Respected, According to Research (via HBR)

  1. Valuing diversity
  2. Staying in touch with issues and concerns of individuals
  3. Being trusted
  4. Resolving conflicts
  5. Balancing “getting results” with a concern for others
  6. Encouraging open discussion of problems and differences of opinions
  7. Giving honest feedback in a helpful way

Technology

AI Prompt Engineering Isn’t the Future (via HBR)

  • “So, what is a more enduring and adaptable skill that will keep enabling us to harness the potential of generative AI? It is problem formulation — the ability to identify, analyze, and delineate problems.”
  • Diagnosis — what objective do you want to accomplish
  • Decomposition — breaking complex problems into subproblems
  • Reframing — broaden the scope of potential solutions (alternative interpretations); use analogies and abstraction
  • Constraint design — input, process, and output restrictions; fewer constraints can yield more creativity