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Why should I care about

programming?
About Us
 Sean Dulin
 Software Developer
 Retail Sales Team
 Jim Lesch
 IS Manager
 Microsoft and Mobile Development Services
About You
It could help you get a (great) job
 At General Mills we like to see that you have a technical
background – experience in coding is desirable.
Best Jobs in 2012 (careercast.com)
Automation as a competitive
advantage
“Scripting is heavily used in data center automation.” – IS Manager

“Manual work anyone can do. Your engineering skills [are powerful]
because you can automate it.” – IS Manager

“the practice of iteration and recursion in programming train the mind


for designing efficient processes…” – IS Manager
Who would you hire?
Candidate A Candidate B
 3.0+ GPA in CIS or MIS  3.0+ GPA in CIS or MIS
 Good communication  Good communication
 President of Bike club  Contributes to 2 Open
 Volunteers with habitat Source Software projects
for humanity  Volunteers at the food
 Plays on the co-rec shelf
tennis team  Runs cross country
 Coaches chess for  Member of debate team
elementary school kids
Who would you hire?
"Coding is the new
“…the best grounding for education is the
Latin grammar… even a rudimentary
knowledge of Latin cuts down the labor and

Latin.” Alex Hope


pains of learning almost any other subject by
at least 50 percent.” -- Dorothy Sayers
“I’m the marketing and
BD guy at GiftRocket.”
1. Coding makes internal data gathering easier.
2. Coding makes external data gathering much easier.
3. Coding helps you automate other annoying tasks.
4. Coding accelerates your ability to develop and publish content
5. Coding helps you take full ownership over your domains
6. Coding helps you explain your product to technical business
partners
7. Coding makes you a more versatile teammate
8. Coding earns you the respect of your co-workers and potential
hires
9. Coding prepares you for your next thing
10.Basic coding doesn’t take long to learn

“So to you non-technical web professionals


out there, learn to code this year.” -Kapil
From: this post by Kapil Kale
“Regardless of industry your company
is now a software company, and
pretending that it’s not spells serious
peril.”
o David Kirkpatrick, “Now Every Company is a Technology
Company”, Forbes

“The one absolutely solid place to


store your capital today — if you know
how to do it – is in software
developers’ wallets. ”
 Venkatesh Rao, “The Rise of Developeronomics”, Forbes
VP of Information Technology at
General Mills

“I started my career as a Programmer/Analyst.


Executing the full development lifecycle - analysis,
design, coding, testing, implementation and support
taught me many skills. In my early years as a
supervisor, I had skills to mentor others. As I
progressed and managed larger projects, I
understood what I needed to watch and what
could trip up a project. And now as VP of
Information Technology, I understand risks
associated with new technologies. I know
questions to ask vendors when new products and
strategies are introduced.”
 Sue Simonett, VP of Information Technology at General
Mills
Director, IS Digital Marketing
Platform

“It has taught me that there are so many ways to


solve any given problem. Throughout my career I
have used this to keep an open mind for new ideas,
people, etc. The core of my behavior can be found in
my early days as a developer.”
o Don Monk, IS Digital Marketing Platform
Anyone know who this quote is
from?
“…I only took one CS class at Stanford … I coded basic projects
on the side for fun (a student marketplace, an internet radio
station, etc).”

“..a) don't give up so quickly if it's something you actually enjoy


and b) 99% of what I do on a daily basis I learned on the job --
classes/majors can prepare you to learn on the job, but *doing*
the work is where you learn what you'll use every day.”

“We went from literally a handful of users to the #1 free


photography app in a matter of hours.”
Reinvent yourself

 Whooznear
 SlatGrills.com
Fine. What should I learn?

Enterprise Stack Open Stack


 .NET (VB or C#)  PHP
 Java  Ruby
 Objective C  Perl
 SQL Server  Python
 Oracle  MySQL
 Powershell

Javascript
HTML 5
CSS
What we use at General Mills
 VB.NET and C#
 Microsoft’s Entity Framework (data access)
 Heavy Web Application Development
 HTML5, Javascript w/ Jquery, CSS
 SQL Server and Oracle databases
 Mobile Development (growing)
 Visual Studio, XCode, Eclipse
 PhoneGap (Cordova)
Where can I learn more online?
 CodeCademy
 Pluralsight (paid)
 Tekpub (paid)
 DimeCasts
 PeepCode (paid)
 NetTuts
 ASP.NET
 Channel9
 TryRuby.org
 StackOverflow
 iPad and iPhone Development
Network and Share
 Minnebar
 Minnewebcon
 Twin Cities Code Camp
 Lots of user groups
 Search EventBrite.com
Other technically distinguishing
factors when you want a job

 You’ve released software to the public.


 You’re active on forums – even if you’re mostly asking
questions.
 You have exposure to more than one language.
 You understand relational databases (bonus for non-
relational)
 Demonstrated learning and attention to industry trends
But I want to do [x] !

 Intern Planning Committee had interest in Mobile


Development
 Created mobile
app for an Intern
Scavenger Hunt
 Used barcode
scanner and Google
Maps API
 Built app on an
HTML5/CSS3/Javascript
framework to easily
port to iPhone
We know people

 Ranked top 10 for Best Places to Work in IT over 11


years in a row
 Work closely with our technology partners: Microsoft,
Oracle, HP, SAP

General Mills SharePoint team (with Bill Gates) at TechEd


Be aware. Be Deliberate.

“If you don’t know where you’re


going, any road will get you there.”
-- Lewis Caroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Thank you!

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