Today I stumbled upon Linkedin’s InMap feature which allows you to “map” out your Linkedin Network. The clouds that you see above represent clusters of my network, where members are tightly connected with others. For example, the green bubble is my Yale SOM mini network. In business school, we are taught that networking is key and modern business school students are told before they enter school to connect with as many people as possible. The fuchsia cloud is the network of my former employer, KBC. As I was leaving the firm I tried connect with as many people as possible and over the years I’ve noticed that as the firm has evolved more people have left and yet remained in touch so the cloud has become more dense. A much looser agglomeration is the blue cloud which are my contacts in the Bangladeshi community which were largely built through my leadership of an organization called NYBAP. This a broader community which is less tied to each other.

Looking at these networks bring some interesting things to mind. First, I noticed that I have almost no connection with my college buddies even though on Facebook I’m regularly in touch. Granted I went to college long before Linkedin, so it wasn’t the way I connected with most of my friends. Secondly, other than my Opower network (orange) I have no notion of regional networks. This is partially because Linkedin doesn’t show them but also because I have not joined a meta network in DC where I would likely plug in. From a networking perspective this is a deficiency and means that I should try to connect with local networks more intensely.

All in all, this quick “map” provides some useful directions to take my professional connection building activities. Its also worth visiting on a regular (annual?) basis. I will try to visit again at the end of 2012 to see if the picture has changed!

Some seven years ago, I began life as a web programmer by learning PHP to build my first WordPress blog. Over the past twenty four hours I’ve embarked on my first project using a “new-to-me” programming language called Ruby on Rails. While I’ve been working my way through Michael Hartl’s Ruby on Rails Tutorial Book an upcoming presentation to a potential partner led me to just jump in and start buidling a prototype. Here’s a couple of things I’ve learned:

• Rails is very different from PHP, yet somehow more elegant
• Scaffolds are a great way to cheat as a programmer, but messy to clean up if you do something wrong
• Don’t use a plural name for a model (i.e. “news”) because it will cause you a world of pain
• Google as always is your friend but be sure to add the phrase “Rails 3″ to your searches
• That said, there are answers to your questions out there, just be patient and try to find answers on stackoverflow. They truly are the best out there.

Anyways, I’ve been at this too long. Time to go home and get some sleep. More soon!