Currently browsing category: FileMaker

Apprentice Series: Certification Prep Cris Ippolite

In today's seminar, Cris Ippolite, owner of i-Solutions generously gave us a sneak peek of his Devcon presentation on preparing for FileMaker Certification. Not only was this a great overview of how to prepare for the test, but he provided valuable insights into how the required material can help improve our day to day development skills. Ippolite is a certified FileMaker Trainer and in addition to teaching directly from the FileMaker Training Series materials, he has produce a series of videos on Lynda.com that we are using in our training. The examples on lynda.com are less complex than the FTS materials which ...

Apprentice Series: Needs Analysis with Jason Mundok

In our series today, we had the pleasure of hosting Jason Mundok. Jason is a FileMaker developer, consultant and coach. Jason is also a talented artist and musician and runs a creative company called The WoodStove House. Today Jason helped talk our team through a series of exercises necessary to understand client needs and managing customer expectations. One of the things Jason and I did was run through a sample initial interview. A few nice things our apprentices were able to pick up are some elements that we may not even think to point out in career because the questions are ...

Apprentice Series: Developer Tools with Matt Navarre

One of the things new developers often miss out on is the opportunity to use existing dev tools or 3rd party tools to enhance your work habits. In today's session, we were fortunate to have Matt Navarre, President of MSN Media join us to give an overview of developer tools. For new developers, and seasoned developers as well it's a treat to see how someone else uses the tools. I always pick something up whenever I watch someone else work and this session was no different. Matt started out by outlining the features of Script Debugger and Data Viewer. I appreciated how ...

Molly Connolly to speak at 2012 Devcon

I'm looking forward to speaking at FileMaker Devcon in Miami...

Apprentice Training Program

I'm excited to announce a new training program I'm offering to help junior developers get up to speed on top development techniques.The goal of the program is to help jump start a new hires FileMaker development skills. I recently had the opportunity to talk to Matt Navarre about the program on his FileMaker Talk Podcast. I'll be posting more information about the program in the coming weeks as our first "cohort" is scheduled to kick-off April 1st. I'd love to hear from you if you have ideas about training junior developers or if you are interested in the program.

When to Hire, Who to Hire

One of the biggest challenges in a sole proprietor or small business owner's business growth is determining when to hire a new employee. And once you've decided you need to hire, how do you decide WHO to hire? Here are a few quick thoughts from recent discussions. Most people who come to me looking to hire are in triage mode. They are overwhelmed with work that may or may not be profitable work. They are concerned about their ability to deliver high quality work to their clients when they are so overloaded. At the same time, they are worried about bringing ...

Understanding and Presenting Options

One of the hardest things to teach consultants is how to listen for what the client needs versus what the client says they need. Clients base their wish list based on information that is available to them. This means there may be a myriad of options they have not considered because they don't even know those options are available to them. It is therefore our responsibility to help clients understand their options in order to make the best decisions. For example, I told my painter I only wanted him to paint my basement one color because I assumed he would charge ...

FileMaker Devcon 2010 Preview

Quick introduction on my FileMaker qualification put together at Devcon 2010. Thanks!

2010 Philly FileMaker Interview

Enjoyed talking to Jason Mundok about Devcon 2010.

FileMaker Talk Podcast on Recruiting

I enjoyed talking to Matt Petrowski and Matt Navarre about recruiting efforts in the FileMaker community.