Hi, I’m J.D. Meier ..

About Me

I have  a passion for excellence and a passion for results.  At work, I’m a Principal Program Manager on the Microsoft patterns & practices team.  I’ve authored several technical books including Improving Web Application Security, Improving .NET Application Performance and Scalability, and Team Development with Team Foundation Server.  The books are prescriptive guidance to help customers improve their effectiveness on the Microsoft platform.  You can think of them as sharing patterns and practices for success.

As part of my day job, I lead project teams on agile projects.  Each project is a new team, a new adventure, and new lessons learned.

Over the course of leading many projects, many teams, and many adventures, I’ve learned how to get results and balance life.  I continuously invest in what I call my “Life Frame”, which is the hot spots in life:  Mind, Body, Emotions, Career, Financial, Relationships, and Fun.  I continuously study these hot spots on a quest for the best insights and actions, for work and life.  I’m a fan of finding and sharing the principles, patterns and practices that work in the real-world under extreme conditions.

I’m also an avid mentor at work.  I regularly work with several mentees to help them improve their effectiveness.  This includes everything from improving communication skills to leadership skills or basic project management.

About Sources of Insight
Sources of Insight is my channel for finding and sharing patterns and practices from the best books, people, and quotes I can find.  Here’s some of the important points about Sources of Insight …

Mission
Crack the nut on human effectiveness — Create exponential results for the underdog by sharing the best principles, patterns, and practices.

Vision 
World’s best insight for work and life.

Tagline
Stand on the shoulders of giants!

Outcomes 
You can expect that Sources of Insight will be a browsable collection of nuggets:

• Principles, patterns, and practices – A reference library of patterns and practices for work and life.
• Book nuggets – A reference library of insight and wisdom from key books along with how I’ve applied it.
• Hereoes – A reference library of heroes, role models and mentors.
• Quotes – A reference library of insightful, inspirational, and practical quotes.
• Lessons Learned – A reference library of lessons learned.

Guiding Principles
A few simple rules serve me well:

• Life’s not a spectator’s sport.
• Absorb what’s useful; reject the rest.
• It’s not what’s on your plate, it’s how you eat it.
• Don’t take life too seriously, or you’ll never get out alive.
• Success is a journey, not a destination.
• Live more, laugh more, learn more, love more.
• Roll with the punches.
• Whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.
• If you fall down, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, carry the lessons forward.
• Don’t seek to be better than others; seek to be better than yourself.

The Approach
Finding and sharing nuggets of insight and action for work and life.  Draw from the best sources.  Real results for real people.

Basically, I model the best.  I ask the most successful people I know, what books, people or lessons changed their lives.  I test the knowledge against real-world scenarios.  I share the lessons with my mentees.  It’s a continuous process of improvement.  I stand on the shoulders of giants and I draw from the wisdom of the ages.  I’m also a fan of sharing through principles, patterns, and practices.

Measures of Success 
My measures of success at this point is pretty simple:

• Users who need the blog, can find the blog. 
• Users can easily find relevant posts that help them. 
• Users can easily consume the posts. 

Live more, learn more, laugh more, love more,

J.D.