I’m a consultant. I’ve been very fortunate to fall into this line of work and I really love what I do.

One of the hard parts of being a consultant though is “staying ahead of the curve”. A consultant is only as good as the skills he possesses and our industry is constantly (and successfully) striving to make our current knowledge and skillset obsolete.

So I do the things that most consultants do. I practice what I know and try new things. I read books. I surf the web. I have my favorite blogs. I use twitter lists to follow people who are aligned with particular interests of mine. And this has been a good tactic for keeping up.

At some point though, I started going to conferences and this is when my growth as a practitioner in my profession started to go to the next level.

I remember the first time I saw a industry luminary, Don Box. At the time, he was really ramping up SOAP, XML, Messaging, all that goodness of the early 2000s. The content of his talk was all available on the web or in books but that wasn’t what I really got from his presentation. In hindsight I’ve realized the true value I took from that experience was his passion for the topics and his stories! I came back from that conference pumped about those technologies and finding exciting new ways to use them! And boy is XML, SOAP and messaging exciting!! <smirk>

Fast forward a bit and now I’m a consultant who is trying to be better at helping individuals, teams and organizations be better and I’m doing this at an amazing time in our industry. Agile is going full steam ahead. Lean and Kanban are entering the process space and starting to make significant inroads. There is a lot to learn and discover, validate or refute. And this is where the thought-leaders come in.

This might sounds obvious, but thought-leaders are really interested in the things they are leading in! They are deeply interested in why “it” works or how they can apply “it” to a new problem. They want to break or validate their thoughts or have them refuted because they are passionate about making “it” better. It’s been my observation that they aren’t normally as interested in applying their specific knowledge to someone else’s problem like most of the rest of us.

It is this unique environment that thought-leaders create around themselves that presents an amazing learning opportunity to the rest of us.

Let me use an example that is fresh in my mind. I’m really interested in The Kanban Method. I think it has the potential to change the way that we all work. But there is a lot to learn and I also want to make sure I’m challenging the method and myself continuously. Enter David Anderson, Kanban thought-leader.

Now David is a really smart guy and he is passionate about his art. He’s a “center of gravity” in the Kanban universe right now. And the really cool thing about that is the attraction of all things Kanban, good and bad, to that center of gravity. If you put yourself in proximity to that center of gravity, virtually or physically, you will be exposed to so many ideas, good and bad, about Kanban. You’re also going to be exposed to the passion to evangelize and grow that David brings to the community.

When I became interested in Kanban I:

• Attended a leadership course with David
• Attended LSSC12 in Boston and Kanban Leadership Retreat in San Diego
• Started following a lot of people in the Kanban community on twitter, finding them because many of them followed David
• Started following blogs of people in the Kanban community, many found from being in the mix with that community
• Got involved in leading-edge questions and challenges with the method, many of which are being discussed by David

I had the same experience with Scrum. My perspective on Scrum was completely opened up by spending a couple days in a course with Ken Schwaber. His perspective on Scrum was so different than anyone else’s, he is very passionate about Scrum and it was such a great learning experience.  I also started following @Scrumdotorg on twitter and recognized the value in finding an anchor within that community!

I had the same experience technically with CQRS, an application architectural design pattern. When I became interested in that, I started following thought-leaders in that space.

All of the “technologies” that we use have these centers of gravity that attract all of the good and bad. And there is so much learning to be gained from being in these environments!

So it’s my challenge to you today to go and find a center of gravity in a technology you are really interested in. Find a thought-leader on twitter or find their blog. Find a conference that they will be speaking at and attend. Ask them a question, or ask the community around them a question! Get involved with the communities that are swirling around these thought-leaders and take full advantage of the learning opportunities that will present themselves!