One of concepts I firmly believe in is continuous improvement. If you’re a software developer, you need to constantly improve and keep up with the software industry’s direction. One of the things I strive to do is read one book a month; they are not always software books and I don’t always manage one a month, but the point is the principle. I’m currently reading Bob Walsh’s “Micro ISV: From Vision To Reality”. I heard about this book from Joel Spolsky’s site and Eric Sink’s blog, both of which are worth reading if you’re serious about software development.
Whilst this book is primarily aimed at someone about to take the plunge and go it alone in the software industy, it has excellent advice for developers in general, and it is well written. It covers a range of topics from branding and selling to development infrastucture.
In the past I’ve applied the idea of branding even to in-house software applications and I think people take in-house applications more seriously when they can identify them easily.