Voice of the DBA

Category: Editorial

  • Measurements

    Measurements are important to growth.

    “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it” – Lord Kelvin.

    That’s a quote that comes from this blog post, talking about ways in which you might measure your performance. Numbers are not the only important thing to measure, and you certainly don’t want to just pick one measure. The blog post talks about performance of employees, looking at different ways to not only measure the performance of one job, but also using different measures for different jobs.

    The idea of measurement is applicable to both people and systems. Having a constant way to measure performance, track those measurements, and perform analysis of the data is an important way to know if you are actually making strides toward building better performance and more efficient systems.

    However it seems that even though many people know these things, they don’t actually capture the measurements regularly. As I talk to people, asking them if they know things like the backup growth for their critical databases, they don’t. I’ve asked people if they know how much time they spend on blogging, or if they are reaching more people, or really for any metrics, and they often don’t have any idea.

    Numbers aren’t everything, but they ought to be a thumb-in-the-air measurement that guides you to find ways to improve over time. You can be on the schedule that works in your environment, and on the pace to improve things that fits the situation, but if you don’t measure yourself or your systems regularly, it’s hard to know if you’re actually moving forward or backward.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • How Much Is It Worth?

    Ethics are important, in our personal lives and in business.

    This editorial was originally published on Nov 21, 2005. It is being re-run today as Steve is on holiday.

    How much money is it worth to work with someone that kills and tortures people? Twenty five investment groups are working with Reporters Without Borders and looking to partner with, invest in, and help companies pursue a profit, but not at the cost of dealing with some governments.

    Cisco, Google, Microsoft, and many non-tech companies have made investments in and done tremendous business with various governments around the world, often ignoring the social policies and issues of those governments. This is nothing new, however. When I was in college, there were many companies that did business with South Africa, regardless of apartheid, simply to turn a bigger profit.

    Profit is not the only goal of a corporation. Or at least it should not be. Being a good citizen of the world should also be something that a corporation deals with. Most companies have theses noble and strong vision statements, but when profits are down or the “number” is threatened in a quarter, the leaders ignore the strong moral and ethical message to gather a few more pennies per share.

    It’s amazing. Read some of the statements: Microsoft, Cisco, Google, Wal-Mart). They all mention ethical conduct and corporate standards. But they have all done business with suspect governments. Google is especially interesting in their 10 things list: You can make money without doing evil. The description of this seems to be something written at Slashdot by engineers. Not analog citizens in the physical world.

    Perhaps the problem is that we don’t know what “ethics” are. Maybe everyone’s ethics are sufficiently different that we don’t agree on what is unethical and when a rule is bent v broken. You can justify almost everything that you do in some way. But that doesn’t make it ethical, moral, or the right thing to do.

    Maybe the first step is a global definition of ethics to follow.

  • Independence Day 2011

    An important document in United States history

    July 4th is Independence Day in the US, a celebration and remembrance of our declaration of independence from Great Britain many years ago. It’s been a holiday for most of my life that was punctuated by quality time with family, outdoor activities, and fireworks. Today I’m camping with my family in Northern Colorado, getting away from life for a few days.

    I was lucky enough to be alive for the 200 year anniversary of the signing, a very patriotic time with lots of red, white, and blue celebratory activities at a park in my home of Virginia Beach. That was exciting for me, and I’ve never forgotten it. It was an event that also reminded me that many people sacrificed their lives to secure the freedoms that we enjoy in the United States.

    If you live in the US, take a moment to re-read the Declaration of Independence and think about what it means. It’s not a long document, and it might inspire you to be a better citizen.

    If you are not a US citizen, hopefully you have a great day today and I have a few holiday bloopers for you to enjoy below.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • Sabbaticals

    This editorial was originally published on Oct 25, 2005.

    Does your company offer a sabbatical? Andy and I were discussing retention and benefits awhile back and we got around to sabbaticals. He was trying to secure this benefit for his development staff, and I’d had a little experience, so we got to talking. I’ve never personally had one, but my wife has. She worked for a high tech company in the 90s and after 6 years, she was allowed to take 6 weeks, full salary, as a sabbatical.

    I’ve never personally worked at a company where it was offered, much less stuck around long enough to earn one. But I’ve always thought they were a great idea, without really understanding the purpose. It seemed like a great reward to let someone get a little extra time off after devoting six or seven years to the company, which seemed to be the norm with my friends.

    However I started to research this a little and found that the idea wasn’t extra vacation. It was to allow someone to recharge, but in a constructive way. In academia, this usually means working on some defined project, a paper, book, or something else that has a tangible and specific end to it.

    That is an interesting idea. When my wife took her sabbatical, she basically took 8 weeks of vacation; the sabbatical and some other PTO time she’d shared. For her it was a project, to try and be a stay at home Mom, but it wasn’t something defined with her employer. I’ve spoken to a few other people that were lucky enough to get them and it was really a vacation time for them, a chance to get away.

    I think that setting up a sabbatical is hard. You don’t want to just pile up work for someone that takes off for 6 weeks, especially if there’s a chance they will not return. And if they return to something like that, it’s more of a punishment than a reward. Allowing someone to leave for an extended period, and I’d argue that 6 weeks isn’t that long, but it is hard on a company and the other employees. But I think it’s almost a necessity given the long hours and extra efforts that many IT people put in.

    The idea of setting up a specific project, even something like attending a cooking school or training for a marathon, is a good one. There should be some flexible rules that bound the time, but still make it productive for the employer. Xerox has a great volunteer sabbatical where employees can spend a number of weeks volunteering with some organization, and I think that is outstanding.

    I think I’d enjoy 6 weeks of pounding nails with someone like Habitat for Humanity.