Career Goals and Inspiration

Posted on October 16, 2020 by way0utwest

Many of us start working in technology because we enjoy programming or software or data or some other aspect of computing. We usually have some excitement that gets us motivated to start learning or apply for a job. Over time, we may move our area of focus, pick up new platforms, change jobs, and more. I’d like to think that most people actively make choices, rather than fall into the next situation, but I see the latter more often than the former. People take jobs quickly, when offered, even if the opportunity isn’t one for they were aiming.

This certainly isn’t all bad, as there are times when we get opportunities we weren’t expecting. We may not realize what possibilities are available. However, I do regularly see people not thinking about the next step in their career until they need a job or they hate the one they are in. With that in mind, asking you to think about where you might want to go or what to achieve, I have a question for you.

What things have  you seen others do and accomplish in their careers that you want to do as well?

If you look at people you read about in the media, or see speak at an event, or hear about from friends, are there things that impress you? Are there jobs, roles, projects, or something else you’d like to accomplish?

I think there are some neat goals that Brent has written about in his Epic Life Quest. These are bucket list items, and it’s a mix of business, career, and personal goals. I’ve had a similar bucket list, but I let it go and only started to rebuild it this year, along with my partner as we think about our future together.

I will say that one of my big goals was speaking at the Ignite (formerly TechEd) conference. That was one of the biggest events in my industry, and I wanted to get there. I did get accepted, but a surgery required me to cancel, which was disappointing. Still, it’s a high point of my career.

I still have a few private goals that I am aiming for in my career, but we’ll see if I get them. If you don’t have any, perhaps this weekend is a good time to stop and think of a few. You don’t need to set them all, or even commit to them, but just start actively managing your career and make a few goals.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

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Daily Coping 16 Oct 2020

Posted on October 16, 2020 by way0utwest

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here.

Today’s tip is to thank yourself for achieving things you often take for granted.

I think that I end up accomplishing a lot of things each week. I have a busy life, engage in lots, and often things go well. However, it’s easy to take, or expect, things to go well. It’s also easy to criticize yourself for the things that aren’t as perfect or as well done as you’d like.

One of those things that I often do is try to take care of my body with regular exercise. I take it for granted that I’ll go to a few yoga classes, practice on my own, life weights, and more. I don’t miss a lot of days, as you can see from my August

2020-10-12 10_39_34-MapMyRun

and September logs

2020-10-12 10_39_26-MapMyRun

I’m taking a moment to thank myself for actually getting some thing done here.

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The Degradation of the Turing Test

Posted on October 15, 2020 by way0utwest

The Turing Test from Alan Turing was proposed as a test of an intelligent system. Could a human determine if the other party in a conversation was a machine? This was an interesting way of imagining how powerful a computer might grow and the types of answers it might give to a human. Interestingly enough Turing didn’t argue about the correctness of the answers, just that they appeared to be from a human.

In some sense, I wonder how many people would have been fooled by the GPT-3 bot on Reddit. It posted comments for a week to a variety of threads. You can look through the posts by the “thegentlemetre” user, but this one caught my eye, and as I read it, I was surprised how much this looks like things I’ve seen posted on the Internet.

Is this AI bot intelligent? I don’t know, but I do think that the quality of comments and posts on all sorts of threads and articles seems to go down over the years. Maybe it’s humans that are becoming worse at online communications rather than computers are getting smarter. Really, I think both things are happening.

AI/ML systems are getting better at mimicking what humans do, and I suspect that in many cases, especially in small samples, they can fool many people, perhaps most. That’s disconcerting, especially as I already feel many people are a worse version of themselves online, without feedback and social cues directly available. Having bots add to the volume of poor communications and comments doesn’t seem useful to society in general.

While I do think that AI systems can dramatically help us with mundane tasks and tedious work, I also think there can be problems if they become rigid in their actions, without allowing for some flexibility. Humans have discretion, and while they might not use it fairly, or even in ways that their organizations approve of, but they are flexible. Seeing these posts, I wonder if the AIs can learn to be flexible as well. I think they can be.

Steve Jones

Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher or iTunes.

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Daily Coping 15 Oct 2020

Posted on October 15, 2020 by way0utwest

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here.

Today’s tip is to look out for positive news and reasons to be cheerful today.

I actually tend to look for positive news in social media, but only in a couple places. The first is Instagram, where I post some pictures, primarily for my Mom and friends. I have a few accounts I follow, and I like to see what other people post, what captures their imagination, and often, what makes them smile.

Often, that’s a lift for me because most people share the exciting and happy moments.

The other place is LinkedIn, where I tend to see less complaining, but more people showcasing what they’ve done well in their careers. I can like, comment, and praise them for their efforts.

There is good news elsewhere, but often buried in lots of no-good news.

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