Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Tax Day

    I hate taxes

    In the United States today I usually Tax Day, or the day that personal income taxes are due to be filed with the government. In 2011 you get an extension to Apr 18, but for all practical purposes, this is the day that most people have planned on filing your taxes.

    With that in mind I thought I might take a break from technical discussions and polls  and ask a question that might be let us know how many of you feel about your career this year. The poll for this week is:

    Are you better off today in your career than a year ago?

    Supposedly the economy is doing a little better worldwide, and companies are making more IT investments. I have even heard of a few friends getting bonuses in the past year for performance by their employer. If you look back to 2010, or even 2009, do you feel better about your job and your career? Do you have more security? Do you have better compensation? Are your prospects looking better for the future?

    I am not a technical DBA right now, but my employer is doing well and I think my position is more secure. As I survey the DBA market, it also seems the are more positions available in my area with a wide variety of companies. If I did need to change jobs, I have a lot of confidence that I could find something else.

    Hopefully most of you feel that your career is doing better this year than last, but let us know this Friday.  If it’s not, perhaps someone will give you some advice to help you improve the situation for next year.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • Social Networking Prowess

    Swarms can be an amazing

    If the Gartner Group is correct, and we are looking at a workplace that is more dynamic, more disconnected, more virtual, and involves us working with many more people that we are not very familiar with, are you prepared? Do you know how to work with a team that might come together in a short period of time and disband a few months later? Do you know which people in your company you like working with, and perhaps more importantly, which ones you don’t?

    The idea of swarming teams that come together for projects and then disbanding them is one of Gartner’s predictions for the workplace over the next decade. I met someone recently who works at a company that is trying some of these techniques. People are working in virtual teams, and it seems to be working well.

    Some time ago I was giving a talk on the Modern Resume, and someone asked me what they should do on LinkedIn or any social networking site. This person had signed up and didn’t know what to do after that. My response was to start networking with people, which is a hard thing for many people. I had to go back and spend some time thinking about what networking really is, reading a little about the topic, and coming up with a list of things that you can do to build your network online.

    I think social networking is an interesting skill that might become more valuable as we interact with an ever increasing number of people in a virtual sense. Whether your company decides to implement swarms and virtual teams, there are plenty of opportunities to meet other professionals in your field outside of work, and many of these opportunities are over social networks like LinkedIn or Twitter.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

  • SQL Saturday #63 PPT

    The PowerPoint deck from my presentation is here if you want it

    http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Presentations/70959/

    – Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

  • Building a Professional Development Plan

    Your personal business plan.

    If you are waiting on your boss to tell you what to learn or what to do, you are making a mistake, they arent going to do it.

    Would tou do an it project without writing anything down? Usually not, so why not do this for your care ultimately you need to take charge of your own career

    Tis is more than technology ( networking, project management, managing, accounting, etc)

    Has goals, milestones and tasks. Its written down. Loos at your total package.

    Consider yourself a product.

    Where you you want to be a year from now? Are you still excited about your career?

    Time
    0-20 hours just work
    21-50 slow growth, maintenance
    51-100 growth, one skill
    101-200 growth, multiple skills, change focus
    200+ hyper growth

    Money
    $250 basic
    $1000 growth
    $2500 leap frog
    $5000 everyone envies you

    Hard to write the check. Most people spend 0 if the employer doesn’t contribute

    Beak up the time. Easy to take one class for the year, but that is all the time and money. Thi about the divisions. Both time and money. You have resource constraints, but think about the way you do this and live with the constraints or renegotiate the resource with yourself/your family

    How do you learn best? Is it books, video, blog/article, seminars, hands on? Usually you will combine this together into some plan.

    Why write? One of the main reasons is that people think they don’t have time, they don’t know what to write about, worried about embarrassing themselves.

    If you write in a word document and saved it without showing anyone you are ahead of the game, you are helping yourself, teaching yourself, and building a better skill.

    Treat your manager like a client. Imagine that your job is a one year contract and you need to win the bid for the next year. You want to win the bid, so you want to edge out others. Can you get the business by staying where you are? That is the mindset to develop a plan.

    Change your mindset in building the plan. Consider yourself a business of one and approach your career with the attitude of taking control of your own career.