Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Drive

    59075814[1] I saw a short talk from Dan Pink a few months back from this year’s TED conference. It’s very cool, and worth watching. After watching the video, I bought the book, Drive.

    This book goes through some the reasons why we are motivated to do things. It looks back at some of the older notions of motivation, mostly the carrot/stick  techniques most of us have been exposed to. It talks about the ways that we have tried to reward people and get more work, or better work, from them.

    It does this with a mix of stories and research that Mr. Pink has done, with economists and psychologists, with interesting results. The talk summarizes it, but the book then backs it up with great examples. There’s a look at Google’s 20% time, Fed Ex days from Atlassian, and Best Buy’s ROWE work structure.

    The main thrust that I’ve seen from this is that people want three things in their lives: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. We want to direct ourselves, we want to get better, and we want to make a difference. In my life, I had thought that better rewards motivated me, but as I grow older, I’m not sure that’s the case. I think that autonomy and mastery were key drivers, and purpose is becoming more important.

    It’s a great read. If you liked Outliers, or want to try to grow yourself and become happier in your career, or even manage people better, I think this is worth the read.

  • Interviewing for the PASS Board of Directors

    My nomination application made it through the committee. I got an email yesterday telling me that I needed to schedule an interview, and a list of available slots.

    I picked next Friday, August 6th, at 10am PST for my slot and it’s scheduled. It’s a phone interview, according to the process on the PASS Election site, and I’m guessing this will be an interesting conference call. I’ve had group interviews before, but never on the phone, so I’m wondering what this will be like.

    Time to prep, and thanks to Buck Woody (blog | Twitter), I have a list of tips to go over:

    • Try not vomiting on the table when you talk to them. Or at least more than once.
    • Also do not pause and look at one of them and say "did you just call me fat?"
    • Another tip: End each statement with "… in accordance with prophecy."
    • Tip #4: Grin really big the whole time and answer each question with "I’ve got new socks on!"
    • Tip #5: Say "Wanna hear the noise I can make with my finger and my nose?"
    • Tip #6: Wear skates.
    • Tip #7: For each answer, adopt a different accent.
    • Tip #8: Wrap your head in seran-wrap and cut little holes out to breathe.
    • Tip #9: Tell them you can hold your breath for over 7 minutes, then do it.
    • Bring several ferrets and allow them to run free during the interview. In the middle of the interview, add a monkey.
    • Tip #10: After each statement, say "Am I right, or what?" OK, that’s an even number, I can stop on that tip.

    I’m not sure exactly what to prep here, since I’ve never run for a position that had an interview. When I ran for the HOA board, they just had to have someone else second me. I understand this is a little different as the organization needs semi-qualified people, and it can be hard to sustain if people get on the board that won’t do work.

    There is a form that is used to rate people during the interview, so I’ll review that as well as my application.

    Hopefully this will go well.

  • Do As I Say, Not as I Do

    Do I follow my own advice?
    I’ve been asked that at a few of my Modern Resume presentations if I do all the things that I mention, and to what extent. My answer is that I do and I don’t. I’ve done them all at some point in my career, but I don’t necessarily do them all now.
    For the most part I have my brand on my mind most of the time. I think about what I post, I consider the impact to my reputation, and try to self-moderate myself. I do, at times, also send things to others for comment before I post them.
    I have tried to follow my own advice about promotion, but it’s hard. I struggle to write my own kudos, but I do try to post announcements when I am speaking, or doing something out of the ordinary. I also have such a presence with my daily editorial and podcast that I think sometimes that a regular note somewhere like Twitter might overwhelm my followers or overexpose me.
    One area that someone asked me about was my resume. Do I touch mine every quarter like I ask other people to do?
    No. I don’t, but I have a good reason.
    I have an employment contract. So even if someone contacted me about a job that is almost as awesome as mine, I have to give months notice to leave. Months as in 3 or 4 (can’t remember), and while I could possibly get out of that, I wouldn’t. I signed a contract, I need to honor it.
    So unlike when I worked in the corporate world, and have gotten calls that say “send your resume today” I wouldn’t, or couldn’t, do that right now.
    I do try to give good advice, and incorporate new things into the presentation and this blog as I learn them. I have a set of notes that I regularly keep working on as I get feedback and learn new things from others. If you find a problem with what I’ve written, let me know. Otherwise, start working on your brand.

  • Influence

    Do you influence people? How influential are you?

    I saw a link to The Influence Project, put on by Fast Company, looking for how much influence people have in 2010. The link actually takes you to my profile, which means I’ve influenced you to click the link. I got pulled in when Andy Leonard posted a link and I added to his influence.

    It’s an interesting idea, though I’m not sure what accuracy rating I’d assign to it. Only people that find it interesting will go through the links, so it’s a self-selecting group, not measuring anything absolute about how influential someone is in the world at large.

    However it did get me thinking about implementing something in the SQL Server community. I wonder if people would be interested to see who is contributing a lot to the SQL Server community, maybe by measuring some level of activity (blogging, forum posts, speaking, etc.). It would almost be like some sort of Que Score for SQL Server.

    I wonder how it would correlate to the MVP award. Would there people that had a high score that weren’t MVPs or vice versa? It might be a fun project to get going.