The Future Data Driven 2023 virtual conference is coming on Wednesday, September 27. Register today and save a note in your calendar.
The event has a great schedule (scroll down) with quite a few sessions that I will try to watch. Take a minute and flip through the list. If anything catches your eye, block your calendar and register today.
As a hobby, I coach volleyball for kids. Each year I meet new kids and parents and talk about my philosophy. Part of that is that I teach skills, athletics, how to compete, and more. However, I do emphasize as well that I’m trying to build better people, not just athletes. I want these kids to be better prepared for life, for job interviews, for future teachers and coaches, and for better relationships.
While I’m not perfect, or maybe not even a great person, I do try to improve myself on a regular basis. Or at least learn to be a better person to others. This isn’t because of any ideal or goal, but because life is more fun when I have more skills. Whether that’s working with objects or interacting with people. The smoother things go, the more I enjoy the world.
I ran across some advice from Kevin Kelly, who helped co-found Wired Magazine. He wrote down 68 pieces of advice for his children on his 68th birthday. A few of them are in this post, though he’s written a book with 450 pieces of advice. A few more items are in his post of 99 pieces, and 103 pieces.
The advice is about career, life, and more. Some of the more interesting ones I saw are listed below, with my comments:
I grabbed his book, and you can as well. However, I might also suggest you collect your own words of wisdom and advice that you can share with your own loved ones at some point.
If you want to see Mr. Kelly speak his advice, watch this video.
Steve Jones
Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Spotify, or iTunes.
Brent wrote about what a good DBA looks like and challenged people to write a testimonial for them. There are some great comments on the post, and some funny ones. It’s worth a read when you need a break from other work. I especially chuckled at the picture Brent used. I think ours was better.
That got me thinking: what do I want in a team? Or maybe, who do I want in a team?
I have a great team now, but we are fairly distributed and work independently. I have great co-workers at Redgate, though I don’t often work that closely with any of them. I work often with some of them, for specific things, but usually it’s coordination rather than the tight, back and forth I’ve often had with technical teams.
I realized at some point in my career that I was often being asked to do the same work. I needed to manage systems. I needed to write and tune queries (or rewrite those for others). I needed to manage security. Most importantly, I needed to find solutions to the constant set of questions, problems, and demands from others in my organization. I learned how to teach myself things, how to research, how to test, and how to talk to others. I became good at clarifying what people needed and then finding a way to meet those needs. I think I turned into part of the Incredible DBA Team, even though often it was a team of just me.
The characteristics Brent talked about were important to me.
A little. I have always felt that I could work with others if they want to learn from me and teach me things. They have to want to collaborate and get things done as a team. That led me to worry more about who I worked with than what the job was. If the compensation was good, then the decision to take a job often came down to who would I work with. After all, the work was often very similar.
Think about your situation. What do you want to see in your coworkers? I’m sure you want people that you get along with and carry their weight. Maybe you want to learn from them. Maybe you want to be able to teach them. Maybe you have specific skills you wish were stronger on your team.
Leave a comment and let us know what your ideal team looks like. As always, if you want to leave an anonymous comment, send me a PM on the site with what you’d like posted in the discussion.
Steve Jones
Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher, Spotify, or iTunes.
The Future Data Driven 2023 virtual conference is coming on September 27. Register today and save a note in your calendar.
I have been honored to speak at this event in the past. I’m not speaking this year as I’ve been buried with work and travel and need a break. However, I see a great schedule (scroll down) with some sessions that I will try to watch. A few on my mind:
I can get information in other ways, but a conference is a good chance to hear what someone else has learned and shares with me. Even if I listen in the background, I’m learning some new things.
There are lots of other great sessions, so register today.
