Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Being Professional

    I often write about data professionals, meaning those people who work with data and are paid to do so. Certainly some of you might be amateurs, doing data work as a hobby, but most of the people that visit SQLServerCentral work with data as a part of their career.

    The second part of that title is the “professional” part. What does it mean to be a professional? I saw some thoughts from Randolph West recently that caught my eye. He talks about treating others as you’d like to be treated, which is a good place to start for most of us.

    However, there are other considerations for being a professional in Internet age. Randolph covers a few, in terms of respecting others’ form of address, their time, and their own struggles. The world of work has blurred with personal time, especially when most of us are not in the same physical location, and our “environment” might include people that don’t actually work for the same organization.

    I’ll add a couple more items here that I think are important to being a professional these days. While we do understand that children, pets, and more might interrupt meetings, understand that security and privacy for our organization (and its data) is important. Lock your machines, watch what you share out loud, and caution your “co-workers” against sharing things that might be secure or sensitive.

    In line with that, be aware that you might accidentally share something from your personal life on a video call. While you don’t need to wear a suit and tie, you might ensure that you are not wearing something inappropriate. Certainly there is a running joke that people at home might not wear pants. Whether you do or not, be aware that standing up without pants wouldn’t be very respectful. It might also be career limiting.

    As we continue to move forward in work and life, with the challenges of both always and never being at work, for some or all of us, be professional to each other likely means being respectful, understanding, appreciative, and sensitive to others.

    It’s not my world; it’s not your world. It’s our world.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher, Spotify, or iTunes.

  • The PASS Pro Videos are Live

    The PASS Pro program was an interesting educational opportunity that came out last year. A number of people subscribed, including me. I did this more to support the org than for the content, but I did want to watch the videos and learn some new skills.

    When Redgate Software purchased the assets, this was one of the first things we wanted to release. The process took a couple weeks, but you can now access the materials for free.

    All the courses were added to the Redgate University, as this was the easiest way to organize them on our side. You watch each of these for free:

    You can now work through these courses, without the quiz gates, and just view the material.

    I do hope we get the quizzes live, but for now, you can access these for free.

  • Looking to Role Models

    I’ve spoken at many conferences and user groups over the years. These have been one of the more enjoyable times in my career, and I encourage people to give it a try. You may not like it, but it can be exciting, rewarding, and certainly helpful in your career.

    One of the things that helped me start speaking and gain confidence that I could do it was seeing other people I personally knew deliver a presentation. They were a role model, and they gave me the confidence to start.

    In a few weeks, the Women in Technology virtual group is putting on a Data Platform WIT Day, with a lineup of speakers that are covering a wide variety of topics, and are great role models for anyone, but especially women in our industry.

    Many of us wander through our careers, and often look to others to help inspire us to set, work towards, and achieve goals. The SQL Server community has shared, inspired, and supported each other in a way I haven’t seen in other areas. I am glad to see that we have different groups that continue to do this, even in this difficult pandemic time.

    Steve Jones

  • Blogging for the Tech Professional

    Abstract:

    When a company posts a job opening, they are often inundated with dozens, if not hundreds, of applicants. How do they decide which ones are worth pursuing with an interview? Standing out from other candidates is important to ensure you receive the consideration that you deserve. Building a blog and including those links in your CV can help. Come learn how to build a blog, choose topics, and share your knowledge in a way that boosts your career.

    Length: 60 minutes

    Slides: (from DPS 2020)  blogging_DPS.pptx