Category Archives: Career Advice
Shaping this Blog
Into my fourth month of daily blogging and I find myself, scouring the blog stats and comments looking for trends. Should this matter? One friend told me just write the blog and do not care whether anyone reads it. Well actually I think he said do not worry if no one reads it. After moving past the 100 mark on the blog count, I wonder how many of the more seasoned bloggers worry about their comments or statistics?
Sometimes I find myself trying to duplicate successfully viewed blog posts and that can be a difficult thing to do. After carefully studying all of the trends in my blog, I realized that the days that I had more views were not necessarily better blog posts, but they were tagged with the #SQLPASS hashtag, meaning simply that more people were exposed to the message. However, with etiquette in mind, I cannot simply add that hash tag to every blog post if it does not apply to SQL PASS. Maybe all this is much ado about nothing. Maybe I should just write the post and move on.
All of this boils down to my desire to be a better blogger, to share more information, and ultimately become an MVP. It’s a long road, but well worth the journey. Thanks for taking the road with me. Enjoy!
Motivation…What Motivates You?
What motivates you? Do you get excited about going to work everyday? If not, then why?
Are there certain things about your job that make it less than desirable? Do you enjoy the work you do, just not the people you work with?
What motivates you?
Everyone always says that making more money does not always make employees happier, although I have found that most of the people who say that generally make considerably more than you. It is similar to wealthy people who say that money does not buy happiness. Are you kidding me? Money can buy you a jet ski and who is not happy on a jet ski? Of course that is an exaggeration, but making more money is not about being happy, it is about being able to provide for you family, save for retirement and provide some leisure activity.
Everyone will agree that it is hard to be happy when you cannot provide for your basic needs. I also understand that your needs adjust when you make more money, but increases in salary tells the employee that his productivity is valuable to the employer. There must also be an appreciation for your services.
None of that should motivate you, of course save the appreciation. Your happiness should be of your own doing. No matter what your situation, being happy is a choice. I choose to be happy, what do you choose? Enjoy!
DBAs, MCMs and MVPs, Oh My!
In the #SQLFamily, there are several great MVPs and MCMs (Microsoft Most Valuable Professional and Microsoft Certified Masters, respectively) that are always available to help a SQL database administrator in need. Personally, I have not seen this kind of family atmosphere or camaraderie in any other area of technology that I have worked within. There is a great sense of pride in this family and a great sense of honor in helping other administrator and even developers. This is simply unheard of in today’s environment.
There is a flip side to this wonderful community and please do not get upset for what I am about to say as this community has been good to me and I appreciate everything they have done for me. With that being said, it can be intimidating for new people coming into our family. For example, on Friday night, I sat next two big names in the SQL Community, Andy Warren (Blog | Twitter) and Kevin Boles (Twitter), at dinner and quite simply I was awestruck. I should have relished at the chance to bask in their SQL knowledge.
How do you talk to guys of that level? I was intimidated, plain and simple. Can I talk to them on twitter, absolutely as I am not intimidated by their #SQLAwesomeness at that level. Maybe it is just me? Anyone else have trouble with this?
Enjoy!
SQL Saturday #110 – Tampa
We interrupt this episode on Sunday Funday to remind everyone that next Saturday, March 10th, is SQL Saturday #110 in Tampa. Over the last year, I have become a passionate proponent of attending SQL Saturdays working diligently to attend ones that are close to me. How can you pass up free training?
If you have not signed up to attend this SQL Saturday, then what are waiting for? Check out the schedule of sessions, as we have some pretty top-notch speakers. My biggest problem is that there are too many good sessions and inevitably, I miss a great one. That is a good problem to have! If you want to help out with this SQL Saturday, be sure to fill out the volunteer section of your registration. If you see me at SQL Saturday, feel free to say howdy!
Enjoy!
Saturday SQL Schoolhouse
SQL Schoolhouse!
In our first installment of the Saturday SQL Schoolhouse for March, I wanted to share a website that has numerous videos, blog posts and other resources that can teach you some nifty things with SQL Server. The site is run by a husband and wife team, Sean and Jen McCown, called MidnightDBA, check it out.
Also, if you are around late friday evenings they also host a live web show called DBAs@Midnight, where numerous DBAs congregate to chat and interject on topics discussed by Sean and Jen, myself included.
Oh I almost forgot, their newest project is called DBA Roadmap, which is very exciting for the SQL Community. In this project they will outline how to become a good DBA with great career and learning resources.
Enjoy!
Two Months Strong!
Wow March is here already. It seems like only two months ago I was laying out an aggressive Personal Development Plan. To date, the thing that I am most proud about is the daily blogging. it has become second nature at this point. Over the years, I have created a few blogs and always felt like I ran out of things to say, I really didn’t place a priority on the medium, until now.
What do you think about the blog? Please let me know, thanks. Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend!
Indelible Marks
On the first break of day four of the SQLskills.com Immersion Event training, I am contemplating the indelible mark this training has left on my career. Every training should leave a mark, hopefully for the better and hopefully not a scar.
From this training, I have learned too many things to quantify into one blog, but there are two quotes that will probably never leave my career:
“Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should!”
And the quote that followed most questions asked in the class: “…it depends!” which was followed with at least two opposing view points depending upon the situation.
These two quotes have really changed my perspective on how I answer or solve problems on a day to day basis. Instead of taking a limited, mostly narrow focus based upon my knowledge and experience, I should take a more encompassing approach based upon the problem and the ramifications of the various solutions. How do you approach your DBA problems?
Enjoy!
Do You Value Training?
Today is the first day of my SQLskills.com Immersion training, thus I prepared this blog post a few days ago.
If you have been reading my blog, then you should be able to surmise that I love learning. Being in the IT field, I am not sure how you can get by without training because of the speed at which technology changes. Luckily, my current employer also believes in and values training. When they ask me if I want to go to training, I submit three or four different classes. Of course, they do not all get approved, but all they can do is say no. Thus, it is worth the effort on my part and it demonstrates my committment to my career.
Do you value training? Are you taking advantage of the training opportunities provided by your employer?
If the budget is tight, there is no reason why you cannot attend many of the free webinars, code camps, SQL Saturdays, and especially local users groups. If you are not advancing your skills, then maybe technology is not the right field for you. So sign up for training. Go! Do it now!
Enjoy!
I’m So Excited and I Just Can’t Hide It!
The next couple of weeks are going to me huge in my SQL Server career. Next week I will be attending the SQLskills.com Immersion Training for Internals & Performance. There are no words to express my excitement about this training as I don’t think I can truly comprehend how much I will be learning and moving my career into overdrive. As I move towards the MCITP, and quite possibly towards the MCM or Microsoft Certified Master, this training will move me along in my journey into the BIG TIME!
The following week, I will be standing up two new SQL Server 2008 R2 clusters for a huge project that will impact the future of SQL Server in my organization. This is a pivotal project and it is my first time standing up clusters on my own as I have maintained clusters but never built them on my own. For this reason, we have asked our Microsoft Premier Field Engineer to assist and I will be soaking up her knowledge as we build a solid production and acceptance cluster environments. If that project is successful, we will then look to move more of our Oracle systems to SQL Server and my plan for world domination will be set in motion.
And finally on the week after that we will be meeting with Microsoft again to discuss our plans to move to SQL Server 2012 and help management understand the new pricing structure. Hopefully we will be able to move forward and onto the next version of SQL Awesomeness. These next three weeks will be pivotal for my career, time to dominate! Enjoy!
February #Meme15
After reading a couple of the #Meme15 blog posts in the SQL community, brought to you by Jason Strate (blog | twitter), I thought I would join in on the fun.
This month’s topic: Why and how you use LinkedIn?
Oh LinkedIn how I love thee, let me count the ways! Sorry, I still have Valentine’s Day stuck in my head thanks to those 75% off candy sales today. Focus. I have a LinkedIn profile with my resume posted. In addition, I have connected with present and former colleagues and some of my SQL Server friends. I have also requested and received recommendations from some of those colleagues to try to give my profile a completeness to it.
It hasn’t always been that way. Before I attended Mark Tabladillo‘s “Social Marketing 2011 for Microsoft Professionals” presentation at SQL Saturday #86, I did not have my full resume on my profile as I was leery for some unknown reason. I have my resume on Monster, but something didn’t feel right, maybe it was the social aspect to the site. After Mark told us that nearly 2/3 of all hiring was done through LinkedIn last year, I was blown away. I went home and updated my profile that night.
In addition to the profile, I post my professional blog postings to my LinkedIn profile so that if I am ever in need of another position, there will be a rich amount of professional information available to potential employers. At this point, I do not know whether this is a successful endeavor, but I hope to one day update this blog entry one way or the other.
#Meme On! Enjoy!
SQL Swampland 