DBA resolutions

New Year's resolution's for a DBA

According to wikipedia, "A New Year's resolution is a tradition, most common in the Western Hemisphere but also found in the Eastern Hemisphere,

in which a person makes a promise to do an act of self-improvement...."

I’m not a particular resolutions making kind of person - I don’t think you have to wait until a new year begins to resolve to do something meaningful, but I though it would be interesting to look at some specifically aimed at DBA's.

These are based on the subjects I have touched on in previous blogs, as well as interesting articles I have read during the year (they are a mixture of personal and work goals).

• Stay curious and open to new opportunities. DBA's are expected to know everything about everything. Enjoy Technology.

• Embrace Change - change is inevitable. Roll with the punches, stay positive and do the best with what is given to you. 

• Maintain a Professional approach - it basically boils down to showing respect for others. 

• Accept Responsibility - if you mess up, fess up.

• Be realistic in terms of expectations. Things will not always work out as planned.  Every job has its good and bad points. Don't become the office whiner.

• Continue teaching developers how to work with databases. This is a win / win as the result will be better code which works with the database instead of against it.   

• Try and attend tech related events / conferences during the year. They are great ways to learn and also can help build your network.

• Learn at least one new skill during 2016. Be it a new language, a new technology or perhaps work towards a certification. Don't worry about the state of the economy, concentrate on learning new skills. If the worst happens and you get laid off, the time you invested in improving your skills will make finding a new position much easier.

• Avoid Office Politics - try not to be drawn into the games of office politics. This is a no win situation and the only outcome will be to create enemies and cause unnecessary division.

• Work on Communication Skills - the most valuable skill that someone in technology can have is the ability to communicate with others. It does not matter which area of IT you are in - it is so important that you are able to clearly express what you want, need, or expect.

• Build your Online Brand - create a website or contribute to forums and newsgroups. Don't forget to keep you social network accounts up to date (CV, etc).

• Write a blog!  It is a quick and easy way to begin sharing your knowledge and information. Keep it fresh and current.

• Very importantly, try to ensure you have the right work / life balance.

Feel free to choose one or more (or none) from the above to add to your own list.

Which ever resolutions you chose try to remember to keep them specific, realistic and attainable.

They can be small or large but hopefully they can be achieved with the necessary planning and work. 

Notes:

Some New Year's Resolutions for DBAs  - DbaPortal

What should a DBA do - XAPRB

The toughest thing for independents saying no - brentozar

The basics of personal branding - brentozar

Just say no - sqlservercentral

Building better communication skills - sqlservercentral

Hacking Your Career Part 2 - Building a Brand

Building a Brand

I read recently that developing a personal brand is essential for the advancement of your career.

In a recent post (The Basics of Personal Branding) Brent Oznar highlighted the importance of building your own personal brand as a way to successfully market your skills.

In the same post he also detailed some of the first steps you can take to work towards this goal.

He states that " when most people enter the job market, they only have a product (their skills) – but no brand or marketing. As a result, their sales effort is hard as hell...."

I thought that the themes highlighted in this post really tie in nicely with the ideas I detailed in a previous post (Hacking your career).

In fact some of the points, such as: building really good material that people actually want to consume and material that shows you know what you’re talking about (blog posts, white papers, presentations, webcasts, podcasts, and books) are very similar ideas.

On-line there are many similar posts from such sites as Mashable and Forbes which re-enforce the points in Brent's post.

It seems to be a popular idea at present and I certainly think that there is value to be gained from following some of this advice.

I will leave it yourself to determine whether this approach could work for your circumstances.

I would be interested in hearing whether you have already started to build your own brand and what actions you have taken to market your skills and knowledge.

Thanks for reading. Good luck.

Mashable - Personal Branding

Forbes - Things you can do to build an awesome personal brand

Inc - 5 steps to build a personal brand

Me - Hacking your career - Part 1

Hacking Your Career

Hacking Your Career

Last weekend I attended Oggcamp, an annual 2 day un-conference held in the UK and based around the free software and open hardware community. There were 4 tracks giving a wide range of really interesing talks such as: The New Space Race... Mars, An expression of elegance, exploring Base 3 as an alternative to binary, Ubuntu Pi flavour Maker and O.C.D, anxiety and me.

One of the talks that inspired me to write this blog was Hacking your own Career by Stuart Coulson (@spcoulson).

I will try and summarise (as best I can remember as I have been unable to locate the slide deck from the talk) the main points:

• CV's are becoming less relevant in helping you find that next (or first) step within your technology career.
• The HR team spend little time reading it and will probablly not understanding the technical babble.
  So what steps can you take to improve your emploibility prospects?

1. Stay relevant

• Keep your skill upto date. Get certified, if appropriate.
• There are plenty of (free) on-line courses from providers such as: Udacity, Coursera, EDX and even MongoDB university, to name a few. There are plently of oppurtunties online to grow your skills and knowledge and hopefully your career
• Keep your LinkedIn profile upto date with details of completed courses, certifications, etc.

2. Stay professional

• Create seperate social media accounts for your professional output. Have an account(s) relevant to your profession, follow people in this area, post relevant content
• Why not save your cat posts for your personal account(s)

3. Share your knowledge

• Finds way to share your knowledge to the wider world
• Start a blog and share the knowledge you already have. This is a great way to show to potential employeers the breadth and depth of your knowledge
• Code club, go to hackathons
• If you are a coder then set up a GITHUB account(other repository hosting service are available) and share your projects
• Try to attend tech conferences, barcamps and the like as they are an ideal oppurtunity to network, learn and share your knowledge. Why not give a talk!

I have probablly missed some (or all) of his points but I hope that I have not mis-represented the centeral ideas.

I hope this helps – good luck out there!