A bit of a silly title, but an interesting story. A few weeks back I posted a note about attending TechEd and how popcorn seemed to be a big hit when it was served one afternoon. Last week following the oPASS meeting one of our regulars – Bob Blaydes – asked if I’d like to […]
Read more "Popcorn Networking"We’ve had a few people in the SQL community find jobs lately and many of them attributable to their network. It’s good to have a network, good to be able to use it successfully, and I’m all in favor of growing your network. But…not all of us have a great network, and sometimes even the […]
Read more "Finding Your Next Job"I recently read Rework by Jason Fried of 37 Signals ($13 @ Amazon) and it talks about a lot of philosophy and lessons learned from their business. Some of it I found interesting, some I agreed with – for example, his views on running a small business being ok, not having to have a 100 […]
Read more "Book Review: Rework"I’ve had variations of this conversation a couple of times lately and thought it was worth writing down some thoughts. The essence of the problem is that people are often frustrated that an early decision ‘boxes them in’. Absolutely it does, and that’s why it’s important to figure out which decisions to make early, because […]
Read more "Making Choices Narrows Your Remaining Options"As a child did you have a place that was your ‘thing’, something that just the mention of it would throw you into an enthusiastic frenzy of ‘lets go lets go’? A place where the name got mangled a little, part child naming, part inside joke? I grew up in a semi-rural area, not much […]
Read more "Old McDonalds and The Cow Store"During a recent call I was talking with someone about achieving a career goal (coaching in itself, though unplanned) and I suggested that someone we both knew would be an excellent coach towards achieving that goal. Finding a coach that has the expertise is usually hard, in this case I could easily name someone. Which […]
Read more "Why Would They Coach Me?"This is one of the lessons you don’t want to hear when you’re 18, or the newest member of a team stuck with all the miserable tasks, but it is, for me, one of the more simple truths in life. I’ve watched a lot of people spend time trying to avoid paying their dues, and […]
Read more "Life Lesson: Pay Your Dues"I think all managers are told they must delegate to succeed and/or survive. Seems obvious, a manager can’t do it all, nor should they. So why don’t more managers delegate successfully? The first reason is that often they were promoted from within the team they manage, and doing stuff is their comfort zone, plus they […]
Read more "Delegating"Conference calls are a fact of life for most of us. Remote offices, remote workers, clients – lots of reasons to do a call. Hard to argue with the cost, definitely a money saver. For some things they work well, for situations requiring a lot of collaboration though, they take a lot of extra effort […]
Read more "Conference Calls Are Hard"Life in the event leader fast lane, finally got the signs for our upcoming #49 here in Orlando. In past years we’ve gone with the low budget version, but this year since we’ve got ace fund raiser Jack Corbett working on sponsors, we’re investing a little. Ordered 25 of the 18×24 signs on plastic, printed […]
Read more "SQLSaturday Orlando Signs"
SQLAndy 