Just want to give a plug for one of my favorite podcasts: HBR’s After Hours. It’s with 3 really fun, engaging, and lighthearted Harvard professors, and they tackle various business/company topics and implications on society and culture. I guarantee if you listen to a single episode you’ll be hooked. Hook it up!
[box] I received an email from LinkedIn regarding an #IfIWere22 series for young professionals who are graduating this year and what advice would I give.
This is a re-post of my LinkedIn post.
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If I Were 22 In my early 20’s the Internet and Web were just coming out. It was really only known to techies, and keep in mind this was an era of dial up modems. Which was an incredible time as a technologist as I could see the tremendous explosion about to happen. From a professional level I’ve personally gone through a transformation in my journey starting as a Junior Software Developer to where I am now as the Director of Technology and Engineering at Amcom Technology in Silicon Valley. If I could send a message back in time to my younger self, here’s the advice I would give.
Back in those days (mid 1990s) it was the tail end of the era where you go about finding a stable job, work your way up the ranks, and retire with a pension. Which is a completely alien concept by today’s standards.
However I recognized that the Internet explosion was around the corner, so my friends and I took a stab at two startup ideas.
I had this idea when looking for my first used car. I found it incredibly time consuming to go through a newspaper to look at car listings and filter for what I wanted. I felt there’s a need to create a web site where people/dealerships could post their cars for a nominal fee, and users could filter and search.
We teamed up with a business partner whose family owned a number of car dealerships, so that gave us the industry expertise we needed. However the Web was so new, and dealerships were so antiquated and conditioned to spending tens of thousands of dollars in radio, tv, and print ads that the idea of spending a buck a month per car online seemed like a scam to them.
They actually said that the Web/Internet is either a scam (because how could it possibly be so cheap), or a fad and that it won’t last. I eventually gave up not being able to achieve any traction.
Of course, a few years later autotrader.com, cars.com, and other such sites came out.
At this point in time the non-techie early adopters of the Internet were signing up with their dial-up modem ISPs. The ISPs would give them an email address and 5 MB of space for a personal http://www.yourisp.com/~username website.
I felt this was unprofessional as a business from a marketing and branding perspective, and teamed up with some friends to create a Web Hosting company.
With our T1 into a friend’s basement powered by a Sun Sparc server (both of which were extremely expensive back then) we began to hustle and market.
We ran into a similar problem – businesses felt that the free 5 MB ~username was good enough for their business site. Whereas I was proposing that we help register their yourcompany.com domain and we host it.
I eventually gave up not being able to achieve traction.
Of course, years later you have the godaddy.com’s and all these Web Hosting companies out there along with fierce legal battles over domain names.
Don’t give up too early. If you have an idea, or really believe your instincts are right don’t give up.
It may seem daunting to give up a nice secure full time job at a stable company, and of course having a real income stream for the first time in your life is amazing and something that you feel would be crazy to give up.
But trust me, the opportunity and ability to take risks goes down over time as it’s proportional to your debt load (mortgage, car loans) and the responsibilities you have (family).
Not that it ever goes away, but the stakes get higher over time.So take calculated risks now.
When you’re young it feels like you have unlimited time. You do not. Time is finite.
20 years ago I felt most things were equally important. Think long and hard about every action you take throughout the day, and ask yourself if that activity generates value.
Value could be personal value, and it can be value at work. Focusing your time on the most valuable activities is what will allow you to achieve maximum progression throughout your life and career. When you’re working, just ask yourself if what you’re doing at any given time is really the most valuable use of your time?
Find ways to achieve the same end result in as little time as possible. E.g. a face to face or phone conversation, as outdated as it’s becoming, is often faster than writing a long articulate Email.
Along the lines of value and time is the need to stay focused.
Focused means saying no. Saying no to distractions, saying no to low value activities, saying no to activity instead of productivity. As humans it’s gratifying to want to tackle easy things in order to get a sense of accomplishment.
However the things worth doing often aren’t easy and thus we tend to procrastinate on them. Push yourself to get the real things done. Done is value. The more you increase your value, that’s what your raises and promotions will be premised on.
Recognize the difference between speed and velocity.
Speed is just rate of change/movement. Velocity is speed in a given direction.
You can turn your steering wheel in your car to the left, floor the gas pedal and hit 60 mph. You’ll be moving fast, but you won’t be going anywhere.
In your career you want to be moving somewhere. Make sure your activities, projects, and learning have direction.
To use a technology centric example, number of Agile points completed in a sprint, or count of tickets resolved, is just speed. However if those efforts are iterating towards a path or goal, it has direction.
As a young technologist I often viewed technology as isolated and distinct from business activity. Even mature companies today view I.T as such.
Whether you’re into technology, finance, marketing, or anything else – don’t just create solutions for the sake of creating solutions. Solve problems using your skills. This generates value out of your work (and thus increases your value).
The key however, is to define the problem. When working with others make sure this defined problem is published and clearly understood amongst teammates and stakeholders. The problem I’ve found is that when it is not published everyone has a different perspective on what the problem is, and thus efforts are fragmented and folks are solving different problems.
You’ll meet many people in your professional journey. Starting fresh in your career your peers will all be at the same entry level that you are now. However as all of you grow, the value of your network will compound.
The biggest mistake you make is lose touch with all the people you meet along the way.
Create alumni user groups email lists, LinkedIn Groups, and of course stay connected through LinkedIn and other forms of social media.
This is hard.
It can take years to develop a strong sense of what makes you distinct and unique. Weaknesses are directly related to strengths, as they’re often two sides of the same coin.
Someone who may be ultra-versatile and adaptive probably isn’t going to be an extreme specialist. Nor will an extreme specialist be versatile. A deep methodical analytical long range thinker may not be adept at making rapid high risk decisions.
Knowing what you bring to the table will help you position your career to best leverage your distinctive attributes in the companies you work for.
As you grow even further, recognize the distinct characteristics in others and then learn how the combinations of certain groupings of skills create a whole that is more valuable than the skills individually. This is the value of a team, and you’ll make far more progress creating and working with the right combinations of people than working individually.
Graduating doesn’t mean the learning is done. The learning never ends. Always keep learning and improving your knowledge. Learn things directly related to your core job function, as well as things that would help complement your skill-set. Learn things that advance your strengths and minimize weaknesses.
In this day and age where everything moves so fast you run a huge risk of becoming antiquated quickly.
Don’t be afraid to fail. Failing is the process of learning.
No one rides a bike for the first time and just goes. You have to take the risk, fall, and develop the balance in order to move forward.
Failing is only failing if you don’t learn from it. So when you fail at something, evaluate what went wrong and what you would do differently if you could go back in time and do it again.
Therefore failing is an investment in your development.
Your career is a journey, and your profession is a craft. Continue to pave the path in front of your career so that your journey continues to flow, while cultivating your craft.
And lastly if there’s anything to remember, remember this. A Roman philosopher by the name of Seneca once said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” Or as I like to say, “luck is being prepared for an opportunity.”
Good luck!
Earlier in April I had the pleasure of attending the CIO Pocket MBA hosted at Boston University.
The classes were fantastic, and if you’re in any kind of an I.T Leadership role I highly recommend attending this class.
It’s intense, fast, and covers a wide variety of topics presented by some of the most amazing professors I’ve ever seen. I was a bit skeptical over how current a university could be as I feel that most tend to lag (when it comes to technology) behind what’s happening in the real world.
Topics included:
Apart from the valuable coursework, there was value in the networking component where technology leaders from around the world attending (including Europe and the UAE).
For more information visit: http://smgworld.bu.edu/elc/open-enrollment/cio-pocket-mba/
Recently on LinkedIn there were two separate threads in ColdFusion related forums regarding the topic of the challenge of finding ColdFusion developers as an employer, and finding jobs as a ColdFusion developer.
The discussion covered a variety of perspectives from telecommuting, the ecosystem, economic, tips on attracting developers, tips to finding jobs, etc…
Below is is an adaptation of my posts…
I’m the Sr. Manager of a collection of technical teams (DBAs, Developers, and B.I), and we have had a few people work predominantly from home.
Of course there are a number of advantages from the employees perspective in that they get to recuperate time from commuting, expense of commuting, etc… I would say that the biggest advantage is the ability to focus. An office environment, particularly if you’re a key person on the team, can be a non-stop barrage of distraction. And if you are key person, the company benefits the most when you’re focused.
There are of course drawbacks.
We’ve seen that there is an isolation effect. Tools like Skype, WebEx, and TeamViewer are great tools, but nothing is like the experience of a face to face. Studies have shown that telecommuters do not advance as fast as their peers who work in the office. And let’s face it, we’re human beings and have evolved to interact with each other in person (give it another 50yrs and we’ll all be plugging into something like the Matrix and conduct face to faces in digital form).
We also find that the team chemistry and bonding evolves significantly slower among a group of telecommuters. Those side conversations, going out to lunch, sharing challenges while grabbing a coffee… those occurrences are far less with telecommuters.
Another challenge is that Jr staff rely on the Sr staff. You can make progress with screen sharing and conference calls, but it is no way as smooth as quickly walking over to a whiteboard and coaching a Jr member. So if the Sr Developers are telecommuting, your cost to get a Jr ramped up and productive is considerable to the point that a manager would be evaluate if it’s even worth it.
On an individual level, can a person do X work in Y time, regardless if they’re in the office or not, sure.
But on a team building perspective, the chemistry, unity, and bonding to achieve cohesiveness is extremely important. And telecommuting poses some serious hurdles.
One alternate solution is a hybrid approach. We found that worked well with Sr. staff working 2 or 3 days at home, which allows them to focus. And the days that they’re in the office you get the team building, the coaching of the Jr staff, the face to face interaction, etc…
Some studies suggest there is an ROI with telecommuting. The ROI tends to be on an individual level. From a management perspective, you’re looking for the overall output of the team which is more than simply the sum of all individual output.
Each company is unique. And good management recognizes their organization’s strengths, weaknesses, abilities, shortcomings, etc… So although studies and ROI case studies are useful data points, you do have to factor in the unique reality of your exact company.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to achieve success with telecommuting (clearly, companies have), but it’s a significant challenge that management will bake into their staffing & organizational strategies because it may very well be that the company culture isn’t compatible with telecommuting.
Or likewise, if there is no team then there is no issue. So for very specialized skillsets, solo acts, multi-location organizations… it may be a no brainer in those cases.
The supply is constrained on both sides, and are cause and effect of each other. Hard to find expertise will cause company strategy to change which expertise is needed. Fewer opportunities will cause the talent to move on to other technologies.
Thus, both companies and individuals need to be prepared to at least go national when recruiting/job hunting.
The most important tip I can give, is send me your resume, or feel free to at least touch base. Ok, that is shameless. 🙂 But we have opportunities that come up from time to time, and I’d like to get to know you! tariq [at] amcomtech . net.
A number of things can influence career progression and salary such as results, professional networking/relationships, and ambition.
The biggest factor is the value you bring to the table, and creating new value that results in the progression. You may get mediocre cost-of-living adjustments by merely doing your current job, with the current level of responsibilities, at the current level of output. But big raises and significant career progression only occurs AFTER you’ve increased your value FIRST.
Why would you get a raise for doing what you’re already paid to do?
Here’s a list of ways you can increase your value:
Have you ever cleared your inbox down to zero? It’s the elusive dream we all hope to one day achieve.
One of the challenges we face in this information overloaded work culture of ours is that the sheer volume of information requires constant grooming, categorization, and prioritization.
Consider that your manager is probably getting about 5X-10X more email than you as they’re cc’d on every discussion, decision, and meeting minutes pertaining to the team. Consider that his/her manager is yet another order of magnitude as the scope broadens, and continues to get worse as you go up each management level.
At the executive level you’re going to employ techniques that help you stay on top of what’s going on with the business by prioritizing where your time needs to be spent. Which means they’re going to assess within 2-5 seconds how important an email is and either act on it right away, read and absorb in detail, delete it as non-actionable, or file away for further reading (which they’ll never get around to).
The problem with people in the technical industry (developers, analysts, project managers), is that our lives revolve around detail. Detailed plans, specifications, unit tests, coding standards, acceptance criteria, etc… it’s all low level detail – and thus our brains are optimized to think at that level.
Executives however operate at a higher, broader, bigger picture perspective. They swoop down to lower level gears when they need to roll up their sleeves, but for the most part they’re focused on where the business is headed.
Thus the style of communication that works for people who work with low level detail isn’t optimal for executives, so here are some tips to maximize your communication delivery and impact with executives:
I had always felt that the application could run faster, so I was looking into server performance and by running a number of queries through query analyzer I determined that performance could benefit by adding a number of indices (see initial results below). So I took it upon myself to add a number of non-clustered compound indices that my research has shown to be used in the commonly used join statement, and…
Good news, we’re able to improve application performance by 30%.
Howdy! My name is Tariq ("Ta-Rick") Ahmed, and a Director of Software Engineering at New Relic where my time is focused on creating developer experiences through our developer websites, APIs, CLIs, SDKs, and ability to build your own custom apps on the New Relic One platform.
I'm most passionate about finding amazing people, growing talent, and building amazing teams in order to accomplish meaningful breakthroughs in technology that ultimately create great user experiences.