Adapt or Die - Keeping Skills Up to Date

Most business professionals realize that it is absolutely necessary to keep abreast of their industry and keep their skills up to date to remain relevant. For technical professionals this is also very true and very challenging. Many of my colleagues are amazed at how up-to-date I am on my technical and business skill set and often ask how I manage to keep them so topical. The answer is simple: adapt or die.

At first glance this statement seems a bit dire but it does tend to simply capture the essence of what anyone who loves what they do. If you are passionate about what you are doing, then no matter what you find a way to keep yourself motivated to do better. That means doing more, learning more, and making what you do more valuable and enjoyable. 

So that may be a great say mental motivator but what about the nuts and bolts? Basically that is nothing more than plain old hard work. For many technical professionals that I coach, I often ask what they would like to know more about and then go about working out a plan of action for them so that they can improve.

In one case someone wanted to know a little bit more about cloud services and the difference between relational and non-relational data stores. They had been trying their own form of learning and research yet wanted a bit more to help them cement what they had gained. Since the individual was still fairly hands-on, we worked out a plan for them to create a simple "To Do List". Yet rather than building it on relational technology, I thought it would be better for them to sign up for the free Amazon Web Service tier and work with the S3 service instead. S3 was a great way to get them to see how a non-relational data store could be used and at the same time give them some practical exposure to using cloud services to solve a faily simple problem. Within a couple of weeks they had not only solved their smaller problem but they also began to work on larger problems with different services. In a matter of a few months the individual had not only improved in their overall understanding, but had gained the attention of their manager at work which resulted in being involved in a more strategic and valuable project at work.

Simply being aware of a concept is not always enough for people to cement an idea into a key learning. Often times practical application  helps reinforce the concept so that the individual can carry it forward in their career. 

Many times keeping skills up to date is very difficult yet I find with enough effort, dedication, perseverance and planning keeping skills up to date is fun and engaging!

Career Planning - Expectations and Realizations

One of the more popular topics in recent conversations has been about careers. Now this is not a new topic. Everyone has been involved in this conversation for any number of years. However there are a lot of challenges especially now in the marketplace. For example if one looks into academia, a recent post brought to my attention brings attention to the many challenges that professionals in academia face. (NOTE: Thanks to Florine Church for bringing this up! Excellent item!)

The reality of the economy has forced quite a few changes to many organizations and consequently the career seekers. Also many organizations are still into a "cost cutting" mindset without an equal mind towards "growth opportunity". These among others create even further complications. However the most basic impact of such conditions happens to be around expectations. Generally speaking expectations tend to be both a boon and a bane to one's career in that they tend to be both not always based on reasonable experience however they do provide insight if one is careful as to how to approach a conversation.

First off a basic expectation is about length of career. There are basically 4 general categories that most professionals will fit into:

• Little to no experience. This can be college graduates, professionals pursuing new career paths, etc.
• Experienced. Typically an individual who has 3-5 years of experience in their chosen profession.
• Senior. This is an individual with considerable experience typically 6-9 years in their chosen profession.
• Leader. This is an individual with 10+ experience in their chosen profession.

This sort of expectation looks pretty basic at first glance but can yield additional insight if some time it taken to do some research especially about what organizations and professionals say about such expectations.

In my experience, the expectations break down into some generalized thought patterns when looking for individuals to fill positions:

• Little to no experience. Generally speaking companies look for bright, energetic, fresh thinking individuals. They would be able to effectively separate themselves from the perception of "needing work" to actually understanding/believing in the organization they are pursuing. Additionally such individuals are expected to have little practical understanding of the work involved but compensate with attitude and aptitude to pick it up quickly. The majority of organizations are actually very positive of new hires hoping to use them to spread by word-of-mouth the positive influence of their products and services.
• Experienced. Organizations expect these individuals to have mastered the basics, so to speak, and are capable of handling assignments with supervision. These would be the backbone of an organization, such that they are relied upon to get things done. Additionally these individuals are expected to start showing traits of leadership in their respect areas.
• Senior. These individuals are expected to have gone well beyond the basics and in fact to have repeatedly demonstrate that they can provide value to the organization in key areas based on their experience. Such individuals are routinely tapped to lead initiatives, lead personnel, and achieve goals that have some significant meaning to the organization.
• Leader. These individuals are expected to be the leaders of their areas. To help drive and explore ways to achieve significant value and assuming significant risks and rewards for doing so. Such professionals are well versed not only in the hands-on details of their chosen profession, but are capable of interacting, communicating and collaborating with others throughout the organization.

Please note that these are generalities subject to significant variations. For example a larger more established organization is certainly more inclined to see individuals with this same mindset. However, startups or smaller organizations usually do not. They see individuals who are more flexible, adaptable, and capable of doing multiple things without any real or clear definition of what to do. These individuals can think on their feet and deliver something that can be of immediate value to the organization.

However a good way to look at one's career is from a basic personal perspective that should focus on a core set of questions:

• What do you enjoy doing?
• What do you do?
• Who are you?
• What are you about?
• What are you able to do?

If one looks at these questions it can certainly help to focus your efforts at looking at opportunities only at certain organizations and how to effectively communicate your value towards them.

Often taking the time to understand what certain expectations people and organizations have, can be highly effective in addressing their concerns and addressing one's strengths for new opportunities. Additionally the realizations from such expectations can be of tremendous value in making decisions on how to plan next career moves.

Data As A Service - A Practical Viewpoint

In a recent discussion the topic of clouds arouse. Now many in the industry are still attempting to come to grips with the fundamentals of this concept. In this specific conversation we traversed down the thoughts of public vs. private, externally housed vs. internally housed, cloud-bursting, etc. Eventually we landed on the topic of services such as Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Software-as-a-Service, Platforms-as-a-Service and Data-as-a-Service.

We focused on Data-as-a-Service mostly because the professionals I were speaking to had issues around data and were curious as to how Data-as-a-Service or DaaS could help address many concerns traditional companies now face.

If one looks at the internal arrangement of any company that has been around for a bit, their data ecology is a mix of islands within the corporate environment: RDBMS like Oracle and SQL Server in a variety and number, file-based data such as Excel spreadsheets and the like, electronic communication such as email, etc. On these islands lay valuable pieces of data, keys, details about accounts, customers, strategic initiatives, etc. Historically speaking obtaining valuable information from these data islands spread throughout the ecology has been tremendously painful and labor-intensive requiring an organization to place significant investments into things such as data warehousing. While effective on a number of levels, in today's age of lightning-fast changes being able to get to valuable information that not only resides within but about the data ecology is absolutely essential to survival.

This is where the concepts of services particularly around DaaS are very powerful. From a high-level the DaaS allows an organization to not only have access to required information, but also places powerful discovery and self-evolving mechanisms that had not previously existed into the hands of the organization. There are a few key concepts that help make the DaaS work:

• Storage: This can be reasonably small to very large. In truth DaaS need not truly focus on this as storage is usually addressed as Infrastructure-as-a-Service os IaaS. However practically speaking it is just a matter of understanding whether the goal of DaaS is to hook into an existing IaaS or act as a mesh over existing islands.
• Meta-Data Dictionary: Everyone in IT and development knows what a data dictionary is. And equally many business people care less. However the idea here is to evolve from isolated or even an enterprise data dictionary into more of a Meta-Data Dictionary. The reason? Data dictionaries are what I view as instance-specific ways of making a definition, placing things into that definition, and interacting with that definition. Practically speaking it is how say one gets data within an Oracle database, or within an Excel spreadsheet, etc. When traversing the larger ecology they are tremendously ineffective, unable to handle rapidly changing contexts across extended domains. Meta-Data Dictionaries serve this purpose. They tap into the local dictionaries and extend them to include a much larger array of context across the organization to provide answers more rapidly while saving time and effort.
• Meaning: The next major component of DaaS is meaning. It is something that is not as commonly spoken about. Meaning in the context of DaaS is the ability to consistently present not only information about what resides in the ecology but also about the ecology with regard to the domain of the organization. In a traditional relational database for example, issuing a query does not take into account the fundamental about meaning. The results of a single query does not mean anything by itself to the organization until it is placed within a broader context that not only spans the targeted island, but all the desired islands within the ecology. As the context grows so does the ever changing complexity of establishing meaning. Working in tandem with a Meta-Data Dictionary as opposed to individual data dictionaries, meaning can be quickly determined as a question is posed throughout the data ecology.
• Discovery: This takes the paradigm of search and applies it throughout the DaaS ecology. Whenever events happen within the DaaS that affect the meaning as interpreted via the Meta-Data Dictionary, discovery adjusts to that by not only making older patterns available but newer ones as well. In this manner an organization is capable of discovering evolving patterns within their ecology as it relates to their business.
• Living Data: Now this is old hat to many in the internet crowd but fairly new to organizations especially since it arises with the mention of DaaS. This concept means that all data elements as they change with respect to the data ecology are available immediately upon a user request. Practically speaking it appears to a consumer that data changes it's behavior as they interact with it. Examples include Twitter updates, Google Finance chart navigation or online banking activity from any bank. These instances not only process events, but as the events have impact on the ecology they are reflected back to the requester within seconds.
• Services: A fundamental aspect of any "as-a-Service" model is the concept of services. The type, manner, number of, and management of services in a DaaS should not be underestimated. Services need to be simple, powerful and flexible to meet the needs of the organization. For a typical DaaS because of it's Meta-Dictionary it also has services related to Meaning and Discovery that provide far more value than traditional access services such as query.

I have had the opportunity and privilege to work on such a platform in my career. Having a reasonably strong background in databases I can say the transition was not an easy one. All the newer dimensions require significantly more consideration and realization than a simple database perspective. For example with a DaaS one can see the changing patterns of behavior and ask questions and gain insights into complex questions not really addressable before. In one of my previous experiences working at a large telecom the question arose about how long would it take for data elements of a particular marketing campaign to reach all the necessary parts of the organization. As with most typical organizations, the answer was not really precise since it was a culmination of asking each division and then aggregating the responses. In many cases the divisions were not 100% certain of the timing themselves. With my primitive platform in place, we were able to look up the information in a few minutes and provide a more comfortable, provable answer to the organization in a rapid manner. The cost savings along were well worth it; 2 mins of a single individuals time vs. 30mins for 1200 people of varying levels. Other questions such as how the ecology handles volumes, what volumes mean in relation to business operations, the amount and volume of meaning inconsistencies and what savings could be achieved are just some of the more typical operational questions. However with a DaaS in place, higher value insights can be gained such as missed opportunities for new products/services based on customer activity, competitive standing based on social responses and replies with regards to existing products/services, capacity planning for bursting or planned progessions, and many others.

It was at this point my colleagues were thinking it would take them years to build out a DaaS. I responded that a DaaS does take effort, but not necessarily time. It is an equal mix of the deep technology which would be a blend of building it and using vendor tools, and the expertise and knowledge of technical and busines staff. From a tools perspective, solutions such as those provided by vendors such as QuePlix for data virtualization and Kapow for integration to leverage existing domains can quickly get an organization with significant existing assets to DaaS basics very rapidly. The core characteristic is the commitment from the organization. Any undertaking such as DaaS is something fundamental to the culture not just a dalliance.

Then I pointed out the shifting landscape of competitive pressure due to the economic crisis. Those with stronger, valuable, flexible and more timely interactions with their data ecologies are the ones that typically engage their customers more meaningfully. Whereas those with less capabilities quickly find themselves losing opportunities to competitors. From a career standpoint many of the new technologies related to the DaaS such as cloud concepts, big data, distributed data, and the like are some of the most in-demand skills not just hands-on, but in management, deployment, architecture, etc. As more and more companies realize the value of DaaS along with other strategic approaches, they are moving to embrace them in order to stay competitive and survive.