It’s been over four years since I got my first private office. Prior to getting it, I often thought about the perks of having an office. The prestige of it didn’t really motivate me, but more the convenience. I found myself needing to have private conversations all the time and struggled to find open conference rooms when I needed them. I’d often go outside if the weather was decent. If not, I’d go in my car. Sometimes I resorted to…
Over the years of working in enterprise technology, I’ve learned that I need to wear many hats. One of those key responsibilities is firefighter. It’s a baseline expectation that comes with the territory. Even though high availability and disaster resiliency technologies have evolved our capabilities over the years, we still deal with things that go bump in the night. Over the years, I’ve responded to (and caused) complete Data Center failures and have lost entire environments of data only to…
It’s been more than a decade since I’ve been an engineer, but I remember being frustrated that I could never get the attention of technology vendors. They always wanted to talk to “the decision maker.” I thought to myself, when I become a leader, it will be great because then I will get their attention. I, of course, had no clue what on earth I was asking for. I’m the decision maker. I’m the person with the budget. I buy…
In today’s digital economy, if you don’t exist on social media, you don’t exist. Personal brand management is sometimes a tough concept to get your head around. Many of us work for corporations and do not run our own businesses. Personal brand management is a bit like “you, incorporated.” The irony is, most of us hate sales and marketing. That’s why we work in enterprise technology, you know, so we don’t have to do that annoying stuff. But alas, in today’s…