You're Gonna Dunk One Day
It's almost always interesting when Steve Ballmer is out there giving quotes. I'm not thrilled with him as a speaker, and I think he's more of a salesman and zealot than technologist, but this was good:
"You're just 3 years old, and we've got you in there playing basketball with a 12-year-old...but you're gonna dunk and you're gonna dunk on the other guy some day
That's quoted from a discussion at the Web 2.0 conference. There's more you can read about it here as well.
That's a great analogy. They're gonna dunk on Google. Has the slam dunk replaced chair tossing in the Microsoft world?
Certification
Not sure it matters. For the first time pay for non-certified workers averages more than certified workers. So do you take a pay cut if you certify?
No, but it means that the Pull-The-Wool-Over-A-Manager's-Eyes-With-A-Certification game is over. The statistics are skewing as more people are hired for what they have done rather than what test they've taken. We've always known that experience matters more than certification.
Looks like those pointy headed managers are catching up to us on this one.
Turnover
I'm not sure that I understand this one: Information Technology has too little turnover? It's a catchy title and the article contradicts itself slightly in that they mention too much retention in some areas and too little in others.
A gradually aging IT workforce is one of the phrases used. I've finally started to realize as I turned 40 this year that I'm a part of that workforce. And many of us that are older don't want to look for new jobs, we want to stick around and retention might be easier with us.
Yet it might be the group of employees that you most want to make sure they stick around. As some systems age and younger IT professionals focus on newer technologies, those older skills are more valuable.
Or are they? Anyone need NT 4 or SQL 6.5 skills? I'm sure there are installations out there, but is it really a problem for someone that's 24 to learn how to work on those systems if they have to? Anyone here that would refuse to pick up Netware 4.0 or even 3.2 and make it work if there was a job?
I think IT people by definition like to learn and figure out how to make systems work. Too many systems get replaced and too often we're digging in to find a root cause on some system we've never worked with before. I just can't think that it's a big worry if you lose an employee with skills no one else has. You can always find someone to dig through it and figure things out.
It just might cost a lot. So take care of your employees.
Steve Jones
Steve's Pick of the Week
| Free Beer for Life - The catch is you need to find the stolen laptop. A brewery wants its data back and they're offering a nice reward. |
The Voice of the DBA
Today's podcast features music by Incompetech, written and performed by Kevin MacLeod.
The podcast feeds are now available at sqlservercentral.podshow.comto get better bandwidth and maybe a little more exposure :). Comments are definitely appreciated and wanted. You can get feeds from there.
Someone called me the "Voice of the DBA" awhile back and I liked it. So that's what I've named the show..
I've done video the last few days, but it's a big time consuming process and it's gotten me a bit behind on other things. I will probably drop to three times a week unless there's a lot of interest to keep going everyday. If you like it, tell the boss!
