SQL Musings : branding

Don't Copy Other People's Posts

Steve Jones — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:00:56 GMT

In my Modern Resume presentation I have a few slides on blogging, a couple of which are hints and tips on "how to blog." The second one starts out like this:

Don't copy other posts
Don't copy other posts
Don't copy other posts

I know that repeating something three times is supposed to be a way to get people to remember something. This is one of those things that I think is really important to stress to people, especially after a few incidents in the SQL world lately.

Joe Webb recently wrote "The theft of ideas and content" after some of his content was plagiarized. I've seen a few other professionals in this the SQL Server world respond to similar issues of their own content. A couple professionals, Brent Ozar and Tom LaRock did a short presentation on how to deal with this.

You can't build a brand of your own if you don't do the work. It sounds cliche, it sounds like the advice you'd get from your parents. Do the right thing no matter what. Lots of people think that everyone lies on their resume, and I'm sure many do, but it can come by to bite you later. Here are six examples of people who lied on their resume and got caught.

In today's world, it's getting easier and easier to check up on plagiarism. I strongly urge you to do your own work.

Your blog is a part of your resume. It's a part of what people will look at before they call you for an interview. Even after you have the job, this survey said you might get fired if they discover you lied on your resume.

I don't know that I'd fire someone for lying on their resume, but I certainly would if I found you copying someone's blog and claiming it as your own.

Get into the Top Ten Percent

Steve Jones — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:15:25 GMT

When you start applying for jobs, and face competition from other candidates, who do you think gets the interview? Is it the middle 50%? The bottom 20%?

I bet you're thinking the top 5-10 candidates are granted interviews, which in today's world of electronic resumes, could be the top 1% based on some of the numbers I've seen from hiring managers. It's not uncommon for a single position to get 300-500 submissions.

How do you position yourself to be in the top ten percent? I have on easy way that will help you along.

Blog.

In my research over the last year, and in giving a presentation on the Modern Resume to hundreds of people, it's been fairly consistent in my audiences that about 10% of the people out there that come to these events blog as a part of their career.

And that's the 10% of people that care about their careers and are willing to work on them.

Just by doing a blog you can separate yourself from many other people. You give every potential interviewer or HR person more information, and more reasons to consider you as the top candidate instead of others.

Would you rather interview someone that has a large profile and you have an idea of how they think from forums and blogs, or someone that just sends you a two page resume summary? I've always believed that more information is better, and it helps you make better decisions.

HR people, along with managers, are getting smarter. They don't just hire based on MCSE credentials, or any others. They look beyond that, and the more comfortable they are with you as a candidate, the better image (read "brand") you present, the more likely you'll get the call back.

Now you need to write good blogs. Be simple, tackle things you know well, and have someone proofread your entries. You are showcasing communication skills, as well as knowledge, and keep that in mind.

You are building an online brand

Steve Jones — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:49:20 GMT

With everything you do online. At least according to this blog post at ZDNet, which somewhat validates my presentation: The Modern Resume - Building Your Brand Online.

There's not a lot in the blog, other than mentioning there are some new tools that give you the ability to leverage your social profile with business cards, the Facebook vanity URLs, and more, but also new privacy controls on your Facebook account.

There are pretty good controls already on LinkedIn, and I think they're good, though I would like to see a little more granularity for sharing with co-workers/friends and a separate level for recruiters or potential interviewers.

I mention it in the talk, but it's worth repeating. Anything you post online is a part of your profile. None of them will make or break your reputation or your brand, but they add up. You don't want a lot of items that present you in a poor light. You want more things that make you look good, or at least professional for your career.

Manage your brand. It's always been something you should do, and that continues in the digital world. I'm not sure if it's more or less important, but I think you can better manage your impressions in the digital world.

Pensacola Results

Steve Jones — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:48:40 GMT

A week ago I spoke at the Pensacola SQLSaturday event to about 30 people. A few drifted in late, so I’m not sure of the totals, but I did get these metrics from the surveys, when I had 24 people in the room:

Social Networking

Facebook – 18, or about 75%
LinkedIn – 12, or about 50%
MySpace – 2, or a little less than 10%, but one said he didn’t ever use it.
Plaxo – 6, or about 25%
Twitter – 2

This is a little better than I’ve seen in the past in Denver, so it’s good that there are more people putting a profile of some sort out there.

Blogging

3 people had technical blogs, so only about 10%, which is on track. Almost 80%, or about 22 people, read blogs regularly.

Authors

The author poll, once again very few people recognized authors from their pictures, despite knowing the names. That's good news if you want to raise your profile, but keep a good portion of your privacy.

Tweet Your Job Away

Steve Jones — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:28:00 GMT

A great example of how to “Tweet” poorly. This guy got fired before he started work.

Twitter is a series of hallway conversations. I think that’s a great description, and I’ll write more about that at some point. However just like those hallways, you need to be aware that you don’t necessarily know who’s listening. Putting it in writing means it could be overheard by anyone, and send on.

In case you’re interested, here’s the tweet that got him fired.

Presenting Remotely

Steve Jones — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:04:21 GMT

Yesterday I presented to the Charlotte SQL Server User's Group. Since I live in Denver, it didn't make a lot of sense to travel to Charlotte, as much as I would have liked to see Peter Shire of SQL Sentry and a few other friends in the area. I'd watched Joe Webb do a remote presentation a few months ago, so I had an idea of how it would go, but this was the first time I'd tried it.

I realized that I had a few things in my slides that were looking for audience input, like some survey questions, so I ended up changing the slides Mon night, and then Tues night not wanting to use my other email accounts, so getting in a rush to set up a web page and email for my site at The Modern Resume. BTW, I have a blog for The Modern Resume that should get the redirect. If it doesn't, use this link.

So I made a couple mistakes in making last minute changes, and afterwards my web redirect was broken.

It was a hard presentation. I like interacting with people and this was the first time I'd done a remote talk. The talk was through GoToMeeting, set up by SQL Sentry (Thanks for that), and they showed a few slides from their side before making me the presenter.

I'd never used GoToMeeting, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I had closed all my software on the desktop and started the Powerpoint deck. I had a phone I was using (landline) for the audio, I was in the basement, dogs locked away, my wife quiet upstairs, it went well.

However I felt like I was speaking in a black hole.

It's really like giving a lecture, and for the most part, I could have just been recording things and not really live. There was only one question during the presentation and none afterwards. Not sure if that means I was good or bad. I'm hoping for some feedback from someone that attended.

I only had an hour, lost a little time at the beginning, and with the changes I'd made, I had to speed things up a little at the end. I hate doing that, but I wanted to leave time for questions, expecting a few. Every time I've done this (4 so far), I've had questions.

My wife later gave me a few things I should have done. She's done quite a few webinars with GoToMeeting and she suggested:

Configure my desktop to show questions during the presentation.
Upload my slides and have them delivered from GoToMeeting so I can keep my desktop running.

I also had a few other things I did.

Cleared the desk so I wouldn't fidget with pens, etc.
Set my watch on the desk so I could see it and monitor time (Powerpoint does a bad job here)
I had water and coffee handy
My cell phone was next to me with the conference number entered in case things went bad. I also had the PIN code on a sticky.

Things I wished I'd done:

Uploaded Powerpoint deck.
Monitored Twitter during the talk (not sure I could have typed, but I wish I'd see things go by)
Fixed the web site up front (worked on my machine, sigh)

Presenting remotely was definitely different than live and I'm glad I made a few changes. I'm not really sure how it sounded and flowed, so I'd love feedback if anyone has it.

Mutually Beneficial

Steve Jones — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:18:00 GMT

I saw a great blog post from Brent Ozar about whether or not you are being treated fairly at work. It’s the response to a question asked by Chris Shaw: Are you being treated fairly?

This blog talks about employees being replaceable and references the hospitality industry. That struck a chord with me because I worked in there for a long time as well. And I learned that I not only didn’t want to stick around, but very few people would. I thought it was a bit sad that I had a few friends in their 40s and 50s still tending bar, waiting tables, or doing some other relatively menial job. They were good at it, but it’s a hard life.

I’ve grown up a bit, and I’d retract my sympathy for them. There’s nothing wrong with that (or any other) job where you work and get paid. If you want to do it, and you’re willing to work, you earn your money the same as me.

You are replaceable. Even someone like me, who as the editor of SQLServerCentral, have built a brand that is almost indistinguishable from the site, can be let go and someone else do my job. I’m successful, people identify the site with me, it’s still growing and popular, but I know I could be replaced. It might lose some people, and there might be some short term (or long term) loss of revenue, but it could work.

At least I operate on that principle.

You have to make sure you’re providing value to your company. That’s common advice, and it’s out there. I wrote an editorial at SQLServerCentral on that recently. But the company has to be providing value to you.

In the past most people stuck with a company for a long time. Part of that was the promise of retirement, but some was cultural as well (leaving a job had some stigma) and there weren’t as many new jobs opening up. Skills were less transient between companies as many people were trained to work in that business and not as generally as I think we are now (mostly thanks to computing).

However I’m not sure many companies were fair to employees. That would be an interesting thesis for someone to write.

Today there are more jobs available. Even in this economy, you can still find a new job, though I would be more careful doing so. But the economy will turn around, and you should be positioning yourself to take advantage of that if you cannot find a job now. And if your company is not providing you with values as well.

Branding on ESPN

Steve Jones — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 12:35:00 GMT

I was listening to Colin Cowherd and the Herd one morning and he was talking about the Los Angeles Dodgers and Manny Rodriguez. At first I wasn’t sure I agreed with him that the Dodgers should spend $25million to sign him. Is he worth it? Does he make a difference?

Then Colin stepped back and started talking about branding, and that got me interested. Twenty years ago the big stories in sports included the Yankees and Dodgers. I’d agree with that as the history from Jackie Robinson through Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax, Tommy Lasorda, I remember hearing about them in the 80s, seeing them on Sportcenter regularly, and knowing that the Dodgers mattered in sports. They actually seemed to be more people around the country supporting the boys in “Dodger Blue” than even the Cubs.

However I agree that’s changed. Nowadays the Dodgers don’t make as big a splash, and they’re not featured in highlights that often. The exception was last year when Manny was traded over there and hit home runs. All of a sudden they caught my attention slightly more.

That’s branding.

Colin brought up an interesting point. ESPN shows highlights and lead stories, which are often a minute or two long. If you could get yourself, or your tem into those leads, the A blocks, you are building a good brand. Buying a 30 sec ad for the season would cost millions. I’m not sure if it would be the $25mm Colin mentioned, but it would be something. If you could get Manny to advertise you more, as a side effect of his signing, in addition to more seats, (likely) more TV coverage of games, and apparel, he really could pay for himself.

As much as I hate to admit it, he might be the top name in baseball.

So what does this have to do with your brand? How can the individual DBA benefit here?

You have a brand as well, and it be used to promote yourself. You won’t get a $25mm contract, but you can leverage yourself in other ways. In the grand scheme of the world, Manny is small. Just as in the scheme of DBAs, most of us are pretty small.

You can get more exposure, grow your brand, and get a level of networking with one simple thing:

Write an article.

It can be intimidating, and it’s work. But it’s an investment in your career that is worth making. I don’t want to exclusively promote my site, SQLServerCentral, but I will say that you’ll likely get the most exposure (500k+ newsletters sent out) for your work with the least effort. I’m an easy editor, and we don’t require huge amounts of research. However there are plenty of other places (SQL Team, Database Journal, MSSQLTips, etc.) that you can write for in the database space. In other technologies, I’m sure you have favorite sites that you visit.

The thing to keep in mind is that this effort, your first article, is going to showcase your brand. Spend some time on it, get friends to review it, and teach the world something. It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering or amazingly innovative. However it should be in your area of expertise, whether that’s writing SQL, managing security, grooming a dog, or training a horse. Write something well that shows:

your knowledge
your communication skills (present the ideas well)
your attention to detail (watch the typos/spelling/grammar)

And then make sure it’s on your resume. I bet it gets mentioned in your next interview.

Boulder SQL Server Users Group

Steve Jones — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:46:04 GMT

Last night I went to the February Boulder SQL Server User’s Group meeting up in Broomfield, CO to deliver my presentation on The Modern Resume. It was a windy, chilly day where few people were wandering about. Perhaps President Obama being in town had something to do with it as well.

In any case, it was a small group, < 10 people, and a fairly intimate setting. I was hoping for a bit more of a discussion, which we got later on, but ended up with much of the talk being a lecture.

It was also a bit different than my other talks. This time I had more talks about “finding a job strategies” than building your brand. That’s OK, and it gave me some other content to talk about. It seems the Dice and Monster are still the places most people go to.

My author survey again showed that most people didn’t know what the people look like. The social networking survey showed about 50% of the people on Linked In and Facebook, no one on MySpace, 15% using Twitter. Plaxo had a couple people with accounts, but not really using it.

In any case, this was good practice for my delivery on Saturday at the Rocky Mountain Tech Tri-Fecta.

Ways To Build Your Brand

Steve Jones — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 12:37:15 GMT

This is in the presentation I've given a few times, but I thought it made some sense to put these things out here as well.

I see there are a few major ways for you to build your brand and raise your profile in the modern world that is highly interconnected and built on digital technologies. I'll give a quick summary here and then expand upon each of these in future posts.

1. Blogging
2. Leadership
3. Authoring
4. Speaking
5. Volunteering

There are some variations, but these are the main ones.

Blogging

I separated this one out because it's more personal, it's off the cuff, we allow for mistakes and it doesn't necessarily mean exposing yourself. You can blog offline, save the entries and then publish them only to perspective employers when they interview you. I do think you should have a career blog that shows off what you think, learn, do, and understand.
And you don't have to be a great writer!

Leadership

You can be a leader in your company, be a manager, run a project, be a thought leader, but this involves taking responsibility on to help others (or things in the case of a project).

Authoring

This is a step above blogging where you are showing what you know. This is definitely public presentations of your work. It can be within the company, perhaps working on a manual, a procedure, or something else formal that others will read, but your name is attached to it.

Speaking

A step beyond authoring is when you actually teach someone. This can be one on one in your company, a brown bag lunch to your peers, or standing in front of a group at a conference.

Volunteering

I think the last stage of your career in anything is giving back to the community. You've built some expertise, you're comfortable, and so you now have the time and freedom to help others. This doesn't mean leading them, but giving them assistance. It can be speaking, running a group or event, or even working with a charity of some sort.

Take credit for it, use it for your brand, but be sincere. Don't do it because you want recognition, but do it because you want to help.

I'll talk more about each of these in future posts as I further the develop the ideas and get more of them down on paper.

Old and Wise

Steve Jones — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 20:06:56 GMT

I'm not sure that I'm wise, but I do feel old quite often. I noticed that after my talk at SQLSaturday #8 in Orlando , Devin Knight, brother of my business partner, Brian Knight, wrote a series entitled the Wise Old Man (#4 is linked in there...(read more)