Bill - excellent editorial, and I like your thinking. I think that too many of us in the IT world become possesive with our knowledge and skills, and forget that the prime directive - especially among DBA's - is to share knowledge; to take "data" and turn it into information, in a way that is highly available, reliable and makes sense to the consumer. Data should certainly be protected, but only from those who would abuse it. We should all strive for the holy grail of data stewardship: available anytime, everywhere it's needed and right on point.

And I've met too many IT professionals who have a very smug attitude toward juniors in their field. Share what you know, eagerly and enthusiastically, and you do credit to yourself in the process. Remember that we all started out not knowing anything.