The Long and Winding Road

It is time for another installment in the monthly blog party for SQL Server professionals known as TSQL Tuesday.

This month we have the pleasure of being hosted by Wendy Pastrick (blog | twitter).  The topic for the month requires a bit of introspection (almost like the self-evaluation piece of an annual review).  Quoting direct from her blog, here is the gist of the topic:

Here’s what I thought it would be fun to share with the community this time around – we all experience change in our work lives. Maybe you have a new job, or a new role at your company. Maybe you’re just getting started and you have a road map to success in mind. Whatever it is, please share it next week, Tuesday May 14th. Make sure you note what technologies you find are key to your interests or successes, and maybe you will inspire someone to look down a road less traveled.

For me, this is an interesting topic.  It was my theme of choice last month with a major announcement (see here).  And because of that, I am even using the same image – slightly changed.  Only this time, I will go back a bit further into my career and the road I traveled to get to today.

I am going to go back to a decision point in my career that had a huge impact on where I am now.  That decision point was shortly after having moved to Las Vegas about four years ago.  After having moved to Las Vegas, I made the decision to become more active in the SQL Community.  The first step was to regularly attend the user group meetings.

Prior to moving to Las Vegas, I was a member of PASS.  I had been to SUMMIT.  I knew of the local user group meetings in the Salt Lake City area.  I just never forced the issue due to timing etc.  This was something that I felt needed to change.

By making that conscientious decision, I became more involved in the online community. I soon started presenting.  And before long, I was involved in the scheduling of speakers for the Las Vegas UG.

By becoming more active in the community, my skillset started to rapidly grow.  I found myself blogging more and researching more about SQL Server.  I really started to learn about SQL thanks to that decision.  Prior, I feel I was good.  Now, I feel I am much better because I invested more time and effort and I am trying to share the skills that I have learned.

I have said it before and it is worth saying again.  If you really want to learn a technology, try teaching it to somebody.  By taking on that extra step, you will find yourself researching a bit more and you will find that you may have to answer questions about it that you had never considered until you tried to teach it.  Being active in the community has helped me to become better at my trade.  I am sure it will help others as well.