This TSQL tuesday is hosted by my good friend Jason Brimhall – Jason has put forth a creative challenge – plan to do something, carry out that plan, and then write about the experience. He gave a two week period between planning and implementation. I must confess that i cheated a bit here, because what am writing about is not really a two week thing – but it is an opportunity for me to write on something I recently planned and carried out.

I have about a decade and a half of operational DBA experience as of this year. I was beginning to tire of the relentless repetitive nature of the work, and longed to do something different. I was reading a lot on BI/Analytics – although I have little background in BI – I was fascinated by what was currently possible with many tools available to analyze data and come up with interesting findings. I love painting dashboards, and I have a background in statistics as well. Talking to a few people in the community – it seemed to make sense to find my way into BI/Analytics. But here was was the catch. What was the industry to go into? Analytics is very industry specific – knowledge of data and its nuances being as important as knowledge of technical tools one dabbles with. Some thought and deliberation seemed to point to healthcare analytics as a good choice. So, I had a plan. To find a job that introduces me to the wide world of BI/healthcare analytics, and learn it as much as I can on my own.

After a 3 month search that involved many uncertainities and turning down many lucrative operational dba offers – I found a job where they actually needed a BI DBA – they were willing to let me learn BI if I brought my DBA skills to the table. They were also going into Tableau and analytics. And what is more, they do healthcare.

I took the job and then started working on upping my skills in the said area. I’ve joined a course in healthcare analytics. I use pluralsight to learn SQL Server BI, and udemy for R programming. I also blog once a week on something i learned with R on healthcare data. My blogging interest and following has picked up considerably.

That is in short, my mid life career transition – a rather big subject for a TSQL tuesday, but one that most people run into. I wish you best of luck – with patience and perseverance to find what you truly love to do. Thanks Jason, for the opportunity.