Comments for Tom Talks http://tomsalonek.com Building a Winning Business -- Leadership Blog -- Tom Salonek Sun, 25 Mar 2012 03:02:10 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Comment on About by tomsalonek http://tomsalonek.com/about/#comment-278 tomsalonek Sun, 25 Mar 2012 03:02:10 +0000 http://tomsalonek.com/?page_id=2#comment-278 Thanks for taking the time to read the article and post your dilemma. I appreciate it and your candor. First, I think your employer should be concerned… the economy has gained ½ the jobs lost in the recession, different regions are doing better than others (Check out yours here... http://www.bls.gov/web/metro/laummtrk.htm), and from what I’ve experienced firsthand, the IT is a sector faring better, for the employees, than others. For what it’s worth, you’re not alone. My mother has a saying “misery loves company.” Last week, I wrote an article published in the Star Tribune, MN’s top newspaper, called 'Keep 'em happy and productive' (http://www.startribune.com/business/142938185.html). In summary, there are a startling number of folks in your situation (unhappy in their job roles). For you and others in your position, start with your current firm: <ol> <li> Without being too Pollyanna (given what you shared about your employer), is there an opportunity to present a win/win? For me, if someone comes and with something like, “I’d like to build an iPhone app. I know we want one for our firm. If I create the app on my own time would the firm send me to training on its time?” </li> <li> As it relates to your current firm, think of all the ways that you could help it achieve its goals… do a mega brainstorm. Throw out the bad ideas. Prioritize the good ideas. Sit down with your manager and share what you could do to help the firm move forward. </li> </ol> If the above run into a brick wall, move on to Plan B: <ol> <li> No one will care about you or your career more than you. Invest in yourself even if your employer won’t. There are a tremendous number of online resources that offer free learning. Books from the library are free. </li> <li> If you’re a technical professional, technical books are cheaper on Amazon.com for the Kindle version. Kindle readers are free for smartphones and computers. Begin building your digital library and investing in your learning. </li> <li> Community and technical colleges offer training in evenings. It’s usually affordable because it’s subsidized by the state, county, or other government agency. These tend to be more focused, practical, and hands-on. Check it out. </li> <li> Look into local or online user groups. These offer free learning and networking opportunities. </li> <li> Certifications are an objective way to show people you know your stuff if you don’t have current experience. </li> <li> On the certification and/or retraining front, make sure the new technology your studying has jobs waiting for you after you make your investment of time and money. The web and Google make this easy. </li> <li> Get your LinkedIn profile is up to date, request endorsements from customers and colleagues, and join LinkedIn groups that fit your interests/skills. More and more recruiters use LinkedIn groups as a way to post job openings. </li> <li> If you’re into social media like Twitter or Facebook, make sure you’re clean before you begin a job search. </li> <li> A way to network, get experience and leadership is to volunteer. Look into 'GiveCamps.' These volunteer events are for technical folks who use their skills to help out groups like non-profits. It’s a win/win and all resume worthy. </li> <li> If you’re looking to demonstrate your knowledge, create a blog. Tie it to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Create posts in the area where you’re looking for a job. Create downloads, whitepapers, videos, or utilities that show what you know. </li> <li> Let everyone know you’re looking for new work. </li> <li> Lastly, check out a post on the Intertech blog: http://www.intertech.com/Blog/post/3-Simple-Steps-to-a-Successful-Interview.aspx </ol> Good luck and let me know if there's more I can do. Thanks for taking the time to read the article and post your dilemma. I appreciate it and your candor.

First, I think your employer should be concerned… the economy has gained ½ the jobs lost in the recession, different regions are doing better than others (Check out yours here… http://www.bls.gov/web/metro/laummtrk.htm), and from what I’ve experienced firsthand, the IT is a sector faring better, for the employees, than others. For what it’s worth, you’re not alone.

My mother has a saying “misery loves company.” Last week, I wrote an article published in the Star Tribune, MN’s top newspaper, called ‘Keep ‘em happy and productive’ (http://www.startribune.com/business/142938185.html). In summary, there are a startling number of folks in your situation (unhappy in their job roles).

For you and others in your position, start with your current firm:

  1. Without being too Pollyanna (given what you shared about your employer), is there an opportunity to present a win/win? For me, if someone comes and with something like, “I’d like to build an iPhone app. I know we want one for our firm. If I create the app on my own time would the firm send me to training on its time?”
  2. As it relates to your current firm, think of all the ways that you could help it achieve its goals… do a mega brainstorm. Throw out the bad ideas. Prioritize the good ideas. Sit down with your manager and share what you could do to help the firm move forward.

If the above run into a brick wall, move on to Plan B:

  1. No one will care about you or your career more than you. Invest in yourself even if your employer won’t. There are a tremendous number of online resources that offer free learning. Books from the library are free.
  2. If you’re a technical professional, technical books are cheaper on Amazon.com for the Kindle version. Kindle readers are free for smartphones and computers. Begin building your digital library and investing in your learning.
  3. Community and technical colleges offer training in evenings. It’s usually affordable because it’s subsidized by the state, county, or other government agency. These tend to be more focused, practical, and hands-on. Check it out.
  4. Look into local or online user groups. These offer free learning and networking opportunities.
  5. Certifications are an objective way to show people you know your stuff if you don’t have current experience.
  6. On the certification and/or retraining front, make sure the new technology your studying has jobs waiting for you after you make your investment of time and money. The web and Google make this easy.
  7. Get your LinkedIn profile is up to date, request endorsements from customers and colleagues, and join LinkedIn groups that fit your interests/skills. More and more recruiters use LinkedIn groups as a way to post job openings.
  8. If you’re into social media like Twitter or Facebook, make sure you’re clean before you begin a job search.
  9. A way to network, get experience and leadership is to volunteer. Look into ‘GiveCamps.’ These volunteer events are for technical folks who use their skills to help out groups like non-profits. It’s a win/win and all resume worthy.
  10. If you’re looking to demonstrate your knowledge, create a blog. Tie it to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Create posts in the area where you’re looking for a job. Create downloads, whitepapers, videos, or utilities that show what you know.
  11. Let everyone know you’re looking for new work.
  12. Lastly, check out a post on the Intertech blog: http://www.intertech.com/Blog/post/3-Simple-Steps-to-a-Successful-Interview.aspx

Good luck and let me know if there’s more I can do.

]]> Comment on About by Tom http://tomsalonek.com/about/#comment-275 Tom Fri, 23 Mar 2012 20:31:50 +0000 http://tomsalonek.com/?page_id=2#comment-275 Hi Tom, I read your article, "Success Through Failure" in CDW BizTech - not sure why I picked it up, but it was a slow day and I thought I'd get some reading in. I work for a small company as an IT Director - really too small to be considered a CIO. I'm the most tenured employee next to the CEO; however, I'm not in a management role. Like you, I have been told that I am not management material even though I've managed a team of up to four IT professionals. The company I work for has an extremely high turnover rate, is cyclical, dependent on large clients. One of the largest clients was lost, and nearly half of the employees left or were laid off. My salary has increased, but I am down to a one-man IT shop. We are running antiquated equipment, and I feel my only role is merely maintenance and simple help desk tasks. I feel like a glorified over 40 "computer guy." The worst part is that the company does not reimburse or further training in my field since all the technology we use is 10 year old technology though we sell ourselves as being innovative - using the latest technology. I would welcome any advice you may have for IT professionals in my situation. Hi Tom,

I read your article, “Success Through Failure” in CDW BizTech – not sure why I picked it up, but it was a slow day and I thought I’d get some reading in.

I work for a small company as an IT Director – really too small to be considered a CIO. I’m the most tenured employee next to the CEO; however, I’m not in a management role. Like you, I have been told that I am not management material even though I’ve managed a team of up to four IT professionals. The company I work for has an extremely high turnover rate, is cyclical, dependent on large clients. One of the largest clients was lost, and nearly half of the employees left or were laid off. My salary has increased, but I am down to a one-man IT shop. We are running antiquated equipment, and I feel my only role is merely maintenance and simple help desk tasks. I feel like a glorified over 40 “computer guy.” The worst part is that the company does not reimburse or further training in my field since all the technology we use is 10 year old technology though we sell ourselves as being innovative – using the latest technology.

I would welcome any advice you may have for IT professionals in my situation.

]]> Comment on Let the sun shine! by Alex Dail http://tomsalonek.com/2012/03/03/let-the-sun-shine/#comment-261 Alex Dail Fri, 09 Mar 2012 01:41:18 +0000 http://tomsalonek.com/?p=290#comment-261 Oddly I just read on this topic. Others, research scholars, based on what they unearthed agree with your premise that openness is healthy for businesses too. The worry business have about being open and competition getting an edge by accessing that information has not really proved out. Indeed what they found showed the most successful businesses are frequently quite open with their information. Oddly I just read on this topic. Others, research scholars, based on what they unearthed agree with your premise that openness is healthy for businesses too. The worry business have about being open and competition getting an edge by accessing that information has not really proved out. Indeed what they found showed the most successful businesses are frequently quite open with their information.

]]> Comment on What is Cloud Computing? by Saul http://tomsalonek.com/2011/12/30/what-is-cloud-computing/#comment-235 Saul Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:13:18 +0000 http://tomsalonek.com/?p=258#comment-235 Much as I aepipcrate your diss in the second paragraph of your reply, the arithmetic for calculating the cost is quite simple, but depends on having knowledge that cloud customers are selected for not having.Most anyone who has been writing PHP for more than two years can get up and running on a VPS in only a few minutes longer than it would take with GAE, but also be able to migrate to many other VPS providers without substantially more pain. The point of cloud computing isn’t having your trivial site up in 2-3 minutes, is it? I thought it was all about that scalability.On FB, my point is exactly that they have the same infrastructure internally, because there’s nothing magical about the cloud, it’s just infrastructure. But they’re not renting space on Google or Amazon, because it’s not cost effective at the high end. Which leads back to one of my core points, which is that the cloud is neither technologically interesting nor cost effective over VPSes or having physical machines.I would say you’ve hit the nail on the head about the last 30 years of technology. I think if there were zero innovation apart from hardware continuing to become cheap and widely used, I would have trouble saying life is worse than it is now. Definitely the last 20 years. We could be using Standard ML, the only language with fully specific semantics, but instead we switched from C to C++ and Java, bringing with them different kinds of unbearably inhuman complexity. We could be using Plan 9, the successor to Unix with truly integrated networking and distributed computation–a true platform to build cloud-like services on–but instead we’re using the Unix clone written expressly to the lowest common denominator. We could be using message passing instead of threading, we could be using a truer relational calculus rather than SQL, and so forth. It’s as though we chose wrong every time. We live in a world without a reliable networked filesystem, and instead we have so many logging frameworks in Java we have to have a meta logging framework to abstract over them. Now that I think of it, I would miss ZFS, HTTP, and Haskell, but I can’t think of too many other successes we’ve had in the last 30 years.Like most pessimists, I would say I’m merely a realist. The cloud never was your savior, so there’s no sense pining for the days when you thought it was. It never was anything more than marketing. If you want to do something good for technology, find a way to delete two lines of code for every line you write from now on. Avoid busy work but accept that some code just has to be written by a human and not hidden behind an abstraction layer.Thanks for listening to my crazy rant. I’ll return to irrelevance now. Much as I aepipcrate your diss in the second paragraph of your reply, the arithmetic for calculating the cost is quite simple, but depends on having knowledge that cloud customers are selected for not having.Most anyone who has been writing PHP for more than two years can get up and running on a VPS in only a few minutes longer than it would take with GAE, but also be able to migrate to many other VPS providers without substantially more pain. The point of cloud computing isn’t having your trivial site up in 2-3 minutes, is it? I thought it was all about that scalability.On FB, my point is exactly that they have the same infrastructure internally, because there’s nothing magical about the cloud, it’s just infrastructure. But they’re not renting space on Google or Amazon, because it’s not cost effective at the high end. Which leads back to one of my core points, which is that the cloud is neither technologically interesting nor cost effective over VPSes or having physical machines.I would say you’ve hit the nail on the head about the last 30 years of technology. I think if there were zero innovation apart from hardware continuing to become cheap and widely used, I would have trouble saying life is worse than it is now. Definitely the last 20 years. We could be using Standard ML, the only language with fully specific semantics, but instead we switched from C to C++ and Java, bringing with them different kinds of unbearably inhuman complexity. We could be using Plan 9, the successor to Unix with truly integrated networking and distributed computation–a true platform to build cloud-like services on–but instead we’re using the Unix clone written expressly to the lowest common denominator. We could be using message passing instead of threading, we could be using a truer relational calculus rather than SQL, and so forth. It’s as though we chose wrong every time. We live in a world without a reliable networked filesystem, and instead we have so many logging frameworks in Java we have to have a meta logging framework to abstract over them. Now that I think of it, I would miss ZFS, HTTP, and Haskell, but I can’t think of too many other successes we’ve had in the last 30 years.Like most pessimists, I would say I’m merely a realist. The cloud never was your savior, so there’s no sense pining for the days when you thought it was. It never was anything more than marketing. If you want to do something good for technology, find a way to delete two lines of code for every line you write from now on. Avoid busy work but accept that some code just has to be written by a human and not hidden behind an abstraction layer.Thanks for listening to my crazy rant. I’ll return to irrelevance now.

]]> Comment on Social Media in Business by Mike Friesen http://tomsalonek.com/2011/12/14/social-media-in-business/#comment-217 Mike Friesen Mon, 16 Jan 2012 01:14:48 +0000 http://tomsalonek.com/?p=253#comment-217 Thanks Tom. Thanks Tom.

]]> Comment on Social Media in Business by tomsalonek http://tomsalonek.com/2011/12/14/social-media-in-business/#comment-216 tomsalonek Sun, 15 Jan 2012 20:17:24 +0000 http://tomsalonek.com/?p=253#comment-216 Mike, Sorry for the delay... I was on vacation out of the country. Thanks for the positive feedback. If you have a Facebook "Fan" page for your business or brand, and you have some # of fans, I'd recommend building that up vs. starting a second presence. That said, if you don't have a ton of fans make sure you've setup the right type of page (go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php) and choose the right local presence vs. brand vs. company before you work to get followers. Hope that helps, Tom Mike,

Sorry for the delay… I was on vacation out of the country. Thanks for the positive feedback.

If you have a Facebook “Fan” page for your business or brand, and you have some # of fans, I’d recommend building that up vs. starting a second presence. That said, if you don’t have a ton of fans make sure you’ve setup the right type of page (go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php) and choose the right local presence vs. brand vs. company before you work to get followers.

Hope that helps,
Tom

]]> Comment on Social Media in Business by Mike Friesen http://tomsalonek.com/2011/12/14/social-media-in-business/#comment-215 Mike Friesen Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:37:16 +0000 http://tomsalonek.com/?p=253#comment-215 Wow ... great, rapid fire information!. Am investigating QR codes and Google circles based on this video with several other ideas on the to-do list as well. Question - If I have a business FB page attached to my personal FB, is it still useful to create a separate business FB account? Best, Mike Wow … great, rapid fire information!. Am investigating QR codes and Google circles based on this video with several other ideas on the to-do list as well.

Question – If I have a business FB page attached to my personal FB, is it still useful to create a separate business FB account?

Best,
Mike

]]> Comment on Surviving and Thriving in the Face of Failure – Post #1 by Christopher Marshall http://tomsalonek.com/2011/10/19/surviving-and-thriving-in-the-face-of-failure-%e2%80%93-post-1/#comment-124 Christopher Marshall Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:59:47 +0000 http://tomsalonek.com/?p=181#comment-124 Good read. It is really interesting to see how failure works as motivation for some. How some people take it in stride, learn from their mistakes, and become better for it. Looking forward to reading your next posts! Chris Good read. It is really interesting to see how failure works as motivation for some. How some people take it in stride, learn from their mistakes, and become better for it. Looking forward to reading your next posts!
Chris

]]> Comment on Second in a series: “The power of collective intelligence in organizations” by Jim W. http://tomsalonek.com/2011/08/17/second-in-a-series-%e2%80%9cthe-power-of-collective-intelligence-in-organizations%e2%80%9d/#comment-33 Jim W. Thu, 18 Aug 2011 01:52:49 +0000 http://tomsalonek.com/?p=84#comment-33 Great post Tom! I could not agree more! Great post Tom! I could not agree more!

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