I have three daughters who are nearing the age when they will seek careers. This is a bit scary for me but that is fodder for another blog. Today, I want to share with you some of the advice that I give college aged kids who are thinking about the future. No matter who you are and no matter what you plan on doing, if you want to succeed, you must make sure that you follow these strategies!

1.    Trajectory!  It’s not about where you are, it’s about where you are heading! I remember when I was making next to nothing and wondering what was going to happen. I knew I was working hard and that I had the ‘never give up’ work ethic (together this is called momentum). I knew I was in a field that was growing. But, I really wanted to make enough to support my family. My wife and I talked about my career trajectory. I was tracking up! As long as I kept my path point up, it did not matter where I was today. The most important thing is to keep that long term focus and to keep your plans rising up. Time will take care of the rest.  What affects trajectory…Aim and Momentum!

2.    Look the part!  If you look like a bum, you will get paid like a bum – and who can afford that type of income. Who is your boss’ boss and what do they look like? Find out and cloth yourself in their cloths. So, wear what your boss’ boss wears. Dress like the position you want to have in 3-5 years. 90% of people’s confidence in you is judged within 10 seconds of them meeting you.

3.    Never, ever give up!  There are times to change direction, but this is not the same thing as giving up. When faced with a challenge, take it and keep going – keep trying and persevere.  When you see the really hard problems and others are running, volunteer! What can go wrong – if you make it happen, you are a hero. If you can’t, well no one else was able to either.  Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration!

4.    Learn baby learn!  One time I walked into the office of a general for a project that I was on. We had a short (and focused) discussion. He wanted things done right. I was prepared because I bought a book on how to do it. In my honesty I told him that I was going to do it by the book. I meant literally, I was going through this book section by section and I was going to follow it. He took at as that phrase goes… “by the book”. His reply, yes, I want it done by the book. I didn’t correct him. When we stop learning, we stop earning.

5.    Take responsibility!  There are people who I depend on. These people say, “I’ve got it” or “I’ll get it done”. These are the people that I will turn to every time. When someone takes responsibility they look different than those who don’t. Responsible people take the initiative and remain focused on the task. They understand that it’s not about them, it’s about the team, the project, the task. People who don’t take responsibility walk that gray area in-between, they ride the fence, they leave themselves outs and look to blame early. They portray that it’s really about them. If you want to be responsible, then make a decision to do so – it’s really that easy.

6.    You will never fail!  Understand that there is no way that you can fail. People don’t understand what failure is any more. Failure is when you give up and according to number 3, that can’t happen to us! We will learn many many ways how things don’t work. Don’t confuse this with failure. Be like a stamp and stick to it! When you find how something doesn’t work, this is also called learning. But as long as you keep on trying (number 3) and keep learning these lessons (number 4) and take responsibility (number 5) while dressing the part (number 2) and knowing that it doesn’t matter so much where you are now (number 1), you cannot fail!

7.    Be Humble!  My kids play a lot of soccer and one day they asked me to play in an indoor league. Now it’s been a long time since I played and I was pretty out of shape and everyone else was better than I. Well, I told my kids that if I scored, I would simply jog back to my position and act like I’ve done this before. That game I scored two! And while I was really excited, I did what I said, I acted like this was expected. When we are humble and give credit to others, without saying it we communicate “Of course I was successful, that’s what I’m about”. But the magic is that when people see/say this about us, it’s true in their minds. But, when we have to tell them how great we are, they don’t believe us.

8.    Act like everyone is watching, all the time!  Our character is our sacred honor. It is the most expensive thing we have. If your actions depend upon who is watching, I guarantee that one day it will catch up with you and your character will be bankrupt. Don’t let this happen. From day one make an oath to yourself that you will always act in a manner that you would normally do when the big boss is around.

9.    Let your yes be yes and your no be no!  Politics is when you filter what you say so that you will influence your current audience. While it is ok to adapt your communication style and content to your audience to communicate different points, it is not ok to slant your motives to gain favor for one group at the expense of another. When people do this, it is poison and will kill the team and eventually your career. Are you the antidote or poison?

10.    Rewards follow performance!  I have seen many people’s career stall because they won’t move on something because it’s not their job or they don’t pay me to do that. I have actually had many people say they won’t go that extra mile because they are not getting paid for it. Well, until you understand that rewards follow performance, your prophecy will be self fulfilled. It takes performance and most times, continuous and consistent excellent performance to be rewarded. The person whose career excels is the person who makes high performance a standard.

Thanks to Jill for taking the time to do the podcast.
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I came across LÛCRUM, and saw they had a need helping out in Marketing.  I figured why not, I was a business major at Xavier, had some marketing classes, and had just worked for a great marketing company in P&G.  As a matter of fact I worked in Trademarks.  Furthermore, I had worked in the Real Estate, Finance, and Legal industries as well as a behemoth fortune 25 in P&G.  Yet I had absolutely no experience in the IT sphere, thus I saw it as a chance to diversify my skills, and perhaps gain a little wisdom.

Now I don’t have, and perhaps never will acquire the IT acumen which is on display at LÛCRUM, but when I started to look for a job in February, the crux of my decision was based on how much I could learn, how much knowledge I could gain.  Though I still can’t, and probably never will be able write code, conduct an alignment session on the particulars of collaboration tools and by no means could attempt to spell BI, I have gained an appreciation for the service that we provide.  I see the great importance to what we deliver, an in a small way, have reinforced why one of the central themes concerning The Future Value of Business is profit, (LÛCRUM).  Oh, and the people here are tolerable as well. ?

Yet, the best thing that I leave with from LÛCRUM is, the appreciation and the understanding of the importance of our endeavor.  To me, the meat of what we do here is getting the important information, to the right people, at the right time, so they can make the right decisions.  For a person about to embark on law school this seems very pertinent.  Being able to decipher the right information, from the wrong information, or even the more right information from the not as right information, is what separates the great lawyers from the not so great lawyers.  Obviously I want to be the former instead of the latter.  I guess I could call this LI Legal intelligence, instead of BI.  However, unfortunately, in the legal field collaboration is a rarity, and at times a liability.  Some things you just can’t change I guess.  But I digress.
In this day in age, where technology enables copious amounts of information to literally be at your fingertips, it is now more paramount than ever to know what information is worth your attention and what’s not.  Furthermore, the truth, I find, must often be found through rigorous and diligent search.  Those willing to do the aforementioned are a rarity unfortunately. We accept readymade answers to our questions, and speed and convenience have replaced precision and clarity.  Thus, we make our decisions on limited knowledge.  A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.  This is exactly where LÛCRUM fills the gaps in information technology.

LÛCRUM’s leverage is making information fast and convenient, without losing clarity and precision.  This will in turn make judgment more acute.  LÛCRUM -clairvoyant, perhaps not, judgment, speed, and vision, absolutely.  To me these things cannot be substituted.

And now I bid you farewell.  I can only hope that my future in law will be as bright as I believe LÛCRUM’s future can and should be.  It has been a fun few months for me, getting to know the people, the company, and being enlightened as I have.  Wish me luck down in Miami, and perhaps, some Tuesday in the future, I will return to put my two cents in once again.

For me, networking is local. Although I have global and regional reach through LinkedIn and social networking sites, my most valuable contacts are local. Local, that is, through my sphere of influence. Folks I reach out to gain some level of immediate trust due to my proximity to them, whether geographical or relational. Then, it’s up to me to take the first step and add value.

Because most of my most valuable networking relationships are also geographically local, part of my next step is a face-to-face meeting. Connecting with the best-of-the-best becomes very difficult without a face-to-face meeting. Of course this takes time, effort, and generally some small amount of money for coffee or lunch. And when we meet I’m looking for ways I can offer them value. If my colleague understands networking, I’ll quickly receive value from them. If not, then I’ll follow up our conversation with email or a phone call when I have the ability to offer more value. Eventually my colleague will catch on and begin offering value to others as part of the cycle.

So my philosophy towards networking is, “What can I give?” I view my role as building community and bringing others together. I subscribe to the notion of what goes around comes around, and I’ve been amazed more than once at what has come around to me when I’ve least expected it. I suppose another way to look at this is, those who are the luckiest work the hardest.

That’s what networking means to me.

Networking is having value and then giving that value away. It’s serving. It’s mentoring. Networking is sharing for the benefit of others. It’s looking for ways to help without an expected reward. Suzette and I share this philosophy and have since become long-distance friends encouraging each other’s networking activities.

I look to serve the Cincinnati IT software developer community. My goal is to strengthen this community and make it a place that people want to be a part of. I devote most of my time and energy bringing folks in this community together. And I’ve been able to watch a number of other folks do the same thing.

I especially look around at local developer events that take place about 10 times a month and think of folks like Mike Wood, Kishore Subramanyam, Mark Windholtz, Melissa Messersmith, and Marco Morena. These folks lead local user groups and spend countless unseen hours organizing, preparing, and presenting in order to bring the most valuable information to our local community. Why? Because they believe in our IT community. Do they ask for thanks? No. In fact, these folks usually give things away at their events on top of all the time they spend. Because they are givers.

Here is a snippet of an email that Natasha Allie recently sent me:

Networking is defined as developing an extended group of people with similar interests or concerns who interact and remain in informal contact for mutual assistance or support. It needs to start well before you need something. Indeed, it is a continuous long-term proposition that’s about building positive win-win relationships. We live in an unpredictable world. We don’t know when a recession will hit, if we’ll lose our job, or if a contract will be cut short. We don’t know if our skills will be relevant or if we’ll outgrow our current careers. Having a strong network helps us deal with those eventualities. A network is a safety net. If you’ve done your job well, developed relationships, given more than you’ve received and kept in touch, your network will have no problem helping and supporting you when you need it most. Eighty-five percent of all jobs are filled through personal references and contacts. It’s how you meet future clients, employers, life long friends and business partners. It’s how you find amazing employees, unearth tremendous opportunities and learn how to transition your career. It’s also how you establish information avenues, solve problems and mentor other people. Networking accelerates your career and business success.

I don’t know how accurate the statistics are, but I do know that software developers generally don’t pay attention to their network “well before [they] need something.” And many do not spend time, at least professionally, giving to their network more than they receive. My understanding may not be entirely quantifiable. My first-hand experience is. I attend quite a few of the Cincinnati IT community events, and I probably meet or see a total of 200 people a month. I would bet this is about 5% of the total community.

So my admonition, especially in the face of a recession, is to start to understand networking. Get out there and give of yourself a little. You have a job today? Great! That is the best time to start. So you’re introverted or shy? That’s okay, too. Find me at an event. I’ll start a conversation with you. I’ll also introduce you to the folks you should probably get to know. Consider yourself having an insider that wants to show you the ropes. These events give the developer community an opportunity to network together, branch out, and build relationships outside of their glass-walled corporate towers. I bet you’ll see that you’ll be welcomed. And when you *need* your network, you’ll be glad you came.

- Andy

I worked in the largest food stand in the park. Things that were important in that stand were effeciency, cleanliness and timeliness. Essentially, we needed to serve the customers quickly, get them the right order, and keep the place clean. So, who to promote? Which of those qualities were most important and which would get you promoted quickly. The truth? None! What I learned when I was 17 was that just because you were great at your job, did not mean that you would be great at managing people. By promoting our fastest, cleanest, most efficient cook, we had to teach someone (who wasn’t interested), how to do timesheets, balance a cash drawer and order inventory. Now I had 2 problems:
1. I was 1 cook short and
2. My cook had no interest in cash drawers, inventory and timesheets.

I have found that the IT industry has similar challenges. We want to recognize and reward our best employees with advancement, but the only track available is typically to advance into management. For most technologists, this is not interesting or rewarding and we lose the best architect or developer in the process. Seems to me that we need to recognize that the advancement path for a technical person is not into management (most of the time). So what is the right path? It seems to me that a truly technical person wants to be recognized for their accomplishments and wants to take on bigger technology challenges. How can we make these fit together? Seems to me that there should be a track for that. A track that allows a person to grow into a leadership role that is more creative, challenging and innovative. The trick is to still give them a voice on the senior team, and remove the management responsibility. Is that possible? I’d love to hear your thoughts…