What is an “expert?”

Years ago, Chris Bell, one of my friends on the SQL Saturday circuit, gave me a piece of advice that has stuck with me for years. He told me (and I'm paraphrasing here), "the definition of an expert is someone who knows something that you don't." When someone says someone is an "expert," most people conjure …

Want to connect with me? Send me a note #LinkedIn #Facebook #SocialMedia #Networking #Rant

I hate spam passionately. There are few things that piss me off more than being bombarded via email or social media about products for which I don't give two damns. These days, with the proliferation of bots and malware, spam can also represent a security issue. I suspect it's probably already happened to me, but …

WIT Women Speakers Survey

If you are a women who speaks in front of groups, check this out.

Voice of the DBA

There is a survey from the WIT group for female speakers. If you are a woman and speak in front of groups, or used to, please fill it out.

This is part of their efforts to help encourage more females to speak and support their efforts. I like the fact that they are reaching out to others to learn how women feel about speaking.

If you know any women that speak, whether in the data community or elsewhere, please pass along the link.

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We all get rejected. Don’t take it personally

You've been let go from your job. Or maybe you were passed over for the promotion. Or you applied to a position you very much wanted, and didn't get so much as an acknowledgement of your application. Or you were turned down by the school or program that you had your heart set on attending. …

User testing is important — for documentation

Any application developer will (and should) tell you how important end user testing is for their product development. It's an important part of the development lifecycle. Developers need to know if their applications actually work, if they work the way they're intended, and if their interfaces can actually be used. Without user testing, developers put …

It’s not them, it’s you #Documentation #ClearCommunication

A friend of mine (you know who you are) posted this to his Facebook this morning. Ostensibly, it's in response to the growing controversy about the New York State governor (I won't go there; that's not what this is about, and I still despise politics), but my friend's post was so compelling that I thought …

Improvement through rewriting

If you're an application developer (or at least you used to be one, like me), how many times have you come across an old piece of code that you wrote and said to yourself, "what the f*%k was I thinking?!?" You say to yourself, I can write that much better now than I did back …

What are you proud of? Tooting your own horn on your #resume — #JobHunt

Yesterday, a good friend of mine texted me, asking me to send him my resume. This particular friend works for a major nationwide consulting firm. I won't say which firm, but I will say that it's a household name. In his position, he is often in a position to hire, and he is well-connected. After …

Reinventing the #resume (again) #JobHunt

I had a conversation today with a recruiter -- technically, it was an interview, but the way we spoke, it was more of a conversation between an agent (her) and a client (me) -- who gave me some advice regarding my resume. I came away from the conversation with a few insights, and I'd like …

You didn’t ask questions at your interview? You just blew the interview #JobHunt

This afternoon, I saw a tweet from James Phillips, who posted this: https://twitter.com/JPhillips_Data/status/1321230392742084609?s=20 It reminded me of what I think is an important point when you're interviewing for a position. I responded with this: https://twitter.com/PianoRayK/status/1321530305409417218?s=20 This is a point that I emphasize in my job hunt presentation; in fact, I made mention of this in …