Tuesday, May 29, 2012

How education impacts the journey to CIO

May 29, 2012, 5:58 AM PDT

Takeaway: Scott Lowe talks about the classes to take to achieve success in IT management.

I’m often asked what classes are important to take in high school and college in order to achieve a reasonable level of success in IT management. For me, this is an easy answer, but before I unveil it, let me provide some context around my answer. For me, there is one specific class with a specific teacher that I feel was the most important class I took when I was in school.

Obviously, an IT management career requires a broad education. CIOs and IT Directors need to understand technology to a point at which they can make good decisions regarding direction or at least understand enough so that they can put into action the plans from their staff members and link these plans to business goals. In this context, it’s important to have a reasonable technical education, although it’s possible to pick up what’s necessary in on-the-job efforts, too. Personally, my degree is in Computer Science but I took a broad-based curriculum that included a lot of underlying Comp Sci courses, including COBOL and Pascal, but also courses on data design and workflow logic. Much to my surprise, shortly after graduating from college, I discovered that, at the time, the most valuable course I took in college was COBOL, at least as it pertained to my first IT job. It was in my COBOL classes that I learned to read data definitions and data types and I was putting these skills to work immediately upon starting my job. While I was taking the COBOL courses, which we required, I didn’t see the value in the “dead” language-which we know is far from dead-but once I got into the real world, I realized that my college learning was necessarily all about the topic at hand. Sure, I learned COBOL, but it was the framework around which COBOL operates that was the real benefit. Of course, I took the required general education courses, which included economics, accounting and physics. Believe it or not, I came very, very close to changing my major to accounting.

Bear in mind that information above was at the end of just my first two years in college; I did not attend under a traditional timeline. It was after my first two years that I started my first IT job.

My second two years of college still had some computer science elements, such as Java programming, but this part of my college career was undertaken after spending some time in the field, so I had a better idea as to what I ultimately wanted, which was to move into IT management. In addition to computer science courses, I took courses on leadership styles, power structures and organizational dynamics. My focus in my last two years was much more on how organizations operate, but still within the context of Information Technology. By this point, I had my eyes set on the CIO chair.

From here, the rest is really history. I continued to move around to different jobs, moving up the organization until I eventually became an IT Director and then CIO, a position I left last November to start my own consultancy.

So, looking back, what class do I feel had the most impact on my career? This is a question that can only be answered after more than 20 years. It was my 11^thgrade high school English class that really shaped my career. I didn’t know it at the time, but it put me on the path to where I am now. I didn’t really care for English or Language Arts up until that point, but I was fortunate enough to have a teacher that completely turned me around to a point where I skipped 12^th grade English and took college English in my senior year of high school. It was in 11^thgrade English that I learned that I actually enjoyed writing, telling stories and sharing experiences.

Obviously, from a writing perspective, which is an important aspect of my career these days, the skills I learned in that English class are obvious. However, even as a CIO, I learned that the ability to communicate is, by far, the most importantskill that a CIO can have. In fact, I believe that every IT staff person should be a good communicator. IT is still a black box to so many people and the cryptic communication that sometimes comes from IT does nothing to help the department’s image.

Never forget that the act of sending a communication or giving a speech is not communication in and of itself. “Communication” implies that there is an understanding of the material at hand. If the recipient does not understand the message, communication has not taken place.

Don’t take this to mean that it was just English that has helped my career; it just had the most impact. Frankly, even if I didn’t realize it at the time, almost all of the courses that I took in my formal education have been important in one sense or another. Even my economics and accounting courses came to the front and center a couple of years ago when I rebuilt my employer’s long range financial forecasting model from scratch. Educationally, nothing has gone to waste.

Since leaving college… a few years ago… one thing I’ve never forgotten is that success comes only through lifelong learning. Sitting still isn’t something I’m good at, so I read pretty voraciously and “play” in my home lab when there are new software releases that interest me. A good education is just one aspect of a good CIO, but it’s an important one.

Source: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/tech-manager/how-education-impacts-the-journey-to-cio/7822

Find Exercise in Life's Margins

2:28 PM Wednesday May 23, 2012
by Nick Crocker

You consider yourself a fit, active person. But, like most busy professionals, you want to exercise more. You want to hit the gym more frequently, you want to finally start taking that yoga class or make that 7 am boot camp in the local park. And then time and again, life just gets in the way.You're too busy. You work too late. The kids are sick. You book a breakfast meeting. You have work and social commitments that you just can't miss. And in all the chaos, exercise gets squeezed out. This, in reality, is most people's experience of exercise.

The reality is, those spare hours in the week are not going to materialize. We need to come up with a different solution. The key is to find exercise in the daily flow of your life. Doing so will boost yourproductivity, performance, and job satisfaction.

First, reset your expectations. Exercise has no lower limit. Every bit counts. But setting the bar too high is a recipe for consistent failure. Your exercise goal this week should be your current average minutes of exercise per week plus five. Next week's goal should be to add five more. The mistake many successful people make is to assume that it's all or nothing. Either you're training for a marathon or you're doing nothing at all. The goal in all cases should be progress, not perfection.

Have a short memory. They say great NFL quarterbacks need to have short memories. If they make a mistake, they forget it quickly and move on. The last bad pass shouldn't impact their shot at the next great one. The same goes for exercise.

Forget sedentary days and weeks immediately. Your exercise past is not your exercise future. Deeming yourself an exercise failure is a relative and pointless judgment to make.

Plan to lose one week every month. When you're planning a new exercise routine, expect to lose one week out of four to a mixture of work travel, holidays, events (weddings, bar mitzvahs, Superbowls), sickness, injury, and unexpected intervening events. If you expect life to go smoothly, you are in for a shock. There will always be disruptions. It's not about how you exercise in a good week, it's about how quickly you recover from a bad one.

Don't tie exercise to weight goals. Exercise and weight loss are two concepts which need to be divorced. Exercising more may make it harder to eat less, since you're likely to be hungrier more often. If you attempt the two with too much intensity, you're likely to crash. Instead, see exercise as a constant, not an intervention to solve a problem. Diets end, exercise never should.

Set seven-day goals. You can plan with reasonable certainty what you will be doing four days from now. Four weeks is much harder to divine. So make all your exercise goals fit within a seven-day period. After seven days, set new goals for the following week. That way, you don't overwhelm yourself with change. It's compartmentalized and easier for the mind to process.

Orient to social and playful. Over time, you'll orient towards pleasure and away from pain. If exercise is painful, you're doing it wrong. If you hate the rowing machine, then stop doing it. Find exercise that feels playful or enjoyable for you. Walking, gardening, climbing, hiking, kayaking. And if possible, make it social, too. Our minds seek play and social connection naturally. If we couch exercise in those two concepts, we can transform the experience.

Exercise in the margins. Instead of taking the elevator at work, take the stairs. Once in the morning, once at night, and twice (up and down) when you go for lunch. Instead of getting off at your normal stop, get off one stop early and walk the rest of the way to work. Do the same on the way home. Once a week, take a walk while you call your mother (or any other deserving family member). If phone conversations aren't your thing, see if you can schedule one of your week's meetings as a walking meeting and talk business while you walk. Instead of lifting weights, see if there's a social weekend activity that can meet your muscle-strengthening activity quota for the week.

The reality is that most people can't exercise in the conventional "weights and treadmill at the gym" way more than once or twice a week. And many struggle with even that. This is a hard truth that will not change. Finding exercise in your day's margins is the only way to start living a sustainable, active life.

Source: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/05/find_exercise_in_lifes_margins.html?awid=5616787000481389856-3271

Monday, May 28, 2012

Don’t Take that Coffee Break

Coffee Breaks Don't Boost Productivity After All

by Charlotte Fritz

The finding: Taking short breaks during the workday doesn’t revitalize you—unless you do something job related and positive, such as praising a colleague or learning something new.

The research: Charlotte Fritz conducted a series of studies on how people unwind from work, looking at everything from long vacations to short bathroom breaks. In one study she surveyed workers about what kind of “microbreaks” they took during the day and how they felt afterward. Microbreaks unrelated to work—making a personal call, checking Facebook—were not associated with more energy and less fatigue, and sometimes even were associated with increased weariness. Meanwhile, breaks that involved work-related tasks appeared to boost energy.

The challenge: Are coffee breaks actually counterproductive? Are we really better off thinking about nothing but work on the job?Professor Fritz, defend your research.

Fritz: People definitely believe that “getting away” from work during the day, even for a short time, is helpful. Organizations preach the value of outside walks and encourage employees to use break time to disconnect and recharge. My own research on stress relief indicates there’s a value to disconnecting from work. But the findings on microbreaks suggest that during the workday, it may not be the best approach. Nearly across the board, microbreaks that were not job related, such as getting a glass of water, calling a relative, or going to the bathroom, didn’t seem to have any significant relationship to people’s reported energy (what we called their vitality). Some activities, like listening to music and making weekend plans, seemed to have a negative impact on energy. The only time people showed an increase in vitality was after they took short breaks to do work-related things, such as praise a colleague or write a to-do list.

HBR: It just seems implausible that a walk outside during the day wouldn’t improve your energy.

Yes, it does seem counterintuitive. Still, going outside for fresh air during microbreaks showed no statistical relationship to vitality and fatigue levels. Helping a coworker did, though. The idea seems to be that when you’re in the middle of work, you’ll do better and feel better if you focus just on work.

That sound you hear is every manager on the planet forwarding this article to employees with a note that reads, “Get back to work, and you’ll be happier!”

Don’t misconstrue what I’m saying. It’s clear that people need to get away from work in some way or another to recharge their batteries. I started my research looking at vacations. Then weekends. Then time between workdays. Then lunch breaks. Now microbreaks. What we need to do to keep ourselves up and running varies with the time frame, however. This research seems to show that on the job, it’s more beneficial to energize yourself through work-related activities.

But intense jobs—stressful negotiations or factory work, say—must require some disconnecting during the day?

Yes—during longer breaks, but not so much during microbreaks. Also, it’s important to note that my studies looked just at regular office jobs, some at a software company and a smaller sample at a consulting firm.

A lunch break is good, though, right?

Maybe. We’re looking at lunch breaks now, and we’ve started to see that if people use them to take time to reflect positively on work, to broaden their horizons, to learn something new—which could be job related or not—or to relax, their attentiveness is higher right after lunch and sometimes even still when they leave work. Thus, it seems that work-related and non-work-related activities can be beneficial during lunch breaks.

Couldn’t a cup of coffee offer the pick-me-up you need in the afternoon?

No. Coffee breaks were associated with higher fatigue, not lower. That could just be a matter of causality: It might be that being tired makes you drink caffeine, not that drinking caffeine makes you tired. We can’t clearly interpret this finding based on the data we have so far. Though I’m not an expert on this, I think some research indicates that caffeine is energizing for a little while, but then you go back to being fatigued and need even more caffeine.

What about vacations? Please tell me they work!

They’re good. In most cases they reduce perceptions of burnout and increase perceptions of health. But after about two weeks at work those feelings of well-being drop back to prevacation baselines. The length of the vacation doesn’t seem to change this effect much, either. But specific positive vacation experiences, like gaining a sense of mastery—climbing a mountain or learning a new hobby—have a positive impact. Part of the quick “fade-out” of the vacation effects may be due to the way your tasks pile up when you’re away. So returning from vacation is stressful. This suggests one big vacation a year is not the right model. You’ll get the same beneficial effect more often if you take three short vacations.

Your research seems to validate the concept of the 9-to-5 workday, where we come in, work hard, and then leave.

That’s the bigger picture. But technology has made it hard to leave work at the end of the day, to achieve what we call psychological detachment. Detachment is well researched and related to all kinds of great outcomes: improved health, sleep, and life satisfaction, and lower burnout. Just one caveat: Too much detachment seems to negatively affect performance. So you can’t totally check out. That just means that you don’t throw your phone out the window. You just shut it off at night.

I am totally worn out by this interview and still have two hours of work left. I would get a cup of coffee or go to the gym, but you’ve ruined all that.

Don’t be silly. Go praise a colleague, finish your work, and then at the end of the day, go to the gym, detach, and relax.

Source: http://hbr.org/tip?date=052812

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

How to Keep a Job Search Discreet - Amy Gallo - Best Practices - Harvard Business Review

Looking for a job while you already have one can be stressful, especially in the age of social media when privacy is scarce. You don't want to rock the boat at your current company but you want to find the next great opportunity. Should you tell your boss you're looking? How do you handle references? If you get an offer, is two weeks notice really enough? Since how you leave your current job can be as important to your career as how you perform in the next one, you need to know the answers to these questions.

What the Experts Say
The job market may be bleak, but that doesn't mean you're stuck. If you've heard rumors of layoffs or you've simply outgrown your current job, it's ok to look. Priscilla Claman, president of Career Strategies, Inc., a Boston-based firm offering career coaching and management services, says the job market is more active than most people think. "For some people it's truly terrible but I know plenty of people who are leaving jobs and finding jobs." Of course, searching for a job while trying to stay employed is tricky. But if you manage it skillfully, you'll be able to move on without burning bridges, strengthening your professional relationships in the process, says Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, a senior adviser at Egon Zehnder International and the author of Great People Decisions. Just follow these principles:

Do your homework
Fernández-Aráoz says that the first step to any job search is a thorough analysis of what you're good at and what you love to do. Get clear on what you're looking for in your next position. Then reality-check that with the market. Are there jobs out there that have the characteristics you're searching for? Do you have the right qualifications? To help you assess, turn to trusted advisors such as friends in your field or search consultants.

Consider internal options first
Once you know what you want, start your search inside your company. "In my experience, all too often people don't work enough on trying to redefine their job and career prospects with their current employer, and prematurely decide to start looking elsewhere," says Fernández-Aráoz. There may be internal opportunities that will satisfy your needs, such as reshaping your job, moving to another team, or taking on a special project. If opportunities are limited or you're certain you want out of the company, then take your search outside.

Keep it secret if necessary
Many people have to keep their search quiet. Perhaps you don't have a strong relationship with your boss, or you worry about retribution from colleagues, or you fear you won't find another position and don't want to risk the embarrassment. In these cases, it's prudent not to let anyone at your current employer know you're looking. "If you do the secret job search, you have to be religious about not letting things out in your social media or using your office email," says Claman. "It can be distracting to have everyone know that you are looking for something new," says Fernández-Aráoz.

Network carefully
If there is a colleague you trust, however, consider sharing the news. Divulging your search to another person can help build momentum and make contacts. "This disclosure will clearly commit you to actually and properly look for a new opportunity," says Fernández-Aráoz. It may also help with networking (the key to any successful job hunt). You can also casually mention your search to people not associated with your company — so long as you do it carefully. You don't have to say, "Hi, I'm Amy Gallo and I'm looking for a job." When you speak with potential employers or contacts, you can say something like, "I'm doing well at my current position and I'm always entertaining options for what's next." Don't act desperate. "Never say I'm dying to get out of here. People don't want people who are dying to get out of somewhere," says Claman.

When to tell your boss
No boss likes to find out from someone else that one of her direct reports is looking for a new job. You should therefore tell your manager as soon as you're comfortable doing so. There are risks: She may try to make it difficult for you to interview or give you a poor reference. She may treat you differently knowing you want to leave. But both Claman and Fernández-Aráoz note that there are several upsides to having a frank discussion with your boss. First, she may be able to help you identify opportunities inside or outside your organization. Second, the disclosure may facilitate the search process. "The right boss may make it easier for you to look for the right new job, and eventually may refer you to some attractive opportunities," says Fernández-Aráoz. Third, you will build good will. Your boss will appreciate your honesty and the opportunity to plan ahead for your departure. All that said, if you know your manager will have a negative reaction, and is unlikely to support you, it's best to wait until after you have an offer to inform her.

Interview on your own time
Most employers will want to interview you during normal business hours. Don't sneak off for fake meetings or feign being sick. Fit the interviews into your schedule without cheating your current employer. If your boss tracks your every move, take vacation or personal time. If your manager is suspicious, explain that you have a personal issue you need to tend to.

Provide the right references
If your current manager doesn't know you're job-hunting, you obviously can't use him as a reference. Provide the names of previous employers or give the name of a trusted colleague at your present company who is aware of your search and can speak to your performance. If a hiring manager insists on a reference directly from your boss, explain that you can provide one at the point of offer. Claman says that many organizations will make you an offer contingent on good references. This means you need to get in front of your boss as soon as possible after you've received the good news. And you need to persuade him to give you a positive recommendation despite his possible irritation at your departure.

Don't accept the counteroffer
Some employers will counteroffer when you announce you are leaving. Fernández-Aráoz urges caution when contemplating these offers: "In my experience, these are usually vague promises about more money and more responsibility." He says that in most cases when people accept the counteroffer, they end up leaving, or even being fired, shortly thereafter. "Once you've accepted an offer, it is not only questionable to turn it down for a counteroffer from your current employer, but also a poor career decision."

Leave on good terms
Claman points out that the convention for giving notice is still two weeks. However some people, especially those in senior positions or who are in the midst of a big project, will need to give more. Fernández-Aráoz provides this rule of thumb: "It is mostly a matter or relevance and responsibility. If you are irrelevant, you can leave fast, of course. If you are relevant and have significant responsibility, your new employer will highly respect you for not leaving your current job overnight. One month is usually enough once you have really made up your mind."

No matter how bad things are, don't just walk out the door. Leaving on bad terms can be dangerous for future prospects. "You don't want to walk off a job. It stays with you forever," says Claman.

Principles to Remember

Do:

Consider internal opportunities before looking elsewhere
Be careful about who you tell you're on the job market
Give a minimum of two weeks notice and more if you are senior or involved in an important project

Don't:

Tell your boss that you're looking for another job unless you have a good relationship
Make up fake appointments to go on interviews — use vacation or personal time instead
Consider the counteroffer — it's usually an unsubstantiated promise

Case Study #1: Wait until you have the offer
When Kristina Ferry* was laid off from her job at a biopharmaceutical company in Connecticut, she quickly found another position in Massachusetts. The trouble was that her husband and daughter needed to stay behind in Connecticut. She knew it wasn't an ideal situation but she thought she could make the travel back and forth work. And she did for the first year or so. Then her new employer announced that the company would be restructuring and everyone assumed there would be lay offs.

Kristina started actively looking for another job. She didn't tell her boss, with whom she had a tenuous relationship, but she did discreetly talk about her search with the colleagues in her group. "Pretty much everyone in my group was looking because people weren't happy," she says. She took vacation days to go on interviews.

Throughout this time, she was talking with Robert*, her previous boss from the company in Connecticut. He now worked at a large pharmaceutical company in New York (not too far from where Kristina's husband and daughter were) and he wanted her to come work with him again. Over several months, she interviewed with the company while continuing her search. Eventually, Robert offered her a job. She didn't tell her boss until she had that offer in hand. When she gave her two weeks notice, her boss took her out to lunch and asked if there was anything he did that made her want to leave. "I was very tempted to say something but then I figured you never know who is going to be your next boss. So I said, 'No, this just works better for me and my family."

Case Study #2: Look internally, and leave on good terms
Soon after starting his new job at a public sector consulting firm, Ray Garmin* realized the job was not right for him. "It was too slow for me. I wanted something much more fast-paced," he says. Since he liked the organization and believed in its work, he looked for ways to make it a better fit. He applied for a position one level up but didn't get it. He tried to get involved in a special project producing marketing material but the firm was hesitant about publishing.

Frustrated, he began entertaining other options and was soon contacted by a headhunter about a position in a nearby city. It was a clear promotion for Ray and an opportunity to join a more fast-paced organization. He started interviewing, taking flextime to travel to the meetings. And he kept the process to himself. "I felt awkward leaving so soon and I didn't trust my boss enough," he says. When he was offered the new job, he still wasn't 100% sure he wanted it so he sought the input of a few clients who worked in the field. When they advised him to take it, he then told his boss. Ray gave two weeks notice but offered to stay longer if need be. "I didn't have much to do which was part of the problem," he says. Set on making it a smooth transition for the company and his clients, he made sure to wrap up his projects and even accelerated one so that he could finish before he left. His commitment to leaving on good terms paid off: when the start date of his new job was delayed, his former employer asked him back to do freelance work.

*Names have been changed

Source:How to Keep a Job Search Discreet - Amy Gallo - Best Practices - Harvard Business Review

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

الحمدلله رب العالمين والصلاة والسلام على خير خلق الله اجمعين سيدنا وقدوتنا وحبيبنا محمد بن عبدالله عليه وعلى آله وصحبه افضل الصلاة واتم التسليم

نبتداء التدوين في هذه المدونة باسم الله وعلى بركته.

هذه المدونة سوف تحتوي باذن الله كل ما يروق لي من المواضيع المتعلقة بتقنية المعلومات وتحديدا مجال شبكات المعلومات من مقالات او اخبار او من تجارب خاصة بي.

وهذا التدوين نوع من نقل المعرفة وتوثيقها لاستفيد نها اولا ويستفيد منها من يزورها.

وكل ما يكتب هنا او ينقل فهو عرضة للاخطاء وليس كل ما يكتب بالضرورة صحيح.

وتقبلوا تحياتي،،،

أخوكم عبدالعزيز عسيري