Kathi Kellenburger, fellow MVP and friend, pinged me recently for an interview for the Professional Development Virtual Chapter. This is one of the groups at PASS that tries to focus on a specific area, as opposed to move chapter based user groups that are location based.
She interviewed me through email and the interview is live, and you can check it out. It’s short, but I give out some of my thoughts on building your career and focusing on professional development.
I’ve talked a lot about various ways in which you can build your personal brand and make a more impressive modern resume, but I haven’t necessarily given a great structure for how to do that.
I was sent this link on a personal development plan by a friend and I think it’s great. Putting things down on paper brings a little personal pressure to you and makes it more likely that you’ll follow through.
I’ll blog more on this topic later, but for now, check out the article. It has some good advice.
One of the things I’ve been talking with a friend quite a bit about is networking. We are talking about different types of events that are coming up and how to incorporate some networking into the events and help people contact each other.
It reminds me that networking should be a good slice of your Modern Resume. It’s not just a question of references, but also contacts, referrals, and queries that your network can make on your behalf. The more others know about you, and the more comfortable they feel about your skills, the more likely they’ll help you in a job search.
I need to write more posts on this topic, but for now, make sure you have some sort of network out there in your field. LinkedIn, Plaxo, etc, make this easier, but it’s up to you to ensure that you cultivate a network of people that you know professionally.
I saw that my session for the Modern Resume was accepted for the SQL Saturday #22 in Pensacola on June 5, 2010. If you’re in the area on that Saturday come on by.
Recently my son had a short paper to write for school. He’s a sixth grader, and this year is a turning point for him where he’s expected to think a little more about his writing as well as tackle longer assignments. In this case it was a 2 page paper on Sophocles, and he was struggling one night with the paper due the next day.
Before you say that he should succeed or fail on his own, I agree with you. However as a parent, or manager/mentor/helper, you pick and choose those places where you provide assistance, and to what level. In this case he’s had a major change in his life with sixth grade and the beginning of Boy Scouts. While this doesn’t matter for college in terms of his grade, it is the place where he is gaining a base of learning, and I think it’s the time where I provide more assistance than I might otherwise provide.
Next year will be a different story. I’ll let him struggle, and potentially mis assignments if he doesn’t manage his workload. But I digress.
The issues that he had with producing a coherent paper that explains his thoughts while presenting information were similar issues that I see from many of my authors at work. The issues are also similar issues that I see in many blogs. While I’m not a top-notch writer, and I take liberties at times in blogs and editorials, I tend to see a few common mistakes in a lot of pieces that people write.
That was the main advice to my son as we worked through his paper. He, and many others, tend to use pronouns (“it”, “his” and “they” especially) to convey their thoughts. However they often have not tied the pronoun to a specific noun and the reference in ambiguous.
Most people learn this in grammar school, but they seem to forget it when there’s no grade attached to their work. As an example:
Sophocles was a great writer. He often worked with Aeschylus and his plays were similar.
What does “his” refer to? Is it Sophocles or Aeschylus? Either could be the reference and the reader has to take a guess. It’s possible that context before or after this sentence will help you to understand the reference, but it’s equally likely that you will mis-interpret what is intended.
This same type of ambiguous reference occurs in many technical articles, often when someone is trying to compare two items and show how they work in a similar manner. I correct this type of reference constantly, and often ask for clarification from authors.
So my advice is…..don’t use pronouns.
If you can avoid one, avoid it. Repeat the noun and make it clear. This does two things. One it helps the reader to better understand your meaning, but it also forces you to be more specific.
