Why am I Excited for "Your Career, Your Responsibility, Your Opportunity?"

Why Am I Excited for “How to ‘People’ Better?”

I think many IT people have felt under-appreciated at one time or another, but some of that might be because we’re not doing the best job possible at selling ourselves and selling IT. This is a follow-up to the great TechPod podcast with Keith Townsend and I’m always happy to hear his opinions. Getting to know about your business—not just the way IT supports it—is a great way to up-level yourself and IT at your organization.

Increasing my understanding of how to speak to non-IT people about the role of IT as part of our business can only help me make my case. If I want new gear, software, or cloud services, being able to frame that in such a way as to provide the clearest content to other stakeholders will be critical. If I get better at it, then I’m probably going to get the stuff I want.

Why Am I Excited for “Call Them ‘Soft Skills’ One. More. Time?”

IT pros are certainly passionate, but we (and I’m definitely putting myself in this category) aren’t necessarily the best in communicating with other people. For the past few years, I’ve been making a concerted effort to be better about being a “people” person, but I know there’s plenty of room for improvement. I know Chrystal came from a completely different background than I did, so I’m excited to see where her and my ideas about “soft skills” will intersect.

I’m always trying to better myself, both as an individual IT professional and a member of larger teams. I’ve got room for improvement, and I hope Chrystal can help point out some places I may be overlooking.

Why Am I Excited for “Avoiding IT Burnout: I Can != I Should?”

Because it happened to me. You want to please, you want to say “yes” to everything, you want to be the go-to person on your team—or at least I did when I first got started in IT. Fast forward some years and I was staying up to all hours doing thankless work because no one else was willing and I was still saying “yes.” I know I’m not alone in this career journey and neither was Sascha.

I’m excited to gain some more details on how to better balance my life and my career. Just because I can do something doesn’t mean I should. It’s not a hard lesson to hear, but I’ve struggled putting it into practice. Hopefully Sascha has some insight for me and you.