Category Archives: Information Technology Career

IT Careers

Career Personality Tests And The IT Professional

Posted on by

I’ve enjoyed Simon Stapleton’s post on personality and IT Leaders and decided to take the free personality test at www.41q.com

There are indeed just 41 questions and it took me less than 10 minutes to complete. Here are my results:

career-personality1

career-personality-results

As you can see, most suggested career paths are from the caring/helping professions – and it’s true that education, coaching and mentoring are where I feel most at home.

But in the last few years I’ve started to become more assertive and judging – not from coaching I hasten to add, as coaches commit as far as humanly possible to remain non-judgmental when they coach (even though they may obviously have opinions and biases, like anyone else.)

No, the reason for the demonstrated extrovertism in my case is related to becoming boss of my own business – “if it’s to be, it’s up to me” is something I recall my personal development guru, Brian Tracy, talking about a lot.

In fact, it begs the question to what extent latent personality elements may unfold in changed and somewhat demanding circumstances. I’m not a psychologist so I won’t go claiming anything general – except to note that in my own experience, self fulfilling behaviour has occasionally resulted from strongly held beliefs (especially those reinforced by authority figures and societal/organizational groupings.)

In an information technology career context, you might think of the multiple roles that you are increasingly called on to play these days. While in the corporate world some of mine included:

project manager, project member, senior colleague, designer, mentor, teacher, troubleshooter, negotiator, presenter, network engineer, technology advocat, subordinate, employee, career coach.

What if I’ve not been drawn to specific (IT) roles because of my particular “personality profile” – rather, elements of my personality in the ascendant at a particular time/place of my life sought those out? (or at least influenced desire, enjoyment and performance in a ‘chosen’ career role.)

Implying that other roles and careers may also be seen as attractive should the dominant personality elements shuffle (or be restacked, upgraded, bluescreen lol!)

(BTW – I realize these free assessments are prone to error and their results not writ in stone for ever more. DYOR.)

And that reminds me to add to my reading list “The Cult of Personality”, by Annie Murphy Paul. I do like contrarian opinions about a subject – even if this one has been somewhat body slammed by the good folks at personality pathways. (An interesting site -I will also check it out.)

- Mark McClure

PS – Do a search for some blog posts I wrote earlier on Ed Schein’s work with “career anchors”.

Be Sociable, Share!

How To Get 1 Of 10 Gift Copies Of The IT Career Engineers Special Video Report

Posted on by

Over at Simon Stapleton’s blog he’s chasing a $1000 donation target for his cancer research appeal…. just $474.50 to reach that milestone.

If you’re one of the first 10 people to respond here’s how you can help out and also get a gift copy of IT Career Engineer’s Special Video Report on CD – my way of saying ‘thank you’ for your contribution.

I have 10 gift copies available to donate by the end of November 2008.

1- Make an online donation of at least US$ 42 (the current retail price of the CD report.) before 30 Nov 2008 to CancerResearch.org

2- Copy and paste your email receipt from CancerResearch.org into my blog’s contact form and include your name and full shipping address.
(Please use the same email address when contacting me as you did when making the online donation.)

I’ll ship the CD to you and pay the postage and packing.

Thank you for your generosity in advance.

- Mark McClure

PS – If you donate US$ 100 or more I will also include a 30 minute career coaching call (via Skype) to be taken before 31 Dec 2008.

1 Dec Update:
This offer is now closed.
Simon did indeed break his $1000 target. Well done, Simon!

Be Sociable, Share!

So You Want To Be An IT Leader?

Posted on by

If you’re an experienced IT ‘Subject-Matter-Expert’ now interested in adding a management/leadership role to your professional skillset, CIO Simon Stapleton has written a useful 24 page e-book on:

“The Essence Of IT Leadership Vol 1“.

IT-Leadership-Simon-Stapleton

I downloaded and read it in about 30 minutes and here are some comments on what I’ve learned, written from a (self) career coaching perspective.

The most important lesson from Simon’s writings is, like all good resources, you can enjoy reading it and yet nothing much will change for you without testing out at least one nugget of wisdom into your own life/career situation.

As an example, some of you may have read Steven Covey’s bestseller, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. I know I did, some years ago. Several times.
OK. Now go ahead and write down those seven habits from memory… :-)

Continue reading →

Be Sociable, Share!

Will Your Technical Excellence Lead To The Career Recognition You Want?

Posted on by

Bit of a leading question in today’s post title, eh?!

But before we go there let me remind you of this post all about Joe Manzini, the fictitious plumber.

Technically excellent but puzzled that his “plumbing proficiency” marketing message was falling on (mostly) deaf customer ears, he got a “lucky” break one evening by fixing a little old lady’s pipes while dressed in a tuxedo, with a flower in the buttonhole.

Same guy. Same pipe-fixing skills.

But NOT in the eyes of his customer – a first class plumber “dressed to the nines” was a story she just could not keep to herself. And so began an automatic customer referral system for Joe “the sophisticated plumber” Manzini – which continued to grow as Joe did work for these newly referred customers dressed in tux and tails lol!

While the story may be fictional it clearly has a message to tell about “top of mind” awareness at whatever scale you want to apply it and those of you reading this who are self-employed business owners will no doubt get what I am on about.

However, if you’re still in the warm ‘embrace’ of a corporate technology career, complete with your own cube or corner office space, it may be difficult to get excited about this apparent marketing ‘razzle dazzle’.

I know from mine and other ex-colleagues’ experiences that tech folks are not easily impressed by “smoke and mirrors” – there has to be substance to back up the claims. And even then, cynicism is still a hard habit to break.

So, let’s assume that you are indeed highly competent in your technical field and that you take great pride in your work, pay attention to detail (without being a stressed-out perfectionist) and generally get a personal buzz out of delivering solid technical solutions to your customer’s problems.

Does the post title make sense now?

Will Your Technical Excellence Lead To The Career Recognition You Want?

And how much do you really want that recognition?

While you’re thinking about that question, here’s a practical example of what I mean by “top of mind” awareness.

I’ve read and bought material from many gurus, coaches and professing experts about niche marketing, personal branding and customer service.

So far I’ve purchased just two copies of Dr. Paddi Lund’s books – yet not only is Paddi now that “crazy Aussie Dentist with the gold foiled cappucino machine in his waiting room” and who’s percolated and drilled (!) into my mind as a marketing genius, but he’s also claimed a unique customer service angle by sending books as if I was worth much more to him than a mere $20 or $30 (I get it: I am!)

Last week two carefully packaged items arrived in a parcel (along with a handwritten note in an envelope addressed to me) from one of Paddi’s publishing company staff. (Several emails also made sure I was informed of what was coming).

Here’s what I saw after opening the parcel:

customer-surprise

And inside were 2 books sent as a gift by Fletcher Potanin, Paddi’s publisher:

1- The Absolutely Critical Non-Essentials – which inspired this post and the previous one.

2- Mobilising Your Customer Sales Force – which I have just put in my “reading tray.”

Paddi-customer-books

Although clearly a delightful experience for the customer (me!) I’m sure you all realize that Paddi (and Fletcher) have a multitude of systems in place for both his customers (dental and otherwise) and his employees.

I reckon I was just treated to a well thought-out system involving a number of NEs and possibly a CNE or two!

- Mark McClure

Be Sociable, Share!

A Tech Career Marketing Lesson From Joe The (Fictitious) Plumber

Posted on by

Some years ago my parents finally gave up trying to understand my rather techie explanations of what I did for a living as a “computer guy in a bank” – it was a challenge to uncouple their belief that I was apparently as much responsible for the ebb and flow of stocks as those harassed traders we now regularly see on TV news.

Nonetheless, my failure to more succinctly explain in plain English what a data internetworking engineer gets up to was really bugging me – not least because I was also running into “sound byte” issues when faced with defining what a “career coach” (my big certification goal in 2006) was bringing to the table.

Finally, as these things often do, my unconscious mind provided me with an answer while I was up to my armpits (almost literally!) one evening with a blocked U-bend in our appartment’s toilet.

“Ah-ha!”, I thought to myself, while lamenting why this smart, modest(!) CCIE-certified white-collar IT professional (yada-yada) was struggling mightily with a blue-collar skill he’d never appreciated before:

“I’m not a bl$$dy plumber… I’m a DIGITAL plumber!” ;-)

Eureka! That’s exactly what I was getting paid for… helping to design, maintain and (occasionally) upgrade the digital equivalent of a multi-building plumbing infrastructure (in fact, multi-country – imagine that with a blocked pipe!!) that traders, PAs, executives – in fact, the whole crew of staff and clients – depended on to do digital business.

After trying out this “digital plumber” explanation with some non-tech folks in a somewhat lighthearted manner, I was pleased to see that smiles of recognition did greet my new analogy. And no jargon required!

So what about “Joe”?

The “Joe the Plumber” my post title refers to is not the recently discovered Joe featured in the US Presidential election campaign. No, this Joe really is fictitious and he came to my attention via a “crazy Australian dentist.”

Gotcha? The dentist in question is none other than Dr. Paddi Lund who I mentioned before on this blog.
And his marketing tag, “that crazy Aussie dentist”, has stuck with me ever since I first came across a Mike Basch (co-founder, FedEx) article profiling him and his “mixing business, wealth and happiness” achievements and teachings.

I’ve just recently finished another of his books – “The Absolutely Critical Non-Essentials” in which is featured a short story about a fictitious plumber, Joe Manzini. And I’d like to describe the essence of Joe’s “marketing eureka” moment and leave you with a challenge for the ongoing marketing of your technology career path.

Just like many truly excellent technology professionals, Joe is very proficient at his craft, has been on lots of courses and is much faster than most of his peers. But few of his existing customers acknowledge this or in fact even seem to care about the awards he’s won and the trade fair talks he’s given. And no new customers frantically ring him up and ask for his services because he’s the best pipe welder in town!

How to get existing customers talking about him and recommending his services to others was something he puzzled over a lot – until one evening when he was getting ready to go to the annual “Plumbing Banquet”, a little old lady’s emergency call for plumbing assistance saw his kind-hearted nature on display and he rushed around to her house and fixed the leaks.

And then over the next few weeks he began to receive calls for assistance from new customers who had been recommended by the little old lady – but strangely, although his plumbing work was excellent and fast, they were a bit disappointed that he was not wearing his “normal” plumbing uniform. This happened several times until he cottoned on to what the little old lady had been telling her friends about his working attire.

And from that moment the business of the “sophisticated plumber” took off and was a resounding success.

Can you guess what the little old lady was telling her friends about Joe – and what Joe decided to do based on that “market feedback”?

And could you apply a similar approach in your own tech career – whether you work as an employee, consultant or independent business owner?

- Mark McClure

PS – I’ll tell you what Joe’s ‘secret’ was in the next post. The fictitious plumber story is from a chapter on what Paddi calls “super critical non-essentials” and speaks to business owners (you are also one even as an employee, whether you realize it or not…) looking to excite the jaded palates of prospects/clients who long ago became cynically protective to “self-serving advertising”. We’re talking “word-of-mouth” recommendations here and this is a big secret to career and professional success in my opinion (and in the “crazy Dentist’s too!)

Be Sociable, Share!