Growing Technically / Growing Professionally

It's important to learn that part of your technical job isn't about tech. It is about people.

Apple gets that right in that they are as passionate about their products working for people as they are about the technology itself. The days of snarky, technically-brilliant people with no social skills are over. The days of 'nerds' are over. If you plan to be in a technical field, you must be prepared to polish your professional skills as much as your technical skills. This is what makes you valuable in IT.

Every job has a technical side - carpenters are very skilled in their own way, as are bakers, mechanics, architects, lawyers and doctors. What everyone realizes, almost instinctively, is that it's not enough just to be good at the technical side of your job. How many horror stories have you heard about the doctor with no bedside manner, the shady contractor and the crooked auto mechanic? You must also be professionally competent.

I published a number of 'professional growth' essays on my older blog area. I didn't write them to put myself on a pedestal - I had simply learned something about myself and wanted to jot it down for future reference. Some people have come back and told me how much they enjoyed them and so - I'll be re-publishing them here to put what I've learned about professional growth in a more strict context. I'll tell you when it was re-published; it's not like you would have had to pay to read the old archives anyway.