Some Things Never Change

Some things Never change
The first week of work back of 2012 I grabbed lunch with my boss and a colleague I've known since the end of my internship that does some contract for us. It was funny - we had a very similar lunch probably two years prior after finishing a project. Oddly enough, over the course of the week a lot of the same topics and difficulties that  came up 2 years ago on that project are still topics we deal with today (AD, LDAP, DMZ's, etc... ). I mentioned to my boss that I remembered very clearly him looking at me and going "You don't seem like you're going to be here forever" at that lunch two years ago. It was kind of alarming at the time but not in a bad way (more of a "holy shit he can tell!" kind of way). His response this time around? "I didn't mean that in any sort of negative way! I wouldn't have hired you twice if I did! Just seems like you're more of an individual than the consulting path would support, not that you couldn't be successful there..."


Sharepoint, and how it started in my internship
On the note of how some things never changed... SharePoint actually started my internship. I was working on an asset that had been built on some beta version of SP that had been rolled out and handed off to a different area of the company - my job was to get the "current install" up and running in house and then make some suggestions and improvements for a Web 2.0 version. Surprisingly, SharePoint and the custom install were complicated enough and the documentation was so poor that I didn't actually get it working by the end of the summer.

Somehow now, I can't escape SharePoint (not exactly a complaint, but just hilarious that I never really want to brand myself as a "SharePoint Administrator", but I'm totally ok being one in this position). SharePoint always will be on my resume as experience but probably not as a listed skill - it's a thing I know how to do, not the thing I want to do forever and ever. This comes after a handful of internal projects that required customizing SP styling/CSS (barf, seriously, MS obscures a lot of their themeing more than is really necessary, or at least it was in SP2007) and writing some jQuery on top of SP, and over a year gathering requirements for SP at a major client. Even my internship in Healthcare involved setting up a SP site for the team (asking a really simple question week 1 showed I had more experience than most of the team) but inherited a relatively locked down site.

I really hope this is just me and not another "most women" or "most women in tech" thing
Every once in a while, when people seek me out, I get this feeling of "Oh shit what did I do". I would say of the 5 times I can remember having this feeling over the last few years, the seeker was actually looking for me to give a "Hey good job"

GIS
One of the new projects at work involves some (fairly rudimentary, apparently) GIS data - while I won't directly be doing the work, it was interesting to go "How hard is it to update Legislative districts for our CRM data" vs "How much will it cost us, or is there somewhere we can get it for free/cheap because we are a non-profit?" Brain expanding for the win!

On the Interview
I was reminded the other day of walking in for my first interview at the new gig. Getting the interview was, again, somewhat serendipitous. I'd just gotten an offer at a small consulting firm in the city for a position that paid more than my travel consulting gig but was basically the same as the new gig I had at the old company, but with the possibility of needing to spend up to two hours in a not-currently-owned car to get to potential clients (barf, I'd rather get paid to fly to a new city).  I sent a facebook message to the (now) boss because he knew me, the old gig, and the company the offer was with. We ended up having a phone call while I was in a cab to the airport to fly back to Kentucky for a bachelorette party.

He talked through the options... a) stay where you are, b) go to this new company and the pro's and cons of each. After that, option C was dropped "Come work for me at the non profit". I contacted my PM for the client gig while I was at the airport to fly in Monday night rather than Monday morning so I could go in to interview (or maybe there was a week in between the phone call and the interview, but either way, it was a short time period).

So I end up walking in to this non-profit Monday morning, towing my suitcase and my computer as I was heading to the airport right after the interview. The elevator doors open directly in to the office, and the space is really nice. It's warm and welcoming and neatly designed. Essentially, in the 2 minutes I was waiting in the lobby for the boss to come out, I had this sense of "Yes, I want to work here". And the rest is history!

Beyond the practically immediate sense of wanting to belong there, I also got a sense that everyone at work feels very familiar. I've come to realize  several of us have random connections we sorted out through Facebook, or that we hang out in the same bars, but beyond that, I think there's a sense of "kindred spirits". Maybe it's just good people working for a good cause, or a sense of community that resembles one of the University YMCA from college. Who knows.

Lots more to write about, but in the interest of blogging SOMETHING I'll hit publish now and start a draft with the rest of the topics for later, lots of things brewing in my head.

Invent Your Future

Yesterday I had the opportunity to go to Slate/The Hive's "Invent Your Future" panel sponsored by Liberty Mutual's Responsibility Project. I was first interested because Stephanie Izard was on the panel, but the rest of the panel proved to be very impressive (moderator David Plotz, Dominique Raccah, Kevin Willer, and Sherman Wright). Murphy Auditorium was a beautiful location for a compelling talk.

David started the talk off with advice from the online forums which he introduced as scary - "Anyone who expects to launch an entrepreneurial career should expect to be single". This was later refuted by all the panelists. Many said it takes 2 to be an entrepreneur but it is a lifestyle choice - balance is super important, and you will lose what you don't value. If what you value is work, then family and people close to you will be lost. The gist in a lot of cases was that having a spouse/partner forced them to find balance and reminds you to take time to take care of yourself and things outside of your work.

The type of person it takes to be an entrepreneur
Risk Taker, Crazy, Someone who doesn't play it safe, Willing to go for it, someone who runs through walls, patience, persistence, inner confidence.

One of the discussion points was that in tough economic times, even big companies are finding their "entrepreneurial soul".  (Which is interesting and reminds me of prior conversations I'd had about how public companies responsible for quarterly results are often stifled when it comes to real innovation. Innovation doesn't necessarily happen on a quarterly basis.)

As an entrepreneur, you have to drive yourself beyond your own boundaries. The discussion then lead to whether you become someone different or if you just find out who you really are, but it forces you to understand your person, and not just your profession.

On leadership
Stephanie talked about having employees older than her, still having to make decisions for them, and being humble enough to ask questions. This resonated with me for sure (Stephanie started her first restaurant at 27, so it's not really surprising her experience would strike close to home for me. As a relatively young manager, finding my own leadership style especially with direct reports that are older than me is going to be a journey. Most of the candidates we're interviewing have 15-20 years of experience.) The discussion went on to say a skill for entrepreneurship is people skills - managing staff, finding your style, and learning how to be a friend and boss, as well as servant leadership - "What can I do to better serve the people working for me", especially where people are buying in to your dream.

Investment and Social Capital
"What have you invested in yourself?" "What skin do you have in the game?"
- Taking someone to court is not an efficient use of capital.
It's a good idea to go into an entrepreneurial venture when your risk profile is low (kids, spouse, house, etc). The recession is good for entrepreneurship because in a lot of cases people can't find a "safe enough" option - the one option some people have is to pursue that idea that's been pestering them for a while. Today entrepreneurship has more social capital  - it used to be a thing that was sort of shunned, but today it's cool, and it's never too late (McDonalds at 56, KFC at 70). "When you're younger it's fun to be irresponsible".

On giving back
Again, another section that resonated with me, being interested in Social Justice and working for a non-profit. Entrepreneurs give back - whether it's information, capital, connections, places to live, or just creating jobs.
One thing was said that I thought was interesting in the imagery that both mean the same things and leads to something cyclical "Paying it forward, giving it back". Stephanie commented on the additional social responsibility from having been on TV and the extra publicity/role model status it brings - spreading the story of her success has become important.

On Mistakes
- Panelists were glad to have made mistakes to learn from them because it helps build future successes. Having partners that love doing where your own skills may be weak is important.
- One mistake was growing too fast. It's important to invest back in the business, to have and know the health metrics of your organization. If the gas is full but the oil light is on, you may not last long.
- Doing the obvious sometimes would have been beneficial - ie small steps to give you the knowledge of the industry if you dont have prior experience but have the passion.
- At some point hiring really smart people isn't enough. You need smart people with a history of getting stuff done.

A couple of cool organizations that were mentioned at the talks:
Code Academy - for skilling up the workforce in programming
Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center
Built In Chicago
i.c.stars - ok so this one wasn't mentioned but it seems like it fits in here.

... And I'll have to get to the audience Q&A later, along with some notes on talking to Kevin Willer and a few more of my own reflections in a Part II. This is long and I am tired.

Another Year Begins

So I guess I'm not migrating this blog (yet, anyway). If I'm going to move to Wordpress, or wherever, I feel like I need to actually look into setting it up correctly on a server and not just the free hosted version.... and frankly, my brain doesn't want to deal with that now. So you may just have to deal with the ugly layout here for a while. Sorry.

This is going to be a more personal post (and even then, not as personal as it could be) than I expect most posts to get - but this year definitely threw me some curve balls, and after Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing I sort of feel like I need to talk about what this year was like for me... both personally and professionally because in my life the two are fairly intertwined.

On 2011...
(Breakups...)
I can't say I'm sad to see 2011 closed out. 2011... was a ride, let's just say that.
2011 was the most stressful and most emotionally intense year of my post-college adult life (granted, that's like all of 4 years...)

March brought breakup emotional hell, exactly at the time I stopped traveling for work for  what ended up being 3 months so there was no escape from the emotional shitstorm. (However, rather than "3 months at home" this was "you might need to travel next week"... for 3 months straight.) I lost 10 pounds (at least) without realizing it... apparently I don't eat when I'm stressed out. Without really going in to details here, suffice to say that set the tone of the year and took up a lot of my emotional and mental capacity.

It's not all bad though. I hadn't been single in 6 years for more than a month at a time, so it was definitely an experience (seriously, I couldn't legally drink the last time I was single for any extended period of time!) Sorting out myself as an adult in the real world was probably a good thing. Nashville and the volunteer trip to United Cerebral Palsy to build wheelchair ramps served as a trip in self reflection (somehow, out of 4 trips to UCP, 3 of them marked some major life event or pivot for me).  I got an amazing trip to San Francisco in, and a handful of crazy trips to Champaign. Because of the breakup, I did get a lot closer to some fantastic female friends in the city and launched in to a ridiculous habit of dancing until 4am and ridiculous weekends full of Karaoke. Seriously, my friends are amazing and I'm so so so grateful for their support, encouragement, and the ridiculous shenanigans we get ourselves in to (both those friends local and those far away, you all rock!)

(Work)...
2011 was interesting for me work-wise. I was working at a client at work that was interesting and that I was good at, but somehow it wasn't enough for me. And the work never seemed to be scoped correctly, so I was usually doing the work of 2 or 3 people. That's in addition to traveling 4 days a week, since October 2010 (minus those 3 months mentioned earlier) - you barely get time to breathe and hang out with friends or just relax, let alone sorting out what "newly single" or "mid to late 20s and single" means. My project team was cool, the client was cool, the work was interesting, I was being recognized for busting ass... but ultimately not something sustainable for me (nor desirable).

This basically led to me being so stressed (and burnt out) that I got shingles. Seriously?! Shingles is an old persons disease, right? Shingles is definitely triggered by stress... not surprisingly, several of my friends in their 20s have also experienced the unpleasantness.

In the week between first having shingles symptoms and actually getting it looked at, it was announced that my work group would be closing in Chicago. Options included : move to San Jose, switch groups and stay in Chicago, or start looking for new opportunities. The way this all was handled was terrible, cut off the community that was keeping me to the job - I've ranted more about this than I care too, and it's still pretty touchy.  But again, emotional wreckage and stress added on to (already) being stressed about the day to day work I was accountable for... it pretty much made August - October a wasteland of traveling for work, being super busy, AND trying to sort out what was next in my career. Ultimately, things worked out - the wreckage made it easier for me to walk away from the company and allowed my colleagues to talk (more or less) openly about the opportunities we were considering. It was an... awkward, emotional, and complicated end to 3.5 years + an internship doing some exciting work with amazing people, but it made the decision very, very easy to leave.

(The end of the year...)
2011 wasn't a complete waste. Things have turned around since October or so. My friends are amazing and we've had a lot of really incredible times, though a lot of my friends have had rough years as well in terms of career and personal bullshit ("What is HAPPENING this year to everyone" may have been uttered a few times).  I can't imagine being in a better place than I'm at currently with the new job (see prior posts). The vacation between jobs was epic, even if it was only a week and a half long.  My step sister had a healthy baby girl Memorial Day, so I'm now an aunt. My sister graduated college and adopted an adorable puppy. Housing situation took a turn for the awesome with Trish moving in and Nik moving in to the apartment behind ours. We've hosted two epic parties (Halloween and NYE) and have grand schemes for more events. I spent way more time at home in Kentucky than I have in ages and every trip was really solid (2 of my closest friends from high school's weddings, bachelor/bachelorette parties, visiting home to see my step sister, etc).  Life forced me to shake things up a bit, but the year ended overwhelmingly positive. I can't say I'd have predicted where I'd be right now this time last year, but I can't complain about the way 2012 is starting. The last few months really turned 2011 around for me... but I can't say I'm sad to see 2011 close out. 2012 has lots of exciting things on the horizon.

On 2012
I don't really like making resolutions, but I do like having goals.
1) 25 books this year (I was so close in 2011! I hit like 24.25... and then was just too busy to read. Seriously, this feels like the first time I've sat still since December 22!)
2) Cook more - dinner, at least 3 times a week.
3) Pack lunches more : goal is 4 times a week.
4) Travel once a month. Since I'm not traveling for work, the goal is to get an average of 1 weekend a month where I'm going somewhere, visiting somewhere, or just not doing the "usual" weekend thing.
5) Keep blogging!
6) Find some freaking hobbies. I haven't really had hobbies since graduation due to the possibility of traveling. It's time to fix that.