Never Say Never » Goals

2011 Goals

Seth Phelabaum — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 16:13:33 +0000

Last year I posted professional goals along with quite a few other bloggers and it helped to keep me somewhat focused on them (for at least the beginning of the year). I am going to do so again in the hopes that I do even better this year. My goals this year are a bit less aggressive than last year’s goals, but I think they’re still enough to challenge me and make me work at them.

Community Involvement

New Posts on SSC Forums: This goal is only 25% of last years goal, but I’ve fallen completely out of the habit of posting on a regular basis, so I’m hoping that sometime soon I get into the habit again. If I do, I shouldn’t have any problem meeting this goal. (Currently at 1412)

Article for SSC: I’m not really sure what I’ll write this one on, but I enjoyed the time I spent on the last one and think this is a good goal to continue yearly.

Blog Posts Written: I really enjoy blogging and want to get back into it, so I’m setting a somewhat more moderate goal of 35 posts this year. I’m really hoping to exceed that, but don’t want to feel like it’s out of reach if I miss a few weeks.

Participate in T-SQL Tuesdays: T-SQL is my focus, so participating in these just makes sense and serves as a good inspiration for blog topics.

Host a Lunch and Learn at my Office: I haven’t talked to anyone about this yet, but I figure I still have 11 months to pull it off and there are a lot of people I work with who are interested in learning more about SQL Server, so I figure I’ll sneak one of these in there this year.

Learning

Read SQL Books: I want to claim that I’ve definitively *finished* 2 books this year. Last year I had 3 down as my goal and don’t claim any because I didn’t exhaustively read any of them. I skimmed a couple and read bits and pieces of others, but I think reading 2 full SQL books a year is within reach.

Attain MCTS + MCITP: Last year I let myself use the excuse that the closest testing center was almost 2 hours away, but this year I’m fairly sure I work about a block from one, so that excuse no longer holds water. I’d like to knock both of these out this year

Learn the basics of .Net: Really, my biggest holdup with this is just how confusing Visual Studio is if you’ve never used it. If you’re used to it that might seem ridiculous, but I get lost every time I try to mess with it. I’m sure this would be fixed if I ever really sat down to devote time to it though and I’d like to do that this year so I can take that excuse off the books.

Networking

Add Linked In Connections: I feel like LinkedIn is a decent tool for maintaining professional connections and I’d like to continue expanding my network. Last year I did very well on this goal and would like to keep up that positive growth. (Currently at 84)

Attend SQL Server User Group Meetings: SSUG meetings are a great way to learn about topics as well as meet your peers and keep a pulse on what’s going on in the community.

Attend a SQL Saturday: We had a local SQL Saturday in Raleigh last year, and as far as I know there’s no reason they wouldn’t hold another one this year. Ideally, I’d like to hit up 1 or 2 others, but a lot of this goal depends on where they end up being hosted and how busy I am on those particular weekends, so I want to keep this goal conservative.

2010 Goals Review

Seth Phelabaum — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 16:09:19 +0000

So… this is late. And I missed my q3 goals review all together. Oh well, not much I can do to fix that now other than push on and try to do better next time. For the first two quarters, I was looking pretty good for completing my goals, but at the beginning of July last year I picked up and moved to Raleigh from Florida and changed jobs to my first contractor position. I’ve always lived in places with friends or that were pre-furnished, so I didn’t own any of my own furniture at the time. While this made the move out pretty easy, it left me with a lot of work to do ordering new furniture, dishes, cookware, the works. The timeline was a bit tight all around. My last day at my previous job was a Wednesday, I moved over the weekend and started at the new job in Raleigh the following Monday. Things were a bit hectic for a couple months as I got everything in order and I fell completely out of my routine. So, without further justification and excuses, here’s the rundown:

New Posts on the SSC Forums I didn’t even come close to. It was an ambitious goal to begin with and falling out of the routine of posting daily killed all hopes of finishing that one. Next year I’m going to set a goal for a much smaller number just to try to get me back in the habit of posting and then maybe try for some bigger numbers in 2012. This goal is really important because it fuels my desire to be involved in the community and accomplish so many of my other goals.

Blog posts stopped completely when I moved and this is one of my first posts in months. I honestly do miss blogging and I’m going to set a fairly aggressive goal to get back into it this next year.

Learning in general was a neglected goal last year. I’m going to set much the same goals this coming year and see if I can do better this next time around.

Networking I did fairly well on and next year will look very similar, with the exception of fewer user group meetings and possibly only 1 SQL Saturday this next year.

2010 Goals – Q2 Review

Seth Phelabaum — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:13:06 +0000

Another quarter gone, and unfortunately I’m still looking about the same on goal progress. Still looking good on Blog posts and networking, still a bit behind on forum posts and still abysmally behind on the Learning goals.

On the bright side, the learning goals are something that I can knock out in the last month of the year if it really comes down to it.

2010 Goals – First Quarter Review

Seth Phelabaum — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 14:02:12 +0000

Overall, not too bad for the first quarter, but definitely some areas I need to pick up the slack on.

Community Involvement

New Posts on SSC Forums: Got a bit behind on this one as I really wasn’t posting until about a month ago. I’ve found that with the forums, I either post more or less daily, or I get overwhelmed with all the posts I haven’t read and it’s hard for me to post at all. I still think I’ll be able to pull this off by the end of the year as long as I don’t take another 6 month hiatus.

Article for SSC: I’ve written my first article which came out today.

Live Presentation on SQL Server: No real progress here. Haven’t put together a presentation or even really been working on it.

Blog Posts Written: Doing fine on this one, the more I write blog posts the easier it gets and the more I find myself wanting to write them. It was a bit harder in the beginning but I’ve been on a roll lately and don’t think I’ll have any issues meeting this one.

Learning

Read SQL Books: Not a lot to say on this one… haven’t really been doing it. On the other hand, I’ve been reading a LOT of blogs, which I may let myself count somewhat

Attain MCITP: Behind on this one. When I first made it I actually forgot that there was the MCTS to take before. I’d really like to take the MCTS in the next couple of months to get that one out of the way.

Learn the Basics of .Net: Learned a bit, not enough for me to count it yet. All in All though, this one can be done over a weekend so I’m not terribly worried about pulling it off.

Networking

Add Linked In Connections: Almost hit this one already. I’m quite the social butterfly lately! (Ok, not really, but I have added some people.)

Attend 10 SSUG Meetings: 3 down, 7 to go. I’ve actually accepted a position on the Board of the users group which requires me to be at every meeting to make an opening presentation, so this one shouldn’t be an issue unless I have to be out of town or what not.

Attend 2 SQL Saturdays: Attending the Jacksonville SQL Saturday in May which will close this one out. I’ll probably attend at least 3 or 4 this year.

I’m going to avoid changing any of these goals throughout the year this first year and see how it goes.

2010 Goals

Seth Phelabaum — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:55:45 +0000

It seems like every blog I read has a list of goals posted for the year. This seems like a pretty good idea and I thought I’d follow suit. The following are my professional goals for 2010. I’ve noted my current values of some of the things as a public reference to keep myself honest =).

Community Involvement

600 new posts on SSC Forums. (Currently at: 1185)
Write 1 article for SSC.
2 live presentations done on SQL Server. (15 minute mini-sessions will count for this)
Write 52 blog posts.

Networking

Add 25 connections on Linked-In. (Currently at 32)
Attend 10 User Group Meetings and 2 SQL Saturdays.

Learning

Read 3 sql related books in full.
Attain my MCITP: DBD 2008. I’ve got my MCDBA, but it’s time to update.
Learn at least the basics of .NET to the point that I could create a website.

Some of my goals are are a little conservative, but still challenging enough that I think I’m going to have to work towards most of them. The presentations are something that I’m not sure if I’m going to enjoy or not, but I really want to at least try it and see how it goes.