I think that the lottery mentality that so many executives of companies have these days is bad for business. The idea that someone can be promoted from a director or vice president to CEO and then earn enough money in bonuses, benefits and stock options to retire is silly. People that lead a company should make more, but their jobs should be no more secure than anyone else's in the company, and they shouldn't be paid multiples more than their direct reports. If they lose their jobs, they should have to get a new one, just like the rest of us.

Last week LInkedIn had an initial public offering (IPO), which was very successful. The company raised money, which hopefully will help it grow, and many stockholders and investors became rich. That might not be important to data professionals, but the news may have caught the attention of your management, and that could be good for IT.

The CEO of TheLadders.com wrote a blog about the event, and he brought up an interesting point. Executives and management in many companies probably are thinking that social networking, or just online engagement with customers,  has an impact on their business. How do they get better engagement? Better Information Technology.

While I'm not sure this will be pervasive throughout all companies and industries, there will be executives that want to build new systems and move faster. They will want new applications, which means new databases, and for some of us, this will be the chance to get a better job, build a strategic application, or just get a little more budget for our group.

It's also potentially an opportunity for you to be pro-active. Maybe you can suggest a few new ideas for projects or enhancements that you might want to tackle which would improve customer engagement. Maybe you'll even get the chance to have some fun at work.

Steve Jones

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