Normally I try and keep the things that happen at work separate from my blog, however it’s been an interesting month at Quest to put it mildly so it’s time for a bit of a catch up. For week’s there had been speculation surrounding a mystery bidder during the privatisation of Quest Software with many sites such as Bloomberg stating that it was Dell due to the natural fit of the two companies. On the 2nd July 2012 there was an official announcement that Dell had indeed outbid the private equity firms with an accepted bid of $2.4billion. You can read all about the acquisition here
The very same day the acquisition was announced Kevin Kline told me the news that he was going to be leaving Quest which you can read about on his blog here and where he was moving to next which if you don’t already know, you can also read about here. It has been a fantastic experience working with Kevin over the last year and I am honoured to be able to count him amongst one of my friends. Having a mentor figure really does make a huge difference to your career progression, I have been very fortunate in that I have had two such figures in recent years and without them my career would look very different indeed. Because of these two mentors I have had the chance to work on not one, but two different book projects (SQL Server 2012 Management and Administration | Professional SQL Server 2012 Internals and Troubleshooting) this year as a technical editor which was an enormous privilege.
The job of a mentor is not so much to provide technical instruction, rather to help you find your own path and to increase your awareness of some of the the peripheral skills that you will need to succeed in your field. It is direction like this that I have tried to emulate in posts such as Choosing the right professional. If you are searching for a mentor, or would like to become one then check out the latest brainwave of Andy Warren which you can read about on his blog.
Kevin’s departure as you can expect has left either holes or opportunities (depending on your point of view). I like to think of these as opportunities and indeed one of these opportunities in the form of SQLServerPedia.com has come my way. I am delighted to say that I will be the next Editor in Chief for SQLServerPedia, I had planned to use the word “announce” but I was beaten to that honour by Kevin who announced me as his successor in this venture last week in his post New developments at SQLServerPedia.com as well as being mentioned on a product webcast I recorded on Thursday.
SQLServerPedia is something that is very close to my heart having been syndicated there for some time now back when fellow Brit Iain Kick was in charge. Those that know me won’t be surprised to hear that my mind is flowing with ideas for the site and how we can continue to help the SQL community. If there is anything that you would like to see, or perhaps would like to remove then please do let me know. I will be canvasing optinions in the near future.
Last week another former Editor in Chief Brent Ozar wrote a great post entitled Your First Good Job Isn’t In the Newspaper which talked not only about Kevin’s departure but about all the opportunities out there to those that are willing to work for it. SQLServerPedia allows you to put yourself in that shop window, by allowing you to syndicate your blog or write some articles. Whatever your goals, visibility and a good public profile can be an important factor when employers are looking to fill a position and may contact you directly (I know it happens as it happened to me). Take charge of your career, grab the handle, open the door and show the world what you can offer…..
