What comes with the gravy?
I mentioned a week ago that I was giving a talk on career tips called “Ride the Gravy Train”. I gave the talk today (which had a remarkably large turnout), and think it’s a talk I’ll deliver again (with some tweaks).
Without going into details, here are the tips:
- do the right thing
- try different
- speak up
- learn your A-C-B’s
- know that you don’t
- know who you don’t
- follow the leader – lead the follower
- don‘t flip the bozo bit
- …and don’t burn bridges either
- find a mentor
- ride the gravy train
- find the steepest learning curve
- the three p’s
- be happy
- a career is a journey, not a sprint
- there’s nothing wrong with self-promotion
As you can tell, there’s nothing Microsoft specific here (and probably nothing controversial either). As usual, of course, I use few words on my slides (this is the sum of all of the text), and the words I use are too obscure for most people to provide context.
Given that it’s my product now, I’m considering doing a live meeting version of this talk (and if that goes well, others). I thought about doing something like this before, but as soon as I suggested it, I got very, very busy. I’m still busy, but at least I can say I’m testing (and I promise to anyone who wants to listen to the talk that I will take every bit of feedback you give me on your experience with the product and get it to the proper people). Not sure when yet, but probably in a few weeks. I’ll post something here and frequently on twitter when I get things squared away.
Great summary, Alan.
about “self promotion” – any tips for those who down play – either becasue of cultural background or due to their personality – that not often talk about this.
I have heard this comment from a lot of people that – there are people who play gr8 roles behind the scenes and help a great deal to get the projects delivered – often quietly in crunch mode – but obviously get un-noticed since they don’t talk about it.