Staying Current In a Small Office Environment? 57
MyLongNickName writes "Less than a month ago I took a position at a smaller firm (around 50 employees) as an IT Manager. As you might expect from the size of the company, I oversee quite a variety of tasks. I come from a background of computer programming, and am definitely not a master of every function. We rely on third-party solutions providers for areas like our networking, web hosting, phone systems, etc. I am used to working in a larger environment with a large IT staff (and not just because of super sizing at McDonald's). Just the daily rubbing elbows allowed me to stay current in areas that I did not directly touch. And when I had a question, I personally knew someone who could answer my question. I am not in that environment now. How do I stay current? I don't want to be a master of every technology, but I want to be aware of trends in the industry. I want to not depend on one contractor advising me."
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Did you go off your meds or something?
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https://slashdot.org/~willyhill/journal/204399 [slashdot.org]
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The "Hitler" bullshit is interesting and to a certain extent revealing for various reasons that I won't go into here, but that could be just a coincidence. Still, he could be posting erotic stories about CowboyNeal instead of this, so we'll see. If it's
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read slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:read slashdot (Score:4, Funny)
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You hit that on the nail. I had plenty of /. time while I was in school and before I started my summer job. Now I'm resigned to trying to catch up on the weekend before I fall asleep at 9 PM. Real life sucks.
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If he thought /. was enough, he wouldn't be asking, would he?
Well, one thing is for sure: If your company standardizes it's middleware based on JAVA, I'm pretty sure you will be locked to Oracle, whether you want it or not. They are eeeeeeverywhere! Resistance is futile!
Re:read slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
Back then, we had articles on different database systems, IDEs, different linux distros, with lots of commentary as to the details of why one might be better then another. Including specific tips or tricks of the trade or related tools. I used to struggle to find time in the evenings to read all of the informational articles and comments that were being posted. And I learned a hell of a lot in the process.
Now the articles with the biggest comment count are the "rile the masses" type articles. Or the ones with a heavy political bias.
When was the last time we saw an article discussing how to do hot-standby or clustering with linux/windows servers?
Damn kids, get the hell off of my lawn!
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I started reading Slashdot in 1999. In 1999 I was 14/15 years old and I didn't understand half the shit that was going on around here. I just turned 24 on Saturday, and can understand 98%-99% of the articles... and not because I'm a super bad-ass engineer.
It's cause its mostly a bunch of stupid crap, and it makes me sad. Yes, you definitely missed out on a lot.
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Much akin to many other types of social evolution such as the fisherman who enjoys reading up on the latest fishing gear, then eventually turns to protester against the new chemical plant that will pollute his favorite fishing spot.
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Among other points of ignorance, you don't seem to understand what a circle is. Perhaps at your rarefied level of "social evolution" it's no longer necessary, like the eyes of cave fish.
When the trolls were free... (Score:3, Funny)
With Natalie Portman hot grits inside. You have to face the facts, people who are technically minded have a humorous side.
When the karma patrol took over, what would you expect other than a heavy political bias?
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MOD PARENT UP (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice to see a low UID say it though.
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Agree. /. has been relatively consistent over the past ~6-7 years that I have been reading. There are less articles about distros, but that's because there has been more of an aggregation of users among the "super distros".
Tech articles are still very good. In fact, all the discussions are very good, so long as you read +1 formative/insightful, -1 funny, and -5 troll.
Re:read slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
I respectfully disagree. Slashdot is less informative than it used to be.
I think the trouble comes from several sources:
1.) Slashdot has a lot more editors now, which gives less of a strategic plan.
2.) Political articles, or call to action articles. YRO stores where always present, but there are so many now that reading all of them is just depressing.
3.) I remember when things like IBM research White papers were articles. This was very informative. Now we hear 8 bajillion stores about a document format. Real men use LaTeX anyway, so who cares about ODF and OOXML?
4.) Patents. Every time someone tries to patent something stupid, an article is not warranted.
What we need more articles about:
1.) Innovative software
2.) Major hardware releases (not Nokia has a new cell phone) but its good to keep up on major things.
3.) Significant Kernel releases, GNOME, Firefox, etc.
4.) Actions of NASA and other space agencies
5.) Interesting scientific research, whether organic, medical, semiconductor, etc.
6.) Some politics as it relates to science + technology.
7.) More developer stories. And not just Ruby on Rails, most of us could care less about that.
8.) Something funny every now and then. A link to a good XKCD isnt a bad thing.
9.) More interviews. They were always interesting, and the number has decreased.
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Back then [in 2000-2004], we had articles on different database systems, IDEs, different linux distros, with lots of commentary as to the details of why one might be better then another. Including specific tips or tricks of the trade or related tools.
Wait, you actually MISS the days of endless MySQL-vs-PostgreSQL, RedHat-vs-SuSE, Emacs-vs-vi pissing contests?
Do you reread JonKatz's books for fun, too?
Sadly (Score:2)
Professional Associations and networking (Score:5, Insightful)
With fewer people at work to 'leech' off of, you will need to spend more time out of work keeping those skills up. That means more effort on your part, and an actual drive to keep up the pace.
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One word: (Score:4, Insightful)
Amen, brother... (Score:5, Informative)
Here are a few things that have helped me out:
Hope this helps!
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I would look into joining LOPSA [wikipedia.org]. The mailing lists are pretty active, the IRC channel is pretty helpful with technical issues or direction, and its non-abandonware trying to build an international community of professional sysadmins. $50/year if you want to support the group, and localized chapters are around if you want to engage locally. I spend quite a bit of time fostering the co
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LoPSA is definitely more actively useful, however and I do subscribe to both. I don't know what I'd do if I had to choose just one.
Now, fortunately, I have staff that can get more out of LISA than I, so I need to send them.
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Erm, dont you get ;login: by being a USENIX member? I believe you can let SAGE dues lapse and still receive issues as long as you pay up your USENIX dues ...
Re: Sage (Score:1)
Sage [sage-au.org.au] here in Australia is alive and vigorously kicking thanks in no small part to a dedicated group of individuals who keep it ticking along very efficiently.
Read books (Score:2)
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Join a Networking Group (Score:4, Informative)
In all honesty, you simply wanting to keep up-to-date is going to be enough. If you are interested in the subject matter to begin with, then you often find you keep up to speed with out making the _specific_ effort.
Read Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
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Network, Don't be Proud, Reading (Score:5, Insightful)
2) Don't be afraid to cry "Uncle!" and hire someone on a short-term basis. Make sure that they show you their work so you can understand what they did. Black box systems are a no-no, as are consultants or support people who prefer to make their changes behind a curtain. As much as you may not want to be master of everything, in a smaller company you really need to become a jack-of-all-trades. Or at least be proficient enough to know when the staff or contact workers are blowing smoke up your ass.
3) Unless you absolutely hate reading (if so - you may be in the wrong job), try to read at least one technical book per month. And/Or take at least one 4 hour class per quarter. It keeps you in the game mentally and keeps you from ending up in a dead-end because you let all your skills get rusty. However you choose to do it - continuing education is key if you want to be self-reliant to a large degree.
I started working at my current firm about 8 years ago (and telecommuted for the first 7 years). There are still a few parts of the operation that aren't under my control (the PBX), but otherwise I have my finger on the pulse of everything else. I do a lot of experimenting on the side (it took 2 years for us to put Linux into production use). I work crazy hours some weeks. But, on the flip side, because it's a small company - I can set my own schedule to a very large degree. I'll gladly take flexibility, very little politics (I speak directly to the CEO and have the power to make purchases/decisions), and goal-oriented environment (make it work - keep the clients happy) and lower salary over being paid big bucks at a big firm.
The biggest tools that help me keep my sanity:
1) Nagios - or any other monitoring system. Knowing that something is broken before anyone else notices is a big advantage. You get a reputation for keeping the ship running smoothly without people having to scream to get something fixed. A lot of the people will think that you're psychic at times.
2) Wiki or Version Control System for internal documentation of systems. Network maps, rack layouts, what cable goes where on the back of a rack, pictures of equipment, etc. are very important. There are a lot of times where I've pulled up pictures of equipment in order to walk a regular employee at the office through restarting something (instead of having to drive in - or wait for a technical employee to be there). Get a good, small camera, and take lots of photos. Scratch notes on the back of a napkin and scan those in. Just have some sort of central location where your staff can look for information. I call it "just in case I (or you) get hit by a bus" documentation.
3) Automatic configuration change tracking. You can do this by hand, trying to track changes on an internal blog or a spreadsheet, or a text file, but automated tools are better. If you run Linux servers, use something like FSVS to shove all of your configuration files into a Subversion repository. That way, you can go back and look at what changes were made to the server along with why they were made. You can also do things like using rsync or looking through old backups, but I prefer to use an actual version control system designed for the purpose. Get your staff in the habit of using the tool when they make changes.
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> Don't be afraid to cry "Uncle!" and hire someone on a short-term basis.
Definitely. I learned my way around Informatica by leading a team of Informatica developers and having them show me what they're doing. It was necessary in order to manage the work effectively and report upwards and set expectations appropriately, etc. but I also now know a tool that would cost thousands in training otherwise.
Nagios (Score:2)
VMware and Ubuntu are sure making it easy to imagine migrating all this stuff away from Windows.
--Mike--
Be happy you not in a PBH driven office (Score:2)
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Actually, it is PHB :). I submitted this article as an anonymous coward the day before signing it "The New PHB". It was rejected (or at least never made it to AskSlashdot). Kinda funny... same article wording and all :)
RTFM (Score:2, Informative)
My current work environment seems to be quite similar to yours. Although I do not consider myself a master, I'm definitely a jack of all trades. Fax machines, copiers, computer networks (Linux, Windows), Intranet sites design, etc.
How do I keep current? Just reading the manuals.
This is honestly where i've learned all what i know now.
Industry Rags... (Score:2)
Focus on what's in your setup (Score:5, Informative)
Learn as much as you can stomach about networks. Just grab one of the certification course books, like for the CCNA. You have to keep up-to-date with hardware and OS because things will change, but hopefully not too quickly, and the nice thing about being in charge of IT, is those changes happen through you.
Political though it may be, Thurrott's supersite has good info a lot of the time.
Work with your subordinates (Score:2)
IF you're an IT manager, you must be managing some IT people. Spend some time with them, learn from them, learn with them. Go to seminars, conventions, and training sessions that support your technology.
Join (Score:2, Informative)
are you kidding? (Score:4, Informative)
You are living in an age of free, universally available information. There is almost literally no limit to how much useful, free information is out there, and the most prevalent type of information is typically on computing - software and hardware.
If you've gotten this far in your career without realizing this little fact, I'd be a bit concerned about your intellectual vitality if I were your employer. Being able to shoot ideas off fellow employees is one thing; having to rely on them to keep your knowledge up-to-par is another.
Granted, it depends on the type of information you're after, and to what depth you want, but there is not going to be a golden spoon for getting Manager-approved sound bite knowledge - and that appears to be what you're after.
Just as programmers will have to spend hours of their day pouring over interface documentation, so will you have to do as an IT administrator. You will have to demonstrate a curiosity in how things work, and when you come upon something which is foreign, look it up. There are dozens of Internet-published tech rags with information, if you're looking for something only roughly instructive, and Wikipedia is an awesome resource if you're trying to get a high-level understanding of what something is and how it works. Then, you'll have enough information to dig deeper.
You'd be surprised how many hours you'll save simply by googling something relatively simple - like installing Windows 2003 on an HP low-end Opteron server. It'll point out shortcomings and problems which would take you, the tech guy, hours to figure out on your own on aggregate. Time spent reading documentation more than makes up for time lost trying to figure out esoteric problems.
Hell, then there's just the simple google search. No, they won't all yield results you'll want to use; you might spend an hour or two just digging for a snippet of information, but you'll learn a lot about the extenuating circumstances in the process. A quick google search is often one of the best ways to quickly determine whether a certain course of action is a bad idea - not a good idea, but a bad idea, as people are likely to bitch if something doesn't work properly or if something is inherently shitty. Though, sometimes, something is so bad that nobody uses it.
And, of course, this is Slashdot... spend an hour or so on here every week reading comments on pertinent threads, and you'll pick up on a lot of "peer knowledge". Of course, it won't all be correct - but then, you'll run into that with coworkers, too.
I'd have thought anyone in IT would've figured this shit out by their freshman year of high school, or at least, by the end of the freshman university year.
Maybe sysadmin duties are a lot more divergent than programming duties and knowledge than I'd thought, but either way, you've got quite a bit of reading ahead of you!
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If you've gotten this far in your career without realizing this little fact, I'd be a bit concerned about your intellectual vitality if I were your employer
And if you think Google is the answer to staying current, I seriously question yours.
Google is wonderful for finding out details of something that you already have a background in. As a developer, I relied on it. I still use it for finding out answers to specific questions. Try to find information about industry trends, and the signal to corporate sponso
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And if you think Google is the answer to staying current, I seriously question yours.
No, google isn't the answer to staying current, but it is a pretty good staging point for questions.
My mention of google (ie, search in general) was not even until later in the post; the reference to vitality was with regard to knowing how to learn - to find new information in your field so as to become a more effective worker.
I am keenly aware of the importance of coworkers and field experts in obtaining new knowledge - as
How Small (Score:2)
50 employees? Sounds like a dream. I'm the IT Manager for a company with 11 employees. The majority of my time is spent doing non-IT work, and I dream of the day when we're large enough so that I can justify setting up a domain server.
Like the first poster said, read slashdot regularly and other tech blogs. Pick an area that you're currently not great at (but are interested in) and read up on it.
There are advantages to this kind of situation. You can become well-versed in the basics of many different areas.