Past installments of Career Opportunities for the 1st week of February.

2000 All in this together

If you want to help your own career you can start by helping others.

2001 How to make mistakes

Everyone in every job and every life makes mistakes. There is no way to avoid them. However, the success of your career can ride on how you handle your mistakes and how you recover from them. Below are a few guidelines on how to handle your mistakes to insure that one small problem doesn't turn into a job or career ending monster.

2002 Piracy or Expediency?

There is a major problem that every high-tech worker faces eventually ? software piracy. Too often you are called upon to install software which your company or client does not legally own. This can include installing software on more than one computer or installing software "borrowed" from a friend. While most companies characterize this as the expediency of doing business, software manufacturers look upon it as stealing, plain and simple. Worse yet, you, and your career, are often the ones caught between expediency and piracy.

2003 Going with the flow

As much as you and your clients might dislike the fact, computers do not last forever. Even the fastest system will seem slow after a few years of operating system upgrades and growing software requirements. It is in your best interest, and of your client’s, to insure that the computer systems under your care are keeping up with user’s needs, while still watching the bottom line. Learning to balance computer needs against financial concerns is an important part of any high-tech career.
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2003 Long Memories

Regardless of where you pursue your high-tech career, there are a number of pitfalls that can make your work more difficult and your career less secure. One of the most common of these pitfalls happens to be unreliable technology systems and the effect they have on your clients. Computer users have long memories, especially when it comes to technology that fails regularly and with sometimes damaging results. Even worse, they will remember, and often refuse to use, systems in the future, based on these bad first impressions.

2004 Gearing Up

This year my business is undergoing a few changes. In the past, I have had alternate sources of income, which allowed me to limit the amount of consulting work I do. Now, though, I have a need to think about this work more as a primary source of income. In that light, I am gearing up a series of initiatives to present a more business-like manner to my clients and, hopefully, increase my billable hours by a significant amount. Whether you are just starting out, or looking for ways to revitalize an existing business, these tips should serve you well.

2004 The Little Things

As we begin another year I am starting a project with all of my current clients. I am making a big effort to address some of the smaller high-tech problems that have lingered over the years. Sometimes, in the heat of fighting the big battles, we just don’t have the energy to address the smaller problem, which can often be much more difficult to resolve. Now is the time, though, to finally solve all those nagging issues and make everything work like it should.

2005 Return

As I write, I am finishing the last few days of a holiday vacation to my home state of Ohio and learning that returning from a vacation can be just as stressful as preparing to leave for one.
Despite doing my best to complete any necessary tasks before I left, a host of new challenges await my return. The same will probably be true of your next vacation. If you want to ease your re-entry into the work-a-day world after the holiday break, here are a few guidelines to keep you on the right track.

2005 24/7

As any high-tech freelancer will tell you, one of the major problems of working for yourself is knowing when not to work. Unlike the traditional office hours of corporate work, freelance work can happen nearly anywhere at any time. I could just as easily write this column at 2 in the morning as 2 in the afternoon. Unfortunately, this freedom can lead to the feeling that you are never "at work" or "at home", but always at an odd combination of both. If you aren't careful, you could end up working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, or, at least, you might come to feel that is that case.

2006 Thinning the herd

No, I am not speaking of layoffs, plant closures and terminations, but rather thinning your “herd” of out-dated projects, failed initiatives, worthless bureaucracy and old hardware and software. The New Year is a great time for taking a hard look at your work and getting rid of everything that no longer fits with your current vision, workload or budget.

2405 Get it done!

Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we can lose track of our goals in the midst of the chaos of daily life. We work and work on our projects without ever getting them done. No matter how much work you do, if you don’t complete your projects, what have you really accomplished? Your career depends on providing solutions. Don’t build a career that saddles you with never-ending project after never-ending project. Get on with it. Get over it. Get it done!

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