As I sit looking out the window of the 23rd story of the Marriott in Ontario overlooking the incredible sight of Niagara Falls, I started forming my New Year's resolution and created a list of things I hope to see in 2008. First, the resolution. As always, I pledge to make myself a better IT professional in the three areas that I believe make a leader complete: Technology, Business, and People.
Technology
I pledge to strive to learn more about the following areas of technology:
- Web 2.0
- Security
- Agile Development
- Event Processing
- Enterprise Metadata
Business
I plan to work even closer with my key business partners in 2008. My current BPM/SOA initiative has my IT shop spending more time with business than it ever has before. This year we will make the time spent with the business more productive and generate more results. I will share my experiences with all of you as IT and the business work together to take our company to the next level.
People
I pledge to do a better job guiding people through change. We can talk about enterprise initiatives like SOA, BPM, Enterprise 2.0, Outsourcing, Agile, and others all day long. To make any of these successful, you will need to get people motivated and beating to the same drum. The people side, especially change management, is usually the hardest part of these projects. I will share my lessons learned in this area, as well.
2008 Wish List
That takes me to my wish list. My wish list is aimed towards my fellow EA bloggers. During 2007, my first year of blogging, I learned a great deal from sharing information with other EA bloggers. My wish list is all about making this experience more valuable in 2008. For this to happen, I ask for the following:
- If you are going to complain about something, offer solutions. Throwing darts adds no value if you don't provide alternative solutions.
- Share lessons learned, I do. And don't just share the things you did right, the best lessons learned usually come from doing something wrong and recovering from it.
- Don't call out others for having opinions. If people have a different opinion then the one you believe in then collaborate in a professional manner. It is beneficial to the readers to see the both sides of a discussion. Calling people out leads to either a flame war or worse, can cause an otherwise collaborative discussion to fizzle out.
- Become more connected. Let's collaborate more through social networks, conferences, user groups, etc. I am on LinkedIn, Plaxo, Facebook, and any place that I can find other smart people to learn from.
- Request blogging topics. I have, from time to time, requested bloggers who I follow to discuss certain topics of interest. I would love to have the opportunity to share my thoughts on various topics that interest my readers.
- No more "SOA is hype/just a buzzword articles. SOA is real. I am experiencing it first hand and the benefits to the company are tremendous. The real question about SOA is "How can one pull it off?" I'd rather see posts focus on that question.
- And finally, have a productive 2008!
