Head down, always busy. Question: Am I working for the right corporate?

thanks for a great post. Made me start thinking…

I neglected to do those things in my first full-time job, and ended up building 4 years of unmarketable “knowledge” which did me no good when I needed to find a new employer.

I have found barcamps to be a very good alternative to conferences. Many speakers talk of their experiments with the latest and greatest technology.

Speaking at user groups is also a nice idea. I also believe that blogging is a very nice way to keep up with news, create a virtual community of peers and learn new things. I have found reflection and writing to be very useful when I am learning new things, and blogging gives a very quick and easy way to do that.

@Dan: You mentioned that you offer lower rates to clients if the job offers professional development. I do something similar but a bit differently. I offer the same rate, but do the learning on my (non-billable) time. This helps me keep the rate constant and also stay out of negotiation cycles.

– Regards Parag

If I had to point to one factor responsible for the change it would be interacting with lots of different people. As an employee I was the senior person in my field and had no real peers in my day-to-day worklife. As a consultant, I was (and still am) forced to get out and network, bringing me into contact with different people with different backgrounds, and all very experienced at what they do.

This is a long-winded way of saying that I think point #4, Attend a Conference, is supremely important. But I wouldn’t limit the activity to just once or twice a year. Attend lots of conferences. Or other business meetings. Or create your own.

Be willing to cut your rates if the job offers you professional development. I often give a starter rate to a client if I’m learning a new technology or moving into something that I’m not intimately familiar with. The client gets less expensive work, you learn something while getting paid. Everyone wins.

Of course, make sure you can do your typical great job and that you’re clear that this is new to you and that you are giving the client a discount because of that. Smaller clients or clients that know you already tend to be the best targets for this.

This technique also works best when the new technology is related to the old one (eg doing web development with rails as opposed to a java framework, rather than moving from database design to web design).

A corollary to #3: write a paper. Lots of websites out there will be happy to have you author something (I’ve written for The Server Side and the Ccaps Newsletter), and sometimes they’ll even pay you for it. Writing a paper with structure and diagrams etc (larger and more defined than a blog post) requires the same kind of focus as a talk.

I like all the other suggestions. It’s very easy to have your head down and working all the time, while not seeing the big picture.