Category: Work

This is the first time I get paid for writing things, other than code that is.

You can see my Dice In The Trenches article on Enterprise Architecture at Dice’s website.

I saw the contest and wrote up the article couple of months ago, it was a contest, and since my article got published, I actually got paid for it.

Anyway, please read it and let me know what you think.

I was working as an Enterprise Architect for a large grocery retailer.

Recently, couple of opportunities showed up, and I was able to get an offer from a company in the energy industry that I decided to take. It’s also an EA job, almost identical to what I was working on before. I’m starting on Monday.

The whole process, from seeing the ad on hotjobs.com, to finally getting the offer, took about 2.5 month. It was definitely worth the wait though. Along the way, I had great help from an architect I got to know through one of the conference I attended, as well as a referral from a family friend.

People from my old company asked me why I’m leaving. I actually thought about it before I decided to take on the new job with the new company. The main reason I’m leaving is that I felt that grocery industry will be negatively affected by globalization, and the energy industry will only benefit from it.

The grocery chains have faced increasing pressure from discounters like Walmart SuperCenter and 99 Cents Store. And now with Tesco’s announcement of them moving into the US market, the competition will only increase. The items a grocery store sells are mostly commoditized, you can get the same can of Campbell Soup from any supermarket and it will taste exactly the same. Since most of these grocery items sold inside the grocery stores are produced within the US, the opportunity to outsource/off-shore the supply chain is not an option. Most grocery chains deal with the increasingly competitive market by product innovation (private label, ethnic food etc…), customer service, or operational efficiency (cost reduction, process optimization), which makes it difficult to leverage the flatten global economy.

On the other hand, the energy industry is experiencing tremendous growth. The reason for this growth is not just because crude oil price has been sky-rocketing. It’s also that due to the increased communication and entertainment channels, people from third-world countries are aspiring to share the western style of living, which means more conspicuous consumption of consumer products. Many of these consumer products either requires a great amount of energy to produce or are crude-oil by-products. This demand will only increase, and the energy industry will keep on growing at a fast pace for the foreseeable future.

That was the main reason, to look at the bigger picture and make sure I’m in a growing industry. The other reasons are that the new company provides a competitive compensation package, has a flexible work schedule, and has a good reputation as having the best people.

My manager from my old company was nice enough to organize a team lunch on my behalf, for which I’m very grateful. Looking back to my careers at the grocery company, I also felt a great sense of gratitude. I was hired as a senior developer, then got laid off because they outsourced the whole development team to India. I was Lucky enough to be hired back as a software architect, and shortly after became an enterprise architect because of organizational changes. I learned all my Enterprise Architect skills here, and worked with a lot of smart and driven people. It was the best unintentional career move I made, but I ended up doing what I love and had a lot of fun along the way.

My colleagues from old company have been very supportive, and I know they have what it takes to make it even more successful.

As to my new team at the new company, I got to met quite a few of the team member during the interview. They were very insightful in their questioning, as well as eager to hear what I had to say. I’m there to share my experience, knowledge and skills, at the same time learning about a new industry as well as a new IT organization.

I appreciated the opportunity to continue my career with such a great company, and I’ll report back my leanings once I start.

P.S. There are couple of books that helped me a great deal during my job search as well as finding out what I want to do.
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century is a great book focusing on the influence of globalization on our economy and our daily lives. It was what got me thinking about what industry I wanted to be in.

What Color Is Your Parachute? 2007: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers (What Color Is Your Parachute) has been a favorite of mine for quite awhile. It has sections that helped me determine the career I want and what I’m capapable of doing along with a lot of great advice. This is a must-read for anyone looking for a new career.

My official job title is Enterprise Architect. People may not be familiar with the concept of Enterprise Architecture or wonder what an Enterprise Architect does. I recently wrote an article for Dice In The Trenches.

I just learned that Dice will publish my article, and I’m removing it from my blog and will update with a link to the Dice site once it’s published.

Thanks.

I spent last Tuesday to Thursday at the Microsoft US National Architect Forum.

The USNAF has recently been broadened from a regional event to a national event. Basically, Microsoft brings out a group of IT architects from various companies, mostly from their clients, and provide them a place to network and share architectural thoughts.

My company only got one ticket to the event, so I was a bit surprised I was the one to attend. It was hosted in Vail Colorado, a great skiing destination. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any skiing done because the schedule was really packed with sessions and the ski season was almost over at this time of the year.

There was also a problem with my flight. I originally booked a flight on Tuesday that leaves OAK at 11:10am, and I already printed out the boarding pass from home. On Tuesday morning, before I left for the airport, I had the foresight of checking on the flight status, and found out the flight was cancelled! I wasn’t even contacted about this, and I learned from my travel agent that I was bumped to a later flight, which leaves OAK at 5pm. I was a bit disappointed, someone could have at least let me know that my flight was cancelled. Anyway, the 5pm flight introduced a new problem. There was a reception scheduled on Tuesday night, however, since the flight takes 2 hours, there is 1 hour timezone difference between Vail and Oakland, and the Vail hotel I’m staying in is 140 miles away from the airport. I only got to the hotel at around 11:30pm, well past the reception time. So I missed the reception, which was definitely a good opportunity to network.

Another thing I found out was I was feeling dizzy because of 8000 feet above sea-level of Vail. I didn’t sleep well at all the first night, only for about 5 hours.

I woke a bit groggy the next morning, and I had a full day ahead of me, so I got up and started the day.

There was a bus waiting in front of the hotel taking us from our hotel to the Marriott for the morning session. I got on the bus, and arrived at Mar riot within 5 minutes. It was a nice day, the sky was blue and mountain-side was covered by snow.

I mainly went there to find out what people are doing in Enterprise Architecture, and how far down the road they are with Service Oriented Architecture. Thus most of the sessions I signed up for are either panel discussions or round-table on EA and SOA topics.

Most of the sessions were well organized and well presented. However, most weren’t presented at the level of detail that I’m interested in.

Overall, it was a fine experience. I was able to talk to people in the same line of work. The only regret I had was that I wasn’t able to finish the last keynote session by Paul Glen, the author of the bestseller Leading Geeks. I stayed for the first 30 minutes, and it was the most fun I had during the whole NAF. However, I had to leave to catch my plane. I did get a free copy of the book, and I’ll review it once I’m done reading it.

Until next time.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about why some leaders are more effective than others, in other words, what makes a leader great? I also wanted to learn how to become a great leader.

There are many books on leadership. Two of my favorites are Leadership by Rudolph Giuliani and Winning by Jack Welch.

So what makes a leader great? Here are my thoughts.

Character traits of a great leader

• A great leader needs to be full of positive energy. We all worked with people who are full of positive energy, these are the folks that are optimistic and realistic at the same time, they know if they apply themselves, they can achieve the goals that they set out to achieve. On the contrary, working with people who are negative all the time can be a real energy drain.
• A great leader needs to be able to energize and motivate. Just influencing others with his positive energy is not enough, he needs to be able to energize others, to drive the team to reach higher goals.
• A great leader needs to be authentic. No one wants to follow a phony, being genuine in his interactions, and practice what one preaches is very important for a leader.
• A great leader has humility. He is not arrogant or inflexible, he relies on the people who he chooses to give him honest feedback and recommendations. He respect other’s opinions and the differences in people, and seriously consider their opinions.
• A great leader is persistent. He will not be easily discouraged.
• A great leader needs to have the inner strength and self-confidence to make tough and/or unpopular decisions. He also need to make the right decisions to begin with, this is what Jack Welch calls having an “Edge”.
• A great leader needs to have emotional competencies (EQ). He needs know his own emotions, manages them well, empathize with others, understand others’ emotions and manages them well as well.

Skills and competencies of a great leader

• A great leader needs to be able to execute. Anyone can plan, however, what separate great leader from the rest is that a great leader delivers the result that continuously exceeds expectation.
• A great leader needs to have foresight. A leader needs to lead, and know intuitively what’s around the corner. To know where one’s going is utmost important for leaders at the top of an organization.
• A great leader does not expect his subordinates to work harder or work on things that he himself is not willing to take on. Leadership is not a privilege that allows one to delegate unpleasant tasks.
• A great leader is always prepared. Giuliani was so effective right after the tragic events of 9/11 because he and his office spent so much preparing for just this kind of catastrophy.
• A great leader holds his subordinate responsible yet gives them the creative freedom to come up with solutions on their own.
• A great leader is outward focused, instead of himself, he focuses on building and mentoring his people, he’s a clock-builder instead of a time-teller (these concepts are from the excellent book Built to Last ). The greatest legacy of a great leader is not himself but the great organization and the people he leaves behind.

Here is what a great leader is NOT

• A great leader does NOT have a big ego. Having a big ego can manifest itself in many different ways, and most of them will have a negative impact on the people he works with.
• A great leader does NOT need to come from outside the company. Another excellent book by Jim Collins Good to Great made the argument quite convincingly based on research.
• A great leader is NOT necessarily charismatic. It doesn’t mean a great leader can not be charismatic. There are quite a few great charismatic leaders like Jack Welch. However, there are just as many leaders who are not such as Abraham Lincoln. Built to Last contains many examples of leaders who are not charismatic.

Here are the steps I’ll take to become a better leader:

1. Do a serious and realistic self accessment on all traits, skills and competencies I currently have.
2. Set leadership goals for myself
3. Identify paths to fill the gaps
4. Identify mentors both from work and from life
5. Continously improve and measure my own progress
6. Explore opportunities from work and life to lead, to practice what I learned.
7. Repeat until I reach my leadership goals.

As you can see, to be a great leader, one needs to become great in many areas. I myself have quite a long way to go, although the journey should be just as enjoyable as the end result.

More soft skills discussions to follow.

Any thoughts?