I’m comin’ to Canada!
Michael Lato of Datatamer put together a really neat one-day conference that focuses on the soft skills side of IT. These presentations will help you get IT-related skills you need to get ahead in your career.
Here’s my presentations:
Inbox Zero: The Art of Email
No Photoshop Involved
If you’re using Outlook rules to filter server alert emails out of your inbox, or if you can’t even count the number of unread emails you’ve got, you’re not going to advance your career. Bosses notice who’s really on top of their email and they see it as a sign of a successful employee. I’ve taught dozens of IT staffers how to manage their priorities and inboxes better, and I can help you too.
In this session I’ll teach lessons on:
- How to ruthlessly prioritize your tasks
- How to triage your inbox
- How to do it all without offending your boss and your customers
How to Get Promoted and Dump Your Pager
IT jobs can be a never-ending on-call cycle of racing into the office, fixing broken servers, and aborted vacations. If you’re tired of having an electronic device handcuffed to your belt, there’s another way. Learn several routes to a better career including consulting, management, and writing.
I’ve tried each of these routes, and I’ll talk about the pros and cons of each approach. I’ll share my proven methods to get ahead on each career track and get you started on your way. After a decade of being on call 24/7, I’ve finally broken the cycle, and I know many others who’ve pulled it off too. There’s hope!
0 to Blogger in One Hour
Blogging is your shortcut to the top of the resume stack. It differentiates you from the hundreds of other people out there who will beat you out for the very best jobs and highest billable rates.
In this session, I will spend 5-10 minutes showing you why it’s important to blog, and then focus on the mechanics of building a blog. By the end of the session, you’ll know exactly how to get started blogging and avoid many common pitfalls.
You can register for the WorkTamer conference in Vancouver, and we’ve got a couple more Canadian cities coming up too!
Come for the presentations.
Stay for the Tim Hortons Coffee.
…and the TimBits!
I’m reading “Getting Things Done” at the moment, but have not yet gotten around to Inbox Zero. I thought it meant no unread e-mails rather than no e-mails in the inbox. How do you keep track of documentation using e-mails if your box is empty? Is your inbox split into multiple boxes for each topic or sender?
David – it means nothing in the inbox. If you need to save emails for reference purposes, you file those into folders. Tasks, however, are never tracked using emails. If you get an email telling you to do something, you create a task for it in your task management system and then file or delete the email. Personally, I delete mine. I used to save everything to cover my rear, but it’s tougher these days with corporate email deletion policies. Every now and then I use the search in Gmail though – that’s really handy to find deleted emails with phone numbers or addresses.
Shucks doesn’t look like there are any dates on the Western side of things. I’ll just have to settle with your blog for the time being
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Inbox Zero suddenly sounds like a much more daunting task. Wow. I may just cut loose an old account rather than try to sort it all out.
Well, you can always declare Email Bankruptcy:
http://valleywag.gawker.com/254608/declaring-e+mail-bankruptcy
One of my former managers did that, and the hilarious part was that nobody noticed. Nobody ever asked him for anything out of his old emails.