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April 12, 2006
Top Jobs
From an entry on CNN Money today, a listing of the top 10 jobs. At number is Software Engineer:
1. Software Engineer Why it's great Software engineers are needed in virtually every part of the economy, making this one of the fastest-growing job titles in the U.S. Even so, it's not for everybody.Designing, developing and testing computer programs requires some pretty advanced math skills and creative problem-solving ability. If you've got them, though, you can work and live where you want: Telecommuting is quickly becoming widespread.
The profession skews young -- the up-all-night-coding thing gets tired -- but consulting and management positions aren't hard to come by once you're experienced.
What's cool Cutting-edge projects, like designing a new video game or tweaking that military laser. Extra cash from freelance gigs. Plus, nothing says cool like great prospects.
What's not Jobs at the biggest companies tend to be less creative (think Neo, pre-Matrix). Outsourcing is a worry. Eyestrain and back, hand and wrist problems are common.
Top-paying job Release engineers, who are responsible for the final version of any software product, earn six figures.
Education Bachelor's degree, but moving up the ladder often requires a master's.
I'm kind of confused on this one. First off they have the what's cool and what's not cool down pretty good. I don't hide my dislike of my position within Chipzilla, an organization that typically views software as an after thought (as opposed to someone like Apple who views software as essential... it's made for some interesting teleconferences).
What I don't understand is commenting on telecommuting. Out of all my friends, only one (Brian) has the ability to work from whereever he'd like to. Even in my current state of searching, no employers seem to enjoy this idea. I've heard lots about this great option, but I've yet to see it offered.
I'm also not sure where they got their salary data from. Unless living in California (which I guess is a number large enough to sway the standard), most companies don't offer salaries anywhere near that. Possibly I'm not the greatest negotiator. Possibly I'm just applying for the wrong jobs. Or possibly I just suck. In any of the cases, just show me where the distributions are!
Oh well... we'll always have out-sourcing...
Posted by Dan at 03:37 PM | Comments (0)
April 05, 2006
Microinequities
I had the oppertunity to attend a presentation entitled "Microinequities: The Power of Small" recently. The presenter, Steve Young, is a very dynamic personality who kept the crowd entertained throughout a potentially dry subject matter. I only fell asleep twice in the 5 hours. Both for brief flickers of time (about 40 seconds).
The base premise of the talk was really how to help employee motivation and communication. The catch on this talk was to note the unconcious messages sent while talking to others, and how they are perceived by the receiving party. The short example used in the lecture was "I didn't say she stole the book." If you were to say this same sentence multiple times, you could change the meaning by altering where the emphasis is placed. This really just reminded me of the classic "how many ways you can say Dude" (unfortunately I can't find a link anywhere).
A little later the discussion moved towards filters, and how each person has their own set of filters that are instituted without realizing it. The problem of course becomes how to reset the filter, so that an employee no longer feels a manager is "out to get them" and return to productively working together. The examples used in this section reminded me of the hunting safety course I was required to take before acquiring my license. In that class they played a video for us, our goal was to count the number of deer in the scene. The question immediatley followed was, who saw the other hunters? Playback showed a bright orange hunter near each deer that no one really noticed. That was our filter.
What are some of these gestures? Using a case of flirting, we were given an example of flirting from a distance. When the recipient was asked to explain how she knew it was flirting, she couldn't. Similar scenarios were played out for introductions, normal communications, and passdown scenarios. They even used a case of having your dog smile, as a means to explain how you knew this.
Finally the discussion moved towards, how do you talk about these issues? How do you discuss with your manager or employee that they are sending you these negative vibes without sounding like a complete dork. A difficult task by any means.
The one point throughout the discussion that I consistently disagreed with was manners. Everything being discussed seemed like a huge case for keeping your manners in top form at all times. Steve addressed this briefly, stating manners is just the tip of the bubble, but I really disagree on that point.
As far as a presentation, it's worth checking out. It seems he does this talk at many different companies, and possibly universities. Check it out if you get a chance. At the very least, it's always good to watch an amazing speaker keep an entire crowds attention.
You can read more about this work at Diversity At Work.
Posted by Dan at 06:14 PM | Comments (0)