When does a job become a career and a career a vocation?
Personal thoughts written on a soggy Saturday afternoon, so turn off now if you're looking for something a little more highbrow. Image courtesy of Jon at www.geek.on.net
TechEd is done & dusted for another year meaning I can now get on with the real business of launching SBS & EBS onto an unsuspecting Australian public. If you've been involved with organising a major event, you'll know what I mean when I say how completely exhausting, attention-sapping & yet thoroughly rewarding they can be.
Anyway, I'm supposed to be working on yet another MBA assignment (anyone know anything about "How to build & deliver on your customer value proposition?") & yet I just had to get these thoughts down on pixels.
I get to meet a good many people in my role & its one of the things that keeps me coming back into work every day. Smart people, passionate people, annoying people, hard-working people, selfish people, basically just all kinds of different folks but with one thing in common: their involvement with SBS.
Whenever we do one of those pseudo-scientific personality profile things at work I always rate off the scale for connection with people, meaning that when all else is equal, my thinking preference is all around my engagement with other warm-blooded mammals. Not so bad on the big ideas / strategy piece & basically non-existent on the details & process bits (which should come as no surprise to those who know me well). I almost enjoy working with the annoying or selfish or rude people as much as the nice people as I see them as a kind of challenge. As Steven Covey may argue - why are they like that?
Anyway Mk II - I was thinking about this over dinner last night & it really struck me that far & away the best part of my job is getting to engage with people who see their involvement in this space not just as a job, not even a career, but truly a vocation. Almost a calling if you will. Now they'll probably hate me for saying this however I think its true - there's a bunch of folks in the Australian SBS partner community who continually go over & above & out of their way to help other partners (often rival businesses) succeed.
I'm constantly amazed by the sheer volume of effort they put in around organising user groups, responding to posts on forums, working on weekends to figure out problems & basically just being good community citizens. I saw loads of this at TechEd during the week & it never fails to put the bounce back in my step.
Folks blogging throughout the conference so that those who couldn't make it were able to get timely access to the information.
Folks providing solid, credible feedback about what they really wanted to see at the SMB Servers Pre-day so that we may improve our offerings.
Folks helping out at the Windows Essential Server Solutions stand just because they've got an interest in the SBS community.
And of course, the driving forces behind the SBS User Groups as in the above photo - Wayne, Ian, Stuart, Dean & Henry. These guys are by no means the only people responsible for the vibrant, inclusive SBS community in Australia, maybe just the most high-profile. What they do though certainly makes my life as the SBS/EBS guy at Microsoft Australia much easier & hopefully the lives of a good many partners & IT consultants who make their living in this space much easier as well.
I for one never thank these folks enough. I always just assume that Dean Calvert will be able to do a business presentation, or Henry will be available for a call or that Wayne knows every single possible thing about SBS (which is quite possibly true, but not the point). I take for granted that Robert Crane will provide insightful feedback & Hilton will be on hand to incite the masses into action. :-)
And so if I don't say enough - from me to the tireless drivers of the Small Business Server partner community in Australia, thank you.
Robbie