One of the values that BlueMetal holds close to how the team has been and is continually being built encompasses the concept of allowing each individual to succeed.  This success is based on focusing an individual on the key skills they possess, along with drawing in other co-worker’s mentoring capabilities and experience as a key part in that success.  When a BlueMetal employee looks around, even as a consultant that may be segmented off for periods of time, they always can be assured that there is a vast amount of knowledge and personal success readily available for sharing from each person within the BlueMetal team.

The statement, “We wrote the book”, always comes forward in conversations about BlueMetal.  This doesn’t necessarily mean every BlueMetal team member has written a book or even aspired to. What it means is each team member has the ambition to succeed, build the highest level of awareness in their field and most of all share that success and skillset with others.

All of this holds much value in building a successful career.  This is why when John Sansom asked for my input while coming up a great concept to be made available to others, I jumped at the opportunity to be part of it.  I’m referring to is, “DBA JumpStart – A SQL Community EBook for DBAs“  John has always had a great desire to provide mentoring and his own knowledge based on his career, to the community and anyone asking the question, “How can I better my career and professional development plan so I’m successful?“  Given that desire, John approached several leaders and successful SQL Server professionals to take part in answering the question, “If you could give an aspiring DBA just one piece of advice, what would it be?”

I don’t want the DBA aspect of this title to lead you to think the e-book does not hold any value for just about any technical career path.  I’ve read this e-book from front to back and each person’s piece of advice has as much value in a path to being successful as a DBA as it does for a developer, engineer or even manager.  This e-book also has value for experienced people that have had success in building a career.  There is always something we can do better or something we can work on to reach that next stage – even if that next stage was something we didn’t easily see in front of us.

I highly recommend reading this ebook and remember, being successful is right there in front of all of us.  We just need to want the end result of feeling we have truly been successful.  Taking in mentorship and any advice that is handed freely and unselfishly, only benefits us in building the path to success.