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Keep Learning
With this being the first work day of a new year, most people start thinking about how to better themselves.
I was thinking about this, and what I’ve done in the past to get where I am now. Then I thought that there may be others like I used to be, who could hopefully gain the advantage of some advice (though honestly, I probably wouldn’t have listened).
Try to learn something outside of your area of expertise. While I’ve since landed in Cyber Security/Information Security I started out as a helpdesk technician and worked my way through the various areas, networking, server administration, programming, web design, database, etc. These skills I have learned, have helped me in my career because I don’t just look at these things from a single viewpoint (IT Security), but I view it from each of those previous positions.
Yet, I don’t want you to stop there. Those are still within your sphere of knowledge, instead, push even beyond that. For example, last week after work (while browsing LinkedIn), I came across a webinar about “warming up email”, for advertising purposes. This is in no way directly ties to what I do on a daily basis, but I decided to take time and watch and read about it.
Honestly, the phrase “warm your email” was what originally caught my attention. What the heck did that mean? So I spend time reading and watching webinars and videos about it and adding that to my knowledge.
This is something that I wish I would have done earlier in my career.
even in business, learning the business is helpful to all parts of IT and customer service. I never got that when I was younger…who cared what my company did…I did IT and that was generally the same at most companies I worked for.
So, if you are looking to improve yourself professionally this year, may I recommend that you constantly learn more about your business units’ work and why they do what they do…and then take some time where you constantly learn about things that has nothing to your job or business and keep your skills fresh.