Even one of the comments from yesterday said it – “I don’t know where to start…” – boy, isn’t THAT the truth?
Talking about what to learn, what priorities to pay attention to, where to start learning all of it. That’s the problem. The “all of it” part. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to that are actually starting to disbelieve the concept of knowing “all of it.” There are too many moving parts, too many variables, too many combinations of things to think that someone is expected to know all of it.
So that mean you need to pick your weapons. I talked yesterday about finding your bliss and then pursuing that portion of all of this data platform stuff. You need to know some very targeted areas really well, and then a good working knowledge (but not ultimate expertise) in things overall. This is where people get caught up, at least in those that I’ve spoken with about this.
Everyone pulls out the “how to eat an elephant” analogy – a bite at a time. But in most cases, the person is saying that they want to deep dive into everything over time. It’s possible, but not realistic for many. Discussions usually end up prioritizing things on a “primary” and “secondary” type basis.
Those in the primary area should be those things that address you bliss. (This is getting corny with the bliss thing, but go with me on this). If, for example, it’s security, that might be encryption, access controls, auditing, etc. Things that fall under that topic, and things that you can learn and master. Those will be in your primary area and those are the things that will make you an expert in that slice of data platform.
The secondary areas might be things that are loosely related, but give you broad awareness and understanding, but not extremely deep experience. Know where to find answers. Know the concepts and how things are to work and then know that you can apply and help in those areas, but they’re not your (current) primary area.
If you master your primary target area, ADD ANOTHER AREA – don’t sit back on it, keep pushing. Go back to that whole blog/speak/write about it thing. That will reinforce what you know, teach you ongoing fringe cases, and more. But expand to another topic, then another. But try to keep them in a nucleus of topics – that just broadens your “expert” standing, while giving you a handle on learning and picking a direction.
Yes. It’s a lot. There are so very many different areas, but keep stirring. Keep after it. Learn just a bit more as often as you can possibly do it. It’ll make a huge difference. Talk about it with others, tweet about it.
Whatever you do, just keep pushing.