Let the adventure begin!

West of House

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.

There is a small mailbox here. (Zork I, Infocom)

AT END OF ROAD

You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully. (Adventure PDP-10 (Colossal Cave Adventure))

For most techies/geeks/nerds, you will recognize these lines as the start of two classic adventure games. I first played these adventures in the late 70s, early 80s, one on my Apple II+, the other on a teletype connected to our district's PDP-11. To successfully complete the adventure you have to navigate your way through the developers universe, completing a series of puzzles, quests, riddles, challenges or battles, figuring out which way to go next, and collecting the tools and artifacts along the way that you need to be successful.

This morning I will begin my next adventure - the start of my career at Best Buy. And in a similar fashion to the classic adventure games, I will need to navigate my way through, leveraging the tools and information that I find to solve the challenges, puzzles, and opportunities I encounter along the way, to be successful. With this knowledge I will build a map that will help me find my way through. There will be paths that lead in the right direction and others that I might have to backtrack from, challenges that stretch me, puzzles that may stump me, but pulling from my knowledge and experience and working with my colleagues I will find the right path to reach success.

I am joining Best Buy's Global Business Services team as a Program Director, focused on leading initiatives to support business opportunities through technology. Something that I am passionate about. During my interview process I had a chance to meet several great people, each sharing that same passion. I look forward to getting in and learning the business and to begin working with those individuals and the rest of the GBS team, and other Best Buy teams. I look forward to sharing my knowledge and experiences with the team and to engage in the continued development of GBS and the services it offers the Best Buy enterprise.

You are standing in a parking lot, in front of a large brown building.

> Let the adventure begin!

Week 13: The other part of David 2.0 - Professional Transformation

Project David 2.0 consists of two components - physical transformation and professional transformation. Up to this point I've focused my blog on the personal transformation aspect, but have been working quietly on the professional transformation. Today we get caught up on both parts!

Personal Transformation

Yesterday marked the end of week 13, and also 3 months of David 2.0. My total weight loss at this point is 33.6 po

unds of my original 61.6 pound goal. Look for that target number to change (increase) after the first of the year. I have also logged 142.26 miles on the treadmill over the last 46 days. It wasn't put of my original plan but I will be setting a mileage goal for this project as well. All is going well, and I continue to be amazed at the difference that those pounds are making.

Professional Transformation

The other leg of this project was the professional side. The goal was to figure out where I wanted to be professionally. I've spent the past 10 years as an IT consultant, focused on project and program management. It has been very rewarding and I have been fortunate to be a part of many business changing initiatives, but over the last year or two I have felt something missing. I started to focus more on my big picture - that is, what am I looking for in the long term? Where do I want to go professionally? What is it that I enjoy doing the most, and what do I need to do to get there.

I had decided that one thing that I missed was seeing the long-term benefits of a project that I implemented. Many times I've gone in to do a project, then following the launch, my contract is up and I move on. Never seeing the full results of what we did or having the chance to continue to improve, or update the solution. In order to do that I felt I needed to transition from a consultant role to an employee role. Ok, I can be good with that. So the next question, where do I want to work? I've been interested in Best Buy for the last couple of years. Why? Well, my wife has worked there for almost 10 years and loves it, I am a big fan of the products, it's a big company, it's a technology company, and they are in the midst of their own "IT transformation". Many of the reasons that I got into technology in the first place. In August, as I was in the midst of thinking about all of this and starting David 2.0, I received a LinkedIn message from Jonathan Kidder, Best Buy Social Media Manager for HR Recruiting, letting me know Best Buy was in the midst of hiring IT people as part of this transformation. A couple of days later I received a tweet from @bestbuy_it_jobs saying the same thing. It took me a week or so to follow the link and look at the current openings. Once I did I saw one or two positions of interest and connected with Jonathan. That led to Jonathan connecting me with one of the recruiters for GBS, which led to me applying, several rounds of interviews, and to last Friday where I received and accepted an offer to join Best Buy's GBS team. I'll be starting right after Thanksgiving.

The first 90 days of Project David 2.0 have gotten off to a very successful start. While it has only been a short journey so far, and there is much more to go, it has been very exciting and very rewarding. I am excited about the new doors that have opened and the challenges and rewards that they will bring. I look forward to continuing to share my progress and success as Project David 2.0 continues.

What do I look for in a Recruiter?

Yesterday I received an email that opened with "I recently came across your resume on the internet and believe the job opportunity below would be of interest to you." I get an email like this every couple of weeks. I find this interesting for two reasons. One, my resume has not been active on any sites (Dice/Monster) for over 4 years, and two, you think I am interested because of a single keyword in your search.

This brings up a good question. What do I look for in a Recruiter? Over the past several years I've worked with many different recruiters in the Twin Cities, either when I've been looking for a new contract/position, or been in roles where I needed to hire contract resources. Like any profession, there have been some really good ones, where I keep them in my network and continue to reach out to them when I have a need, and there are others, that, well, let's just say I no longer have their business card on file.

Here are four keys that I view as to what makes a good recruiter:

1. Have a relationship with the hiring manager and/or client company. It's easy to just glean open reqs off of vendor management systems, and throw a bunch of resumes at them, hoping that one of your candidates will get selected. Having a relationship is going to give you a true understanding of what the client is looking for and what you should be looking for in a candidate, which should give you an edge over other recruiters.

2. Know what the position is that you are recruiting to fill. When you get a req, don't just read the description. I can do that. Too many position descriptions are boilerplate, and may not always reflect the client's true need. Work with the client to find out what is behind the req. (Relationship) What is the real scope of the work? Are they posting for a Technical Program Manager when what they really need is a Business Analyst or Developer? Knowing what the client is looking for is only going to enable you to find the right candidate and sell that candidate on the position.

3. Get to know me. My best experience came from a former recruiter who has become a good friend - Robert Stanke. (Ok, it's Bob to most of you, but I met him when he was still Robert!) When Bob first recruited me, he was working on a couple of open reqs that my experience matched up with pretty well. Before Bob would submit me as a candidate he had one requirement - we had to meet for a 1:1. He wanted to get to know me so that he knew what I was looking for in my next position, what I liked, didn't like, what made me tick, the things that don't come through on the resume. He wanted to get to know me so that he knew how to present me, and could sell me to the client.

4. Communicate. Keep me in the loop. Once I’ve been submitted, a periodic update would be nice to let me know the status of the req. Has the req been filled or closed? Delayed? Am I still in play? I’m working with a recruiter now who provides me a weekly status update on an open req she’s working. I know things come up in a business and positions are delayed and canceled. With a good client relationship you should be aware of what is going on with the req and be able to communicate the status to the candidate.

These are the four keys that keep a recruiter in my network and their business card in my file.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

As I stated in my first post, my transformation consists of two components - personal and professional. Ok, so what does that mean? One thing it means is that I turned 47 this year and realize 50 is not that far away. But what else does it mean? There must be more. There is. I've spent a great deal of time over the last year in personal reflection and this is what has led me to this transformation plan.

Personal Transformation

In a nutshell it means that on the personal side I have made a commitment to improving my health which includes weight loss and a goal to reduce my dependency on my diabetes medication through dietary changes and exercise. I have a target weigh loss goal, but want to provide a little background before I disclose my goal. I believe this will have a great impact on other areas of my life.

Professional Transformation

On the professional side it means that I am going to answer the question - what do you want to be when you grow up? I've been successful as a Technical Program/Project manager for several years. The last 8 years as a consultant. Something's been missing though. I still haven't found what I'm looking for. I have some ideas as to what that is. And I have some ideas on what it will take to answer this question and I am ready to implement those ideas.

David 2.0

And with that we have the building blocks of David 2.0. Reaching the goals in each of these transformations will be very rewarding and life changing, but I believe that the two are interdependent and that success in either one will drive the success in the other.