Dealing with the rapid innovations in IT

In my experience there hasn’t been a month with a lot of changes, this experience can get more intense as you grow in your role and at some point become overwhelming.

Well, it can be, it doesn’t have to be, to deal with this myself I try to make -well weighted- choices to be good at a specific skill set, which involves specific tools. I do this because I think no one can be a “know it all”, there are however some sets of combined skills that go together like fine wine and cheese. For example, in my case, Linux, Networking, Automation and Virtualization. I don’t mention Security, as I think that the meaning of Security has changed, it isn’t just a list of rules to go by anymore, which -of course- is still very important and are rules to live by when you’re a “builder”, however Security as a skill nowadays is something that goes on 24/7, hackers never sleep.

Even tools can at some point become overwhelming, if you don’t choose your tools considerately, you might end up with a huge pile of tools that aren’t maintained, trustable, secure or maybe even more important, you forgot how they worked. Once you find yourself in that spot, you might’ve done just that, jumped onto every tool you came a long and ended up in a mess, no worries, it is never too late to drop one or two at a time and become organized, starting today! 😀

I live by the rules, when I come back in 2 months, will I be able to pick this up where I left it? If I can say yes, it means it is something that can fit me most likely. Of course this all depends on how much time is invested into it initially, you shouldn’t always question this beforehand, as the answer is most likely no, I think the next question then should be, is it an essential part of our daily Business? If yes, you should definitely invest the time to learn it.

Part of dealing with innovation is saying goodbye to legacy, which can consist of software, versions, hardware, anything you can think of. I wanted to mention this specifically as last year I realized, after migrating a lot of “legacy” away, that it is part of our daily fun, they are all like little puzzles and once they’re migrated they’re gone and will never come back, the puzzles I mean, as most likely you’re already behind a minor release 😉.