I’m falling in love with this industry all over again.

So, two articles in and I’ve introduced myself to the big bad world, to start lending credibility to the personal mentoring programs I run. During this time, I also started my Master of IT Leadership, a reflective Professional Practice Degree curated by Deakin University.

I strongly recommend any young leaders looking to further their education, start here. I’m happy to hop on a call to discuss the program or catch up over a coffee to discuss course content. The course has been an excellent way for me to check back in on my career and help young folk in ICT not make the same career mistakes (missteps?) I made.

It was through reflective practice, and starting this blog I realised I’m falling in love with the ICT industry all over again. I’m back to where I started, full of energy, passion, and a love for learning.

So why do I have a passion for this industry?

Good question. As you’ll see in my first blog post, I’ve been privileged to hold many roles, from Desktop Support to General Management/Director roles. The ICT industry is fast-paced. At it’s best, you’ll meet amazing, culturally and professionally diverse people from all over the world, and if you’re lucky, you’ll get to travel yourself. At it’s worst, you can get burnt out very easily, and you can feel like people are leapfrogging you if you don’t take care to nurture your professional self.

I’ve certainly felt both the best and worst of these experiences in this industry. But it has grown me as a person. It’s instilled in me the idea that we should do nothing if not working towards helping each other out.

We should extend a handshake and discuss problems over coffee (many, many coffees). We should ask each other how we are doing, are we really ok, to our colleagues and our peers. We should set expectations on what we want from each other as colleagues and professionals.

I believe the ICT industry is unique in this way, people will genuinely care about you if you extend the hand of friendship and collaboration.

That, and more pragmatically, it’s exciting to know that no one is an expert in every technology type/platform/configuration/setup. You’ll truly learn something new every day.

The only way to survive in this industry is to observe (what is happening around you), understand (not just your area of expertise, but the motivations of those around you), internalise (reflect on your own behaviours, and those around you) and exude your passion (express your professional self, whatever that may be).

So, What gets me out of bed every morning?

The challenge. There’s always another problem to solve. Always another person to mentor. Always another customer to transform. When you master one technology in this industry, another pops up. And when you master a few technologies, your role changes and you start again.

I get out of bed knowing that there are brilliant technology and strategic influencers all around me. I get out of bed knowing I’m inspired to learn from everyone around me. I get out of bed knowing I’m going to learn as valuable a lesson from my mentees and interns, as I will my CEO and my organisation’s owner.

It takes work and discipline, but I get out of bed knowing I’m solely responsible for my attitude, and that passion may exist today, but also be gone tomorrow, so I may as well embrace this industry, with open arms.

I knew coming into this industry I would never be bored but I never quite understood the scale of the industry.

I’ve fixed printers, replaced hard drives, configured virtual servers in complex clusters distributed globally, configured and maintained complex networks. I’ve fixed destroyed databases and recovered critical customer data. I’ve prevented security issues for customers. I’ve guided, mentored, advised, grown (and sometimes shrunk) customer environments.

I’ve grown to understand the difference between strategic value and tactical value. All in 12 short years. Knowledge feeds my “soul”. This is why I’m pursuing this career with open arms and enthusiasm.

So why did I aspire to this field?

Truth be told, I didn’t. In grade 2, I wrote a diary entry to my teacher as a wide eye 8-year-old. I wanted to be a policeman. I wanted to follow my father into law enforcement. I was lucky enough to become a police officer for a very short stint, but it wasn’t after first venturing into IT. My career went ICT -> Police Officer -> ICT -> Consulting -> ICT.

So when did I first want to become an ICT Professional, if it wasn’t my original passion?

I was 10 (I think). We had our first computer. It was an old 486DX. The internet was becoming this thing that would eventually have a minor influence on all our lives, It was on this computer I learnt what RAM, Modems, VGA and Hard Drives were.

My father loved this computer. It was his hobby too. One holiday period, he was at work. One day, I decided to hop onto the computer and play solitaire, or chess, or whatever I could get my hands on while he wasn’t there.

In my infinite wisdom, I also decided to see what would happen if I deleted the C:\Windows directory. Windows 95 didn’t like that very much. I may as well have formatted the entire thing. Turns out, this was my first tech job – working to a deadline to fix dads PC before he got home, discover the issue, and be totally ok with my mistake*.

*flip out and get angry at the fact I destroyed his computer.

I literally had no idea what I was doing but figured the box of 15 floppy disks labelled “Windows 95 disk 1 through 15, would be a good place to start.

I managed to reinstall a fresh copy of Windows, reinstall his favourite game (Civilization 2), and show dad how much of the map I had explored, playing as the Aztecs, within the confines of his 8-hour shift. I’ve never actually admitted to him that I nearly cost him a few hundred dollars if he had needed to send the PC to the local repair shop. Maybe I’ll tell him the story next time I see him.

It was here, at an early age I realised I could do something with this talent for incident response, before I even knew what the term meant. I had my first committment to a “Service Level Agreement” here. It was equal parts terrifying and exhilarating. From that moment on, I started to pull apart and put technology back together (albeit in less risky environments, and fashions).

Early on, I feel like I only forayed into this industry because I was good at it. On a personal level, it’s why I left the industry a few times to pursue other things. Because I didn’t understand WHY I was passionate, I was distracted by the other shiny opportunity to do something else.

With time, I’ve come to understand that we should do what we love, and often, we are good at what we love. I see these factors as two contributors to developing a passion for something.

Sometimes, we need to remember why we started in the first place. Solving other people’s problems is joyful. I may no longer be “on the tools” so to speak, but I do enjoy giving young people in the industry the same exposure I had. To this end, teaching and growing others is a joy. And heck, if I get to learn some cool tech along the way, all the better, for all of us.

Which takes me to the next question – what are my ambitions, goals, and philosophies?

Interesting question.

My ambitions? Be better every day. Be better for me, for my colleagues, for my business, for my customers. I’m nothing without the brilliant people around me. Sincerely.

My philosophy? I believe in altruism. I believe we need to be remembered for the impression we gave people, of ourselves. I’ve been the arrogant, pigheaded young tech that got results and thought that was all that mattered. I’m actively trying to teach that out of young folk in the ICT sector now.

Being brilliant technically is one piece of the puzzle. Being liked and being an effective communicator is another piece. There are many more pieces for many more blog posts to come.

My goal? This is a difficult one. It changes every day.

Personally, I’d like to turn this blog into a philanthropic exercise where a big business pays me to bring them amazing graduates. But at the same time, I don’t want to be a recruiter. For now, I’m focusing on my “9-5” where I get to run their graduate program and still bring customers world-class, complex ICT and Unified Communications Solutions.

What do I attribute to my “success”? What major milestones got me here?

When I was 10 years old I fixed my first computer – that sweat-inducing “fix it before dad realises” problem discussed above. When I was 16 years old, I was told by someone who should know better that I’d never amount to anything, and that computers were a fad. Yes, this is a true story. This developed my youthful arrogance and fueled a desire to prove this person wrong.

When I was 17 I completed a TAFE course in Network Management, then onto Network Engineering, then General Computing, Business Systems, then full-time work at the age of 20.

My first big project was a complex, large 2000 seat LAN refresh I was dramatically underqualified to take on, but succeed by sheer will and effort.

My first major outage was fixing the mistake of another engineer who deleted 3% of a production database without a recovery option (many 10’s of thousands of dollars later, we got ourselves and the customer out of the situation). Be careful with your customer’s data.

The first major project I lead for a Managed Services Provider, I started with a single IP address and remote access to a server, thousands of Km’s away and built an entire, redundant cluster of servers hosting critical line of business applications for a leading college.

The first management position I took on, I had to learn how to be a manager and take on a small team of three people, and seemingly overnight, grow it to a team of 40.

The first consulting gig I took on, I learnt to present as a truly polished, suit-wearing professional where there was no hiding – organisations were now truly hanging on every word. Humbling. And terrifying. This was my first time in a General Management position with Profit & Loss management responsibility.

My recent foray back into the Managed Services space as a Project and Services Director now sees every project I deliver as major organisational transformational work. With great title, comes great responsibility.

Concluding.

The truth is, there is no one key to success and no one project that’s grown me. I am not the sole author of my successes or defeats. Through sheer will, reflective practice, and learning humility, I’ve gotten to where I want to be.

Where I go next, I suspect, is as much on you, as it is me. Your success is my success. Feel like chatting? Email me, mark@everysaturday.com.au or reach out on my LinkedIn page.