Hack Your Professional Development

Thanks to everyone who registered for my webinar on Tuesday. We covered a lot of great content on growing your data career and I appreciate all your comments and feedback. If you missed the session, you can watch it here but I’d like to provide a quick summary of some important takeaways from the session.

1. We have the best jobs ever!

Lucky for us, we are in the middle of a new industrial revolution. Today’s revolution is based on data and data powers everything. Industrial revolutions are often defined by automation, quality of life, infrastructure, transportation and communication; And data is driving each of these forward at warp speed. Because of this, now is the perfect time to advance you career in data. You need a career roadmap for your own professional development to keep up with the rapid-changing landscape.

2. Treat Yourself Like a Startup

Platforms are changing so fast and new roles are popping up every day making it almost impossible to keep up with everything. Having a startup attitude will help you navigate the ever-changing data field. Always remember that YOU are your best investment and you need to spend time on advancing yourself. Here are some key things to help guide you on this journey:

1. Define your mission and stick to it
2. Set SMART goals to achieve
3. Inventory your skills, tools and relationships
4. Expand your research network
5. Identify those who can help with your mission

3. Change the Way We Approach Our Development

In the past, personal development had a very hands-off approach. You would often read about what was changing but face roadblocks in learning more such as lack of company adoption and time. Those excuses don’t matter in today’s environment. You need to make an active plan for your personal development. You need to look at your team and company and decide what they need help on and what you can do to move them in a positive direction. Make a list of goals to accomplish and prioritize what needs to be learned first. We’re all busy but even taking a few hours from your weekend to tackle your goals will make a huge improvement. You want to be the leader of change in your organization!

These are just a few of the highlights from my webinar. I encourage you to watch or maybe re-watch the session to learn more about hacking your professional development.

Click here to download the slides from my webinar!