Looking Ahead in 2011: Learning For All of Us

As part of my goals, each year, I plan that I will continue to learn AND to help others in the industry to learn.

My Own Learning
A piece of advice my dad gave me when I was quite young was that, the older you get, the more exposed to the world of knowledge you get, the more you realize you don’t know. Thus, true wisdom is the ability to recognize that you know hardly anything compared to what there is to know. What I have also learned along the way is that the people that claim to know “everything” and who can never admit they’re wrong are usually the ones that know the least. They know so little that they don’t even know what they don’t know, which is why we’re all such total geniuses when we’re about high school age or so.  ;-)

These days, when I don’t know something, I’m honest about it. Sometimes, I think I know it but I don’t and I come back, tail between my legs a bit, and admit I was wrong – that I didn’t know, after all. That builds credibility. But those who have worked with me know I seldom leave things with “I don’t know” but usually as one of the following: “I don’t know but I think I can figure it out pretty quickly,” “I don’t know but I think I know where to find out” or “I don’t know know and I don’t even know where to start.” So, if there’s any hope I can figure it out in a reasonable amount of time and without truly wasting a customer’s money, I’ll offer to do that.

As part of providing great service to customers, though, those of us who are out there providing such should always keep in-mind that if we don’t continue to improve our skills and learn new things that there are other people out there who ARE doing that and ready to replace us at the drop of a hat. And so, this year like all others, I think ahead knowing some of the things I plan to catch-up on and wondering what others will come up throughout the year. There are current topics sitting around, such as books (such as the Ruby on Rails book and the XML book I plan to read/skim) and articles (on topical issues from blogs, magazines, e-zines, and the like) but there are some things customers will ask me to do during the year that I can’t even know about, right now. I look forward to some of those challenges.

Helping Other People Learn
Consultants like myself are used to assisting the learning process as we often spend a good deal of time helping others to learn, mentoring our customers and giving advice, for example. But a number of us also try to share our knowledge with others in the industry and we do what we can to find the best ways to do that.

First of all, I’m not saying that I will start developing and giving training courses. This is not a service I provide and I don’t plan to start. Nor do I plan to become your Help Desk. That is usually best done either by your software vendor or those companies that they employ to handle that particular job. However, with my articles and blog, I hope to impart information to people.

Also, the reason I started the “LIMS/Laboratory Informatics” group in LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/36640/6A50095E87BA) was to help us all get together and learn from each other – to enable us all to share our collective wisdom.

In a previous blog post, I did state that I was spending too much time on activities to help others out and not enough on my own business. In 2009, I spent my “spare” time building the “LIMS/Laboratory Informatics” group and, in 2010, speaking at and assisting conferences. However, I went on to say that my goal for 2011 is to focus on a few activities that seem to be the most effective rather than saying “yes” to whatever plea or good idea comes my way. I firmly believe that if each of us spends just a little time each month helping others in our industry out, when it’s our turn to get some help, it’s much more likely to be there. At least, that’s how it’s been working for me.

Gloria Metrick
GeoMetrick Enterprises
http://www.GeoMetrick.com/