Finding Your Ideal Work Mentor

May 31, 2013 Amanda Alderman Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

A few years ago I took some leadership training and during the training it was suggested we get mentors. I asked someone who was in a higher position than I was and who I respected a lot. She told me she had too much on her plate. Luckily, I found someone else, who recommended a few books to me and we were able to meet a few times. In the end, I didn’t keep up with it and it fell off.

Lately I feel like I need guidance and inspiration. I do read books on my own about leadership, but I am not clear on where I want to go at this point and have been feeling a little uninspired. I need some help guiding my career, so I decided to do some research on how to find a mentor again.

Eight Tips for Making Internal Job Moves

May 22, 2013 Amanda Alderman Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

I have been at Global Knowledge about eight and a half years and have had eight different roles. Which made me think, “Why have I been able to change jobs so often?” To begin with I am the type of person who likes to look at the big picture and understand what people do. How do things come together? How do the pieces fit? Who does what and why? I am a believer in collaboration so I try to meet with people to understand their role. Sometimes knowing who to go to for help is the most important thing in the process of trying to accomplish something.

Nice vs. Annoying: Who Gets More Accomplished?

May 13, 2013 Amanda Alderman Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

When I was growing up my mother had two sayings, “You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar” and “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” Both made sense to me and to some degree I think both are true. Now that I am in the workforce and deal with people a lot, these come to mind more often. Recently something hit me, don’t these sayings contradict each other? So are they both true?

Lessons I’ve Learned About Leadership from Dogs

April 19, 2013 Amanda Alderman Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

Not the same approach works with both of them and I have to adjust my approach with them to get the desired reaction. The same goes with people. As a sales engineer I supported over 100 sales reps, so obviously my time was limited. When someone was impolite to me I was not as apt to help them over someone who seemed to appreciate me. It’s hard to admit but the truth is we are prone to go extra for people who value others time. If I went around demanding things (yanking on leashes) I am sure no one would go above and beyond for what I am asking for.

Building the Cloud: Roadmap to Success Workshop

April 11, 2013 Amanda Alderman Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

We just finished up the Cloud Workshops in Chicago, Dallas, and New York, my pet project for the last year and something totally new to Global Knowledge.

When we started to think about doing them, I looked at what was out there and everything I saw was tied to one of the many cloud vendors. We were going to hire a company to manage the project but I decided I could do it.

We decided to make this series vendor neutral and once word got out we had vendors approach us and ask to sponsor the events. We turned them down because it was important to us that we stay sponsor free (we did not even mention our own training). The goal was to educate and make sure the attendees were thinking about everything involved with cloud computing and provide something that was not out there already.