Your Knowledge Portfolio

An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.

Benjamin Franklin

Ah, good old Ben Franklin ”never at a loss for a pithy homily. Why, if we could just be early to bed and early to rise, we'd be great programmers ”right? The early bird might get the worm, but what happens to the early worm?

In this case, though, Ben really hit the nail on the head. Your knowledge and experience are your most important professional assets.

Unfortunately, they're expiring assets. ^[3] Your knowledge becomes out of date as new techniques, languages, and environments are developed. Changing market forces may render your experience obsolete or irrelevant. Given the speed at which Web- years fly by, this can happen pretty quickly.

^[3] An expiring asset is something whose value diminishes over time. Examples include a warehouse full of bananas and a ticket to a ball game.

As the value of your knowledge declines, so does your value to your company or client. We want to prevent this from ever happening.

Your Knowledge Portfolio

We like to think of all the facts programmers know about computing, the application domains they work in, and all their experience as their Knowledge Portfolios. Managing a knowledge portfolio is very similar to managing a financial portfolio:

Serious investors invest regularly ”as a habit.
Diversification is the key to long- term success.
Smart investors balance their portfolios between conservative and high-risk, high-reward investments.
Investors try to buy low and sell high for maximum return.
Portfolios should be reviewed and rebalanced periodically.

To be successful in your career, you must manage your knowledge portfolio using these same guidelines.

Building Your Portfolio

Invest regularly. Just as in financial investing, you must invest in your knowledge portfolio regularly. Even if it's just a small amount, the habit itself is as important as the sums. A few sample goals are listed in the next section.
Diversify. The more different things you know, the more valuable you are. As a baseline, you need to know the ins and outs of the particular technology you are working with currently. But don't stop there. The face of computing changes rapidly ”hot technology today may well be close to useless (or at least not in demand) tomorrow. The more technologies you are comfortable with, the better you will be able to adjust to change.
Manage risk. Technology exists along a spectrum from risky, potentially high-reward to low-risk, low-reward standards. It's not a good idea to invest all of your money in high-risk stocks that might collapse suddenly, nor should you invest all of it conservatively and miss out on possible opportunities. Don't put all your technical eggs in one basket .
Buy low, sell high. Learning an emerging technology before it becomes popular can be just as hard as finding an undervalued stock, but the payoff can be just as rewarding . Learning Java when it first came out may have been risky, but it paid off handsomely for the early adopters who are now at the top of that field.
Review and rebalance. This is a very dynamic industry. That hot technology you started investigating last month might be stone cold by now. Maybe you need to brush up on that database technology that you haven't used in a while. Or perhaps you could be better positioned for that new job opening if you tried out that other language .

Of all these guidelines, the most important one is the simplest to do:

Tip 8

Invest Regularly in Your Knowledge Portfolio

Goals

Now that you have some guidelines on what and when to add to your knowledge portfolio, what's the best way to go about acquiring intellectual capital with which to fund your portfolio? Here are a few suggestions.

Learn at least one new language every year. Different languages solve the same problems in different ways. By learning several different approaches, you can help broaden your thinking and avoid getting stuck in a rut. Additionally, learning many languages is far easier now, thanks to the wealth of freely available software on the Internet (see page 267).
Read a technical book each quarter. Bookstores are full of technical books on interesting topics related to your current project. Once you're in the habit, read a book a month. After you've mastered the technologies you're currently using, branch out and study some that don't relate to your project.
Read nontechnical books, too. It is important to remember that computers are used by people ”people whose needs you are trying to satisfy . Don't forget the human side of the equation.
Take classes. Look for interesting courses at your local community college or university, or perhaps at the next trade show that comes to town.
Participate in local user groups. Don't just go and listen, but actively participate. Isolation can be deadly to your career; find out what people are working on outside of your company.
Experiment with different environments. If you've worked only in Windows, play with Unix at home (the freely available Linux is perfect for this). If you've used only makefiles and an editor, try an IDE, and vice versa.
Stay current. Subscribe to trade magazines and other journals (see page 262 for recommendations). Choose some that cover technology different from that of your current project.
Get wired. Want to know the ins and outs of a new language or other technology? Newsgroups are a great way to find out what experiences other people are having with it, the particular jargon they use, and so on. Surf the Web for papers, commercial sites, and any other sources of information you can find.

It's important to continue investing. Once you feel comfortable with some new language or bit of technology, move on. Learn another one.

It doesn't matter whether you ever use any of these technologies on a project, or even whether you put them on your resume. The process of learning will expand your thinking, opening you to new possibilities and new ways of doing things. The cross-pollination of ideas is important; try to apply the lessons you've learned to your current project. Even if your project doesn't use that technology, perhaps you can borrow some ideas. Get familiar with object orientation, for instance, and you'll write plain C programs differently.

Opportunities for Learning

So you're reading voraciously, you're on top of all the latest breaking developments in your field (not an easy thing to do), and somebody asks you a question. You don't have the faintest idea what the answer is, and freely admit as much.

Don't let it stop there. Take it as a personal challenge to find the answer. Ask a guru. (If you don't have a guru in your office, you should be able to find one on the Internet: see the box on on the facing page.) Search the Web. Go to the library. ^[4]

^[4] In this era of the Web, many people seem to have forgotten about real live libraries filled with research material and staff.

If you can't find the answer yourself, find out who can. Don't let it rest. Talking to other people will help build your personal network, and you may surprise yourself by finding solutions to other, unrelated problems along the way. And that old portfolio just keeps getting bigger .

All of this reading and researching takes time, and time is already in short supply. So you need to plan ahead. Always have something to read in an otherwise dead moment. Time spent waiting for doctors and dentists can be a great opportunity to catch up on your reading ”but be sure to bring your own magazine with you, or you might find yourself thumbing through a dog-eared 1973 article about Papua New Guinea.

Critical Thinking

The last important point is to think critically about what you read and hear. You need to ensure that the knowledge in your portfolio is accurate and unswayed by either vendor or media hype. Beware of the zealots who insist that their dogma provides the only answer ”it may or may not be applicable to you and your project.

Never underestimate the power of commercialism. Just because a Web search engine lists a hit first doesn't mean that it's the best match; the content provider can pay to get top billing. Just because a bookstore features a book prominently doesn't mean it's a good book, or even popular; they may have been paid to place it there.

Tip 9

Critically Analyze What You Read and Hear

Unfortunately, there are very few simple answers anymore. But with your extensive portfolio, and by applying some critical analysis to the

Care and Cultivation of Gurus

With the global adoption of the Internet, gurus suddenly are as close as your Enter key. So, how do you find one, and how do you get one to talk with you?

We find there are some simple tricks.

Know exactly what you want to ask, and be as specific as you can be.
Frame your question carefully and politely. Remember that you're asking a favor; don't seem to be demanding an answer.
Once you've framed your questioned, stop and look again for the answer. Pick out some keywords and search the web. Look for appropriate FAQs (lists of frequently asked questions with answers).
Decide if you want to ask publicly or privately. Usenet news-groups are wonderful meeting places for experts on just about any topic, but some people are wary of these groups' public nature. Alternatively, you can always e-mail your guru directly. Either way, use a meaningful subject line. (" Need Help!!! " doesn't cut it.)
Sit back and be patient. People are busy, and it may take days to get a specific answer.

Finally, please be sure to thank anyone who responds you. And if you see people asking questions you can answer, play your part and participate.

torrent of technical publications you will read, you can understand the complex answers.

Challenges

Start learning a new language this week. Always programmed in C++? Try Smalltalk [URL 13] or Squeak [URL 14]. Doing Java? Try Eiffel [URL 10] or TOM [URL 15]. See page 267 for sources of other free compilers and environments.
Start reading a new book (but finish this one first') If you are doing very detailed implementation and coding, read a book on design and architecture. If you are doing high-level design, read a book on coding techniques.
Get out and talk technology with people who aren't Involved in your current project, or who don't work for the same company. Network in your company cafeteria, or maybe seek out fellow enthusiasts at a local user's group meeting.