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My career followed two distinct paths both very different and both very much alike. I was a conservationist and an information systems developer.
I had an excellent career in government service, specifically with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
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What Have I Done?
As an Information Technologist I was often a project manager empowered to create software, databases, or special studies or reports. Sometimes I was a team member or facilitator in larger projects that crossed agency boundaries where USDA was consolidating services and operations. My projects ranged from
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Software and database development, including technical writing of user manuals for complex software delivered to almost 3,000 offices where programs and conditions vary widely.
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Leadership of a USDA customer service study training moderators from five USDA field agencies using guidance from four major land grant universities. The study resulted in dozens of focus group meetings across the country that cross-cut cultures, enterprises, scales of operation, and ethnic backgrounds.
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Team member for organizational development and reorganization of USDA's field agencies in multiple initiatives. (It took USDA several tries to get it right.)
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Leadership in creating Internet Web Farms for USDA to provide improved performance, management, and security.
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Prototyping new technologies, e.g. content management systems
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Special studies and reports for top agency leadership for conservation programs and planning policies
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How I'm a Knowledge Worker
Just being labeled as knowledge worker does not really say very much. Keep reading to see why two very different career paths were much the same.
Being a successful knowledge worker requires creating new knowledge--taking information from many sources and putting it to work in several ways.
Knowledge workers, like me, ask lots of questions because they have to understand the information--information is only accurate where it was intended to be used. Information is only useful if you can use it correctly.
Sometimes knowledge workers regurgitate what they learn in multiple forms. If you like to see graphical illustrations, you'll like what a knowledge worker does with information. It's all about making sense of the entire picture, details and all.
So how can a farm planning, soil conservationist be like a software project manager or computer systems analyst?
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As a conservationist, I drew spatial maps of natural resources and engineering diagrams of earth dams and other structures designed to control the flow of water.
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As a "computer guy" I drew maps showing data relationships and the flows of data in work processes.
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As a conservationist, I created plans that scheduled the rotation of crops, best management practices, and labor while evaluating the effects on budgets, timeframes, government programs, and other limiting factors.
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As a software project manager, I lived by detailed project plans that considered the relationships of different tasks, budgets, assigned resources, and similiar limiting factors.
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In either line of work, I had to explain my work to people who had to spend the money to accomplish what I proposed.
I think it's all a lot alike. |
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