Extra Curriculars and Opportunity
It's somewhat easy to get sucked into your job life and do well with the tasks you are given. It's not enough. In my experience, I've found extra curricular activities like joining user groups, having a side tech project you're interested in, reading tech books and magazines directly or indirectly related to what you do leads to good thing.
It's important to show that you're happy to work in technology. If you're passionately working on a side tech project, it gives you something positive to talk about to others. Lucky for you if you have stories about work that show you like what you do. Some people don't maybe because those tasks are not fulfilling or challenging or maybe the tasks are tedious.
One of the best tips I've received from mentors (anyone better in tech than you that helps you grow) is to "Know how it works". Reading books and magazines are an important supplement to that. Your experience it work alone is generally not going to prepare you for larger roles. Books and magazines give you the inside lessons from people who are where you want to be. Books and magazines give you a second hand way to look at your career and the technology world from a different angle.
Some people think they can keep doing the same job for their whole career. I say you should strive to work on things you are passionate about. If you've been in a job you've mastered for too long, do something different. For me, I went into sales engineering. I looked at my chosen path, data warehousing in a different way. I tried for two years to help sales people sell data warehousing software. I was able to hear 100 stories on what folks in different businesses were doing with data warehousing. I had experience presenting to C-level executives. I learned a lot about sales.
I've also been a member of the Philadelphia Java Users Group for two years. In my current job, I cull data into data warehouses from systems that are made up mostly of Java code. I'm only at best a novice Java programmer. However, staying with it gives me an understanding of what they do and helps me ask intelligent questions.
Another good, more general piece of advice I've been given is... "The only limits are your imagination." As a kid, if you wanted things you couldn't have, you could imagine you had them. To be a sucessful adult technology professional, you need to have good experience but you also have to have a good imagination of other aspects of your role.
I believe you expand your imagination by following things you are passionate about. You can't be good or passionate about every aspect. Follow those things you are passionate about and they will lead you down a path. For me, it's been data warehousing and business intelligence. I could have been a hard core embedded C programmer working at a low level against hardware like my friend Don. That was his passion. Instead, I chose a path I was interested in. I read books and magazines, I explored user groups directly and indirectly related, I worked on side projects. These have help me show myself as a positive person, generally interested in the work I do, with a vast knowledge of what has been done, imaginative ideas on what can be done, and ever growing experience in my chosen path.
