In 2007 I was doing so much AD and Exchange work, I seriously considered dropping Citrix from my skill set. I probably did 50% AD, 49% Exchange and 1% Citrix. Now it is 50% AD and 50% Citrix and my last production Exchange project was June 2008. My Exchange skills are so rusty, I am embarrassed that from 2004 to 2007 I did around 90 Exchange migrations and installs (which is where MBS and I formed our friendship) and now I do no Exchange. In 2007 and 2008 I did a few small Citrix projects (very small, like 1 server each). In July 2008, I asked to be taken off the road after traveling 27 days a month for 18 months. I literally did nothing from July until late October. That is when I started listening to MBS about writing. I had 3 skills: AD, Exchange and Citrix. I found there was a LOT of blogs and other sites dealing with both AD and Exchange and nothing for learning Citrix. So I decided to start writing about Citrix stuff. I got an Experts Exchange and started answering questions. Most of the questions, I couldn't answer right off hand so I had to lab the answers and then started writing articles on my learning experiences.
That is why all my articles are "Learning the Basics of ..." or "How Do I Do ..." type articles. I actually did not know how to do a lot of the Citrix stuff I was writing about so I had to read, read, read, study, lab, lab, lab and hooked up with some Citrix employees who could answer some of my questions. Believe it or not, but I had never customized Web Interface, never used CSG, never installed multiple servers, never used a SQL data store, never never never etc etc etc. Now I travel the country working on some of the largest Citrix installs for some of the largest enterprises in the world. Read, study, lab: rinse, lather, repeat You can do the same. Carl Webster Consultant and Citrix Technology Professional http://www.CarlWebster.com <http://www.carlwebster.com/> On 2/6/12 4:19 PM, "Kurt Buff" <kurt.b...@gmail.com> wrote: >You can look at it in one of two ways: > >Either you and MBS got very lucky, or you got very smart. > >The niches you've chosen are specialised enough that you aren't doing >daily grunt work (punching down patchpanels, patching workstations, >applying antivirus, replacing burnt-out video cards, etc.), but not so >specialised that your only place to land is in a Fortune 100 company >on its staff doing something that only applies to 3 other companies in >the world. > >The lesson is to place yourself at some sort of sweet spot on the IT >foodchain - and then exploit the hell out of it. > >The difficulty always lies in finding that sweet spot. > >And being willing to travel... > >Kurt > >On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 14:49, Webster <webs...@carlwebster.com> wrote: >> I can only speak for me, and it has been feast since I went out on my >>own >> Feb 1st last year. So far this year, the feast is even better as there >>is >> very little agency work so I get 100% of the billables. :) Yes, I am >> complaining all the way to the bank. If it gets any better, MBS is >>going to >> want a referral fee or commission! >> >> >> Carl Webster >> >> Consultant and Citrix Technology Professional >> >> http://www.CarlWebster.com >> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
