Alona Oshri blogged forward to me. For those of you who are not familiar with Moshe Naveh's challenge, you can read about it here.
My name is Dell Stinnett and I am a Senior Business Intelligence Consultant for DecisionFirst Technologies. We are one of the leading providers of SAP BusinessObjects consulting services in the US. I have worked in Crystal Reports for about 17 years (since version 4.5!) and I've worked with BusinessObjects since 2005. My particular skills are with BO installation, migration, system administration, universe design, report design with Webi and Crystal, dashboard design, and custom coding with the SDK - mainly .NET, but I'm learning the Java SDK as well. I LOVE what I do and I feel like it helps to keep me young.
Fun Fact About Myself
I am a fiber artist. I do a lot of hand crafts - cross-stitch (the really complex ones!), quilting, sewing, etc. - but my particular passion is spinning and weaving. Currently I'm working on a set of baby blankets for the folks I work with who have either recently had babies or who are expecting. Here's the one that I'm working on right now:
I feel like part of the reason I do so well with my job is that much of what I do for work is much like the weaving design that I do for play. They both use the same parts of my brain, which helps me love what I do.
Recommend resources of information that helped you in your work
I started programming for a living in 1992. At that point in time, the Clipper forum on CompuServe was my main go-to place for getting my questions answered. As my skills and interests have evolved and both Clipper and CompuServe have fallen by the wayside, the places I go to get information have changed. I also do a LOT of answering questions on various forums - I see it as a way of paying back for the assistance that I received when I was first starting out. In addition to SCN (where I hang out in the .NET SDK and SAP Crystal Reports, Version for Visual Studio 2010 spaces), I post under the handle "hilfy" in the following forums:
BOB (of course!)
If you were 20 again, what would you study?
I would study the same things I did - computer programming and military science, although I probably would have left off the Russian, which I have never really used. The one class I took as an undergrad that I've really used was a graduate seminar in database design - that's where I learned the basic DB skills that I still use now - almost 30 years later.
What is your professional life dream?
Actually, I'm living it now! I LOVE working as a consultant! I had wanted to do this for a number of years but was unable to - I was doing the single-parent thing and couldn't travel as easily as I can now that my girls are grown. I enjoy problem solving, showing people how to do things, and exercising my creativity.
Blog it Forward
I don't have anyone to blog it forward to yet - but I will add here when I do.
Questions I'd like those I Blog it Forward to to answer:
- What 5 things do you absolutely want to achieve in life?
- If you could be a super hero (or are in your spare time) who would you be?
- What was the most fun project you ever participated in and why?
(Please be sure to follow the Blog It Forward Chain to be notified when people mentioned previously, update the link to their "BIF" blog).
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