A friend of mine just recommended this book Outliers: The Story of Success – Malcolm Gladwell $16.79

Outliers can be enjoyed for its bits of trivia, like why most pro hockey players were born in January, how many hours of practice it takes to master a skill, why the descendents of Jewish immigrant garment workers became the most powerful lawyers in New York, how a pilots’ culture impacts their crash record, how a centuries-old culture of rice farming helps Asian kids master math.

I personally love it when people compile research to establish statistical “proof” that life is more than a series of unrelated events. My friend mentioned Outliers because he says I remind him of the book’s subjects. It is true that I wonder what my life would be like without computers. If I didn’t have such a passion to learn, know, test and try things out.

How I Got My Start In Computer Technology

I often think back to my early beginnings on the computer. There was no one in my life telling me “girls don’t work on computers” so I was able to move forward with my curiosity. My mother got me signed up as a Windows 98 beta tester. Now I have no idea how she heard about the program or why she even thought I would be interested. This was 1997. I has just graduated high school and was taking psychology classes at MCTC. I had taken the very painful “Computers 101″ which, as I remember was confusing, strange, hard to understand and abstract. Anyway, she had me fill out some form and then I got some letter in the mail from Microsoft saying I had been accepted. The first thing Microsoft needed me to do was ensure my computer met the “minimum system requirements”…and so began my love affair with technology.

I had a really, really, really old computer. An employer’s wife had the computer from her old job site and they had given it to me. It was an NCR SCSI based model from 1992. So first things first, I read the Microsoft letter and saw:

Hard Drive – this size is the minimum
CD-Rom speed – this is the minimum

Alright, I better make sure I have those. Mmm, how do I tell if this computer has those? I started my search at the local library and came up empty handed. I bought my very first computer book (Upgrading and Repairing PC’s, 8th Edition) and started calling NCR for computer support. I would call them and tell them my final goal (computer needed this size drive and this speed CD-rom), where I was at right now and they would tell me my next step. They had me editing lines of the autoexec.bat. I would carefully write down their instructions, get off the phone, make the changes, test the changes and then call them back to report the new status. Sometime during this process I realized, “Hey! This is really fun and logical!”. They directed me to get a new hard drive.

So being a broke college student, I headed over to the used computer store that used to be on Bryant and Lake Street near the Bryant Lake Bowl. I picked up a SCSI hard drive that couldn’t of been more than 8GB. As I was paying for it, the manager asked, “Hey, do you like computers? Do you want a job?”. I jumped at the chance because this looked like a great opportunity to learn about computers and get hands on experience.

I was able to get my “new” hard drive installed and successfully set the SCSI ID to a non conflicting number. I kept having trouble with the CD-Rom drive so this is where working at a computer store came in handy. I was able to get help from the on-site tech and put my paychecks towards a new computer. I participated in the beta, submitted bug reports and received a shiny final version of Windows 98.

That’s how my tech career got started.

Interestingly enough, it turned out to be a good thing that I had just one computer book. I would read chapters, think about what I’d read, go back and re-read it, cross reference item in the index and even had some “computer solution” dreams. Techies and programmers know what I mean…you work out the problems in a semi wakeful state.

So, going on Malcolm Gladwell’s theory that successful people end up that way through a set of events:

Challenging our cherished belief of the “self-made man,” he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don’t arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: “they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.”

I am curious as to:

• Why my mom thought I would be interested in computers and Microsoft
• Why I didn’t give up when I encountered obstacles
• Why the manager offered me a job
• Why I completed the Microsoft beta testing
• Why I even thought I would be able to complete this series of tasks

Maybe it was the lack of fear. Not concerning myself with doubt and reasons why I would fail. I’ve always been a problem solver. The cool thing was this experience paved my future. When I sat down at the Geek Squad in late 1998 to apply for a job and I saw the following question on the test (Yes, Geek Squad used to make everyone take a test)

What does fdisk /mbr accomplish?

I was immediately able to recall that this formatted the master boot record to clear out viruses and reset the partition information. So looking back 10 years, I can clearly see that this experience helped me establish an unshakable confidence in my ability to understand problems, collect the right tools, test and resolve the problem to completion. I would repeat this method throughout my IT career with great success.

So this post turned out to be much longer than I intended but I hope it provides insight as to why I have the skill sets I do and why I am excited about this book. I’ve added it to my wishlist so if you have found my blog helpful and want to say thanks with a gift, go right ahead and send me a copy of this book.