As careers go, I looked for niches and found them at different times. For example, I found myself out of a job and wanting to finish college at the same time. I had training in music starting younger than the norm and picked up several instruments. Out of money, I put a classified ad in a local community paper. Guitar lessons! The stream of kids wanting to be the next Jimi Hendrix paid for my junior year. As a studio musician and then a roadie, I saw ads for CPA and bookkeepers in the smallest town newspapers everywhere I went.
Fortunately, I had a knack for software development and became a functional developer and eventually a project manager. That led to a career in investment banking – something I didn’t expect. After selling my business, I looked around and saw a need for software developers, streaming video and finally ecommerce.
I had to get on the Internet. My Microsoft Certifications didn’t help. Bill had ownership of the desktop but not the server side of things. I had to learn UNIX if I wanted to build websites and commerce-enable them.
The AT&T – Berkley litigation put a halt to free UNIX for a while. In the meantime, grad students around the world found each other and a student named for the second Pope (Linus) got the ball rolling.
I began learning Linux and found no call center for support. The Linux book selection didn’t provide enough help, so I contacted a top tier publisher and helped big Linux servers get started. That became my career until the dotcom bubble burst. In the meantime, a demand for content remained.
