Enjoy reading interviews with more than two dozen data professionals to see a picture of what it’s like to work in the industry managing and analyzing data, helping you to know what it takes to move from your current expertise into one of the fastest growing areas of technology today. Data is the hottest word of the century, and data professionals are in high demand. You may already be a data professional such as a database administrator or business intelligence analyst. Or you may be one of the many people who want to work as a data professional, and are curious how to get there. Either way, this collection helps you understand how data professionals work, what makes them successful, and what they do to keep up. You’ll find interviews in this book with database administrators, database programmers, data architects, business intelligence professionals, and analytics professionals. Interviewees work across industry sectors ranging from healthcare and banking to finance and transportation and beyond. Each chapter illuminates a successful professional at the top of their game, who shares what helped them get to the top, and what skills and attitudes combine to make them successful in their respective fields. Interviewees in the book include: Mindy Curnutt, Julie Smith, Kenneth Fisher, Andy Leonard, Jes Borland, Kevin Feasel, Ginger Grant, Vicky Harp, Kendra Little, Jason Brimhall, Tim Costello, Andy Mallon, Steph Locke, Jonathan Stewart, Joseph Sack, John Q. Martin, John Morehouse, Kathi Kellenberger, Argenis Fernandez, Kirsten Benzel, Tracy Boggiano, Dave Walden, Matt Gordon, Jimmy May, Drew Furgiuele, Marlon Ribunal, and Joseph Fleming. All of them have been successful in their careers, and share their perspectives on working and succeeding in the field as data and database professionals. What You'll Learn Stand out as an outstanding professional in your area of data work by developing the right set of skills and attitudes that lead to success Avoid common mistakes and pitfalls, and recover from operational failures and bad technology decisions Understand current trends and best practices, and stay out in front as the field evolvesBreak into working with data through database administration, business intelligence, or any of the other career paths represented in this book Manage stress and develop a healthy work-life balance no matter which career path you decide upon Choose a suitable path for yourself from among the different career paths in working with data Who This Book Is For Database administrators and developers, database and business intelligence architects, consultants, and analytic professionals, as well as those intent on moving into one of those career paths. Aspiring data professionals and those in related technical fields who want to make a move toward managing or analyzing data on a full-time basis will find the book useful. Existing data professionals who want to be outstanding and successful at what they do will also appreciate the book's advice and guidance.

Hannah Gale starts volunteering at a horse stable because she needs a place to escape. Her father has returned from the Iraq war as an amputee with posttraumatic stress disorder, and his nightmares rock the household. At the stable, Hannah comes to love Jack, Super Dee, and Indy; helps bring a rescued mare back from the brink; and witnesses the birth of the filly who steals her heart. Hannah learns more than she ever imagined about horse training, abuse, and rescues, as well as her own capacity for hope. Physical therapy with horses could be the answer to her fatherÕs prayers, if only she can get him to try.

Butch Cassidy and his gang pulled off the longest sequence of successful bank and train robberies in the history of the American West, then disbanded and scattered across North and South America to meet their colorful ends. Or did they?

Nigel Owens is a familiar figure on stage and television, and is considered one of the best rugby referees in the world. But before reaching his current status in the world of professional rugby, he went through an excruciating personal crisis.

The story of three generations in twentieth-century China that blends the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history—a bestselling classic in thirty languages with more than ten million copies sold around the world, now with a new introduction from the author. An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, Jung Chang describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of her family members: her grandmother, a warlord’s concubine; her mother’s struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents’ experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a “barefoot doctor,” a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving—and ultimately uplifting—detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history.