Last weekend I attend the SQL Saturday #149 Conference in Minneapolis. It was a great chance to get my feet wet in lots of technologies related to SQL Server. If you do not care about the intricacies of SQL Server, you’re in luck because that’s as technical as the rest of this post will get! At the conference, I learned that thedatabank development team has some powerful tools at our disposal that we didn’t even know existed. As G.I. Joe says, “…knowing is half the battle.”
One recurring theme I see when talking with new and prospective clients is that they are astonished to learn how (databank) technology can make their organization more efficient. Having a background in computer science, I have the mindset that anything is possible and there’s a solution for almost anything you need to do related to a computer. Many people and organizations don’t know what they are missing out on. Don’t despair though, there is an easy solution. The most important thing is to actually ask questions!
We’ve talked about the benefits of training, but you can also start with a question to a user group, your vendor, or an experienced group of your peers. Yet another way to experience things you didn’t know before is to attend a conference on the subject, or see if there’s content available from previous conferences. Occasionally, we get feature requests for functionality to be added to the databank and our response is “It already does that :-D”. To make the best use of anything from your email provider to your CRM solution, you need to know everything that it can do that’s relevant to you.
Most importantly, find a method to get answers and knowledge in your lap and keep going back for more. For me, that’s stackoverflow.com. For you it might be NTEN, TechSoup, webinars, or your friendly technical support staff. Whatever the case may be, technology changes and improves quickly, so don’t stop learning!
thedatabank, gbc is technology for change, and we walk the talk. 
