I ran across a great quote that made me laugh, but also struck me as being quite true. The quote is from Scott Curie's post on the PASS Summit Speaker's Contract and goes like this: "You would laugh at a lawyer who tried to build their own data warehouse, so why would you try to write your own legal agreement?" Having used lawyers for a few contracts, I am well aware that I'm not remotely qualified to putting together a detailed contract. I know if I need a business agreement, I need to either use a lawyer, or make it really simple. "I'll cut your grass and you'll give me $25" is probably the last well written contract I wrote.

We all have strengths and useful skills, things we are really good at performing. We often improve those skills over time and may develop some level of expertise in our field. However, even if we were the best T-SQL coder in the world, or the hands-down, acknowledged world-renowned expert on replication, that wouldn't mean that we necessarily had any skill in some other area of the SQL Server platform, such as Integration Services. We might know something, we could learn, and certainly be competent quickly, but would a company that had a mission critical, multi-TB import or export of data want us to patch their ETL process today? Probably not.

Read the rest of "What's Your Area of Expertise?"