I often carry links around for a while before I use them in a post. I'm not one of those "here's 53 things other people posted yesterday" types, though I read three of them (Jason, Chris, and Alvin) almost every morning. When I think something is interesting, I'll use it eventually. It's unusual for me to accumulate a lot of links from someone I don't know some other way, typically from having worked with them. But that's the state I find myself in now. Brent Ozar is actually a SQL MVP and I've found plenty of helpful information about SQL on his blog. But these three articles really aren't about SQL:

• Why I Always Bill By The Hour - mostly about keeping a pleasant relationship and avoiding the blame game, plus not doing things for free just to be nice. We have some clients who run a tab and are charged for time spent, while for most we used fixed bids. What I like most about doing fixed bids is being able to decline work that is out of scope. The big problem with charging by the hour is that people expect that means you will do things when they ask you to. While that might seem fine, I assure you there are times it is not.
• Salary Negotiations During the Interview - pretty much the exact opposite, for people who don't bill at all but work on salary. Can I just say as an honest and nice employer that it makes me mental when people won't say what they want to make? I had a guy tell me he would be ok with anything between $8 and $40 an hour for a summer job (he was in third year of university.) That is no more a range than "on the planet Earth" is a neighbourhood. I generally pay people what they want to be paid, or else don't hire them. So if you tell me the truth, I'm not going to argue you down from your number. I might decide you're not worth that much to me and so decline to hire you. I might hire you and then give you a 30% raise after 2 months (true story). But I sure won't say "really? I will offer you 80% of that." Ever. I think I might be odd though, because many people utterly refuse to tell me what they want to earn if they work for me. So I like that Brent says "If they keep pressing for your salary, don’t give them your current number – give them the number it would take to get you to switch." That works for me.
• Rock Stars, Normal People, and You - how you can start presenting, writing, and generally becoming a "rock star" in our industry. There is absolutely no secret to this and there are literally hundreds of people who want to help others get good at this stuff. I like this quote: "Doing this stuff took time out of my personal life, but I was determined to make an investment in my career. I didn’t want to have another really crappy job search, bouncing from headhunter to headhunter, having to re-prove that I wasn’t an idiot and that I was worth money." And this one: "you’re still struggling to get a better job, a better speaking slot, or a speaking slot period, right? You think that Other People are the ones who get book offers, or Other People are the ones who get paid to speak. You’re wrong."

Fantastic advice.

Kate