Business skills valuable for IT workers...

A report by the Society of Information Management states that a sound business background combined with technical skills is very desirable in today's IT market.

An article in Computerworld states:

Based on interviews with 96 SIM members, all of them IT managers at firms ranging from small companies to multinational enterprises, the study found that business skills accounted for five of the 10 attributes organizations want from their in-house staffers over the next three years. The other five most-requested skills by CIOs include a mix of project management and technical skills, though the latter are still client-facing.

The article continues:

In contrast to the layoffs and hiring freezes that graduates faced at the start of the decade after the dot-com crash, the overall IT workforce is expected to remain stable until at least 2008, according to the report.

While some jobs, especially technical ones at larger organizations, continue to be outsourced, the IT jobs most likely to be retained and created in-house will emphasize business and management skills such as business process re-engineering or project planning, rather than purely technical skills, according to the report.

Even when I was an undergrad, IT students moaned about having to take non-technical courses - in business areas, writing, etc... I try to emphasize the importance of non-major courses - business and "soft" skills - to my students. IT does not operate in a vaccuum, and the key to remaining employable in the IT world is to be able to put the technical knowledge one possesses in a larger context - most typically, a business context. This is more true today in a world where there is the potential of outsourcing and offshoring jobs. Insight into business and project management skills coupled with strong technical skills is much harder to outsource than strong technical skills alone. One has to see the forest *and* the trees. I am happy to see this report as it confirms the message I've been giving.

Ponytails, Sandals, Linux and Why "Amateur" Ought Not Imply Inferior

Massachusetts' CIO claims the "unprofessional appearance" of the open source community contributes to the lack of adoption of open source software by some businesses. From an article on CNET:

The lax dress code of the open-source community is one of the reasons behind the software's slow uptake in commercial environments, says former Massachusetts Chief Information Officer Peter Quinn.

Quinn, who played a key role in the Bay State government's decision to mandate the use of OpenDocument-based products, said appearance matters when trying to convince decision makers of the merits of open-source software.

He pointed to the "sandal and ponytail set" as detracting from the business-ready appearance of open-source technology and blamed developers for sluggish adoption of Linux among businesses and governments.

"Open source has an unprofessional appearance, and the community needs to be more business-savvy in order to start to make inroads in areas traditionally dominated by commercial software vendors. (Having) a face on a project or agenda makes it attractive for politicians (to consider open source)."

I am guessing there is at least some truth in that, but my guess is that many in business are suspicious because they can't quite fathom how professional quality products can be created, maintained and supported by volunteers - the "suits", if you will, are so oriented towards profit, that they cannot understand that there are some motivated by other factors - and implicitly associate "amateur" with low-quality. I think it is instructive to note that the term amateur's source meant: "lover, devoted friend, devotee, enthusiastic pursuer of an objective". Viewed in this context, perhaps one might expect to get a higher quality from those who work out of love, or dedication to an objective than those doing it solely for profit. The best explanation, I've read on how and why open source "works" can be found in the essay "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", which remains relevant despite being a few years old...

LCCC to allow access to Student Evaluations of Teachers

from an article in the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram:

Some instructors at Lorain County Community College may find classrooms either very crowded or very empty next semester, depending on what former students say about their teaching methods and style.

LCCC student Daniel Barnicle of Westlake, who is running for Student Senate president, filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the teacher evaluations students complete at the end of each semester because he wants that information made available to students.

Marcia Ballinger, vice president of strategic and institutional development at LCCC, said the evaluations are public records and will be made available.

I am not sure, at first glance, how I feel about this. I suppose I have mixed feelings. Ultimately, I suppose, I am OK with this. There are already many informal means that students use to discuss teachers - might as well allow access to the "official record" on the matter. If anything, it will help students get a more comprehensive idea of what the instructor is like - as opposed to the limited view one might get through word of mouth. The truth shall set you free - as they say.

I am sure, however, that other instructors have different views of this. What is your opinion?

Recruiting IT Students: Fighting Misconceptions

It has been a prime objective of ours' this year to increase enrollment in our IT programs. IT enrollment has suffered nationwide and on our campus, despite that all signs point to IT being a very healthy career option. It is our belief that this is due in large part because of some misconceptions propagated by sensationalistic news stories about the DotCom crash and the impact of offshoring. When something is repeated often enough, people accept it without question - and stories about the DotCom crash and offshoring have been repeated so often that it is just accepted - erroneously - by many is that in the USA, that IT is not a viable career choice. It seems clear that students that may otherwise be interested in IT as a career are being scared away by this myth. I have posted several times on this blog signs to the contrary - that IT is indeed a very health career option , and have spoke to a variety of groups within the campus community - to get this message out to our campus and ultimately, to the public - and to help correct the misconceptions. Our goal is to educate the public about IT Careers. To that end, we are embarking on a marketing campaign. A chief goal of the campaign will be to dispel the misconceptions that exist about IT careers.

Two recent Computerworld articles describe today's healthy IT Job Market, and address the need to educate the public on the reality, so students are not scared away from IT as a career choice.

From Why Good Technologists Are Hard to Find:

Today's students need to know that IT is a viable long-term career path. Unfortunately, industry and the media have been complicit in propagating the myth that IT is a dead end. First, the dot-com crash shattered the illusion that those in high-tech jobs would always emerge from economic turbulence unscathed. Now, students are hearing that a four-year degree in programming or engineering doesn't matter because all of those jobs will eventually go offshore to foreign workers at very low wages. A generation has been dissuaded from pursuing what is in reality a very promising career choice.

The article points out 5 reasons why IT is "a very promising career choice." They are:

• IT has become vital to business profitability.


• The fast pace of technological change keeps IT careers interesting.


• The threat of offshoring is overstated.


• The globalization of IT is an opportunity.


• Demand for IT workers in the U.S. will remain strong.

The other article, Good technologists are hard to find - NOT? takes a balanced, yet optimistic view

Many highly skilled jobs are shifting, painfully, away from the U.S. But the long-term trend is a toward a global distribution of jobs, not an elimination of them in the U.S.

The article acknowledges that the transition has been, in some cases, painful.

All of this is not to say that IT professionals don't face difficulties today with all of the transitions going on. But don't count out the U.S. IT worker yet. In the long run, many IT jobs will remain right here. Americans have the education, mobility and a more open and agile economic system in which to operate than other countries - including China and India.

The article concludes by asking the questions that I am sure are on many IT and potential IT students' minds:

Are we seeing the vast majority of our highly skilled IT jobs draining away? Is it time to put up the sign, "Will the last American IT worker please close the door on his way out?"

Or would Computerworld readers recommend IT careers when speaking to the next generation - say, students in a high school computer science class?

I'd bet on the latter.

I agree with his optimistic answer.

Globalization Backlash?

Time Asia has a story about signs of a backlash against globalization.

The article acknowledges the growth of world trade, but notes:

Yet a quick look around the planet might lead to the impression that globalization is in crisis. Ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to Washington next month, U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez told China that it must shape up on a host of issues if it is to continue to benefit from its trade with America. Last week, indigenous people in Ecuador protested against a proposed free-trade agreement with the U.S. that they thought would deliver their economy and culture to the colossus of the North. In Seoul, the attempt by U.S. corporate raider Carl Icahn to get a seat on the board of tobacco company KT&G has, says Jang Hasung, dean of Korea University's business school, "reignited anti-foreign-investor sentiment." The sale of a controlling interest in Shin Corp., owner of Thailand's leading telecommunications company, to Temasek Holdings of Singapore has been one of the catalysts for the Bangkok demonstrations against Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose family controlled Shin Corp. In France, an effort by the Italian gas company Enel to acquire Groupe Suez appears to have been thwarted by a hastily arranged, government-sponsored marriage between Suez and Gaz de France. The very idea that a state-owned company from Dubai might take over P&O, a British company that controlled six ports in the U.S., gave most members of Congress an attack of the vapors; Dubai Ports World has now said that it will sell P&O's U.S. assets to an American buyer. Even in Britain, where the economy has been "Wimbledonized" for years (London has a great tennis tournament, but no Briton ever wins it) and where, says Robert Wade of the London School of Economics, there is "an unusually deeply held belief in the merits of free trade and free investment," there are limits. When Russian gas behemoth Gazprom started stalking the British supplier Centrica, officials let it be known that "any new ownership would face robust scrutiny." Put all those straws in the wind and you've got a flying haystack. "We're at a point here," says Kenneth Courtis, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia, "where if this is just a little pop it doesn't mean very much. But if it's the beginning of a trend, it's big."

In a Washington Post editorial, Henrik Rasmussen writes

Protectionism is alive and well in the United States. The massive mobilization against the takeover of a number of U.S. port operations by a Dubai-based company has very little to do with port security. It makes no difference whatsoever which companies manage U.S. port operations. The U.S. government will remain in charge of security, and the ports will continue to be manned by U.S. workers. That's the bottom line.
Now that Dubai Ports World has decided to shed its newly acquired American assets, perhaps we can finally start debating the real issue at stake: free trade.

China Radio International reports

U.S. economists and business leaders attending the China Development Forum 2006 have raised concern over the negative impact of rising American protectionism on the Sino-U.S. relations and the global economy.

"The Sino-U.S. relations are perhaps the world's most important bilateral economic relationship in the 21st century. That relationship is now at risk, and if not attended to it could backfire, with significant negative impact on China, the United States, and the broader global economy," Stephen Roach, chief economist of investment bank Morgan Stanley told the forum that closed in Beijing on Monday.

The U.S. government is expected to decide by the end of March if China is guilty of currency manipulation. It has been suggested that a 28 percent punitive tariff will be imposed on Chinese imports if the U.S. finds China at fault.

The threat of higher tariffs on Chinese exports if China doesn't revalue its currency is just a tip of the iceberg of mounting protectionism in the United States, he said.

Some in the US Congress feel China is not playing fair regarding the valuation of their currency, and are considering a vote on sanctions. From a Reuters article:

Two U.S. senators said on Wednesday they were inclined to go ahead with a vote this month on a bill threatening China with sanctions but that they would make a final decision after a trip to Beijing next week.

"We hope, we truly hope that we're given some reason for optimism that China will revalue its currency and play by the rules on our visit," Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, told reporters at a joint press conference with Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican.

"We are meeting with the highest level of people in China and we expect to get ... real knowledge first hand of the Chinese economy, the Chinese world view and the specific views on currency revaluation," Schumer said.

Senate leaders have promised Schumer and Graham a vote by March 31 on their bill threatening China with a 27.5 percent tariff on its exports to the United States unless Beijing agrees to let its currency, the yuan, rise in value.

The two senators, many other lawmakers and manufacturers claim the yuan is so undervalued it gives Chinese products an unfair advantage in U.S. markets, costing millions of lost American jobs and fueling a record bilateral trade gap which hit nearly $202 billion last year.

Policy is often cyclical. It seems the US and the rest of the world are feeling out what the proper limits of globalization ought be - considering factors economic and otherwise. I feel the benefits of globalization are far too great and the risk of protectionism to stop it, at least for very long. Yet, I am also suspicious of those that have an unqualified support of free markets, because of all the other issues involved, including national security. A good discussion of some of the other issues governments ought to consider, along with possible limits on globalization is included in Barry C. Lynn's book: THE END OF THE LINE. I wrote previously about this book. As with most things, balance is the key.

Turnabout is fairplay...

Earlier, I wrote about Microsoft's latest shot against Google - a new search engine/portal...

Google today fired back in Microsoft's home turf - purchasing a web based, collaborative word processor, named Writely

Tune in for the latest in: Will the Web replace the Desktop?

Microsoft betas new search engine...

Windows Live

Microsoft responds to Google with a new search engine/portal - they seem to be using Ajax technology to allow the placing of gadgets on the page to allow for customization by users...

It is interesting how this is named, the implication seems to be the moving of some functions of the desktop to the internet. Of course, maybe I am reading too much into the title...

First impressions - pretty sweet... want to spend more time with it before a final verdict.

Outsourcing fears exaggerated

A Newsweek/MSNBC article discusses the evolving relationship between US and Indian Tech Companies. The article states, "Americans once feared their jobs would be shipped to India, but the backlash was overdone. Now everybody's winning."

More from the article:

What happened to the outsourcing backlash? It has been muted by the fact that India didn't suck Silicon Valley dry after all. Actually, U.S. tech employment is growing. There are 17 percent more tech workers in the United States today than back in the bubble days of 1999, says a new study by the Association for Computing Machinery. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that the U.S. economy will add 1 million tech jobs over the next decade, a 30 percent increase. "Everyone was worried about the offshoring bogeyman," says Moshe Vardi, an author of the ACM study. "But the big whoosh of jobs to India never happened.'' Indeed, that gush slowed to a steady stream once American companies realized it's tough to set up shop in a country with bad roads and a patchy power grid. Lately, American consulting firms that once predicted runaway growth in outsourcing to India have been slashing their estimates by half or more. Now American companies are hanging on to the high-skilled work that requires face-to-face interaction, while everything that can be done "over the wire" gets shipped offshore.

Those involved in the IT field in the USA, especially those involved in education cannot repeat such reports enough. There seems to be the misperception among some that IT is not a viable career choice for students. This reports and others show a very different picture. What was especially striking to me is the report that there are "17 percent more tech workers in the United States today than back in the bubble days of 1999". To be sure, offshoring is a reality, but it is not the whole picture, and the IT job market in the USA is looking more and more promising...

Origami

A ZDNet article speculates on a new mobile PC coming from Microsoft code named "The Origami Project"

Microsoft has created a website for the Origami Project that offers little hard information, but is meant to pique interest. It seems that there will be weekly updates - as they have posted updates each of the past two weeks (week 1 and week 2)

Stay tuned for further developments...

Walmart 101

A posting on Tomorrow's Professors Blog describes a new curriculum centered around Walmart.

The full curriculum is available online.

Here is an excerpt from the section of the curriculum titled "Why Study Walmart":

What both admirers and critics of Wal-Mart agree on is that Wal-Mart - by virtue of its size, scale, and talent for innovation - is changing the world, or at least accelerating changes underway as a result of globalization. As the largest private employer in the United States, Wal-Mart sets the standard for wages and working conditions in retail, with ripple effects in other sectors. As the nation's largest grocery store, toy store, jewelry store, and third largest pharmacy, it affects rival businesses, large and small. And in its quest for "Always Low Prices," Wal-Mart has helped push manufacturing overseas and revolutionized the global supply chain in the process.