PERSPECTIVES:
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"Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open." - J. Dewar
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Essential Competencies for the Modern IT Professional - As tech skills become worldwide commodities,
three essential competencies--self-management, managing others, and improving outcomes--can amplify your value.
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The Art of the Interview - Billy Hollis reckons that now is definitely not the time to let your interview skills get rusty.
Here are some tips to help you stand out from the crowd of job-hunters (and potential employers, too).
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Interview Tips (interviewtips.org) >>
Job Interview Tips -
Phone Interview Tips -
Second Interview Tips -
Employer Interview Tips -
Interview Tips For Teacher -
Sample résumés -
Sample cover letters -
Résumé cover letters
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The CIO Institute of Australia - delivers a program of high value Continuing Professional Development,
Training,
Networking and
Accreditation
aligned to the global standards of the
International CIO Institute
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10 Signs Your Company Wants You Gone -
You can't always save your job, but you can reduce the time you're out of work if you see it coming!
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The Experience Gap - When companies look for a manager, they should look for experience, right? Well, maybe not. ...
“Conventional wisdom holds that as we do more things more often, we learn from experience and get better and better,
and what we found in our research was that actually some of it may not be the case.”
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How to be a genius
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Funny
Business
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Are You
Addicted to Email? -
results of AOL's third annual Email Addiction Survey (2007)
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Office Politics for Geeks
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gapingvoid - "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards"
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In the Age of the Blog, Who Needs Analysts? -
"IT pros start to wonder if analysts are worth anything these days.
The real fear, our bloggers say, is that casual IT decision makers
will read analyst reports, be influenced by shoddy assumptions or
research, and great technology will lose over misinformation
management."
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Follow the dollars to IT security jobs -
While some headlines might scream about a drop in job ads they don't reflect what's happening in the IT security sector.
In the next five years guardians of IT security will almost double.
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The People Who Really Run IT
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The Rules of IT -
ten rules that you can't afford to break!
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Construx Software
>>
Project Management -- Classic Mistakes Enumerated
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The Negotiation Institute
-
The Negotiation Academy
>> Articles on negotiation
- Negotiation Dynamics
- 7 Ways to Negotiate Better (Without Affecting Your Karma)
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15 Effective Stress Banishing Tips
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I Hear Ringing and There's No One There. I Wonder Why -
This audio illusion — called phantom phone rings or, more whimsically, ringxiety or fauxcellarm — has emerged recently
as an Internet discussion topic and has become a new reason for people to either bemoan the techno-saturation
of modern life or question their sanity.
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How to respond to a telemarketer - The Seinfeld way
- 9 Essential Competencies for Successful C-Level Executives
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Fifty Lessons -
an initiative from Gurteen Knowledge ...
A free video “Lesson of the Month” ... By sharing important business lessons on film, executives communicate with you
in the most compelling method of all: one-to-one storytelling. Contributions are edited into short, powerful,
highly engaging lessons that can be applied to decision-making across the entire range of business challenges.
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Customer Service Point -
"Why is good customer service becoming so important these days? It's simply because customers
are turning their backs to businesses that do not deliver value. And good customer service adds value!"
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Helpdesks flooded with fibs from users -
One in five users admit that they don’t always provide accurate information about the nature of a computer problem –
the main reasons being a lack of insight (45 per cent), a lack of time (30 per cent), or a lack of appropriate vocabulary
(25 per cent). 15 per cent said they felt too embarrassed!
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Geeks vs. Suits: The Great Boardroom Schism -
Companies must get beyond the IT-business cultural discord to cure the plagues of missed deadlines, blown budgets and dissatisfied customers.
Suits (business guys) and geeks (IT guys) are like oil and water--it sometimes seems like they were just not made to get along.
"The geek gap is the culture clash between business and IT people in most organizations… Business and tech people don't like each other
and don't trust each other. It's very basic to how they do their jobs and their roles in the business."
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8 Reasons Why CIOs Think Their Application Developers Are Clueless
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Hackers and Suits: 10 Tips for Managers to Bridge the Gap -
"Managers and software developers live in two separate worlds. An expert programmer shares his advice about
how to motivate, communicate with and (maybe) understand these strange people who build the software solutions upon which you rely."
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The First Thing We Do - Let's Offshore the Managers -
"It makes no sense to offshore application developers. But outsourcing management,
now that's a tactic with some serious benefits!"
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Quiz: Is Your Boss a Psychopath?
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Beware the psycho boss, the new enemy within
The classic comic strip...
(Click to view a larger version of the image)
THE
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT -- How the customer wanted it, and what he got instead
How Projects Really Work (version 2.0)
Also take a look at ...
Simplicity - What can we learn about usability
[ Back to Top ]
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Tact Filters -
Most "normal people" have the tact filter positioned to apply tact in the outgoing direction. ...
"Nerds," on the other hand, have their tact filter positioned to apply tact in the incoming direction.
Thus, whatever anyone says to them gets the appropriate amount of tact added when they hear it. ...
When normal people talk to nerds, the nerds often get frustrated because the normal people seem to be dodging
the real issues and not saying what they really mean. Worse yet, when nerds talk to normal people,
the normal people's feelings often get hurt because the nerds don't apply tact, assuming the normal person
will take their blunt statements and apply whatever tact is necessary.
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DON'T LOSE IT:
"An old man, a boy and a donkey were going to town. The boy rode the
donkey and the old man walked. As they approached town, they passed
some people who remarked that it was a pity that the old man walked
while the young boy rode. The man and the boy thought that perhaps
the critics were right, and they exchanged positions.
Sometime later, they passed another group of people who remarked "What
a shame! He makes that little boy walk." So they decided to both walk.
The next group of passersby chuckled that they would walk when they
had such a nice donkey to ride. So they both climbed on board.
They soon encountered a group who scorned them for their laziness and
cruelty to the donkey. They agreed once more, and decided to carry the donkey.
As they crossed the bridge into town, they lost their grip on the donkey
and he fell into the river and drowned.
The moral of this story - If you try to please everyone, you will eventually
lose your ass!"
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The i-Technology Right Stuff - Searching for the Twenty Top
Software People in the World
and
Sung and Unsung i-Technology Heroes and
Who's Missing From the i-Technology Top Twenty?
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The “Top Ten” most inexcusable failures of technology?
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Queue - articles on new and emerging technologies, help
decision-makers plan future projects by examining the challenges and
problems they are most likely to face.
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How to revive the technology business - Paul Knapp, of
Brainbox.com.au asks "What’s wrong with the technology business?
That's the question of the moment, to which I think I have an
answer."
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Hacknot
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How to Salvage Your Company's
Deep Smarts - The approaching exodus of retiring baby
boomers will severely erode the knowledge base of many
companies. >>
The Importance of Cultivating and Transferring Deep Smarts
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Where IT could go from here -
"Recently, there have been a number of commentators speculating that
the IT industry is finished, or at least has matured. They argue
that the industry will have to get used to growth rates similar to
that in other industries like utilities or cars. This, to be frank,
is a load of garbage. ... The current consensus on information
technology is wrong. It's far from mature or out of steam.
Certainly, there will continue to be booms and busts as we're
experiencing at the moment. Despite this, over the next couple of
decades IT will remain one of the most exciting and
opportunity-filled industries on Earth."
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A Computer Geek's History of the Internet
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Now you see it, now you don't - To be truly successful, a complex technology needs to “disappear”
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IT Managers See No End to Technology Complexity - IT managers say all the evidence they have seen
points to more complexity, not less.
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Will IT departments still exist in 2010? -
Two-thirds of CIOs believe the corporate IT department will not exist in its current form by 2010.
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Flying High - At Qantas IT is all about discipline
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Got a good boss? He's no Einstein - You don't have to be smart to be a boss - in fact, it's better if you're not!
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Butler Group
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Application Development for Mortals -
"Some of us remember attempts in
the late 80s and early 90s to bring a human face to the business of
developing applications. A variety of suppliers developed fourth
generation languages (4GLs) that could supposedly be used by
non-programmers to build systems. The fact that very few of these
products are used today is a measure of how successful they were. ...
What happened after the era of the 4GL was something of a backlash.
Instead of the fluffy, cuddly 4GL we saw the emergence of C++ and
Java as the dominant programming languages – indecipherable and totally
unfriendly. Java has spawned the Java 2 Enterprise Edition phenomenon
with dozens of protocols, standards and skills that need to be acquired
– to the point that it is pretty well beyond the scope of any single
individual to master the whole lot. C++ has acquired the accolade of
being the world’s first write only language – because it is impossible
to read. ... In most organisations the job of application development
has become something of a secret esoteric art. ...
The focus of the CIO is therefore turning away from the details
of technology, such as server availability, network performance, and
application functionality, towards more strategic issues, such as IT
budgeting and investment planning, governance, service quality and
availability, IT risk management, and offshore development. However, in
contrast with other business functions, there has been a distinct lack
of both tools and methodologies to assist in adopting this strategic
view. The dichotomy for CIOs is therefore that whilst they are keen to
move their IT departments up the organisational value chain, and to
increase their own contribution to the business, there is still a
distinct and substantial separation between the business, financial, and
technology views of the IT department. ... I consider that deploying an
IT investment planning and control system, and adopting a formal
methodology to manage the associated processes, is the single most
effective step that an organisation can take to improve the accuracy and
validity of its IT investment strategy. ..."
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From fundamental to human, these are the
factors that define the limits of technology ...
- The laws of physics
- The laws of software
- The challenge of algorithms
- The difficulty of distribution
- The problems of design
- The problems of functionality
- The importance of organization
- The impact of economics
- The influence of politics
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The Age of Spiritual Machines - When Computers Exceed
Human Intelligence
(and when "there is no longer any clear distinction between
humans and computers")
The Customer-Centric Worldview
- Business revolves around the customer.
- Companies that focus on creating a good customer experience will
succeed far above those that do not.
- This is the primary determinant of business success over the
next several decades.
"Things I Wish I Learned
in Engineering School" (book by Rick Cattell) -
about "pitfalls that engineers should be aware of in their careers,
e.g. to
avoid spending years working on projects that don’t succeed as
products." ... and the associated university talk, covering the
most important rules from the book:
online at
Carnegie-Mellon University
and the
University of Illinois. >> The slides for the talk can be found
here.
The Things I Wish I Learned in Engineering School - a
conversation with Sun Microsystems Distinguished Engineer Rick
Cattell
[ Back to
Top ]
How to Run IT Like a Business
Dealing with
Darwin - Business competitiveness in the 21st century with a
focus on managing innovation and inertia. (Weblog by Geoffrey Moore:
author of Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado,
The Gorilla Game (with co-authors) and Living on the
Fault Line.)
Sand Hill (SandHill.com)
- a business strategy site for enterprise software executives.
Resources include videos and podcasts from the "Software 2005"
conference (and earlier years).
The
Key to Innovation: Overcoming Resistance - "Simply put, good
ideas are cheap; good implementations aren't. Experience teaches
that aspiring IT innovators don't need better ideas that make
more sense. They need better implementations that make - or save
- more money. If organizations can boost their "return on
innovation" by investing more in good implementations than in
good ideas, then that's where their capital should go."
Application quality and its business impact - a view from the
top
Disaster Prevention -
Don't ignore the signs of impending doom for your software project.
Avert the worst by conducting a technical and management audit, followed
by recovery planning for the future.
The Intel IT Manager Game - tests your entire skill
set - people management, resource allocation, strategic
analysis and planning.
IBM Center for CIO Leadership
The First 100 Days in a New CIO Position are Crucial for Success -
CIOs face several challenges when they first start. There is a narrow window of time to get an assessment of what needs to be done
in the early days, and stakeholders are impatient for visible signs of action from the new IT leadership.
CIO
- How to Verify if You are Important -
If the CIO does not have the authority to set and execute information
management policies, information technology cannot be sufficiently
important in a company or other organization. Without an empowered
CIO, accountability for technology will be diffused and unfocused.
Ten Survival Tactics for Your First Year on the Job as CIO
Calculator - Does Your CIO Have Clout?
CIO
Evolution ... IT's New
Role - Chief Process Officer -
Heretofore, processes have largely been ignored, as managers focused
on narrow functional silos. But over the past 15 years, processes
have begun to move front and centre in companies' programs to
improve operating performance.
Serenity Found - "how to inoculate yourself against
stress and burnout (once you understand the difference). ...
We all know that CIO stands for 'Career Is Over'. The wag
who coined that acronym was undoubtedly referring to the
burnout factor that comes with the job and the consequent
short tenure of the average CIO."
How to Identify Bad CIOs in Their Natural Habitat -
Bad CIOs are a blight on the IT profession and on the organizations that employ them.
Contract Sadness -
"Too many CIOs cut enterprise software deals that look fabulous to the CEO and CFO
but commit the people who do the real work to a nightmare of unrealistic expectations." ...
[In this example] "The CIO, in cahoots with the CFO, has negotiated a contract that is all about
cost savings and service-level agreements (SLAs) and completely disrespectful of what it takes -
and what it means - to implement a working system enterprise-wide. The CIO has cheated and betrayed
his people by committing his company to a contract that treats implementation as essentially irrelevant
to how the system ultimately performs. That's unprofessional and contemptible. It's also shockingly common."
... "CIOs have an affirmative obligation to prevent IT contracts from becoming straitjackets
for the people who have to implement the technology."
TCO versus ROI -
Whether return on investment drives more technology decisions than total cost of ownership shows how your company views IT.
Emergent Futures
What CIOs Need to Know About Money -
"To succeed in business, you need to understand how businesspeople
keep score. ... it's about understanding how to enhance the value of
the company as a whole."
Replicating the Hollywood Model -
one of Australia's most successful film producers claims CIOs have a
lot to learn from the successes and failures of Hollywood studios
since the 1940s.
Value
Based Management.net -
"a management portal specifically aimed at the information
needs of senior executives with an interest in value
creation, managing for value and valuation."
Build an airtight business case for new IT investments - the
Microsoft Rapid Economic Justification (REJ) Guide
can help you sell senior management on the enterprise technology
projects you want to pursue
DM Review - business
intelligence, analytics and data warehousing ...
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IT Myth vs. Reality:
Myth 1 - CIO Must Be a Technology Whiz -
how IT serves as a tech factory producing knowledge-centric tech
wizards and how CIO missions require horse-trading business judgment
skills that are completely unconnected from technical mastery.
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Myth #2 - Offshoring is an Option for CIOs and IT Departments
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"Beware of the abundant arrogance of ignorance when it comes to
offshoring. ... The chill of IT layoffs from outsourcing to offshore
operations challenges the wisdom of corporate and political
leadership. ... If one turns a blind eye to the hardships of
outsourcing, as the government seems to have done, financial
benefits to the top brass and corporations are substantial."
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Ten
Pervasive Data Integration Myths
-
"the myths that drag down your business intelligence (BI) projects
or keep them from ever getting off the ground in the first place"
Rationale - "is like mind or concept mapping tools but goes much further. Rationale's distinct map formats clearly display and guide your critical thinking."
The Pitfalls
of Leadership -
"Without a single plan — one path that everyone understands and
believes will lead to success — leadership is irrelevant."
Keep control of your system -
Educate your employees about change
management and controls.
Ten Principles of IT Governance -
from studying and working with
hundreds of enterprises, MIT’s Center for Information Systems
Research has distilled the lessons from many outstanding leaders
into ten principles of IT governance.
10 steps to IT efficiency
Answer that
e-Mail
-- IMMEDIATELY
The limits of productivity -
Bad management can undo the benefits of good technology. ...
Technology companies have been pitching the productivity gains from
their products for so long, it's unthinkable to them that
productivity could rely on factors outside of technology, such as
management.
Getting from Oranges To Apples -
Seven Ways to Effect Change
(Reason, Research, Resonance,
Representational Redescriptions, Resources and Rewards, Real-World
Events, Resistances.) Harvard professor Howard Gardner says it is
possible to get others to see things differently; but it takes
perseverance and finesse.
The Seed of Apple's Innovation
-
CEO Steve Jobs says among other
practices, it's "saying no to 1,000 things" so as to concentrate on
the "really important" creations.
Time in Training Often Wasted
-
Highly paid workers most likely to benefit from learning new
skills. ... "One in three workers thinks the time he spent in
his last training session probably would have been better spent
elsewhere, according to a survey. ... Among these workers, 12
percent think the training was a complete waste of their time." ...
Read this useful article, which includes some training best
practices.
Planners
and Doers
- "There is a fundamental dichotomy in the
information industry that I think is the source of the vast majority
of frustrations for both general users and IT professionals. This
split is often confused with the marketer/technician conflict
... Managers who also do, or at least have a history
of doing, show a substantially greater capacity for dealing with
technicians."
Lies, Damned Lies and Requirements -
"Unfortunately, most CIOs today confront
clients and colleagues who have allowed the perverse economics of
requirements to create unrealistic expectations and dysfunctional
business behaviours. Requirements should be a means to an end, not
the end itself."
Cross the line and IT is a winner -
Has IT turned into a commodity?
Should it be managed simply to minimise risk?
IT is the Engine That
Drives Success -
The best companies have the best business models because they have the
best IT strategies.
The balanced IT organisation -
while recent years have seen companies
swing between the extremes of centralising and diffusing their IT
operations, a balanced model has emerged that offers an ideal blend
of cost-effectiveness and control.
The Deciding Factor - "The business case answer place"
Make It Clear -
"Sometimes your business case stories fall on the deaf ears of
executives who don’t understand IT value. Here’s how to ensure your
project requests won’t be rejected. ... ways to recognise symptoms
of IT value blindness, explanations of why the problem occurs and
suggestions for fixing it."
Am I
listening, or am I talking? - Marketing is about listening.
Sales is about talking.
The Tactics
of Strategy - "It’s
hard to have a long-term strategic view when you’re up to your
armpits in problem solving. But that’s the difference between a CIO
and a CTO."
"Doing an Alexander" -
Lessons on Leadership by a Master Conqueror -
What can a man born in 356 BC teach
business leaders today? Plenty.
Putting Passionate People to Work -
The most devoted employees are
enthralled with their work. Authentic leaders know how to
manage that passion.
Bridging the Chasm Between IT and Marketing
A Travel Guide to Collaboration (Partnering)
In
the Loop -
Meeting with customers on a regular basis
gives CIOs fresh ideas on how to improve customer service and
justify new systems.
Marketing and
IT: Two Solitudes -
Marketing and IT are culturally distinct: two solitudes divided by
opposing agendas. The disposition of IT is shaped by its prime
directive to rule over the deployment of all technology. The job of
Marketing is to generate business growth. Each group speaks a
different idiom, and neither side is willing to gain familiarity
with the other.
Long Bets - "Accountable predictions"
Australian Anthill -
"a magazine for the fast-growth business and venture capital market.
It is written for innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers, investors
and anyone excited by new technologies, emerging industries and the
business development process."
Amazing Grace -
"Misery loves company. You are not alone.
You might feel like you are, sitting atop the corporate IT tree [as
CIO] with no friends but a CEO who can’t understand technology no
matter how little he tries, and a CFO with a bad case of
budget-myopia."
MeansBusiness
-
"the largest and fastest growing database of business
ideas in the world ... aggregated more ideas from
business and management books ... quoted directly from
published books. ... Executives use Means Business to
help them innovate, solve complex problems, and create
new strategies."
Business to Business (New Zealand)
The High-Tech
Survival Guide (book) - and
an independent review of the guide
Calculate your
net worth - "Have you ever tried to figure out your net
worth? This downloadable template - a net worth calculator for
Microsoft Excel - makes it easy."
-
Information Politics -
"Nothing is more political than information, and so you would expect
the job of the CIO to be the hottest political potato in the
organisation. You will not be disappointed to learn that this is
indeed the case, and the CIO that focuses primarily on technology
management is only doing half the job. ... it is quite common for
the CEO, CFO, and other senior executives to use IT as an excuse for
all kinds of problems."
-
Can a CIO Become too Strategic? -
Strategic CIOs often find themselves in a catch-22. On the one hand,
they need to focus their efforts upward, convincing their CEOs and
other top-level executives to view IT as a strategic partner, not
merely a cost center. On the other hand, they have to manage their
team of IT experts, many of whom still don't understand the business
value of their initiatives. But as CIOs spend more time in the
boardroom, and less time in the computer room, managing both up and
down the food chain becomes an increasingly difficult challenge, and
too many are failing to find the right balance.
Compliance and Governance
...
- Infonomics - "Plain
Language about IT Governance for executives and directors."
-
The
SarbOx Conspiracy -
"compliance efforts are eating up CIO time and budgets. Worse, CIOs
are being relegated to a purely tactical role. ... CIOs are getting
left out of Sarbanes-Oxley efforts, and it’s a travesty"
-
RedMonk
-
Regulatory Compliance - Peril and Promise
-
Corporate Compliance
Advisor Magazine -
"Find out how to meet compliance
regulations and best practices. You can't avoid Sarbanes-Oxley,
HIPAA, USA Patriot Act, security, privacy, GLBA, SEC, FTC, FCC, EU
litigation preparedness, special systems, reliable training,
failproof monitoring, accurate reporting, and plenty more..."
-
Recipe
for Good IT Governance -
Companies with better than average IT governance earn at least a 20
percent higher return on assets than organizations with weaker
governance.
-
Compliance-driven development: the IBM
Compliance Resource Kit - can help teams adopt a proactively
prepare for an audit of their software development environment. IBMM
created this Compliance Resource Kit to help project managers and
testers improve the functionality, usability, reliability and
scalability of their software applications.
The
Technology Professional
Services Association (TPSA) - "the first and only
organization for executives who define, deliver, manage, measure,
and optimize technology services in the world’s leading
corporations."
Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) - a worldwide association of IS professionals
dedicated to the audit, control, and security of information systems.
The
CIO as Chief Communicator -
Avoid is the sin of ego ... Watch out for blank
expressions and eyes glazing over!
The
Ties That Bind -
strategies to help move you beyond transactional
leadership.
Hiring Horrors -
routine IT hiring processes often result in bad matches and high
turnover, because the techniques for hiring and processing technical
personnel in corporate America are a hodgepodge of unscientific and
unprofessional rituals.
Hiring
Techies and Nerds
The Six Best Practices - What
Leading CIOs Do
- To be an effective CIO, you need to do six things:
- You must be on the executive team.
- You have to engage senior business managers in IT projects.
- You must also include users in the same projects.
- You need a high-level group to make IT decisions.
- You must communicate regularly with end users.
- You have to assign IT staff as liaisons to business units
[ Back to Top ]
Bill Gates describes
how Weblogs could be used a tool for business to communicate with
customers
How to Guarantee Product Failure -
the top five mistakes that
product managers can make to ensure their products fail.
The Art of Making Offers That Get Accepted and
Great Service - The Key to Sustainable Differentiation
Role Fragmentation -
Why IT Administrators Have Become All-Powerful Demi-Gods -
"it looks like good management"
ITMJ -
IT Managers' Journal
>>
According to a highly insightful but unscientific survey,
IT manager is the 3rd worst job in the U.K. - better only than
phone sex operator and ferry cabin cleaner. Database builder,
landfill executive, maggot farmer, and journalist also made the top
(bottom?) 100.
Technical Support Hang Ups cost dearly in Direct Productivity
- 36 percent of respondents nationwide report they spend 30 minutes or
more each week on the phone with their firm's technical support
service. An additional 20 percent spend an hour or more, and -- a
seemingly miserable -- five percent report that they are on the
phone with the help desk for five hours or more each week.
Experiencing Value
- Customer
satisfaction has little to do with loyalty. What they are looking
for first and foremost is value—not the monetary kind of value, but
value that impacts a person’s life.
The true cost of IBM's outsourcing: Customer Relationships -
"Somewhere, in the process of outsourcing their most vital sales
function, IBM's hardware division seems to have forgotten that
customers (and their technology consultants) want to speak with
people who are both knowledgeable about the products that they sell
and who have access to the information and internal support services
to complete the sale. ... IBM makes great stuff -- I just wish they
made it easier for me to give them money. Customers want to deal
with people who know something about the products and who have
access to the information to facilitate the sales and delivery
process. ... I cannot help but wonder what the move to outsource
services has "cost" IBM and other companies that have made the same
choice. I know what it has cost my clients and me, and I challenge
IBM and other companies to consider that the true cost of
outsourcing can be best measured in terms of their customer
relationships."
A Sinner's Guide to Offshoring
Outsourcing: Big Deals, Big Savings, Big Problems -
Large-scale outsourcing deals promise big savings, but they
fail half the time. Here's how to make them work for you.
Secrets of Offshoring Success
Outsource to Free Up Staff, Not Cut It
Is the Party Over for Indian Outsourcers? (August 2007)
The Top 10 Rules for Building the Ideal IT Organization
The Basics of Customer Experience - "Basics sell.
... Most companies would rather have a large, general customer base
than a small core of tech-happy users. It's time ... to focus on the
basics."
-
Professionals find strength in numbers -
"IT professionals in Australia can join
a wide range of associations. ... groups aimed at individuals are
more concerned with individual IT professionals and their careers.
... members of any professional club can generally expect their
membership will give them a chance to meet and discuss issues with
peers, gain access to training and receive advice on industrial
matters, such as how to negotiate a new employment contract or
equitable salary."
-
IASA - International
Association of Software Architects -
"a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement and sharing
of issues related to software architecture in the enterprise,
product, education and government sectors."
-
How to
Become a Fixture -
At companies notorious for burning through CIOs, your credibility and
effectiveness are in question the moment you walk through the door.
A high rate of CIO turnover is bad for the organization, and it
creates a challenge for any IT leader brave (or foolhardy) enough to
boldly go where many have come and gone before.
-
DEVFYI - Developer Resource FYI ...
Are you a developer looking for information about your career?
- Developer Job Interview Questions and Answers -
Need to prepare for a job interview? DEVFYI have selected a big collection of interview questions and answers
in many technical areas: Java, JSP, ASP, C++,C#,.NET,ORACLE, PL/SQL,Perl, struts, XML....more.
-
The
Computer Science Teachers Association
- a membership organization that supports and promotes the
teaching of computer science and other computing
disciplines. CSTA provides opportunities for K-12 teachers
and students to better understand the computing disciplines
and to more successfully prepare themselves to teach and
learn.
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J2EE or .NET - Pick one and stick to it -
Forrester Research's core recommendation is to "focus on one as
strategic because of the broad number of investments you're making
in a strategic platform. ... If you're in a situation where there's
a good business reason to have both -- and sometimes there is --
then make sure you go in with your eyes open ... Make a conscious
business choice to have both. ... Those platform investments go
beyond the technology. Staff has to understand how to remediate
problems, manage patches and software upgrades and integrate
management tools. On the development side, programming skills, best
practices and tool investments are mandatory as well. Companies tied
to both platforms that want to construct a portal, for example, have
to do everything twice essentially, in addition to any add-on
products necessary to a business process. ... If you have to do it
twice, it's just that much more expensive. ... All of these
complexities add up, so our recommendation is to go down one side or
the other."
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