Is IT becoming extinct? I think not.
Last night @ school I read an article about IT?s Extinction. It seems as though the article says that it is our attitudes combined with high-end software that is becoming more user friendly that will lead to our demise.
I think that IT is more demanding than ever before and that if IT is to become extinct it will be salaries that do it. Without getting an Admin job salaries that are reported in magazines and studies are just not seen. I remember reading a report on average IT salaries about a month ago and it listed salaries way above my own. (in the $70?s)
My main concern is that I may be blowing this off when I should be concerned about it and that is why I am asking for you to read the article and let me know what you think. Should we be concerned? Should we watch our attitude? Should we try and be more innovative? Let me know.
I sent the above letter to several of my colleagues in the field and they all said about the same thing… IT is not going anywhere. Is this a disillusion or are they right? I believe there right and to quote one of my colleagues (Robert) “Fear being replaced by a software program? Can you think of any software (besides WinZip) that does not have problems? When you can come up with a software program that can defuse anger, placate users, and apologize for mistakes made by other departments, then you might have cause for concern. ” and he is right there is no software on the planet that can ease a user’s mind or explain why a certain thing happened when it shouldn’t have. So I believe IT will live strong. But to further make my point I would like to add a few other insights from my friends as to why this article seems very threatening but in the end is just a warning to shape up and be courteous to the users that make our positions possible.
The following is by a 30 yr veteran Les:
“Well, young fella, I?ll throw my two cents into the discussion:
I have been in IT almost thirty (30) years, have seen these salary surveys and have found myself always asking the question, ?Where in the world are these folks getting their data from?? Very often these surveys are published by headhunters (?search firms?) that are merely trying to inflate salaries to help with their need to fill slots in various regional job markets.
As far as the shrinking IT world, granted, there are very few employers that need large pools of development programmers to crank out thousands of lines of code. But like with anything in IT, when one area of expertise shrinks, very often another one is spawned. Up until 9/11, there certainly were network security positions, but I would say not to the degree that there probably are now. ECPI even mentions it in their TV ads!
IMHO, they way to survive in IT is to keep yourself MARKETABLE at all times. Keep an eye on trends. You can certainly look at where the big bucks are going and chart a course for that position, if it truly is something you would be interested in. But don?t do what some of your classmates apparently have done and ASSUME that a sheepskin that has IT stamped on it is a guarantee for success.
Keeping yourself mobile is certainly a plus. But with a family (particularly a young family) and responsibilities that are associated with it, a traveling job (no matter how much money is dangled in front of you), may have you sacrificing more than the money is truly worth. One big PLUS with the Internet is, that depending on what you do, there are a lot of IT positions that are not bound by your geographical location.”
8Yr Veteran Michael:
“I don?t know about all that. Seems I have read that same article for the last 8 years?.
Makes sense though. I think we should always be mindful of our attitudes and always remember who are customers always are!”
In conclusion, I would like to say that I have seen trends in the shrinking of IT but as Les mentioned above shrinking can also spawn into new areas of growth so I don’t believe IT will be Extinct anytime in the near future.
Thanks
David Bates
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Update 3-19-07
I havn’t posted a all-round update in awhile so I decided to get on the stick and write one.
College:
I am nearing the last part of my technology classes and I have to say that I am disappointed with the education I have received so far. I don’t feel like the I got my money’s worth as I now have upwards of $24,000.00 in debt for school and no great learning to show for it, in fact I have had to teach most of the teachers in the new way of things. There are a few exceptions and I have learned quite a few tips and tricks as well as an underlying knowledge of how things work. Right now I am posting this from a scripting class that is not at all challenging.
Now I do have to say that this is not my schools fault as they normally cater to gardeners that want to become IT Professionals. I believe they just don’t know what to do with me. Anyway, I made an A in all of my classes since my last post and my GPA is still a 4.0 so that is something. I will be glad when August comes around and I am finally out.
Job:
My job is going well, they are starting to utilize some of my talents rather than just troubleshooting systems. In fact I have been scripting and trending more than I have been actually working on systems this month. I believe that I will be moving up soon (I Hope) as soon as we get out of our hiring freeze which is expected in April. That would make for a great birthday present.
Home:
My home life has went well these last few months as well. The wife is hotter than ever and the little guy is learning so much everyday that it is hard to keep up. His recent accomplishments are sitting up on his own, seeing his shadow, eating lots of different foods, and having a ton of fun. The wife took him to get his easter pictures recently, I will try and post them when I get them in.
Tech:
I am delving into VBScript more and more and becoming acquainted with the Windows way of programming. I recently had to write a script that would deploy our preferred wireless profiles which was very tricky, I hope to post about that soon. I have also learned a few of the win32 API’s by scripting. I am also learning about more about routers and switches which I am highly interested in as well as Vista deployment which seems to be a lot easier than XP when you use the new SMS server (it is called something different now.).
All in All my life is running smoothly at the moment and everything seems to be great. I bought a grill last weekend and hope to break it in over the holiday.
I wish you all a happy easter.
David Bates
My First VB (Visual Basic) Application
This week I was presented with a problem at my current job. There is a script that saves us countless hours when we configure a new system or update an existing system that was developed by a scripter that is no longer with the company and as with all custom programs an update broke it. Now, nobody in desktop services had any programming experience except for me so it was up to me “The Programmer” to fix it.
The program was written in VBScript and was compiled using a very old Norton Ghost loader that also seamed to have disappeared with this scripter, go figure. So I redone the program in VB and added some company flair to it along with a progress bar.
My only complaint about VB is that the compiler did not work the way I would have expected it to and the API was very hidden, unlike my experience with XCode, Carbon, and Cocoa. All in all the compiler was easy to navigate and from start to finish I probably spent 5-7 hours total on the project.
I would like to delve further into developing with VB but I am having a hard time finding examples to compile and look at from Microsoft. I really think Apple has beat the VB team at compilers as there are a ton of examples for just about everything you could want to do on the mac.
Thanks
David Bates
