In case our DAPP announcement wasn’t enough, we’ve also got great news on our Training Provider Network.
Launching this week with 17 founding partners, the National Skills Academy for IT can offer IT professionals additional access to learning resources.
Online learning offers the opportunity for study anywhere, at any time, at a pace to suit the student.
Support from universities, colleges, and private providers adds other flavours of learning, helping IT professionals to access a programme of study they feel most comfortable with.
Our network undergoes the scrutiny of our Training Quality Panel, comprising of major IT employers, to ensure IT professionals will benefit from excellent teaching.
Welsh computer consultant Nat Morris put his IT skills to work, and developed an ingenious system that lets him feed his pet friend Toby with a single tweet. To make sure there’s always some dog biscuits in the bowl, all he has to do is to send a message to @feedtoby for the food to be automatically released.
First time I heard the term Consumerisation of IT I thought, “Oh no, someone found me out!”
You see; new to my technician post I was greeted by the folks who never got on with the last guy, and who saw an opportunity to get their ideas aired and their most trivial of problems fixed.
Suggestions came as blunt as, “We need guest wifi in reception”, or as subtle hints like, “I’ve always said - we should try building our own staff intranet”.
So what was my crime? I would quickly cobble something small together with consumer tech to silence friendly advice with, “Done that, try it out!”
Here’s my confession - I never wrote the business case. I just built a rough prototype with cheap and nasty consumer products, waited a week or so to gauge the usage, then either abandoned it or switched it out for something a tad more robust.
“It’s a horrible thing to say, but there’s just not enough time [in college to learn] all the skills that people need to be successful. We are expecting more and more, and universities are supplying more, but we’re asking for still more”
So says Greg Taffet, CIO of U.S. Gas & Electric in North Miami Beach, in a recent article in ComputerWorld which has identified the 6 key skills employers find IT grads to be lacking.
Knowledge of business basics
Experience with systems integration
Emerging technologies expertise - business intelligence and cloud computing are named examples
The tech basics - such as command prompt, batch scripts, and Googling for answers
For an industry which employs 1.5 million people across virtually every sector of the UK economy, it’s perhaps surprising that employers are still struggling to find graduates with the skills they really need.
It was for this reason that e-skills UK’s IT Management for Business (ITMB) degree was developed. It’s a sector-supported honours degree programme developed in response to demand from employers for IT grads with a solid grasp of technology and the business-related and interpersonal skills to work effectively in project teams and client-facing roles.
How important are the so-called “softer” skills to your organisation - tell us what you think…
Sensing input devices are a recent innovation, perhaps seeming like a flash in the pan. Microsoft Kinect made quite an impression, dominating in the press, and soaking up many many weekends for enthused hackers.
I admire the stance Microsoft took open sourcing the Kinect drivers. It takes courage to embrace any resulting crazy ideas born of your technology. Some truly inspirational hacks came together. If you’ve not seen (m)any before, look at kinecthacks.com’s Top 10.
I’m interested in how technology like Kinect can be free of the tether it currently has to Xbox. Intelligent applications are already in the pipeline from companies like Tobii to make Windows 8 more user friendly.
Watching that video I saw much to be excited about, but couldn’t suppress my instincts as a support technician - I wouldn’t consider suggesting it to anyone from procurement just yet. Too much could go wrong.
My greatest concern: is this technology useful? Definitely, in some circumstances. But then is it reliable and fit for business use? Not yet, the spotlight is pointed at gaming right now. In many ways this is similar to tablets being a real hit in the consumer market, but yet to make a mark in enterprise.
The blended approach to sensing input devices is my favourite - a combination of voice recognition, eye tracking and touch.
Microsoft’s Codespace demonstration took the Kinect technology to the next level. Watching it left me believing that science fiction is finally becoming reality. I’m confident that with the addition of some voice control and perhaps eye tracking too, this style of working is where we’re headed.
As with every new piece of technology deployed, the first hiccup users experience will see a mass backward migration to the way things used to be done. How we interact with computers has been stuck in a rut for too long. The time has arrived to commit to change, computers need to return our gaze.
