Reply: 1.1.1.1.1.1
From: Sim' Hampel
On 7/24/02 10:39:00 AM, Always Learning wrote:
>I somewhat agree with Sim. I
>find there is a unbelievably
>huge difference in
>productivity between IT
>workers, the difference
>between the 80% "IT-Monkeys"
>and the 20% of what I call the
>"IT-Professionals" is huge.
>And then within the 20% of
>professionals there is another
>huge big scale with those in
>the top 5% being truly 10X or
>20X or 50X more productive.
>Whilst I agree with Sim that
>IT workers are overpaid, I
>think IT professionals are
>UNDERPAID!
Agree totally with your analysis about both IT-monkeys and IT-professionals.
>I think it was Tibor comment
>that employers just look for a
>particular skill set like 3
>months experience with some
>strange product like
>"Crapwere2.2", I cannot think
>of anything more shortsighted
>by an employees. Here are the
>two questions I ask during any
>interview of a potential
>employee:
>
>What product did you last
>become a true expert at?
>What IT book(s) did you last
>read?
>
>The monkey's will never have
>been an expert at anything!
>Highly skilled professionals
>will take it as there personal
>goal, to become an expert at
>any product they are given,
>quickly!
The trick is that someone who is an expert in only one thing will become obsolete reasonably quickly. What is more important is having the ability to pick up new skills and become an expert in a new area as the needs arise - which is kind of what you were saying I think.
Generalists are a difficult one to pick... a good generalist doesn't tend to be an expert in any particular field of IT, but brings other key skills along to augment their IT knowledge, such a business knowledge, project management, education and so on. I think this is where I fit in... I have inherited my parents' knack for teaching, and coupling that with my knowledge I have done well. My knowledge is certainly specialised, but not to the "guru" status of some of my colleagues.
>The monkey's are in the IT for
>a JOB, and just are not
>interested in reading books or
>learning in their own time
>about IT or computer science
>trends. ie. IT is just their
>JOB not their Profession. They
>are also the ones complaining
>that they don't get enough
>training (meaning the company
>pays them for a one week
>vacation to a training course,
>which they learn "jack"!)
Indeed. I had one of those "a-ha" moments a couple of years back when I realised why it was that the best guys in our organisation never went on training courses. I always thought it was that they were too busy. It was actually that they found it more beneficial to spend time learning it themselves as required. Learning to obtain knowledge for yourself is key in achieving excellence.
>That being said, this IT
>"professional" remembers the
>Oracle job market in the 91
>slump....not a contract to be
>had in Melbourne. A few years
>ago, I think I was at the
>"top" of my game, being sucked
>into management, I now find
>myself being "top" at neither
>the technical or managerial.
>
>I don't think Australian IT
>workers doing the low end
>"coder jobs/supporter jobs"
>have a chance against the huge
>wave in the next 3~10 years of
>skilled IT Chinese workers. We
>need to add value in a new
>different ways. I think we
>will see a decline in numbers
>of traditional IT jobs in
>Australia.
Agree. I have worked with people in India, where they churn out IT monkeys by the millions. These people are good at what they are taught, but require constant retraining to keep current. Because there are so many of them, and they cost less than their western counterparts, they will force changes in our local IT market, causing a lot of lesser skilled, but relatively expensive people to lose work.
>Here is my idea:
>The integration of business
>transactions incorporating
>intercompany/intracompany
>computer systems, performing
>transactions that today are
>done with phone, fax, order
>entry staff/ purchase
>departments / accounts payable
>receivable on both sides of
>companies is what will keep IT
>workers employed for the next
>10 or 15 years.
Okay... this has certainly been identified by industy analysts as a growth area in coming years.
>Don't do the
>programming for this, Oracle,
>SAP, IBM, Micro$oft will
>provide the tools, however
>local IT workers will need to
>be on the ground doing the
>implementations. The fax
>machine will be a thing of the
>past for transferring of
>business transactions!
Indeed, products have matured significantly in recent times. Enterprise Application Integration has been identified by analysts as the number one task on large businesses IT todo list. You no longer have to (or should) write the integration code yourself. You can buy code that has been well tested and proven to work, and is fully supported.
If anyone wants information on what can be done in this area, email me at
[email protected] - we have the technology ;-)