Many of the people wanting to getting into programming or web design are initially excited, until they find out how developers have to learn to stay productive. What I have to learn in an average year is the equivalent of what I learned in 2 years in college. If I had know this before getting into this field I might have thought twice about Information Technology as my career.
Why people choose Information Technology (IT) as a Career
I cannot speak for an entire industry, but from the people I have worked beside in my various positions as a consultant, what I have found appears to be universal. IT professionals love a challenge, and this industry has an abundance of them. This "abundance of challenges" occurs because IT is where "business" and "technology" collide. This culmination of "ever-changing" business, where companies are trying to get a competitive edge, and "ever-changing" technology, that has a "bleeding-edge" life span of one business quarter is in constant flux. This means that IT Professional live in constant flux.
To be effective and stay productive, this means that a IT professional needs to be on top of his or her game 100% of the time. We must be able to adapted quickly to our environment. This means that learning occurs on a number of fronts, but mainly in these 3 area -- "Soft Skills", "Business Acumen" and "Technical Skills"
Soft-Skills
These skills are the people skills, which include project and resource management, facilitation, conflict management and etc. This skill helps us interact with other while maintaining a high level of professionalism and productivity. For a lot of IT professionals, including myself, this area is the hardest to master, because it means we have to get out from behind our computers and interact with others. This takes us out of our comfort zone, which takes a conscious effort.
Business Acumen
If you want to interact with others, you must be able to communicate using the same language. It is easy for IT professional to speak in technical terms, which I will term "tech-ese". While some business professionals can understand "tech-ese", they may not totally understand all of it, so it is our job to make sure that we communicate using a common protocol. This means that we need to be fluent in "business terminology" for the industry in which we are operating. This does not means that if you are working in the medical industry that you have to be as knowledgeable as a nurse, doctor, pharmacist or etc. it does however, mean that we have to be fluent enough to be able to capture requirements and processes
Technical Skills
IT Professional like to focus on this area, but it is the most fun. This is the reason they got into this field in the first places -- the puzzles, the problems, mind-boggling brain teasers. With technology changing at such a rapid pace, IT professionals should be constantly focusing on this area. but they should not focus so much time on this skill set that the other skill sets are neglected.
US Market for IT Professionals
Gone are the days of the IT programmer who is isolated from the business. With a number of companies outsourcing software and web development to overseas companies, IT professional must strived to integrate themselves into the business. IT professionals have to examine what makes them marketable to locally businesses.
IT professionals need to think more like business professional -- "How can I bring value to the company?", "How do my projects benefit the company?", "What can I do to advance the company?"
The business is looking for IT professionals who: (1) talk directly to the business, (2) understand the business and it strategic goals, (3) capture business requirements effectively, and (4) associate business requirements to the latest technology advances and existing infrastructure to provide the business with the biggest "bang for their buck".
Growth or Stagnation?
Information Technology is a "ever-changing" field, but to stay up to the challenge, we must continue to learn and go, or we are choosing to be "left behind".
Reference Sites:
Programmer Don't Read Books -- But You Should
Reference Books:
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The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition)
by Frederick P. Brooks
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