Out of the Back Office
Are technology discussions left only for the geeks in the back office of your organization? Have you thought about how technology is affecting your hiring decisions, how you are going to secure access to your employees, or how you can leverage technology happenings that are occurring outside your organization? Here are a few thoughts from technology reports that could have an impact on hiring, security, and advertising.
Are technology discussions left only for the geeks in the back office of your organization? Have you thought about how technology is affecting your hiring decisions, how you are going to secure access to your employees, or how you can leverage technology happenings that are occurring outside your organization? Here are a few thoughts from technology reports that could have an impact on hiring, security, and advertising.
Street Smarts?
A report from e-skill UK suggests that geeks are finding it tough to find jobs. A majority of employers is NOT impressed with just IT degrees and only 4% of employers place significance on where the degree was earned.
What is becoming increasingly important are business skills. Increasingly, employers are looking for competencies that facilitate team working, communications and other interpersonal skills.
Perhaps there is a convergence that is going to happen – business skills need more technology skills – technology skills need more business skills – where will we find equilibrium?
I believe this suggests a much more collaborative approach to building and applying solutions to solve real problems .
If every worker in our organization is truly becoming an information worker, then we need tools that can be deployed for every role, and those tools need to be usable based for every skill set.
I guess the phrase, "If we build it, they will come" , should be turned to, "If we built it, so they will use it, they will come".
Secure or Not Secure…
Have you implemented a security policy yet? Here is a wonderful piece of news that came across my desk, "The number of new pieces of malicious software has doubled in the last year with the web being used increasingly to distribute the code, a report says.
In the first quarter of 2007, security firm Sophos identified 23,864 threats, up from 9,450 on this time last year.
In the same period, the firm said it was identifying 5,000 web pages per day infected with so-called malware.
The report was released during InfoSec, Europe’s largest conference regarding online security issues, in London. "With computer users becoming increasingly aware of how to protect against email-aware viruses and malware, hackers have turned to the web as their preferred vector of attack," said the report.
So while you are collaborating with your IT staff and training your workers, don’t forget about access and security.
Deciding Where to Post
Speaking of information workers, and everyone using more user friendly technology – how is your marketing budget?
While we push content onto the web, in hopes of increasing demand, generating PR, and building brand – have you considered advertising on sites where there is "user-generated" content? (UGC – everyone needs a 3 letter acronym.)
A recent survey from Bluelithium, indicates that marketers can get the best return from positioning ads on UGC sites rather than traditional sites. The number of these sites exploded by over 668% in the last two years.
Something to Think About
I hope that touching on the above topics has helped to expand some thinking about your IT – and helps to move these topics out of the back office.
Information technology – you may love it or hate it, it doesn’t matter. It does involve every aspect of the business no matter what industry you are in, and the more integration that happens across an organization – will only increase your benefit in terms of productivity and value.
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