I'd love to have candidates with that ability. They are hard to find...
-sc From: David Lum [mailto:david....@nwea.org] Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2010 1:20 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Big Changes Ahead for IT - Anyone seen this? I would fail the OSI part (sure I could Google it just now) as it was back in the NetWare days that I learned about it in a class. Heard of it, does that count? 27-bit subnet? Not off the top of my head, I'd have to think "okay a .128 mask is 25 bits...". I can explain DNS and forwarding, MX records, Aliases, HOSTS file, DHCP incl. reservations, and give you "jack of all trades" firewall info, conceptualize memory protection rings, and go to town on registry, AD and GPO design as well as give examples of being able to handle a near vertical learning curve. Am I hired? The way I view being an IT guy is day in and day out I'm not necessarily using $30/hr expertise, but there are spikes where I feel I surpass the "I've got certs but no real IT skills" Joe at figuring something out and at those times word 2-3x my nominal salary so on balance it works out. That's my story I'm stickin' to it. From: Ken Schaefer [mailto:k...@adopenstatic.com] Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2010 9:22 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Big Changes Ahead for IT - Anyone seen this? It's kinda funny that you mention the OSI model, since there are any number of people here that will dismiss it as irrelevant (personally I think that it's very relevant to know if you want to advance in an IT career) Corporations, in an ever ending quest to cut costs (or at least, regulate costs) will not continue to pay ludicrous amounts of money for the dross that the IT industry produces. There are far too many people being paid inflated salaries in this industry, without being able to deliver tangible/measurable results. One only needs to look at project delivery in large corporations, and at the small end, the dedicated people who manage to do tasks in a manual manner (this list included has people who have the time to spend working out the best way to do some task for an individual user, yet they must get paid $30-60k, which no other industry would accept). As the industry matures there simply will not be the opportunity for mediocrity to survive, just like every other mature industry. If you are merely average, you'll earn an average salary, and you won't be part of "IT" - or you might be part of an IT provider conglomerate. If you want to be a 6-7 figure earner, then you'll need to provide ever increasing levels of business value, just like every other industry (with the possible exception of Sales, where a really good pitch can make up for lack of substance, but let's not confuse sales and delivery :-) ) Cheers Ken From: Steven M. Caesare [mailto:scaes...@caesare.com] Sent: Wednesday, 26 May 2010 11:39 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Big Changes Ahead for IT - Anyone seen this? I've dismissed more network candidates than I can remember because they couldn't calculate the number of hosts in a subnet. Or had even heard of an OSI model. Systems "Engineers" who are at a loss to even at a high level explain the ideas of process, threads, memory protection, etc... Windows Admins who are clueless about registry interaction, CMD line tools, authorization principles, environment variables, etc... Tis sad. -sc From: David Lum [mailto:david....@nwea.org] Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2010 11:07 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Big Changes Ahead for IT - Anyone seen this? Slide 10 actually nails what I see: "Technology and confidence in the workforce is broadening but losing its depth (more employees understand how to exploit technology, but fewer have deep technical expertise). I agree with that one. Case in point: Us old timers understand %PATH% and that it's concept is still relevant behind the scenes, how many guys who have only seen Win95 and later know what it means? Like Erik said, most anyone can install Windows and its applications. How many of those really understand what's going on? Dave From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:john.hornbuc...@taylor.k12.fl.us] Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2010 6:49 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Big Changes Ahead for IT - Anyone seen this? +1 From: Andrew S. Baker [mailto:asbz...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2010 9:40 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Big Changes Ahead for IT - Anyone seen this? The fact is that as technology becomes more prevalent, MOST people desire to learn less about it. The ubiquity of automobiles has not led to more auto mechanics, but rather to an even smaller percentage of car owners being able to deal with even routine maintenance on a vehicle. There is no reason to believe that this trend will not manifest itself with computer technology. In order to make things appear simple enough for the every-day user <http://home.asbzone.com/ASB/archive/2009/11/16/where-simplicity-and-tec hnology-really-intersect.aspx> , the complexity gets encapsulated somewhere -- typically in the integration realm. The main problem is the use of the terms "deploy IT apps" which probably means something very different to them than it does to us. Similar to how people who can put together some basic macros think that they are "programmers". -ASB: http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker NOTICE: Florida has a broad public records law. Most written communications to or from this entity are public records that will be disclosed to the public and the media upon request. E-mail communications may be subject to public disclosure. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
