Jan 25

‘Learnability’

By Matthew Poyiadgi Learning, People Skills Talent, Skills No Comments »

I do like technology in the workplace and at home, but some things are clearly beyond my understanding. For example, more than 1% of the world’s population manage a virtual farm on Facebook (Farmville) and devote 20 minutes a day to managing an online vegetable patch!

Other things are clearer, such as the matter of jobs and learning. The world of work continues to change and jobs for life are extinct. We have to reorganise ourselves to be ready for portfolio work, increased life expectancy and an ageing population. Interest in entrepreneurship is on the rise, lifestyle businesses more popular and technology and social media combine to flatten the world. In IT, job roles are moving up the value chain as IT moves closer to the customer and therefore the revenue line. It is possible that most of the future IT jobs will be outsourced to IT providers and most of the employment will come from these supplier/partner companies.

The CIO of Johnson and Johnson was recently quoted as saying, “I believe the idea of hiring people for a job is well past.” My view is that IT is at the head of this particular table, with the future being more about job rotation programmes and flexible career paths, combining technical skills with the business-savvy.

It will be down to each of us as individuals to keep our skills refreshed and up to date, down to our ‘Learnability’, how fast we can forget the old and learn the new as we transition from project to project, department to department and company to company.

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Jan 13

Top 3 in Technology

By Matthew Poyiadgi Connectivity, Future of Technology, Mobile, Technology 3 Comments »

The Consumer Electronics Show is the annual gadget-fest held in Las Vegas and it is taking place right now. I thought it apt to share what I believe to be the 3 key technology trends of the year. Admittedly, I could elaborate on each of these for a blog post of their own, and some may well evolve into something different, but my top 3 are the technology-related trends I believe will end up impacting our day to day lives, regardless of our industry:

1. MOBILE will be far bigger than we think.  Mobile internet devices (especially smartphones) outsell all computing devices and certainly PCs, and mobility will continue to change the dynamic of how we operate. By being better connected, it means we don’t have to be in one place, and this will influence remote working, a different type of communication and the restructuring of the traiditional office setup.

2.  This leads nicely to NFC, or NEAR-FIELD COMMUNICATION.  NFC is a short-range wireless technology that makes use of interacting electromagnetic radio fields instead of the typical direct radio transmissions used by technologies such as Bluetooth. It is meant for applications where a physical touch, or close to it, is required. NFC is planned for use in mobile phones for, among other things, payment, in conjunction with an electronic wallet. Mobile payments will cause a rethink of cash, travel and shopping. For those of us in the UK, think of an Oyster card embedded within your phone.

3. The CROWD. Sites such as Airbnb and CouchSurfing are leading the way in peer-to-peer networks, and as Rachel Botsman said in my favourite book of last year “What’s Mine is YOurs“, creative companies are using technology to redefine ownership. Why buy when we can rent, borrow and share amongst our community. Experience is far more important than ownership; for example, we don’t necessarily want to collect DVDs, we just want the experience of watching the movie, and usually, just the once. Cars is another area that will be seriously affected, with companies such as Whipcar and Zipcar helping reduce car ownership around the world. Technology is facilitating this change.

They are my top three, and no doubt many other trends will spin-off from these. Keep an eye out for news from CES and articles in all the newspapers and websites, all the main gadgets and trends will be featured there.

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Dec 31

Reading and Dreaming

By Matthew Poyiadgi Learning, Reading No Comments »

I have taken this quiet Christmas holiday period to read lots of interesting material, from Alan Sugar’s ‘Way I See It” to “The First 90 Days” by Michael Watkins and monthly editions of Forbes, Fortune and Wired magazine as well as countless articles and opinion pieces around technology trends, the impact of social media, and skills and talent issues. Next up are Neville Isdell’s book ‘Inside Coca Cola’, describing the making and marketing of Coca Cola from the perspective of his role as Chairman and CEO, and ‘Sense of an Ending’ by Julian Barnes.

I can’t get enough of things to read, and my new role at Pearson allows me train journeys to digest lots of new material. I read recently that one successful individual recommends 3 things everyone should read – and I agree 100%:

1) Biographies of successful people; 2) Something to do with a thought, such as Michael Porter on competitive advantage or Peter Drucker on management; 3) Books that inspire you to go beyond yourself.

With the year having raced to an end, I believe we can claim to be a little bit wiser than we were 12 months ago, and this quote by Victor Hugo sets the stage for the new year best of all: “There is nothing like a dream to create the future.”

A Happy and Healthy New Year to all.

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Dec 17

How do you sleep at night?

By Matthew Poyiadgi Future of Technology, Pearson, People, People Skills Talent 1 Comment »

Just back from a whirlwind visit to the Pearson VUE headquarters in Bloomington, Minneapolis. What a slick operation. Professional, exceptional talent working in well-organised teams to serve its clients.

A lot can be learned from watching people at work, although generally I find I pick up a lot more ideas and nuggets of information from the US when I travel there than anywhere else. How can we capture some of that “essence” and ship it home? Is it the people and their attitude, their education or just the unflinching desire to succeed? I think it is a combination of all those things, and especially the philosophy of learning by failure. The US is the only market I know where mistakes and failure are a recognised part of growing up and the learning process.

It all about continuous learning. Every discussion and every experience is an opportunity to learn something new. On every plane journey I take, I weigh myself down with books, magazines and printed articles, always capturing quotes and stories along the way. That is how I assemble the content for my presentations.

The future of IT jobs and learning? That is a little harder to predict. The world of work continues to evolve and IT jobs are moving up the value chain, combining technical with business-savvy skills to give IT a seat at the boardroom table (more of this next post). But what is absolute, is that surrounding yourself with the best people is how to make the difference, regardless of business model. That is, yet again, the one standout thing from my trip to the US. I close with a comment made by fashion mogul Tommy Hilfiger in a recent interview:

“Hiring the best, most intelligent people allows you to sleep at night. One of my advantages starting out was that I was never afraid to hire someone smarter than me.” Rock on Tommy.

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Nov 25

The daily treadmill – getting back our time

By Matthew Poyiadgi CompTIA, People, Time No Comments »

Many people are commenting on the future of email this week, predicting it’s slowdown and demise. Mark Zuckerberg, of Facebook fame, declared that “we don’t think a modern messaging system is going to be email.”

Technology has increased the pace of everything. We are never offline and once we get on that treadmill, we cannot stand still. If we stop for a moment, we invariably go backwards. But whilst it needs to slow down and we need time to think and reflect, I do agree with him. Email is growing largely due to the sheer volume of new users in Asia, but for the younger demographic, email doesn’t cut it. Our kids want something faster and easier than e-mail and amongst teenagers email usage is down 59%. How often do you see kids wandering with heads down clicking away on Blackberry Messenger?

As most people know, I am a big supporter of giving youngsters a chance. At a recent event in Brussels at the EU, a minister said if every small business employed one person we would have no unemployment problem. Easier said than done of course, but I took on a few apprentices/interns at CompTIA and it made a difference. What’s more, I unearthed a couple of real diamonds with great futures ahead of them, just buy committing to giving somebody a chance. We should all do it – it is very rewarding.

A bigger issue I have, however, is these kids and their career choices. We are too easily led by the glitz and the glory of TV fame, and it is unrealistic. 25 years ago, the three primary career choices were Teacher, Banker and Doctor; today, they are Sports Star, Pop Star and Actor. This is the X-Factor generation and there will be a lot of disappointed young people out there.

Now I love technology and continue to take an interest in its evolution. More notably, since I resigned from my current role at CompTIA (my favourite place of work to date), I have had a couple of weeks to do things for myself and email has reduced to a trickle. What a joy! How I have used my time has opened my eyes to how we should work, think and be creative ordinarily. We should not have to stop work to get access to this quality time but factor it into our daily routines – I for one will be doing this at Pearson when I join.

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Oct 29

Inspiration with Zenos

By Matthew Poyiadgi CompTIA, Education, Learning, People, Talent, Uncategorized 4 Comments »

As a young man growing up, I followed many sports stars – Kevin Keegan, Kenny Dalgish, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, but my sporting inspiration was Zinedine Zidane. He was so naturally gifted and so intelligent with the ball. This week, I found inspiration not with footballers, but at youngsters no more than 18 years old who won the apprentice of the year awards at the Zenos annual conference, where I also had the pleasure of presenting my view on the ‘Evolution of IT, Jobs and Learning’.

Zenos is a quite amazing company. 400 staff, mostly young and very dynamic, but what really stands out is the camaraderie, the culture and the ethos that drives this team of people led by Jason Moss and his management team. They live to help the next generation acquire the skills that will set them on the road to a new chapter in their lives, a career IT.

I selected Ashleigh Carr as the Zenos-CompTIA apprentice of the year.  He is 18 years-old. He has Crohn’s disease. Our CompTIA A+ certification helped him find himself and a job at the Royal Bank of Scotland in IT Support. Most of 400+ audience were in tears as I presented the award to him (and we gave Ashleigh a 3D LED TV as a cool gift to go along with his award). We must never forget, this is why we exist, helping Ashleigh and others like him to get a job and make progress in the world of technology.

I will always love football, basketball and most other sports, and I will always enjoy watching the best talent grace our stadia. But this week has taught me that our inspiration comes from these youngsters, who overcome adversity to achieve results and aim high, and get the jobs they apply for. If that is our future, there is hope. Presenting at Zenos this week, and handing out this award, was my finest hour at CompTIA. Thank you Jason, Claire, Nicky, Richard and all the fantastic Zenos team.

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Oct 05

Youngsters helping the elderly get online

By Matthew Poyiadgi People, People Skills Talent, Skills, Technology 1 Comment »

Back from a short visit to the US, where once again I learned and picked up some cool new things. This one is all about people driving technology.

Read an inspiring article about Steve Jobs, who has left his day-to-day role at Apple. He embodies everything that Apple has created. I particularly liked the quote, “Apple has beautiful artifacts, but what Jobs has been building is a company whose legacy is ideas.”

Another such inspiration is London-born Sean Maloney, who was one of the leaders at Intel and recently suffered a stroke that deprived him of his ability to walk and talk. He has made a great recovery and is now the chairman at Intel China. Success, companies and technologies are always about great people.

A project that impressed me recently was Adopt a Care Home, an initiative that encourages young people from schools and colleges to help the elderly get online. The saddest part of this was that residents of a care home would go downstairs in the morning to collect their post and there wasn’t any. They were used to mail as a form of communciation. This project seeks to do something about that. One great example of its success is Enid Adamson, 87, who hadn’t seen her daughter, who lives in New Zealand, for 2 years. It was terrible that she feared she may never see her again. With the assistance of this project, they now talk once a week on a large screen using Skype, a webcam and clip-on microphone.

Great story. People driving technology to make this a better place.

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Sep 19

The routes into IT

By Matthew Poyiadgi CompTIA, Education, Skills No Comments »

The problem with IT’s image is not just that the opportunities aren’t well represented, but also that routes in are poorly understood. People assume they need an IT degree, then hear that lots of IT graduates (amongst other graduates) are struggling to find jobs.

I believe the focus on academia is misplaced for IT. IT degrees are good for some but are not the only way. For many organisations, hands on experience gained through IT trainers (eg QA, Just IT, Firebrand, Zenos) and backed by industry certifications count for much more.

CompTIA designs certifications with industry to identify the skills they need. Companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, etc, take much the same approach. Students we speak to who take certifications, such as CompTIA A+ followed by their vendor certification of choice, consistently land rewarding jobs.

When discussing IT careers – in IT lessons, careers advice sessions or the media – we should be clearer about how students can get in, and shift the focus away from IT degrees as the de facto route. This may work to our advantage – as education costs soar, a professional career with a recognised industry certification track may become very attractive.

Furthermore, we’d like to see this real-world focused approach throughout IT education, particularly GCSEs and beyond. We need to teach IT in a practical, exciting way which relates to how it is used in real life, as the aforementioned IT trainers do with great success. This will not only inspire more young people into IT and increase understanding of how to get there, it will also ensure they have the skills to get the jobs they want.

CompTIA has just completed a guide which hopes to help young people understand the many exciting options that a career in IT offers and can be viewed here. This blog post first appeared in Computer Weekly magazine.

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Sep 09

ICT education must grow up

By Matthew Poyiadgi Education, Learning 1 Comment »

It’s all very well talking about how IT is an exciting career, but unless we start telling people about it, we’re not going to attract the people we need.

This all starts with education. Too many secondary schools have an IT curriculum which teaches Word and Excel and other subjects pupils already know about. This is boring.

We don’t teach 14 year old English students how to read, we teach an understanding of literature and use it to cultivate analytical, evaluation and communication skills. Similarly, IT should give students an understanding of how technology works and the tools to use it in productive and creative ways. It should teach subjects which, for those who enjoy IT, can be developed into relevant career skills.

Once students are excited about IT, we need to ensure that when they look for advice – from careers advisors, parents or teachers – these people have the materials to explain what IT can offer. The IT industry can help by providing these materials. CompTIA, for example has just completed a guide for use by such people to explain careers in IT and how we can help. Those interested can download the guide, called Be Part of the Future, from www.comptia.org/uk.

We also need people who will fly the flag in the media. Perhaps we could even find a champion who can do for IT what James Dyson did for engineering. An even better result would be for IT professionals to volunteer to visit their local schools or college and tell students why they love their career.

It’s a big job, but as an industry we need to find ways to share our love of IT with young people. As appeared in Computer Weekly magazine.

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Sep 01

Community update

By Matthew Poyiadgi Communities, CompTIA, People 2 Comments »

CompTIA UK hosted our UK Channel Community last Thursday at the ICC in Birmingham and most of us agreed it was the best meeting to date.

A community operates differently. Whilst sometimes tempted to dictate the run of play, it was more productive and more satisfying to see members of the community step up and take the lead at different times during the session, each adding their own nugget of value to the collective. Our chair, IT consultant Richard Tubb, is well respected by all, and his effortless leadership ensured everybody in the room was included, particularly with the ‘30-second Best Practice’ session, now an institution at these meetings. Adam Harris launched the legal resource centre and shared why we localised it for the benefit of our UK members, and vice-chair Lee Evans, owner of Vital Technology Group, updated the delegates on the Quality Mark we are working on.

It was also pleasing to see some new faces take the stage, such Les Billing from HMD Electronics, who led the update on the Vendor Resources Portal and my favourite session of the day, ‘Connecting with Customers’ presented by Gareth Brown, MD of Sytec. Gareth told us that simplicity is the key for customers; that we often talk in our own ‘IT language’ which customers don’t understand, and how great it was to see his company’s mantra – “We Fix IT” – get a great response from the group. This was my biggest take-away from the day: all of us must “de-jargonise” and “de-fluff” our services when we market, and talk to, customers. Great phrases!

The most fulfilling piece of all however, was seeing the members come together, engage in conversation, laugh out loud, talk about the markets, economy and trends, even about their cars, but most importantly build connections and enhance the community.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and sometimes the beauty is just to step back from the conversation and watch the magic happen.

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