Tags: Talent

Inspiration with Zenos

Posted by mattpoy on Posted in CompTIA, Education, Learning, People, Talent, Uncategorized Tagged , , , ,

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.

Youngsters helping the elderly get online

Posted by mattpoy on Posted in People, People Skills Talent, Skills, Technology Tagged , , ,

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.

IT is the place to be

Posted by mattpoy on Posted in Learning, People, People Skills Talent, Skills Tagged , , ,

Pupils across the UK have received their A-level results and are wondering what to do next. Like every year, we can expect that nowhere near enough of these talented individuals will pursue a career in IT.

The reason for this is surely not that IT has little to offer, or that it is too specialist, or even that it is boring, for it is none of these things. But this is how a lot of young people see it. Until we start doing something to change this perception, we will struggle to attract the required talent.

IT flies our planes, broadcasts our football matches, and records and edits our music. IT systems monitor the effects of global warming, fight terrorism, and ensure hospitals function. New innovations like the iPad and Facebook have made billions and changed the world.

None of these are dull professions and they are all areas which interest young people. They are more interesting than most office jobs, and a heck of a lot more interesting than bar work, which seems to be the fate of all too many talented young people.

But as an industry, we are seen by many 16-18 year olds as sitting in a basement with a computer. We need to change this perception and get these people, who are currently making big career decisions, excited about IT. We need to start focusing on all the exciting and varied opportunities that IT offers, and to communicate this to young people through education, careers talks and the media.

Keeping IT cool

Posted by mattpoy on Posted in People, People Skills Talent, Skills, Social Media, Talent, Technology Tagged , , , , ,

Gadgets are the new cool – everyone wants the latest mobile phone, iPad 2, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy and a myriad of others. In fact, at the recent CRN PartnerConnect conference at the Ricoh Arena, where we talked about cloud business opportunities and mobility, our CEO Todd Thibodeaux brought all of these devices with him in his hand luggage and showed them to the audience, which generated a combination of laughter and interest. Todd also talked about making IT cool (http://blog.comptia.org/2011/05/09/making-it-cool/) and I would like to pick up on this.

When I present to audiences about some of the trends in technology, eyebrows are always raised when I ask about engaging our young employees and utilizing social media for business. Why? The younger generation are digital natives and they live and breath the technology that so fascinates my generation. For them, it is their oxygen, a gateway to the outside world. They also understand how it works, how it connects, and how to maximize it, so why do we push back and in some cases not allow social media sites in the office during work time. My view is that we should encourage its use, and also invite the younger generation to tell us how we can build sites to target the new generation on the platforms they are so comfortable with. That is how we can tie “cool” and “IT” together, and create a new harmony in the workplace. More importantly, by doing this we make our companies a more exciting place to work and we will attract the new generation to want to work for us. Today they have a choice, and those with the skills and talent will decide whether they want to add us to their CV. They are vitally important to our success, regardless of how cool we think our company is – we must engage them on their terms, because they are both our workforce and our customer of tomorrow.

Above was the view at the Ricoh Arena from my room when I drew the curtains in the morning. What a great idea to combine corporate hospitality suites with hotel bedrooms to maximize use of the space. Another cool.

On the road with Kyocera

Posted by mattpoy on Posted in People Skills Talent, Technology Tagged , ,

Spent a day with Kyocera at their Service Director’s conference this week. One cannot emphasise enough the value of bringing people together face-to-face from different markets to interact and brainstorm. The Europeans were tough and direct, focusing on taking the business to the next level while the senior reps from Japan were very reflective and said little, although what they shared was critical. Their commitment to leading-edge learning and skills systems underline their core values in investing in their talent. Watching the human dynamics was fascinating, but they also had the sharpest sense of humour. The Japanese were easily the masters of origami, creating animals, birds and this boat from the evening menu!

Dubai experience

Posted by mattpoy on Posted in Customer Service, Future of Technology, People, People Skills Talent, Technology Tagged , , ,

Spent most of this week in Dubai, working with a new reseller partner to help grow the region. Only two blog posts ago, I talked about companies’ ‘secret weapons’ and this team is impressive. They surrounded us with a circle of dynamic and motivated individuals who are chomping at the bit to make a difference. I sense this partnership will do well, they are keen to succeed. I also had the most pleasant check-in experience via Emirates Airlines. I checked-in myself, printed my own luggage tag and boarding card, all at a kiosk and weigh-in counter utilising the latest technology – quick, effortless and impressive. We can all learn from this experience – I felt it was the best customer service, I had to do it all myself, yet it was more satisfying when it worked.

Secret Weapon

Posted by mattpoy on Posted in People, People Skills Talent, Skills, Talent Tagged , ,

I love David and Goliath stories and so I was immersed in a story about independent bookshops that are bucking the trend and doing well against the giants of the e-tailing world. How? By putting to effective use their secret weapon: PEOPLE. Individuals with the specialist knowledge, people skills and personal touch to make customers want to go in and buy books, even though they are almost always cheaper online. Brilliant and encouraging for every small business.

Crowdfunding – a great enabler

Posted by mattpoy on Posted in Future of Technology, People, People Skills Talent, Talent Tagged , ,

This is Tan Thi Nguyen. She lives in Vietman and runs a shop that sells the fresh meat of pigs. I am supporting her. Through Kiva (kiva.org) and their technology, I have become a lender to a number of small businesses around the world. Lending upwards of $25, it makes such a difference to people in Peru, Vietnam, Cambodia. So easy to do, so fulfilling so see the difference 3 computer-clicks can make. The Kiva record is impressive, over 220,000 loans valued at more than $163m and a repayment rate of 99%. As long as I am standing, I will be doing this.

Teachers

Posted by mattpoy on Posted in Education, People, People Skills Talent, Skills, Talent Tagged , , , ,

The students of a very bad teacher will learn, on average, half a year’s worth of material in 1 school year. The students in the class of a very good teacher will learn a one-and-a-half year’s worth of material. That difference amounts to a year’s worth of learning in a single year. Teacher effects dwarf school effects: your child is actually better off in a bad school with an excellent teacher than in an excellent school with a bad teacher. If you rank the countries of the world in terms of the academic performance of their schoolchildren, many countries could climb the ladder simply by replacing the bottom 6-10% of public-school teachers with teachers of average quality (Jack Welch tells us to do this in our companies every year). After years of worrying about issues like school funding levels, class size, and curriculum design, many reformers have come to the conclusion that nothing matters more than finding people with potential to be great teachers. Summarised from Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent new book ‘What the Dog Saw.’

Indian Adventure

Posted by mattpoy on Posted in Customer Service, People Skills Talent, Skills, Talent Tagged , , ,

Co-hosted three TechKnowledge evening seminars in Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi this week. Whirlwhind tour but well worth it. Hosted more than 180 delegates, where we discussed creating a competitive difference through skills and talent. A common thread is emerging, and when you look at changing demographics, the median ages of key global markets and India’s investment in education, it is poised to become the world’s largest supplier of
well-educated workers. People are our number one asset, and India recognises that.