Emerging IT skills, trends and certifications for 2010
Linda Leung
2009 may have been a tough year for the economy, but technology
hasn't stood still. Google set the blogosphere alight in September
when it invited a lucky few to test its new Google Wave
communications platform, while Microsoft finally laid Vista to rest
and replaced it with Windows 7. Meanwhile, Cisco is putting the
finishing touches to some brand new certifications. Here's a look
at what's emerging in IT in 2010.
1. New Cisco Certifications
When it comes to developing new certification paths, Cisco is
guided by technologies that are established enough to be a part of
a network pro's job function, and the findings from a June 2008
Forrester survey titled "Closing
the IT NEtwork Skills Gap." Of the IT managers surveyed, 65%
indicated that within the next five years, technical certification
would be somewhat or absolutely critical in determining whether an
individual should be assigned responsibilities in network
operations or central data center roles.
The result is two new Cisco data center certifications whose
exams will be available in December. Fred Weiller, director of
marketing for Learning@Cisco says the prerequisites for
Cisco Data Unified Computing Design Specialist and Data Center
Unified Computing Support Specialist
Data Center Unified Computing Specialist signal the first time
that a Cisco certification requires the passing of a non-Cisco
exam. Candidates must hold the VMware VCP certification, among
other prerequisites. Weiller says Cisco is in talks with other
virtualization vendors to include their certifications.
In January, Cisco is expected to select the first group of
individuals who will go through the Cisco Certified Architect
accreditation process. Applications for the process will open in
December. This new certification was announced in June and sits
above the already tough CCIE program. Candidates are required to
hold the CCIE sister certification, Cisco Certified Design Expert
(CCDE), which is still in its infancy. Since the pool of candidates
is small (currently, only about 20 people hold the CCDE), Weiller
says the number of individuals selected will be in the single
digits. Cisco likens the certification to a PhD because it's an
advanced designation and because candidates are required to define
and defend a network blueprint to a panel of experts, similar to
how Ph.D. candidates defend their thesis. Candidates are not judged
on their knowledge of Cisco technologies but how well their network
blueprints address business objectives, and their ability to
communicate this at the face-to-face interview with the judges.
2. Microsoft Windows 7, Exchange 2010, SharePoint 2010
Microsoft's launch of Windows 7 on Oct. 22 was welcomed by many
as a much-needed upgrade to Vista, which garnered a reputation for
being slow, buggy and annoying. In enterprise sites, Windows 7 is
expected to see widespread adoption as companies enter the natural
upgrade cycle for their desktops and laptops, and because Windows
Server 2008 Release 2 was released at the same time. The two
platforms were designed to work together in an enterprise
setting.
Kim Lanzarusso, Global Knowledge product director for Microsoft
training, says Global Knowledge's Windows 7 training has been very
popular with engineers eager to start evaluating the new OS and to
learn what it will take to roll it out in their environments.
Microsoft also polished off two other major releases that will
keep system managers busy in 2010: Exchange Server 2010 and
SharePoint 2010. Exchange 2010 is expected to ship on Nov. 9 and
includes new storage and deployment options, built-in e-mail
archiving, and new database clustering. SharePoint 2010 was
unveiled on Oct. 19 at the SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas. It
sports a streamlined central administration, a Best Practices
Analyzer that monitors server farm health, and usage reporting and
logging.
Lanzarusso says Global Knowledge customers should expect a big
push for Exchange and SharePoint learning in the first quarter of
2010. The company begins building courses as soon as Microsoft
ships feature-complete releases, and courses are generally
available 10 to 12 weeks after that. Go
here for Windows 7 resources from Global Knowledge.
3. Social Media
If you like to share your thoughts in 140 characters on Twitter,
poke fun of friends on Facebook, and actively participate in online
communities, you're probably a social media nut. There are
companies willing to employ you to Twitter. It's no denying that a
social media marketing frenzy is sweeping across corporate America.
Ford Motor Company, Starbucks, and Intel are often cited as
companies that are doing social media well. Companies are eager to
hire social media specialists who can expertly get a company's
messages across to audiences on social networks.
According to researcher Forrester, interactive marketing, which
includes search marketing, display advertising, e-mail marketing,
and social media, will increase to $55 billion or 21% of all
marketing spend in 2014. This represents a shift away from
traditional media, says Forrester.
While many social media/community management jobs require some
marketing experience, most job ads ask for individuals who are very
familiar with social networking tools, can engage with audiences on
different social networking sites, and have an avid group of
follows in cyberspace. To get an idea of the types of jobs
available and the backgrounds of people who are hired, former
Forrester analyst and now Partner of Customer Strategy at the
Altimeter Group, Jeremiah Owyang, posts a weekly "People on the
Move in Social Media" update on his Web Strategy blog. The
site also advertises open Web strategists jobs.
4. Cloud Computing
There is no denying the attractiveness of hosted applications,
such as Google Docs. They're cheap (free, actually), easy to use
and available to you wherever you are. A recent study by IDC found
one in five companies said Google Docs is "widely used" in their
workplace. Even
Microsoft plans to introduce a cloud version of Office 2010
available for free to customers of its Software Assurance
maintenance program. Google is set to boost the attractiveness of
hosted applications even further with Google Wave, a
platform that combines e-mail, instant messaging, blogging, social
networking, document sharing, multimedia and more. Google in
September began inviting developers and others to test Wave,
sparking some hot bids and scams for Wave invites.
But tempering the attractiveness of hosted services are the
downsides, including outages and security issues. A number of
popular services, including Gmail, Twitter, PayPal and Rackspace,
have been hit by outages, while a hacker last summer gained access
to sensitive Google Apps documents of Twitter.
5. Usability Professionals
As more software is available to a wider population user
experience needs to be more than an after-thought. Many
organizations hire usability professionals to ensure user feedback
is included in the development process. Incorporating usability
helps to increase productivity, reduce development time and costs
(software doesn't have to be rewritten if user feedback is
collected as part of the development process), and reduce training
and support costs, according to the Usability Professionals'
Association. UPA Secretary and Director of Training, Paul Sherman
highlighted Citrix and Microsoft as leaders of usability in the
software space, but that could be attributed to the usability focus
in their consumer products. Enterprise software still has much to
learn in this space, Sherman says, and this presents a great
opportunity for usability professionals.
Usability as a profession is not new but it is growing steadily
as more companies consider user experience as an important factor.
Usability pros have a broad training and professional background.
Some have qualifications in human-computer interaction, information
design or psychology. Others have backgrounds in computer science
and technical writing, according to UPA data. Job titles too are
diverse, ranging from user experience practioner, to information
architect. Other closely related titles are Web designer and
software analyst. The
UPA's 2009 worldwide salary survey of 1,786 of its members
found that most were under the age of 45, are highly educated (47%
hold a Master's degree or greater), are likely to work for a
software company (25%), and are employed in a mid-level,
non-supervisory role (32%), or senior-level, non-supervisory (28%)
position. The average salary for 2009 is $85,284, compared to
$78,445 in 2005.
Related Courses
Cisco
Microsoft
ITIL
VMware