Newsletter – October 8, 2009 – Boilers, Readers and 80,000 Jobs

The Winter of our Discontent

I am typing this newsletter wearing much heavier clothing than I have recently been used to.

It would seem that autumn has finally arrived in Southern England. “Mustn’t Grumble” as people here tend to say. We have had a long warm summer.

That’s one of the good effects of global warming. Anything that makes the UK climate a bit warmer and drier can’t be all bad.

Anyhow this week it finally turned a bit colder. Two days ago our central heating and hot water boiler, barely 6 months old, right on cue, decided it wasn’t going to work any more.

Luckily it’s under warranty still, so we eagerly await our service call tomorrow. Meanwhile it’s like stepping back in time. All the things you take for granted:

Sitting here typing wearing a thick woolly pullover.
Boiling a kettle of water to wash at the sink, instead of hopping into the shower.
No dishwasher so boiling up water to wash the dishes in the sink.
Clothes washing in cold water only

It’s been interesting to see how the energy efficiency of our property has panned out. We live in a town house in a small block of 8, built in the early 1960s.

We bought it at the beginning of the year and are slowly modernising it – hence the new boiler. It has had hardly any attention in 30 years, so there’s a lot to do.

Anyway, we are quite impressed. Despite not yet having double glazed windows (that’s the next major expense on our list), in two full days of no heating at all, the inside temperature has slowly dropped from the 23 degrees Celsius it has maintained through most of the summer to a still reasonable 19.5 degrees, despite outside temperatures being around minimum 9 and maximum 17.

I think those builders of 50 years ago knew what they were doing!

E-Book Readers

I don’t know how many of you have an e-book reader. They are still a bit rare in the UK, even though the USA has had them for some time.

Since I have been publishing e-books I have developed an interest in them. I saw my first one in late 2007 on vacation in Mexico.

It was owned by an American tourist who was reading by the pool. I was impressed with it then.

Earlier this year we invested in a Sony e-book reader, and it’s been in constant use ever since, even having been on a couple of beach vacations.

I admit I am very impressed with it. Reading e-books on a PC screen is not to everyone’s taste. Printing them out to read them is a bit tiresome and expensive on ink – and still not as good as a real book.

The Sony gets over all these problems. It’s as pleasant as a real book to read, even in bright sunlight. The battery lasts a week or more between charges and you can carry around many books in a device that is no bigger or heavier than a single paper back.

My wife uses it daily, reading on the train going to work and won’t be separated from it. We might have to get another.

Some of these thoughts were prompted by an article in today’s newspaper, which said that Amazon are about to release their Kindle e-book reader in the UK.

Up to now it’s only been available in the USA. It will be interesting to see what a bit of competition does. The Sony has had the market more or less to itself till now.

With any luck it will bring the prices down a bit. I still think they are a wee bit expensive for what they are – and a price drop of about 40% is needed, I think, to make them a mass market device.

Still, we are getting great value out of ours and wouldn’t be without it. If I can get my hands on a Kindle, when they are released, I’ll do a product comparison test.

80,000 new jobs in The UK in the next 4 years

This was a headline in one of the UK newspapers this week. The prediction was by Microsoft chief, Steve Ballmer, addressing the Confederation of British Industry in London.

Basically Steve was saying that the IT industry in the UK would create 80,000 new jobs here in the next four years. He added “There will be three times as many jobs created in the information technology sector as in the economy at large”.

I will review his entire speech and its international implications in more detail in next week’s newsletter.

For now it’s certainly good news, particularly to those IT staff who are suffering high levels of employment in the current recession.

Now is the time to lay the groundwork. As we start to come out of the recession there will be a MASSIVE demand for IT staff. Those who have been preparing themselves will suddenly find their dreams coming true.

Find out how to get your piece of the action by reading our e-book “Success with the IT Jobs Genie” available at www.ITjobsGenie.com

See our other publications at www.JacksGuides.com

Previous newsletters.

In response to several requests, we have published many of our older newsletters. You can find them at http://www.ITjobsGenie.com/news.htm

Newsletter – October 1, 2009 –The Genie has Landed

What is the Genie?

This newsletter is a bit late this week. The reason is that we have been preparing for the launch of our new web site.

It’s been obvious to us for some time now that under the general banner of “Jack’s Guides”, there are really two quite different areas of interest.

Jack’s Guides was originally formed with the concept of providing short readable text books on a whole variety of IT topics, aimed mostly at people already in the IT industry.

One of our books was “Jack’s Guide to Lots More Money”. This was aimed mainly at people who either wanted to get into the IT industry, or were in entry level IT jobs and wanted to know how to progress.

This book was somewhat buried among the other “text books” and yet has received a lot of interest. So much so that we have now launched a new web site www.ITjobsGenie.com

The IT Jobs Genie web site is aimed solely at those people who either want to get into the IT industry, or who want to progress from entry level jobs to become true IT professionals.

The Jack’s Guides web site www.jacksguides.com will continue to provide high quality, short, readable text books on a whole variety of IT topics aimed at the emerging IT professional.

In the short term the two web sites will share the common blog and newsletters. However, in the longer term they will probably split to further their own individual identities.

The e-book “Jack’s Guide to Lots More Money” is no longer available. It has been replaced by a new book “Success with the IT Jobs Genie” available only at www.ITjobsGenie.com

This book draws on ideas first mentioned in the older book, but is a completely new edition that has been brought up to date (the original book was first published in 2007, light years ago in IT time).

As an introductory offer we have set the price of this new book at the same discounted price as the older book – $16 – less than half price. You can even get the extra value pack for only $24 – a massive saving.

Get yours now by following this link. They won’t be available for very long at this price.

http://www.ITjobsGenie.com

Fone-friendly

Another innovation for the new books is that they also come with a “fone-friendly” version. We have had lots of comments from people who like to read e-books on their mobiles that the normal pdf format is too wide for most mobile phones, and you have to engage in a lot of tedious left-right shifting to read them.

Well we have come to the party. All the “Genie” series of books now come with two pdfs, one is the normal one to read on your PC or e-book reader. The other is a specially formatted version to fit neatly onto a mobile phone screen without all that shifting around. Try it yourself. You can now easily read our books wherever you are, whenever you want.

Can the Genie grant you 3 wishes?

What might your 3 wishes for your career be?
My job should be cool and fun
I want to be in the top 10% of earners
I want security and independence

Let’s recap what the Genie is trying to do for you.

Do you want to double or triple your income?

Of course you do – who wouldn’t? Millions of people are currently massively underpaid in the global business sector. So how can you fix it that you are not one of them?

Do you work in the corporate sector?

Do you work in the IT industry?

Does your work involve using IT systems or dealing with IT people?

Would you like to work in the IT Industry and earn lots more than you are used to?

Have you got friends or family who would like to get that elusive IT job but don’t know how?

If you answer “YES” to any of these questions, we can help.

The fact is that most of the world’s businesses rely extensively on IT Systems and the people who work with them. Many businesses rely so much on their IT systems that they would literally become bankrupt if their IT systems were inoperative for a short space of time.

So there is a huge and growing demand for competent IT people, even in a recession. You don’t need a college degree. You don’t need to be a geek or a techie. You just need some common sense, the right kind of knowledge and an appreciation of how the system really works.

In upcoming newsletters we’ll have some fun, work on our motivation and tell you lots of good stuff that will help you get what you want, or even help you to work out what you want.

Now is the time to lay the groundwork. As we start to come out of the recession there will be a MASSIVE demand for IT staff. Those who have been preparing themselves will suddenly find their dreams coming true.

Previous newsletters.

In response to several requests, we have published many of our older newsletters. You can find them at http://www.ITjobsGenie.com/news.html

Newsletter – September 17, 2009 – France, Fish and Jobs

France

This newsletter is a bit late this week. We decided to get away to the South of France for a few days of sunshine and sea before the winter sets in.

But the best laid plans……………………….

We have managed to pick the one week of the last several weeks where there has been lots of wind and rain passing through.

So instead of lazing on the beach we have had to resort to doing touristy things instead. Fortunately we are in an area rich in history and scenery (the coastal strip just west of Provence) so there is lots to see.

And don’t forget the great wine and food.

Fish

I can’t talk about French food without a mention of a very special person.

It’s not often I do obituaries but here is an exception. At my age (a remnant of the 1960s) I am used to seeing icons and contemporaries drop off the peg one by one, and I have been mostly philosophical.

I was pretty cut up by the death of John Lennon back in the 80s, but then I was certainly not alone.

However, I discovered someone else in the 80s, who, although nowhere near as famous as John, has in his own way contributed hugely to my quality of life.

That man was Keith Floyd, who has just died from a premature heart attack at the relatively young age of 65.

For those of you who don’t recognise the name, Floyd was one of the first of the TV celebrity chefs, and for me still the greatest.

His TV shows of the 80s, “Floyd on Fish” and “Floyd on France” were turning points in my life. I had believed the myths about France that were quite common; the French don’t like English speakers; French food is complex, expensive and “up itself” etc.

Floyd opened my eyes to many things; what a stunning country France is; how warm and friendly the people are if you put away the Anglo-Saxon prejudices and how totally wonderful is French provincial cooking – not complicated, not expensive, just simply delicious.

He turned me from a person who could barely boil an egg to one who is at ease with cooking and eating (and drinking wine!) in the French way.

RIP Keith – you will be sadly missed.

I hope the Food Police don’t use this sad death as more ammunition in the war to get us off the perceived “nasties” in real food or mount further attacks on wine consumption. I suspect Keith’s early demise was more down to excessive lifelong smoking than his eating and drinking.

I guess he also had a very stressful life in trying to run successful restaurants. I take my hat off to people who can do that. The daily unremitting stress must be amazing. It makes my own job of IT Project Manager seem quite gentle in comparison.

Jobs

A recent newsletter mentioned the current pressures on the IT jobs market.

Here are some interesting statistics. We conducted a global survey last year of one day’s job adverts using the “JobServe” job site

We have conducted the same survey periodically since. The results are:

Permanent Jobs

Country August April July September

2008 2009 2009 2009

USA/Canada 6367 1815 1356 1278

UK 4440 1197 1220 1183

Australia 461 108 116 131

Contract Jobs

USA / Canada 1932 861 495 787

UK 2209 827 878 810

Australia 309 131 105 88

ALL Jobs

USA / Canada 8299 2676 1851 2065

UK 6647 2024 2098 1993

Australia 770 239 221 219

A few conclusions can be deduced from this. The pattern in all regions is similar.

One note of caution however. You might expect the USA numbers to be much larger than shown, given the relative size of the economy of the USA compared with the UK and Australia. This can be explained by the fact that the job site we use for the survey is more popular in the UK and Australia than it is in the USA.

The figures show good news and bad news. The good news is that things are not getting any worse, leading to the conclusion that the worst is behind us. The bad news is that things are fairly flat and still way down on a year ago.

Total jobs in USA are still only 25% of last year, UK 30% and Australia 28%. This means there is a lot of recovery still to happen.

The odd thing is that there has not been a similar free fall in pay rates on offer. The rates seem to have dropped somewhat, by maybe 10%, 15% or sometimes even 30%, but you might have expected much worse in the circumstances.

What this means is that the IT sector still offers one of the best prospects of a long and profitable career. Those in work are still doing very nicely indeed. As the recovery picks up there will be a sharp rise in job vacancies to re-skill those organisations who have been indulging in the “slash and burn” tactics of the last twelve months.

So the message is still the same. Don’t abandon IT for something else, but use these difficult times as an opportunity to re-focus or re-skill yourself.

Many IT topics are discussed at length in our e-books. “Jack’s Guide to Lots More Money”, available at http://www.jacksguides.com/itjobs.html ,talks about how to really get into the IT industry, how to get the right skills and, once you are in, to progress to the best paid jobs.

And don’t forget our special offer. For a short time we have slashed the price of this e-book. You can get the book now at only $16 – less than half price. You can even get the extra value pack for only $24 – a massive saving. Get yours now by following this link.

http://www.jacksguides.com/orderlmm.html

It won’t be around long at this price.

If you are ready to make the leap into a much better paid job or contract, and be perfectly positioned as the recession eases, see our website at www.jacksguides.com

Previous newsletters.

In response to several requests, we have published many of our older newsletters. You can find them at http://www.jacksguides.com/news.html

Newsletter – September 10, 2009 – Are ALL Jobs IT jobs?

Are ALL jobs IT jobs?

On the face of it, it seems a daft question doesn’t it?

I am sure you can think of all sorts of jobs that have nothing whatsoever to do with IT. Some spring to mind immediately: bus drivers, doctors, nurses, plumbers – the list must be endless.

Although I can’t think of any reason why a bus driver would need computer skills, it’s not so clear with those other jobs.

Doctors and nurses use a formidable amount of computing power in today’s medicine. You have to know your way around complex machines (x-rays, MRI scanners, monitors etc), all of which are computer driven.

You have to be able to read hospital and practice notes which are usually in patient administration systems, and record your updates. Without IT skills you would find the job much more difficult.

My plumber certainly doesn’t use too many computer skills when on the job, but guess what. He handles much of his communication with customers via email and he manages the administration of his business with a financial management program on his PC.

These thoughts were prompted by a recent statement on TV by Gordon Frazer, head of Microsoft in the UK, that “77% of jobs in the UK require some sort of IT skills”. The comment was made as part of the “Britain Works” initiative.

This is a message that we at Jack’s Guides have been promoting for almost two years. It’s nice to find the British Government and Microsoft agreeing with us.

So what do we mean by IT Jobs?

Many people think that IT workers are geeks or techies or have deep skills in some very odd areas of technology.

This isn’t always true – in fact it’s mostly not true.

The reputation probably goes back to the early days of IT, in the 1960s and 1970s, when being in IT meant being a “computer operator” or a “computer programmer”.

In fact today the job of Computer Operator has all but disappeared and programmers, while still very necessary, are in a minority.

In a recent global survey of IT industry jobs only 29% were for programmers. Putting it another way, that means that 71% of all jobs on offer were NOT for programmers. So what has happened?

Actually the IT industry has matured and with that has come a whole variety of new jobs. Many people don’t know what these jobs are and hardly know that they exist. In our Jack’s Guides we have used the terms “Generalist” and “Specialist” in an attempt to cast some light on a very complex sector of the economy.

There are basically two kinds of jobs in the IT / Business world, generalists and specialists. The specialist jobs are mostly (but not always) the more technical jobs or those involving deep knowledge of business products or complex business procedures.

Typical specialist jobs are:

Most programmers
Networking technicians
Operating System experts (UNIX, Windows Servers etc)
In the investment banking area, those who are expert in fields such as FX, Derivatives etc.

Typical generalist jobs are:

Business Analysts
Managers, supervisors and team leaders
Software testers
IT Project Managers
Service delivery workers
Administrators of various kinds
Support, Help Desk and Call Centre officers
Any supposedly non-IT job which requires a reasonable level of IT skills

These divisions are not hard and fast. Many specialist jobs require some level of knowledge of other areas, and many generalist jobs require some deeper level of knowledge in a given field.

The difference is more one of degree; specialist jobs, on the whole, require more training and a higher level of specialisation.

So what’s the difference in practical terms?

There are a few differences which are quite significant. Specialist jobs tend to be harder to get into – and also harder to get out of. Let me explain. Assume you are a C++ ace programmer.

You got there either because you studied the subject in depth at a training school or university, or someone was prepared to train you. You have also put in the hard months and years to master it – to master C++ is not a trivial exercise.

So you are an expert in a specialist field, which probably means you are well paid – right? So is there a down side – it all sounds great?

Well yes. Assume the demand for your particular skills in C++ were to decline, or assume you have just had enough and fancy a change. What do you do? If you wanted another programming job in a different language, say VB.Net, you could just apply for a job as a VB.Net programmer. After all programming is programming regardless of what language you use – isn’t it?

As an ex-programmer myself I would agree that a good C++ programmer would have little difficulty in mastering VB.Net. The problem is, when you apply for a job you are up against programmers who have already used VB.Net, so your chances of beating them are very slim.

So, you say, I’ll apply for a job as a project manager – after all I have worked in projects for years and know what goes on. However, you run up against the same problem; you are up against people with specific project management experience, and most employers would be reluctant to take a risk and cross train you.

So this type of job is harder to get into and harder to get out of than the Generalist jobs. We’ll discuss getting into these jobs in future newsletters.

For now just accept the fact that the chances are you are working in the IT industry, probably in the “Generalist” category, even if you think you are doing something else. Have a look at what components of the job you have (or the one you want) are really IT components.

IT skills are a passport to rewarding and well paid jobs right across the spectrum.

Many IT topics are discussed at length in our e-books. “Jack’s Guide to Lots More Money”, available at http://www.jacksguides.com/itjobs.html ,talks about how to really get into the IT industry, and once you are in, to progress to the best paid jobs.

And don’t forget our special offer. For a short time we have slashed the price of this e-book. You can get the book now at only $16 – less than half price. You can even get the extra value pack for only $24 – a massive saving. Get yours now by following this link.

http://www.jacksguides.com/orderlmm.html

It won’t be around long at this price.

If you are ready to make the leap into a much better paid job or contract, and be perfectly positioned as the recession eases, see our website at www.jacksguides.com

Previous newsletters.

In response to several requests, we have published many of our older newsletters. You can find them at http://www.jacksguides.com/news.html

Newsletter – September 2, 2009 – Rain, Jobs and Oil Wells

Scenery and Rain

You may have noticed that this newsletter is a little late. I had forgotten when I wrote the last one that the UK August Bank Holiday Weekend was due. It’s the one weekend in the UK where everyone seems to go away – I guess to grab the last of the sun before winter sets in.

Well we joined the exodus and drove up north to the Lake District, pausing along the way to visit relatives we hadn’t seen for some time.

The Lake District has fabulous scenery, no doubt caused by all the rain! This weekend was no exception with the rain right on cue. Still we had a great time and have come back refreshed.

IT Jobs Situation

In the last newsletter I said we would get back to more discussions about how IT jobs are going in the recession.

The trouble is – August is often a quiet month in the northern hemisphere as many people are away on vacation and the jobs market can be very quiet.

I took the numbers on our usual searches but they really weren’t much different to the July figures, so I won’t publish them.

This may mean that things are no better than they were, or it may be just the August quiet spot. I will repeat the exercise in a couple of week’s time when the vacations are a distant memory, and see what the situation is then.

Anecdotal evidence from friends and agents suggests that things are picking up, so we will see when I take out the next round of stats.

The Ultimate Project Manager?

I also promised in the last newsletter to take a look at one of my favourite project managers.

I’ve been running IT projects for more years than I really care to admit, and in that time I have noticed how the job has changed. Twenty years ago there wasn’t much in the way of formal methods for IT project management, so most of us made it up as we went along.

Today, with methodologies such as Prince2 and PMP. Most companies have formalised what project managers are supposed to do. This has generally been an improvement, as it has made projects somewhat more under control and predictable – remember some of the IT project horror stories of the 60s and 70s, when millions of dollars were wasted on runaway projects.

There is however a corresponding downside. Organisations have become very risk-averse, to the point where some projects move along in very small, carefully controlled steps, observed along the way by countless project assistants, cost controllers, project offices and the like.

All this bureaucracy is supposed to prevent some of the worst excesses of the past, (although spectacular cost overruns are still common in the UK), but a certain spark has been lost and, dare I say it, some of the fun of the job. It seems that a project manager can’t make too many moves any more without first consulting some controlling “authority”.

We discussed a couple of weeks ago how project managers really don’t set goals, but actually are responsible for realising other peoples goals.

One of my all-time favourite project managers was a certain Paul Adair, better known as “Red” Adair. Red died in 2004, at the age of 89, after a long and famous career putting out oil well fires.

Red certainly never set goals other than to go where he was asked to go, and put out that fire. His project goals were always very clear. I suspect he wouldn’t have had much time for accountants and project offices.

One or two of his more memorable quotes are:

“It scares you–all the noise, the rattling, the shaking. But the look on everybody’s face when you’re finished and packing, it’s the best smile in the world; and there’s nobody hurt, and the well’s under control.”

If that isn’t job satisfaction then what is?

“Retire? I don’t know what that word means. As long as a man is able to work and he’s productive out there and he feels good–keep at it. I’ve got too many of my friends that retired and went home and got on a rocking chair, and about a year and a half later, I’m always going to the cemetery.”

“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.”

So RIP Red Adair – the ultimate project manager.

Many IT topics are discussed at length in our e-books. “Jack’s Guide to Lots More Money”, available at http://www.jacksguides.com/itjobs.html ,talks about how to really get into the IT industry, and once you are in, to progress to the best paid jobs.

And don’t forget our special offer. For a short time we have slashed the price of this e-book. You can get the book now at only $16 – less than half price. You can even get the extra value pack for only $24 – a massive saving. Get yours now by following this link.

http://www.jacksguides.com/orderlmm.html

It won’t be around long at this price.

If you are ready to make the leap into a much better paid job or contract, and be perfectly positioned as the recession eases, see our website at www.jacksguides.com

Previous newsletters.

In response to several requests, we have published many of our older newsletters. You can find them at http://www.jacksguides.com/news.html

Newsletter – August 20, 2009 – Printer Trials and Tribulations

Printer Trials and Tribulations

Yesterday I had a pile of urgent documents to print, sign, scan and return. Sadly my trusty old Lexmark printer, which has seen noble service for over four years, but lately has been creaking a bit, finally gave up the ghost.

In a great example of sod’s law I couldn’t drive to any of the nearby computer stores, as I had loaned my car to a relative for a few days, so I had to see what was available on the high street within walking distance.

I finally bought an HP Photosmart C4400, not because I am any particular fan of HP, but because it was all I could get.

Now that I have hammered its printing and scanning functions pretty heavily for a day, I thought I would do something very unusual for me – I would write a product review.

So here it is.

HP Photosmart C4400 All-in-One series
This all-in-one printer, scanner, copier was bought to replace an ailing five year old Lexmark, so how does it compare?

Value
On value pretty good. Over the last few years the prices have come down quite a bit. On the UK high street I paid £39.97 (about $US66) “on special” at W.H. Smith. This is almost half of what I originally paid for the Lexmark.

Installation
This I have to admit was a huge disappointment. It took me over 30 minutes to install the software and cope with all the nagging the install process gives you – despite selecting the “typical installation” option.

That I could have coped with but much worse was to come. The install process installed a sneaky little program going by the name of hpswp_clipbook.exe.

This little devil attached itself to internet explorer so that every time I opened a new IE tab it popped up wanting access to the Internet and installed a Yahoo toolbar on my IE. Personally I can’t think of anything more useless to take up valuable screen real estate than a Yahoo toolbar – does anyone actually use one?

So I spent quite a lot of my time getting rid of this little gremlin. It’s so typical of the arrogance of many of these large companies. They just pull stunts like this and get away with it.

So, overall, installation was very time consuming and stressful – 0 marks out of 5.

Printing

I printed my documents ok. The quality seems no better or worse than most other printers.

The speed was a bit of a disappointment. On the box it said up to 30 pages per minute in black and white. That sounded good and a lot better than my old Lexmark could ever manage.

The devil seems to be in the words “up to”. I suspect if you had pages with one or maybe two lines on them, then perhaps it could manage 30 pages per minute. The best I could manage on “normal” documents was 4 or 5. Quite a difference.

Scanning

I had to scan some 70 pages. The scanning function is actually quite good and I was able to complete the task in about 1 1/4 hours – about one page per minute.

It’s a bit more automated than the Lexmark was, as it will automatically scan to a PDF, put it in your desired folder and generate the next filename in a “scan0000n.pdf” system.

The great pity is that you can’t set it up to be totally automatic to the point where you can just feed it the next page and push one button. You still have to mind it and make lots of clicks for each page. So – it could have been really good but it is in fact only average.

So – in summary it’s OK but pretty average. Would I recommend it? No – mainly because of the grief the install process gave me with its bit of “malware”. It really is time these large companies treated their customers with a bit more respect.

In fact, this is the first HP product I have ever had – and it will probably be the last.

Next week we will get back to more discussions about how IT jobs are going in the recession, and a look at one of my favourite project managers.

Many IT topics are discussed at length in our e-books. “Jack’s Guide to Lots More Money”, available at http://www.jacksguides.com/itjobs.html ,talks about how to really get into the IT industry, and once you are in, to progress to the best paid jobs.

And don’t forget our special offer. For a short time we have slashed the price of this e-book. You can get the book now at only $16 – less than half price. You can even get the extra value pack for only $24 – a massive saving. Get yours now by following this link.

http://www.jacksguides.com/orderlmm.html

It won’t be around long at this price.

If you are ready to make the leap into a much better paid job or contract, and be perfectly positioned as the recession eases, see our website at www.jacksguides.com

Previous newsletters.

In response to several requests, we have published many of our older newsletters. You can find them at http://www.jacksguides.com/news.html

Newsletter – August 13, 2009 – 5 PMs and a Wedding

Muddled Metrics
Living in the UK now, after many years in Australia, I am often amused at the Brit’s strange relationship with Europe and matters European.

Many years ago in Australia, we changed from the imperial system of weights and measures to metric. There they took the decision to go “cold turkey” and immediately drop the old measures.

That approach mostly worked and most of us quickly became used to the new way – which is actually easier. (Although I am still 5 foot 7 ½ inches tall – god knows what that is in metres.)

In the UK they have preferred to muddle along half heartedly, using the new ways but still falling back on the old ways. On the weather forecast they will still say “tomorrow will be 20 degrees – oh that’s 70 in Fahrenheit”. And this is after more than 30 years since they switched!

The other day I went to buy some wood for my kitchen skirting, and I measured up in metres, which I find much easier than feet and inches. I asked the helpful assistant how long a particular piece of wood was and he gave me the answer in feet and inches.

I said “sorry I measured in metric – what is it in metres?” He said “oh about 2 metres and a foot”!

Perhaps this is what you get for being the only nation in Europe that still has its road signs in miles not kilometres.

Project Managers are good goal setters?
The other day I was reading a journal for IT professionals when I came across an article which encouraged project managers to use their professional goal setting skills to improve their own personal goals.

The idea of project managers being able to set goals is quite an interesting one, but does it stand up to a reality check?

I’ve been a project manager for over 30 years and I think I am one of the worst goal setters in the world when it comes to my private life.

It doesn’t seem to matter in my job. After all, what project manager has ever set the main goal? The job of a project manager is to deliver on other people’s goals.

As Rob Thomsett so eloquently puts it in his Project Management Master Class:

“As a project manager, your job is to take the sponsor’s concept for his or her project and through participative project management processes define, refine, plan and manage the development of the initial concept through to successful implementation and support.

The key here is, that while it is your responsibility to project manage the realisation of the concept, it is not your concept … it is your sponsor’s.

Simply, you are the “passive” conduit through which the dreams of the sponsor flow.”

It’s amazing how many IT project managers overlook that simple truth, and look upon project management as being a discipline where you know better than the client and try to tell him what he wants

Many of my friends and relatives are also IT project managers (what a sad lot we are).

Some 10 years ago, when I remarried, my wife (who is also a project manager) and I decided we would organise our own wedding, which we held in a beautiful large garden donated for the occasion by a kind relative.

Come the morning of the day there were 5 of us running around like headless chucks (for those of you not familiar with this wonderful Australian word, a chuck is a chicken) for an hour or so, then we sat down for a beer (it was hot – well that’s our excuse). As we talked, it occurred to me that around the table were 5 IT project managers, and not a plan between us!

Needless to say, once we realised this we drew up a “project plan” and delivered on time.

This and many other IT topics are discussed at length in our e-books. “Jack’s Guide to Lots More Money”, available at http://www.jacksguides.com/itjobs.html ,talks about how to really get into the IT industry, and once you are in, to progress to the best paid jobs.

And don’t forget our special offer. For a short time we have slashed the price of this e-book. You can get the book now at only $16 – less than half price. You can even get the extra value pack for only $24 – a massive saving. Get yours now by following this link.

http://www.jacksguides.com/orderlmm.html

It won’t be around long at this price.

If you are ready to make the leap into a much better paid job or contract, and be perfectly positioned as the recession eases, see our website at www.jacksguides.com

Previous newsletters.
In response to several requests, we have published many of our older newsletters. You can find them at http://www.jacksguides.com/news.html

Newsletter – August 5, 2009 – Take Control

Every day our major newspaper are preoccupied with trying to see whether the recession is over or if it is getting worse, or when will we see “green shoots”.

One day the property market is recovering, next day it’s a false dawn. It’s a roller coaster ride of expectations.

The problem is – It gives an impression that we’re not in control of our own destiny, that our financial position is entirely dependent on the whims of ‘those in charge’ or “market forces”.

This is a false impression. There is a lot we all can do to influence our level of wealth, regardless of what effect the current ups and downs are having on us.

So what can I do?
You could start your own business. If you are regular users of the Internet, and you are trying to improve your financial position, you will have come across dozens of people telling you how easy it is to make money on the Internet.

The pitches are all slightly different but yet strangely familiar. All you need is a “pitch page”, a “thank you page” and a product and the money will roll in. If you don’t have a product of your own you can pick up a freebie, or market other people’s products as an affiliate.

The promises usually involve “you can make $3000 a day” “$20,000 a month” etc. Just think of a number and double it.

So, if it’s that easy, why aren’t those people simply doing it themselves many times over and earning yet more millions?

There’s an old joke that in the gold rush, the only people who made any money are those who sold picks and shovels.

The internet marketing world can sometimes look like a giant multi level marketing scheme, where everyone is trying to make money by telling everyone else how to make money.

Does that mean it’s all a scam?
No – I wouldn’t go that far. After all I am using internet marketing myself to sell my products. All I am saying is that if it looks too good to be true it probably is.

I am a member of an internet marketers group based in London, where we catch up and have lunch and a chat on a regular basis.

Is it full of millionaires? Well actually there are one or two. But the vast majority seem to be regular people who either have a dream or are scratching a living.

I don’t meet too many people who can just pick up someone else’s product and start to make lots of money with it, with very little effort or cost.

Those who are successful usually have some product or service that’s unique to them, on which they can piggy back the internet marketing.

Think about it. To make any money at all you have to be offering a product or a skill. If you are trying to sell someone else’s product using someone else’s skills, it’s not a great start.

Don’t forget also the statistics about how many small businesses last beyond 12 months.

In summary, if you think you have a good idea for a product or a service – go for it. But don’t believe all the hype you read.

So what else is there?
The vast majority of people round the world are making a living by selling their skills, either as a permanent employee, a casual employee or as a self employed person.

There is no fairness about which skills pay the best. It’s driven essentially by market forces. Also some skills are much more portable than others, which increases your scope in the market place.

The secret is to find those skills which are portable, in high demand and which are easy to learn. The IT world still offers one of the best options – easy to learn skills which can put you into the top 10% of earners and are very portable all round the world.

Right now there is some pain being felt due to the global recession. “Stuff happens” as a famous American said recently. But it won’t last.

Once the recovery is under way, demand for IT staff will rise sharply again. Now is the time to prepare yourself for these opportunities that are just around the corner.

And remember, as we have discussed in our other newsletters and in our books, many of these jobs are open to regular people like you and me. You don’t need a college degree; you don’t need to be a programmer; you certainly don’t want to be a geek.

Now is the time to get yourself ready to grab one of these well paid jobs.

These topics are discussed at length in our e-book “Jack’s Guide to Lots More Money” available at http://www.jacksguides.com/itjobs.html

And don’t forget our special offer. For a short time we have slashed the price of this e-book. You can get the book now at only $16 – less than half price. You can even get the extra value pack for only $24 – a massive saving. Get yours now by following this link.

http://www.jacksguides.com/orderlmm.html

It won’t be around long at this price.

If you are ready to make the leap into a much better paid job or contract, and be perfectly positioned as the recession eases, see our website at www.jacksguides.com

Newsletter – July 28, 2009 – Swimwear and IT Jobs

Greetings from Spain

I wrote most of this newsletter while on vacation in Spain. We wanted to get away from the UK’s pale imitation of a summer and get some real warmth, which we got – spectacular weather while we were there.

Now that we are safely back in England, with tans fading rapidly, I notice on the news that the region we were in, Mojacar, has experienced severe bushfires with hundreds of people being evacuated. It looks like our timing was pretty good!

I did notice one odd thing on the beaches of Spain, and I suppose it’s much the same on all beaches. As women’s swimwear gets ever smaller – men’s swimwear is getting ever bigger.

Women’s swimwear is now at the point where it’s a few square inches of fabric held together by bits of string, while men are wearing “shorts” which go from waist to knee.

You don’t seem to see many men in Speedos any more, especially among the young. Is this a new trend? Personally I would have thought that running around in wet bathers that big would be somewhat uncomfortable – and you don’t even get tanned legs to take home!

How do you get an IT Job?

This article covers much the same ground as the newsletter of June 26. That was one of the newsletters that went astray, but the topic it covers is so important I thought I would repeat it for those of you who missed it.

How do you get an IT Job? This is a question that is often asked. The IT industry is desperate for good people, yet the way you get a job is very obscure. Part of the reason for that is that the technology is constantly changing – and by “technology” I don’t mean just the hardware and software, which is bad enough, I also mean the methods used and the way you do your job.

Some of these changes are just fashions, and not really of any value, but, if you want to get a job you have to be able to “walk the walk and talk the talk”.

I have a niece who worked hard to get her degree. In fact her degree was in IT so obviously when she came to look for her first job, she had an advantage over non-IT-degree candidates and was able to fast track her career.

I must have a chat with her to discover how much of what she covered in her degree is of real value today. I have watched her career and I think her undoubted success is due to her competence and hard work.

I think the degree is very secondary. While IT degrees do an admirable job of teaching you the basics and the principles of IT, what most employers want is actual recent experience in particular jobs or products.

This is a real dilemma for young people starting out on an IT career. You can spend three years getting your degree – and being impoverished, or you work in junior jobs in IT and earn some money along the way. By junior jobs I mean typically call centre work or junior level (i.e. gopher jobs) support work. The end result may be much the same.

For the record I think that the degree path is a better option if your temperament and financial position are able to support it. At least, once you have a degree you always have it – it can be very hard work to go back and get a degree once you have a career in motion.

However, it’s not the only way. I know many people who have come from a humble background, with no degree, and have prospered in the IT world.

One great thing about IT – it basically runs on talent and current usefulness. What you did 4 or 5 years ago is of little interest. It’s what you can do today that counts. So while a degree may get you that first job quicker, and maybe a better start, after a few years it’s largely irrelevant.

If I were to describe what I was doing in IT 20 years ago, younger people would laugh. It would be like an ace formula 1 technician describing how he used to work on his grandfather’s Goggomobile!

So, as a person of let’s say “mature years”, in other professions I might be respected for my depth and years of experience, in IT I have to keep up with current trends and technologies or I’m history. The wolves are always at the door. (Some of you might have noticed I’m an Eagles fan!). In this case the wolves are bright, energetic young people.

I’ve run on a bit here. Next week we’ll talk about some actual case histories – how real people got into the IT industry, and dramatically increased their income, by following some unconventional approaches. So if you want to get into IT, or wonder how to get a better job, check out next week’s newsletter.

SPECIAL OFFER (This offer was also first announced in the newsletter that went astray, so we’ve kept it open a while longer)

Our e-book “Jack’s Guide to Lots More Money” goes into this topic and much more, and shows you how to work the system to get the well paid job you deserve.

For a short time we have slashed the price of this ebook. You can get the book now at only $16 – less than half price. You can even get the extra value pack for only $24 – a massive saving. Get yours now by following this link.

http://www.jacksguides.com/orderlmm.html

It won’t be around long at this price.

Previous newsletters.

In response to several requests, we have published many of our older newsletters. You can find them at http://www.jacksguides.com/news.html

Newsletter – July 21, 2009 –Gardening, Digital Images and Knowledge

Hi

Gardening

Let me admit it – I’m not really into gardening. Depending on the climate you can spend your weekend being hot, dry and dusty or cold, wet and muddy. And by next weekend you have to do it all over again.

These thoughts were prompted by an article in last Sunday’s (UK) “Sunday Times” by Jeremy Clarkson. People tend to either like or hate Jeremy because of his outlandish views. Personally I find him highly amusing. I can recommend this particular article as one of his better rants.

In it he defines gardening in the best definition I’ve yet heard – “Gardening is like doing a jigsaw. A pointless way of passing time until you die.”

Jeremy recommends that you sell your garden to a developer and spend the money on a decent holiday every year. (Sorry – I did say I would stop going on about my holiday).

I reckon we have the best of both worlds. We live in a small block of flats set in a beautiful garden – and someone else does the gardening!

Digital Pictures

As a marketer of digital products, I am interested in the ways in which the large traditional media and music businesses are fighting to retain their traditional monopolies.

The music, software and DVD distributors go to great lengths to try to convince us that every time a copy is made they lose some profit and that this constitutes “theft”.

We are asked of course to forget that they can re-issue a 30 year old LP on CD, and charge a fortune for it with a production cost of a few cents. Or that many LPs / CDs contain only one or two decent tracks, with the rest as filler.

And don’t get me started on the “region” coding on DVDs. If I buy a DVD why shouldn’t I be able to play it on any DVD player in any region? The answer of course lies in the way the big corporates carve up the world markets to suit themselves.

To this bunch of corporate greedies it appears we now have to add The National Portrait Gallery (UK). They are in the process of suing Wikipedia for daring to publish on the web digital images of some of their pictures.

You might think the Gallery would value the free publicity but apparently not. The problem as always is about money, as The Gallery believes it is entitled to a “licence fee”.

I tend to agree with the art critic Brian Sewell who said “The National Portrait Gallery has always been managed by fools and this is another example of their folly. I’m on Wikipedia’s side. The only thing the gallery has to preserve are the pictures themselves. The images must, in some sense, be public property already.”

Truly the old dinosaurs are finding it difficult to adapt to the digital age. Of course they are being joined by a new breed of dinosaurs.

I predict a coming shakeout in the mobile phone business, where a handful of very large companies still think it’s their “right” to extract massive profits from infrastructure that must have already paid for itself several times over.

So much to know

Last week I mentioned that there is now such a vast repository of knowledge in IT that you can’t possibly know everything about everything. It would take too many lifetimes – and encroach onto your holiday time!

So how do professionals cope? Most of them, whether consciously or subconsciously, actually make selections about which bits of knowledge are useful to them. So how do you do this?

You can wander along your career path, picking up bits of knowledge as you need them, or you can take a more proactive and targeted approach.

That targeted approach is much of what Jack’s Guides is all about. Some knowledge is much more valuable than other kinds of knowledge, and some are easier to acquire than others.

The topics that IT managers have to know something about can seem long and bewildering. Here is a sample – take a deep breath!

Project Management
Prince 2
PMP
ITIL
Call centre management
Customer Relationship Management Systems
Accounting Standards
Accounting Software (SAP, Oracle, Peoplesoft etc)
Software development – traditional and agile
.Net
Java
UNIX – in all its flavours including LINUX
IP protocols
VOIP
Virtualisation
Effective software testing
Key Performance Indicators
Dashboards
Balanced Scorecards
Web Servers
Computer networks
Intranet and Internet design and management
Software Licence management
SSL certificate management
Asset management
Business intelligence and data mining (including Business Objects, SAS etc)
Relational Databases (including Oracle, SQL Server, mySQL, Access)
Content Management Systems
Service-oriented architecture
Messaging systems (including MQ and MSMQ)
Data warehouses
Open-source software
SQL
Information Architecture
Programming Languages (VB, C, C++, C#, PERL, PHP, Javascript, Java etc)
Service level management
Service continuity management
Capacity management
Information security management
Help-desk management
Risk Management
Business Analysis
The Unified Process (including Use Cases)

The bad news

The above list contains at least 40 items, each of which is a major field of study in its own right. So can you be an expert in all of them? Of course not – it’s nearly impossible.

On the other hand, look at a typical job advert in the IT world. An amazing number of the topics listed above will be mentioned in the advert, some as “must have”, some as “nice to have”.

What do you think your chances are of getting that job if you can’t at least talk intelligently about all the topics they have named? That’s right – just about nil.

One of the tricky aspects of the modern business world is that organisations do not like to train people any more, especially newcomers. You are expected to “hit the ground running”. So you need to be familiar with all of the topics they are interested in, otherwise you won’t get far.

The good news – generalists and specialists

There are basically two kinds of jobs in the IT / Business world, generalists and specialists. The specialist jobs are mostly (but not always) the more technical jobs or those involving deep knowledge of business products or complex business procedures.

The knowledge that is valuable to you will depend to a large extent on which “camp” you are in.

Next week we will look at the differences between generalist and specialists and some pointers as to which bits of knowledge you really need and how to get them.

Our SPECIAL OFFER continues

Our e-book “Jack’s Guide to Lots More Money” goes into this topic and much more, and shows you how to work the system to get the well paid job you deserve.

For a short time we have slashed the price of this ebook. You can get the book now at only $16 – less than half price. You can even get the extra value pack for only $24 – a massive saving. Get yours now by following this link.

http://www.jacksguides.com/orderlmm.html

It won’t be around long at this price.

For our full list of publications see our websites at www.jacksguides.com

Previous newsletters.

In response to several requests, we have published many of our older newsletters. You can find them at http://www.jacksguides.com/news.html