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Developers'
Top Ten
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 Application and software developers need to stay on their
toes right now, not only seeking out their best short-term prospects, but
gearing up for the next several years and making sure they have the right
skills to carry them through, notes Tech Republic in
a recent resource guide, "10 Skills Developers Will Need in the Next
Five Years," published in April.
You may not need all 10, and there may be some absent from the list that
you need for your own career track. For example, Tech
Republic notes that there are significant portions of the industry
this list won't cover, such as mainframe development. But if you want to
get the most for your time and effort, keep these ones firmly in mind.
Their advice for most developers: "For average mainstream development,
you can't go wrong learning at least seven of these skills."
"Just remember," cautions TreeTop Technologies' Staffing
Consultant Mike Knauth, "that doesn't just mean knowing what they
are. Companies want the right people with the right skills for their jobs
these days, more than perhaps ever before. So you can't just be able to
talk about these skill areas in an interview. You need to be able to
really use them on the job, and you should be able to provide clear
examples of how you've used them."
.NET, Java and PHP - These are the "big three" development
systems for the foreseeable future, unless some radical shift comes
along, so you should know one of them-not just the core languages but
also the associated frameworks and libraries more deeply.
Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) - The use of Flash continues to rise,
and it has also sprouted additional functionality in the form of Flex and
AIR. Flash's competitors, such as JavaFx and Silverlight, are also upping
the ante on features and performance. Tech Republic notes that HTML 5 is
incorporating all sorts of RIA functionality, including database
connectivity, and putting the formal W3C stamp on AJAX.
Web development - Companies have been demanding more often people who
know how to work with the underlying Web technology at a "hand
code" level, so being proficient in JavaScript, CSS and HTML could
be vital.
Web services - Tech Republic warns that developers who can't work with
Web services will find themselves relegated to legacy and maintenance roles.
Soft skills - Communication skills, teamwork, business/finance skills,
project management and the like are still critical, and likely to become
more so, in making sure that technical know-how is actually put to work
in a successful, efficient and cost-effective manner. So don't lean only
on technical knowledge
Dynamic and/or functional programming languages - You should probably
learn at least one of them. Languages like Ruby, Python, F#, and Groovy
aren't necessarily mainstream, but Tech Republic notes that the ideas in
them are, and knowing at least one of them can really set you apart from
the crowd.
Agile methodologies - Developers with a proven track record of
understanding and succeeding in Agile environments will be in
increasingly high demand over the next few years to help reduce project
failure rates.
Domain knowledge - Along with Agile methodologies, development teams are
increasingly seen as partners in the definition of projects, so
developers who understand the problem domain can contribute to projects
greatly.
Development "hygiene" - Developers need to have a rigorous
habit of hygiene in place, not simply know how to check code in and out
of source control or how to build test environments, to ensure they are
properly coordinating with their team.
Mobile development skills - Web applications designed to work on mobile
device and other mobile services continue to be on the rise, and there's
no sign of that changing any time soon.
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All
A-Twitter, Or Are They?
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Twitter may be one of the more dangerous things to a
company's reputation if that company doesn't handle its interview and
hiring processes properly, according to TreeTop Technologies' Senior
Staffing Consultant Alan Stevenson Jr.
"I hear all too often from job candidates about how a company has
mismanaged the hiring process," he says. "The company fails to
provide clear information, or follows up with the candidate sluggishly,
or doesn't follow up with that person at all. That's bad enough for a
company's reputation in any environment and any time, because people talk
to each other and network and pass along their experiences with a
company, good or bad."
With social networking so ubiquitous these days, that means
that not only can a mistreated job candidate -- or at least one who thinks he
or she was mistreated -- complain to his or her closest friends, but
potentially to hundreds or thousands of other people through Twitter,
Facebook, LinkedIn and more.
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Did You Know?
Are the people who remain at companies after layoffs doing
more? It may be that executives and managers expect them to, and the
conventional logic may be that people are doing more work as the number
of employees declines. But a recent survey paints a different picture:
People may be doing less with less, not more.
74% of respondents say their
own productivity has declined.
87% of surviving workers said
they are less likely to recommend their organizations as good places to
work.
64% of surviving workers said
the productivity of their colleagues has also declined.
81% of surviving workers said
the quality of service that customers receive has declined.
77% of surviving workers said
they see more errors and mistakes being made.
61% of surviving workers said
they believe their companies' future prospects are worse.
Source: Leadership
IQ, December 2008 survey of 4,172 workers at 318 companies that had
recently laid off employees
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TOP Jobs
For the most current listing of available IT positions,
please visit the Careers
section of our website.
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"There is a lot of
leverage out there on the side of companies these days with the tight
economy and fewer jobs," Stevenson acknowledges, "but with
search engines and social networking and the way that information on the
web can have such permanence and such mobility, job candidates now have
leverage, too. If a company leaves candidates with a bad taste in their
mouths, that company may pay for it in terms of its reputation. People
can take it to the web and not only vent but have comments from others
that might give the company a bigger black eye."
The solution? The best thing companies can do is to have clearly defined
procedures about how the interview, follow-up and hiring process will be
handled, and share that with the job candidates. Also, the company needs
to ensure that all of its hiring managers and human resources people
stick to those procedures, especially for things like prompt follow-up
and keeping the candidate informed.
At the same time, job candidates must also be careful how they use social
networking and what they say when they are looking for jobs. A former
Cisco candidate inadvertently became a cautionary story on that front and
earned the name "Cisco Fatty" when the 22-year-old posted
recently on Twitter: "Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to
weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San
Jose and hating the work."
Unfortunately, Cisco is a very web-aware organization, and a Cisco
channel partner advocate not only saw the tweet but fired back with:
"Who is the hiring manager. I'm sure they would love to know that
you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web."
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Clouds
In the Springtime
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 Although people may still disagree on what it actually
means, cloud computing is definitely changing how
information technology systems are implemented. Salesforce.com is one of
the more high-profile users and providers of cloud computing these
days as is Google with its Google Apps, Google Maps and Gmail services.
Amazon Web Services is yet another player as is VMware with its vSphere 4
a cloud operating system, along with folks like Microsoft, Sun, IBM,
Yahoo! and others.
In its simplest terms, cloud computing involves tasks being assigned to a
combination of connections, software and services that are accessed over
a network. This network of servers and connections is collectively known
as "the cloud." This means that taken as a whole, accessing the
cloud, users can access supercomputer-level power, as well as access
resources only as they need them instead of keeping them native on a
computer. In many senses, cloud computing is a repackaged form of grid
computing, utility computing and on-demand computing.
As a recent InfoWorld article notes, "Cloud
computing comes into focus only when you think about what IT always
needs: a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without
investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new
software. Cloud computing encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use
service that, in real time over the Internet, extends IT's existing
capabilities."
Implementing cloud computing can mean a serious decrease in capital
expenditures on hardware, software and services, as users pay a provider
only for what they use, as they might with a utility or subscription.
Other benefits of this approach are low barriers to entry, shared
infrastructure and costs, low management overhead and immediate access to
a broad range of applications.
Sometimes, there isn't just a silver lining to be found in the cloud.
That cloud itself may just be gold.
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Safe
and Secure, Or Simply a Burden?
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Given that the federal government hasn't stepped in with a
nationwide set of standards and requirements for the protection of
personal data like credit card numbers, PINs, social security numbers and
the like, you would think it would be a positive thing for Massachusetts
to step up to the plate and implement some rules within its own borders.
Think again.
One of the problems, in fact, is that the rules are written in such a way
that they extend beyond
the state's border, notes Joseph J. Laferrera, a litigation partner at Gesmer Updegrove LLP in
Boston and head of the firm's data privacy and protection practice area.
Even if they didn't reach beyond the state itself, the proposed plan can
be onerous, cost-prohibitive to many businesses in a recessionary
economy, and in many ways takes an overly broad approach to the problem.
The idea, at its most basic, is sound, Laferrera admits. Unlike most of
the states in the nation, Massachusetts decided not to simply tackle the
issue of how and when to notify people about breaches in data security,
such as someone hacking into the credit card records of a store. Instead,
the state decided to mandate what organizations must do to help prevent
breaches in the first place.
"The state started with the idea that companies would need to
designate someone to be in charge of data security and that they would
have to have comprehensive information security plans -- living,
breathing documents that would spell out how to handle and protect data,
to be updated over time," he explains. "All things being equal,
if that's all it was, it might not have been overwhelming. But the state
then went into excruciating details about what each organization had to
do. Some of those mandates may make sense for some organizations, but not
for others."
Moreover, the state issued the regulations in October of last year and
expected all businesses to comply by January of this year, which left
companies "not knowing whether to laugh or cry," Laferrera
says. So, the implementation date was pushed to May and after increasing
protests over the rules, has been pushed off again until January 2010.
One of the first problems is that the approach is overly broad, Laferrera
notes. Any business with any personal information on state residents must
comply and have a comprehensive written information security plan (WISP)
and subject it to annual reviews and revisions. That means that even a
small mom-and-pop shop with a few employees has to comply, because it has
the addresses, social security numbers, and other personal information
about its employees.
"There is no minimum threshold set at which you have to comply with
this," he says. "It's a one size fits all approach that doesn't
adequately take into account how big an organization is, what's its
resources are, or anything else. Everyone has to have a WISP."
Massachusetts isn't the only state doing this. Nevada instituted a rule
last year requiring personal data to be encrypted if it's transmitted
outside of a company's network, and New Jersey is phasing in a set of
data security mandates over a two-year period. But the regulations
announced by the Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs and Business
Regulation not only specify a long list of steps for protecting personal
data and require companies to create wide-ranging internal security programs
and policies, but they also define "personal data" more
stringently: as an individual's name along with his Social Security or
driver's license number, or with a credit card or financial account
number. In Nevada, for example, bank and credit card numbers must also be
accompanied by a PIN or password to meet the state's definition of
personal data.
Also, the rules as currently written would require out-of-state
organizations with Massachusetts residents' personal data to comply with
the rule. That might be unenforceable, but the courts may have to decide
that. Another provision is potentially difficult: Massachusetts companies
that deal with third-party providers outside the state must ensure that
those organizations comply with the rules. As Laferrera notes, imagine a
company that has files on Google Docs with personal information about
Massachusetts residents trying to force Google to comply with the regs.
What must the company do to ensure that Google is acting in a way
acceptable under the regs? That is not yet clear.
Another issue is encryption, and under the rules organizations would have
make sure that any data on a mobile device or in motion over a public
network be encrypted. While encryption for transmission over the Internet
makes sense, Laferrera notes, the rules are quite broad and would
technically put many people in violation for relatively common and
innocent acts. For example, putting any personal data about a
Massachusetts resident on a flash drive and carrying it to a colleague's
office in your company without encryption on the flash drive would
potentially be a violation, as would storing an unencrypted e-mail on
your Blackberry that contained any such information.
"These rules have an absolutely breathtaking reach and don't fully
appreciate the differences between a small souvenir shop and a
multinational corporation," he says. "And to top it all off,
estimates say that complying with these rules will cost Massachusetts
businesses on the order of a billion dollars or more."
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Top Trends
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As the "Did You Know" data in this issue of View
From the TreeTop shows, people aren't always doing more
with less. But that doesn't mean there isn't pressure to continue to do
so.
For example, a survey by Axios Systems shows that optimizing service
quality and improving processes is a top priority for 61% of IT managers
in 2009. Axios predicts this priority will continue throughout the year
as IT teams are tasked with making the most of existing assets and
aligning their work to organizational goals. In terms of other
priorities, meeting compliance and governance requirements were seen as
main priorities by 29%, while only 7% said a green agenda was the
driving force behind projects. Clearly, the pressure to maintain
performance is outweighing many other concerns in this economy.
Moreover, the survey revealed that 68% of IT managers will be
implementing new IT service management projects this year, as the
pressure to do more with less increases. According to 63% of respondents,
a primary driver for rolling out these projects is to minimize risk and
reduce the impact of change on the business. This figure may even rise in
the coming months as increasing numbers of IT teams pursue virtualization
projects.
But there is a breaking point for people, so IT managers and executives
higher up the chain would be well-advised to watch how much they pile on
their workers. As one editor of Chief Learning Officer magazine recently
noted on the publication's blog, "It's just unrealistic to think that
your organization is going to be able to output the same amount of work
at the same quality with fewer people and less money. Nothing in that
equation adds up. Something's gotta give and that something is quality.
So, the next time you tell your staff that they have to do more with
less, think about what that really means and the implications of
it."
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What's Hot
@ The Top
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Upcoming Conferences
On Monday, June 8th, 2009 TreeTop Technologies will be
exhibiting at the New England Oracle Applications User Group (NEOAUG) spring event. The
conference will be held at the DCU Center in Worcester. Please see NEOAUG
meeting details for more information. We look forward to seeing you
there, and please remember to visit our booth to enter our raffle.
TreeTop Joins the "Green Revolution"
TreeTop's corporate office in Newton, Mass., is always
looking for ways to make the workplace more "Eco-Friendly."
Over the next few weeks we will be introducing new initiatives in our office
to reduce TreeTop's carbon footprint through eliminating the use and/or
consumption of plastic bottles in our office. We are also looking into
drastically reducing the use of paper. Such initiatives have been met
with great support from our internal staff, and your suggestions are
welcome as to new ways we can tackle environmentally
"unfriendly" practices in the workplace.
Networking 2.0: The Death of the Resume!
During these harsh times TreeTop has taken on the initiative to pay it
forward, build strong and lasting relationships, and more
importantly, assist people in networking their way into their next
position (pro-bono of course). We're convinced that the resume is a
dying breed! As social network sites such as LinkedIn
and Facebook continues to attract new users, paper documents, simply
consisting of your life accomplishments and skills, are fading. We now
not only have our accomplishments, skills, recommendations, and a
business social network at the tips of our fingers, but we can top it all
off with a picture of ourselves (or at least you should)! We've
found more often than not, that there is a formula, not a cookbook, of
how to network your way into your next position, and we've been freely
sharing that -- because paying it forward never hurts! So for those
of you who spend hours trying to perfect your resume and cover letter
simply to get lost in a stack of others who are doing the same thing --
we dare you to be different, and see how much easier, more fun and
exciting it is. If you need any assistance, do not hesitate to pick
up the phone and ask -- that's why we're here!
Copyright © 2009 TreeTop Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.
All trademarks & registered trademarks are the property of their
respective owners.
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