The new bread of IT practitioners...

In 2012, a majority of CEOs interviewed during an IBM funded CEO Study identified technology as having the greatest impact on their business. Technology had always featured highly, but this is the first time it was ranked #1.

What does this mean for the IT profession?

You can argue that in future, there will be a need for IT practitioners to focus on enabling business users to consume and control business content for competitive advantage, through a reasoned application of information technology. This requires an IT practitioners to be a

•  Consensus builder
•  Results oriented
•  Generalist
•  A technology expert
•  Not just a top level software designer
•  Not (just) a programmer
•  Not the project manager
•  Not a product expert
•  Not a lone scientist

Against this backdrop of increasing expectations and reliance on IT by the business, IT is not being provided with the resources it needs to implement new capability. On average, IT budgets are growing at less than 0.8% per year, resulting in most spend being applied to maintaining on going operations and support of existing IT infrastructures. This is a reflection of the complexity of today's IT systems, and the need for significant resources to keep the running.

Most c-level executives and technical leaders I have interacted with recently, mostly across Europe, have cited integration and collaboration between IT and Lines of Business as critical success factors for innovative projects. As the CEO study shows, innovation is increasingly delivered through software, applications and technology.

In April 2012, IBM introduced a new bread of Expert Integrated Systems.

Given that solutions are manifested as architectures, Expert Integrated Systems are integrated in the factory to include systems, applications and process components optimized for specific workloads. PureSystems integrates a broad variety of products, technologies and services, various systems and applications architectures, and diverse hardware and software components into a ready to use system. By taking complexity out of enterprise IT systems,  IT practitioners are able to dedicate more of their time to creating strategic business outcomes, aligning business needs with appropriate Solutions and technologies.

This is how I see the professional evolving over time, with IT practitioners collaborating across lines of business and IT to align with strategic business planning, solution design and delivery; leveraging ready to use workload optimized Expert Integrated Systems that accelerate time to value.

How my world has changed...

I recall being in sixth form and thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I went a very good Catholic boarding secondary school in Cameroon, and although considered one of the best in the country, career guidance / counseling was limited. My dad was a Civil Engineer and had a successful career in the civil service. I had an eye for Art and had a curious mind; I enjoyed drawing and designing things. Mostly out of my own research, I came across a course at the University of Manchester, a BEng in Structural Engineering with Architecture. It appeared to provide the perfect combination for satisfying the artist in me and the engineer I aspired to be, following in the footsteps of my father.

Within 3 years, I had graduated from the University of Manchester, and was now faced with the decision all graduates need to make. What next? Times were not so dissimilar to today's climate. In 1992, we were in the midst of a recession, and the construction industry was badly hit. I remember applying for 100s of jobs, and the rejection letters kept coming in. I still have most of them in storage, although in retrospect, I would have found it difficult offering me a job from the resume I had submitted. Back then, we had to go the library and/or the career service and solicit assistance. There was no Internet, no way of gaining advice or opinions online.

In any case, I was fortunate to have my scholarship extended and faced with the realities of a challenging business environment, I had to make some tough decisions, persist and follow my dream or be pragmatic and ride the trend.

Back then, it was clear that Information Technology was becoming more and more important. I was not aware of email or the Internet at that time. I recall in our lab assignments, being fascinated by the ability to send a message (can't recall the protocol used) to other lab computers on a local network. I made a decision to pursue a course in Computational Modeling and Finite Elements in Engineering Mechanics. There was another motivations for pursuing this. I believed I needed to select something that sounded "hard", in order to differentiate myself. This took me to the Swansea in Wales. I throughly enjoyed my time in Swansea. It was a smaller city, by the sea and had a University town feeling to it. Manchester was great, but a bit too overwhelming.

I subsequently spent 4 years in Swansea, having received a scholarship from the University to pursue a PhD in Computational Modeling. My research was focussed on developing software for modeling the casting process, a process used by foundries to manufacture metallic components. The Institute of Numerical Methods in Engineering at Swansea was famous for having invented key aspects of the Finite Element Methods. You can find some of my papers on Google Scholars.

Upon graduating from the University of Wales in Swansea, I joined CD-Adapco. CD-adapco is the world's largest independent CFD-focused provider of engineering simulation software, support and services. I was part of the development team delivering industrial strength engineering simulation. This was mathematical optimization in Engineering. CD-Adapco was a very exciting company to work for, with great engineers solving some of the most fascinating engineering challenges. While exciting, my attention was fast shifting to the Internet, and a new technology called Java that held a lot of promise. Apparently, Java would be everywhere. You write once and run anywhere. It seems so long ago, but in my view, Java has indeed delivered on much of that promise. This was the trend that ultimately led me to IBM where I took on the role of Consulting IT Specialist.

Today, with Big Data and Analytics, I find myself closer to my base, the place I began my professional career. I left the world of mathematical optimization in Engineering encouraged by an urge to be connected more with real people, technologies that had a direct and visible impact on our daily lives. The advances made in Internet connectivity (bandwidth and speed) and the reduction in the cost of storage is enabling organizations to capture potentially useful data. Analytics is now considered a business imperative, providing organizations able to harness its potential a significant competitive advantage over their peers.

Having taken a break from blogging, I have returned, intending to use this blog to engage in conversations on Cloud Computing, Big Data, Mobile, Social Business, Enterprise Marketing Management and Commerce.