It career paths
- 1. Brendon Hatcher Technical Director: BrilliantWeb
- 2. Key messages The IT world is diverse – find your own place The IT world is changing – try to keep up Your IT education is your responsibility – schools can’t keep up with the changes There are things you must do NOW in order to secure your IT career If you don’t understand something in this talk, research it!
- 3. Information Technology is a very diverse field… My grandson works in computers
- 4. Huge changes are sweeping through the industry
- 6. Traditional career paths IT support Hardware, software, users Networking Connecting everything together Programming Working as part of a team making big commercial software on behalf of a company
- 8. More recent career paths Web site development Building web sites for clients Web application development On the web, but not a web site… Project Management Customer Relationship Management Document Libraries 2010
- 9. Software as a Service Applications in the cloud (on the Internet) not desktop Usually accessed via a web browser Pay a subscription rather than a licence fee
- 11. Mobile app development Android, iPhone, Blackberry 700,000
- 12. Programming possibilities Working together – Online collaboration Standing on the shoulders of giants – API makes things possible – Tiny code, low price, huge sales volume Low barriers to entry – API well documented – Support for developers – Ecosystem of users to market to
- 14. Explain API
- 15. New business models Donation ware Freeware Freemium models SaaS
- 18. Paper Camera Android App Turns everything you see into a sketch or cartoon R16 to purchase 1 – 5 million downloads R2.6mill – R12.9mill after costs
- 19. Joomla Content Editor Set of formatting tools for editing a page of text on a web site $20 per year for as many web sites as you want to build Developer lives on income In the UK!
- 20. Cache cleaner
- 22. Get coding E.g. Mobile app development 1. Learn an API, any API (Android is a good start if you know JAVA) 2. Participate in an open source / collaborative project 3. Create and manage an open source / collaborative project
- 23. DoodleKids Made by 9 year old boy 100 000 downloads (free app) My kids love it 100 reviews and comments
- 24. Gather resources Learn to engage with the developer and user communities online – Code – Support – Understand your future clients – Start identifying needs you can fill
- 25. Portfolio Internship Documented learning Demonstrable output
- 26. Focus Its not about technology, it is about the application of technology Identify use cases – Who needs what? – Why do they need it? – What will they do with it? – Can they already get it? – If so, why don’t they – If not, can I make it?
- 28. Credits Brendon Hatcher is the compiler of this presentation The presentation is released under the Creative Commons Licence – Attribution, Non-commercial, No derivatives If you don’t know what this licence means, find out about it at creativecommons.org
- 29. IT & Marketing Option 1: Interface between IT & Marketing – Understand both worlds – Operate between them – Scoping, project management, analysis and reporting Option 2: Make stuff happen – Implement the technology behind social media interactions between companies and customers
- 30. Application specialists Application has enough users (online) to make a small support business financially viable Staff know a particular application really, really well, and charge for: – Scoping – Installation / configuration – User support Great Internet-based business
- 31. Technical sales A sales career driven by a passion for technology Some IT products can’t be sold by people who don’t understand them – E.g. Customised solutions
- 32. Super, all-in- one, really huge program made by one company API + core features + documentation + support