Ebay finally announced the part sale of skype.  It was always rather curious why they bought it in the first place.   The announced reason around how there would be key synergies between their auction business and Skype seemed rather far fetched - isn't the whole point of ebay to buy and sell something quickly and easily over the internet without needing to pick up the phone?

While there is still a lot of speculation around how the new owners will extract profit from the spectacularly popular service, there are a few aspects that could be interesting to explore further.

This opportunity would be a single integrated telephony suite that breaks down barriers between land lines, mobile telephones, fax machines, instant messaging, video conferencing and so on.   With people increasingly mobile, the concept of having all these separate numbers, and different charges depending on where they are physically located seems rather old fashioned.   All the user needs is a data service whereever he/she is and he/she is instantly connected.   The phone companies right now are trying to protect their monopoly - for example the decision made in the USA to block skype on the iphone through the AT&T network, but this can only last for so long.

The future is not that far away, if the phone company monopolies can be broken.  The question is if Skype will be the one to do it and reap the rewards.  

Economic downturns often serve as catalysts for the replacement of tasks that were formally done by people with some form of automation. A good example was after September 11, when the airlines were struggling, one area they all invested in was online and kiosk based check in systems so that they could have less employees per passenger.

For some industries, they have been so successful that practically their only interaction with their customers is through IT, e.g. banks, insurance companies, online retailers etc.  

This means that in some cases the only contact that their company has with their customers is through some kind of IT system. These systems also make it easier for customers to change providers.  

In this case, the customer facing applications provided by many companies provide the make or break experience that determines revenue, retention and satisfaction of the customers. A good experience means that the customer will want to do business again. A bad experience means they will go elsewhere - and this technology makes it easier for them to do so. 

For example, I was recently interested in an online trading system. The first vendor that I tried had a convoluted system to register where certain information had to be faxed to them and verified during business hours. Even though they had the brand recognition and good pricing, I eventually went with another vendor because I could sign up and start trading on the spot.  

In all of these cases, the IT system is the ambassador for the company.  

In my experience, not a lot of IT staff really think about that. This includes all aspects of such a system, from design, implementation, release, maintenance, performance, availability, security and so on. 

Not only that, but many customers do not foster a customer mindset - not just for when internal users call in, but really thinking about who the customer is, what they are trying to do and how they can make it simpler, easier and faster for their customer. 

Are your IT systems good ambassadors for your company? Really?

Security is a part of all IT environments, even if it is just simple passwords and a lock on the data center door.     Most companies (outside of highly sensitive industries) have standard security policies.   These policies, while perhaps being well intentioned, fail to take into account human behavior.   Consequently, it could be argued that the achieve the opposite of what they intend - reducing security.

For example:

There are many more examples, but the premise of this article is that when designing security policies, think about the human element. People just want to get their work done with the minimum of fuss and security is about the last thing on their mind. Why not design policies that allow them to do that, but at the same time still achieve security aims like keeping data safe, ensuring that 3rd parties cannot access that data and so on.

Good university programs should not only prepare candidates who enrol in them for their chosen career, but also attract the best and brightest into that particular field. 

I do not think that today’s IT degrees adequately do that. 

It is my observation, that the mindset of 'IT = programming' is still alive and well in many programs -  Creating the perception outside the industry is to take an IT degree creates a transformation from a school leaver to an IT nerd with the pocket protector issued on completion. 

In working with many graduates, and hiring for a graduate program, apart from a knowledge of programming, and related technologies (such as networking, databases etc), there were few candidates who had a good knowledge of what ITSM really is, or the different careers it can offer. I don’t think this is the fault of the students, I think it’s that the generalist approach to IT education is letting them down. I have seen some schools that do offer more specialised programmes, but these seem to be in the minority. 

So what should change?

I think programming needs to be considered as a specialized discipline and not a mandatory part of an IT degree. Even so called IT/Business degrees are still often just a mix and match of a general business degree and some programming classes, and I just do think this is enough. 

I would like to see more cases of industry participation in these degrees. Where students can spend time working on assignments at various companies. And I would also like to see much more emphasis on problem solving skills and an understanding of business. More mechanical skills such as how to set up a database can be taught in a training class later, if the candidate has good problem solving skills. The business side is so important because all IT is driven to support some business need and there are too many people in the industry today who think of these system only in technical terms and not what purpose they have or why they were created in the first place. 

For example, I think the following would provide a good grounding for the new IT practitioner:

• Business Analysis Skills – understanding how to apply IT to business problems
• Problem Solving Skills – Basic problem solving skills are highly underrated and all the technical knowledge in the world is useless if it cannot be applied in the real world.
• Industry Knowledge – What is the industry really like? What careers are available? What are the different fields? What are some areas of further study and research?
• General Business Skills – How businesses work – not specialized skills like Accounting but more generalized skills
• General Law skills – Basic understanding of contract, copyright, corporate law
• Interpersonal Skills – Teamwork, Interviewing, Dispute resolution
• General Technical Grounding – The focus here is on technology and how it is applied to solve problems, innovation and less on rote learning a particular skill

There are many others, but essentially my point here is that these sort of skills would be far more useful – a good grounding here enables the graduate to easily pick up the more specific skills when and if he/she needs them, instead of being like most graduates and forgetting them 2-3 years after graduation.