Infolific » Information Technology

Finding Work After A Layoff

Marios Alexandrou — Tue, 19 May 2009 22:40:27 +0000

Despite it being one of the most challenging hiring environments in the nation's history, there are still opportunities for job seekers. In fact, recent CareerBuilder research found that half of workers who were laid off from full-time jobs in the last 12 months reported they found a new full-time, permanent [...]

Resume of a Purple Cow

Marios Alexandrou — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 03:48:21 +0000

A couple of years ago a friend gave me a copy of Seth Godin's Purple Cow. And as is often the case, it took me two years to read it. The good news is that nothing in Seth's book is dated and it is all quite relevant to today. The [...]

Technology Adoption Life Cycle

Marios Alexandrou — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 04:02:30 +0000

There's a good chance that if you've been around new technology, you've heard about the technology adoption life cycle. This model is used to explain how people respond to product and service innovations that require the end user to change their past behavior. Under this model, consumers self-segregate along an [...]

Web Project Manager Job Posting

Marios Alexandrou — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:22:24 +0000

Position Title Web Project Manager Location Pleasantville, New York (Westchester County) Position Description Overall Goal Provide a leadership role to our business partners to integrate all Reader's Digest businesses and it's affiliates into the web in a competitive, creative and effective way. Work closely with Digital Business Group Project Director [...]

Microsoft Has Indeed Won

Marios Alexandrou — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:45:29 +0000

Charles Cooper of CNET.com has made some pretty compelling points in a recent article [note that the page is gone so I can't link to it anymore]. His opinion is that Microsoft has emerged from its legal battles no worse off than when it went in. As such, I'd have [...]

Hot IT Skills

Marios Alexandrou — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:45:28 +0000

IT hiring is apparently on the rise according to CIOs surveyed by CIO Magazine. Certain skill sets are in demand in particular project management. Here the hot skills and the percentages of CIOs that expect to hire specifically for these skills. Project management - 54% Application development - 51% Business [...]

10 Barriers to Job Effectiveness

Marios Alexandrou — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:47:14 +0000

In the "State of the CIO 2006" survey conducted by CIO Magazine, CIO's identified the 10 biggest barriers to job effectiveness. Here's what they said (bolded) and my comments about each one (not bolded). Overwhelming backlog of requests and projects. Sounds a lot like what a project manager has to [...]

IT Employee Loyalty

Marios Alexandrou — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 23:45:57 +0000

A study from Walker Information reveals that IT workers are more loyal to their companies than they were three years ago. This conclusion is based on responses from 2,500 IT employees across many industries. In this study, "truly loyal" is defined as an employee that said they were committed to [...]

IT Marketing

Marios Alexandrou — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 23:45:07 +0000

A recent issue of CIO Magazine addressed the perceptions, often negative, that companies have for their internal IT departments. This is commonly discussed subject and rightly so since many IT projects cost more than was planned and deliver less than what was expected. To address and change perceptions of IT, [...]

Successful IT Operations

Marios Alexandrou — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 23:44:59 +0000

Bill Vass, CIO of Sun Microsystems took some time to relate 10 essentials for successful IT operations. The list appeared in the October 1, 2005 issue of CIO Magazine. Here they are. Open systems succeed. Proprietary systems fail in the long run. Separate logical layers. Standards matter. What's old is [...]

Workplace Cliches

Marios Alexandrou — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 19:45:43 +0000

Accountemps, a temporary staffing firm, recently compiled a list of the most annoying workplace cliches. CIO Magazine goes to report that cliche-usage is even rampant among those customer-centric employees who, one would think, would want a paradigm that would get them on the same page with normal humans, or at [...]

Free PowerPoint Templates

Marios Alexandrou — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:45:19 +0000

There's no question that PowerPoint is ubiquitous in corporate America. And because it is so widely used (and overused I might add), everyone wants their presentation to be unique. So their first step, after cycling through the templates installed with the program, is to search the internet for free PowerPoint [...]

Perceptions of IT

Marios Alexandrou — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 23:48:27 +0000

According to a survey done by CIO Magazine in February 2005, these are the top-10 things that IT leaders consider to be the most effective at changing the perception of IT within a company. My comments (in italics) follow some of the bullet points. Have the business sponsor share ownership [...]

No Such Thing as an IT Project

Marios Alexandrou — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:50:13 +0000

In the feedback section of a magazine that I read there was an interesting perspective that at first blush seems like a new idea, but I think is just a matter of semantics. Dan Crawley, an IT Manager, suggests that, "There is no such thing as an IT project excluding [...]

Technology Innovation

Marios Alexandrou — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:45:04 +0000

I've always thought it was an admirable quality for a company to have a lot of patents. I think it shows a dedication to research and development along with an implicit, corporate-wide belief in providing value to customers and shareholders for the long-term. While there have been recent stories of [...]

ERP Implementation Tips

Marios Alexandrou — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:44:49 +0000

A recent issue of CIO Magazine offers these 10 tips for ERP implementations (see ERP definition). Make sure you analyze and define business processes first, then choose the system that will work best for your organization. Don't forget about training; if people don't know how to use the system, they [...]

Technical Aptitude Not Enough

Marios Alexandrou — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:57:51 +0000

Gartner has recently re-enforced something I've suspected for quite sometime: technical aptitude is no longer enough to secure a future for IT professionals. That should be a pretty scary statement for a majority of the IT folks out there who generally like to be left alone to do their own [...]

Reader Feedback

Marios Alexandrou — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 22:02:36 +0000

Sometimes you get really nice letters from people that don't know you, but have happened on to your web site. Here's one that I got that was just too flattering to not post. Please excuse this indulgence. Marios, Given your work in SEO, I shouldn't be surprised that your site [...]

Staff Development Has Worst ROI

Marios Alexandrou — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 10:36:31 +0000

It's a bit dated, but CIO Magazine reports that "training programs for entry-level IT staff are increasingly rare." That's not too disconcerting since many consider the IT market to be currently focused on cost-cutting and cost-control. However, CIO Magazine goes on to state that, "CIOs rate staff development dead last [...]

Ask Me No Questions and I'll Tell You No Lies

Marios Alexandrou — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 11:14:14 +0000

I often get requests from students about technology-related homework and projects they are working on. Usually the questions are short and as far as I can tell the students are just looking for quick answers. The other day I received an e-mail from an IT student that made me laugh. [...]