Rob England

As we said last time, there is a high ratio of amateurs delivering IT training.  This is especially true for in-house training, where IT workers are asked to train their peers.   But it is also true to some extent among professional training organizations, and even in tertiary institutes.  In trainers, technical understanding is valued above […]

There is a high ratio of amateurs delivering IT training. This is especially true for in-house training, where IT workers are asked to train their peers. But it is also true to some extent amongst professional training organizations, and even in tertiary institutes. Technical understanding is valued above the ability to train adults. Perhaps this […]

In our last article (IT Teachers Suck) we criticized IT teaching. Now we should be more constructive and look at teaching adults. There is no substitute for subject knowledge and experience to ensure an instructor is relaxed, capable of dealing with anything that comes up, and delivering real substance. But it is not enough. Equally […]

IT people get plunged into situations so often without proper preparation that we get used to it and grow accustomed to not having the opportunity to seek the right skills before we do things.A painfully common example is when we are called on to deliver training. Most IT teachers suck. Or put another way, what […]

Managing your manager is as important an activity as the function you are employed for, or managing your personal finances or your household. It should receive the same thought and effort. Without Management Management, you have no control over the most important influence on your career; your boss. They write your reviews, set your pay, […]

Generations ago, the career ambitions of an intelligent and ambitious geeky young man (we’re talking pre-women’s–lib) might well have included such demanding and technically advanced professions as steam engine driver or typist or telephone operator. The technically inclined among their children and grandchildren aspired to be business machine mechanics, electricians, and then computer operators. A […]

Telesales advertisers and other hustling snake-oilers no longer use images of “thousands of dedicated” white-coated scientists and bubbling test tubes. Science is out of favor with the general public due to the rise of post-modernism, new age, alternative this and that, and other bilge thinking. The only positive to this gradual erosion of the Western […]

Remember when a phone had a dial on the front with numbers, a TV had a volume knob and a dial with channels on it, and a record player had two controls: volume and speed? Now: • I have six remote controls on the TV room table, with more buttons than a 747. • My […]

When one spends 50 or 60 hours a week immersed in an activity (does anyone reading this still work 40 hours or less?), it is easy to lose one’s perspective on just where that activity should rate in our lives. This is especially for those of us who work in IT, with its high levels […]

Once I worked 50-60 hour weeks for an IT vendor. I spent weekend time traveling; I spent 50 or even 100 nights per year away from home; and missed a fair chunk of my son’s first four years. My aspirations changed as I got older and had family, and the company changed too. It had […]