Is There No Base of IT Knowledge?
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I've probably read over 300 IT books and have many more as references. Maybe several times more than that. I've given away many hundreds of books. I have nearly a hundred books in my digital library now which I only switched to about a year ago. So I am still accumulating new ones very quickly. I don't read nearly as much as I used to, but not nearly as much is written anymore either. I still read regularly, though.
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I find Youtube a better learning tool than books. Watching someone doing something is easier to follow than reading about it, especially with GUI interfaces which can be hard to describe with the written word. I watched Jeffrey Snover demo Powershell for over an hour and I really, really enjoyed it, whereas I find reading a book on Powershell pretty hard going. Whether I really learnt anything from the video, I'm not sure.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I find Youtube a better learning tool than books. Watching someone doing something is easier to follow than reading about it, especially with GUI interfaces which can be hard to describe with the written word. I watched Jeffrey Snover demo Powershell for over an hour and I really, really enjoyed it, whereas I find reading a book on Powershell pretty hard going. Whether I really learnt anything from the video, I'm not sure.
You and I are the opposite then. I can't learn by videos. I can't focus enough on them. I used to be able to learn via instructor, but my ADHD has made that dang near impossible. I learn best usually with a book, a person acting as a guide, and me actually doing whatever it is I'm supposed to be learning.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Holy Shit! How big are your pockets? o_0
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And this thread is back! Woot!
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I think a big part of the problem with there being no baseline is the lack of clearly defined job descriptions in IT. Companies in so many cases just kind of make up whatever and call it whatever they want. I've seen L1s who were doing engineering tasks, and people called engineers that were L0s. At a company I used to work at, EVERYONE was called an engineer. I tried explaining to co-workers that it was a marketing thing, but that we were NOT engineers and I had guys argue with me. It leaves them delusional and confused when they go elsewhere, as well as hiring parties.
I think that if we're going to create a baseline for knowledge, we need to work to get the definitions of what is L1, what is L2, L3, engineer, etc more clearly defined. We also need to help break the idea that jobs in development are IT.
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I also understand that IT is a relatively new field. If you consider that it's only been about 25-30 years that IT has really been a thing, and especially growing the past 20, the confusion is understandable. Trade skills have been around for thousands of years and the definitions and terms are fairly set. IT, as a career field, is a baby by comparison. Fifty years ago, what fits in the palm of your hand now would have filled a gymnasium, in terms of power, and you have more functionality out of the phone.
But as I see it, we are at a crucial point. Whether it's ITIL or some other organization, we need to define what work goes into what classification as far as what is what. That can be difficult with new products constantly coming out, the size of companies kind of determining the scope of work that someone might be expected to handle, but even though many different companies have solutions for the same problems (Cisco, Pertino, etc are all VPNs), there are categories with general scopes of work that could be used to at least outline what entails your L1 work, L2, etc.
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The hardest part is not defining standards though, which is no easy task in-and-of itself. The hardest part is getting companies to comply with the standards and advertise positions correctly. Stop calling L1s "something something ENGINEER" to make it sound better. There needs to be something of a disconnect between the marketing side and the technical side so that companies with 12 engineers and 250 L1s/L2s market as having hundreds of engineers. It's false advertising.
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I think what leads to roles being all over the place is IT people usually are very good at troubleshooting so they can go up to a problem with little prior knowledge and figure out what and how it is supposed to work and what could be causing it not to. Along with that (at least from personal experience) we don't have a fear of breaking stuff further, so we're inclined to dig into it further to find the issue.
Also, IT people tend to learn things by themselves very well and are always learning something new. At my job, I hear people talking about an issue that isn't necessarily an IT issue, but I always end up helping out which leads me to do things that would fall out of my normal job description.
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@brianlittlejohn said:
I think what leads to roles being all over the place is IT people usually are very good at troubleshooting so they can go up to a problem with little prior knowledge and figure out what and how it is supposed to work and what could be causing it not to. Along with that (at least from personal experience) we don't have a fear of breaking stuff further, so we're inclined to dig into it further to find the issue.
Also, IT people tend to learn things by themselves very well and are always learning something new. At my job, I hear people talking about an issue that isn't necessarily an IT issue, but I always end up helping out which leads me to do things that would fall out of my normal job description.
This is also a big piece of it. The people who tend to gravitate to IT seem to be naturally gifted learners in many cases. We seem to often be the type of people who have the aptitude for any career we set our minds to and can be at least somewhat passionate about. I've done the exact same thing. What that brings in terms of benefit is understanding the business you support and how IT can meet the current needs and expand the business. Or even improve the efficiency of the current business.
But yes, our natural propensity for learning anything and everything, and being like I am in that we like to know things just for the sake of knowing them, can be both a blessing and a curse. However, if someone is motivated, that just means they move from L1 to L2 quickly, and maybe to L3 and up quickly as well. However, picking up new skills doesn't really change the definitions of the tiers. It changes the person's definition of where they are located within those tiers.
