What IT Needs
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@Minion-Queen said:
@thanksaj said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Nic said:
@MattSpeller said:
@Nic said:
I think IT needs to be licensed for safety reasons, given all the security breaches and releases of data that happen lately.
What does licensing look like to you? What are it's pro's and con's?
Something like this:
http://ncees.org/licensure/The cons are barriers to entry and sometimes licensing is just there to keep new people out. But I think in the case of IT it's worth getting better quality control.
I agree that QC and keeping people out is important. IT is overloaded with bad people making it hard for good people to get work. Even though we are short people, we would do better if we had fewer overall.
I think if IT dropped all the people who really aren't cut out to be in IT, we'd see a lot more MSPs and only the largest of companies would have in-house IT staffs. Jobs would be almost exclusively at MSPs.
There would be a lot more cut-rate MSP's. How many does NTG get jobs from already because they have no clue what they are doing?
All I know is that poor @FiyaFly already has enough on his plate for a royal banquet....
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@MattSpeller said:
There will always be the good, the bad, and the ugly - that's part of why I find this so interesting; how do you sort them out?
You don't completely, but you sort what you can. You make it harder to not even know what IT is and claim to be an IT guy. How many people have I seen contemplate if they should count their time "using a computer" as a kid as professional experience?
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I think a few more expensive lawsuits over lost consumer data might sway businesses. If nothing else, having a licensed IT person working there who adheres to security standards will protect them from being sued successfully.
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@Nic said:
I think a few more expensive lawsuits over lost consumer data might sway businesses. If nothing else, having a licensed IT person working there who adheres to security standards will protect them from being sued successfully.
Customer data could be a special case situation. Lots of businesses don't have customer data, or nothing worth anything. And having an IT person there that is licensed might actually make them more likely to be sued because they had access to the info, supposedly, but failed to protect themselves. Just because you have one doesn't mean that they were in charge, knew what they were doing or were listened to.
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But pretty much everyone takes credit cards these days, so if their system gets hacked they'll get shafted. A judge just ruled that the banks could sue Target for not taking adequate precautions.
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@Nic said:
But pretty much everyone takes credit cards these days, so if their system gets hacked they'll get shafted. A judge just ruled that the banks could sue Target for not taking adequate precautions.
Not many people do. I've worked with a lot of companies, very few of them take credit cards. If you are thinking of retain stores, sure. But outside of the retail business it is relatively small. Most companies that do outsource that so that it isn't part of their IT. It is a few large CC processors that handle it for most companies.
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True - most of that is outsourced. But they still have do PCI compliance no? I'm seeing more reports of smaller places being hit lately, so at the very least they'll have to eat the cleanup cost and notifying customers.
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@Nic said:
True - most of that is outsourced. But they still have do PCI compliance no? I'm seeing more reports of smaller places being hit lately, so at the very least they'll have to eat the cleanup cost and notifying customers.
No, PCI compliance only applies to the companies handling the CC data, not to companies being paid in the end. PCI impacts very few companies (percentage wise.) Big retailers like Target store that data in house and are PCI governed, yes. But most small businesses are not as they never possess your CC data.
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Ah that makes sense. Hopefully there will be some better standards that roll out at some point. I'm tired of having my data leaked by whoever I shop with. And if we're lucky some of that will filter down to SMB.
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What would this look like if it were to be made into a thing? Just some ideas to follow that I want to expand upon, throw in your $0.02!
- Inclusive of all skill levels, Staples wage slave to CIO
- Reputation and skill based
- Provide a framework of titles and skill levels
- Isolated from outside influences (notably money, corporations and governments)
- International
- Relevant / useful to business and IT folks
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Yeah, as far as credit cards go, the companies that accept credit cards never process them in-house. They all use a third-party service for that. That third-party service that actually runs the card has to be compliant, but the company that takes down the cardholder's name, the card number, the expiration, and the CID number (sometimes) are held to no such standard. I could see figuring out what companies take credit card for payment as very valuable information, as a lot of this info is stored in very insecure ways.
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@thanksaj said:
Yeah, as far as credit cards go, the companies that accept credit cards never process them in-house. They all use a third-party service for that. That third-party service that actually runs the card has to be compliant, but the company that takes down the cardholder's name, the card number, the expiration, and the CID number (sometimes) are held to no such standard. I could see figuring out what companies take credit card for payment as very valuable information, as a lot of this info is stored in very insecure ways.
I agree with AJ. This is a no brainer to do 3rd party. Sure it cost a little extra, but of course the consumer just pays for that on the transaction
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@MattSpeller said:
- Inclusive of all skill levels, Staples wage slave to CIO
I would say that defining a minimum level is important. I think that bench services (people doing hardware repair, selling products, etc.) are outside of the field. Assembling a computer is a factory job, not IT. HP line workers don't claim to be IT, people swapping out parts as their job description should not either. It should be technical jobs and higher only, IMHO.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@MattSpeller said:
- Inclusive of all skill levels, Staples wage slave to CIO
I would say that defining a minimum level is important. I think that bench services (people doing hardware repair, selling products, etc.) are outside of the field. Assembling a computer is a factory job, not IT. HP line workers don't claim to be IT, people swapping out parts as their job description should not either. It should be technical jobs and higher only, IMHO.
Agreed, though I would push to include the poor sods who are curious about IT and just getting that first rung on the ladder. In this I would argue that including people like "geek squad" as "IT" gives someone a place to start and a much larger pool of potential users for this... whatever this is haha.
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That's a tough one. Including people not involved it IT as it is normally defined (business infrastructure services) opens the door to a ton of grey area. Allowing people in as students, hopefuls or whatever is one thing. Allowing classification of non-biz-inf roles into the official fold, though, is problematic. I say make a strict definition of IT and stick to it.
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@MattSpeller said:
Reputation and skill based
The hardest part to quantify and deliver! My thought is to blend several different approaches I've seen.
Reputation
- Community based feedback (similar to linked in)
- Input from previous employers?? dangerous but oh so powerful. Difficult to see why a business would participate in this part without a tangible benefit. Perhaps posting feedback gives access to the feedback left by others? Needs improvement / refining.
- Video interviews of the person answering some stock questions.....???
- Needs more quantifiers (suggestions?)
Skills
Demonstrable proof you've done something- Video tours of projects?
- Documentation you've created (excised / examples / excerpts?)
Completed coursework
- Must have a way to VERIFY completion
- Skill tree?
- Experience with products & proof?
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@scottalanmiller said:
That's a tough one. Including people not involved it IT as it is normally defined (business infrastructure services) opens the door to a ton of grey area. Allowing people in as students, hopefuls or whatever is one thing. Allowing classification of non-biz-inf roles into the official fold, though, is problematic. I say make a strict definition of IT and stick to it.
Easy follow up question then - what is the definition of an IT worker?
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You'd have to have levels. Like they do for electricians and other trade workers.
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@Nic said:
You'd have to have levels. Like they do for electricians and other trade workers.
Absolutely, but unlike electricians or trade workers, it isn't a progression which makes it really hard.
