Speaking Topics

As senior IT executives, it's easy for us to forget what motivates, captivates, and fascinates the techies we lead. Also, due to generational differences and the passage time, in many ways, what we wanted then is not wanted now.

The journey from techie to technical manager is fraught with difficulty, indecision, and excitement. As senior executives, it's our responsibility to help those under our leadership to help make the transition. It's good for them, it's good for company, and yes, it's also good for us.

For Hands-on IT Professionals (AKA Techies)

This may sound crazy, but it's true. You need to know two things about your professional marketability: how to expand it and how to protect it.

The journey from techie to technical manager is fraught with difficulty, indecision, and excitement. Learn what you can do meet the challenge and make the transition. For me, the hardest parts were the fear of losing my technical edge and learning to delegate. How about you?

Whether you are looking for a job, pushing for a promotion, trying to start your own company, or looking for a date to your sister's wedding, building your personal brand can be of great help.

You have a few years work experience under my belt, now you want to begin a part-time master's program. Should you get an MBA or a Masters in Computer Science? The answer is it depends.

For Non-IT Audiences

Good writing is hard to do. So you should take full advantage of your written word. Learn how to use it again, and again, and again, in blogs, books, video podcasts, marketing materials, and much more.

Searching for a new job is hard work, but it's not 40 hour a week work. In most cases, its 20 - 30 hours of serious job searching and 10 - 20 hours of worrying and/or looking at the phone. Certainly continue to push hard on your job search, but spend your worrying and waiting time creatively, energetically and constructively by trying to start your own firm. You will soon find that that the initial preparations needed to start a company can dramatically enhance your job search. For example, your new firm's competitors are most likely great places to submit your resume.

Cloud computing has been a huge topic within the Information Technology (IT) community. That said, what is cloud computing, and as professional trainers, why do we care?
This talk begins by briefly describing cloud computing. Then, it goes on to discuss how cloud computing affects the training community and how we can take advantage of it to provide high quality, cost effective, and flexible training solutions. These topics include the use of internal vs. external cloud resources, security concerns, cloud-based vendor solutions, cost considerations, hybrid solutions, and much more.

Virtual worlds can best be described as a 3D representation of the real world, simulated inside the computer. Within this simulated world, each person has their own animated character called an avatar that lets them move around and do things, like take training classes. Imagine taking a business oriented training course inside a computer game. This is the power of virtual worlds. Oh, and one more thing, it's interactive, engaging, fun, cost effective, and great for distance learning.