The Next Generation Tech Worker

"The kids today are very gadget savvy. They know NOTHING of what it takes to build and operate systems of any scale."

"Yes, kids these days learn their gadgets fast, they want to communicate with their friends #1. BUT a nail gun does not make a carpenter and even less a craftsman."

"If our young people grok a 48-button remote control device, and young people in China and India grok Fourier Transforms and the Central Limit Theorem, who do you think is going to be running the world in fifty years?"

"The reason so many executives are so easily impressed and amazed by these 'prodigy' stories is that they themselves can barely figure out how to change their desktop background, let alone write a Word or Excel macro."

"You have to be technical enough to know the business benefit of applying certain technologies. You also have to be savvy enough to not be a sales person's puppet and to challenge what auditors and your subordinates tell you is necessary."

"In colleges we professors are starting to teach more along the lines of how to learn, how to update, and how to use basic IT and business principles, since what they are learning today in Java may tomorrow be somewhat obsolete as SOA demands JavaScript and XML, etc."

"Bottom line is that today, most I.T. 'Worker Bee' skills are STILL learned OTJ."

"When I graduated 25 years ago I was struck by one recruiter's comment. He said that if I was hired they would teach me everything I needed to know, to which I asked, 'Why did I just spend 4 years in college.' His reply? 'We just want to know that you know how to learn.' It was a stark realization after 4 years of studying engineering."

As one of those front-edge baby boomers myself, and a veteran of recruiting high technology talent for 35 years, [your column] brought to mind the state of the IT profession in its infancy. There were no Computer Science majors at that time, and Control Data Institute couldn't turn out enough programmers to meet the demand, so medium-to-large firms (in the financial services industry, for example) would seek out bright people and train them.

And they weren't engineering majors; math majors and those with creative skills -- musicians and artists, for example -- did particularly well. Surprisingly, many with handicaps like dyslexia found that they possessed complimentary strengths and became superior programmers, systems analysts, and sales support reps.

So if a baby-boomer shortage actually happens (most expect to work past normal retirement age), CIOs don't necessarily have to fear a talent void or endure whatever shortcomings they experience with outsourcing -- train your own!