Why IT Pros Need Soft Skills to Compete in 2016

April 26, 2016 Ed Tittel Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

IT professionals are always in something of a balancing act in the workplace. On the one hand, they need to foster and cultivate skills in tools, technologies and platforms that let them do their jobs. On the other hand, they need to be able to communicate with others, both verbally and in writing, about what they’re doing. They might even need to be able to package and present their ideas or plans in presentation form, to convince management or backers to invest in their vision. They must also be able to organize their work assignments, juggle priorities, understand or work with budgets, and see their abilities and IT’s capabilities in light of what their organization seeks to accomplish.

SHRM 2015 Professionals Rate Skills Gaps Factors, See How You Compare

July 28, 2015 Cassie Demeter Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

Figuring out that Taylor Swift is a bankable artist is easy. The signs are everywhere. But, trying to figure out where your human resources peers stand on a hot topic like skills gaps is harder to decipher. Until now. At this year’s Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) annual conference our Global Knowledge team conducted a survey to benchmark attendees on how they approach skills gaps, the primary causes for skill deficiencies and their progress towards closing the gaps.

Why I Loved Attending the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Annual Conference

July 9, 2015 Michael Stierhoff Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

It was our first visit to the SHRM annual conference and it certainly won’t be the last. It was refreshing hearing HR and Learning and Development (L&D) professionals completely embracing the learning services and consulting underpinning of workforce management. They welcomed chats and even took surveys. It would be easy to simply stop there; however, practically every presentation made the case for positive change, and the lessons learned can be applied across the board.

Staying Ahead of Your Enemy (Part 2)

July 8, 2015 Michael Stierhoff Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

Today or tomorrow, what is most likely to derail your organization or life? Among all the positive opportunities, where are things most likely to grow wrong if we’re not paying attention? If this one hasn’t been recently analyzed and if you haven’t done some strategic (i.e., data-driven) thinking around this question, it really should keep you up at night.

Staying Ahead of Your Enemy (Part 1)

July 1, 2015 Michael Stierhoff Cisco, Cloudera, Featured, Professional Development, Project Management, Routing & Switching, Technology, Training in Business

Innovation and efficiency are easily derailed when you’re not aware of the battlefield. The age of agility forces us to track a lot of variables. Resilient types look ahead to innovate and diversify.