25 New Career Paths for 2011

If there's anything better than a Top 10 list, it's a Top 15 list. Put the two together, and you have 25 tops to ponder. In this case, we're talking about top IT trends, as forecast by the major research firms. Looking at them together should give you a pretty good idea of where IT will trend over the next few years. So ask yourself: Are you positioned to embrace these emerging technologies?


First, here are  15 hot tech trends from Forrester.

1. Next-gen business intelligence takes shape, combining real-time access with pervasiveness, agility, and self-service

2. Business rules processing and policy-based SOA move to the mainstream

3. SaaS and cloud-based platforms become standard

4. System management enables continued virtualization

5. Collaboration platforms become people-centric

6. Event-driven patterns demand attention

7. Customer community platforms integrate with business apps

8. Apps and business processes go mobile on powerful devices and faster networks

9. Analytics target text and social networks

10. IaaS finds a broader audience

11. IT embraces planning and analysis tools to manage the future

12. BPM will be Web-2.0-enabled

13. Client virtualization is ubiquitous

14. Master data management matures

15. Telepresence gains widespread use

Next, Gartner outlines its top ten technologies for 2011.

1. Cloud computing

2. Mobile apps and media tablets

3. Next-generation analytics

4. Social analytics

5. Social communication and collaboration

6. Video

7. Context-aware computing

8. Ubiquitous computing

9. Storage class memory

10. Fabric-based infrastructure and computers

 It's also interesting to note what has fallen off Gartner's top 10 between last year and this year:

-- IT for green

-- Reshaping the data center

-- Security-activity monitoring

-- Virtualization for availability

One thing's for certain: The pace of change continues to speed up.


-- Don Willmott

Post originale: http://career-resources.dice.com:80/articles/content/entry/25_new_career_paths_for

Like to Design? You May Excel in a Career in User Experience Design

Have you ever been frustrated by the way something works - like a website, an appliance, or software app - and thought to yourself: "Geez, I could do a much better job designing this?" Maybe you should be a user experience designer. Everything we touch and interact with gives us some kind of a user experience, and getting that experience right is a make-or-break proposition that requires a very particular kind of expertise.

"To me, user experience design involves making a conscious decision during the design process to think about how the user of your product is going to perceive the experience," says Gary Smith, a 24-year veteran experience design at companies including Autodesk and Intergraph.

Thinking about and implementing a design using a broad spectrum of tools and techniques is what user experience design, or UX, is all about. It'is not the same as user interface design.

Whitney Hess, a noted UX expert and prolific blogger on the subject writes:

"It's not uncommon to confuse 'user experience' with 'user interface' - after all it's a big part of what users interact with while experiencing digital products and services. But the UI is just one piece of the puzzle."

Hess also stresses that UX isn't just one milestone in the product development process, but a part of every step. "We need to keep listening and iterating. It doesn't have to be a rigid process, but it does need to exist."

Says Smith: "You can easily design an interface to a software product, or even a physical product, without regard to how the user will experience it." UX is at a higher and more holistic level that involves information architecture, interaction design, visual design and prototype engineering.

UX Expert Skills

The skills a UX expert needs to master vary. "Today, companies posting UX positions are often looking for an individuals who will put a front end on a website, and usually want him to do both the design and coding using tools such as JavaScript, CSS, Flash, Silverlight, Ajax or Cocoa, Smith says. "But again, don't confuse this sort of work with the work associated with the creation of a standalone software app," he emphasizes. It's about the overall experience and not the click-by-click functionality.

Wallace Jackson, a UX Designer for immersive 3D virtual worlds and CEO of Mind Taffy Design says, "open source is where it's going." He cites many of the same tools as Smith, but adds XML, Python, Lua, JavaFX and JavaTV to the list.

And it's not just on the desktop. The inherent constraints of small mobile devices have opened up a new set of UX issues. "A good user experience is required for this new generation of mobile apps - just as it's required for any app," says Smith. "In theory, there should be no difference in the design process." What will differ is how UX experts apply their design philosophies given the particular needs and constraints of mobile devices.

eyond coding, UX can also encompass psychology and the burgeoning science of Human-Computer Interaction. "When I started doing my design work, a specific position with 'user experience' in the title didn't exist at many companies," Smith recalls. "Microsoft's apps were typically used as the model since most apps were being targeted at Windows PCs. With a number of Human-Computer Interaction courses now offered by universities, many of today's UX professionals have degrees in cognitive psychology or some other ethnographic background. But ultimately, creating a good user experience is all about understanding your users."

Given the multiple disciplines UX encompasses and the unique way of thinking it requires, it's obviously not for everyone. But if you have the ability to listen and understand a customer's problem, the skill to identify and synthesize patterns among them, the creativity to propose effective and efficient solutions, as well as an artistic flair, you might find success in this fascinating and challenging field. 

-- Chandler Harris 

Post originale: http://career-resources.dice.com:80/articles/content/entry/like_to_design_you_may