Our Geeks Are On The Rise

Originally published in eBermuda magazine
© 2006 Bermedia.com

The term ‘geek’ used to denote a pimply, dateless little troll who constantly received wedgies in high school and didn’t mix with anyone outside of the Doom world. The dot com boom changed that. Geeks can now be respected, revered, and even feared by all as millionaire captains of industry or, at the very least, the guy you now have to be nice to in order to retrieve all that email that disappeared while you were downloading that streaming “research” video.

There’s some debate about the way we should train tomorrow’s IT brains but there is no debate about demand for them. The Government’s Green Paper on eCommerce highlights the current deficit in local talent and predicts an even greater demand for technically skilled local talent as the recommendations of the Green Paper are implemented. International and local businesses alike are dependent on technology for their survival and with the relentless upgrade cycle and new security threats popping up every day, the need for skilled IT professionals is expected to continue increasing. So if I’m a young Bermudian with dreams of 1’s and 0’s and Repetitive Strain Injury, how do I arm myself with the necessary skills?

Checking Stuff Out
A lot of people are naturally drawn to computers (I shipped off to Computer Camp at the age of ten – a fact which kept me assuredly single well into my late teens). Many of the students studying IT at the College, for instance, already started out on their own, either by building their own computer or teaching themselves how to fashion their own website. This is not only a great way to gauge interest but also a required skill in the IT world; if you can’t learn some stuff on your own and have the motivation to do it, you probably won’t go too far in the competitive IT world.

Real World ‘Hands On’ Training
There’s nothing like the real thing. Use any connections you have, plead, beg to get a part time or summer job in an IT position. Any opportunity you can get to learn stuff on the job is invaluable. You will normally be given the crappy jobs that no-one else wants to do like getting a network printer to work or upgrading memory in 50 old PC’s but you’ll be learning all the necessary foundation skills and getting paid a little to do it. And some day, you will get to train someone and give them the crappy jobs make fun of them with your new Canadian friends for getting the wrong chipset for that motherboard.

IT Degrees
Bermuda College can train you in almost any sector of IT from networking to programming to web animation. IT training comes in two main flavours at the College: Computer Information Systems (CIS) and Web Development.

The former is a broad two year Associates Degree which furnishes you with skills in database administration, computer programming, networking, and hardware. This is a great foundation degree for a career in IT as it gives you exposure to all areas so you can see which area you would like to specialize in later on. This degree would normally lead to a job as either a computer technician, network administrator, computer programmer or general IT consultant.

The latter (Web Development) is currently focused on building websites, intranets and other online applications. This course can be taken as a one year diploma or as a full two year degree and will give you the skills to build and design websites as well as project management and other business skills. This course tends to favour the more creative techies who enjoy the online side of things and would normally lead to a career in a web agency or managing the web strategy of a company.

A college degree used to be optional in the autodidactic world of IT, however, competition has become so great that it is almost required as the only means of differentiating between geeks. Moreover, Bermudians in the local market will be competing with highly qualified foreign workers and must match them on paper in order to win their jobs.

Certifications
These are the “other” pieces of paper you will need if you are heading downtown in IT. Professional Certifications are the Merit Badges of the IT world. Each one denotes a different skill set – usually in a specific brand of technology or product. While a College degree in IT can give you the foundation you need to become a good geek, certifications provide the specializations which will dictate the core of your job. This might be network certifications such as Cisco’s CCNP or Novell’s CNE, a security certification such as the ComptTIA or one of the seemingly hundreds of Microsoft certifications ranging from database administration (MSDBA) to business infrastructure (MCSE). Certifications are now a sine non qua of a good geek as they can guarantee to the employer (or the client) a minimum skill level in a particular area or product and will certainly act as a tie breaker between otherwise equally qualified candidates.

Certifications are not cheap. A typical exam set can cost $700 at the low end and the training for such an exam can cost several thousand. And these prices are based on taking the exam abroad and therefore include very high ancillary costs such as airfare and accommodation. Fortunately, we don’t have to go away for all certifications now as the College now offers the MCSA and MSDST training and exams and has plans to offer more contingent on demand.

Beyond IT Skills
IT skills are necessary but not sufficient for a successful IT career. Most IT careers these days involve some level of self-management as well as some people skills and a decent work ethic. During the dot com boom, you could get away with very few of these skills; you could turn up on a skateboard, two hours late and speak in opaque scientific terms to your client about why you haven’t hit your deadline and they would still hand you a suitcase of cash.

In the bright light stark awakening that followed the 2000 bust, clients have become much, much more tech-savvy and most companies hiring IT professionals expect the kind of rigid, ROI-based protocols that would have made the dot com kids spill their cappuccinos in apoplectic rage. The good news for Bermudians is that there are a lot of IT jobs out there for us that are currently held by ex-pats. The bad news is that we have to work just as hard as they did to get them. Fortunately, we have the job market and the opportunities to get there. And we will. Our geeks are on the rise.

Required Reading