What do IT folks care about?
March 2, 2017 7:45 AM Subscribe
In about a month I will be writing short articles for an IT-related website. Please help me come up with topics.
I will be blogging about IT-related topics of interest to both worker bees and Captains of Industry. I know plenty of folks write about this stuff already, but what do you want to see? If you are in IT, what kinds of things would you like to read about either for your personal interest or for your company? The blog will probably cover communications issues but it can cover pretty much anything. So what matters to you? What would be useful? What would you like to see that you're not seeing now? Finally, are there any must-read resources that you highly recommend? Thanks, hive mind!
I will be blogging about IT-related topics of interest to both worker bees and Captains of Industry. I know plenty of folks write about this stuff already, but what do you want to see? If you are in IT, what kinds of things would you like to read about either for your personal interest or for your company? The blog will probably cover communications issues but it can cover pretty much anything. So what matters to you? What would be useful? What would you like to see that you're not seeing now? Finally, are there any must-read resources that you highly recommend? Thanks, hive mind!
Have a look at Spiceworks' community boards, they're typically quite informative and full of things to be studied and soaked in.
Me, I'd especially like seeing articles that highlight best-practices & means of being productive in a small-to-medium business. That's my current demographic I work with, and will commonly be your readers in the first place, if I understand you correctly. For example: the benefits of ticketing for issue resolution, writing proposals to management for budgetary reasons, what purchases are worth your money 'now' instead of 'later,' common layouts of a static subnet, typical permissions when it comes to file sharing, personal recommendations / reviews about what the best books are for me to read for a given subject, etc. etc.
posted by a good beginning at 8:22 AM on March 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
Me, I'd especially like seeing articles that highlight best-practices & means of being productive in a small-to-medium business. That's my current demographic I work with, and will commonly be your readers in the first place, if I understand you correctly. For example: the benefits of ticketing for issue resolution, writing proposals to management for budgetary reasons, what purchases are worth your money 'now' instead of 'later,' common layouts of a static subnet, typical permissions when it comes to file sharing, personal recommendations / reviews about what the best books are for me to read for a given subject, etc. etc.
posted by a good beginning at 8:22 AM on March 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
Like many IT professionals with years of experience, I have no choice but to also manage - project manage, account/client manage, and light-duty personnel management. Nobody taught me the IT skills either, but those I can google more satisfyingly than the soft skills.
Project management, in particular, is kind of a grab-bag if you're not in Proper Software Development. Agile doesn't work all that well for ERP implementations or data warehouse moves or virtual desktop rollouts. What does? Who's talking about that these days? I am less interested in "because it seems like a good idea to me, and why wouldn't I be an expert?" old white dude management styles. I like science and research - there's lots of great work being done out there in human factors/organizational psychology.
a good beginning above mentioned ticketing systems - that's a great example of an evergreen IT problem that's also complicated by the fact that "IT" means a lot of things. I'm a consultant in one specific business-related software system, I have a hundred customers for whom I do one very specific job, and they want to do stuff like make me use their on-premise AD-tied Jira system so that in order to even look at a ticket (assuming it can send me emails, which used to be a problem without giving me a AD email that, no, I'm not going to check) I have to stop whatever else I'm doing, get on their VPN, get on a server, get into Jira etc etc etc. Not all IT people are software developers, they're not all in-house server/desktop/network support. They're business analysts and reporting specialists and financial systems support and warehouse tech and lab equipment calibrators, or they are incredibly specific bizapp developers a million miles from SV Disruptors. Your target audience may be a subset of these, but unless it's super-specific don't talk to them all like they're working at Twitter.
And I don't know if you happen to be a woman or a person of color but take the opportunity, when you can, to signal-boost the work of those people in the industry.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:44 AM on March 2, 2017 [3 favorites]
Project management, in particular, is kind of a grab-bag if you're not in Proper Software Development. Agile doesn't work all that well for ERP implementations or data warehouse moves or virtual desktop rollouts. What does? Who's talking about that these days? I am less interested in "because it seems like a good idea to me, and why wouldn't I be an expert?" old white dude management styles. I like science and research - there's lots of great work being done out there in human factors/organizational psychology.
a good beginning above mentioned ticketing systems - that's a great example of an evergreen IT problem that's also complicated by the fact that "IT" means a lot of things. I'm a consultant in one specific business-related software system, I have a hundred customers for whom I do one very specific job, and they want to do stuff like make me use their on-premise AD-tied Jira system so that in order to even look at a ticket (assuming it can send me emails, which used to be a problem without giving me a AD email that, no, I'm not going to check) I have to stop whatever else I'm doing, get on their VPN, get on a server, get into Jira etc etc etc. Not all IT people are software developers, they're not all in-house server/desktop/network support. They're business analysts and reporting specialists and financial systems support and warehouse tech and lab equipment calibrators, or they are incredibly specific bizapp developers a million miles from SV Disruptors. Your target audience may be a subset of these, but unless it's super-specific don't talk to them all like they're working at Twitter.
And I don't know if you happen to be a woman or a person of color but take the opportunity, when you can, to signal-boost the work of those people in the industry.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:44 AM on March 2, 2017 [3 favorites]
One of the dilemmas of being a developer is how to work on getting really good with today's technology and still be an early adopter of tomorrow's technology. What is the role of the employer, if any?
And always, security, security, security.
posted by SemiSalt at 8:46 AM on March 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
And always, security, security, security.
posted by SemiSalt at 8:46 AM on March 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
Data privacy is a huge issue for most IT organizations, because there's constant pressure to share customer information indiscriminately ("But I need to run my own reports in Excel!"). It's super helpful to tell stories like, "Company X just had this data breach, here's how to prevent that at your org" and write it in plain language. Bonus points for suggesting how to help non-tech staff get what they need without egregious privacy violations.
Ditto for security. Checklists or questionnaires are good. "Best ways to share sensitive information/passwords/security keys" "What's a good password policy?" "Does everyone in your tech team know the OWASP Top 10?"
IT staff is subject to burnout. Articles on addressing disaster recovery, monitoring, on-call scheduling, and escalation all help people who feel under water get some sanity and stability.
posted by nev at 4:00 PM on March 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
Ditto for security. Checklists or questionnaires are good. "Best ways to share sensitive information/passwords/security keys" "What's a good password policy?" "Does everyone in your tech team know the OWASP Top 10?"
IT staff is subject to burnout. Articles on addressing disaster recovery, monitoring, on-call scheduling, and escalation all help people who feel under water get some sanity and stability.
posted by nev at 4:00 PM on March 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
Compliance and Governance along with Security are perennial topics for a reason. You can explore any new technology or trend (e.g. Cloud, Bring Your Own Device, etc.) through one of those lens.
posted by mmascolino at 7:18 AM on March 3, 2017
posted by mmascolino at 7:18 AM on March 3, 2017
"IT Folks" can cover a wide range of people. It might help to focus on a general area such as development, system administration, networking, security, etc.
I currently do a lot of sysadmin work, and would love articles about effective monitoring, automation, and trends in how new technologies are deployed, managed, and maintained. I'm also very interested in tool and techniques for automating the day to day things so that I can focus on things that actually need attention. I would also love good explanations of the hot new platforms that developers will be using, but will be less interested in how to program for those platforms and much more interested in the high level information on how they work, how they integrate into the environment, and how they are supported.
posted by nalyd at 9:52 AM on March 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
I currently do a lot of sysadmin work, and would love articles about effective monitoring, automation, and trends in how new technologies are deployed, managed, and maintained. I'm also very interested in tool and techniques for automating the day to day things so that I can focus on things that actually need attention. I would also love good explanations of the hot new platforms that developers will be using, but will be less interested in how to program for those platforms and much more interested in the high level information on how they work, how they integrate into the environment, and how they are supported.
posted by nalyd at 9:52 AM on March 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
I've been thinking about your project, and I thought I'd add some comments about what makes an article interesting to the IT crowd.
New information: There's little interest in the same old, same old. Bring something to the table.
Specificity: When everything is top-line, the response is usually "blah, blag, management crap." On the other hand, if you get too deep in the weeds, you lose most of your audience.
Timeliness: Be clear whether you are talking about today's problems or anticipating tomorrow's.
Heros: There are IT guys who are famous, or at least widely known. Like Joel Spolsky. People are interested what they are working on, and what they think about the issues of the day.
One writer who is pretty good at working some specifics in to top-level reporting, and who definitely brings new information is Bruce Schneier who writes on security issues.
Of course the ability to write well is just as important for IT topics as for any other use of the written word.
posted by SemiSalt at 10:57 AM on March 5, 2017
New information: There's little interest in the same old, same old. Bring something to the table.
Specificity: When everything is top-line, the response is usually "blah, blag, management crap." On the other hand, if you get too deep in the weeds, you lose most of your audience.
Timeliness: Be clear whether you are talking about today's problems or anticipating tomorrow's.
Heros: There are IT guys who are famous, or at least widely known. Like Joel Spolsky. People are interested what they are working on, and what they think about the issues of the day.
One writer who is pretty good at working some specifics in to top-level reporting, and who definitely brings new information is Bruce Schneier who writes on security issues.
Of course the ability to write well is just as important for IT topics as for any other use of the written word.
posted by SemiSalt at 10:57 AM on March 5, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:02 AM on March 2, 2017 [1 favorite]