1. Look Around: The Idea Economy Is Here

By Rod Knowles

Several weeks ago, as I was engulfed in watching yet another exhausting and ludicrous presidential debate, I was wondering why I wasn’t watching re-runs of “Beverly Hills 90210.”

My kids, on the other hand, were clueless. They were involved in a lengthy, unfathomable and meaningless conversation. If you have kids, then you already know they weren’t actually talking to each other – they were communicating through their mobile devices. They successfully had a 90-minute conversation without any dialogue, whatsoever. The only people talking in the room were Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, which sounded to me more like Mrs. Donovan – Charlie Brown’s teacher.

It was then that it became apparent that my kids might never actually talk to each other, as long as brilliant minds continue creating mobile interaction applications. SnapChat, Twitter, TeleGram and Wickr are just a few that they use. My children relentlessly add and remove applications faster than anything I have ever witnessed. They also don’t seem to have any patience in dealing with applications that are slow, buggy and/or just don’t work. Whether it be their iPhones, tablets, laptops, whatever, it really doesn’t matter, they are consistently looking for the latest, cool app they can use and share with their circle of friends.

It’s here, the Idea Economy. 

Some experts would say that change is coming; I believe it’s already here. Businesses must evolve and adapt, or they will perish similar to 8-track tapes and the bubble gum that used to come in my Topps baseball card pack. 

Some businesses are already adapting. They have realized that its not enough to just take an idea and turn it into a product or service: They must be faster than their competition to be successful. 

Others still face development and IT operational challenges. The inability to develop, secure, deploy, monitor and maintain a quality application is becoming more difficult as consumers want things faster. Time is the biggest enemy companies face today. 

Moving faster and staying ahead of the competition necessitates several changes to traditional IT organizations:

• Instituting practices that emphasize collaboration and communication between developers and other IT professionals while automating the process of software delivery and infrastructure changes (DevOps).
•  Efficiently scaling and managing resources while ensuring industry-leading availability and redundancy through the use of server virtualization technology.
• Increasing the frequency of software releases through continuous integration and continuous deployment while reducing operational and capital expenditures by containerizing your applications.

Today, almost all businesses are software companies. Applications, including mobile, are becoming more critical for almost any business to succeed and stay ahead of its competitors. If your application fails, so does your business. 

But what does that mean in your day-to-day world? Stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog.

Rod Knowles is a solutions architect at Convergent Technologies Group.

CTG Promoting Career Growth for Women in IT

By Alexandra Suder and Caylor Feeley

The biggest take-away from CTG’s participation in the RVATech/Women conference last week? Women are empowered to drive career growth in our IT industry.

Courtney Ferrell, the master of ceremonies, began the all-day event at the Science Museum of Virginia with an encouraging perspective on the creativity needed in the technology industry. She pushed the idea of finding inspiration, away from the desk and with the community. Ferrell reminded the attendees of the importance of women involving themselves within the community groups of: Richmond, other women, and the technology industry. 

                

The five keynote speakers brought strong records of success in technology. Throughout the Oct. 6 event, each shared a different perspective on the power of women in the technology community – with the lessons including:

• Yvonne Wassenaar, CIO of New Relic: Women must overcome personal fear to reach the fullest career potential in the tech industry. She encouraged the presence of more women leaders in the industry, as the current state of women leaders is caused by a perception problem.
• Laishy Williams-Carlson, CIO of Bon Secours Health System: With her experience in changing careers, Williams-Carlson encouraged all women to create and know their own personal career brand.
• Jocelyn Mangan, Chief Product and Marketing Officer of Snagajob: Mangan encouraged women to see value in every aspect of their career, to push past judgements that often follow them as they make career decisions, and to always love their job.
• Joey Rosenberg, representing Women Who Code: Breaking news from Rosenberg was that Women Who Code has officially been established in Richmond. Throughout her presentation, she encouraged women to applaud other women as they tackle the male-dominated industry of technology. Rosenberg gave CTG a shout out during her presentation because half of our company’s employees are women!
• Dr. Karen Rheuban, M.D., professor of pediatrics at University of Virginia. She shared with us the exciting innovations in technology that allow for telemedicine.

Our CTG employees attended different breakout sessions. One session focused on building ideas in a real-world setting through the use of Legos, while creating an environment that opened the mind to ideas and communication. The second session introduced the concept of intrapreneurship and how to use this concept in the workplace, where you act as an entrepreneur within the enterprise. The final breakout session explored the changing world of virtual reality and augmented reality, with a look at privacy concerns and how the VR/AR affects the technology, business and personal spheres.

We and our female colleagues are inspired and motivated by what we learned at this year’s RVATech/Women conference – and we’re looking forward to doing our part to continue to build empowering communities within the technology industry. With an understanding of community comes inspiration and with inspiration comes innovation. Keep your eyes and ears open!

Alexandra Suder and Caylor Feeley run CTG’s marketing department.