Episode Summary

iland Director of Cloud Market Intelligence Brian Knudtson is joined by guests Jack Bailey, Amy Colyer, and Emad Younis for a conversation around the concerns customers have with their employee’s skillsets when moving to the cloud. They discuss the legitimacy of this concern, what clouds, if any, reduce the burden of having to retrain your team, and the best advice for building a cloud-conducive skillset. Warning: This episode contains content that is highly inspirational. Change is a constant — embrace it!

Panel

Cloud Conversations

Topic 1

[02:39] Is this a legit concern IT professionals should have? Should IT professionals fear not having the right skillsets when moving to the cloud?

Topic 2

[08:45] It seems to me that most of the fear comes from having to retrain an entire IT team, so are there clouds that customers should consider that would take advantage of their existing skillsets?

Topic 3

[16:05] If you were to advise an IT professional on how they can build skillsets that will lead to success in the cloud, what would you include in that advice?

Cloud Bites

[01:26] “You are your advocate, and you have to basically advocate for yourself in regards to growing your skillsets and taking those to the next level.” — Emad Younis

[03:27] “Change is a constant, right? It is the only constant. And in IT, I think it’s more so than any other industry I can think of.” — Jack Bailey 

[06:30] “There are some things that I do to my day-to-day that I no longer have to take care of, for example, rack and stack and cabling. That’s no longer something I need to do. And now I can take that time back and leverage that to actually invest in newer skillsets.” — Emad Younis 

[07:14] “I think you shouldn’t be scared. I think you should embrace it more and think of ways that it can actually help your career.” — Emad Younis

[08:04] “You don’t have to be an early adopter, but just open to change and which I always thought was the exciting part of being in IT, like my job’s never going to get boring. I don’t want to sit and push the same button every day.” — Amy Colyer

[08:34] “You’re never going to be out of a job if you continue to adopt the technology for our newer problems and the newer technology that we can use to resolve them.” — Amy Colyer

[10:16] “They want to know, ‘Am I saving money right away?’ It’s like, well, no, but we’re going to do things maybe more efficiently, or we only need three of us to focus on this now. We can have the other two do something new, work on a new project versus, again, no one’s losing their job.” — Amy Colyer

[12:18] “You as the customer know your environment well enough, so you have a lot of input in how to get to the cloud.” — Emad Younis

[14:37] “They do need to factor skillsets as part of that into it. Right. I don’t want to say that an organization needs to fear training employees. They need to embrace it.” — Jack Bailey

[19:47] “A wise man once told me to carve out, like, let’s say 20 percent of my time of my day for learning new skills, like don’t just do your job, but also learn new things.” — Amy Colyer

[20:28] “Whatever you want to learn, it is out there. Someone’s blogging about it or there’s a meetup.” — Amy Colyer

[22:50] “Finding a project or purpose or something that inspires you to begin that journey for learning is one of the biggest things I suggest as well.” — Jack Bailey  

[25:34] “All the effort and time that I’ve invested in myself. It’s paid itself 100 times forward, not only in my career but for my family and things like that. So never be afraid to do that for yourself.” — Emad Younis