Wow, what an industry we’re in, technical mega-trend after mega-trend. There’s gold in them there trends for the techies that can identify a unique niche, application type or business need, or job opportunity.
These industry-changing trends can be of great career and financial benefit to you, as an individual contributor, IT manager, or even as an IT senior executive. To take professional advantage of these trends, consider the following:
- Do your research and find job openings at companies that you think will grow dramatically because of current industry trends and changes. All ships rise in high tide. If you work for a growing company, chances are that you can grow with it; not to mention the potential value of stock options and stock purchase plans if available.
- If you are at a company you love, try to discover ways that your company can take advantage of new and evolving technologies. This has two advantages for you; first, it can help you become an internal company thought leader, second, using these technologies will enhance your professional marketability.
- If your company is moving toward new technologies, such as implementing AI, try to get involved. It can help establish your role as a participant in the company’s new technical direction. Also, if your company’s plan is to replace older technologies with newer ones, working on these newer technologies could save your job.
- If you are entrepreneurial by nature, your skill set is aligned with one of these new technologies, and your personal situation allows it, now may be the time to try to start your own company on a part-time or full-time basis.
- If you are in an internal IT group, try to align new technologies with the business needs of the groups you support. If you can do it cost effectively, you can provide real value to your business users, IT, and your company in general.
- If you like to write or speak at conferences as a way of enhancing your professional brand, experience and practical knowledge in an up-and-coming technology can help you get published and/or a speaking slot at a professional conference.
Industry changing trends, caused by new software and hardware vendors, new technologies, and new changes in economic conditions, have the potential to generate winners and losers because of its technology shift. Other technologies, such as the cloud and AI, tend to bring immense opportunities with minimum short-term risk to other technologies because they are an “addition to” rather than a “replacement of” type product. In the longer term, however, these “addition to” technologies will, in fact, reduce the demand for other products. For example, virtually no one today buys paper maps because their cell phones have GPS. This change in buying patterns, however, has taken years to form.
How many people five years from now do you think will be saying to themselves or others “Wow, I wish I got involved in AI when it first became popular.”?
Years in the future, don’t be the one saying this about today’s new technologies. Learn about them now and stay involved. If you do, the combination of hard work, backing the right horse, and more than a little good luck, may bring you your desired wealth and professional success.
(First published in ITworld)
