About Eric Bloom

Executive Director IT Management and Leadership Institute

Stay Technical or Become an IT Manager: 10 Things to Consider

Dear Eric, I was just offered a promotion from programmer to IT manager. It feels wonderful to be asked, but I’m not sure I want to take it. Any thoughts on what I should do? Techies go to college and/or technical schools to become technical professionals. It may be as a software developer, help desk technician, social media guru, data communication specialist, website designer, or in other technical area. Then, one day, because of the great technical work you do, your boss says they want to talk to you in his/her office and says the following: Hi (your name goes here), you have done great work over the past couple of years and have shown some great leadership qualities. I would like to promote you to a new job that: You didn’t go to school to learn Will cause your technical skills to decline Your current job skills are not really transferable to help you in this new position You have no training on many aspects of the job The job is open because about a year ago I promoted someone else into the job, with skills very similar to yours, who couldn’t do the job, and had to be fired. Welcome to management! All that said, being an IT Manager is a great job for the right person. I personally loved being in IT management roles. I found it to be creative, interesting, challenging, and rewarding. IT Management, however, is not for everyone. The question is, “is it for you?” Here [...]

By |2026-07-28T15:38:48+00:00July 28th, 2026|
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Why Data Governance Is the Foundation Your AI Strategy Can’t Afford to Skip

Before your organization can unlock AI's potential, whether through predictive analytics, intelligent automation, or generative AI assistants, it needs a data governance framework that is fit for purpose. Not a theoretical governance charter that lives in a SharePoint folder, but an operational discipline that ensures data is accurate, accessible, traceable, and trustworthy. This is the work that separates organizations that successfully scale AI from those stuck in perpetual pilot purgatory. The AI readiness gap nobody talks about When AI initiatives stall or fail, the post-mortems rarely point to algorithm shortcomings. They point to data. Inconsistent formats across business units. Duplicate customer records that have never been reconciled. Critical fields that are populated with whatever kept the form from throwing an error. Shadow IT systems generating data that never makes it into enterprise repositories. AI models trained on dirty, incomplete, or biased data don't just underperform, they confidently produce wrong answers at scale. For IT leaders, this means a failed AI deployment isn't just a technology embarrassment; it's a business risk that can erode trust in both IT and the organization's data assets for years. Data governance closes this gap by establishing the policies, processes, and accountabilities that keep data reliable over time, not just at the moment a project launches. Four governance pillars that enable AI at scale  Data cataloging and lineage AI systems need to know not just what data exists, but where it came from and how it has been transformed. A well-maintained data catalog, augmented with lineage tracking, gives [...]

By |2026-07-21T22:40:59+00:00July 21st, 2026|
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From Oversight to Ownership: How IT Leaders Must Evolve for the AI Era

From Oversight to Ownership: How IT Leaders Must Evolve for the AI Era As we have all heard or said "Nothing in IT is constant but change" or "AI won't take your job, people who know AI will take your job". This is doubly true for IT leaders. AI is not a future-state concern for IT departments, it's here, it's accelerating, and it's exposing a critical gap in leadership readiness. Imagine that your organization deployed an AI-powered inventory forecasting system, and the project ran into trouble, not because the technology failed, but because the IT Director overseeing it lacked the fluency to identify when the model's outputs were drifting from reality. By the time the issue surfaced, six weeks of flawed inventory decisions had already cost the business millions. The technology worked, but the organization’s leadership wasn't ready. This type of scenario underscores an uncomfortable truth: the skills that made IT Managers and Directors effective in the age of cloud migration, cybersecurity frameworks, and agile delivery are necessary but no longer sufficient. AI demands a different kind of leadership. The skills gap is real and widening This skills gap isn't primarily technical, most IT leaders aren't expected to train large language models or architect neural networks. The gap is strategic and interpretive: understanding how AI systems make decisions, where they fail, and how to build governance structures that keep humans meaningfully in the loop Three specific skill deficits are emerging most acutely among IT Managers and IT Directors. AI literacy and model [...]

By |2026-07-07T20:00:04+00:00July 7th, 2026|
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8 Ways to provide great IT client service

I’m the IT Help Desk Manager.  My team gets very high ratings for our technical ability to solve user issues, but our overall client service ratings are extremely low. Any thoughts on what could be causing this issue? Great IT Client service is much more than just fixing someone’s PC, writing the software they specifically request, flawlessly executing nightly production, providing a stable general computing environment, or as in your case, providing quality technical support.  These are, of course, incredibly important and the basis of IT’s value to the organization, but they are not the whole story. As doctors are judged on their ability to interact with the patients, not just on their medical expertise, IT professionals are judged on their ability to interact with their business partners, not simply on their ability to perform a technical task.  Yes, when an employee calls the user help desk, their primary goal is to solve their technical problem not to interact with a charming conversationalist, but that by no means diminishes the importance that client interaction plays in overall client satisfaction. That said, as technical professionals we obviously must get the job done on time, with high quality and within our budget.  This is job #1.  Your additional ability to appropriately interact with those you serve, however, will change your client’s experience from good to great. The following soft-skill-based client interactions will help your team provide great service. Clear communication: The concept of clear communication has many aspects and could be a series of [...]

By |2026-01-06T15:14:05+00:00January 6th, 2026|
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7 advantages of knowing your manager’s constraints and limitations

When I was an individual contributor, I couldn’t wait to be a manager so I would be in a position to make all of the decisions for my department.  I thought I had some great ideas and really wanted to make a positive impact in my department and for the company. Then, when I became a manager, I realized that most of my annual budget was fixed and that all of my decisions of consequence, such as hiring people, giving promotions and staff assignments required the review and approval of my manager. So guess what?  I couldn’t wait to have my boss’s job because I thought when I was a manager of managers I would at last be in a position to make all of the decisions for the groups I managed.  Well, while it was true that I had a little more latitude to make decisions, I again found that most of my budget was still controlled by those above me and like before, needed permission from those more senior than I when making important decisions for the company. After all, even at this higher level of management, I still had a boss and I still had specific and defined levels of authority.  In fact, I found this to be true at almost all levels of management. The moral of this story is that you should understand, that like you, your manager has specific constraints within their job, limited decision-making authority, and limited ability to influence higher level decision makers. Understanding [...]

By |2025-09-23T12:30:57+00:00September 23rd, 2025|
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Your friends come and go, but your enemies accumulate

My first boss gave me a great piece of advice, which in all honesty, I didn’t really understand for many years. I’m a techie by education and profession, and he told me that after a while, it will feel like there are only 250 techies in the Boston area and that they cycle from company to company, so be good to the people, chances are you’ll see them again.  I smiled at him, thanked him for his advice, thought this was easy advice for me to follow because I’m friendly by nature, and had no idea whatsoever what he was talking about.  Well, he was right. Regardless of your chosen profession or the industry you work in, sooner or later it is going to start to feel like a very small world. This is particularly so if you are a manager or senior executive and interact with a larger volume of people.  This is because, over time, people change companies, meet at conferences, are vendors, customers, or sub-contractors of each other, and so on.  As a result, after a while, you can look at almost anyone’s resume and know someone who either currently works or previously worked at one or more of the companies listed on the resume.  Additionally, LinkedIn and other social media sites make this prospect even more inevitable. Ok, now let’s talk about you. How many people do you know or know you from: College Companies where you have worked Organizations where you have volunteered Civic or religious organizations [...]

By |2025-07-15T12:06:45+00:00July 15th, 2025|
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Being a player-coach in the workplace

In the business world, a player/coach is an employee whose job description requires him/her to perform a combination of individual contributor and supervisory activities.  That is to say, you perform some hands-on tasks that are the same as the people who report to you. The role of player-coach is one of the hardest job types in business.  Some of the reasons for this difficulty are: Your time is divided between two very different responsibilities When a person’s job description and business tasks are divided between two roles, it’s very hard to do both well.  What generally happens is that each of the task types, in reality, require more than 50% of your time. Therefore, any time spent on one task, reduces the time needed to do well at the other.  From a player-coach perspective, this means if you spend too much time helping and supervising your staff you can’t get your work done. Alternatively, if you spend too much time on your individual tasks, you can’t properly manage your team. To be successful in this role requires two very different skill sets If you are a techie, a construction worker, a teacher, a nurse, or almost any other professional, the skills you are trained to perform are very different than the skill set needed to properly manage a team.  Since both skill sets are required to be successful in a player-coach role, weak skills in either area can put your entire job in jeopardy. Your team heavily scrutinized your delegation decisions As [...]

By |2025-06-24T13:17:12+00:00June 24th, 2025|
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Your current technology skill set has a two-year half-life

As a manager, if you lead, hire or work with techies or other knowledge workers heavily dependent on software technology, in my opinion, their technology-based skill set, from a marketability perspective, has a two year half-life. That is to say, that the exact set of skills they have today will only be half as marketable two years from now. The reason that the marketability of technical skills degrade so quickly is because technology, like time, marches forward.  Software companies continually update their applications.  Hardware vendors upgrade their hardware and software control systems on an on-going basis. Also, technology oriented mega-trends like cloud computing and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are continually driving and transforming the technology industry. The factors related to using software applications are somewhat different than those related to base programming technologies like Python.  This half-life could be dramatically shorter or longer based on the specific technology and current innovation activities within that technology. That said, the basic concept is the same. I have managed technical teams for almost all of my professional life and over time, learned that one of the best ways to motivate and retain my top performers was to keep them marketable. I would tell these top performers that I wanted to keep them as marketable as possible so they could leave any time they wanted.  Most of them would then pause; look confused, and ask me if I wanted them to leave. I would say no, you do great work and I never want you to leave. [...]

By |2025-06-17T13:22:41+00:00June 17th, 2025|
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8 Steps on how to talk benefits, not features

When I tell my business users about new features we have added to their software, their eyes glaze over and they don’t pay attention.  This really makes me mad.  What should I do so they will listen to me? As technologists, we love technology, particularly technology that we personally created.  This is often not the case for the business users that we serve, even if they are a techie-want-to-be or were involved in defining the business requirements.  These business users, as they should, look at technology as a tool to perform their daily tasks.  That is to say, they look at technology as a means to an end, not an end in itself. To your question, if you would like your business users to engage with you about the software you have written on their behalf, describe what you have done based on business value, business benefits, and how the software will make their jobs easier.  In effect, don’t try to bring them into your world, you should step into their world, thus describing what you have done using their terminology and perspective, not yours. As an x-software developer by profession, I would write half a dozen lines of working code and want to show it to someone.  I would do this not to brag about what I had done, I did this because I loved technology and wanted to share what I did with others.  Truth be told, I’m still the same way.  I’m the primary architect and developer of the [...]

By |2025-06-03T21:06:13+00:00June 3rd, 2025|
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10 Steps to becoming an internal IT consultant

I’m tired of feeling like an order taker for the business group I support.  How do I get them to ask me what’s needed, not just tell me what to do and what applications to implement? The short answer to your question is to begin moving toward being an internal consultant, rather than simply a technical resource.  The long answer to your question is the remainder of this post. My advice to you is to be proactive with your business users, not just reactive.  That is to say, slowly move toward suggesting innovative business solutions related to the technology you provide.  Then, over time, as your business users begin to appreciate the value of your suggestions, they will begin to come to you as a problem solver, not as just a solution provider. Moving to a proactive role and being seen as such, by its nature, is not an easy task.  To make this transformation, consider the following steps: Gain a deep understanding of the work performed by the group you support. What do they do? How do they do it? Why do they do it that way? What issues do they have that could potentially be solved using technology? How comfortable are they with using technology? What challenges and issues exist related to change? How do other companies in your industry perform similar tasks? Understand what processes, support, and project work your group (not just you personally) is currently providing to your user base. Ask yourself what technology exists within your [...]

By |2025-05-13T14:42:23+00:00May 13th, 2025|
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