Word comes to us, courtesy of an excellent article in USA Today, that the number of people 55 and older with jobs is projected to hit 28 million – a record.  (American workforce growing grayer, by Dennis Cauchon).

I don’t’ know about you, but I’m not at all surprised.  Beyond reasons stated in the article, such as “better health, longer lives and less physically damaging jobs” there are a couple other phenomena – the article touches on one:  Experience.  So true.  Older workers do, generally as a group, have more experience.  How can they not? 

But there’s something else:  In my own general experience, older workers are more exacting, careful, and prideful (in a good way):  They take pride in their work, and what that work delivers.

I’m a bit older myself, so I run the risk of veering into a zone of “these young whippersnappers today, they just don’t care…”  – and that’s not where I’m trying to go.  What I’d like to reinforce, to the younger audience, is that in order to break into a sluggish job market, with older workers hanging on, you must separate yourself, distinguish yourself, sell yourself – in the interview. 

When I was just out of high school, attending college part-time at night, I was applying for jobs by day.  About all I’d done was physical factory work.  Not a thing wrong with that.  In fact, I dropped a resume off at a large electrical manufacturing firm in order to apply for an opening on their loading dock.  Some kind person – gosh I’d like to thank them properly today – noticed that I had extensive drafting classes in High School and Community College – and HR called and asked if I’d like to be interviewed for an Electrical Draftsman position.  Would I?  

But… why didn’t I think to market myself that way?  Well, I was around 19 years old:  a little too modest, perhaps… a little insecure – and also, I didn’t know a thing about marketing myself –  about blowing my own horn.  But, I won that job, held it, and loved it for about three years before entering the U.S. Army for many, many more experiences.

Blow your horn – be accurate, be modest, but make full exposition for who and what you are. 

Now, recognize that beyond experience, employers like older workers for very specific qualities.  Therefore, if you can convince an employer that you – as a younger worker – possess those same specific qualities, and you qualify in core respects, you’ll win the job:

Emphasize your dependability (and be dependable); emphasize your “results-oriented” mentality; emphasize your ability to work well with others.  I have no empirical measures or surveys handy, but in the course of my consulting, I hear the same laments on the side:  Send me some people who know what it means to get along, to stay focused on results, to come to work on time…

In my time, I’ve hired a lot of people – and fired more than a few.  My hires worked and “stuck to the walls” – that is, they were great employees – I knew what qualities to look for.  Anyone I fired was almost always someone I “inherited.”  Be the person that all hiring managers look to find:  core competencies are almost a given or you wouldn’t be applying for a particular job – but emphasize all the collateral requirements that factor into… not a good employee – but a great one. 

If you were looking for someone you absolutely HAD to depend on – what would you look for?  Then… BE that, and SPEAK to that, when you interview.

NP:  Backdoor Santa – Clarence Carter.  At Starbucks.  What a great R&B track – check it out if you get a chance.

When discussing “Business” and “IT” roles and responsibilities – the Who Does What, Why and When? - we’re trying to position activity according to efficiency: to the arena that is best suited to a particular action by virtue of knowledge, resource, and responsibility.  This facilitates better business. 

In parsing the Business-Technology Weave we find that most of what occurs at the users’ desktops is in the domain of business:  things such as the utilization of your core business software applications: proprietary mission-critical  software such as an AMS, a customer-centric management system, sales and inventory, and so on.  There too is the use of shelf applications (word processing, spreadsheets, presentation graphics, e-mail, etc.) and likely some specialty applications used by everyone (such as content management).  The organization also has specialty applications used by the few (such as payroll, HR applications, laboratory analysis packages, statistical analysis, graphic arts, etc.).  From the context of the Weave, we can think of the main business domain as “the front of the screen.”   This is the utility and potential of the power to be had on the front side of the computer screen at the desktop, as delivered to users. 

Those things that happen “behind the screen” (from the users’ perspective) are in the IT domain:  In no particular order: Internet connectivity, security, server and workstation maintenance, installation/maintenance of software, backup and recovery of data, contracts, service level agreements, and so on and so forth. 

Earlier, in determining where activity belonged, we asked:  “Who is the relevant party that knows, or should know, the ‘business’ of what is under consideration”?  We can now further sharpen our appreciation to who does what and why by asking that identified-party a question.  We can help them understand where the burden of activity truly lies:  “Does this happen on the ‘front side’ or ‘back side’ of the screen?”  Let’s apply this question to a couple items to gain some clarity – one obvious, one not so obvious in terms of where activity belongs:  backup of data and department orientation.   

Backup of data:  Backups happen on the back side of the screen – that is, backup of data should be done by IT and it should be transparent to the user.  You could make the argument that someone dragging and dropping files to a CD for backup is employing a “front screen” process – true.  But this is not a backup scheme appropriate to a comprehensive security of business.  A backup scheme in the Business-Technology Weave context is an automated routine that does not rely on any single individual’s memory or action to achieve or regularize it.  Also, IT has the discipline and fallbacks to ensure coverage of backups.  IT ensures they’re running each night, and checks content of the backups.  No real backup routine or scheme in a business environment should be in one specific user’s hands.  You can make exceptions at your peril or convenience – but true data security relies on a backup that is a “back of the screen” process.  Therefore, when discussing what is recognized as a comprehensive business backup, it is an IT activity.

     Department orientation:  Here we’re referring to a narrow slice of orientation – not a general IT orientation, or the overall HR orientation that a new hire goes through upon in-processing – but rather the hiring department’s orientation of the new hire.  If IT is orienting the new hire to the specifics of your department’s use of software applications, as frequently happens, ask yourself “why?”  Your department’s use of software is a “front of the screen” endeavor.  The organization has people in each department who are much more familiar with that department’s procedures and rules for use.  Have one of the business staff in the department provide this orientation.  An orientation of sorts will happen anyway, in effect, through the new hire’s questions of your other staff.  Avoid duplication of effort by freeing IT in this regard, and posit the activity of familiarization in the business department.  Use of business applications is “front side of the screen.” 

By way of introduction, I’ll bring some observations on my part regarding things I’ve seen over the course of 20+ years – both in the trenches (HelpDesk, network engineering/management, direct project management…) and from “on high” in senior executive management, and how I turned those observations toward better business and IT practices. Further, the observations are common to all sorts of environments: public and private, Fortune 500, government, non/not-for-profit, sole-proprietorships and even personal computing. These observations concern the divide between the necessary business of getting things done and the technical supports that enable and sustain that business.

In the middle is the usual politics: user fears; board, management and budget influences; time constraints; costly mistakes; the struggle with vendors and solutions providers; and anything else that whisks us away from our initial expectations, and our carefully crafted projects, timelines and deliveries.

In other words, situations are often inefficient at best, broken at worst. It is a challenge, and ever more so in today’s quickening environment. Even in the best of these, there is always room for improvement – with attendant rewards. Our goal is to make careers and business more secure, more efficient, and more satisfying – while delivering ever greater returns to business, clients, and customers. Whether you’re “Business” or “IT”, you want optimal returns on your investments: Dollars, efforts, and teamwork.

Business and technology are interwoven today. Remove technical supports, and business may sustain 5% productivity. Therefore, here in The Business-Technology Weave, we’ll do three critical things: We will close divides, we will direct purpose, and we will achieve results.

In following the “rule of threes,” we’ll also consider three essential organizations out there:

1) The organization that “doesn’t get it” and likely won’t in terms of creating and sustaining a valid eCulture. They’ll be history.

2) Organizations that do get it, and are “there.” These organizations need to remember (particularly during change of key personnel, and during the stress of large-scale IT and business change) that there’s always room for improvement. Best practices must be maintained and maneuvered into the future. New practices will emerge.

And 3) Organizations that aren’t yet there, but are open to and even questing for a modern eCulture. This may well be the bulk of organizations out there, and you just might reap some nice bonuses for ideas and deliveries of new and better ways of looking at things. Who among us cannot use some accolades for achieving things, sustaining best practices, best progressions, and better business?

A final thought: This is the IT Knowledge Exchange, and the majority of readers are likely “IT.” However, in helping “business” (non-IT) people to help you (IT), it is our goal to craft this forum such that your business people can come here, learn, and better interface with you. Please point them here when relevant topics are discussed. This just might be the forum they’ve needed for a long time, even as they didn’t realize that need.

Welcome aboard! And in the next days, we’ll get down to the business of better business.

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