information technology

Overheard: Who earns the most money in IT?

I guess that if you want to earn more than $200,000 a year and work in IT, you’d better be a CIO. Too bad it’s a job position that Nicholas Carr thinks is going to go away.

Robert Half Technology has predicted the top 10 salaries for IT jobs in 2008. (Reprinted with permission.)

According to the press release for the 2008 salary guide: (which is an interesting read, of and by itself) “Information technology (IT) professionals in the United States can expect starting salaries to increase an average of 5.3 percent in 2008. Larger increases in base compensation are expected in high-demand segments such as applications and web development, network management, and database administration.”

The annual salary survey is based on an in-depth analysis of the thousands of job placements managed by the company’s U.S. offices. Robert Half Technology is a leading provider of IT professionals on a project and full-time basis.

After looking at the survey, I think I want to be a security auditor when I grow up. It sounds important. Or maybe I’ll be a messenging administrator — kind of an air traffic controller for corporate communications. Those are both new jobs that didn’t exist five years ago.

Overheard: What other industry calls the people they work with “users”?

“As has often been noted, there are only two industries that refer to their customers as users: high tech and illegal drugs.” Jimmy Guterman, Don’t Call Me a User!

Overheard - Influencing “The New Influencers”

Who says the blogosphere is nothing but a hall of mirrors?

“Peggy Rouse of whatis.com read the entire draft and provided me with valuable feedback, particularly some early advice that led me to completely restructure the order of the chapters. Her team also wrote the book’s glossary. Whatis.com was Wikipedia a decade before there was a Wikipedia. It is still an incredibly valuable source of technology knowledge.” Paul Gillin, The New Influencers / acknowledgements

From the Wall Street Journal review: Some two in five Internet users in the U.S. read blogs, according to a 2006 Pew survey, giving citizen-commentators the potential for more influence than ever.

How, then, should companies deal with the world of blogs, as well as podcasts, social-network sites such as Facebook and other “social media”?

That question is at the center of “The New Influencers,” written by former Computerworld editor Paul Gillin.