This is a summary view of the points

• Ask a Question: 5 Knowledge Points
• Answering a Question: 15 Knowledge Points
• Discussing a Question: 10 Knowledge Points
• Accepting an Answer: 10 Knowledge Points – approve an answer a fellow member has give to your question

The more you exchange knowledge the more you earn. Their new rewarding system pays going forward and also retrospective. So if you have been active look for emails from them. If you have not been active this is the time to really look at how you can participate. More information can be found at

http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itanswers/earning-badges-pays-off-literally/

http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itke-community-blog/earning-badges-pays-off-today/

From here on out, prizes will be as follows:

• Bronze Member Badge: Sticker and ITKnowledgeExchange t-shirt
• Silver Member Badge: $25 Amazon.com Gift Card
• Gold Member Badge: $50 Amazon.com Gift Card
• Platinum Member Badge: $100 Amazon.com Gift Card
• Nerd Cog: $10 Amazon.com Gift Card
• Genius Cog: $25 Amazon.com Gift Card
• Brainiac Cog: $50 Amazon.com Gift Card
• Certified Nerd Cog: $10 Amazon.com Gift Card
• Certified Genius Cog: $25 Amazon.com Gift Card
• Certified Brainiac Cog: $50 Amazon.com Gift Card

Fellow ITKE members here is the time to start getting active in asking or answering questions.

Where do you see yourself in another 10 years?

I still see myself consulting and managing our IT consulting company. It’s not just a job to me but a passion, I love the IT industry. I’ve been working in it since the days of DOS.

Name your favorite IT book.

That is a tough one for me. You see I only read IT books as related to certifications and work, so most of them are reference manuals etc. Most of the books I read at leisure are science fiction or fantasy based. So I would have to say I don’t have one.

Who is your hero?

My father. His hard work, intelligence, honor, loyalty and dedication to his family and his work his entire life has provided me the perfect role model and i have tried to model myself after him my entire life. He is the kind of man that easily gains the respect of those around him, and he is the one who got me interested in computers in the first place. He’s in the medical field (retired now), but he has always been a computer hobbyist.

What do you do when you are not working?

I spend time with my family (wife and two kids) and my friends. 

What is a skill or strength that sets you apart from others?

My leadership and communication abilities. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told by others. I am not your stereotypical computer geek that you would place in a basement somewhere with his red stapler. I’ve always been a person who is at home speaking in front of large crowds, or at client meetings, and leading teams of co-workers through many projects. I used to teach at the local university so I am quite at home in front of an audience.

What (or who) inspires you?

My father once again, for all the reasons stated before. Also my wife Carrie. She is a super mom. My job brings with it long hours, and if it weren’t for my wife I don’t know how I would survive. The way she works full time, goes to school in the evenings and weekends, and raises our two kids inspires me. She is absolutely amazing and I count myself lucky to be married to her.

What are some lessons you have learned about IT industry that you wish you had known long ago or you wish someone had told you about?

Well here’s two lessons I’ve learned in the IT consulting industry – “If it’s not tested the way a customer will use it, then it doesn’t work.” It’s surprising how many consultants don’t test things they end up recommending to their customers. This is a recipe for disaster. You should always test out your solutions. The second lesson is “Fix the problem, not the blame.” This means, when faced with a disaster, worry about getting things up and running first, don’t worry about pointing fingers and blame. After things are up and running, then you will have plenty of time to investigate who was to blame. It’s all about making sure your customers systems are up and running and working well so they are productive.

Cloud is the buzz word in the software development industry. Are you in the cloud yet?

Absolutely. It’s funny this word “cloud”, everyone is talking about it but everyone has a different description of what it means. Their is the private cloud and public cloud. At our company we are constantly speaking of the virtues of the cloud to our customers.   

What are some of the biggest changes you notice in IT industry today from how things used to be when you started working in IT?

I would say some of the biggest changes in the IT industry revolve around the cloud, virtualization, and outsourcing. When I first started in IT, these were all things that were completely out of the picture. These days it’s very common for support to be outsourced to other countries, and for businesses to place their IT infrastructure in the cloud. A big part of all of this is virtualization which has enabled businesses to easily consolidate their IT infrastructure into the cloud. 

Quality – what is your definition or understanding?

Quality to me, is the ability to provide a product or service to a customer that not only meets their expectations but exceeds it in features, reliability, and support.

What is one technology that you adopted in 2010/2011 that you love? Would it be hard for you to give it up?

The iPhone 4. I use to be an avid BlackBerry user. I’ve been using them since the very first one came out. I have owned every single model of BlackBerry out there. But once I bought an iPhone 4, I never looked back. It’s amazing how it completely changed the way I work. It is just so easy to use, and makes my work day go that much smoother. I don’t think I could ever give it up, except maybe for an iPhone 5.

“…these types of innovations call into question whether we are using technology to add value on behalf of the consumer or simply doing it because we can.”

I had done a piece on complexity of technology a while back and had talked about how we can complicate or add value to products. Continuing on the same line of thoughts I like how this author talks about what does adding everything we can to a product really do to the product. Is it advancement or are we overkilling it. By adding more and more we can complicating even the smallest of the technology. The more we add, the more risk there is of things falling apart.

He talks about “…prediction that by 2016, 62.3 million global consumers will have Internet access in their cars.”Hmmm so we have a cell phone which has Internet, we carry Ipad/laptops which have Internet what more would we want to be able to do in the time we are driving from place A to place B. I am sure there could be one or two emergencies like needing to find a gas station, car breaks down and we need a mechanic, etc. Isn’t cell phone good enough? Maybe its just me and I don’t get it.

Who drives innovation – consumers and their needs or products and its need to stand out?

How come companies are not spending half of the money into making good products? Toyota and its problems is just an example of where they were growing too fast for their own good and messed up the one thing they were known for – reliability. If we cant rely on a good car what good is Internet, high end navigation, satellite radio and heated seats. I wont complain about the heated seats in Minnesota winter so I should take that back. See how I am ready to take the heated seat as a input to make decisions to buy a car. 10 or 15 years ago I wouldn’t have worried about it. But its the car companies that created that need for me and now I want it as a necessity. Same is applicable to any product. Some things turn from luxury to necessity over time.

I think consumer need and product innovation are in a never ending circle.

What do you think drives innovation? Care to share your thought?

P.S I will do a book review once I complete the book but I like what I have read so far. Would definitely recommend this to anyone who is involved in software development irrespective of their role in the team.

What do I think about it? I don’t know I have an open mind to change and this is a change that was inevitable. Facebook started small and expanded to limits that no one would have guess a decade ago. SecondMarket(an online trading marketplace) published a report stating that Facebook is currently worth $41 billion. So it was just matter of time before they tapped into the email market which is what made google really big (193.3 million users).

Email (unnamed service – which is a very smart move to begin with) well its a term they want to redefine – one stop shop for email/messaging/chat. The founder Mark Zuckerberg calls this the “convergent modern messaging system.” Will this replace emails completely. No I don’t think so. People might be spectacle to move here completelybut am sure there are some who will jump into the wagon sooner than the others. Will this replace my yahoo, hotmail or GMail emails… well GMail replaced my yahoo and hotmail already. So it will have to be pretty big to make me completely change from GMail to facemail.

Anyone out there who has an invite, would love to hear from you and also wont mind getting an invite.