CompTIA Blog

"The evidence keeps growing that career academies work," says Andrew Rothstein, special advisor on educational policy at the National Academy Foundation (NAF), a non-profit that supports a national network of 60,000 students in 469 academies, including some of Florida's IT career academies. NAF works with school districts to develop the career academies in general and often provides technical assistance to support non-NAF academies. According to the NAF: In 2011, 97% of NAF seniors graduated fr ...

Three key milestones that either occurred recently or are expected soon will shape the future of communications technology.First, the number of mobile devices that connect to the Internet now exceeds the number of PCs connected to the ‘net, which is a reflection of our increasingly mobile society.Second, the age of Big Data is here. The Washington Post recently reported that we have exceeded our computing capacity beyond the exabyte. According to TechTerms.com, the exabyte is a “unit of measurem ...

A broad swath of topics was covered at the Southern California TechVoice Chapter meeting on December 14 in Newport Beach, CA. This post-election analysis and forum was co-hosted by CompTIA’s Southern California TechVoice partner, the Orange County Tech Alliance. I was privileged to participate in a panel with California state assemblyman Don Wagner and Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse Unruh Institute of Political Science at the University of Southern California. Tim Jemal of Jemal Public Affair ...

Heading into 2013, three key tech policy issues to watch will be immigration, online sales taxes and cybersecurity, said Politico. While Congressional leaders debate the merits of allowing more students with advanced degrees to stay in the U.S., they will also be taking a closer look at online tax laws for companies of all sizes and coming to terms on cybersecurity legislation to protect our nation’s critical infrastructure.While small business advocacy groups have been pleading with Congress to ...

The IT community is rich with career opportunities, despite dismal overall job growth projections and many companies continuing to struggle with economic challenges. There seems to be no shortage of open positions in IT for the properly prepared individual, whether their skills are more technology-oriented or focused on the business side. As the business community relies more and more on IT to run and improve their operations, demand for qualified and trainable professionals will continue to gro ...

This month, CompTIA welcomes 104 U.K.-based solution provider organizations to its membership fold – a direct result of our recent merger with Accredit UK. These highly skilled and qualified information and communications technology (ICT) professionals all have one thing in common; their organizations have undergone a rigorous audit and assessment of their technical and business practices and have achieved the highest standards of operation, marked by their Accredit UK credential.I have had the ...

Takeaway of the week is really a fresh set of takes on some old, established takeaways, such as "certifications are valuable difference makers in the IT job market" or "healthcare IT continues to grow and evolve" and then there's the "IT job market remains strong into 2013." Oldies, but goodies. Certifiable Difference Makers Everything is taken into consideration in a competitive IT job market and some certifications more so than others, according to a well-known industry recruitment firm. As ...

President Barack Obama and his administration are attempting to protect billions of dollars in R&D aid from sweeping budget cuts, said Politico Pro. In addition to meeting with recipients of R&D aid in the science and technology sectors, Obama said in a Twitter live chat last week that the administration is looking to defend its aid budget while offering cuts from alternative areas.The Obama administration’s proposal to tax high income earners would hit about 940,000 people who report bu ...

Writing well is a critical skill for IT professionals who have to convey technical information to technical and non-technical people. "The better you can communicate your message in ways that other people understand, the more likely you are to succeed in whatever you are trying to do," says James Chartrand, founder of Damn Fine Words, an online writing course for business people. Do you find yourself repeatedly frustrated because people misunderstand your emails, or fail to take the right act ...

A long-awaited provision that will benefit woman-owned small businesses seeking federal government contract opportunities is included in amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (S. 3254), which passed the Senate on Dec. 4. CompTIA has actively advocated for this fix, which will correct an anomaly in this federal program.The Women-Owned Small Business Federal Contract Program sets aside five percent of federal prime and subcontracts for women-owned small businesses. Under the current ...

The biggest obstacle those building new businesses or practices face is not their creation and launch. No, the most daunting issue new business owners struggle with is how to manage and perfect their back office operations. Upfront costs and planned expenses are much easier to project on paper than when the doors are open and the organization is in full swing.That’s especially true in a managed services business. Few IT professionals have the financial and general management training or experien ...

Takeaway of the week is you never know what to believe when it comes to industry reports, findings, statistics or surveys. One set of industry reports and findings might say the IT salaries are on the rise and the next week a new slew of fact and figures come out to counter those claims. The one constant seems to be that IT jobs remain a steady mover in a still stagnant economy. IT Sector Value Up, Wages Not So Much The increasing value of IT departments in the overall success of businesses has ...

President Barack Obama and Congressional lawmakers haven’t emphasized a variety of educational options – namely technical training – to solve our nation’s workforce shortage, said the National Journal. The hardest jobs to fill in our country, which includes IT positions, don’t require traditional four-year degrees, yet legislation that promotes these opportunities is lacking.The House of Representatives passed a bill last week that would grant more visas to those who graduate with advanced degre ...

In today’s economic environment, IT organizations have to continually reassess the way they do business, making necessary changes to best serve their clients and stay ahead of their rivals. With the rapid advances in technology and delivery systems, the challenges here are escalating more quickly than the opportunities they bring, making staffing service desks and properly training employees a particularly difficult task.Can an IT services company afford to run its operations the same way today ...

Nellie Scott Working in the IT services industry for 17 years, Nellie Scott has relied on her personal philosophy of "Nothing happens in an organization until somebody sells something to somebody." In her role as channel services business manager at Lenovo, Scott is responsible for driving revenue by supporting business partners in the United States and Canada through sales and marketing campaigns. Lenovo is a $21 billion personal technology company and the world's second largest PC vendo ...