I.T just got sexy??

DBourne · 08-08-2007, 09:23 AM

i found this article really humourous. I love Billy's reasons for getting a model to work for MS. haha.

quoted from ninemsn.com.au

Quote:

McNaught fronts sexy IT campaign
Wednesday Aug 8 05:00 AEST
By ninemsn staff

For many, it's a rare occurrence — the words "sexy" and "IT" in the same sentence.

But with the help of former Miss Australia Erin McNaught, Microsoft is out to show teenagers that IT careers have gone from "geek to chic".

The 25-year-old bombshell, who hosts gaming and gadget show Cyber Shack on Channel 10, has been chosen as the poster girl for a new campaign aimed at encouraging young people into the computer industry.

Although McNaught admits she is no computer whiz, Microsoft human resources director Rose Clements believes she will make "a great role model" for would-be IT students.

A 38 percent drop in university enrolments in IT courses in the past two years reflects a view among young people that it was "not one of the sexier professions", according to Ms Clements.

McNaught kicked off the campaign yesterday on the Gold Coast during a student day at Microsoft and the Australian Information Industry Association's annual technical education conference.

The model, who dropped out of the Queensland University of Technology to pursue her fashion career, said she most enjoyed the gaming and gadget side of the computer industry.

ninemsn is a 50-50 joint venture between Microsoft and PBL Media.

Hunter · 08-08-2007, 09:35 AM

LOL 'admit she is no computer whiz" ??? I am surprised she even has enough brain power to tie her own shoes in the morning.

Why not get someone with some brains and looks to be the role model???

Quasi · 08-08-2007, 09:37 AM

The problem with the IT industry is that it's already to image driven, what clothes you wear.....what car you drive.....what bits of paper you have on your wall.....what suburb you live in.....and this is only going to make it worse.

I remember when what you know, and how good you are at your job, were the most important things. Over the last few years the IT industry has become a plastic profession, for plastic people, who don't know half of what they think they do.

DBourne · 08-08-2007, 09:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quasi

The problem with the IT industry is that it's already to image driven, what clothes you wear.....what car you drive.....what bits of paper you have on your wall.....what suburb you live in.....and this is only going to make it worse.

I remember when what you know, and how good you are at your job, were the most important things. Over the last few years the IT industry has become a plastic profession, for plastic people, who don't know half of what they think they do.

well i am new to IT but i haven't seen this so far in my workplace and the people i've delt with so far?

henry 351 · 08-08-2007, 10:01 AM

IT is "not one of the sexy professions". Der.

How is it by just being a spunk makes her a great role model? Why does IT need to be a sexy profession?

A rather 70's manner of getting attention. If you want a good looking workplace, just go to Spearmint Rhino.

Hunter · 08-08-2007, 11:28 AM

Yeah they tend to put us IT folk in the basement for a good reason ;).

Actually that's a lie, I have a cube with a window view of a golf course but I used to be housed in a basement of a big building!

Bucket · 08-08-2007, 11:49 AM

Mmmm...Erin McNaught....:sm_drool: I've been gettin high on Jennifer Hawkins of late, anyone see her on Today Tonight last night? Struttin arround in a bikini :sm_drool: :sm_drool: Hooray for fashion month!

We Are on Level 4 of an 8 Story building....we have offices on L5 and L1...not quite the basement hehe

I remember asking our General Manager at the time our CEO was visiting the Perth office if there was anything we could do to assist and he told me just to stay in our office lol :P

Tote · 08-08-2007, 01:35 PM

Maybe they would get more people into the industry if they paid better wages. One multinational benchmarks it storage engineers salary packages against Canon photocopier fixers.

Regards,
Tote

Bucket · 08-08-2007, 01:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tote

Maybe they would get more people into the industry if they paid better wages. One multinational benchmarks it storage engineers salary packages against Canon photocopier fixers.

Regards,
Tote

Yea, our salary isn't exactly crash hot when you compare to the same position within another company, especially considering our workload

Tuddy200 · 08-08-2007, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bucket

Yea, our salary isn't exactly crash hot when you compare to the same position within another company, especially considering our workload

Yes, that annoys me, even more so when you work 20 hour day with short break periods to get them working again, and yet all anyone else can seem to do is whinge and whine at you.

:

Bucket · 08-08-2007, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by G.J.Tuddy

Yes, that annoys me, even more so when you work 20 hour day with short break periods to get them working again, and yet all anyone else can seem to do is whinge and whine at you.

:

Correct...people don't commend by nature. They're more likely to complain to your manager when you stuff up as appose to commending you for your hard work. When we do things right. Its expected. When we don't? They're jumping up and down. I view myself as revenue protection...not red money.

JC · 08-08-2007, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quasi

The problem with the IT industry is that it's already to image driven, what clothes you wear.....what car you drive.....what bits of paper you have on your wall.....what suburb you live in.....and this is only going to make it worse.

I remember when what you know, and how good you are at your job, were the most important things. Over the last few years the IT industry has become a plastic profession, for plastic people, who don't know half of what they think they do.

It depends on what part of IT you work in. In Business consultancy (which is more about BPR than true IT), what you say certainly fits that bill. I work in Software development (for a Govt dept), and we have a mix of highly trained and educated developers through to Team Leaders like me where my only qualifications is my life experience (that includes 20 years working). I know the business side of things, and the developers know how to code what I want, so it's all good. General work "uniform" here is trousers and shirt Mon-Thurs, Jeans and T-shirt on Fridays. Ties are optional, and mostly for upper management. I have never seen a good tie wearing developer (how can someone who is supposed to be creative even consider wearing a tie???).

Hunter · 08-08-2007, 02:19 PM

Anyone else here endure the torture of ITIL evangelists on a daily basis? Common sense anyone?

xr8-200 · 08-08-2007, 02:23 PM

The problem with IT people is that most normal people find it hard to understand their logic. For example at work I was moved to a desk where there was no computer so I went to the IT department and asked them for one. They told me to go back to my desk and send them an email requesting one. Unfortunatly the irony was lost on them.

Bucket · 08-08-2007, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xr8-200

The problem with IT people is that most normal people find it hard to understand their logic. For example at work I was moved to a desk where there was no computer so I went to the IT department and asked them for one. They told me to go back to my desk and send them an email requesting one. Unfortunatly the irony was lost on them.

Yea, they're just so used to people waltzing into their office asking for stuff to be done. They should have listened to you more carefully, yes but here in lies the issue. IT usually support a lot of people. You're just another face. My company have a service desk that log calls and forward the jobs that cant be done by them to us. Unfortunately this doesn't stop people from coming in and asking for stuff to be done. Everyone thinks they're the most important. For me, i'm sick of it. People just don't follow procedure. They jump me walking down the hall way on my way to fix something, interrupt me when i'm working on a job or talking to a user.
All that matters to a lot of people is that they get working again so they can do their job. I totally understand that, its just that they are low priority lets say compared to a section of network going down or a problem with a user's computer doing up a multi million dollar tender.

Oh, and one more thing...dont generalise...IT People with Inter-personal skills and common sense do exist.

xr8-200 · 08-08-2007, 02:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bucket

Yea, they're just so used to people waltzing into their office asking for stuff to be done. They should have listened to you more carefully, yes but here in lies the issue. IT usually support a lot of people. You're just another face. My company have a service desk that log calls and forward the jobs that cant be done by them to us. Unfortunately this doesn't stop people from coming in and asking for stuff to be done. Everyone thinks they're the most important. For me, i'm sick of it. People just don't follow procedure. They jump me walking down the hall way on my way to fix something, interrupt me when i'm working on a job or talking to a user.
All that matters to a lot of people is that they get working again so they can do their job. I totally understand that, its just that they are low priority lets say compared to a section of network going down or a problem with a user's computer doing up a multi million dollar tender.

Oh, and one more thing...dont generalise...IT People with Inter-personal skills and common sense do exist.

Yes that is exactly what happened. They get anoyed of everyone ignoring procedure. Unfortunatly I couldn't follow procedure that day, but still it was pretty funny. As part of my traineeship I had to work in IT for a couple of months so I got to know about all of the stuff they have to put up with. About the only thing I can fault them on is their performance on Friday afternoons. They usually go to the pub for a few hours and when they return they aren't much help, but then again who is on a Friday afternoon.

JC · 08-08-2007, 03:02 PM

Help Desk work is to IT like kindergarten is to school. Close, but no cigar!

honer · 08-08-2007, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hunter

Anyone else here endure the torture of ITIL evangelists on a daily basis? Common sense anyone?

Funny you should mention this. I'm starting a new job next week who actually do ITIL training I believe.

During the interview they said "Do you know what ITIL is", I had never heard of it.. They gave me a run down and it sounds like a load of , I'm required to complete the training though...

A industry set of standards for IT ? I don't think !

Tuddy200 · 08-08-2007, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bucket

Correct...people don't commend by nature. They're more likely to complain to your manager when you stuff up as appose to commending you for your hard work. When we do things right. Its expected. When we don't? They're jumping up and down. I view myself as revenue protection...not red money.

Yet, these people don't reliese that I control the entire network from the lines into the place to thier accounts on Active Directory and could easily accidentally hit the "disable Account" box for a few hours or walk over to the messy looking patch panel that only myself and few others can understand and literally "unplug" them.

The team leaders/managers that work into your office and ask if you have a few spare PCs, and you just look around at the 30 lying around, and reply with Nope, Sorry mate! They then reliese they just got told where to stick thier request, sigh, and walk away.

:

Hunter · 08-08-2007, 05:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by honer

Funny you should mention this. I'm starting a new job next week who actually do ITIL training I believe.

During the interview they said "Do you know what ITIL is", I had never heard of it.. They gave me a run down and it sounds like a load of , I'm required to complete the training though...

A industry set of standards for IT ? I don't think !

Dear god you're working for ITIL evangelists, that's worse!... ITIL is basically common sense codified into a document and every ITIL training course I've been on has been boring as hell and not told me anything I didn't already know.

sgt_doofey · 08-08-2007, 06:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hunter

Dear god you're working for ITIL evangelists, that's worse!... ITIL is basically common sense codified into a document and every ITIL training course I've been on has been boring as hell and not told me anything I didn't already know.

Guess I won't bring it up here at work then. If the powers that be don't know about it then we won't have to go through it ;)

In regards to the original post, I must admit that it would be nice to have some better scenery around the office. Too many male nerds and not enough eye candy. How are we supposed to be happy at work?

Hunter · 08-08-2007, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgt_doofey

Guess I won't bring it up here at work then. If the powers that be don't know about it then we won't have to go through it ;)

Hehe, yeah avoid it if you can however if you get the little bits of paper saying you're ITL certified it does help you into jobs (if managers rather than technical staff are doing the hiring/firing).

I was the only one out of our group who passed the exam IIRC

Quote:

In regards to the original post, I must admit that it would be nice to have some better scenery around the office. Too many male nerds and not enough eye candy. How are we supposed to be happy at work?

Ahh work for a tertiary education facility like me

. No I already have a partner but when did uni students start becoming good looking???

JACK250 · 08-08-2007, 07:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by henry 351

IT is "not one of the sexy professions". Der.

How is it by just being a spunk makes her a great role model? Why does IT need to be a sexy profession?

A rather 70's manner of getting attention. If you want a good looking workplace, just go to Spearmint Rhino.

Or the Peppermint Porcupine as Sam Newman says...

DBourne · 08-08-2007, 07:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgt_doofey

In regards to the original post, I must admit that it would be nice to have some better scenery around the office. Too many male nerds and not enough eye candy. How are we supposed to be happy at work?

you dont have the pron on a seperate browser tab when you work?

onfire · 08-08-2007, 11:15 PM

Yeah Im sure ITs lack of ' sexy ' is the reason theres a drop off in enrolments.

Mark351 · 08-08-2007, 11:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JC

It depends on what part of IT you work in. In Business consultancy (which is more about BPR than true IT), what you say certainly fits that bill. I work in Software development (for a Govt dept), and we have a mix of highly trained and educated developers through to Team Leaders like me where my only qualifications is my life experience (that includes 20 years working). I know the business side of things, and the developers know how to code what I want, so it's all good. General work "uniform" here is trousers and shirt Mon-Thurs, Jeans and T-shirt on Fridays. Ties are optional, and mostly for upper management. I have never seen a good tie wearing developer (how can someone who is supposed to be creative even consider wearing a tie???).

I wear a suit & tie, but am still a creative developer when I manage to write some code (and I consider myself a fairly good dev.) outside of my management duties.

As manager of a small team, I could be at a client (we deal with banks, government etc, thus the suits...) one day, helping one of my devs the next.

XRated · 08-08-2007, 11:39 PM

Oh yeahhh because there is a model posing for IT it makes me want to do it so much more.....

A drop in IT enrolments only means more jobs for us IT geeks $$. Most people just got on the bandwagon because they heard it was in demand and that it paid well. Maybe they realised getting an IT degree wasn't as easy as they thought?? Both my courses have placed a large emphasis on inter-personal skills etc. It's the same with a lot of professions.

Falcon_Phill · 08-08-2007, 11:39 PM

Either way, if theres less people in IT it makes my job more valuable so WHOOPEE!

sgt_doofey · 09-08-2007, 08:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SgtBourne

you dont have the pron on a seperate browser tab when you work?

No, that sort of thing can get you fired!
I do however have it on the separate tab when reading AFF at home. Make it more interesting!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falcon_Phill

Either way, if theres less people in IT it makes my job more valuable so WHOOPEE!

Yes! People, stay away from a job in IT if you are considering it! It's boring and doesn't pay that well! The less people in the profession means the greater the demand for our skills and the higher the wages... ;)

digitalpunk · 09-08-2007, 08:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hunter

Hehe, yeah avoid it if you can however if you get the little bits of paper saying you're ITL certified it does help you into jobs (if managers rather than technical staff are doing the hiring/firing).

I am beginning a new I.T job in 2 weeks and went on a few interviews, every single interviewer was impressed that I was ITIL certified, it didn't matter if they were from H.R or the I.T department, they all wanted ITIL certification.

I even received a call from another company (after I accepted a job) to interview me in regards to a position of Change Manager and System Support which paid $70K.