Did you pick up the IT lessons in the Hidden Figures movie?

I watched the Hidden Figures movies this past weekend and it contains some great reminders about how one needs to behave to have a long and successful career in IT.

Having a computing team of genius thinkers who were completely in demand and brilliant at what they do would seem to put them at the top of their game and in secure positions. Yet in comes an IBM computer which essentially changes the players and rules of the game. Dorothy Vaughn realized that her team needed to change and adapt to leverage computers. She and her team decided to learn the new programming language for computers and as their old jobs were going to go away in the future. Educating themselves on new IT prepared for new and better jobs. It was all about seeing the changes coming and adapting to them and retraining for them before those changes happened. It also reminds us that we all need to find those who are the most talented and learn from them and support them to ensure we are all successful.

Throughout my IT career I have continually looked for where I thought the industry and market has been going and I sought out the leaders of those areas and education to position myself to be able to fill new roles and new positions in the evolving areas. I started working on IBM Mainframes but realized there was this growing movement to distributed computing so I learned everything I could on the subject and found myself on the ground floor of providing networking for all these distributed computing environments. Later in my career, I realized most companies were outsourcing some part of their IT and I saw the opportunities to expand and grow. Today, the economics and dynamics of cloud computing are too compelling to ignore, for startup companies who need to go from zero to one hundred as success is found, as well as for existing companies who need to compete with disruptive companies in their industry.

There are many new technologies which I am working this year to educate myself on including: data analytic capabilities, cognitive computing, blockchain and I believe everyone should continue to grow and be open to change.

No one knows precisely where the future will lead as it is ever changing, but one thing I do know is I for one want to learn, adapt and change to be a part of all of it. How about you?