There Is No Avoiding the Cloud for Aspiring IT Pros—For Now

February 15, 2022

Every business is different, allows ZDNet contributor Joe McKendrick. Some eagerly update to the latest technologies while others still rely on legacy systems and software. This means IT workers must tailor their skillsets to their specific organizations. Nevertheless, a recent interview with AWS’s director of learning products Scott Barneson suggests, “For Technology Skills, Cloud Is the Common Denominator.” The write-up quotes Barneson:

“There are the three areas where we hear strong need for upskilling from our customers: migration, as CIOs want to make sure their team is prepared to migrate workloads to the cloud; cloud fluency, as CIOs want all functions to have a baseline understanding of the cloud, the taxonomy, and the core benefits to help build common taxonomy and remove unnecessary friction; and AI/ML [Artificial Intelligence/ Machine Learning], as we shift from the experimentation phase to production use cases. CIOs are looking to equip their teams, from decision makers to practitioners, with the baseline skills to identify use cases that have positive customer and business impact. We regularly hear from our enterprise customers a desire to increase cloud fluency throughout their organizations – from individuals in technical and non-technical roles alike. That’s a desire we hear mirrored from individuals too. Our own research shows that the need for digital skills training has increased due to the pandemic with 85% of workers reporting that they now need more technical knowledge to do their jobs. The study also found that the use of cloud-based tools is the top-most in-demand skill employers will need by 2025.”

The AWS guru shares some advice for IT professionals looking to get ahead. For one thing, they should focus more on quickly getting customers what they need and less on growing their org charts. It is important to measure teams’ impact on customer satisfaction, he adds. Reducing complexity is also suggested to help organizations move swiftly and be ready to embrace opportunities. Naturally, he recommends taking advantage of relevant learning opportunities, like the (free) AWS course “Machine Learning Essentials for Business and Technical Decision Makers.” Though Mr. Barneson understandably has a bias toward AWS, would like to remind out dear readers that several other cloudy alternatives exist.

Cynthia Murrell, February 15, 2022

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