Now before you go cracking open the bubbly, take your time to read the research, it is better to savor good news slowly. Apparently “Techies working in project management are those likely to see the biggest jumps in earnings as they progress up the career ladder.”

So the Internet is 40 years old this month; assuming of course that you carbon date one of IT’s most seminal births back to when a few ARPANET boffins first started tinkering with their nodes.

Regardless, all IT pros agree that a lot of ‘cutting edge’ technology has become obselete during that period. Disk storage no longer means a filing system for floppies, high-speed communications are now Gigabit/s rather than Kilobit/s, and ‘the great fax machine revolution’ is something we prefer not to talk about. 40 days is a long time in IT, let alone 40 years.

But while IT continues to be dynamic and evolutionary, the repetitive manual processes that often surround it are stuck in the dark ages. IT is still exciting and surprising, but it is also a utility service; a cost-centre; a business-critical asset.

So what does the future hold for IT? With all the business pressures and expectations, is there still room for innovation? With the constant need to integrate and exploit new technological capabilities, how can IT maintain financial and operational discipline?

They say life begins at 40, so it’s worth considering operational improvements sooner rather than later. Then again they also say 40 is the new 30. In any case, it’s a numbers game…

-  Scour the job ads and draw a line of best fit
-  Be best friends with a recruitment consultant (though take everything THEY say with a pinch of salt)
-  Hack into payroll/go through people’s bins

OK, so maybe not the last one…  Besides, online news sites are covering a new salary survey today which gives a national view of 2009 salaries from the board-level IT execs right through to managers, admins, analysts and engineers.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/itmanagement/0,1000000308,39703954,00.htm

Among the interesting stats that get thrown up are the differences between CIOs (anything up to £100k) and helpdesk workers (around £25k).  Why the gap?  Surely it’s because CIOs are held accountable for identifying innovation opportunities for IT to increase the competitiveness and long-term development of the business/organisation.    Everybody in the IT department (and that often includes managers) meanwhile subsist on a diet of ‘coping’ with ongoing operations; averting disasters, responding to user requirements and occasionally getting to ‘add value’.

If ‘adding value’, ‘identifying innovation opportunities’ and ‘being strategic’ are keys to supporting the business (and of course getting paid more) then start Automating IT!  The more you automate operation, the more you can liberate innovation!

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/hollywoodreporter/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20090727006022&newsLang=en

But all these guys are American! No offence meant, but wouldn’t it be great to champion some UK-based people?

If you know someone who is Automating IT and deserves to be showcased then let us know and we’ll do it!

A UK county council recently automated some of its WAN management processes; streamlining what used to be a horrendous ongoing firefight overseeing connections to over 500 schools, libraries, depots, offices and other remote sites. Aside from the cost savings, how did it affect the working lives of the IT personnel inside that department? One thing’s for sure, the place looks a lot tidier now No more lever-arch files cluttering the floor, old cardboard boxes that once held kit, unopened mail all over the place – all of it which was literally years old, untouched and gathering dust. Mushrooms? Not any more…

Perhaps that doesn’t sound like the most compelling benefit of automating IT, but in fact it symbolizes the real change which impacted that particular team of IT professionals. The saying goes something like: “a clear desk allows a clear mind” – and in this case the change that IT automation has actually brought about is one that alters mind-sets away from being reactive to the point of battle-weary, to a place where all members of the team are planning the value they can bring to their organization through IT.

Automation isn’t a threat; something to catch out IT professionals or expose their dispensability. It’s an opportunity to do what you were supposed to do: come out of the dark, and stop being fed manure…

Pretty much any organization is going to have used IT to automate aspects of its business.  That’s the whole point.  The obvious ones would be the finance processes like invoicing, payroll and accounts payable; or supply chain logistics stuff where stock inventory is controlled and deliveries made as precise and ‘just in time’ as possible.  Less obvious ones would be the sales process, customer service practices and the like.  The point is that IT has successfully automated everything that businesses do; so much so that new Web 2.0 business models have since been created which are entirely based upon IT’s automating influence.

But – HELLO?! – can anyone else spot the glaring discrepancy here? IT has automated every other aspect of business life, except for the IT department. Surrounded by rack upon rack of the most sophisticated technology available, IT people are spending nearly 90% of their total budgets looking after it all; and the meager remainder on innovating new internal services.  If we’re honest, how much of that ‘operating’ pot gets consumed by administering time-consuming processes and replicated tasks, from silo’d and proprietary technology sets?

That’s what brings us to writing this blog and setting up this site.  Automated IT wants to promote best-practice approaches, and their attendant technology solutions, that do the following for the good of the IT dept:

-        Slash operating costs

-        Reduce man-hours

-        Cut space and power needs

-        Support better decision making

-        Boost uptime

Wish us luck!