Some IT contractors have their head in the clouds, says A. Hack
Before he struck it rich with his Pocket Phone Shop empire, IT entrepreneur Simon Jordan was a contractor in the heady days of the mainframe.
In his book, Be Careful What You Wish For, he describes how he won contracts with major companies by “embellishment, scant knowledge, little foundation and…passing off as experience things I had only read about.”
After talking himself into several jobs for which he wasn’t qualified, he accidentally created two major system meltdowns. One was for a global corporation. Despite several sackings, he always managed to bluff his way into another job, because skills and experience were so rare.
Could this sort of thing happen in the Cloud Computing environment? After all, the conditions are remarkably similar. There is massive demand for cloud services, but skills are in short supply and buyers are becoming desperate.
It’s possible that anyone who can talk a good story about, say, their Linux skills could bluff their way into a position of unjustified responsibility.
Thankfully, some cloud vendors are putting in place stringent certification programmes that let contractors keep up their level of competency and help customers select the right people. Let’s hope we see more of this.
When demand far exceeds supply, some buyers can let their heart rule their head. We should heed the title of the rogue IT contractor’s book: Be Careful What You Wish For.
