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Corporations and Cloud Sourcing

By Kurt Cagle
March 9, 2009

The news out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (the BLS) was grim this weak - the unemployment rate had reached 8.1%, climbing two whole percentage points in the last quarter. This rise is even more stunning given that unemployment had reportedly been stable for the past several years at around 5%, though this may also be simply a reflection that the numbers haven't been cooked quite so vigorously.

Needed: A New IT Employment Model

By Kurt Cagle
December 24, 2008

It's Christmas Eve as I write this, but after having put the children to bed and turning off the tree lights, I find that my thoughts are not on Santa Claus tonight ... at least not in a very positive way.

Surviving the Pink Slip

By Kurt Cagle
October 20, 2008

Everyone's been nervous for months, watching the market numbers, the stock prices, the declining sales figures. In the IT department, it's not been uncommon to see programmers with one window open on code, the second on the app the code's supposed to generate ... and the third on a steady stream of plummeting financial indexes and bad news about the economy. Then, about two in the afternoon, your project manager taps you on the shoulder - special meeting in ten minutes. When you stand up from your cubicle and look around, you notice that there are several security types idling in the hallway ... and you know, instinctively, what that meeting's going to be about.

Black Monday, 2008

By Kurt Cagle
September 29, 2008

At one point, the stock market fall was so rapid that several financial sites web service update servers were overwhelmed and crashed as people refreshed their browsers second by second to watch the carnage. At the end of the day, the damage was significant - the Dow down 672 points (6.2%), the S&P down 94 points (7.8%) and the NASDAQ down a staggering 200 points (more than 9.1%). In Canada, the TSX closed down 750 points, and it's likely that the selloff in Asia and Europe will be just as brutal.

Bad Finance 101 - A Programmer's Guide

By Kurt Cagle
September 16, 2008

O'Reilly's focus has long been on programming issues (or programmer issues) and that focus remains very much in place. However, it is worth understanding how the grief playing out on Wall Street will have a very significant impact upon the IT industry within the next four to six months, even despite the fact that up until now the contagion seems largely to have remained contained in the financial sector.

IT Workers and the Gathering Economic Storm

By Kurt Cagle
August 14, 2008

IT workers are in general perhaps better prepared for the upheavals in that emerging world than most - a world where knowledge, flexibility, indepence of action and thought, and an ability to network will prove to be the most desirable characteristics, but that nimbleness comes at the cost of not tying yourself down to the older society's expectations. Even if the economy does manage to avoid the worst of the doldrums, these are traits to encourage in the days ahead.

Is Telework the New Face of the Agile Workforce?

By Kurt Cagle
August 14, 2008

The idea that twenty-somethings have to commute an hour plus each way to an office and work eight hours a day in a cubicle seems absurd to them. As they become the work force, expect the days of the cubicle to become numbered.

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