We are not all equally motivated. Some people have more self-drive than other people. This is why we find that some people always end up at the top even when the odds are against them. An employee, with this realization, through the Human Resource department, should be able to design efficient career development systems. For this system to work, the employer must understand the nature of the business environment in which they are operating.

Why Train Employees?

The purpose of training employees is to enable them to grow with time and increase their efficiency. The business world is quite dynamic, nothing stays the same for long. Training one’s employees allows them to keep abreast with the ever changing technological advancements and many other factors that are relevant to his/her line of work. Employees cannot be expected to solve all their employer’s expectations with static skills and techniques. Even the most updated technology becomes obsolete at some point.
People are the biggest assets in organizations. For an establishment to flourish, it is important that the employer understands certain key things that help spur their development.

In a report from the Harvard Business Review, “The Impact of Employee Engagement of Performance,” the most impactful employee drivers are:

The mainstay of a corporation is the data that it possesses. By data, I mean its customer base, information about the use of its products, employee roles and responsibilities, the development and maintenance of its product lines, demographics of supporters and naysayers, financial records, projected sales ... It is in the organization of this data that advancements to the bottom line are often realized i.e. the nuggets of gold are found. Defining what is important, properly cataloging the information, developing a comprehensive protocol to access and update this information and discerning how this data fits into the corporate venacular is basis of this data organization and may be the difference between moving ahead of the competition or being the one to fall behind.

Whenever we attempt to develop an Enterprise Rule Application, we must begin by harvesting the data upon which those rules are built. This is by no means an easy feat as it requires a thorough understanding of the business, industry, the players and their respective roles and the intent of the application. Depending upon the scope of this undertaking, it is almost always safe to say that no one individual is completely knowledgeable to all facets needed to comprise the entire application.

The intial stage of this endeavor is, obviously, to decide upon the intent of the application. This requires knowledge of what is essential, what is an add-on and which of all these requirements/options can be successfully implemented in the allotted period of time. The importance of this stage cannot be stressed enough; if the vision/goal cannot be articulated in a manner that all can understand, the knowledge tap will be opened to become the money drain. Different departments may compete for the same financial resources; management may be jockeying for their day in the sun; consulting corporations, eager to win the bid, may exaggerate their level of competency. These types of endeavors require those special skills of an individual or a team of very competent members to be/have a software architect, subject matter expert and business analyst.

Once the decision has been made and the application development stages have been defined, the next step is to determine which software development tools to employ. For the sake of this article, we will assume that the team has chosen an object oriented language such as Java and a variety of J EE components, a relationsional database and a vendor specific BRMS such as Blaze Advisor. Now, onto the point of this article.

Visual Studio .NET is one of many tools available at your disposal for web development. But where some programs may focus on HTML coding or graphics, Visual Studio .NET is a complete tool set that can be used to not only create XML web services and ASP web applications, but desktop and mobile applications as well. So what are some features that are included in the latest release?

·         Visual J#. This is most well-known by developers who are well-versed in the language of Java. It is best used when building services via the .NET framework, or when building applications.

·         Smart Device Applications. This enables you to generate, repair, and install applications that can be used on smart phones, PDAs, and other devices.

·         ASP.NET Mobile Design. Allows for building web applications for not only PDAs and mobile phones, but pagers as well. This also allows a designer to manipulate the mobile Web form of an application.

Recently, I asked my friend, Ray, to list those he believes are the top 10 most forward thinkers in the IT industry.  Below is the list he generated. 

Like most smart people, Ray gets his information from institutions such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Huffington Post, Ted Talks ...  Ray is not an IT expert; he is, however, a marketer: the type that has an opinion on everything and is all too willing to share it.  Unfortunately, many of his opinions are based upon the writings/editorials of those attempting to appeal to the reading level of an 8th grader.  I suppose it could be worse.  He could be referencing Yahoo News, where important stories get priority placement such as when the voluptuous Kate Upton holds a computer close to her breasts.

Before you read further, note that missing from this list and not credited are innovators: Bill Joy, Dennis Ritchie, Linus Torvalds, Alan Turing, Edward Howard Armstrong, Peter Andreas Grunberg and Albert Fent, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz/Hermann Grassmann ... You know the type:  the type of individual who burns the midnight oil and rarely, if ever, guffaws over their discoveries or achievements.