Join us at Citrix Headquarters in Ft.
Lauderdale for an Unofficial MSDN event on Tuesday, September 2nd as
Microsoft's Russ Fustino hits 3 big topics: 1. Demystifying WPF, 2. Ten reasons your applications will be more secure when deployed on Vista and 3.
Developing applications with Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5
Service Pack 1. Russ is one of Microsoft's Top Speakers in the Nation
and for him to tackle 3 topics such as these makes for an event you
don't want to miss!
S. Florida PMI To Hold Special Dinner Meeting with PMI President and CEO Greg Balestrero
Join us on Tuesday, September 9th as PMI President and CEO Greg Balestrero visits the S. Florida chapter. Greg will be talking about the “Battle for Talent: dealing with the shortage of
Project Managers across the globe”.
Greg Balestrero was Executive Director for CSI for 8 years before
becoming the CEO of the Project Management Institute in 2002. During
his tenure, PMI has grown from 93,000 members to almost 250,000 members
in 164 countries with 283 Components, Special Interest Groups and
Colleges worldwide.
This is an event that doesn't happen too often so you can't afford to miss it!
Building
enterprise grade webparts? Not so much. Fortunately, there are
resources to help. Join us on Tuesday, September 9th at DeVry University in Miramar as Stacy Draper gets into Sharepoint. This session will explore one such resource - the
Power Query webpart from Codeplex. Come to this session for a
code-intensive walkthrough of one enterprise grade webpart and come
away with ideas, suggestions and best practices for making your custom
webparts perform well in the most intense environments.
Joe Homnick To Talk About SQL Server 2008 And It Is FAST!
Join us on Thursday, September 11th in Boca Raton as Joe Homnick looks at how the increase in performance in this latest release is reason enough for an upgrade.
Joe touches all the bases from Performance Studio to TSQL
enhancements. If you run a server or plan to, this is the event you
can't afford to miss!
**GCUG has gone GREEN! RSVP for your MS logo Green Bag**
Join us on Thursday, September 11th in Ft. Lauderdale as Jay Sears, Sr. VP at EVP discusses how testing an ad exchange must be part of any advertising plan for 2008. This would be an introduction to the subject of Ad exchanges and what they do. Given
Google's recent approval to acquire DoubleClick (another Ad Exchange
vendor) for more than 3 billion dollars, the subject of Ad Exchanges
could not be more timely.
Microsoft's Bob Suess To Be Keynote Speaker at Southwest Florida Code Camp 2008
Join us on Saturday, Spetember 13th at Florida Gulf Coast University in Ft. Myers For the the 1st Annual Southwest Florida Code Camp 2008. Microsoft's Bob Suess, Developer Evangelist Manager, East Region will be the keynote speaker and even a new Sharepoint book will make it's debut.
This year's Code Camp will feature content from the following tracks:
ASP.Net
SQL
Sharepoint
Silverlight
Foundations (WF, WCF, WPF)
Miscellaneous
Whether you'd like to present a session
at our Code Camp, or just partake in the festivities, it's one signup for everybody,
and space is limited. But registration will take care of that, and we promise we'll
all have some fun!
IT Women and PMI Partner For Business Case Development Workshop
Join us on Thursday, September 18th as Angelo Gasparri, PMP, facilitates a workshop to ensure
the right projects and initiatives, gain business support!Often identified as
an area for improvement by business executives, ‘Business Case
Development’ is a skill that cannot be underestimated, especially in
today's cash strapped economy, whereby investment in any new initiative is a
highly scrutinized pursuit, with only a very small portion of initiatives
getting the green light.
Join us for great networking, lively conversation and a new skill set!!!
They are starting at some of South Florida’s
top companies such as Carnival Cruise Lines, Burger King, and Sherlock
Technology, but they didn’t graduate from the University of Miami,
NovaSoutheastern, or FIU. They haven’t
even graduated from High School. Thanks
to the Academy of Information Technology (AOIT), today’s best and brightest are
getting a head start at some of Miami-Dade County’s Fortune 500 Companies.
And their on-the-job training is something
that even the best Information Technology (IT) schools can’t provide.
“I personally think this is a good experience
for my future career,” said Cristopher Jimenez, AOIT student and intern at
Carnival Cruise Lines in Miami, “and it really helped me figure out that this
is what I want to do.”
Jimenez, a Senior at Miami Central Senior
High School, has been in his school’s AOIT program since the ninth grade. The AOIT is a program that is being picked up
by more and more schools around the country to help High School students decide
what aspect of IT they would like to get into.
“Unless we make inroads early on in student
IT education, students aren’t going to understand what IT jobs exist for them
with employers and how to decide on a career path to achieve success ,” said
Andrew Tabone, Manager of Information Systems and Recruitment & Career
Development for Carnival and AOIT Chairman. “Internships are an opportunity for high school students to gain insight
into how IT is being used to drive business decisions and draw from this
on-the-job experience to journey from high school to college and into
industry.”
This is the third year that Carnival has
participated in the AOIT’s Summer Internship Program and with companies such as
Carnival, Burger King, Ryder, and Sherlock Technology leading the way, the AOIT
has made significant progress toward placing senior high school students at
companies throughout South Florida and both interns and companies alike are
feeling the benefits.
“We are very pleased with our interns and it
energizes our employees, too, because it brings a different kind of enthusiasm
to our IT department and it’s contagious,” said Tabone. “This may be the first time that high school
students even see the inside of a Fortune 500 company in action. They’re
already majoring in IT, so internships show them what to expect before going on
to college and entering the IT job market.”
“Having worked with over 120,000 IT
professionals worldwide, this is the kind of experience that anyone would have
jumped at the chance for,” claimed Alex Funkhouser, President of Sherlock
Technology. “The students that are
working with me have had the chance to speak with close to 2,000 IT
professionals in the State of Florida and they gained valuable insight into
their future profession. All the while,
they have helped improve the overall effectiveness and productivity of our
company.”
The three-year-old internship program has
given the students an unparalleled insight into the various fields within the
IT industry from Project Management to system development to programming to
telecommunications. It also gives them
the opportunity to meet with people who are in various jobs within Fortune 500
companies and find out how and why they are there and understand the path they
took to get here.
“I saw how their systems work and they even
took me out to one of their ships to see how [the on-board] systems
worked. It was really interesting and
something I would like to get into,” said Jimenez. “I personally think this is a good experience
for my future career and it really helped me figure out that [networking] is
what I really want to do.”
The AOIT is part of the National Academy
Foundation and was created in 1978 by Sanford Weill, who is the former chairman
of Citigroup and has continued to be a big part of the program on the national
level. The program is essentially a
school within a school where a student who knows that they want to get into the
IT field can get a head start on their education at their local high
school.
For more information on the AOIT, you can
visit their national website at www.naf.org.
Get Involved With INETA - Further Your IT Career
INETA provides structured, peer-based
organizational, educational, and promotional support to the growing
worldwide community of Microsoft® .NET user groups. Our mission is to
offer assistance and resources to community groups that promote and
educate their membership in Microsoft's .NET technologies. INETA
welcomes all facets of the .NET user community, from developers and
architects to project managers and IT professionals. Members can be
user groups or special interest groups that focus on a single aspect of
.NET, such as C#, target the entire .NET platform or concentrate on
other development technologies but are also interested in .NET. INETA
is the next evolution in user group communities a non-profit,
independent organization, chartered with supporting all user groups
interested in the Microsoft .NET platform. INETA is run by a board of
user group leaders, elected by their peers, and supported by Microsoft
Corporation and other sponsors.
There
are 21 different User Groups in Florida involved with INETA. For the
User Group closest to you and your specialty, please visit:
Millions
of years ago, the Ancients made a network of wormhole gates throughout
the Milky Way and other galaxies. Having since scattered throughout the
universe, the technology was lost to us on Terra until just recently,
when not one but two massive Stargates were found on Earth. Using these
great rings, we human beings have learned how to travel nearly
instantaneously from planet to planet, across vast cosmic distances,
often bringing trouble with us. We're an obnoxious race, I guess.
Normally made of Naquahdah (and once unsuccessfully made of
titanium) and 22 feet wide, our scientists have used glass and
polystone to shrink the dimensions down to a mere 10 inches across. All
you need is a Zero Point Module to power it, and you're good to go.
Convenient enough, now, to hang on your wall. When you're not actively
powering the gate to generate a wormhole, you can look at your
reflection in the event-horizon.
This model has 39 glyphs and 9 chevrons, giving us nearly 2
trillion possible destinations! Be careful using the Stargate, though.
We're completely out of Dial Home Devices!
IT Industry News
Michael Page revenue up 26.3%
Revenue rose 26.3% at London-Based professional staffing firm Michael Page International PLC to GBP500.0 Million (US $997.8M) in the first half of this year.
The
company said revenue in its Americas division rose 49.4% to GBP34.5 million
(US$68.9 million). However, revenue increased 40.3% on a constant currency
basis. The division includes both North and South America.
Paranet Buys IT Firms
Paranet Solutions LLC, a Dallas- based IT services and staffing firm, acquired Abacus Technical Services, Inc. and Knowledge Tranzfer Inc., both based in Dallas. Abacus provides IT services. Terms of the transaction were not announced.
Abacus
will continue to operate under its own brand as a Paranet company. "They
have a very strong brand and we want to use that and leverage that in the
marketplace," said Paranet CEO Alan Bratton.
Source: Staffin Analysts Daily News
Expert Advice
Sherlock Helps You Enhance Your Professional Career
Generation Y: Too demanding at work?
By Anthony BalderramaCareerBuilder.com
Not too long ago, the generation gap meant parents didn't understand
why ripped jeans cost twice as much as regular ones or why every other
word coming out of their child's mouth was "like."
Now the gap means employers don't understand why twentysomethings
straight out of college expect a high salary and lots of vacation time.
Employees under the age of 29, also known as Generation Y, expect their
employers to provide more benefits and other perks than their older
counterparts, according to a new survey from CareerBuilder.com and
Harris Interactive. Gen Y workers want better pay, a flexible work
schedule and company-provided BlackBerrys and cell phones.
Eighty-seven percent of hiring managers and HR professionals say Gen Y
exhibits a sense of entitlement that older generations don't. But not
all Gen Y-ers see it that way. Mark Treichel, a recent college
graduate, says it's more an expectation of give and take than a sense
of entitlement.
"Employers expect entry-level employees to have substantial work experience, be top of their class, dress professionally, et cetera,"
Treichel says. "Personally, I worked hard at two year-round internships
while still going to school my last two years. I don't expect high pay
and a BlackBerry, but I do expect to be compensated for the hard work I
put in preparing for the position."
Alison Bailin, 27, also
believes her generation wants to see a significant return on years of
education. "College expenses have skyrocketed, leaving many of us in
debt," says the account executive. "Many career fields require one year
or more of a [usually] unpaid internship, so we are joining the work
force with a year or more experience than many previous generations."
Technology is largely responsible for the shift in expectations and
employers' willingness to adapt to them. Some of the world's most
visited Web sites, such as Facebook and YouTube, made their creators
millionaires before their 30th birthdays. For some Gen Y-ers, this is
ammunition when entering the work force.
"Companies desperately
want to be a part of the Web 2.0/user-generated content, MySpace,
YouTube phenomenon. Who better to guide that shift than Gen Y?" asks
Matt Dornic, 26, president of the public relations firm 3 Dog
Communications.
Dornic reminds employers that this generation of
workers not only grew up during a technological revolution, they
participated in it.
"We are a people that had cell phones in
high school," he says. "Of course we are going to expect to have the
most up-to-date gadgets in order to compete in today's sleepless
digital market."
Bailin agrees. "I think if other generations
had such technologies as cell phones and BlackBerrys, they would work
toward getting them financed through work as well."
Bailin's
assessment emphasizes just how much her generation has incorporated
technology into daily life. Forty-nine percent of employers cite Gen
Y's preference for e-mail or phone calls over face-to-face meetings as
the biggest communication gap between Gen Y and co-workers.
So what are companies going to do about it?
Fifteen percent of employers reported modifying their policies in order
to appease their Gen Y employees. Of those employers who made changes,
57 percent implemented more flexible work schedules and 33 percent
created new recognition programs.
"As companies' cultures evolve
with each generation, you see all workers benefiting from a variety of
viewpoints and work styles," says Rosemary Haefner, vice president of
human resources for CareerBuilder.com.
Just how much Gen Y-ers
and their employers will accommodate one another has yet to be seen.
One thing all workers, regardless of their age, should remember is that
any new perks are available to everybody.
Look for more tips in our next newsletter.
Our Sponsors & Friends
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You receive this invitation as a friend of the South Florida Association of Internet Professionals, Sherlock Technology Recruiting, and Computer Careers Staffing, Inc.
Please use the options at the bottom of the page if you'd like to opt-out on future invitations, or call Alex Funkhouser 305-458-5579 or email alex@sherstaff.com
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