Here’s the full interview:

Get the bonus Q&A with the audience by visiting GreatTechPros.com.

Here are some short video clips of topics discussed:

• Why I wrote Women of Color in Tech.
• 2 Challenges that Women of Color face in Tech Careers.
• How men can help create opportunities for Women of Color in Tech?
• 3 Career Options for Women of Color in Tech.
• What is a Cloud Technical Specialist?
• What is the Difference between a Coach, Mentor and Sponsor?
• How to Close Technical Skill Gaps?
• Salary Negotiations: What you need to know.
• Introverts: Successful Client & Group Interactions.

Useful Links:

• You can connect with Susanne on her website, Twitter and Linkedin. 
• You can get Susanne’s new book, Women of Color in Tech: A Blueprint for Inspiring and Mentoring the Next Generation of Technology Innovators, by visiting WeBelongInTech.com.

Watch or Listen to Great Tech Pros anytime, anywhere.

• Listen on Google Podcasts, 
• Be all ears on Spotify, 
• Eavesdrop on Apple Podcasts, 
• Watch on YouTube, 
• Tune in on Facebook Watch, 
• and more.

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Here’s the full interview:

Get the full interview + bonus Q&A with the audience by visiting GreatTechPros.com.

Here are some short video clips of topics discussed:

• How Business Intelligence & Data Science Differ
• 2 ways to get into Business Intelligence and Data Science
• The Programming and Querying Languages of Data Analytics
• 2 Important Resources for a Data Consultant
• What events and conferences do you use to build your network?
• Resources to get started in Data Science

Useful Links:

• The best way to connect with Chris Hyde is on Twitter. He can also be found on Linkedin.
• Chris Recommends the following books:
• Learning R by Richard Cotton.
• R for Data Science: Import, Tidy, Transform, Visualize, and Model Data by Hadley Wickham and Garrett Grolemund.
• Think Stats: Exploratory Data Analysis by Allen Downey.

Watch or Listen to Great Tech Pros anytime, anywhere.

• Watch on YouTube,
• Tune in on Facebook Watch,
• Listen on Google Podcasts,
• Be all ears on Spotify,
• Eavesdrop on Apple Podcasts,
• and more.

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Originally posted at www.GreatTechPros.com.

Excerpt from the Interview:

Wylie Blanchard: What tips do you have for individuals who are new in their career, transitioning in their career or just interested in building their executive presence?  What tips do you have on how they can build their personal branding and their executive presence?

Eric Schmuttenmaer: The first one that comes to me is listening… It is a combination of listening and learning. So if you’re coming new into something,.. find the people that are in the area that you want to be in or that you want to improve upon and get notes on them. Find out where they have succeeded and replicate those in your world or, work to replicate those in the world and find out, more importantly, where they failed and why they failed… Learn where those common pitfalls are for where you want to be from individuals who are already there and then avoid those as much as you can. It’s not gonna be a hundred percent but do your best to do that. It takes a level of listening and slowly learning. You’re not going to boil the ocean but take those little key moments, those little tiny moments, of takeaways from other people’s lives.

Useful Links:

• Connect with Eric Schmuttenmaer on Linkedin.
• Learn more about AMITA Health.
• Follow on Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Watch or Listen to Great Tech Pros anytime, anywhere.

• Watch on YouTube,
• Tune in on Facebook Watch,
• Eavesdrop on Google Podcasts,
• Listen on Spotify,
• Be all ears on Apple Podcasts,
• and more.

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Originally posted at www.GreatTechPros.com.

Excerpt from the Interview:

Wylie Blanchard: So, let’s talk about analytics for a second. How has analytics changed how we market content to people?

Don Alava: It’s interesting. When I first started out – well the names have changed over time – there was a database marketing, there was targeted marketing, now it’s big data science. When you look at it, it’s going back to what is the objective of your marketing campaign and what’s the best way to measure it. What’s nice about analytics and technology is that you have more data available. When I was on the ad agency business I got into direct marketing and we were measuring things based on responses to numbers or how many mail coupons people submitted and returned to us. So we could count it that way but now with the internet, with mobile devices, you’re getting that data almost instantaneously. So whereas in a direct mail campaign you waited for a couple of weeks to measure the campaign. Now when you’re in the digital/mobile space you can get that information right away and that’s where analytics comes in… Humans – while we can do a lot of analytics – when you bring in data science and machine learning they can keep up with the pace of the data that’s coming in to give you an edge over your competitors. It all starts with what’s the goal of your business and how should you best measure that. Then use the data to help get you that information and get the competitive edge over your competition who may not have quite figured out how to use their data to inform their marketing campaigns, as well as, their follow-up campaigns to those who eventually become customers.

Useful Links:

• Connect with Don Alava on Linkedin and Twitter.
• Learn more about Universal Technical Institute.
• Follow on Linkedin.

Watch or Listen to Great Tech Pros anytime, anywhere.

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• Tune in on Facebook Watch,
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• Be all ears on Apple Podcasts,
• and more.
  

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Summary: Become a Tech Pro who’s in High Demand. Learn how to use the internet, social media and websites to market your technical expertise so that world knows that you’re a World Class Technology Leader.

Abstract: It seems that almost anyone these days can build a website. However, it’s not just about building and publishing a website. It’s about knowing and using the latest and most effective web technologies to transform your business through web application best-practice strategies. Whether you are looking to build a new website to establish your personal and individual web presence or build a highly functional and highly usable web application for your organization, it is important you’re ready to compete in this competitive arena. Learn how to best use your website to package your genius, what is a “source of truth” and why is it extremely important, learn how to effectively use social media to sell your expertise and incorporate your passion and profession to become a World Class Technology Leader.

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Edwin Ukpaby, Healthcare I T Professional and CEO of Medix Systems Consultants, met with us to discuss how technology in the healthcare industry has evolved with healthcare business processes.

Originally posted at www.greattechpros.com.

Excerpt from the Interview:

Wylie Blanchard: I T is at a point where we have to be more than “you tell me the problem and I’ll fix it”and we have to look End to End, all the way through to the end of the solution. Is this what you see or an expert, or could an expert just be “you tell me the problem and I’ll fix it” or is an expert more than that?

Edwin Ukpaby: …Years ago technology was something that only the large companies had… As we got into the mini computer era of the medium sized company, and then we went into the micro computer era, more of the progressive professionals was getting involved in it. So there was a time when you were exclusively in that high end club. You’re always going to need it because when you’re in that high end club you need a multitude of skill sets to bring to the table. The reality is when you go to the smaller ones they don’t have the resources to support multiple teams so they need smaller teams with broader skill sets to be able to deliver solutions. We need to package the solutions in a way where, when it is deployed, the deployment process is less complex. So people that think process combined with technology and combined with the unique traits and requirements of the specific industry, in this case, healthcare are going to be the most effective. So that is typically what I would look for. It doesn’t necessarily mean that each individual candidate has to have all of those skill sets but I would want that aptitude and that mind set because it’s not always easy to teach that unless you have someone who is really passionate about adopting that approach and recognizes the importance… Really, the good news is that there’s room to accommodate the traditional way that we’ve done I T and this new paradigm shift. It just happens that this new shift is the new area of opportunity in I T.

Watch the video (above) for more.

Originally posted at www.greattechpros.com.

Watch or Listen to Great Tech Pros anytime, anywhere.

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• Tune in on Facebook Watch,
• Listen on Google Podcasts,
• Be all ears on Spotify,
• Eavesdrop on Apple Podcasts,
• and more.
  

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Originally posted at www.greattechpros.com.

Excerpt from the Interview:

Wylie Blanchard: What key certifications and/or degrees are prominent for networking and system engineering – I T careers?

Ed Fisher: If it were my choice everyone would get their Bachelor Degree. Nothing substitutes a good, solid and core education like a bachelor degree. Then you move into the areas of specialization which are dictated by you as an individual. When I first started with computers we had to take a test to determine whether our future was with hardware or software. That’s when I learned that a software person worked puzzles and sat down. They worked things out with their mind but mainly they sat down, which is what turned me off from being a software engineer. I didn’t want to sit down so I chose to be a hardware engineer (system engineer). Now/today, the two (software and hardware) are merged together during your training. It’s hard for me to say what someone should do. That’s an individual decision for them because there are core questions that must be answered. For instance, what are some of the things that you like to do that are aligned with the career path that your planning to go into? If you like to sit down and if you like to work puzzles then I could recommend software engineering, like a java developer. If you’re the kind of person who likes to be outside and get his/her hands dirty then I would recommend that you go into a field engineering (hardware engineering) – a technical area that is expands exponentially in terms of what you can do. Overall, it’s based on an individual preference of what you want to do for the rest of your life…

Listen to the podcast (above) for more.

Originally posted at www.greattechpros.com.

Watch or Listen to Great Tech Pros anytime, anywhere.

• Watch on YouTube,
• Tune in on Facebook Watch,
• Eavesdrop on Google Podcasts,
• Listen on Spotify,
• Be all ears on Apple Podcasts,
• and more.

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Dan Rey, Solution Architect of Microsoft, sat down with us to share what he has learned over his career as a technology professional.

Originally posted at www.greattechpros.com.

Excerpt from the Interview:

Wylie Blanchard: What have you seen in your twenty plus years or what interesting has changed in the 20 plus years that you’ve been an I T professional?

Dan Rey: One thing that I’ve noticed in the 20 plus years is that a lot of the technology is shifting almost like a pendulum. So when I started in computers Windows 95 was just coming out. We were using the operating systems and the capabilities before Windows 95 and many things kind of shifted to a server or a client server focus from a development perspective and a use case perspective in large corporations and then things shifted back to kind of powering you on the device that you’re using whether it’s your phone whether it’s your laptop or your desktop and then the internet started up and things shifted back to server based computing whether those servers were on premise or in the cloud didn’t really matter. It was still kinda that pendulum swinging back to something that’s not on your device locally. Seeing some of these shifts that kind of seem to just going back and forth with either empowering on the devices that you’re using locally or empowering on something that you use remotely.

Wylie Blanchard: Are there any books, literature or educational material that you highly recommend?

Dan Rey: That’s a great question. Being in this for more than 20 years some of my early memories were picking up books when the next version of Windows comes out. You look for the technical books that explain, kind of, behind the use case or explain just how to use the operating  system. You can go through and read about the tip and tricks and the things that you wouldn’t just learn by using the operating system. You really need somebody kind of guiding you to those areas because they’re not easy to discover on your own – or they might be too technical. Once discovered you need guidance on what to do once you get there. Today, a lot of that has moved back to automation and command line capabilities. So books on PowerShell would be a recommendation for somebody getting into I T….

Watch the video (above) for more.

Originally posted at www.greattechpros.com.

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• Watch on YouTube,
• Tune in on Facebook Watch,
• Be all ears on Google Podcasts,
• Eavesdrop on Spotify,
• Listen on Apple Podcasts,
• and more.

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Created application utilizing MS Access, VBA, T-SQL, SQL Server 2012. Project Time: 3 months

Duration: 1 Month

Users: 1-49

Devices: 100-249

Budget: $12 k

Data: 5 GB

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Review of IT department assets revealed an inventory of outdated and out of warrenty user equipment. Review of current equipment contract with Dell reviewed that the contract was not competitively priced. I decided to review other brands and market offerings. Sought out and received quotes from 3 vendors. Finally settled on Lenovo brand.

With the initial order my team rolled out 15 Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E545 laptops and 10 ThinkCentre M78 – Small Form Factor desktops. Later we rolled out 25 more units (duplicate order).

The laptops/desktops were preinstalled with Windows 8 but we downgraded them to Windows 7 to ensure that they were in alliance with all company laptops.

3 Months Duration

100-249 Users

100-249 Devices

$25 k Budget

Originally posted on spiceworks.

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