Fire up your IT career! In two years or less.

Spending less time managing networks and more time managing relationships with outsourcers and upper managers? Need to bone up on nontechnical skills like negotiating and presenting? Here's a two-year study guide.

By Steve Ulfelder
Network World, 05/14/01

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When John Pham was hired at Autobytel.com three years ago, he was a senior network engineer. Little did he realize that some of the most important skills required for his job might have nothing to do with technology.

For example, Pham is currently investigating voice over IP, which has made him an expert in the fine art of manure detection.

"My skills at negotiating with vendors have definitely increased," says Pham, who is now network operations manager at the online auto seller. "In [voice over IP], vendors are struggling to put together solutions. They give you the 30,000-foot view, but when you get down to detail, they get very sketchy."

What's the big lesson from all this negotiating? "You learn to tell when they're telling the truth."

Like most network professionals, Pham's nontechnical skills are self-taught. But he believes that needs to change. He says he would "definitely advise a college course" for others following in his footsteps, "It's always nice to learn from others' mistakes."

In the future, network managers and executives will do less wrestling with routers and switches, and more wrestling with contracts, outsourcers and top business executives.

Whether managing contracts with ISPs, application service providers, carriers, outsourcers, systems integrators and consultants, going before senior management to make a case for a project, or managing complex projects that require cross-departmental cooperation, the demands of the job are changing.

It's not that technology expertise is unappreciated. To the contrary, those skills are jealously guarded by employers. For this reason, companies would rather help technologists gain business expertise than help business executives learn networking.

The problem is that "technologists in general have been siloed from the business. Now the time is right to break down the silos," says P.J. Guinan, faculty director of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Development Consortium for IT Professionals at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass.

To help you prepare for a silo-free world, we asked network professionals, corporate trainers, academics and other experts to help us formulate a two-year game plan.

Click on the links below for details: