Should Managers Be Using Emojis At Work?

It turns out that Emojis are the key to clear and concise communication

So can we talk about email? It’s a key part of our life and it seems like we spend a great deal of time each day using our manager skills to read emails that have been sent to us and composing emails to send to others. However, email has always had a problem. It turns … Read more

The Best Way To Choose A Real-Time Messaging Service

How many different ways do your IT teams communicate with each other? Let me count the ways: email, text, phone call, Facebook, tweet, and even some face-to-face talking. Having all of these different ways to exchange information brings up an interesting question for IT managers that we don’t have any IT manager training for – … Read more

Could Your Personal Gender Bias Be Playing A Role In How You Evaluate People On Your IT Team?

If I asked you if you had any bias, I’m pretty sure that you’d think for a moment and then say that no, to the best of your knowledge you are basically an unbiased person. This is good news, but unfortunately you are probably incorrect. It turns out that despite all of our IT manager … Read more

Did You Notice That All The Good IT Manager Jobs Are Going To Indians?

Just to be very clear about things: this article has nothing to do with bashing Indian managers. You will not hear me complaining that “they are taking all of the good jobs”. You won’t hear this, because it’s simply not true – there are a lot of good IT manager jobs out there for all … Read more

What To Do When Your Boss Is Younger Than You Are

What have you always pictured your boss looking like? If you are anything like me, you’ve always pictured them as a grumpy old man. Or a grumpy old woman if you want to get all modern. However, there is one thing that I’ve never really pictured my boss as being – younger than I am! … Read more

Does It Make Sense To Grade Your Team Members?

As an IT manager, it’s your responsibility to stay on top of the quality of the employees that you have working on your team. In most teams this means that at least once a year you will have everyone engage in an evaluation process. During this process each team member will be ranked based on … Read more

Why NoSQL Is The Wrong Choice For An IT Manager — Sometimes

If you were to create a list of the buzz words that are filtering through the world of IT right now, “noSQL” would have to be at the top of your list. IT Managers everywhere have decided that they’ve had enough of traditional databases and the high vendor fees that come with them. Open source … Read more

After The Vista Disaster, What Did Microsoft Do Differently To Create Windows 7?

Isn’t it every IT Leader’s nightmare: you work long hours, pull of miraculous feats of IT project accomplishment in order to create one of the most complicated pieces of software ever, only to have all of your customers hate it? That’s what it must have felt like to be working at Microsoft when Vista was … Read more

Are IT Managers Afraid Of Commitment? Employees Speak Up.

An IT department does not consist of just a bunch of servers and some cabling. It’s really made up of bright, talented people who know a lot about how servers, networks, and applications can be used to propel a business forward. However, not every company and not every IT manager treats their staff the same … Read more