“The Major is all about character. It’s not just a run. It’s a major challenge. Running, Mud, Water, Hills, Obstacles. You mustn’t let any of them stand in your way.” At least that’s what the organisers said, we thought it was more about swamps, mud, swamps and more mud!

On Saturday the 10^th of March Big Red undertook a ‘Major’ mission in aid of Birmingham PHAB camps. The team faced a gruelling 10km run coordinated by the British Military Fitness team. Throughout the 10km there were numerous obstacles in order to make sure every inch was caked in mud!

Memorable moments included the ‘Stench Trench’ which was 30 meters of waist deep, cold mud! Jon began with a graceful dive bomb, much to the delight of the surrounding runners. We faced swamps covered in barbed wire, balance beams (aka fallen trees) surrounded by nettles and blockade walls, which for the vertically challenged proved to be nearly impossible! These were to name but a few swamp infested, cold muddy pits that awaited us along the course.

Take a look at us in action -http://bit.ly/GB5tRJ

Most importantly we have raised £1000 for a fantastic charity! Please take a look at their website to find out more about the work they do. PHAB are looking for volunteers for this summer’s camps, if you fancy taking part in a life changing experience please fill in an application and come along!

www.bhamphabcamps.org.uk

Thank you to everyone who has sponsored us and if you haven’t yet it’s not too late

http://www.charitygiving.co.uk/challengefatpants

The number of job postings in the cloud computing industry is growing so rapidly that there aren’t enough qualified workers available to fill the positions, according to an analysis of hiring trends by Wanted Analytics. In the U.S. there were 5,000 jobs posted online related to cloud technology, a 92% increase from the same month last year and a more than four times increase compared to 2010.

Cloud Computing jobs in the highest demand are technical skills, such as software engineers, systems engineers and network administrators.

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CIOs who’ve been hard-pressed to make convincing business cases for increasing their training budgets may now have the data they need. Results of a recent survey conducted by the Computer Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) show the impact of IT skills shortages on organizations’ profitability, productivity, innovation, speed to market, security and customer service.

An overwhelming 93 percent of survey respondents report some gap between the technical skills their IT staffs possess and the skills their companies need. Eight-out-of-ten (83 percent) say that gap is small to moderate. Nine percent say their IT staffs’ skills are not close to where they need to be. Only seven percent of survey respondents believe their IT staffs possess the requisite skills.

Music to our ears with reference to putting the UK on the right course to be ‘the technology hub of Europe’ this will ensure that the UK remains a key player in the world market. As I said, music to our ears yet there will need to be more infrastructure changes made to counteract cyber-crime with superfast broadband and WiFi connectivity and more access to unsecured networks. Although the likes of the HMRC have taken certain measures, invested in additional staff and intelligence to protect against cybercrime, this is not yet standard practice.

Key points for Media & Technology:

• Help for video games and premium TV shows with tax break that will attract top companies like Disney and HBO to make premium shows in UK

• “It is the determination of this government that we keep Wallace and Gromit exactly where they are.”

• 10 cities to share £100m to fund 100Mbps superfast broadband in areas where private sector will not reach

• Cities are: Belfast, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle and London.

• £50m will be available for smaller cities too

“There are three things that will have to be achieved to meet the government’s objective for the UK to be Europe’s technology centre:

1. Across the economy we have to make the best use of the most up to date technology to reverse our declining productivity and boost our competitiveness.

2. Optimise the massive export potential of the UK’s technology companies large and small.

3. Make sure we are using technology in a way that enhances the lives of everyone in the UK from cradle to grave.”Julian David, Director General of Intellect UK

Here are the skills that the IT executives say they will be hiring for:

1. Programming and Application Development–61% plan to hire for this skill in the next 12 months, up from 44% in the 2010 survey. This covers the gamut from website development to upgrading internal systems and meeting the needs of mobile users.
2. Project Management (but with a twist)– The twist is that they’re not going to just be looking for people who can oversee and monitor projects. They also want people who can identify users’ needs and translate them for the IT staffers-the increasingly popular business analysts.
3. Help Desk/Technical Support–Mobile operating systems have added a new dimension to help desk and tech support.
4. Networking-This demand is being fueled partially by virtualization and cloud computing projects. The survey also revealed that execs will be looking for people with VMware and Citrix experience.
5. Business Intelligence-Computerworld interprets this uptick to a focus shift in many companies,  from cost savings to investing in technology. That will be nice if it pans out that way.
6. Data Center-Virtualization and the Cloud could also be behind the increased need for IT professionals with backgrounds in data center operations and systems integration.
7. Web 2.0-Tech skills centered around social media will be in demand, with .Net, AJAX and PHP as key back-end skills, with HTML, XML, CSS, Flash and Javascript, among others, on the front end.
8. Security-Although down from 32 percent in the 2010 survey, security stays a top concern of IT executives.
9. Telecommunications-The survey indicates a demand for people with IP telephony skills, and for those familiar with Cisco IPCC call center systems.

The “next big thing” appears to be launched on an almost daily basis. However, only a small minority actually get to become even a medium-sized “thing”. It seems that a growing amount of those consumer tech start-ups have a strategy based upon the “ones to watch” articles. Trends such as, mobile payments, syncs with the cloud, social and intellectual networking are all banded about in IT strategy talks. The problem is once the product is launched, users find it far too complicated. It makes them go “oooooh” and “aaaahhh” once, but it will never been used again.

So based on this information, if you feel like making a easy money what business should you launch in 2012?

It’s all about the “second-screen experience”. This is integrated for you across Facebook and Twitter, so your connections can effortlessly” know your every move. It will be hyper-local, offering you access to deals and functions for you to pay for things through it – most likely  using Facebook Credits and other forms of social currency. Like some other sites it will  crunch data collected above and suggest things you’ll like or where you will save you money.

But,in hindsight it doesn’t quite work like that- yet. Even the greatest new tech businesses don’t following the latest big trends. Businesses are aware that if the new feature and trend offers no true value to the alternative, why bother to switch?

The most innovative ideas will come from someone moving away from the herd, piecing together seemingly unrelated bits of information to create a very simple yet powerful way of solving issues we all suffer with. We will then all think why how obvious, why hadn’t we thought of that, they’ll make a small fortune, and we can all then talk about it in 2013’s latest and greatest!

On Saturday 10th March the Big Red consultants will be taking part in their first charity fundraising event of 2012! We will be undertaking the Major Series, this is a 10k – 12k suicide mission coordinated by the British Military Fitness team. The mission includes; climbing through Private Talbot’s Trench, skidding down Corporal Sander’s Slide, tackling Lieutenant Hardy’s Hills and wading through Sergeant Mallory’s Mud Pit. However it is all for a very worthy cause and obviously your support would be greatly appreciated!!

“The Major is all about character. It’s not just a run. It’s a major challenge. Running, Mud, Water, Hills, Obstacles. You mustn’t let any of them stand in your way.”

All donations can be made here anonymously should you so wish and if there is anybody who will sponsor our bibs it would be greatly appreciated! Come on, all in the name of charity – It’s not the winning but the finishing that counts – we just haven’t said when!!

http://www.charitygiving.co.uk/challengefatpants

Please do take a look at what lies in store for us with the following video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXwBQp89GuI

We are undertaking this mission in aid of ‘Birmingham PHAB Camps’ which is a small, totally voluntary, organisation whose aim is to encourage the integration of disabled and able-bodied children and young people.

Birmingham PHAB runs 8 camps throughout the summer and Easter break. The groups are a variety of ages and abilities, half of the participants have disabilities and half are able-bodied, but may have severe behavioural, developmental or learning disabilities. There are also camps for groups of children who have severe multiple disabilities.

The volunteers try to provide a range of stimulating activities from canoeing and archery to raft building and rope walks, along with visits to theme parks, farms and the swimming pool. The young people are given the opportunity to participate in new and challenging experiences and everyone can take part together, no matter what their ability. Many of the children involved have no other opportunity of a holiday.

Birmingham PHAB need to raise £95,000 a year in order to finance the camps, families are asked to contribute only what they can afford and no child is turned away because of financial difficulties — this leaves the Trustees with a lot of fund-raising to do as well as organising all of the holidays. Everyone works voluntarily so there are no salaries to pay and very few expenses are claimed. Their administration costs are less than 1% of our total expenditure each year.

For more details see www.bhamphabcamps.org.uk

What do you remember of the last 3737 days? Is it a world-changing event like the collapse of the Twin Towers; the War on Terror; three World Cups; the rise and fall of MySpace or the launch of Apple’s assault on everything with an i?

Another notable addition was the evolution of Big Red. During the last ten years Big Red has generated tremendous, local, regional and national success. Established in September 2001, by recruitment experts Jon and Amanda Coldridge, the company took the typical recruitment procedure – often regarded as a CV ‘spam’ competition, and re-invented the process! Instead of throwing CV’s at companies, Big Red set itself apart, by focusing individually on their client’s needs; partnering with them to remove the stress, hassle and waste of time normally encountered during the recruitment process. Founder Jon Coldridge states “I am incredibly proud of the team we have built here at Big Red and particularly of the client relationships we nurture in this tricky market sector”.

The icing on the ‘Ten Year Anniversary’ cake was the awards evening at stylish London venue, Grace. Big Red were announced as Top Ten UK agency 2011 RecruitRank finalists for the fourth year, this is a valuable achievement where all UK recruitment agencies strive to improve the recruitment process. Big Red Recruitment were selected across the spectrum of categories based on candidate feedback over the past 12 months using the RecruitRank feedback tool on Jobsite. Categories include:

• Best Candidate Communications
• Best Understanding of Candidate Needs
• Best Industry Knowledge
• Best Recruiter

Big Red appeared in more than one category, which in itself is testament to the commitment and provision of all-round excellent customer service. The RecruitRank Awards are the only accolades in the industry where finalists and winners are chosen by the feedback from candidates and not a panel of industry judges.

The team at Big Red strive to make a difference and believe strongly in ‘actions speak louder than words’ and this is a great boost for the business in the current economic climate where attention to detail, and delivering on results is key.

UK Businesses are still looking for good developers. This is due to .NET development roles accounting for 40% of all advertised development opportunities.

The demand for Apple iOS skills in the UK for the last three months has jumped up over 1000%! This is in comparison to the same period last year.

- NOT -

Salaries for IP Telephony Engineers and CISCO VoIP Engineers have dropped by a massive 43%

UK Mobile engineers have seen their average salary reduced by £17,000

The latest unemployment figures from the Office for National Statistics have shown that the number of jobless has risen by 129,000, to 2.62 million in the three month period of July  to September this year – a 17 year high. However, The Recruitment & Employment Federation (REC) Technology’s monthly report on jobs has revealed that the demand for permanent IT staff has continued to grow steadily. On an index where a score above 50 denotes growth, demand for permanent IT staff was measured at 57.2 in October, the highest of any sector. Demand for IT contractors also saw growth, measuring 52.1.

IT Jobs Watch highlighted that Developers are the most sought after skill set for both permanent and contract roles, accounting for over 30% (permanent) and 22% (contract) of the IT Job adverts sampled within the last 3 months across the UK, with 90% of the roles offering a salary of more than £27,000 and 10% offering a salary of more than £65,000.

The chart below demonstrates the increasing desire for Developers, providing the 3-month moving total beginning in 2004 of permanent IT jobs citing Developer within the UK as a proportion of the total demand within the Job titles category.

What does the future hold?

Good news for the IT sector, E-skills UK’s technology Insights 2011 report  suggests that exploiting the full potential of technology could boost the UK economy by an additional £50 billion over the next 5 to 7 years with employment in the IT industry over the next decade set to grow nearly five times faster than the UK average.

More promising news as reports show that the up-coming London 2012 Olympics is going to create more than 5,000 jobs, generating over £250M for the IT and telecoms job sector. The jobs will be created to deal with the level of technology services such as high-tech infrastructure and cyber security needed to support the Games. The government has also promised to publish the first ever forward-looking pipeline of contracts that will be on offer, which will be updated every six months. With the deputy government CIO Bill McCluggage tweeting that there are £25.9bn worth of government IT contracts in the pipeline up to 2017 (Computer Weekly).

There has been wide spread criticism that government ministers are failing to recognise the importance and the impact of these threats. This has prompted a 2 day government conference to pull together political leaders from over 60 countries to try and forge a global coordinated response to cyber-attacks.

What’s the biggest threat to your technology?

If you take into account what is happening at the moment, there are two main driving forces for increasing IT security.

The first is the way that cyber-attacks are changing. They are more sophisticated, complex, more stealth like and more invisible. This alone creates more of a challenge when it comes to dealing with them.

The second is the fact that our IT environments are changing daily, new devices like tablets and Android and new IT architecture pose a new set of security challenges for any organisation.

The government and the industry, including ourselves, need to focus on how to solve these security issues. New approaches need to be made to help solve those heterogeneous environments and also to solve security issues with cloud based delivery models.

Enterprise software is more and more moving into the cloud, being delivered as a cloud application. Again this causes security implications to an organisation as well.

The BBC reported today (25/11/11) that the government plan to work with GCHQ to tackle cybercrime and to help the private sector protect itself. This includes encouraging police forces to train specialists and for the Army personnel to provide support and particular skills.

The strategy is likely to suggest “kitemarking” for cyber security software to assist organisations and individuals to avoid malicious software.

A high percentage of successful attacks could be avoided by following these simple steps:

Protecting your computer:

• Install anti-virus and anti-spyware software, and turn on your firewall

• Update your operating system
• Use up-to-date applications, such as your web browser or word processing package
• Encrypt your wireless network
• Block spam emails
• Stay safe online
• Use strong passwords
• Do not give away too much personal information on blogs and social networking sites
• Activate privacy settings on social networking sites
• Do not open email attachments from people you don’t know

(Source: Get Safe Online campaign)