Happy IT Pro Day 2018

Perhaps the best part of being an IT pro—of being a technology professional in general—is that you don’t really have a choice. It’s an irrepressible self-nomination to a task force of incredibles, who prefer to wield their powers out of sight, but hope the results change the world for the better. And when you rise to the calling, it’s in many ways a relief. Think about it. How often do you question your career choice? Absolutely we question the specific area of tech (or at least I do every now and then) but never the field. How many people do you know in other jobs that can say that? It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting out or have been shredding the command line for 30 years. Today you might be reallocating hundreds of containers for a global process queue, but you were probably just as excited back when you took over Group Policy management in desktop support or terminated your first cable. We are happiest engineering the changes that make other people’s lives better, and ideally without visible fuss. Once again, IT Pro Day is a chance to thank all those who keep the wheels of IT turning while making it all look easy. It’s a day to celebrate the increasingly enormous diversity of the technologies that IT pros manage. And this year I hope that you all sense something in the ether: that smart businesses are beginning to listen when we make suggestions to help. That “civilians” are less and less interested in the peculiarities of our specific jobs and are more and more interested in the fact we are technology professionals. Less that we are experts in one thing, and more that we can become experts in almost anything. Maybe the world of business is finally sequencing the IT pro genome only to discover it’s our common helpfulness and flexibility chromosomes that define our species, not just a penchant for jargon or geek humor. Or maybe it’s that we continue to follow our passion to go where we can help, and we realize it’s not just systems, but our business that benefit from a little professional advice. So, here’s to you, the unassuming heroes who keep technology working. We know who you are and we’re really glad you came to work today. Cheers, Patrick Hubbard