David Ticoll--Chair, Expert Panel, Information & Communications Technology Council and Senior Advisor, Canadian Coalition for Tomorrow's ICT Skills

This is the next blog in the continuing series of interviews with top-echelon and renowned professionals. In this blog, I interview David Ticoll: Chair, Expert Panel, Information & Communications Technology Council and Senior Advisor, Canadian Coalition for Tomorrow's ICT Skills.

David shares his views on the nature of the skills landscape and the IT labour market plus industry challenges, trends, and solutions. In a follow-up podcast, we will delve deeper in business, innovation, technology and the competitive ecosystem.

Enjoy,
Stephen Ibaraki, FCIPS, I.S.P., MVP , DFNPA, CNP

David Ticoll on the IT Talent Crisis

Organizations in Canada, the United States, and many other countries face an IT talent crisis. Baby boomers are headed for the retirement exits. Technical skills are becoming ever more specialized. And technical skills are no longer enough; today's employees must combine technical proficiency with business knowledge and judgment, leadership and collaboration skills. We increasingly need Renaissance men and women. Meanwhile, colleges and universities are seeing plummeting enrollments in their technology and engineering programs.

David Ticoll is one of Canada's leading visionaries, speakers and advisers on competitiveness, globalization, technology and business innovation.

David has authored several bestselling business books, including Digital Capital: Harnessing the Power of Business Webs, and The Naked Corporation: How the Age of Transparency will Revolutionize Business.

David chairs the Expert Panel of the Information & Communications Technology Council (ICTC), a national sector council for the ICT industry; this places him at the forefront of state-of the art strategic and policy issues for the ICT sector. He is a senior advisor to the Canadian Coalition for Tomorow's ICT Skills, an alliance of companies, universities, and industry associations which is tackling the generational challenges of talent management and competitiveness in the global economy.

David has authored many reports on the globalization of knowledge work and the rise of collaborative business networks, such as:

• Jobs 2.0: How Canada can win in the 21st century global marketplace for information & communications technologies and services (Information & Communications Technology Council)
• Outsourcing Comes of Age: the Rise of Collaborative Partnering which reports on a global survey of 300 outsourcing customers and service providers, published by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC.
• Dances with Penguins: Harnessing Self-organization for Competitive Advantage

David was CEO of the international thought leadership think tank and consulting firm, Digital 4Sight, which he founded in 1994. The firm's clients included leading firms in information technology, financial services, telecommunications, automotive, consumer packaged goods, resources, government, and other industries.

He was a columnist on business strategy and information technology topics for The Globe & Mail.

David is a Director of the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC), a position he has held for ten years. He is an advisor to the EMBA program at Athabasca University.

• Listen to the interview (MP3)
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