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The Weekly Round-Up: 24.08.07
The state of tech nation...

By silicon.com

Published: Friday 24 August 2007

Hola!

Let's take a moment to examine the state we're in. (A state which, expressed in pictorial form, might look a little something like this).

A veritable clutch of stories from this week suggest the average tech worker is either innumerate, illiterate or possesses the nervous disposition of a man who's spent an hour trapped in a tiny room with two dozen hyperactive children armed with whistles.

First off the good news is today's school leavers are tech-savvy and up with the latest technology, which bodes well for a career in IT.

The bad news is many of them can't read, write or string a coherent sentence together. Swings and roundabouts, eh?

A Confederation of British Industry study has found that 92 per cent of employers are happy with the IT skills of their new GCSE-laden employees.

However, basic writing and numeracy skills are a different kettle of mackerel. Last year a measly 47 per cent of pupils sitting GCSE English and maths achieved grade C or better.

Employers have warned this often leaves teenagers unable to function in the workplace because they can't do simple calculations in their heads or speak in an articulate manner, condemning them to sad, unfulfilling lives in the human resources department.

So... great with technology, not so great with people. This reminds the Round-Up of a tech cartoon in which a little boy looks up at a man and a woman. A speech bubble above the man's head reads: "We are neither hardware nor software. We are your parents."

Joking aside, the CBI's Richard Lambert said kids' "fluency with iPods, mobiles and MySpace has translated well into the workplace and often gives them an edge over their bosses".

How does that work? The Round-Up can't quite see how being able to text more fluently than you can speak, organise your MP3s or co-ordinate your social life online will assist in most office environments. But there you go.

The latter bit of Lambert's statement is even more interesting: illiterate and innumerate workers armed with a vast array of gadgets are much more tech savvy than their bosses. Inevitably this results in their bosses becoming anxious about their own skill set. It's a splendid mix - what could possibly go wrong?

Well the anxiety-ridden managers could ban all access to social networking sites for starters - and many have done just that. Boo!

According to one study, around half of UK businesses are cutting off their employee's access to Facebook because of the massive drain on productivity and the risk to security.

The website apparently is a black hole of productivity and the cost to businesses is massive and well researched (more on that in a moment).

According to a survey by security firm Sophos, around 43 per cent of workers polled report their employer blocks access to the social networking site completely. The Round-Up would imagine this would be a cunning plan to focus the staff on the task at hand but the employees have now resorted to completing online polls in lieu of doing any work.

Sophos' Graham Cluley said: "I think it's a growing concern for employers for a number of reasons," referring to the social networking phenomenon and not his company's surveys.

Security is big worry indeed. Cluley warns that many users are "letting it all hang out" when it comes to personal information. An incredible 41 per cent of those surveyed are apparently willing to divulge personal information to complete strangers online, leaving them vulnerable to identity theft or spear phishing attacks.

As for the 50 per cent or so of businesses that don't lock down access to Facebook, Cluley explained that while some see it as a valuable networking tool, others fear the backlash from employees if the site were banned.

The Round-Up can see it now: hundreds of office workers marching towards the server room with flaming brands and pitchforks. The staff go feral, demanding the IT manager gives them back access to their friend lists before they stick his head on a sharpened pole.

But back to the productivity black hole of Facebook... According to yet another report, our Facebook addiction is costing businesses billions of dollars a year.

Some very clever fellow (Mr Richard Cullen of web security firm SurfControl, to be precise) has worked out a simple formula for calculating what businesses are losing in Facebook downtime.

Cullen said his findings were based on a "typical Facebook user", "earning an average wage", "spending an hour per day online". He then calculated the cost to companies, if one person in every organisation spent an hour on Facebook instead of working.

Cullen, who hails from Australia, said he and his colleagues did their sums and came up with the "extraordinary figure of AU$5bn". (That's about 50 quid in real money.)

OK, it's not the most scientific of formulas. For starters it doesn't take into account the social networking proclivities of different business sectors. For example, if you work in marketing or PR you can probably multiply the final figure by five or six at the very least.

However, despite the cataclysmic waste of money Cullen has warned that banning social networking sites from work computers is not necessarily the best way to combat the problem.

Partly because the author of a survey warning of the cost of Facebook downtime to businesses might be a target for a crowd of crazed, disgruntled social networking junkies bearing burning brands and pitchforks. And partly because he says the site encourages socialising - which in turn makes people happier to work longer hours.

Alternatively they could finish work on time and spend more time with friends and families in the real world but the Round-Up's probably missing the point. We're addicted to our artificial social crutches. We need them, damn it, because the job isn't pressing the right buttons anymore!

Moving along... anyone who works in IT these days will tell you there's a skills crisis. Around 45 per cent of individuals answering the 2007 silicon.com Skills Survey said they have IT positions in their organisation they are unable to fill. This compares with 37 per cent last year, 34 per cent in 2005 and just 14 per cent in 2003.

Luckily there's good news on the horizon for the tech sector, in the shape of women and silver surfers.

So the good news first? It's pretty clear women are better at technology than men. Proof required? Well, girls are getting better A-Level grades in technology than boys, by a country mile.

Furthermore, women are also more tech-savvy than men generally, at least according to Ofcom.

The bad news? Women aren't interested in technology. Far fewer girls are taking the computing A-Level - almost 10 times more boys did the course last year. In addition, the technology sector continues to have a real problem attracting women into careers in IT and the problem isn't really getting any better.

Meanwhile, the Ofcom report also found that the older 'silver surfer' generation is getting more switched on to technology. Unfortunately, there's also a teeny problem with ageism in technology - and it's "rife".

And all this despite the aforementioned skills shortage which is deepening year-on-year. My oh my...

So, to round up the Round-Up...

Modern school leavers entering the work environment can neither read nor write but they're highly adept at using iPods and social networking websites - much more so than their pot-bellied, middle-aged bosses.

This is inevitably causing the bosses performance anxiety about their own skills and as a result they're shutting off employee access to Facebook. The official reason is because it's costing the business lots of money but really it's because their friend lists are pitifully small compared to their underlings and they can't work out how to uninstall the pointless and sadly empty Aquarium app.

Meanwhile... even though some pretty definitive Australian research proves social networking sites are costing businesses billions each year, we're not able to shut off access and force employees to go cold turkey because it would be too stressful and akin to amputating a limb or shooting a family pet.

Plus the workers would probably go postal.

We're reliant on social networking sites to give order and meaning to our lives even though they weren't really a blip on the radar 12 months ago.

And while both women and silver surfers are more tech-savvy than young to middle-aged men, they aren't filling the jobs in the technology industry which desperately need to be filled. This is because the former aren't interested in careers in technology and the latter aren't made to feel welcome.

But at least we can all agree there's a skills crisis...

In summary: we're buggered.

Anthony Hunt knows the score. And just who the paint-balling Christ is Anthony Hunt, you may ask? Anthony is a silicon.com reader who has vented some spleen on modern life in the IT industry, neatly summing up a lot of what the Round-Up has spent the last 1,500 words or so going on about.

The Round-Up shares your pain Anthony and salutes you.

The Round-Up also salutes reader Rob Pendragon for providing the witty zinger which won last week's Caption Competition.

And the Round-Up further challenges all of you to come up with a funny for this week's competition.

Until next week, don't forget you can now get a Round-Up fix via the spoken as well as the written word. Listen to the Weekly Round-Up podcast here - for a Facebook-free take on the week's tech news.

Hasta luego.