The IT professionals guide to researching a new industry get to know your industry for a happy and successful career

The IT Professional's Guide to Researching a New Industry Get to know your industry for a happy and successful career Tom Taulli... Many of the winners are Silicon Valley-style entrepren

The IT Professional's Guide to Researching

a New Industry Get to know your industry for a happy and successful career

Tom Taulli

The IT Professional's Guide

to Researching a New Industry

Copyright © 2014 Impackt Publishing

All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied Neither the author nor Impackt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book

Impackt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals However, Impackt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information

First published: March 2014

About the Author

Tom Taulli is the author of numerous books, including All About Short Selling, All About Commodities, How to Create the Next Facebook: Seeing Your Startup Through, from Idea to IPO, and High-Profit IPO Strategies: Finding Breakout IPOs for Investors and Traders He also writes for publications such as Forbes.com and BusinessWeek.com You can reach him at his blog Taulli.com

About the Reviewer

Paul Nahay received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in musical composition from Stanford University He taught on the faculties of Stanford University, the University

of Maryland at College Park, University of Maryland University College (as Assistant Professor), the Graduate School of the United States Department of Agriculture, and for UMBC (University of Maryland at Baltimore County) Training Centers, where he taught computer programming languages and related technologies for over a decade Paul was

a freelance corporate trainer and Microsoft Certified Trainer for 15 years, and instructed hundreds of programmers from over two hundred different companies, federal and state government agencies, and military branches He was a Technical Editor for the John Wiley and Sons/Sybex book Java SE 7 Programming Essentials, by Michael Ernest, published November 2012 He currently designs and teaches programming courses in Java, C#, JavaScript, and Android programming Paul designed and programmed a number of unique music software systems, including ScoreInput, published by Passport Designs Paul's current live keyboard performance software, Keyboard Wizard, has enhanced live performances featuring David Benoit, Tony D'Anza, Linda Eder, Michael Feinstein, Brad Garrett, Kathy Lee Gifford, The 5th Dimension's Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr., and Ray Romano It was used on tour with recording artist Melissa Manchester, in the scoring

of the USA Network's The Starter Wifeseries, as well as in the Disney/Pixar motion picture The Princess and the Frog, under the baton of Randy Newman In both 2011 and 2012, it enhanced the Kodak Cinematography Awards Ceremonies, one of the official off-screen Academy Awards events for the Oscar-nominated cinematographers Information about Keyboard Wizardis at broadway-performance-systems.com Paul currently works for the U.S Department of Defense, Washington, D.C., as Computer Scientist

Chapter 2: Questions to Ask About an Industry 9

> Preface

While much of the US economy has languished since the financial crisis of 2008, the Information Technology (IT) community has thrived This is especially true for those people who have skills in areas such as mobile, the cloud, social networking, robotics, and 3D printing, all of which are exciting and expanding parts of the IT world

According to research from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the forecasted growth rate in employment from 2010 to 2020 for software developers is 30 percent (the average salary

is over 90,000 dollars) Roles such as database administrators, computer systems analysts, and computer research scientists are estimated to see growth rates of over 20 percent

IT companies realize that technology is about more than just making core functions more efficient, such as enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management,

marketing automation, and human capital management They understand that there needs

to be technology embedded in products as well Yes, your refrigerator will probably be connected to the Internet one day, if it isn't already Or consider that your car will have 3G too

This is why the famed Internet entrepreneur and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen believes that "software is eating the world" According to him, "More and more

major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services—from movies to agriculture to national defense Many of the winners are Silicon Valley-style entrepreneurial technology companies that are invading and overturning established industry structures."

Great, right? Absolutely But if you want to maximize your career in the IT industry, you need to go beyond just having the right skill set It is vitally important that you pick the right segment of the market to focus on

Hey, what if you had a job as an IT developer at Borders or Kodak? Well, it may have been an interesting experience, but now you might be without a job and benefits Instead, what if you had worked at companies such as Under Armour, Starbucks,

or LinkedIn? No doubt, you would have experienced the exhilaration of high growth and innovation Besides, your equity options will have been worth much more

Understanding an industry will help an IT developer with their job With the rise in cloud computing, companies are effectively offloading processes This means less demand for employees that handle routine tasks, infrastructure, servers, and hardware Instead, the focus is on looking for business uses for technologies So again, an IT developer's understanding of an industry will certainly be a huge help

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The good news is that there is an enormous amount of information available Of course, this is one of the many benefits of the Internet But there's a problem: information overload You'll quickly realize that you could spend weeks and weeks reading the latest information about an industry It's overwhelming

To be successful, you really need to focus on the important parts What are the key drivers? What are the challenges? Is the industry growing? What are the danger signs?When you have a good feel for the goals of your research, then things will get much easier, which is the main goal of this book

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Researching an Industry, will give you information on how industries are classified and defined, giving you the first steps in the process of your research

Chapter 2, Questions to Ask About an Industry, will show you how to critically assess different industries and draw out the issues that will be important to you both professionally and personally

Chapter 3, Finding the Right Information, gives you guidance on how and where to look for the information you need

Who this book is for

If you are an IT Professional and want to find out more about the best industries to work

in today, this book will give you the basics on what questions to ask and how to research your job market As the world of IT becomes an essential part of any business, today an

IT professional could find themselves working in a range of industries and sectors The question is—which one makes sense for you?

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning

New terms and important words are shown in bold

Make a note Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip Tips and tricks appear like this.

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> 1

Researching an Industry

As an IT professional looking to enter a new industry, there is much

to think about Which industries are growing? Which ones are facing headwinds? Which provide the best long-term prospects? Which industry is the best for your skill set?

All these questions can seem daunting But, in this chapter, we'll take a look at some approaches to help make the process smoother and much more effective The first section will talk about how to define an industry, which might sound simple, but in fact can be very tricky We'll look at how using an industry code (a number that describes a particular industry) can be a helpful way to make your research much easier

After this, we'll take a look at some of the innovative online and mobile tools that can help you with your efforts (for an IT professional, this should be familiar ground) These will help you

to keep track of your links and provide a great way to organize your research, for example, by taking notes or putting together lists of bookmarks

to focus on the wrong industry segment, which could certainly stunt your career path.

If you look at the Merriam-Webster dictionary, you'll see that the definition of "industry"

is a bit fuzzy:

A group of productive organizations that produce or supply goods, services,

or sources of income

Not very helpful, huh?

So, to help things along, the U.S Government has done a lot of work to create a standard classification of industries called the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS, pronounced "nakes"), which is used at the core of Federal statistics This was created to create uniformity in the measurement of economic statistics, making it easier

to calculate things such as the growth rates of certain industries In the messiness of macroeconomics, NAICS make it a little easier to see exactly what is going on

NAICS is the result of extensive study and analysis by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Economic Classification Policy Committee (ECPC), Statistics Canada, and Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Estadistica y Geografia Its origins go back to 1997, but NAICS actually replaced an older system called Standard Industrial Classification (SIC)

A NAICS code may sound intimidating, but it is actually a really efficient way to define an industry It will also be extremely helpful when conducting your research because many databases use NAICS codes

Keep in mind that all of these codes have six digits, which go from general to specific (you can find a comprehensive list of every NAICS code online at http://www.census gov/eos/www/naics/) The first two digits are the broadest industry sectors, which include:

Researching an Industry

7<

Make a note

■ 11: Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing, and Hunting

■ 21: Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction

■ 52: Finance and Insurance

■ 53: Real Estate and Rental and Leasing

■ 54: Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

■ 55: Management of Companies and Enterprises

■ 56: Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services

■ 61: Educational Services

■ 62: Health Care and Social Assistance

■ 71: Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation

■ 72: Accommodation and Food Services

■ 81: Other Services (except Public Administration)

312111, Soft Drink Manufacturing

To look up the NAICS codes (of which there are 1,065, by the way), you will need to use

a private data provider One good resource is Manta.com Think of this site as a search engine for information on companies In fact, the database has over 87 profiles While some of the information requires a subscription, the free portion still has a large amount

of helpful information Some of the items include: employee count, years in business, list

of products and services, similar businesses, and revenues

However, some companies engage in different types of businesses So, to deal with this, the NAICS code is based on the primary business activity of a company

In other words, if you plan to work for a company that has many types of business, you should not look at its designated NAICS code Instead, you should find the NAICS code for the industry of the division you plan to work for

Researching an Industry

8<

To do this, you can go to http://www.census.gov/eos/www/naics/ and then input several phrases that describe the industry You'll get a list of suggested NAICS and you can then select the most relevant one

Helpful Internet tools

Once you have the right industry target, you will then need to find efficient ways to track your research The good news is that there are many free services to help you out

Of course, Google offers an extensive set of online features that allow the easy creation

of documents With these, you can copy and paste web links and articles

If you use Word, then you can set up a service such as Dropbox With this, you can

sync all your files in the cloud This means that any changes you make to a document will be instantly updated across your systems, be that a desktop, laptop, tablet,

or smartphone This is especially useful if you are likely to be doing research on

a number of different devices

A more developed research tool is Evernote It essentially makes it easy to save just about anything, including blog posts and even audio recordings So, what if you like to use old-fashioned pen and paper to write your notes? Well, you can do this with Evernote

as well, that is, by using a smart pen, like you can buy from Livescribe.com Your notes will be wirelessly transferred to your Evernote account This type of device can cost anywhere from 150 to 300 dollars

Then there is OneNote, owned by Microsoft With it, all of your content is connected to the Office apps For example, if you insert an Excel spreadsheet in your notes, you will see preview charts and diagrams at the side of the page

OneNote is also optimized for mobile devices That is, you can easily draw, erase, and edit information by swiping your finger across the screen

Keep in mind that there are hundreds of note-taking apps on the market, so it is

impossible to review all of them in this eBook The good news is that top companies such

as Microsoft and Google have top-notch offerings that integrate with their other apps But it is also worth taking a look at apps from smaller companies such as Dropbox or Evernote In other words, before deciding on a note-taking app, it's a good idea to try

a variety of them out

Summary

In this chapter, we covered the essential starting points for your research We learned that all industries have standard codes that can be extremely useful for searching databases I'm sure you'll agree it is critical that you are researching the right industry!

We have also had a look at the rich online and mobile tools available, many of which are free They will be very useful as you plow through lots of information

You are now ready for the next step, that is, to get a sense of the topics you need to focus

on That's what we'll do in the next chapter