The State of the IT Industry 2009 - Win an mp3 Player!

[rsavoia]

Before I begin, I am not spamming. I asked Bryce if I could post this here and he was okay with it.

Last week I posted an article on the front page of theforcefield.net revisiting a series of podcasts about The State of the IT Industry in which four IT professionals predicted where their business and the industry as a whole would be in the coming year.

The idea is to find out if their predictions were true, what happened in their segment of the industry that made them come true in spite of current economic conditions and why.

Of course, not everyone has had the same optimism or success in their businesses, which brings up an interesting point. Why did some do well and others didn't?

I think there are a few reasons but there is one in particular that was discussed in all four episodes that became a common theme. Hint: It was discussed outright in episodes 31 and 32.

At the end of the article I challenged everyone to review the episodes for themselves and discover what I believe to be one reason discussed that can make or break your success in this market, especially in a difficult economy.

To find out if I'm right and what it is, we are holding a contest. I invite everyone to listen to all four interviews again and post your comments in the contest thread in The Force Field forums or send an e-mail to comments@theforcefield.net. You can discuss the topic in the forum but only one official posted answer per person.

If you guess my answer correctly or figure it out I will put your name in a drawing to win an mp3 player similar to the one we gave away in the Summer of Podcasts contest earlier this year. (The winner was in Sweden).

This mp3 player will be shipped loaded with The Force Field Podcast Special Edition Volume 1. This edition, which is currently available in The Force Field Podcast store, is a collection of the first six episodes of The Force Field (when it was for OnForce Providers only) remastered with additional content and an additional segment in each episode written and produced specifically for the collection and never before released. The episodes are COMMERCIAL FREE.

A winner will be chosen from all correct entries posted in the FF forums contest thread or received at comments@theforcefield.net by January 31, 2009. The winner will be announced on a future episode of The Force Field.

Rick

 

[Psychoticus]

if you get people to post in the forum whats stopping people just copying others answers? just a thought.

 

[rsavoia]

if you get people to post in the forum whats stopping people just copying others answers? just a thought.

There can be more than one answer because a number of concepts were discussed or implied, but the idea is to guess which one I am leaning toward, so there is only one correct answer. You could copy other answers, but if the answers are wrong, they won't qualify.

To keep it fair though, I will add the rule one posted answer per person.

What this is about is using critical thinking skills to help develop and nurture one's business acumen in business management. This is a concept that, as one tech who runs a computer business once put it, (paraphrased) "many techs don't really get and why some of them don't do well because they are thinking like techs and not like business owners."

The aim here is to get everyone thinking and have fun at the same time.

 

[rsavoia]

I was preoccupied with CES and haven't really kept up with the contest so I decided to extend it. The deadline for entries is January 31, 2010.