This week my daughter and I have been working on our
presentations for InfoComm. That’s
right. This year we get to present
together for the first time ever. Some
of you met my daughter when she was about 8 or 9 when I first came into AV and now she is teaching in AV and IT. This is a big deal for both of
us. WOW! - time flies. We are presenting about Secure AV. Our portion of the topic is about AV/IT conversations and the
generational difference in AV/IT technologists of today and the ones of my
day (old dogs).
I was an IT manager back in the day, more years ago than I
care to admit. Back when I was an IT
manager our favorite phrase was “not on MY network”. And, back then I could do that. It was MY network. The users of MY network had privileges on MY
network, but I was in complete control and most of the technologies and
protocols were a “black art” to my users.
If a user had a problem, I could go to the server room and “reverse the
polarity of a tachyon beam and recharge the dilithium crystals” and all was
fixed. All that usually meant was that I
rebooted something, but they didn't need to know that. Not to say I didn't have it rough. C’mon, I
was a network manager on December 31st 1999 and stayed one through January
1st 2000. I had my
trials. But, there was beauty in that my
customers had no idea what I did.
Today my daughter and son are both working in the IT
world. As much as they both tried to get
as far away from IT as they could, they got sucked in. I couldn't be more proud. My son is a NOC engineer for a large email
marketing company and my daughter is a security analyst and network/communications
specialist for the United States Marine Corps.
As a Corporal in the Marines and a network security specialist her job
has its challenges, but adds the fact that her customers build their own high
speed networks at home so they can game, stream, video chat and countless other
bandwidth and network intensive tasks amazes me. Those same customers come to work every day
and demand that they be allowed to BYOD or access their files from home on some
of the world’s most secure networks.
So if you ask me if there is a generational divide in AV/IT
from today and yesteryear, I say, heck yes!
And I sure do miss the good old days, but I am glad I kept my
certifications (CCNA and CCNA Security) up to date and that I kept
learning. I recommend all my peers (you
old IT/AV folks) do the same. Times are changing…
security, security, security.
