I had the pleasure a couple of weeks ago of co-hosting the Community Connection event here in Regina, sponsored by Microsoft, CIP, ICTC and ACCC as part of the launch tour for Server2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL 2008. As part of this event I was able to participate in the afternoon presentation to about 50 SIAST and high school students as well as the evening session for IT Professionals. There was a sound message delivered as part of these presentations, there is an immediate and short range need for a large number of people to enter the field.

The numbers presented by ICTC indicate a 33,000 person shortage for 2008 and 89,000 in the next 3 to 5 years. Those numbers are staggering when you look at the enrolment numbers in computer programs across Canada. In Regina, there are currently 12 declared CSS students at the University of Regina, with 20 people attending SIAST Wascana campus’s networking class, and another 20 in SIAST Palliser campus for the programming class. Those numbers are not reassuring when you are looking to hire staff. I recently attempted to hire a QA Developer and a .net Developer. We had approval to make this happen as fast as possible and in the end I was hard pressed to find any candidates from Regina. We ended up interviewing people in Calgary, Winnipeg and finally ended up hiring the .net developer from Halifax.

What seems to be the market condition at this time in Regina is the consulting firms are having employees jump around between them to take on various new postings, but few if any new people actually are entering the workforce. This will really lead to a problem in the next 3-5 years when the baby boomers start to retire. My personal take away from the Community Connection was to find a means of encouraging enrolment in the school programs around the province, and find a way to increase the public’s awareness of this need.

In Saskatchewan, we are experiencing a bit of a renaissance in terms of population growth, economic growth and revitalization in general. One of the by-products of this boom is a need to fill professional and trade positions to meet the demand. In the case of the nurses and teachers, they have a collective bargaining group in the form of a union to lobby on their behalf to encourage the government to hire more positions as well as to market to the general public, and the current high school students in particular of the need for these professionals. This is lacking in the IT sector as we all work for different companies and organizations. Far be it from me to preach the virtues of a union, but I do believe that there is a need for a common voice to represent the technology profession in Saskatchewan at some level.

Within Saskatchewan, there is an organization that could do this. SATA is a non-profit organization that has a large membership of corporations and companies with IT interests. The downside is that this organization has mainly made its mandate to present information as to why the outsourcing of IT jobs by the government is the right choice to make. Funny enough, most of the membership companies are consulting firm who would be the beneficiary of these practices. That does not make them the right voice for the industry in my mind.

This then leads me to the second option, CIPS. As an organization, it is exclusively made up of volunteers with no paid or full-time staff. They would have a great deal of trouble in finding the leadership to take on this task. It requires statistical analysis, marketing, lobbying the provincial government at different level, the education institutions as well as making presentations around the province to perspective students. It is a giant undertaking and one that a volunteer organization can’t do effectively.T

his then leads me to my third option. For those who have been following my blog since the start of the year will know that I have been looking for a means to become a Technology Evangelist within my own community and how to turn this into a profession; this may be the opportunity to do just that. Who it is that would sponsor such a position (or non-profit organization)? That is the part of the mission I need to work out, but I now have a starting point to work towards my goal.

I will keep you updated as I continue to work this all out.

Will