To fight job losses caused by advancing technologies, IT professionals must become innovators and supporters rather than organizers and maintainers, says futurologist Ian Pearson of British Telecommunications.He believes that as computers become increasingly capable of managing themselves, IT professionals will find themselves gradually transitioning into the roles of technology innovators and interpreters. “We need to look around for jobs that enhance the way the IT infrastructure is used,” Pearson says. “We could retrain people to produce things like virtual environments or new communications tools.”Joy Hughes, vice president of IT and CIO of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., already senses a changing mission among her managers and staffers. The school recently deployed a Web-based course management system that’s designed to make it easier for faculty members to place their courses online. “We have more people supporting the course management system than we did writing custom software for the few faculty members who put courses online five years ago,” she notes.“We’ll be using more [IT professionals] in the future to help people get the most out of the IT that’s available to them,” says Pearson. “They’re moving up the value chain into human interaction.” As technology grows more sophisticated, there will also be a diminished need for IT workers with deep technical knowledge, predicts Dianne Morello, a research vice president at Gartner. “There will be a broader demand for people who are versatile in a variety of different areas than those who are continuous specialists in only one area,” she says. Morello believes that this trend will gradually raise the bar for IT workers: “It may, in fact, even turn them into business IT professionals instead of just technical folks.” Related content opinion Website spoofing: risks, threats, and mitigation strategies for CIOs In this article, we take a look at how CIOs can tackle website spoofing attacks and the best ways to prevent them. By Yash Mehta Dec 01, 2023 5 mins CIO Cyberattacks Security brandpost Sponsored by Catchpoint Systems Inc. Gain full visibility across the Internet Stack with IPM (Internet Performance Monitoring) Today’s IT systems have more points of failure than ever before. Internet Performance Monitoring provides visibility over external networks and services to mitigate outages. By Neal Weinberg Dec 01, 2023 3 mins IT Operations brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers can save money during periods of economic uncertainty Now is the time to overcome the challenges of perimeter-based architectures and reduce costs with zero trust. By Zscaler Dec 01, 2023 4 mins Security feature LexisNexis rises to the generative AI challenge With generative AI, the legal information services giant faces its most formidable disruptor yet. That’s why CTO Jeff Reihl is embracing and enhancing the technology swiftly to keep in front of the competition. By Paula Rooney Dec 01, 2023 6 mins Generative AI Digital Transformation Cloud Computing Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe