ITMB 2012 Networking event

On Wednesday, I was invited to the ITMB 2012 Networking event in Manchester.

The event was for university students who do the Information Technology Management for Business degree (or as mine is actually titled, Management and Information Technology- I attend a Management school, and don’t the university emphasise Management not Business school! Hence the re-title)

The degree is designed in partnership some of the world’s biggest employers, such as Bank of America, Deloitte and IBM as they found graduates were leaving university without the right skills they were looking for.

It’s all well and good having a perfect score on your degree, but once you leave education, in all honesty it doesn’t mean too much. You can’t exactly sell a client service by saying you got 80% on your essay! Employers want to hire graduates who are as confident with their business skills as they are with their IT knowledge.  

From my view, technology encompasses every single aspect of every business, it is the heart of any corporation, and is critical to the daily survival of them, which is why I love it, and see how important it is, and yet it’s no longer just about the back office ‘Techie’, its a board issue now. Therefore, these companies have designed the modules and course material of this degree to reflect the need for technically skilled people with the managerial and business mind also.

The event involved speakers from different organisations to highlight key trends in the industry, discuss current IT developments, various economic issues and inspire us generally. It was also a great networking events, as a soon to be graduate, it was my mission to schmooze a few key players.

At the start of the day, it started out like a typical road trip, 2 girls, 3 guys driving down the motorway too early in the morning and with too much coffee in our system.

However on arrival we soon got down to business, and were quickly introduced to the CIO of Morrison’s and other key IT directors from companies such as Credit Suisse, where we could discuss our interests, showcase our passions and generally raise our profiles.

There were many speakers, but two key presentations stood out for me which I want to share with you. I’ll blog about them on another post, but they were:

• ‘PowerPoint Sucks’
• ‘Women in IT’

On a side note, I may have a slight crush on Bryan Johnson who gave the ‘PowerPoint sucks’ presentation... such a suave guy!

Then as part of the day, Deliotte ran a competition based on Cyber Security. We were tasked to give a critical analysis presentation on the current trends and threats, the effects on the banking industry, and how we can prevent it using the latest techniques and operations.... and we came second!

I can’t believe it, out of over 300 people, my team of 5 came second. I’m so very proud, and it proves that we work hard and that we know our stuff.

The day was a fantastic opportunity to really get an edge ahead in the networking area, as this is our final year of our degree. I really believe technology careers need to overcome this stigma it still has, and degrees and events like this are vital for it, plus it honestly was fun.

Of course, after all that hard work, we deserved a treat and headed straight to TGI’s for the one and only Jack Daniels Glaze Ribs- for this girl, no half heartedness, it has to be the full double glaze rack! The food of winners!

If you do want to find out more about the degree, check out the website here:

http://www.e-skills.com/ITMB

Career, Food, ITMB, Lancaster, lifestyle, Manchester, Technology, University