CompTIA's Posts

An overarching theme at CompTIA’s EMEA Member & Partner Conference this year has been defining Big Data and its role across our members’ and partners’ organisations. A panel of experts from across the industry stripped back some of the layers surrounding this all encompassing and often misunderstood area of IT in a session chaired by Carl West, business group director, IT, office and stationery, GfK Retail and Technology UK.  So is big data relevant to small busine ...

Social media expert DK talked about how to embed a social media culture in your organization at CompTIA’s EMEA Member & Partner Conference this year. He argued we’ve moved on from talking about how to blog and tweet. We’ve even moved on from social media strategy. We now need to be talking about a social media culture. And, he stressed, that goes beyond social media marketing. We need to deepen the social media conversation beyond how it can be used as a marketing tool. He ...

John Kaufman discussed the art of differentiation when selling IT and IT training at CompTIA’s EMEA Member & Partner Conference this year. Sales, he said, is not just a financial exchange – it is the art of influencing. We should learn from our everyday interactions with people to become better salespeople. Using clips from the movie Hitch, in which Will Smith plays a suave dating guru, he explained how influencers can differentiate themselves. He urged delegates to remember tha ...

Lawrence Rowley, Funding Manager, City and Guilds, discussed the current funding landscape for training programmes that may incorporate IT work experience, training and certification at CompTIA’s EMEA Member & Partner Conference this year. Rowley said that the UK government’s priorities for skills growth are currently centred around traineeships, apprenticeships and programmes for the unemployed. We’re now seeing a return to protected funding channels for each of these str ...

Tim Harford, Financial Times journalist, Radio 4 presenter and author of the bestselling Undercover Economist delivered the opening keynote on “Innovation and the Art of Good Mistakes” at CompTIA’s EMEA Member & Partner Conference this year. Harford started by explaining marginal improvements – small changes that can make a difference to a business. Here, he praised the IT industry for its successful approach. But he argued that this approach can be too easy, and to ...