14 technology winners and losers, post-COVID-19

As opposed to, say, the travel or restaurant industries, the tech sector has weathered the most disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic relatively well. But that doesn’t mean that business has gone smoothly as if nothing happened — or that trends haven’t accelerated or been disrupted by the crisis. While it’s a bit early to…

At T-Mobile, AI plays supporting role for customer service reps

Artificial intelligence (AI) as intermediary is among the most popular tools in customer support, with businesses frequently dispatching software bots instead of humans to serve customers. You’ve likely experienced this trend firsthand when you’ve called a customer service number and an interactive voice response (IVR) system routed you to the right information funnel (if you’re…

Reskilling IT for the cloud

Paul Ryan stepped into the CTO post at OpenX in 2017 and found an IT department in need of an overhaul. OpenX, a technology company that makes a programmatic advertising platform, was still 100 percent on-prem. It had five data centers holding 45,000 servers and an IT team organized around the legacy skills needed to…

6 tips for remote hiring success

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only shaken up business as usual, sending large portions of the workforce to work from home, it’s also pushed companies to hire from home. Recruiters and hiring managers are now faced with the task of vetting candidates remotely, a challenging prospect for many organizations and roles, especially for technical interviews…

9 lies IT managers tell themselves

Some lies are necessary. Like that smile you fake when agreeing to a budget cut. But there are lies you tell yourself — either because of optimism or to sleep at night — that are time bombs. And when they come for you, you’re rarely able to cope with the disaster they bring. Maybe you…