During his 22 minutes above the canyon, as winds whipped around him and the rope swayed, Wallenda required an impeccable balance and a deep understanding of the risks involved. This he had honed from his own significant experience and eight generations of high-wire involvement within his family.

Another story that remains very much in the media spotlight, and includes a strong sense of the need for balance is that of Edward Snowden, an intelligence agency whistleblower who until recently had worked with the NSA and CIA. His flight overseas and subsequent release to the media about various data mining programs undertaken by U.S. intelligence agencies has sparked a widespread debate in the media, in government, in businesses and in our own homes, about the issue of balancing security and privacy in a hyper-connected digital age.

Like many of us in business, I am keenly interested in how organizations and society at large maintains the necessary balance between security and privacy. We know, for example, that in exchange for paying our taxes one of government’s primary responsibilities is to keep us safe. The tools needed to identify threats and prevent attacks on our nation — whether they be military, terrorist or economic, as well as the threat from criminal behavior — have evolved in the 21st century technologized environment.

IT security threats are very real for business, too. In the 2013 Harvey Nash CIO Survey we identified that almost one in five U.S. CIOs (18 percent) believe their organization isn’t effectively protected against hacking, commercial espionage and other external IT threats, an increase from 12 percent in 2012.

The growing number of CIOs who feel their organization is exposed to a cyber-security threat likely reflects the growing sophistication and frequency of IT security incidents U.S. organizations have experienced in the past 12 months. It’s unsurprising that greater resources will be invested in cyber-security priorities in 2013 to identify and combat cyber-attacks.

Whatever the threat, however, any organization has to manage the risk of that threat within very clear boundaries for data protection that are set out in the wider legislative framework of our country. In the business community the framework of protecting data and the privacy of clients and customers includes legislation as well as an organization’s own policies for data management. Oversight and accountability of implementing data security policies and ensuring they comply with current law rest with the senior executive team and ultimately the organization’s board governance.

Returning to the Snowden story, his rationale for leaking information about the data mining programs was that they were operating outside the legislative framework. Not true, state his superiors who evidenced the continued need for judicial warrants should analysts want to access the data of an individual suspect, and point to Congressional and Presidential oversight of the programs and the agencies who run them.

Individual privacy has always been an issue centrally important to our way of life, and has never been so relevant in an era when we bank, shop, socialize and even engage our health care providers online. As a technology literate society we each have a role to play.

I read an insightful Opinion by David Brooks in The New York Times recently where he argued that: “For society to function well, there have to be basic levels of trust and cooperation, a respect for institutions and deference to common procedures.”

While recognizing the moral dilemma that Snowden may have faced, that: “he had information about a program he thought was truly menacing.” He also “made certain commitments as a public servant, as a member of an organization, and a nation”.

“The founders did not create the United States so that some solitary 29-year-old could make unilateral decisions about what should be exposed. Snowden self-indulgently short-circuited the democratic structures of accountability, putting his own preferences above everything else.”

I encourage you to read David’s full Opinion here.

I believe very strongly in privacy, however, I believe equally as strongly in protecting Americans and our way of life. While our open and moderate society is a model for many it is also a threat to some, and as such it is at risk. Every time I visit New York and pause at the World Trade Center site I am reminded of this.

As we build up to our celebrations on July 4th I plan to enjoy spending some time with my family, as I hope you will, too, removed for a day or so from the frantic pace of business and technology change. In that time I will take a moment to reflect on the achievements of so many Americans who have built our incredible society over many generations.

I will silently thank the founders who based our system on the unalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, and I will reaffirm my trust in current and future generations to keep these rights in mind as they seek to balance along that tightrope of national security and personal privacy.

It was a fascinating event with tremendous insight from Carly and a range of stimulating questions from the audience.

I wanted to use this blog to highlight a few of my thoughts that emerged as a result of discussing “Leadership in a Changing World” with Carly.

The introduction I used for Carly outlined her successes of course, but it also defined the challenges we face as a nation to recover from one of the most severe recessions in 100 years.

I positioned why I feel the U.S. economy is slowly inching its way up a skills cliff and still faces the risk of falling off the cliff in the middle of our climb as a result of not supplying enough IT talent that is needed to spark innovation to drive GDP growth.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis confirms that the most significant and sustained period of American GDP growth in modern history was achieved in the two decades following World War II. There were two major trends that were behind that unparalleled level of growth, sustained immigration and education progress, and they are just as relevant today as they were then.

Today, on immigration there are the first positive signs that genuine steps are being taken to reform legal immigration. This can only boost our economic prospects.

In a 2012 report titled “America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Then and Now,” researchers from the Kauffman Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes entrepreneurship, identified that immigrants founded one quarter of all U.S. technology start-up companies.

And a separate report from the Partnership for a New American Economy found more than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were led by immigrants or their children.

The more striving immigrants we have legally contributing to our economy the healthier our economy will be.

The other major challenge that lies between modern America and sustained economic growth is based on the supply of skilled labor for a future American economy. On this subject I have written a paper called “Scaling the IT Skills Cliff” which you can download here.

In this paper I argue that we need to do more to encourage young Americans to study Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and to pursue careers in related sectors.

I was very pleased that Carly agreed with me on these education and immigration issues. She argued that the brave new world we face will be defined by brain power. “Those with the best ideas will win,” she said.

Carly added that, “The 21st century is the first century in human experience that the capability exists for any person to source any piece of information from anywhere in the world.” This presents many opportunities for organizations who can develop people capable of succeeding in a knowledge economy.

Carly also argued that two further trends directly impact our economy’s ability to drag itself out of anemic growth.

The first of these was encouraging more entrepreneurs to invest in starting their own businesses, something people currently feel is too risky in the economic climate.

As Carly rightly points out, small businesses employ far more people than big businesses (up to 70 percent of the American workforce are employed by “small” organizations) so the more people we have starting small businesses the more jobs will be created.

However, Carly felt “big” government and “big” business still have a specific role to play in reigniting economic growth.

For government, it is first to simplify the tax code to make it easier for small businesses to commit capital to innovation, but also to act as the primary investor and primary customer for large scale research and development in ground-breaking technologies that are too expensive or too speculative for the private sector to undertake.

Examples such as the development of industrial space technologies in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and early Internet communication models in the 1970’s and 1980’s were used by Carly to identify the long-term commercial benefit that can come from early government funding.

Today, Carly sees opportunities in energy, space technology, information technology, bio technology and health technology sectors, where government and big businesses can adopt a research funding role.

Finally, I was encouraged to hear Carly’s insight on leadership and the role American leaders will play, at all levels of American organizations, to help form our 21st century economy. I hope everyone in my organization was listening as she talked about her own spectacular career success as an example of what American leadership training and development can accomplish.

After kicking off the Harvey Nash USA year in such spectacular fashion I am excited to spend the next several months working with you all in our regional U.S. markets as we engage with employers and skilled IT talent to innovate our way to success and contribute to U.S. economic growth.

Remember, as we continue the steady climb up the IT skills cliff don’t look down, focus on the exciting challenges and summits ahead.

Just a week ago I was at the TechServe Alliance 2012 Conference giving a talk to industry peers on how incoming generations work very differently. It’s meant a lot of adjustment for managers like me accustomed to formal office hours and buiness rituals. When I look at technology today and how it’s changed the world (and I work in IT!), I am sometimes blown away by all the changes.

One of the best examples I have to share is the “Place Me Maybe” video parody our NYC recruiter, Justin Chukumba, did of the Carly Rae Jepsen hit “Call Me Maybe.”

Justin is a millennial. When considering a way to merge the ever-present song with the daily challenges of a recruiter in the technology staffing industry, he took the project home with him. The very next day he had a fun and clever video answer for us.

Lyrics? He wrote them on the subway. Production? He shot the video on his laptop camera. The results? Thousands of people have viewed the video on YouTube, Facebook and our website. And hundreds more saw the video at the TechServe Alliance 2012 Conference. Justin’s willingness to dive in, get creative and poke a little fun at himself is helping us grab the attention of IT candidates across the U.S.

As a business leader of another generation, I am proud of Justin’s work and I am also impressed. That willingness to go outside of the traditional bounds of work—where it’s done, who oversees it and when it happens—resulted in something great.

A happy reminder that ambition and creativity are strong in every generation, Justin’s work is also an example of one of the greatest perks of leadership: watching your employees’ successes unfold—whether it’s on YouTube, in the workplace or anywhere their creativity takes them.

From Facebook to the Arab Spring, social media is reshaping how we engage as friends, as colleagues, as activists, as family members and even as global citizens. In recent years, Harvey Nash has worked to make our social media platforms positive and plentiful recruitment resources for our clients and the thousands of IT professionals around the world who trust their careers to us. And it’s working.

Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA) and Scanlon.Louis just recognized Harvey Nash for “Best Integrated Social Media Campaign” in an analysis of social media practices across the industry. From our career makeover contest and referral program to blogs, surveys and interactive groups across LinkedIn and Facebook , Harvey Nash is creating a powerful network of IT experts, job seekers, thought leaders and businesses.

The results of our efforts, from jobs secured to valuable business connections made, mean greater opportunity and that’s exactly what Harvey Nash wants from social media—greater opportunities for our clients and candidates. I invite you to read more about SIA’s recognition of Harvey Nash social media best practices and success. Find out how we’re creating big opportunities through Likes, Tweets, Blogs, Posts, Tags and more.

It is certainly a timely question. It’s also a hard question — one without easy answers. And hard questions are the very point of these Harvey Nash Leadership Lectures. We pose big, important questions to smart, experienced, thoughtful people who have unique perspectives and expertise on the topic. We gather their insights, we benefit from their knowledge, and we grow as business leaders.

My first speaker, Albert Ellis, took us on a fast-paced tour of Europe, Asia and U.S. markets and provided a very focused and comprehensive summary of global economic conditions. Concluding that business needs three things from government today — a clear plan for handling long-term finances, balanced books and predictable, sustainable tax policies — he very ably set the stage for me as I transitioned the audience from the international scene to the domestic.

That’s me with Senator John Kerry as he takes questions from our audience.

When I introduced Senator Kerry, he was very up front in acknowledging the awkwardness of his position as a member of a group that currently has only an 8% approval rating. No stranger to addressing the toughest challenges facing America, Senator Kerry ploughed ahead, offering us an insider’s look at Congress and the challenges that we face in both the domestic arena and the global marketplace. As someone whose job requires him to wrestle daily with our country’s most profound challenges, Senator Kerry presented a straightforward assessment of some of our most critical issues: deficit reduction, unemployment, job creation, trade imbalance, economic stimulus and financial stability.

In the Senator’s first shot across the bow, he told us that the bottom line today is that we are challenged right now to some degree by our own unwillingness to face reality and be honest with ourselves about what it will really take to move this country forward. On the upside, there is lots of opportunity for American businesses around the globe. Much of the world is still struggling to reach modernity. Growing economies in countries such as China, Vietnam and Brazil are investing significantly in infrastructure development, green energy, education, services and more. The downside is that there is also lots of investment cash sitting on the sidelines due to continuing economic uncertainty. While global businesses have successfully scaled back and honed their own strategies to boost competitiveness over the past several years in order to jump on those opportunities, our government has neither learned from the example of business, nor has it been a sufficient partner in establishing the right framework to help American businesses seize those opportunities.

Why not? Therein resides the answer to the question I had posed for this leadership lecture. What lies ahead for American business is more of the same uncertainty and missed opportunities, unless the business community raises its voice to Congress to move beyond partisan politics. Our Congress is focusing almost exclusively on what it believes is right for the party, when it needs to get back to the business of what is right for America.

Senator John Kerry addressing C-level business leaders at the Harvey Nash Leadership Lecture.

A 28-year veteran of Washington politics, Senator Kerry expressed extreme dismay at the current state of inertia in the Capitol. With dire warnings issued by then Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson back in 2008, Congress took a number of painful steps to avert disaster. Without them, our economy would have imploded. Since then, however, politics seems to have gotten in the way of legislating for the greater good. Noting that the business of governing resulted in just two filibusters in the 19th century, another two in the first half of the 20th century but hundreds in a single session today, our legislators are stymied. This was readily apparent when the Senator provided a rare, behind-the-scenes recounting of how all the balanced budget proposals of recent years withered on the vine of legislative polarity.

We continue to face huge challenges. It doesn’t take rocket science to understand that you cannot spend more than you earn… at least not for long. Following “two wars and a tax cut funded by a credit card,” Senator Kerry warned of dire straits ahead. He told us that America is “heading for an entitlement cliff.” By 2024, the U.S. government will be channeling all of its revenues into funding Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Government cannot sustain itself when it borrows forty cents of every dollar it spends. Tough choices need to be made before that happens. Business knows how critical it is to balance the books. Government needs to do the same.

Kerry further conveyed that the realities of partisan politics feed a dangerous atmosphere that camouflages America’s opportunities at home and abroad. The same country that put a man on the moon yesterday is today “living off the infrastructure that our grandparents built for us,” he said. In this time of short-sightedness and zero investment in the future, what exactly are we leaving to our own grandchildren? We need to excite industrial investment. We need to regain our competitive edge. We need to make tough choices. That’s what Congress needs to do. What about the business community? (That’s what I really wanted to hear.) According to John Kerry, business leaders need to raise their voices and demand action by legislators who seem to be more concerned about future elections than the future of our nation. If they do, then what lies ahead for American business will be an economy stabilized, confidence bolstered, opportunity realized, deficit reduced, jobs generated, infrastructure modernized, education improved, and critical social services preserved.

With many thanks to both Albert Ellis and Senator John Kerry for their insightful observations at our Harvey Nash Leadership Lecture. They certainly fulfilled my mission to help us all grow as business leaders.

If you would like to hear what they had to say firsthand, go to: www.harveynash.com/leadershiplecture.

One final thought: In listening to the Senator describe the total lack of give and take in Congressional debate, I was reminded that the art of negotiating is a critical skill for any sales organization. And the sign of a successful negotiation is that both parties walk away satisfied with the outcome… to some degree. I wonder if the members of Congress might benefit from a refresher course on this. What do you think?

Held at the Grosvenor House in London, the conference brought together a C-level audience, which had the opportunity to hear from a distinguished group of politicians and business executives who included UK Prime Minister David Cameron, Economist Jim O’Neill, Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne, and Abdullah Gul, President of Turkey. As fascinating as their remarks were, the most thought-provoking address came over lunch when we heard from Professor James Moore, Harvey Nash US group advisor and Ronald Reagan’s former Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Trade Development. Jim is a storyteller, and his stories fascinated every single person in the room. As testament to how totally he captivated his audience, there was not one surreptitious check of phone or Blackberry during his talk.

The state of the world. Jim opened with an unusual observation that some of the world’s greatest philosophers are cab drivers. Sharing his own private research, he told us that every cab driver he queries about life in general gives virtually the same response. In London, it’s “Glum today, glum tomorrow.” In New York: “Gloomy today, gloomy tomorrow.”

I’m not so sure they qualify as great philosophers, but they certainly seem to serve as bellwethers for the global mood. Why? This answer is as predictable as these taxicab pronouncements. We have just come through the most difficult times we have seen since the Great Depression. Democracy, capital markets, and the free economy have been sorely tested. From Bernie Madoff to Lehman Brothers to MF Global to Goldman Sachs. How could we let all this happen? It’s certainly not the first time that world events have taken us by surprise. Jim offered some observations from his diplomatic experience to underscore his point.

What’s past is prologue. As a college senior, he had the rare opportunity to visit Romania as a guest of the country’s then head of state, Nicolae Ceauşescu. When he returned many years later as a U.S. envoy to broker an international agreement, Jim was shocked by his youthful naiveté as he observed a society where it was commonplace to see synagogues burned to the ground and bibles used as waste paper. When Ceauşescu stubbornly refused help from both East and West for his besieged nation, it saw the worst winter in its history, when even the hearty Russians departed for home to warm up. Should the eventual collapse of the government have come as a surprise to any observer?

Similarly, a trip to Greece was punctuated by airline strikes, garbage strikes and demonstrations on every street corner. While the rich partied, taxes went uncollected, and social services bloated the national debt. Wasn’t the need for a bailout preordained?

Where do we go from here? Jim’s challenge to those of us privy to his words: Observe and learn! We owe it to future generations to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

The last story Jim shared was the most profound. It may sound familiar. It’s an old proverb that has found its way into a number of modern-day motivational programs. According to Jim, it is a tale from the Bavarian woods. There once was a wise old man who lived outside a small village. Every few weeks, he traveled down the mountain to purchase provisions. While most people revered the extraordinary wisdom he had acquired over his long life, one young man resented his position and wanted to show him up, so he tucked a small bird into his hand and boasted that he would challenge the wise man. “I will say, ‘Tell me old man. In my hand I hold a bird. Tell me, is it alive or is it dead?’ If he tells me it is alive, I will squeeze it until it dies. If he says it is dead, I will open my hands and let it fly away, proving the old man a fool.”

When the revered man next came to the village, the younger man presented his challenge. The elder’s reply was that “the answer to that question lies in your hands…” just as the answer to the very difficult times we have recently experienced lies in our own hands.

Look to your hands. Despite the vast challenges we face today, things will get better. What’s new is old. History repeats itself… over and over and over again. Few things in this world should truly surprise us, because the signs have all been there, if only we had paid more attention. So, be observant. Learn from the past. Don’t try to solve everything on your own. Collaborate with others. Focus on what you can control right now, and know that there are solutions. They lie within your own hands.

My sincere thanks to Jim Moore for giving me much to ponder and for letting me share his profound words with you.

The Harvey Nash CIO Survey is big. It’s big in size—40+ pages long. And it’s big in reach—2,000 senior IT leaders from around the world participated this year. Though I love the survey’s sweeping insights and vast reach, one of the very best parts of our year-long examination of the data is holding up our findings to the scrutiny and input of local market CIOs.

At the end of September, I went to Seattle to do just that. I led the CIO Forum in which an all-star lineup of technology executives came together to share ideas, strategies and expertise with an audience of IT professionals and business leaders. Our panel included Travis McElfresh, the CTO of InfoSpace; Edmond Mesrobian, the CTO of Expedia and Erez Yarkoni, CIO of T-Mobile. Needless to say, good discussion and lessons to learn were abundant among this distinguished crowd.

We've just wrapped up all of our U.S. CIO events for the year and I wanted to share some of what we saw and learned in our forum out on the West Coast from our audience, from our panel and from the pages of the survey. You can see how this thinking compares with participants across the globe on our CIO Survey microsite.

Practical Innovation
Innovation efforts have two major objectives within most IT organizations and CIOs have to strike the right balance between them. Among our panel most businesses are investing 50% of their innovation resources in new technology development and the other 50% in efforts to reduce IT costs.

While the percentages may vary from company to company, that push and pull between innovation as investment and innovation as a tool to reduce costs is ubiquitous. As our panel spoke to the importance of innovation efforts working within a business function and aligned to business goals, pragmatic innovation became the theme. Our audience and panelists spoke to the fact that rogue innovation efforts will not help businesses today and that innovation, creativity and big ideas are essential but still need to be tied to the practical goals and needs of the business.

The Cloud Keeps Growing
The CIO Survey identified the rapid growth of cloud computing utilization and our Seattle event reflected that surge. The majority of the audience and the businesses represented by the panel are working on leveraging cloud computing and/or virtualization. Clearly cloud computing is no longer just media buzz. Businesses are putting both the public cloud and private cloud solutions to use and experimenting to find out what will work best for their businesses. Given this feedback, I wasn’t surprised to read Lucas Mearian’s article in Computerworld on October 4, that a recent research report from Gartner found that companies selling private and/or public cloud storage have seen annual revenue grow 56% to date this year compared to 2010.

Big Data Rules
As one wise panelist told the audience, “Information should always be available, never at rest.” Managing ever growing business data today—and the big data it has become—is a challenge most CIOs are confronting as we speak. While Seattle’s panelists are approaching their data management in various ways, it was clear from the forum discussions that businesses able to harness big data today will be tomorrow’s big winners.

In addition to these shared strategies and challenges shared during the event, I was amazed at how generous our Seattle CIO/CTO panel was in sharing their specific priorities with our audience. It was a thrilling and unique opportunity to view business strategy from the IT leadership helm, and I want to thank each of our panelists for making it happen.

It’s amazing but true that the brand that lives in Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and in the millions of smaller networks fueling social media’s growth today has a profound role in talent recruitment. The very best candidates and today’s skilled professionals will learn your brand through their own social networks. The more positive buzz circulating through the social media sphere, the more your business will attract smart, ambitious and innovative thinkers.

Helping businesses navigate an evolving recruitment landscape and the social media tools that shape it, Harvey Nash Plc is one of only a handful of global recruitment firms that grew in recent years. That success is one of the reasons Harvey Nash has been selected as a finalist for a Grant Thornton Mid-Cap Business of the Year, one of the annual National Business Awards handed out in the UK.

We are extremely proud of our growth and believe that staying ahead of innovations like social media and attuned to the quickly changing landscape of the IT industry have been essential to our success. I invite you to read these insights from our global CEO, Albert Ellis, as he explains the power of a strong viral brand and its increasingly important role in recruitment today.

However, all too often, innovation activities and investments often get pushed to the bottom of the list as the year progresses. Why? Because many businesses—especially small and mid-size companies—are cautious with their budgets, concerned with keeping current systems flowing and, frankly, not investing time or energy into staying abreast of technology and the ways it can create revenue. This can be seen in how the ongoing global economic challenges have resulted in widespread cost-savings and efficiency mindsets among IT leaders. But the reality of competition will inevitably drive companies to innovate. The question is will you be a leader or a follower? Will your company seize market share or relinquish it?

This spring, Harvey Nash took a hard look at the innovation challenges businesses face today in our annual CIO Survey. Nearly three quarters of the 2000-plus survey respondents said that if they don’t innovate and embrace technology their companies will lose market share. The dual challenge facing CIOs is that of maintaining cost efficiency and driving innovation, so how do they best balance that act?

CIOs that have a broad vision have many ways to increase innovation without busting budget limits.
Here are a few:

• Take a Global Perspective. Look past the IT budget and consider how IT innovation can solve the global challenges of the business. If IT can help sales or marketing expand inroads into new industries or prospect groups, business groups will likely contribute to those innovation investments. Innovation most often takes root outside of the confines of IT—in the business organizations where competitive, sales and industry challenges and opportunities are shaping the marketplace. CIOs need to work at becoming highly visible throughout the business organizations so that when the earliest signs of innovation appear, IT can help cultivate and contribute to those efforts.

• Embrace Social Media. It does not require a huge investment to get into the social media game, and the innovation payoff can be high. Social media offers businesses ways to rapidly build an engaged network of experts, staff, partners and clients whose ideas and collaboration can launch projects, track market events, increase valuable dialogue and keep the business well tuned to the marketplace.

• Revamp Processes and Procedures. One way to increase innovative thinking and collaboration is to improve business processes. Tired routines can squash creative thinking. Examine projects that are being addressed and consider whether it is time to change teams and how they interact. Could increasing collaboration early on foster innovative thinking? Could more input from business units improve project results? Scrutinize what can be done to increase creativity and ingenuity in daily IT routines; it may be the most productive, lucrative activity you engage in for the health of the business.

• Keep a Close Eye on Competitors. Avoid tunnel vision (innovation work can be intoxicating and sometimes all encompassing). It’s important to remember to keep a close eye on your competitors to ensure you don’t miss key opportunities and developments. Watch what market trends competitors are emulating and with what technologies are they experimenting. It’s amazing how many innovative ideas come from building on the successes of competitors. You only need to look as far as the mobile phone or e-book industries to confirm it.

• Consider the Cloud. Despite growing pains and security challenges, cloud computing is entering the mainstream. With Apple just recently introducing the iCloud and joining the ranks of Amazon, IBM, Google and others offering business-oriented cloud services, the floodgates are officially wide open. Now is the time for businesses to examine their own cloud capabilities and opportunities. How might their services and solutions be affected by the cloud? Can they be enhanced through the cloud?

• Gear Up Your Sales Staff. Increase the efficiency, mobility and flexibility of your sales team with iPad and other tablet devices. Innovative, fun business tools can spark new ideas. As users “play” with applications they often cross pollinate personal and business ideas.

To CIOs wondering if now is the time to push innovative programs; the answer is absolutely YES! Go for it. Your business depends on it, your job depends on it and your customers are depending on it. The 2011 Harvey Nash CIO Survey shows that IT budgets are expanding and revenue numbers are increasing. Now is the time to jump on the growth wave and introduce programs and innovations that will push your businesses ahead of the competition and leave recession-centric thinking in the dust.

- October 2010 BLS Numbers: 210,000 new jobs gained
- November 2010 BLS Numbers: 93,000 new jobs gained
- December 2010 BLS Numbers: 152,000 new jobs gained
- January 2011 BLS Numbers: 68,000 new jobs gained
- February 2011 BLS Numbers: 194,000 new jobs gained
- March 2011 BLS Numbers: 216,000 new jobs gained

I will concede that the difference between February’s 8.9% unemployment and March’s 8.8% doesn’t look or feel significant. But, I will also argue that those six months of gains above offer positive news that can be seen in improving local job markets. For example, at Harvey Nash we are seeing greater job demand in all our markets, most dramatically on the East Coast as I explained in this recent article in the New Jersey Record.

How we look at numbers like unemployment and consumer confidence defines so much of how we feel about our economic health and security. I, for one, agree with the many pundits out there who say that today’s employment measures do not give an accurate account of what is happening in the marketplace.

Take for example the fact that to be counted as unemployed, someone must have searched for a job in the past month. Today, many people out of work are counted in the labor force metrics for much longer than they would have been in the past. Why? Because they are required to search for a job in order to receive unemployment insurance benefits. Those unemployment benefits have now been extended to historic lengths—99 weeks. So today’s numbers cannot be accurately compared to past periods of long unemployment because the rules of the game have changed.

Some experts argue that higher unemployment would actually be a good thing rather than a bad one. Take a look at this article in Money, which explains how higher unemployment could be a sign of an improving economy as once discouraged job seekers are optimistic enough to start looking for work again. Clearly U.S. job numbers as they are calculated today are open to wide interpretation. Perhaps a more accurate measurement of American job trends would be to evaluate the number of employed in comparison to U.S. population trends?

Whatever the new measure is, we can all agree on this: As long as qualified people who want to work can’t find jobs, we have a problem. So six months of gains is encouraging, but I am not kidding myself. We still have a long way to go.

Until a few months ago, the IT industry has been relatively spared of the downturn’s worst effects: downsizing and layoffs. But that’s all changed as IT industry leaders like Microsoft and global business powerhouses like Caterpillar have announced layoffs. When will things turnaround? Not even a crystal ball could help answer exactly when we’ll see the upswing in our economy. All signs indicate that we’re going to be in the recession business for a while. So in the meantime, the IT industry should expect the highest levels of scrutiny with every business decision and technology investment made.

In terms of leadership, the U.S. seems determined to maintain its position at the forefront of IT innovation and growth. President Obama has indicated that technology is the kind of enabler of change his administration will rely upon as well as a worthwhile investment in its own right. The economic stimulus plan will not yield big results for any industry overnight or even over the year ahead. However, the stimulus package will spur positive market changes that over time will positively and significantly impact the IT sector. For example, many of the agenda items in the plan involve substantial engineering and IT services investments, such as:

• Improving access to broadband
  
• Building an Internet-based smart energy grid
  
• Increasing renewable energy efforts within three years to double the amount of energy that can be produced from renewable resources
  
• Improving infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, mass transit and water projects
  
• Upgrading 10,000 schools and improve learning for 5 million students
  
• Creating electronic medical records
  
• Introducing incentives for companies who invest in new plants and equipment
  

I, for one, believe that amidst all of today’s uncertainty, this is for certain: Technology will play a key part in turning around today’s grim marketplace and helping the government create “three to four million jobs over the next few years” as well as a more competitive America. Harvey Nash is determined to begin making its contributions to these efforts long before the stimulus package begins to have affect.

But amid the humorless gloom is continued good news for IT professionals. The trends that made IT professionals hot-ticket hires in 2007 are predicted to continue through 2008. Unemployment remains very low among IT professionals, which means the field of skilled candidates is very narrow. As the article “No Break Seen in the IT Talent Wars” on CIO.com points out: “Ongoing business expansion and increased reliance on technology are resulting in a strong demand for IT professionals with real-world experience.”

Talented, experienced IT professionals should have no problem finding good opportunities in the months ahead, especially with the help of talent experts--like perhaps Harvey Nash:-).

Businesses and their CIOs also will continue to experience the war for IT talent as one of their primary challenges for 2008.

My industry, the IT services industry, may not be the staging ground for grandiose legend-making, but we at Harvey Nash continue to innovate far ahead of the industry pack. Take for example offshoring. A decade ago when IT services businesses were flocking to India as a place to deliver lower-cost solutions, Harvey Nash decided to go to Vietnam. Today, we run three world-class development centers in Vietnam that employ more than 2,000 IT specialists.

As Paul Smith, Harvey Nash Global Managing Director-IT Outsourcing, writes in his blog, Harvey Nash was “literally the first offshore software development company to open up” in Vietnam. Now global powerhouses like Intel, IBM and Microsoft are today heading to Vietnam and advisory firm PWC just named Vietnam an offshoring destination of choice over India and China.

But rather than rest on our laurels, we continue to push forward and innovate. In the U.S. marketplace, our latest push forward was last week’s acquisition of Atlanta-based TechDiscovery. With TechDiscovery, we have achieved our vision of becoming a full and comprehensive “Right Shore” IT services provider. The addition of TechDiscovery’s proven onshore development, deployment, integration and maintenance solutions means that Harvey Nash can now deliver the full spectrum of IT services on the shore that makes the best business sense for our clients. It’s what’s called the Right Shore approach to IT services delivery.

Again, we are in very good company as we strengthen our IT professional services capabilities within Atlanta’s technology hub. Leading IT services businesses are expanding in this area of the U.S. Take for example Wipro Technologies’ recent announcement that it will soon open a software development center in Atlanta. Wipro Technologies’ U.S. expansion underscores the importance of being able to deliver services in locations that best suit each customer’s specific timeline, budget and resource and management needs.

From Vietnam to across the U.S. to right inside the IT departments of our clients, Harvey Nash is equipped and resourced to deliver world-class IT application, infrastructure, consulting and staffing services to a global clientele. We have chosen to expand our capabilities onshore because it is our belief that today’s businesses will always need a range of delivery options (onsite, offsite, nearshore and offshore) due to changing business strategies, timelines and budgets as well as the dynamic nature of the global marketplace.

And while this expansion is a milestone for Harvey Nash, we are not slowing down one bit. Stay tuned for more innovations to come…Harvey Nash is always on the move.

In early July, Microsoft announced that by the fall of 2007 it will have opened a software development center in Vancouver, Canada, which is less than 150 miles from its global headquarters in Redmond, Washington. It’s close to Microsoft and close to the U.S. But, it is still on the other side of the border, which puts the U.S. on the losing side of this opportunity.

As Deborah Perelman explains in her eWeek article, “Uh-O Canada: The Newest Nearshore Threat?” one of the key reasons for the move was frustrations with the numerous challenges in bringing skilled global talent to work in the U.S. So instead, Microsoft, one of the crown jewels of American innovation and leadership today, is opening a Canadian location designed to be a beacon for the world’s leading technology talent.

It confounds us all in the IT industry that the U.S. government does not see the losses piling up by complicating and impeding the process of bringing skilled, educated foreign workers into the U.S. Let’s not forget the fact that the U.S. is educating thousands upon thousands of foreign professionals every year at colleges and universities nationwide. Nevertheless, we make it next-to-impossible for the majority of them to stay here and use their education to further enrich American businesses and the American economy.

When American businesses are forced to go offshore, whether it’s just a few miles across our borders or thousands of miles away, innovation and tax revenues are walking out the door along with them. By allowing skilled foreign workers to come into the U.S. to help American companies grow and build, we are investing in the U.S. We are making American businesses, and therefore, America, stronger. The more limits we put on how much innovation can enter our borders, the more American innovators will seek friendlier and more sensible shores.

You may expect that I would have the same frustrated reaction, but in some ways I am relieved. I remain frustrated that our country has not found a strategic, positive way to work on our mounting immigration problems. I remain frustrated that many people do not see how much we need to leverage specialized skills from the global talent pool in order to remain competitive in today’s most competitive fields: technology and science.

That said, I am also relieved that H1-B did not make it through the Senate. Why is that? It’s because of the restrictions some lawmakers were hoping to place on the program.

There was momentum to add restrictions to the H-1B program that would have prohibited IT staffing and consulting companies from placing H-1Bs with clients, which would absolutely be detrimental to American corporations. American companies need specialized skills and talent, which are in dire short supply nationally. For American businesses to maintain and foster a leadership position in the world, this talent shortfall needs to be addressed. And in the short term, H1-B’s are the only primary and immediate means for addressing the issue.

The IT staffing and consulting industry is designed to help businesses find the specialized temporary and long-term IT skills they need, which is why this is such an important issue for us in the industry, and for all American companies. Businesses with gaps in their IT teams rely on IT staffing and consulting companies to help fill critical IT skill needs. It makes no sense to limit the ability of IT staffing and consulting firms to accomplish their mission of delivering the best professionals for the job to their clients. In fact, what better institution is there for placing temporary foreign technology professionals than the IT staffing and consulting industry, which specialize in the placement, management and administration of contingent talent?

What the proposed restrictions, as well as the Bill’s failure to advance, tell me is that more education on the issue is required. The nation is fearful of an influx of foreign talent, believing that it means job losses for Americans. We in the technology, consulting and staffing industries need to educate the public and the Congress on how skill-short the country is, especially in the technology, engineering and science sectors. Hopefully, we can take advantage of this pause in the reform battle to help people, businesses and lawmakers understand the skills shortages we face today and the more dire ones ahead.