It’s never been more important for employers and employees both to invest in tech education. Whether it’s the enterprise offering continuing education for employees or workers themselves exploring new opportunities for upskilling and certification, the point is clear: there’s no way to keep business moving forward without it.
In a new webcast series, done in partnership with Splunk, I sat down with Eric Fusilero, Vice president of Global Enablement and Education plus Dustin Eastman, a sales engineer, both at Splunk, to discuss issues like continuing tech education, upskilling, and more as they relate to the long-term success of virtually any business.
In the first episode of The Power of Tech Education series, Eric Fusilero discussed the myriad ways education relates to building value in business. We also discussed things like the skills gap that’s been plaguing the industry for decades, how it’s been impacted by the Great Resignation, and the many ways increasingly sophisticated cyber threats make continuing education table stakes. Point being sitting back and waiting in today’s marketplace is no longer an option. If employees don’t continue to learn and unlearn and relearn (as first noted by Alvin Toffler), those businesses won’t survive.
Still, while it may seem obvious that continuous tech education is important, an enterprise-wide commitment to tech education and continuous learning is far from easy to implement. Most companies don’t have a Global Enablement and Education division, like Splunk does. Many don’t make time or space for employees to invest in their own education in a stress-free way. Many worry that if they invest in employees’ education, they’ll “lose” that investment if an employee doesn’t stay with the company. Eric’s point: that business won’t survive anyway if the commitment to education is missing.
In other words: Every business today, regardless of industry, needs to be a tech education champion. For its part, Splunk truly is a champion for tech education for its employees. They survey employees to see how their training is working. They look at how and where employees want to learn. They try to democratize that learning—making it as widely available as possible.
The question then is: how do other companies do the same thing in ways or at scales that work for them and their unique industry?
Real Life Experience in Tech Education
Dustin Eastman joined The Power of Tech Education Series for the third and final episode to share some possible answers. Dustin shared his personal perspective of moving through the continuous education process at Splunk. He discussed the importance of both informal and formal avenues for learning and knowledge-sharing—the importance of both bettering skills and addressing skills gaps—the importance of both looking to mentors for guidance and taking the personal initiative to always be curious. All these options require differing levels of effort and investment, but all are possible to at least some degree, regardless of business size or industry. There’s truly no excuse for letting tech education slip to the bottom of your business arsenal.
Interested in checking out the series? Start with Episode 1, here.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of the Futurum Group as a whole.
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Image Credit: Splunk
Author Information
Daniel is the CEO of The Futurum Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise.
From the leading edge of AI to global technology policy, Daniel makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology investments. Daniel is a top 5 globally ranked industry analyst and his ideas are regularly cited or shared in television appearances by CNBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other sites around the world.
A 7x Best-Selling Author including his most recent book “Human/Machine.” Daniel is also a Forbes and MarketWatch (Dow Jones) contributor.
An MBA and Former Graduate Adjunct Faculty, Daniel is an Austin Texas transplant after 40 years in Chicago. His speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.
