By Karen Lopez on Friday, April 28, 2006 4:06 PM

A recent Information Week magazine article describes their survey of IT salaries.  As in the last few years, data integration, ERP, data warehouse, and data mining wages rank at the top of IT pay scales. 

Where The Money Is
Data mining and data warehouse, human resources IT, Web infrastructure, ERP, and enterprise application integration job functions bag the largest pay packages for IT managers. The lowest-paying spots are for networking, training, and IT support, jobs where median pay is 60% of the top-tier categories. Job titles matter, too. IT staffers with titles of architects and sales support engineers crack $100,000 in median pay. There's much buzz about the importance of project management, but that title, with median pay of $93,000, falls short of the tech elite. Seven staff job categories pay median total compensation of more than $80,000 a year; last year, only four categories topped that figure.

Unfortunately, this increase has widened the gender gap in IT salaries:

The persistent salary gap between women and men, especially in management, got larger this year. Male IT staffers command a median base salary of $70,000, compared with $64,000 for women IT staffers, a 9% difference. Among IT managers, men are earning an average of 15% more than women in base salary this year, compared with 10% more in 2005. Throw in bonuses, and the gap gets larger: Male staffers make $8,000 (12%) more, and male managers $14,000 (16%) more.

It seems to me that we in the information management field rank fairly high on the salary scale graphic.  Enterprise Application Integration ranks first, with data mining coming in third, and database design and analysis coming in eighth, just under application development.

By Karen Lopez on Friday, April 28, 2006 12:42 PM

Congratulations to Amy, Ray, Michael, and Deb, winners of our contest this week.

I will be contacting our winners via e-mail to deliver the prizes.

Thanks, all, for your comments.   I am honoured by what you have said and would love to post about any other data management professionals who have been recognized by their peers for accomplishments in Data Management.

 

By Karen Lopez on Wednesday, April 26, 2006 2:37 PM

At the DAMA International AGM, we celebrated DAMA's 20th Anniversary - two decades of advancing data management.  ...and there was cake.  A great deal of chocolately, rich, cake.

As many of you know, organizations like DAMA are run by volunteers - data management professionals who give their time and resources to support an organization for YOU.  I've known many board members, both locally and internationally and they all volunteer because they are passionate about data management.  Why don't you take a couple of minutes to send a thank you e-mail to your DAMA board members.

Happy Birthday, DAMA. 

By Karen Lopez on Tuesday, April 25, 2006 9:29 AM

A new crossword is available on our Fun Page under Articles & Videos.  This is a diamond crossword that should be easier than our last one -- there are more data-related terms and it is smaller.

 

By Karen Lopez on Monday, April 24, 2006 5:54 PM

I don't want to mislead you -  I've learned a great deal of good information from Graeme's Tutorial - more than just how to make a great paper airplane.

Some key points:

1. Managers don't want to hear prophets of doom.
2. Managers don't want to hear about infrastructure because infrastructure implies ongoing capitol costs.
3. Failing to ask for help is a deadly sin for consultants
4. Managers want loyal teams
5. Managers want professional advice (expressed in an unbiased manner).

There were many other great things I'm taking away from the his presentation.  But you'll have to attend your local DAMA chapter meeting to hear the details.

 

By Karen Lopez on Monday, April 24, 2006 12:17 PM

Today is Tutorial day at DAMA.  I'm attending Graeme Simsion's Consulting Skills for Data Professionals.  Graeme's presentations are always lively, fun, and valuable.  Right now we are doing a fun exercise that involves producing paper airplanes.  I think our attendees are having the most fun of all the sessions.

Yesteray I presented in my How to Win Friends and Influence People with Painless Data Model Reviews.  I had a wonderful group of participates.  It made presenting a joy....even with a fairly noisy and scary hailstorm in the middle. 

More updates later.

By Karen Lopez on Saturday, April 22, 2006 9:54 PM

We/ve made our way to Denver for the Meta Data / DAMA Symposium.  So far, we've helped out the Denver economy by spending most of today shopping.  Up until this week, most of the time I've spent in Denver has been at the aiport, so it is nice change to be able to see the mountains and big blue sky.

So far we've seen a few DAMA people, especially those from the DAMA National Board.  The Board meets during the weekend prior to the conference.  There is usually a DAMA Chapter Presidents meeting, too.

The conference hotel is especially nice.  Rooms have great views, lots of space, and 32" flat screen TVs.  Very nice.

Another great feature of this venue is that the rooms and conference facilites are covered by t-mobile wireless, meaning that I'll be able to post more often about conference activities.

 

By Karen Lopez on Thursday, April 20, 2006 6:50 PM

I received exciting news this week: 

I am the 2006 recipient of the Canadian Information Processing Society's Gary Hadford Professional Achievement Award.  Recipients are recognized by their peers for their integrity and expertise, for their outstanding achievements in fields related to information technology and for their high degree of competence in their field.  

I am the the first female IT professional to receive this award, and as far as I can tell, this is the first time it has been awarded to a professional working in the information architecture and management areas of IT.

To celebrate this news, I will be giving away $25 gift certificates for Amazon to four individuals who reply to the Award and Contest posting on the Data Model Group discussion group (not here on the blog).  Rules for the contest can be found there as well. You must be a registered member of that group in order to post.  Instructions for registering are located on the Data Model Group's web page. 

Good Luck!

Karen

By Karen Lopez on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 11:58 AM

We've added a new fun page under the articles section - a Data Management Crossword for 19 April 2006.  This crossword contains datbase and IT-related terms as well as difficult (for me) crossword terms.

You'd think that with all these empty squares it would be easy to get canonical systhesis in there, but it isn't.

I'd like to do more of these, so I'm looking for IT and DM-related words and clues, especially clues. 

Send words and clues to me and I'll add them to the clue database.

By Karen Lopez on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 9:22 AM

Rob Drysdale, Senior Program Manager for InfoAdvisors, has written an article 7 Mistakes Analysts Make when Working with Business Users.  Rob's background is from the user side, so his insights can be helpful to those of you who struggle to get time with end users.

http://www.infoadvisors.com/ArticlesVideos/7MistakesAnalystsMake/tabid/195/Default.aspx