Penny Jones didn't choose IT as a career -- it chose her. She stumbled upon her first IT job, working for retailer Littlewoods when she was 19, almost by accident. Having spent three years since leaving school in undemanding admin roles, she took the position in operations because it was better paid and looked like a promising opportunity.

The people who make a manager's life difficult aren't the ones who are incompetent. You can spot them and eliminate them without angst. It's semicompetent people who keep their managers awake at night.

Sure, CIOs can be clueless. But so can the programming staff. It's time for the other side of the story: CIOs and IT managers explain just how out-of-it their application development staff can be

To work in IT you have to have a tech background, right? Nope. With the right set of management skills, even a nontechnical person can make it as a successful manager. Sure, it helps to understand the bits and-bytes of each employee's area of expertise. If nothing else, it means the manager can appreciate what the staff does right and recognize weaknesses. But how can managers accurately evaluate team performance or assign tasks when they know little or nothing about what the individual does? According to some technical employees, the answer is communication.

A few years back, when Leslie Fiering began talking to IT executives about the potential benefits of employee-owned notebooks in the enterprise, the idea caused "fear, loathing and extreme distress in the hearts of CIOs," she recalls.

The competition sure is fierce when it comes to landing good young talent these days. Organizations are standing shoulder to shoulder around the global talent pool, trying to hook their share of Gen X and Gen Y keepers. But despite their youth, these new recruits are as wary and tight-lipped as a wily old bass. If you don't find just the right way to attract them, they won't give you a nibble.

When BA completes its inevitable blame-storming meeting over the recent Heathrow fiasco, there will inevitably be some casualties. How many human sacrifices will be offered to the Gods of the Media? Six would be too many, and four not enough. But who will be the Terminal Five, the men and women who pay for the failed systems with their careers?

Leadership consultant and psychologist Henry Cloud explains why having priorities and setting personal boundaries is so critical to preserving some semblance of work life balance in the era of the 60-hour work week. He also discusses the damaging effects of workaholism

Focusing your job search on the employers that need your skills the most will improve your chances of connecting with key hiring-decision makers and landing a new job.

On February 20, IT manager and columnist Ron Nutter was called into his boss's office and told he was being let go -- that day. Once the initial shock wore off, Nutter launched an aggressive search for employment in the US area of Kansas City. Over the next 76 days, Nutter applied for 85 jobs, and had 16 interviews before landing a new position. He chronicled the job search in a daily blog. Now that he has had some time to reflect on the experience, Nutter offers these 20 tips for surviving a layoff.

IT department culture is probably not a match with overall corporate culture in about half of all businesses