Companies utilise social sciences to fill tech jobs

       The sprawling use of consumer technology is spurring the demand for new skills in the workplace, resulting in companies utilising social sciences to fill next-generation technology jobs, according to Gartner, Inc.
       Gartner, Inc vice president and distinguished analyst, Kathy Harris said during the next five years, consumer adoption of technology will accelerate as individuals and groups become more comfortable and adept at using it to manage their family, social, and business relationships. Meanwhile, organisations will struggle to keep pace as they integrate rapidly changing behaviours and technology into an already established business culture and infrastructure.
       To succeed in "consumerising" corporate technology, organisations will need new talent and skills that blend a deep understanding of the business, artistic talents in visual and social schemes that induce the desired behaviours and reactions from consumers' including expansive knowledge of how to invoke and leverage the power of Web technology and models.
       "Many emerging jobs and roles will not simply specialise in one skill area,but will blend business, artistic and technical skills. Many of the needed technical capabilities originate in the social sciences and are aimed at usability and adoption of technology-related business services," Harris said.
       These capabilities embody the notion of "action at the interface" between the enterprise and its markets or between business management and technology management.
       Therefore, organisations are likely to shift the responsibility for leveraging technology outside centralised IT organisations and into the business units responsible for growth and innovation of revenue, products, and services.
       The company sees four new roles in technology related jobs. The first is Web user experience roles to effectively consume the applications and information delivered on the Web.
       These roles range from user interface designers enabling users to work standalone or to self-serve without assistance,virtual-assistant designers who create Web beings that replicate the actions of a human being in providing agent services on the Web and interaction directors who produce Web conversations among multiple people or between people and Web beings in a structured Web environment.
       The second, behavioural analysis roles are aimed at understanding and exploiting human behaviour on the Web and how it may mirror and differ from behaviours in the physical world.
       Some key roles that will interpret and leverage human behaviour are Web psychologists who are becoming increasingly important to product development and marketing, community designers who are responsible for architecting organisation-owned communities, and Web and social network miners and analysts who focus on discovering, understanding and exploiting the social and behavioural dynamics of Web communities.
       The third is information specialists who trace the origin, history and evolution of Web content. Their objectives range from providing the history of content or information to spotting fraudulent or modified images, audio files and texts.Information anthropologists may therefore contribute to legal analysis or to processes where intellectual property or information quality and integrity are at risk.
       The fourth, digital lifestyle experts will aid individuals and groups (for example, executive management, technology or marketing teams) to become more digitally aware, connected, effective, and sophisticated. A digital lifestyle expert may also assist or stand in for their clients in their Web endeavours - defining target digital profiles, building out a digital image or personal brand - as well as helping wired users achieve the digital status they aspire to. As such, key roles will include digital personal consultants and personal brand advisers.
       "The future is solidly connected to the Web and new work streams clearly need to arise to support this," said Harris.