CompTIA Volley

Carolyn and Seth welcome Aaron Leveston, national account manager at RingCentral. The three of them take a look at CompTIA's latest research, Diversity in the High Tech Industry, and discuss why diversity is such a problem for the tech sector, what changes could be made in the recruiting process, and how diversity should be connected to revenue.

CompTIA's report: www.comptia.org/resources/technol…iversity-research

Carolyn and Seth talk about how technology has changed the Olympic experience. When time zones can be flattened and attention spans are shorter, the old broadcast model doesn't hold up. This has implications for advertisers as they consider how to work with different formats, and it circles back to content creators as they try to deal with audiences that have a variety of interests.

Carolyn and Seth discuss whether or not Apple has had missteps with the iPhoneX, given the disappointing sales numbers and the rumors of cuts in production ahead of the fall lineup. They highlight one possible variable in the equation as being fatigue with technology, as people decide that constant upgrades are not needed and even look for ways to meter their technology usage.

Carolyn and Seth welcome fellow CompTIA researcher Anna Matthai to talk about Anna's latest study on Youth and Technology. The interest in technology remains high, but the new news in this study is a significant spike in interest in tech careers. There are still some gaps in knowledge and some IT myths out there, but the industry is starting to see the fruit of educational efforts, especially around getting more girls interested in tech careers.

Carolyn and Seth preview CompTIA's 2018 IT Industry Outlook with a look at two of the trends in the report. First, they talk about the democratization of technology: the idea that it has become much easier for different people to create technology tools, and so solutions are becoming more diverse. Then they discuss how that diversity leads to a new consumption model as companies procure technology on a subscription basis, leading to new challenges for tech providers.