Martin Slofstra: Long time powerhouse Editorial Director and Writer

This week, Stephen Ibaraki, FCIPS, I.S.P. has an exclusive interview, during his regular chat sessions with Martin Slofstra.

Martin Slofstra has over 20 years experience covering the IT industry in Canada, graduating with an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Western Ontario in London in 1982, and starting with Northern Telecom as a corporate writer in that same year. He joined Computing Canada as staff writer in 1985. He's also served as Communications Editor and Editor of that magazine. In 1997, he helped launched and became editor of InfoSystems Executive (now called EDGE), Canada's first technology magazine for business executives. Martin has served as editorial director of the IT Business Group at Transcontinental Media, Canada's largest publisher of information technology-related newspapers and magazines.

Mr. Slofstra regularly moderates panels and makes presentations at trade shows and conferences and other industry events.

To listen to the interview, click on this MP3 file link

The latest blog on the interview can be found in the IT Managers Connection (IMC) forum where you can provide your comments in an interactive dialogue.
http://blogs.technet.com/cdnitmanagers/

DISCUSSION:

Interview Time Index (MM:SS) and Topic
00:25:		Martin you will be starting a seven-part series with the CBC on "What's wrong with IT", which is a combination of opinion and expert comments. Can you tell us more about this? "I wanted to capture what is going on in this industry. It seems like a lot of the excitement is gone and things are in a lull.....There are certainly a lot of ongoing issues...I don't mean to suggest that there is anything actually wrong with IT. It's more of a rhetorical question..."
01:23:		Can you outline some of the topic areas? "I think there are several components to it. A lot of it is the fallout from the dot com bubble burst and the investment climate out there..........Another aspect is the whole issue of the skills shortages........There is not an understanding at the executive suite of the role of IT......I think there are a lot of human resource issues around IT which should be explored..."
04:44:		What will be the format of the series? "....If you pick a good topic that is somewhat provocative and even controversial, I think people will be ready to respond....It's not just about the technology, it's also about the professional issues (and there are a lot of those) and I really don't see a lot of that coverage in the media in Canada. What I'd like to see is a dialogue really, bringing up these issues and getting people to talk about it...."