IT Insights Blog — TestOut Continuing Education

The Macedonian warrior king Alexander the Great conquered vast swaths of the known world by force of arms, establishing a great empire before dying young at age 32 in 323 B.C. The world is a different place in 2016. Political leaders still bicker over territory and sometimes an aggressive nation can still absorb chunks of this or that less powerful neighbor. The real conquerors, however, command programmers, or data specialists, instead of armed soldiers, and conquests are measured most frequently in dollars and cents.

For a few minutes every Nov. 11, I ponder the First World War. The senseless carnage and loss of life is sobering. Last Friday was the 98th anniversary of the armistice signed between the Allies and Germany. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the slaughter of the “War to end all wars” came to an end.

I was recently reminded of the Sainsbury’s television ad that depicts the Christmas Truce of 1914. On Christmas Eve of that year, in the trenches of the Western Front during the First World War, you could hear German and Allied soldiers singing Christmas carols across enemy lines. On Christmas morning, German troops stepped away from their cover and walked through no-mans-land shouting “Merry Christmas” to their enemies. This initially alarmed the Allied troops, but after realizing the advancing soldiers were unarmed, they went to greet them. Differences were set aside for those few hours (days in some areas), and celebration interrupted the brutal slog of warfare.

Every generation has cultural artifacts it thinks are awesome. Think about movies and television. Forty(-ish) years ago, everyone raved about movies like Star Wars, The Godfather and Grease, or shows like M*A*S*H, Happy Days and All in the Family. We still have Star Wars in 2016, as well as other artifacts that have either undergone a phoenix-like rebirth (can you believe we're in season six of the new Hawaii Five-O?), or simply never left the stage (the next new Star Trek series begins in January). There are also new and different towering cultural phenomena, however, like J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books and films, or the zombie-tastic The Walking Dead on AMC.

WOW! What a week this has been. The country has gone to the polls and elected a new president, the stock market is up, and TestOut just celebrated its 25th Anniversary. Back in 1991, Noel Vallejo was working for a major IT company. One afternoon he was called down to HR and informed that he was one of a large number of employees who were soon to be ex-employees. He went home with no idea what to do. His twin daughters were too young to know what was going on, but his wife cried with worry about how they were going to make it.