Seven months in working as a Staff Writer at IT PRO… What can i say? Probably the best thing to do is in what my editor does - write a list based thing about what I’ve learned.

1 Journalists always complain about pay (especially me)

2 Some IT journalists are very strange. It’s a very incestious bunch.

3 IT journalists love getting free stuff - and won’t give it back unless prompted by the PR about fifty times.

4 Once you get a reputation in IT journalism, it’s very difficult to lose it.

5  You’re never sure if a PR is being friendly because they want you to write a story, or because they genuinely like you. I’m hoping they like me.

6 You only get back what you give.

7 Arrogance gets you nowhere.

8 I’m awful at podcasting, but I’m trying to get better.

9 I place a lot of importance in readers looking at my stories - hence I try to write good ones rather than rehashed press releases (as much as I can anyway).

10 If you give me free pints, I will drink as many as I can before the bar shuts.

11 I think IT PRO has a lot of potential, but we’re young and we’re still learning.

12 Lists are a good way of saying something if you’ve got nothing to say.

13 Facebook is the best social network and I’ve got too many drunk pics on it (that’s not directly related to IT PRO, but it seems to have happened more in the last six months).

14 I’m a reasonably decent journalist - This is pretty much my chosen career.

15 I’m really not geeky. I like tech like normal people - after a while I get bored and want to talk about something like movies or what club to go to.

16  Cycling to work is fun, and I’m glad Dennis got me a discounted bike.

17 Las Vegas is one of the maddest places I’ve ever been to. It’s like a cartoon world, but there’s no soul underneath.

18 I like writing about security, but I’m not exactly the best in practising what I preach.

19 I like free lunches.

20 I think I’ll be in tech journalism a long while yet.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Asavin Wattanajantra, I’m the new staff writer at IT PRO and I am very excited to have joined the team here to write news and features for the business and IT decision makers.

Longer term, I also hope to get my teeth stuck into the multimedia side of things such as pod casting and video.

The new year has seen a new start for me career-wise, so I’d like to offer up my predictions of what 2008 has in store for the industry…

Personally, my feeling for this year is that security (as always) is going to be big on everyone’s agenda. It’s a huge issue that companies, including the government given recent high-profile data breaches, are going to have to deal with. Last year saw a number of almost unbelievable security breaches, with personal details ‘disappearing’ to unknown destinations. Breaches like this should not have happened and must not be allowed to happen again, particularly considering that the government is planning on pushing ID card plans further this year.

Malware is also becoming more and more of a problem. This is something Windows Vista must be able to contend with if it is going to make the same impact as Windows XP has. This isn’t the only problem that Ballmer et al will have to deal with as Bill Gates finally leaves and Microsoft’s remaining leadership team begin the process of awakening the slumbering giant.

Apple will also have a big part to play this year, and although in my opinion it is doubtful that 2008 will be dominated by a product in the way the iPhone hogged the limelight in 2007, Steve Jobs is still likely to set much of IT’s future agenda.

Social networking and innovations like Facebook are also ones to watch this year, although I think that it remains to be seen what the future holds for Zuckerberg’s baby and whether it can keep up with the growing band of pretenders, including Cisco, who I predict is likely to have a big role in consumers’ access to social media this year.