Do you remember the days when the future of computing in this country was a small black box, television screen, small tape recorder - otherwise known as the ZX Spectrum.  How I idled away hours in getting the thing to repeat the words “Zeidman is Cool!!” a hundred times down the screen.

Within the industry as a whole Sir Clive Sinclair was really cool, but possibly because there were not many other contenders - Bill Gates and Microsoft were still in the shadow of IBM, and it would be more than three years before the concept of Windows was unleashed to the world in November 1985. One of the applications I tested back then (…okay, more honestly, “a game I played”), was called ‘Great Britain Limited’.  As Chancellor of the Exchequer you controlled the budget, tried to set a balance between expenditure and taxation, and worried about inflation. Watch out Alistair Darling!  If perhaps this game had been developed further, it would have included the possibility of setting levels of government investment within competing industry sectors.  Why would that have been an important addition? 

At that time in the early to mid-1980’s the UK witnessed the decline of various manufacturing sectors.  This was graphically played out on our television screens between the locking horns of coal miners’ union leader Arthur Scargill, and PM Margaret Thatcher.  During this period there was a rise of the UK as a centre of finance and banking. So much so that any self-respecting middle class student was enticed to dump the traditional strongholds of law or accounting, and join the city slickers – “greed is good” as the mantra went. 

How remarkable it is then that this decade has seen the emergence in this country of IT as a powerful economic force. IT is currently only one percentage point below the contribution of financial services to gross domestic product (GDP). The IT sector represents 6.4 per cent of UK gross domestic product, second only to financial services at 7.5 per cent, and contributes £66.5bn to the UK economy every year. We should be shouting from the hilltops about the success of technology in this country! It should be the ambition of the cream of university graduates to offer their contribution to this phenomenon. But where are the Government initiatives to generate this momentum? I am sure they exist. This Government is not short on creating quangos and throwing money at them, but why do I not hear about them on a weekly basis?

Everyone knows that there is a shortage of skilled IT professionals in the UK. The Government should be applying the same marketing techniques in IT recruitment as it successfully employs to increase the number of applicants into the teaching profession. Forgive me, but it should be even easier than re-inventing teaching. Pay is higher, there is less chance of being verbally abused or physically attacked, training courses are highly flexible, and (without showing disrespect to the teaching profession) IT has demonstrated unqualified success. 

As a profession IT is sometimes held in contempt by those who are a bit too technophobic to fully understand what it is all about. The economic indicators speak for themselves and we should publicizing them to the world.