Fireside Chat – Christopher Kearns
During this fireside chat event, Chris highlights the work environment and the Covid-19 impacts that his field is experiencing. Chris allowed me to learn how to adapt to change over the pandemic, whether it may be virtual IT skills or communication with a team over Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Chris also advocates for learning agility. It is extremely important to learn and understand new things as you grow as an IT professional. I have also learned the difference between reactive and proactive problem solving. It’s not just about fixing IT problems but how the technology can be applied in an effective manner. Chris explained how this is more of a cultural change in the workplace rather than a technology change. I learned that throughout a workplace environment, it is extremely important to keep learning and excelling in what the company strives to do. Some other factual information learned in the chat was his experience with the United States Pentagon, which is really an interesting place to work. Finally, I learned that productivity is the holy grail of Information Technology. I would like to thank Chris Kearns for joining our chat and answering questions from the students, thank you Chris!