Tech Hiring Drastically Improves California’s Economy

In the first quarter of 2011 California added 90,600 jobs, which was an increase from 82,600 over all of 2010. Just a few weeks ago California’s deficit was an astounding $26 billion, but the state recently cut $11 billion. If this trend keeps going, it could potentially shave off another $6 billion. The added jobs in the state are making it a reality that one day, California might actually be able to get out of debt – and it might be sooner than everyone thought.

This drastic improvement comes largely from the tech industry. Information technology jobs grew by 5.3% in March, outpacing all other industries. This is affecting the San Francisco Bay area and the Silicon Valley with many local companies doubling and even tripling their workforce. This is good news for the technology industry, and for California.

To read the full article visit The Wall Street Journal.

The Power of CSS3

I just stumbled across one of the coolest sites demonstrating of the power of CSS3 – css3please.com. For those of you who don’t know what CSS is, its simply the language web developers use to put style and color into an average web page. CSS3 has taken style to the next level by allowing designers and developers to not only be able to add a color to an object, but be able to have it display a gradient from any specific color to another. You can also add drop shadows, rounded corners, custom font faces, and even rotation to an object. These features take a lot of pain out of website development by making objects much easier to work with, and quicker to customize and create. Any good developer can tell you of the hassle of trying to make a box with rounded corners without CSS3 – having to first create the image in Photoshop, then cut the image into several smaller pieces, and then get them all to behave and fit tightly together to look like they never were cut up. That can take quite a bit of time. Compare all that with this CSS3 code:

Continue reading “The Power of CSS3”

The New Office, Moving, and Other Happenings

LearnKey's new office - the lobby

Over the past week, everyone in our St. George, UT office has been moving into our new office space. We’re currently occupying the theater area of the Main Street Ballroom and Theater, which has been converted into a modern office space over the past few years. (Check out the photo album on our Facebook page to see the completed office.) It’s quite a big change from our previous space, which was the ballroom area of this same building. No dance floor lighting or chandeliers this time around, but I think we’ll manage.

With most of the current Marketing department at LearnKey being fairly new here (2 years or less in a 24-year-old company), there tends to be a lot of stuff around that was left over from our predecessors. I personally go by the “If you don’t know what it is, don’t touch it” rule, so over time, things started to accumulate.

As you can imagine, cleaning out drawers and taking down cubicles lead to finding some pretty random stuff.

Pictured: boat catalogs, font books, a Star Wars audio book, a classic iPod Video, ear plugs, a rubber spider, and a plush squirrel. Don’t ask, because we don’t know either.

We’re all moved in by now, but it’s still taking us a little while to get settled and used to our new routines. For instance, apparently this new office gets quite warm when nobody turns on the air conditioning. Who knew?

Regardless of our comfort, we have some cool stuff going on. Our (sort of) Quarterly Newsletter is coming soon, and if you’re not already a subscriber, you can sign up here. We have a SQL Server webinar coming up on June 3 featuring expert Wayne Snyder, which is free to attend. Our Client Services department is a currently a finalist for Support Department of the Year in the 2011 American Business Awards (read the full press release here). We were also recently notified that our Server+ video training course has achieved CompTIA Authorized Quality Curriculum status (more on that next week).

We are also always looking for new ideas. Are there any specific topics you would like to see us cover in the blog? Do you have an idea for a course you would like to see LearnKey release? Let us know in the comments!

Federal Funding for Job Training

The Department of labor recently announced the availability of $240 million of funding for the training of U.S. workers in high tech and high skill jobs. The H-1B Technical Skills Training Grants were announced on May 2, 2011 and have two closing dates: June 2, 2011 and November 17, 2011. The grants are aimed at providing training, education, and job placement assistance in different fields including information technology, with the goal to provide workers with the opportunity to update or gain new job skills that will help them get higher paying jobs.

The Department of Labor expects to fund 75-100 grants. Training grants will be awarded for those that provide On-the-Job training to all participants totaling $150 million. Applicants that propose to start training for occupations in the health care industry are expected to receive $45 million. $60 million is expected to be awarded to applicants that serve long-term unemployed individuals.

If you are working toward providing more training for your employees and are interested in finding more information on these grants, read the full announcement to find out how to access a webinar with more information.

Lack of Management Training

A recent survey from CareerBuilder.com showed that 26% of new managers said they were not ready to become leaders. That’s a high percentage of people in positions they don’t feel ready for! Some of the weaknesses pointed out in the survey are:

Dealing with issues between co-workers on my team – 25%
Motivating team members – 22%
Performance reviews – 15%
Finding the resources needed to support the team – 15%
Creating career paths for my team – 12%

The solution to this problem is to properly train employees, open lines of communication, and provide support. If you are handling the promotions at your company, take note of this, make sure that your human resources department is setting up training for new managers, and is providing them with the resources they need to be successful.

If your company is looking for training for new managers, check out LearnKey’s Leadership & Management category to see what we have to offer.

Thank You Teachers!

Today is the day to celebrate and appreciate the educators in our country that work so hard to make sure that each student receives a quality education. Teachers play a key role in our development and growth, impacting us in ways that often times they will never know. The lessons they teach impact us personally and professionally, and we carry them throughout our lives.

We want to say Thank you, for working hard and striving to improve our country, one individual at a time. We all have teachers that influenced us in ways we will never forget, and stand out in our minds as not only incredible teachers, but incredible people. For some of us, you are the biggest influence in our lives, and your actions will model positive behaviors that we will emulate.

To the teachers that go above and beyond, and make it clear that they have a passion and dedication to their jobs that far exceeds what is required and expected of them, you are priceless. Every lawyer, doctor, athlete, astronaut, business person, cop, firefighter, pilot, writer, artist – everyone has an educator or educators that encouraged and challenged them to strive to do better and be better, and in large part because of you and your hard work, they did just that.

So today we tip our hats to you, and congratulate you for the difference you are making in so many lives.

Start Today! – Financial Literacy Month

If you haven’t already, today is the day to take charge of your finances. It is easy to hide from financial problems, and it is much harder to own up to them and take the steps to make changes, but even though it might be easier it is not healthier. Hiding away from problems can negatively impact your performance at work, and can lead to emotional and physical health problems.

There are a variety of resources available that can help you get started on your road to financial success, and you don’t have to wait until another Financial Literacy Month to get them. Be sure to visit learnkey.com/financiallitmonth for your free white papers, and our Financial Literacy Month blog archive, featuring all 20 financial literacy tips.

Share Responsibility – Financial Literacy Spending Series

If you are single, you must take responsibility for your spending habits. You have to come to terms with the fact that you got yourself where you are because of the spending decisions you have made, and you are the only one who can make the decision to change.

If you are in a relationship, however, you need to share both the responsibility of where you are financially and the responsibility of making changes. It is easy in relationships to play the blame game, but you shouldn’t, especially when it comes to money. This is not the time to pit yourselves against one another and see who wins, that will only lead to more problems. You are both in the relationship, and are equally responsible for where you are financially.

The next part, is that you need to share responsibility for the changes that you need to make. You should work together to create the spending plan. Each person should track their own spending, and each month you should sit down and make decisions together about where adjustments need to be made.

Be sure to visit learnkey.com/financiallitmonth for your free Financial Literacy white papers and other resources, and you can also Like Us on Facebook and Follow Us on Twitter for more daily Financial Literacy tips

Make Spending Plan Adjustments – Financial Literacy Spending Series

Another very important aspect of your spending plan is to make adjustments where needed. This is where the wiggle room comes in, you can see how the month goes and then make changes to your spending plan accordingly. If you have an emergency and get a flat tire that has to be replaced you can work around that. With a spending plan instead of a budget, you adjust and then keep moving forward.

Life is constantly changing and things are coming at us all the time, it is important to stay flexible and head in the right direction.

Record ALL Expenses – Financial Literacy Spending Series

One very important step toward financial literacy and success with your spending plan is to track all of your expenses. Being able to visualize your spending allows you to use this information to make future purchasing decisions.

Track all of your expenses for a full month, and make sure that everyone in the family participates in this process; it has to be accurate for it to work. This means that you even have to fess up to the $1.00 a day you use in the vending machine for your afternoon candy bar. Even cash transactions count! Once you have this all added up, you will know where you stand every month because you will have the accurate amount that you spend.

Once this is completed, you need to get the amount that you earn each month. Then you will look at these numbers and see where each of these expenses figure in. After doing this, you will be able to see areas where you can save, and where you can apply extra money, such as paying off debt or toward your savings accounts.