IBM Training Classes in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Learn IBM in Cambridge, Massachusetts and surrounding areas via our hands-on, expert led courses. All of our classes either are offered on an onsite, online or public instructor led basis. Here is a list of our current IBM related training offerings in Cambridge, Massachusetts: IBM Training

We offer private customized training for groups of 3 or more attendees.

Course Directory [training on all levels]

Upcoming Classes
Gain insight and ideas from students with different perspectives and experiences.

Blog Entries publications that: entertain, make you think, offer insight

In Python, we can create three types of methods in a class:  instance or regular method, classmethod and staticmethod.  Instance methods are associated, as the name infers, with an instance or object of the class and take self as the first parameter.  Classmethods take a reference to the class, cls, as the first parameter of the class.  Staticmethods, for the most part, are convenience methods that could be declared as functions since they really do not have much to do with the class itself.  They were probably added at some time after the advent of Python in order to make the language more object oriented i.e. minimize the number of free floating functions. 

Refer the our article static, class and regular methods in Python for a detailed explanation on this subject.

Controversy was recently courted as Southern California Edison (SCE) prepares to cut their own staff while looking to meet their staffing needs with offshore employees skilled in the field of “IT” or Informational Technology. This has been the second major utility company in the United States to take this path towards providing services to its consumers while holding current rates at consistent levels. SCE does not disclose the exact numbers of expected lay-offs, but the LA Times reports that it is in the hundreds.  Utility companies tell their consumers that these moves are necessary as a hedge against inflation and to keep their services at rates that their customers can easily afford. Critics claim that the use of foreign workers is the first step to using an entirely foreign workforce and promoting large scale unemployment amongst American citizens. Often this has been seen as a conflict between national and international workers for the same jobs, salaries and careers.

It has been noted that this State of California utility company, much like other corporations that hire foreign workers does so primarily when there is a shortage of national citizens that can perform these jobs well. IT workers that are brought in with H-1B Visa work permits usually are college educated and hold expertise in technical areas and studies that local employees may not be especially trained in. Once again, critics decry the fact that these employees are not hired directly. On shore contracting companies operating in the continental United States are directly hired by the utility companies. These contracted companies then serve as “middle-men” and hire a wide range of foreign workers with H-1B paperwork so that they can move to the United States. The workers then perform a variety of jobs instead of American workers who were either born in the country or have achieved American citizenship on their own.

Needless to say, the amount of visas issued in a given year is a concern for U.S workers in various fields but particularly in Information Technology. As large corporations stack the employment deck with foreign workers who put in the hours for a fraction of the pay-rate for local employees, local IT professionals are finding it more difficult to find work nationally.  They encounter rejections, endless interview processes or low –ball offers from companies and recruiting agencies looking to fill positions at a bare minimum cost for coveted skill-sets.  


Meanwhile, an H-1B worker is a worker brought in on a temporary basis with a visa allowing them to work freely in the United States. Much like a student or travel visa, it is issued for on a calendar oriented basis.  Applicants who successfully renew the visa for an extended period of time can expect to work in the United States for up to ten years.  Although U.S companies hiring these employees may pay them less than their local employees, the salaries earned by H-1B Visa workers are almost always higher than these workers would earn in their own country of origin.

Both sides can agree on several issues. When it comes to these H-1B Visa workers, their assignments are generally of a contractual nature and require them to reside in this country for a period of months to years. However it is also an accepted fact that while they are in this country, they are responsible for paying rent, utilities and all other living expenses. As residents of the United States on a permanent basis, they are also liable for taxes on any salary they have earned while living here.

Dr. Norman Matloff, a professor at the University of California, Davis and writer on political matters believes the shortage to be fiction. In his writing for the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, he claims that “there has been no shortage of qualified American citizens to fill American computer-related jobs, and that the data offered as evidence of American corporations needing H-1B visas to address labor shortages was erroneous. The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) agrees with him and describes the situation as a crisis. Likewise, other studies from Duke, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Georgetown University have disputed that in some years, the number of foreign programmers and engineers imported outnumbered the number of jobs created by the industry

Last year, Hewlett-Packard purchased Autonomy for $10 billion, enduring a number of arrows from its competitor Oracle. What a difference a year is!

 

Since the purchase HP saw the leaving of Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch, which was not on friendly terms. It also saw the departure of the whole original management team and 20 percent of the staff. Now, the question is whether or not HP will see its move compensate or become another WebOS-style fiasco, marking the company needs to stay with hardware.

 

Information Technology (IT) tools are here to support your business in the global market. Effective communication is key for IT and business experts to collaborate effectively in search of solutions. Consulting, reaching out for help to a third-party, can bridge the gap between your business marketing experts and IT operations experts, especially with the emergence of big data analytics and its implication on the global market. Having the right consultants equipped with business knowledge and data technology expertise can make a difference.

Your marketing organization is probably familiar with digital tools and conducting global research. Its results can uncover the journey customers take to purchase your products or use your services. It can highlight the pain points and frictions that prevent their experiences with you to be delightful and amazing. Armed with this knowledge and beautiful compelling presentations, marketing executives expect that IT operations leaders will translate these insights into actions.

But people in IT operations are too involved in meeting key performance indicators that have nothing to do with the end customers. Meeting requirements of faster and cheaper don't translate very well into customer satisfaction. A classic breakdown in communication is described in a Harvard Business Review article, “A Technique to Bridge the Gap Between Marketing and IT.” The author goes on to describe how a new CIO at a bank found IT to be focused on the internal organization as their customers, rather than the real end customer. Moreover, no one was looking at the incident reports which clearly showed that incidents were increasing. And nobody looked at what these incidents were doing to the bank’s customers. The startling and scary numbers of incidents were caught and addressed and brought down from 1,000 to 600 or (40%) and later to 450 per week.

Surprisingly, these type of seemingly isolated scenarios are still being discovered within organizations presently, sometimes internally, and through third party insights such as consultants.  By engaging consultants to provide a perspective based on what they’ve experienced before, they can often bring new and innovative ideas or possible challenges to the table that an internal processes probably wouldn’t have been able to see on their own.  Often, third party input can help to provide the translation needed to go from marketing research results into actions that IT operations can understand and make sense in their high-performance culture. When companies understand and use this knowledge to reassess how to improve their customer experiences, they work backward from what customers want to achieve significantly higher improvements. 

IT and business management are more and more being asked to move away from their traditional roles, such as IT being the "technology infrastructure gatekeeper", and instead become enablers across the enterprise of effective collaboration, big data consumers, and key players in driving desired business outcomes. Marketing leaders look to technology as a way to facilitate the customer's journey and his positive experience of it, bring more clients, and meet increasingly higher loyalty goals. They rely on IT projects to enable big data-based behavioral targeting anywhere in the global market. This means projects to analyze search engine results, improve website personalization and optimization, and building of mobile applications for a more personal experience. All these are projects that consultants with their communication, consulting and technical expertise are well prepared to help in order to bridge the expectation gap between IT and other business organizations.

In order to meet these 21st-century business challenges, Information Technology organizations have been transitioning from waterfall stage-gate project management approaches to agile development. The stage-gate method applies a step-by-step approach where waiting, reviewing and approving are required before moving to the next step in the project. Agile management emphasizes collaboration, no decision hierarchies, and few people roles for making quick, customer-focused small changes over time to deliver solutions that delight and amaze customers. Agile development has allowed many businesses to respond quickly to changing customer desires and expectations. But moving to continuous delivery is a struggle requiring focused, dedicated teams that are not well suited to the traditional matrix organization where people are resources whose time must be "chopped" into many pieces and shared among many projects. Agile teams meet frequently as often as daily but never waiting more than a week to do so.

Marketing people are externally focused. IT people are internally focused. The first works with customer emotions. The second works to increase efficiency. Big data analytic tools are used by the first and supported by the second. Consultants can be the glue that helps both come together in effective collaborations that deliver positive business outcomes in both global and local markets.

Tech Life in Massachusetts

It?s no wonder that Massachusetts is a hub of major activity in information technology with a collection of 121 institutions for higher education. In 2007 Mass. impressively scored the highest of all the states in math on the National Assessments of Educational Progress. Some fun facts about Massachusest: - The first U.S.Postal zip code in Massachusetts is 01001 at Agawam. - The Boston University Bridge on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston is the only place in the world where a boat can sail under a train driving under a car driving under an airplane.
 Making a wrong decision is understandable. Refusing to search continually for learning is not. Philip Crosby
other Learning Options
Software developers near Cambridge have ample opportunities to meet like minded techie individuals, collaborate and expend their career choices by participating in Meet-Up Groups. The following is a list of Technology Groups in the area.
Fortune 500 and 1000 companies in Massachusetts that offer opportunities for IBM developers
Company Name City Industry Secondary Industry
Cabot Corporation Boston Telecommunications Telephone Service Providers and Carriers
LPL Financial Boston Financial Services Personal Financial Planning and Private Banking
NSTAR Gas and Electric Company Westwood Energy and Utilities Gas and Electric Utilities
Cabot Corporation Boston Manufacturing Plastics and Rubber Manufacturing
BJ's Wholesale Club, Inc. Westborough Retail Department Stores
American Tower Corporation Boston Telecommunications Telecommunications Equipment and Accessories
Hologic, Inc. Bedford Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals and Biotech Medical Devices
Global Partners LP Waltham Retail Gasoline Stations
Northeast Utilities Boston Energy and Utilities Gas and Electric Utilities
Liberty Mutual Holding Company Boston Financial Services Insurance and Risk Management
Staples Inc. Framingham Computers and Electronics Office Machinery and Equipment
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Waltham Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals and Biotech Medical Devices
Hanover Insurance Group, Inc. Worcester Financial Services Insurance and Risk Management
The TJX Companies, Inc. Framingham Retail Department Stores
Iron Mountain, Inc. Boston Software and Internet Data Analytics, Management and Storage
Massachusetts Mutual Financial Group Springfield Financial Services Insurance and Risk Management
Beacon Roofing Supply, Inc. Peabody Manufacturing Concrete, Glass, and Building Materials
Raytheon Company Waltham Software and Internet Software
Analog Devices, Inc. Norwood Computers and Electronics Consumer Electronics, Parts and Repair
Biogen Idec Inc. Weston Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals and Biotech Biotechnology
Boston Scientific Corporation Natick Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals and Biotech Medical Supplies and Equipment
PerkinElmer, Inc. Waltham Computers and Electronics Instruments and Controls
State Street Corporation Boston Financial Services Trust, Fiduciary, and Custody Activities
EMC Corporation Hopkinton Computers and Electronics Networking Equipment and Systems

training details locations, tags and why hsg

the hartmann software group advantage
A successful career as a software developer or other IT professional requires a solid understanding of software development processes, design patterns, enterprise application architectures, web services, security, networking and much more. The progression from novice to expert can be a daunting endeavor; this is especially true when traversing the learning curve without expert guidance. A common experience is that too much time and money is wasted on a career plan or application due to misinformation.

The Hartmann Software Group understands these issues and addresses them and others during any training engagement. Although no IT educational institution can guarantee career or application development success, HSG can get you closer to your goals at a far faster rate than self paced learning and, arguably, than the competition. Here are the reasons why we are so successful at teaching:

  • Learn from the experts.
    1. We have provided software development and other IT related training to many major corporations in Massachusetts since 2002.
    2. Our educators have years of consulting and training experience; moreover, we require each trainer to have cross-discipline expertise i.e. be Java and .NET experts so that you get a broad understanding of how industry wide experts work and think.
  • Discover tips and tricks about IBM programming
  • Get your questions answered by easy to follow, organized IBM experts
  • Get up to speed with vital IBM programming tools
  • Save on travel expenses by learning right from your desk or home office. Enroll in an online instructor led class. Nearly all of our classes are offered in this way.
  • Prepare to hit the ground running for a new job or a new position
  • See the big picture and have the instructor fill in the gaps
  • We teach with sophisticated learning tools and provide excellent supporting course material
  • Books and course material are provided in advance
  • Get a book of your choice from the HSG Store as a gift from us when you register for a class
  • Gain a lot of practical skills in a short amount of time
  • We teach what we know…software
  • We care…
learn more
page tags
what brought you to visit us
Cambridge, Massachusetts IBM Training , Cambridge, Massachusetts IBM Training Classes, Cambridge, Massachusetts IBM Training Courses, Cambridge, Massachusetts IBM Training Course, Cambridge, Massachusetts IBM Training Seminar

Interesting Reads Take a class with us and receive a book of your choosing for 50% off MSRP.