Intelligence Community Jobs and Intelligence Careers - a Premium Opportunity

During difficult economic times, jobs in the Intelligence Community (IC) have shown remarkable growth and career value. As National Security continues to be a priority for the government, Intelligence Community jobs have created interesting, well paying careers. Compensation in the Community is significantly higher than comparable jobs in other Federal Agencies and, because of the continuing need for Intelligence, career potential is high.

Types of Jobs

Application Development

By a large margin, the greatest number of jobs created are Information Technology (including increasing skill requirements for Cyber Security) with Engineering and Operational Support also popular. This trend is dictated by the mission of the Intelligence Community based upon collection, analysis and dissemination of actionable intelligence.

The amount of data processed by the IC each day is enormous and extensive use of state of the art data management tools and techniques is a requirement in order to produce quality intelligence.

Professionals are employed directly and through system integrators and other contracting companies and these individuals play an important role in an effort to produce actionable intelligence.

Importance of Jobs in the Intelligence Community

The national security of the American people is the top priority of the Federal Government and the mission critical requirements of the Intelligence Community require the best in technology providers. As a result, the 16 members of the Community that collect and interpret intelligence information generally pay at least a 15% premium in wages for both employees and contractor personnel.

The Wage and Benefit Premium

Premium wages and benefits are offered because the requirements and preferences of the IC are demanding.

High level security clearances (often with full scope-lifestyle polygraphs) are required and advanced degrees are often preferred.

Obtaining a high level security is a difficult, expensive and time consuming process. Bureaucratic delays occur at each level of the clearance process. Extensive background searches are required and at least two agencies (NSA and CIA) require full scope polygraphs. Not everyone can pass scrutiny. This barrier alone reduces the available pool of skilled professionals and increases wage rates.

The type of work and the environment in the Community is demanding and challenging. Many professionals support mission critical projects and strict deadlines are the norm particularly when a national security event occurs.

Agencies also tend to prefer individuals with advanced degrees for the jobs requiring greater skills and this preference underlies the requirement for professionals with state of the art skills.

The work is very challenging, but usually very rewarding. State of the art Applications are developed that produce real time intelligence that is valuable in the War against Terror.

Non-Monetary Rewards

In addition to higher pay and benefits, psychic rewards in the form of job satisfaction, national pride and honor, and an overall high esprit de corps and morale add to the rewards of the job. This factor contributes significantly to the low turnover of jobs in the Community.

Small Business vs. Large Business

Many of the employees working for the IC are actually provided by contractors who respond to requirements of Agency end users. These contracts are often long term engagements and large contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, BAE and Northrop supply thousands of IT and Intelligence specialists under contract. In addition there are a large number of smaller, niche type contractors that also supply valuable technical support personnel.

Both large and small contractors offer premium compensation and benefits but recent studies show that smaller contractors offer the individual higher pay and richer benefit packages. This is due to the fact that smaller contractors have lower S, G&A rates and can afford to provide employees higher pay and benefits.

Both large and small contractors are eligible for long term contracts and job security is not dependent on the size of the company. Often, smaller companies provide greater opportunity for advancement based upon greater individual recognition.

Intelligence Community Jobs and Intelligence Careers - a Premium Opportunity

EPublishing - Threat or Opportunity for Traditional Printers

iPads, iPhone Application to a "Web App". In simple terms, a Web App is website that can be distributed or accessed as if it were an application running on the mobile device.

Rather than being a simple "page flipper" for viewing a PDF document, a Web App has the ability to contain extra functionality. Such functionality can be related to improving the user's experience (for example including videos, menus, links an interactive features), or related to generating revenue from the document (targeted advertising, or the ability to make purchases directly from within the publication), or related to providing a useful service to the reader (calculators, access to data, Facebook connections, etc).

Create An Ipad App

However, with the right Development tool you can turn your publication into a great looking Web App with a level of quality consistent with your printed publication(including a choice of up to 3,500 fonts) - 're-purposing' your design and print effort to multiple electronic delivery platforms including the web, tablets and smart-phones utilising various operation systems (eg Apple iOS, Google Android, Windows Phone), and also from the Internet.

With a strategy that 'goes beyond page flipping' you can reap significant commercial benefits including increased revenue opportunities, for example: a. Regionalise advertising ie provide advertisements specific to the location the person is accessing the ePublication b. Introduce a "click through" payment system for advertisers. When a reader clicks to a specific advertiser's entry, you are able to charge for this (similar to Google Adwords) c. Place only a short version of your publication online to entice readers to: i. Subscribe to the printed version, or ii. By placing the publication behind a payment gateway, have readers purchase the current online publication or subscribe to future online versions.

Maintain quality 'look and feel' of your publication With the ever-increasing array of electronic tools on which people are accessing the web, it is important that quality publications be presented professionally. What may look great on a computer screen from a website will not translate to an easily viewed presentation on a smartphone or tablet.

Speed Matters And, it's not enough these days just to produce an App or a Web App that conforms to the design and marketing view of the magazine.

Users are becoming more and more demanding. Marissa Mayer, Google VP, has stated that their testing has shown a "half second delay [in page loading] caused a 20% drop off. Half a second delay killed user satisfaction".

Pages need to load quickly to give users that 'instant-on' experience. It is no use having the best looking magazine page which takes 2 minutes to load up - there won't be anyone there to read it. The recent load times of the 'The Daily' iPad app is a good example.

Use new media Today, publishers and printers have the option to go digital or 'ink on paper', but many are choosing a collaborative approach, still delivering traditional print, but complimenting it with high-quality digital editions.

With your on-line version of your publication, look to embed video and audio files on the repurposed website. This makes the media come to life and offers a rich multimedia experience, if the publisher wishes to do so. This gives the publisher the opportunity to grow revenue streams using advertisements embedded in the new media. Most importantly this new media should be delivered using technology that ensures compatibility with the wide variety of platforms such as Apple iOs which are unfriendly to flash, and non-Apple devices.

While the discussion for and for or against the benefits of ePublishing will no doubt go on for some time, there are a few facts that cannot be ignored:

• tablet devices are the hottest selling item in the electronics industry, and demand for compatible media will have similar exponential growth.

• for some types of media, the presentation of an iPad or other tablet device "touches" the reader in a way that a website or printed media never will.

• today, publishing in a tablet format is a sign that your business is forward thinking. In the near future, not publishing in a tablet format will indicate to your customers that you are behind the times.

ePublishing is here to stay. The only question is how it will fit with traditional media and how to maximize the benefits is can deliver.

EPublishing - Threat or Opportunity for Traditional Printers