Is the outlook bright for upcoming IT talent?

Despite concerns about offshore outsourcing upcoming information technology talent may have plenty of opportunities as baby boomer techies retire.

That seems to be the consensus coming out of an IT panel held by the Temple University on Tuesday. The event featured a panel of technology managers fielding questions on multiple fronts.

One of the panel's biggest concerns was replacing older technology managers as they move on. This topic will be increasingly important since many of these managers hold a lot of institutional knowledge needed to run companies.

In fact, the managers seemed most concerned with a technology worker shortage in the future. A few potential fixes that were tossed around:

Globalization: Retiring baby boomers may indicate the need for more outsourcing offshore and elsewhere. So why the optimism about future generations of IT workers? You can't outsource everything. Significant opportunities will reside for business analysts, change management, enterprise architects and project managers that will have to meet face to face with business types. Someone has to manage these relationships.

Knowledge transfer: How exactly do you get workers to cough up institutional knowledge about your company? It's a software issue--you need a user friendly platform to facilitate sharing knowledge--and a cultural issue--you need folks to participate. The track record here is spotty, but a Bruce Power, a Canadian utility company, has made some progress.

Ad hoc information networks: While techies may be retiring companies will want them to contribute ideas. One concept was to create a virtual innovation network. For instance a Web network of former workers could be used to test out ideas. In addition, these former workers could be kept in a database so they could help when specific knowledge was needed. These folks would be paid per diem.