Marcel Hartog has been in the IT industry for more than 30 years. He worked as an application manager in the 1980s, and then as he got more interested and acquainted with computers, he was asked to take a programmer job with a small airline company. Hartog joined CA Technologies in 1986 as a presales consultant and now works with Mainframe Solutions where he specializes in mainframe strategy, vision and market trends. Hartog also contributes to the EXEC I/O Mainframe Blog, where he posts about mainframe community news. He is an avid traveler and speaks at user events, trade shows and internal training sessions frequently.

Why did you decide to pursue this career field?
It was an accident, but when I started using IT, I was intrigued by the power of things. The new problems and challenges you encounter every single day and the fact that it was never, ever boring. New technology would appear almost every month.

What type of preparation did you do to get into this field, such as educational experience and work experience?
Bluff to start with. Young people now have an advantage of knowing this type of technology already. Teach yourself stuff and try to understand the applications you use every day to understand the technology (or at least the complexity) behind it. Never take anything for granted, keep asking questions and never stop wondering about the miracles of IT.

If your education was directly related to you career, what types of classes and projects did you have to do?
After I worked in IT for some years,  I did many trainings, courses, etc., with about 50 percent of them as official trainings and the rest as self-study. For example, when PCs arrived, I realized the power and started learning dBase and the programming language that came with it. I soon was the expert, only because I was the first one to pick it up. Today, I am learning to write apps in Android—not a game, but something that people can really use.

How did your education help you in your career?
I had teachers who taught me that hunger for information and curiosity are probably the most important things in life. It keeps you young, gives you an advantage over many others and makes your life interesting. I read gadget magazines, IT magazines, blogs and everything else to "still" this hunger. It’s fun, and it makes you someone who is aware of things happening around you and gives you huge advantages in the job market.

What was your career path like in this field? For example, did you begin in one position and advance through others to reach where you are now?
I started as a person who translated business needs to something IT could understand. This gave me a good understanding of the problems IT people often have, such as bad communication skills. I was offered a job as a programmer, and moved on to be a team leader as a systems analyst for a small airline company. I was then asked by a software company to come and work for them as presales consultant for IBM Mainframe products. Soon after, I was the presales lead for EMEA [Europe, Middle East, Africa] for a suite of products. At that time, I discovered my talent for presenting and the fact that I was able to explain very technical stuff in ways that everybody could understand. After five years, my company was acquired by my current employer (CA Technologies) and I was soon asked to lead the presales department (around 15 people) for The Netherlands, and later for Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg) and South Africa. I became a member of the speaking team of the founder of our company, and presented at many CIO events across the world. I was then asked to become the marketing and PR manager for CA Netherlands, and it was in that time where IT really boomed. The Internet, new types of applications—a lot of things were happening fast and people were spending lots of money on it. I was then asked to join World Wide, where we worked on positioning Open Source technology. For example, how we could use it, what the advantages/benefits were, what the downside was for our customers, and also for us as a company. About five years ago, I was asked to lead the product marketing efforts for Mainframe in EMEA.

What types of skills is someone required to have to work in your position?
Curiosity, a broad understanding of the value of IT, and the ability to never stop being amazed about what IT has done for us in the past decades. Listening is probably the most important skill, but understanding what drives people and what keeps them awake are also very important. Last but not least, learn to understand complex things, and learn how to talk about them in a simple way. Always, always do the grandma test: Ask yourself how you would explain something in simple terms so even your grandma can understand it. And always keep reading.

What do you do on a typical workday?
I start around 8 a.m. and read the latest blogs and IT publications. I travel one to two days a week to present to customers or sit in at customer meetings to discuss IT issues and solutions. I blog about one hour a day (both internal and external), I create presentations (internal and external), give press interviews and talk to IT analysts. I also sit in on many conference calls with EMEA product and field marketing to discuss marketing campaigns, create content and define strategy. Some conference calls with the U.S. are to start to talk to WW Marketing, Product Development and others to try and make them understand that things in EMEA sometimes differ than those in the U.S., such as date formats and decimal points, but also for things that have more impact, like regulations and stuff.

Do you plan to advance to another position within your career field? If so, to what position and why?
I love my job. I've had jobs where I had 40-plus people reporting to me, which was a headache for me. I am now an individual contributor. I have a lot of freedom, combined with a lot of pressure, of course. I interact with sales, techies, corporate marketing, product development and customers. All my drive, energy and ambition is satisfied every day because of new challenges and new technology that keep me on my toes. In the future, I hope I can use my years of experience to teach younger people all the things I know, but especially to teach them that they have to find the one or two talents that everybody has and use them.

What type of person do you think is best suited for a job in your field?
People who like to be challenged, like to solve problems and someone who is a good observer. I like to talk, and talk a lot. But when I meet a customer, a user or an industry expert, I listen very carefully. There are so many things you can learn, and we seem to have forgotten how to do that. It's important to have an open mind and teach yourself stuff. Don’t always look at your employer to do things for you. it is important to take the initiative. Technology is not hard, it just needs a bit of getting used to. Ask yourself who you want to be: one of the 60-70 percent who studies marketing and communications, one of the 15-20 percent who does things like literature, history or arts, or one of the 5-10 percent who does IT. IT is not just about writing Java programs. IT needs people in presales as project managers, architects, developers, performance analysts. We are not all the boring people with the beards and the funny T-shirts that say things like "everything I touch turns to NERD" or "I am not a nerd!" Actually, most of us are quite normal.