Stories by Dan Tynan

We all make mistakes. But when you work in IT, those errors can quickly go public.

Dirty IT jobs don't always look so dirty at first glance.

Big data is reshaping business IT. Thanks to cheap storage, massive processing power, and tools like Hadoop, organizations are now able to mine terabytes of information and derive useful business intelligence from it. But the data revolution is also creating a new breed of hybrid business-IT jobs, ones that blend business knowledge and powerful IT tools to the benefit of tech-savvy line-of-business professionals -- and the possible detriment of IT pros oblivious to the big data trend.

Are you a jargon junkie? Got an insatiable appetite for information? Do you rule over your company's systems with an iron fist, unwilling to yield control until someone pries the keyboard from your cold, dead hands?

How do you keep your job -- or get a better one -- in an era when hiring is in a freeze and budgets are perpetually squeezed? Follow these 12 maxims and find out.

They couldn't put it off any longer. The ERP system for the <a href="http://my.epri.com/portal/server.pt?">Electric Power Research Institute</a> (EPRI) had reached the end of its useful life.

Too many projects, too little time: That's the sad lament of many IT professionals who must constantly balance the needs of the enterprise against the desires of business users -- all while keeping a close eye on the newest technologies coming at them from every direction.

Spend enough time in the tech industry, and you'll eventually find yourself in IT hell -- one not unlike the underworld described by Dante in his "Divine Comedy."

You can't survive without them. They wield enormous power over your systems, networks, and data -- the very lifeblood of your organization. Few people outside IT have any understanding of what they do, and fewer still exercise any oversight over their actions.

Scope change, empty suits, kickbacks -- beware IT consultants looking to turn your IT project into their cash cow

Is that new friend really your friend, or just someone pretending to be your friend so he can spy on you? No, I'm not just being more paranoid than usual. This really does happen - especially if you're a member of an anonymous collective determined to do battle with the forces of corporate evil (not to mention Tom Cruise, Soulja Boy, and your mom).

Sometimes you gotta bend the rules. And when it comes to technology, some rules are begging to get bent.

They're a productivity sink and a bandwidth suck. They're a vector for malware and a gift for corporate spies. They're a data spill just waiting to happen. And like it or not, they're already inside your enterprise.

Got a Facebook phone? If so, either you've got a lot of company or none at all, depending on which Internet rumors you believed this week. In other news: Twitter got hacked, the RIAA and MPAA were attacked, HP and Oracle buried the hatchet, and Mark Zuckerberg just joined the big kids' table. Are you ready to dazzle us with your geeky brilliance? Give yourself 10 points for each correct answer. Now let's get started.

IT organizations have a lot on their plates, and keeping the data center humming is only part of the equation. Factor in the threats coming at IT from every direction, and you can see why IT pros have ample reason to be paranoid. The invasion of consumer devices into the workplace, the rush toward cloud computing, the constant vigilance to prevent data spills, all while managing a meager budget in an era when your career can be cut short at any time can cause even the most level-headed IT pro to start looking over his shoulder.