Sophia Davis is not only skilled in sales enablement and threat management. She can also narrate, edit and produce a video to show you how it’s done.
She honed her unique skill set at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, where she graduated in 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in Information Management and Technology, with a concentration in Data Analytics and a minor in Finance.
After graduation, Davis moved from the suburbs of Philadelphia to Austin, Texas, where she currently works as an Information Developer for IBM Security products. In her role, she designs, develops and publishes technical sales enablement content, such as demos and lab guides, on IBM’s Training website for clients, business partners and her IBM colleagues.
“The fall semester of my junior year, I took IST 323, Introduction to Information Security, that sparked my interest in the cybersecurity field,” she said. “It was a whole new topic that I never learned about before, and it was interesting to learn about the kinds of cybersecurity attacks and some of the biggest data breaches to occur today.”
At IBM, Davis recently worked on two fee-based courses that walk business partners, IBMers and clients through the security products’ user interface and show them how to interact with the technology. Using her production skills, she highlighted the software’s threat detection and incident response capabilities.
“This project combined my presentation, video editing and production skills with my knowledge of IT and cybersecurity,” she said. “I always knew I wanted to combine my creative skills with my technical skills. In my day-to-day job, I use technical writing, multimedia, visual design, voice recording and editing tools that allow me to do that.”
Davis began working for IBM the winter of her junior year at Syracuse. That continued throughout her senior year, and she joined the team full time after graduation. Her goal is to continue developing meaningful content for people while staying creative and using her unique skills.
Many of those skills she learned at Syracuse. In college, she worked for SIDEARM sports and helped troubleshoot video and audio issues for college sports fans. She learned time management, networking and communication skills through having multiple leadership positions in her sorority.
Davis also worked as a teaching assistant for a computer networking class, where students used Virtual Machines to complete assigned labs. Most of the IBM labs Davis develops are on VMWare, and she adapted technical writing, coding, and troubleshooting skills from that class.
“I want to keep learning,” she said. “With content development, my job consists of everyday learning about a lot of topics like product integrations, automation capabilities and artificial intelligence.”
Davis encourages current iSchool students to keep learning as well.
“My advice would be to take as many different IT concentration classes as you can,” she said. “I have applied skills from my data analytics, information security, and project management classes.”