In the Big Freeze, reminded of the "Big Stink"

I met, at Direct House, with Paul Waller and Louise Bazalgette of the Digital Inclusion Team. (I didn’t notice your last name in our meeting, Louise. Is Sir Joseph among your ancestors?) We agreed there is much that Socitm can do in helping to promote the effective use of ICT to support Social Equality, particularly through making links to the relevant National Indicators. These included asking all regions to invite the Team to present as part of this year’s local events programme, carrying articles in our newsletter, signposting other relevant media, and facilitating discussion and debate. I will also endeavour to represent the Team’s work in meetings I have with other peer groups and stakeholders.

We also discussed linking into Newham’s work, particularly in TeleCare and TeleHealth and will brief Martin Scarfe who wasn’t able to make our meeting. As ever, much of our discussion hinged upon the requirement for universal broadband coverage. Louise told me about work the Team is supporting in the Aldgate area of the City of London, where they are proposing to use data over power circuits, and we agreed to stay in-touch concerning developments. Paul told me about a bracelet, developed by Orange, to help locate vulnerable people – e.g. Alzheimer’s sufferers – who may be lost, of which I was unaware. I would think we should use this in Newham’s planned TeleCare dementia trial. He also told me of Hull’s digital TV developments providing support to vulnerable groups, known as “Stream”.

More about the Digital Inclusion Team’s work, available tools, research, consultation and reports is at http://www.communities.gov.uk/communities/digitalinclusion/


John Price and his colleague, Rupert Green, from Logicalis, met with Geoff and I to follow-up on a contact we made at the Socitm Conference. We talked mostly about Logicalis’s approach to (data centre) virtualisation. Its Grace product seems of particular interest.


In the afternoon Adrian, Martin Fuggles and I met with Charlotte Gooch and four of her colleagues from Guardian Professional at their smart new offices near Kings Cross. (Actually, they are still based at their Farringdon offices, which are altogether different!) We had a very productive meeting in furtherance of the Socitm Events Working Group’s exploration of the Society’s future approach to events management. It became clear that there are a range of partnership possibilities, and we agreed upon further exchange of information and follow-up actions on either side.