If enough people sponsor me, maybe I'll say what happened to Steel's Roofing!!
Thursday, 26 August 2010
Raising Money to Fight Prostate Cancer
This year I am taking part in The Prostate Cancer Charity's Tour Ride, I am helping to fight the most common cancer in men in the UK. The money raised will help The Prostate Cancer Charity to provide men affected by prostate cancer with the best support possible. We depend on people like you - without your sponsorship, we wouldn't be able to invest in vital research and services to those that need them most. Thank you for your support.
Sunday, 31 January 2010
One Step Forward...
Well, I thought I had finally won a great triumph and actually got backup working on my PC. A KB fix was to have been issued with Microsoft’s monthly updates so everyone could benefit from my perseverance. After Saransh had been working remotely on the problem from New Delhi for a couple of hours, we got to the stage when backup clearly was copying files to my external drive but, sadly, the program failed right at the end because it couldn’t create zip files. Now, when I try, I’m back to the original error!
The Steel’s Roofing website is now being found by search engines (Google and Yahoo, anyway) if not by customers, as yet! You can also now find us in a number of trade directories, although I’m keeping to just those that provide free listings, for now. There are quite a few sites that charge for leads, and some of the propositions seem more than reasonable. However, in most cases, when you research a little further, you find many complaints, and claims that the vendors failed to live up to their promise – and that includes one of the biggest (and most expensive) – a household name.
We are continuing to get work through Lorne’s previous contacts, and I’m glad to know that we’re delivering good value, and invited back. Tomorrow (Monday) Lorne is starting on his third job for a local property owner.
I’m using Microsoft Office Live for Small Businesses for the website as well as file storage and document sharing, which are all pretty straight-forward to set-up.
We’ve got some signage for the van, now, ‘though I’m not all that happy with it and would like to get a proper paint job done. Lorne pointed-out to me that signage had to be removable because, if we are sub-contracting, the main contractor is unlikely to want us advertising ourselves at his expense. However, I reckon our approach should be to cover-up painted signage with blank magnetic decals, when necessary.
The Steel’s Roofing website is now being found by search engines (Google and Yahoo, anyway) if not by customers, as yet! You can also now find us in a number of trade directories, although I’m keeping to just those that provide free listings, for now. There are quite a few sites that charge for leads, and some of the propositions seem more than reasonable. However, in most cases, when you research a little further, you find many complaints, and claims that the vendors failed to live up to their promise – and that includes one of the biggest (and most expensive) – a household name.
We are continuing to get work through Lorne’s previous contacts, and I’m glad to know that we’re delivering good value, and invited back. Tomorrow (Monday) Lorne is starting on his third job for a local property owner.
I’m using Microsoft Office Live for Small Businesses for the website as well as file storage and document sharing, which are all pretty straight-forward to set-up.
We’ve got some signage for the van, now, ‘though I’m not all that happy with it and would like to get a proper paint job done. Lorne pointed-out to me that signage had to be removable because, if we are sub-contracting, the main contractor is unlikely to want us advertising ourselves at his expense. However, I reckon our approach should be to cover-up painted signage with blank magnetic decals, when necessary.
Friday, 22 January 2010
On Tenterhooks
I've decided to start blogging again. The new Richard's Blog will be more generalised and ad hoc than the old, but the trials and tribulations in setting-up a roofing company with my nephew, Lorne, will be a key theme.
We decided to set-up a limited company with me, initially, as the only shareholder! Registering the company, buying and insuring a van, and sorting-out a website, e-mail, FAX and 'phone were the easy bits. We've opened a business account, designed a logo and ordered business cards and signage for the van.
I've spent a helluva lot of time, this week, in setting-up (hopefully) appropriate keyword metatags for the website and registering with search engines and trade directories. (Google was first to find us.)The main result, so far, is that the calls from businesses wanting to sell us their marketing services have started to flood-in! Please click on our site to help raise its profile.
On Tuesday, Lorne and I attended a Business Links "Foundations for Success" workshop, which was very good, and we've booked three follow-up workshops over two weekends in February.
As a result of advice received at the workshop, I've made an appointment at a local Chartered Accountancy firm to discuss accounts, payroll and VAT registration, 'though I hope to deal with most of this myself once I've had some initial advice.
______________________________________________________________________
On Wednesday morning I was in town for a Socitm Commercial Board. It was the first for Karl Grundy, our new Head of Business Development. His is the last of the key roles we set-out to establish when we embarked-upon the turnaround of Socitm, and he soon demonstrated just why we need it by disabusing me of misconceptions about the environment for a proposed new service.
From there, I went for a reunion, and a long and boozy lunch at Smith's of Smithfield, with former colleagues from the North-East London Teleregion.
______________________________________________________________________
During the week, Lorne started on a flat-roofing job that he picked-up by word of mouth, and we are waiting to be able to start work on another job he quoted successfully for. A friend of mine also asked us to quote for reroofing his house after I e-mailed details of our venture to a number of my friends and contacts.
All-in-all, 'though, I'm feeling very nervous!
We decided to set-up a limited company with me, initially, as the only shareholder! Registering the company, buying and insuring a van, and sorting-out a website, e-mail, FAX and 'phone were the easy bits. We've opened a business account, designed a logo and ordered business cards and signage for the van.
I've spent a helluva lot of time, this week, in setting-up (hopefully) appropriate keyword metatags for the website and registering with search engines and trade directories. (Google was first to find us.)The main result, so far, is that the calls from businesses wanting to sell us their marketing services have started to flood-in! Please click on our site to help raise its profile.
On Tuesday, Lorne and I attended a Business Links "Foundations for Success" workshop, which was very good, and we've booked three follow-up workshops over two weekends in February.
As a result of advice received at the workshop, I've made an appointment at a local Chartered Accountancy firm to discuss accounts, payroll and VAT registration, 'though I hope to deal with most of this myself once I've had some initial advice.
______________________________________________________________________
On Wednesday morning I was in town for a Socitm Commercial Board. It was the first for Karl Grundy, our new Head of Business Development. His is the last of the key roles we set-out to establish when we embarked-upon the turnaround of Socitm, and he soon demonstrated just why we need it by disabusing me of misconceptions about the environment for a proposed new service.
From there, I went for a reunion, and a long and boozy lunch at Smith's of Smithfield, with former colleagues from the North-East London Teleregion.
______________________________________________________________________
During the week, Lorne started on a flat-roofing job that he picked-up by word of mouth, and we are waiting to be able to start work on another job he quoted successfully for. A friend of mine also asked us to quote for reroofing his house after I e-mailed details of our venture to a number of my friends and contacts.
All-in-all, 'though, I'm feeling very nervous!
Friday, 15 January 2010
Helping my nephew...
Hello. Since I still have this site, in case anyone happens-by, I thought I'd just mention that my New Year's project for 2010 is to help my nephew, Lorne, set-up his roofing business!
If you live in SE England and your roof has been damaged by that strange white stuff that's been around lately, or for any other roofing works, try Steel's Roofing Limited.
In case you were wondering, I'm still with Socitm, and pleased that it continues to steadily build its resource and capabilities.
TTFN
Richard
If you live in SE England and your roof has been damaged by that strange white stuff that's been around lately, or for any other roofing works, try Steel's Roofing Limited.
In case you were wondering, I'm still with Socitm, and pleased that it continues to steadily build its resource and capabilities.
TTFN
Richard
Tuesday, 11 August 2009
Friday, 31 July 2009
Signing off...
Today is my last working for Newham and so, for now at least, after well over 300 entries since starting at the beginning of 2007, it’s time to retire my Blog.
Many thanks for the many warm wishes and compliments that I’ve received, and thanks, also, to those who’ve shared their less than complimentary views in various ways (‘though I personally think that name-calling, febrile comments and anonymity from some, diminish their value!)
I was again reminded of the need to keep things in perspective, when I heard the sad news, this week, that Socitm’s Auditor, Christine Peacock, lost her fight with cancer last weekend, and I’m more than ever looking forward to redressing my own work-life balance for a bit.
So I guess that the value of my views may also be diminished, as I take the money and run, but I really do think that the current economic environment and the drive for Government efficiency and savings create the best opportunity that there will ever be for ICT to show how truly transformative it can be. My greatest disappointment, as Socitm President, was in the realisation that a few of my peers prefer to criticise and obstruct rather than get involved, find solutions and make a difference, but there are many who truly inspire and whose influence, now, is increasingly holding sway.
May you continue to live in interesting times!
Many thanks for the many warm wishes and compliments that I’ve received, and thanks, also, to those who’ve shared their less than complimentary views in various ways (‘though I personally think that name-calling, febrile comments and anonymity from some, diminish their value!)
I was again reminded of the need to keep things in perspective, when I heard the sad news, this week, that Socitm’s Auditor, Christine Peacock, lost her fight with cancer last weekend, and I’m more than ever looking forward to redressing my own work-life balance for a bit.
So I guess that the value of my views may also be diminished, as I take the money and run, but I really do think that the current economic environment and the drive for Government efficiency and savings create the best opportunity that there will ever be for ICT to show how truly transformative it can be. My greatest disappointment, as Socitm President, was in the realisation that a few of my peers prefer to criticise and obstruct rather than get involved, find solutions and make a difference, but there are many who truly inspire and whose influence, now, is increasingly holding sway.
May you continue to live in interesting times!
Thursday, 30 July 2009
Under A Cloud
Wednesday started with a self-inflicted headache after I attended, on Tuesday evening, 2e2’s annual reception hosted by Lord St. John of Bletso on the House of Lords Terrace. I’d decided to leave the car behind – bad move – and clearly I overdid the vino tinto!
Socitm’s Board meeting was held at Camden Town Hall. I’m glad to say we agreed a contract for non-Executive Directors, setting-out responsibilities and commitments, and a code of conduct.
We were rightly taken to task by the NAC for having requested it to change the date of its meeting to facilitate board representation, and then failed to ensure adequate representation. This clearly was unintended, and happened because of the shifting requirements of, and commitments to, Directors’ employers. In fact, our calendar has become rather a mess; I’ve struggled to keep-up. We’ve resolved therefore to reset a logically ordered calendar of meetings, and then stick with it – accepting that sometimes key individuals may need to miss the occasional meeting.
The decision to recruit of Heads of Membership Services and of Business Development was confirmed. These are two crucial appointments to continue to build capacity and expand our membership. The appointments will require some investment of reserves in the short to medium term, but ultimately should be self-financing. Finances are continuing to hold-up well, although we of course recognised the need to continue to monitor the position closely in the adverse economic environment that we’ll all continue to face for some time into the future.
Neil Harvey, from the NAC, did a really great job on reworking our draft Value Proposition, and this should now provide the basis for marketing/public relations collateral going forward. Frances Kettleday also provided us with seminal advice on how to make our briefings and reports work better for us - by including information about who we are and how to get in-touch, for example!
Conference bookings are down a little, at this stage. Edinburgh is traditionally our most popular venue, and we have a great programme – reinventing local public services – radical thinking, practical solutions – so, if you haven’t already, book-up quickly before the early bird discount runs-out!
I had to leave the Board Meeting before lunch to go across to a Public Sector Infrastructure Team Executive Board meeting at the DWP’s offices in the former Adelphi Hotel, in the Strand, where I was both representing Martin Ferguson, who’s on holiday in Turkey, and feeding-back from the Unified Communications sub-group meeting that I recently hosted at Newham Dockside.
At the UC meeting we had first defined what we mean by “Unified Communications” – fixed and mobile, covering voice, e-mail, messaging, and video, encompassing desktop and advanced business applications and, crucially, presence – and then proposed a vision statement… “This transformation agenda requires that services, processes and information are extended across the traditional ‘machinery of government’ silos, integrating service delivery around customer needs and cross-government policies, whilst also exploiting economies of scale and commonality in key areas”, backed-up by a list of key requirements.
The PSIT Executive Board will incorporate other key considerations, such as Information Assurance, and “secure telephony” (which is surely missing the point… unified communications obviously mean that all communications are now just bits and bytes, and must be managed accordingly). The vision, when ratified, will be published in due course but, in the meantime, my presentation is in the Socitm Futures GovX space, for those who have access, and the detailed paper is available in the Cabinet Office Government e-Room for those who have access to that.
The main business of the meeting was a presentation by Martin Bellamy, from the Cabinet Office, on “Government Data Centres, the G-Cloud and the Apps. Store”, followed by discussion and feedback from us all. This is mooted as a new programme responding to drivers such as the Operational Efficiency Programme, the Green Agenda and Digital Britain. It’s likely to become a major strand of the new Government IT Strategy (see John Suffolk’s new Blog) and to launch early next year.
I wonder whether this might provide an alternative to G-Cloud?
At the PSIT Executive Board we again alluded to the need for pan-Government security vision, supporting role-based access, ID management, authentication etc etc. I’ve always felt that identity should be federated so individuals don’t have to cope with different systems for different sectors and suppliers, and this story therefore caught my interest.
I read in Municipal Journal that “the Internet giant has launched a website in partnership with DirectGov and Socitm… http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/landing/localgov/
Socitm’s Board meeting was held at Camden Town Hall. I’m glad to say we agreed a contract for non-Executive Directors, setting-out responsibilities and commitments, and a code of conduct.
We were rightly taken to task by the NAC for having requested it to change the date of its meeting to facilitate board representation, and then failed to ensure adequate representation. This clearly was unintended, and happened because of the shifting requirements of, and commitments to, Directors’ employers. In fact, our calendar has become rather a mess; I’ve struggled to keep-up. We’ve resolved therefore to reset a logically ordered calendar of meetings, and then stick with it – accepting that sometimes key individuals may need to miss the occasional meeting.
The decision to recruit of Heads of Membership Services and of Business Development was confirmed. These are two crucial appointments to continue to build capacity and expand our membership. The appointments will require some investment of reserves in the short to medium term, but ultimately should be self-financing. Finances are continuing to hold-up well, although we of course recognised the need to continue to monitor the position closely in the adverse economic environment that we’ll all continue to face for some time into the future.
Neil Harvey, from the NAC, did a really great job on reworking our draft Value Proposition, and this should now provide the basis for marketing/public relations collateral going forward. Frances Kettleday also provided us with seminal advice on how to make our briefings and reports work better for us - by including information about who we are and how to get in-touch, for example!
Conference bookings are down a little, at this stage. Edinburgh is traditionally our most popular venue, and we have a great programme – reinventing local public services – radical thinking, practical solutions – so, if you haven’t already, book-up quickly before the early bird discount runs-out!
I had to leave the Board Meeting before lunch to go across to a Public Sector Infrastructure Team Executive Board meeting at the DWP’s offices in the former Adelphi Hotel, in the Strand, where I was both representing Martin Ferguson, who’s on holiday in Turkey, and feeding-back from the Unified Communications sub-group meeting that I recently hosted at Newham Dockside.
At the UC meeting we had first defined what we mean by “Unified Communications” – fixed and mobile, covering voice, e-mail, messaging, and video, encompassing desktop and advanced business applications and, crucially, presence – and then proposed a vision statement… “This transformation agenda requires that services, processes and information are extended across the traditional ‘machinery of government’ silos, integrating service delivery around customer needs and cross-government policies, whilst also exploiting economies of scale and commonality in key areas”, backed-up by a list of key requirements.
The PSIT Executive Board will incorporate other key considerations, such as Information Assurance, and “secure telephony” (which is surely missing the point… unified communications obviously mean that all communications are now just bits and bytes, and must be managed accordingly). The vision, when ratified, will be published in due course but, in the meantime, my presentation is in the Socitm Futures GovX space, for those who have access, and the detailed paper is available in the Cabinet Office Government e-Room for those who have access to that.
The main business of the meeting was a presentation by Martin Bellamy, from the Cabinet Office, on “Government Data Centres, the G-Cloud and the Apps. Store”, followed by discussion and feedback from us all. This is mooted as a new programme responding to drivers such as the Operational Efficiency Programme, the Green Agenda and Digital Britain. It’s likely to become a major strand of the new Government IT Strategy (see John Suffolk’s new Blog) and to launch early next year.
I wonder whether this might provide an alternative to G-Cloud?
At the PSIT Executive Board we again alluded to the need for pan-Government security vision, supporting role-based access, ID management, authentication etc etc. I’ve always felt that identity should be federated so individuals don’t have to cope with different systems for different sectors and suppliers, and this story therefore caught my interest.
I read in Municipal Journal that “the Internet giant has launched a website in partnership with DirectGov and Socitm… http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/landing/localgov/
Saturday, 25 July 2009
Continuing my Swan-Song...
Geoff asked me to review ICT pay and allowances in the light of the present economic environment, so that’s what I’ve been doing, this week, and have arranged to discuss the prognosis and recommendations with managers next week.
Socitm’s Events Group met, on Friday, at David Wilde’s new offices in St. John’s Wood. Andrew Unsworth, from Edinburgh City Council, joined us to help in planning for the annual conference (being held in Edinburgh) which provided most of our agenda. Elaine Davis joined us by video-conference from her motor-home, now in Oregon, where it was 2.00 am as we started our meeting. She informed us that sponsorship and exhibition bookings are holding up very well, despite the recession.
We discussed final agenda items to enable an updated flyer to be published during August. Scottish content will include the national citizen card (later, the London Regional Committee discussed a new feasibility study for London) approaches to the Cloud in Scotland and an Edinburgh contribution to different approaches to/ perspectives on outsourcing.
Prospective innovations for this year include the facility to provide conference feedback via an IVR (Interactive Voice Recognition) system provided by Oni – one of the confirmed sponsors – online meeting facilitation from “MustMeet” and a simultaneous virtual conference through HBL.
We also discussed a spring event, next year, with the NEC, or Motorcycle Museum, as possible venues. I am to get a steer on this and other issues from next week’s Board Meeting.
After lunch, David gave me a lift to the Socitm London Committee meeting at 59 ½ Southwark Street, which, as a storm broke, I was most grateful for. We dropped Andrew Unsworth and Martin Fuggles at their stations on the way.
Damian Acklam, of Cidway UK, was invited to address the start of our meeting. Cidway have produced software enabling two-factor authentication on any Java-enabled Cell ‘Phone. There was a lot of interest from Committee members – no doubt, hastened by the imperative to facilitate self-service for Council services as part of the efficiency drive.
As mentioned above, Steve Pennant advised as that Capital Ambition is tendering a feasibility study for a London Citizen/ Smart Card, hopefully capitalising on developments such as Hillingdon’s, and the earlier efforts from Newham and South-East London.
The next Socitm London Branch meeting will be on 17th September. That should provide the opportunity to feedback from the special CIO Event being held on Public Sector Network earlier in the week, and considerations for the London PSN development. Digital telephony convergence/ security will also be on the agenda.
Some of the stories that caught my attention in the last week are…
Telecare offers crucial opportunity to help save health and social care systems which refers to Professor Sue Yeandle’s report at http://www.bowgroup.org/harriercollectionitems/telecare%20final.doc
Also, Too late for CIOs to get lean and agile? And…
(Global CIOs:) Why CIOs without Customer Engagement Will Fail. I liked this CEO/CIO conversational scenario, but didn’t see why it referred just to “global” CIOs.
Socitm’s Events Group met, on Friday, at David Wilde’s new offices in St. John’s Wood. Andrew Unsworth, from Edinburgh City Council, joined us to help in planning for the annual conference (being held in Edinburgh) which provided most of our agenda. Elaine Davis joined us by video-conference from her motor-home, now in Oregon, where it was 2.00 am as we started our meeting. She informed us that sponsorship and exhibition bookings are holding up very well, despite the recession.
We discussed final agenda items to enable an updated flyer to be published during August. Scottish content will include the national citizen card (later, the London Regional Committee discussed a new feasibility study for London) approaches to the Cloud in Scotland and an Edinburgh contribution to different approaches to/ perspectives on outsourcing.
Prospective innovations for this year include the facility to provide conference feedback via an IVR (Interactive Voice Recognition) system provided by Oni – one of the confirmed sponsors – online meeting facilitation from “MustMeet” and a simultaneous virtual conference through HBL.
We also discussed a spring event, next year, with the NEC, or Motorcycle Museum, as possible venues. I am to get a steer on this and other issues from next week’s Board Meeting.
After lunch, David gave me a lift to the Socitm London Committee meeting at 59 ½ Southwark Street, which, as a storm broke, I was most grateful for. We dropped Andrew Unsworth and Martin Fuggles at their stations on the way.
Damian Acklam, of Cidway UK, was invited to address the start of our meeting. Cidway have produced software enabling two-factor authentication on any Java-enabled Cell ‘Phone. There was a lot of interest from Committee members – no doubt, hastened by the imperative to facilitate self-service for Council services as part of the efficiency drive.
As mentioned above, Steve Pennant advised as that Capital Ambition is tendering a feasibility study for a London Citizen/ Smart Card, hopefully capitalising on developments such as Hillingdon’s, and the earlier efforts from Newham and South-East London.
The next Socitm London Branch meeting will be on 17th September. That should provide the opportunity to feedback from the special CIO Event being held on Public Sector Network earlier in the week, and considerations for the London PSN development. Digital telephony convergence/ security will also be on the agenda.
Some of the stories that caught my attention in the last week are…
Telecare offers crucial opportunity to help save health and social care systems which refers to Professor Sue Yeandle’s report at http://www.bowgroup.org/harriercollectionitems/telecare%20final.doc
Also, Too late for CIOs to get lean and agile? And…
(Global CIOs:) Why CIOs without Customer Engagement Will Fail. I liked this CEO/CIO conversational scenario, but didn’t see why it referred just to “global” CIOs.
Thursday, 16 July 2009
Too much flexibility!
On Monday Glyn Moody wrote in Linux Journal of his having agreed with Microsoft to cancel the planned discussion of the OXML ISO standardisation process. He says this was because the meeting was only being held for my benefit. Actually, I neither sought nor expected to gain any benefit from the meeting. I invited the two parties to discuss the process out of interest, and because I thought it quite likely that many others would also be interested, but expected any benefit to accrue to one or both of them.
I rather liked the recent ZDNet article by Glyn’s mate, Mark Taylor. His analogy with the US Car-Makers is similar to others, like the US Railroads losing out to airlines because they thought they were in the rail business rather than the travel business, and could be configured to apply to other potential pitfalls for our profession; CIO’s thinking they are in a technology business rather than the creation of value through knowledge management, perhaps? I don’t, however, think there’s much evidence that major IT vendors (like Google and Microsoft) have any intention of holding on to inflexible business models. This article in Information Week, and this, on the BBC News Website, are among many that discuss how they are reacting.
The Socitm Futures Group met at Siemens’ offices, in Old Bailey, on Monday. There was discussion of our recent response to the Digital Britain report, and whether this was sufficiently radical. Views were mixed; my own being that it said all that it needed to in a measured and dispassionate way, but the Group would be pleased to hear other Socitm members’ thoughts. Andrew Stott, the new Digital “Czar” was attending, in the afternoon, to discuss his new role, and how the Society can support his work, but I was unable to stay for that.
Some of the discussion, led by the Chair, Glyn Evans, which I thought most useful, was of ICT service typology – supporting regeneration and developing SME capacity, for example – not just personalisation of Council services etc.
We also discussed a draft response to the Operational Efficiency Programme. The report considers short, medium and long term actions, urges avoidance of knee-jerk reactions that could damage services, and effective use of benchmarking to substantiate best value. We resolved to add a checklist of the all things we recommend that all organisations should be doing.
We received updates on information assurance/ resilience work and pan-Government security vision. Mark Brett has so far responded to over 400 queries related to the Government Connect CoCo from local public sector colleagues. Overall, ‘though, we think we’re rather more compliant than central government, having achieved all the “should”, as well as the “musts”. Mark advised that we should now be thinking about how to label e-mails in accordance with security classification requirements. We agreed that the next Socitm Futures meeting would include a session on secure e-mail. Mark has also made great progress with regional engagement with security matters through “WARP”s (Warning, Advice & Reporting Point). Only the NW now does not have one.
On Wednesday, following rescheduling of the Socitm National Advisory Council, I was double-booked, and was therefore not able to attend that meeting, which would have been my last.
The other meeting, which I attended, was the Commercial Board, held at Camden Town Hall. Initial discussion among the select group, of the Chair, David Bryant, David Houston and Suzanne, taking notes, and myself was of the need to sort-out the scheduling of Socitm meetings, which has gone awry, and is adversely affecting attendance.
Considering the economic climate, the performance of our Consulting and Insight services is holding-up very well, and both are on target to achieve budgeted returns to the Society.
A major concern was that progress on the Software Supplier/ e-Governmment Index merger had stalled, and we asked for this to be urgently addressed by the main board.
The other major discussion was of Adrian’s report recommending the recruitment of a Commercial Manager; (he joined us at lunchtime, from the NAC, which was meeting at Euston Square, and which had already endorsed the report). We also agreed that this is now a priority.
Finally, I thought it worth flagging-up an ICT good news story from Britvic, which has a factory and Depot in Newham, and also Cliff Saran’s report of Easyjet’s planned use of Windows Azure.
I rather liked the recent ZDNet article by Glyn’s mate, Mark Taylor. His analogy with the US Car-Makers is similar to others, like the US Railroads losing out to airlines because they thought they were in the rail business rather than the travel business, and could be configured to apply to other potential pitfalls for our profession; CIO’s thinking they are in a technology business rather than the creation of value through knowledge management, perhaps? I don’t, however, think there’s much evidence that major IT vendors (like Google and Microsoft) have any intention of holding on to inflexible business models. This article in Information Week, and this, on the BBC News Website, are among many that discuss how they are reacting.
The Socitm Futures Group met at Siemens’ offices, in Old Bailey, on Monday. There was discussion of our recent response to the Digital Britain report, and whether this was sufficiently radical. Views were mixed; my own being that it said all that it needed to in a measured and dispassionate way, but the Group would be pleased to hear other Socitm members’ thoughts. Andrew Stott, the new Digital “Czar” was attending, in the afternoon, to discuss his new role, and how the Society can support his work, but I was unable to stay for that.
Some of the discussion, led by the Chair, Glyn Evans, which I thought most useful, was of ICT service typology – supporting regeneration and developing SME capacity, for example – not just personalisation of Council services etc.
We also discussed a draft response to the Operational Efficiency Programme. The report considers short, medium and long term actions, urges avoidance of knee-jerk reactions that could damage services, and effective use of benchmarking to substantiate best value. We resolved to add a checklist of the all things we recommend that all organisations should be doing.
We received updates on information assurance/ resilience work and pan-Government security vision. Mark Brett has so far responded to over 400 queries related to the Government Connect CoCo from local public sector colleagues. Overall, ‘though, we think we’re rather more compliant than central government, having achieved all the “should”, as well as the “musts”. Mark advised that we should now be thinking about how to label e-mails in accordance with security classification requirements. We agreed that the next Socitm Futures meeting would include a session on secure e-mail. Mark has also made great progress with regional engagement with security matters through “WARP”s (Warning, Advice & Reporting Point). Only the NW now does not have one.
On Wednesday, following rescheduling of the Socitm National Advisory Council, I was double-booked, and was therefore not able to attend that meeting, which would have been my last.
The other meeting, which I attended, was the Commercial Board, held at Camden Town Hall. Initial discussion among the select group, of the Chair, David Bryant, David Houston and Suzanne, taking notes, and myself was of the need to sort-out the scheduling of Socitm meetings, which has gone awry, and is adversely affecting attendance.
Considering the economic climate, the performance of our Consulting and Insight services is holding-up very well, and both are on target to achieve budgeted returns to the Society.
A major concern was that progress on the Software Supplier/ e-Governmment Index merger had stalled, and we asked for this to be urgently addressed by the main board.
The other major discussion was of Adrian’s report recommending the recruitment of a Commercial Manager; (he joined us at lunchtime, from the NAC, which was meeting at Euston Square, and which had already endorsed the report). We also agreed that this is now a priority.
Finally, I thought it worth flagging-up an ICT good news story from Britvic, which has a factory and Depot in Newham, and also Cliff Saran’s report of Easyjet’s planned use of Windows Azure.
Friday, 10 July 2009
Reinvigorating PSUC
There’s been a lot in the computer press, this week, about Google’s announcement that it will launch its “Chrome Operating System”. E.g. “Google OS a worry for Linux”. Whilst there’s an interesting debate around who’s threatened more – Microsoft or other Open Source product vendors – I think the real interest is in “Chrome may eventually become a dominant Linux distribution but it will take time for Google to iron out the kinks”, and “creating a cool software product is a good thing, but enabling it on a hardware platform is another thing”. It seems to me that a shared challenge for both Microsoft and Google is creating reliable and effective products for generic hardware from a multitude of suppliers - unlike Apple, whose Mac hardware and software are made for one another.
London’s shared DR procurement process has been completed with the disappointing result that no tender met the quality threshold. However, the boroughs involved are still keen to work together to find a means of achieving the requirements. They decided to separate data backup from application server provision within the original specification. In the short term they will look at using a more dedicated Buying Solutions Framework to procure data backup individually, and in the longer term at designing a possible shared application server solution. There were valuable lessons learned, and these will be compiled and sent to Buying Solutions. All existing documentation, including the shared DR specification is available on the LPSN GovX space.
London’s shared DR procurement process has been completed with the disappointing result that no tender met the quality threshold. However, the boroughs involved are still keen to work together to find a means of achieving the requirements. They decided to separate data backup from application server provision within the original specification. In the short term they will look at using a more dedicated Buying Solutions Framework to procure data backup individually, and in the longer term at designing a possible shared application server solution. There were valuable lessons learned, and these will be compiled and sent to Buying Solutions. All existing documentation, including the shared DR specification is available on the LPSN GovX space.
Oops – I misremembered the new PSMP branding. It’s “MyLoMo” (not “MyLoBo”). This is the logo…
On Friday I hosted a meeting at Newham Dockside to “Reinvigorate Cross Government Unified Communications Strategy” as part of the Public Sector Network. The HMRC’s Jim Boyle organised the meeting, and we were joined by representatives from the CESG and NHS, with input from Andy Williamson related to unified communications network procurement in Wales. We reviewed and updated a vision paper circulated by Jim in advance of the meeting, which I’m to present at the next Public Sector Infrastructure Team Executive Group on 29th July. I’m attending as Martin Ferguson will be on holiday, so this will be part of my “Swan Song”.
We agreed we should focus on the long-term UC requirements, covering all infrastructure – fixed and wireless - flagging practical considerations, many of which related to the need to accommodate multiple devices and presence states, but not allow these to compromise the vision. Mobile operators haven’t yet been represented in the consultative groups, which we resolved to address.
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Mobile Media Is Key
Capital Ambition’s “London Mobile Portal Event” at Prospero House (241 Borough High Street), on Tuesday, was a “sell-out”. There were excellent presentations from Geoff Connell on the PSMP (which I understand is to be rebranded “MyLoBo”), Gill Elderfield on Mobile DirectGov, Gary McFarlane on “Blue Badge Finder” and accessibility, Hans Grefte on ReportIT, and Vince Tooke on TfL’s perspective on the future of mobile information services.
The presentations, except for Gary’s (which I believe is to be added) are on the London Councils site at http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/capitalambition/events/event.htm?pk=62 There is an excellent short video about the “BlueBadge Finder” and “BlueWatch” applications at http://www.bluebadgefinder.com/ These will shortly be featured on the PSMP. Gary highlighted the overwhelming advantage of mobile portals for people with disabilities. Whereas 32% use a PC, 85% use mobile ‘phones.
In her presentation, Gill demonstrated that mobile media is key. Over 30% of the UK population are using mobile media every month, and the latest year-on-year growth of mobile search is 36%, compared with just 8% for PCs.
Following coffee, discussion groups were formed to consider the general mobile portal requirements of Londoners, and collaborative opportunities and next steps. Each group presented its feedback, which is providing the initial content for a new GovX Collaboration Space (membership required) to continue to discuss and develop ideas.
The Identity & Passport Service published its Safeguarding Identity Strategy two weeks ago. This is an important and overdue contribution to the Information Assurance and Security agenda, which I urge IT professionals to familiarise themselves with; not least, because it’s among the tools we have to better inform the public about what identity is and why it’s important to protect it. There’s a useful timetable of next steps on pages 26/ 27.
Ian Cooper helpfully summarised, among other things, the “key selling points” in the Socitm Futures GovX Space; I hope he doesn’t mind my plagiarising his summary:-
In future, everyone should expect to be able to:
• register their identity once and use it many times to make access to public services safe, easy and convenient;
• know that public services will only ask them for the minimum necessary information and will do whatever is necessary to keep their identity information safe;
• see the personal identity information held about them – and correct it if it is wrong;
• give informed consent to public services using their personal identity information to provide services tailored to their needs; and
• know that there is effective oversight of how their personal identity information is used."
“Northgate passes public sector 'late payments' on to own suppliers.” No (further) comment.
I forgot to mention that, at last week’s Local CIO Council, I resigned and nominated Geoff Connell as my successor, which was agreed.
On Monday, I wrote to Glyn Moody & Charles Eales with regard to the debate that was to have happened on Tuesday night, saying “in the circumstances (of my impending retirement) I would prefer that you continue with the planned debate in private. I will not be in a position, or think it right to, influence any decisions in Newham going forward... Obviously, you must deal with any reporting from the meeting in whatever ways you think fit”. Glyn replied to let me know that he was just drafting an e-mail to Charles about how to take things forward, and Charles later replied to say Glyn had cancelled the meeting, but still planned to write a piece on Open XML and the ISO process, but offered sight of the article before publication, and to include a Microsoft response – which seems very fair.
The presentations, except for Gary’s (which I believe is to be added) are on the London Councils site at http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/capitalambition/events/event.htm?pk=62 There is an excellent short video about the “BlueBadge Finder” and “BlueWatch” applications at http://www.bluebadgefinder.com/ These will shortly be featured on the PSMP. Gary highlighted the overwhelming advantage of mobile portals for people with disabilities. Whereas 32% use a PC, 85% use mobile ‘phones.
In her presentation, Gill demonstrated that mobile media is key. Over 30% of the UK population are using mobile media every month, and the latest year-on-year growth of mobile search is 36%, compared with just 8% for PCs.
Following coffee, discussion groups were formed to consider the general mobile portal requirements of Londoners, and collaborative opportunities and next steps. Each group presented its feedback, which is providing the initial content for a new GovX Collaboration Space (membership required) to continue to discuss and develop ideas.
The Identity & Passport Service published its Safeguarding Identity Strategy two weeks ago. This is an important and overdue contribution to the Information Assurance and Security agenda, which I urge IT professionals to familiarise themselves with; not least, because it’s among the tools we have to better inform the public about what identity is and why it’s important to protect it. There’s a useful timetable of next steps on pages 26/ 27.
Ian Cooper helpfully summarised, among other things, the “key selling points” in the Socitm Futures GovX Space; I hope he doesn’t mind my plagiarising his summary:-
In future, everyone should expect to be able to:
• register their identity once and use it many times to make access to public services safe, easy and convenient;
• know that public services will only ask them for the minimum necessary information and will do whatever is necessary to keep their identity information safe;
• see the personal identity information held about them – and correct it if it is wrong;
• give informed consent to public services using their personal identity information to provide services tailored to their needs; and
• know that there is effective oversight of how their personal identity information is used."
“Northgate passes public sector 'late payments' on to own suppliers.” No (further) comment.
I forgot to mention that, at last week’s Local CIO Council, I resigned and nominated Geoff Connell as my successor, which was agreed.
On Monday, I wrote to Glyn Moody & Charles Eales with regard to the debate that was to have happened on Tuesday night, saying “in the circumstances (of my impending retirement) I would prefer that you continue with the planned debate in private. I will not be in a position, or think it right to, influence any decisions in Newham going forward... Obviously, you must deal with any reporting from the meeting in whatever ways you think fit”. Glyn replied to let me know that he was just drafting an e-mail to Charles about how to take things forward, and Charles later replied to say Glyn had cancelled the meeting, but still planned to write a piece on Open XML and the ISO process, but offered sight of the article before publication, and to include a Microsoft response – which seems very fair.
Monday, 6 July 2009
Moving On
Friday’s combined Central & Local CIO & CTO Councils meeting was mainly about ICT and the Operational Efficiency Programme. How can we cut 20% from all Government ICT spending? In a series of mini workshops we considered the decisions we could make immediately, those that may need a little more (a few weeks’) consideration and what strategic actions we could take in the medium term (ahead of an election). We came-up, I thought, with an impressive list of actions, and John Suffolk rounded the day off with the positive message “our time has come”. I really do agree with that, provided, of course, we won’t be into the crude top-slicing of budgets that too often happens in these circumstances - punishing the prudent, and rewarding the profligate.
The OEP puts ICT Centre Stage; it is a great opportunity, and I’m already having slight misgivings, therefore, about my announcement, today, that I’ll be retiring early from Newham.
When I started on the Socitm secondment, many colleagues expressed the view that I wouldn’t go back to the “day job”, although I had every intention of doing so, at that stage!
Still, a lot can change in a year. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of working with Socitm colleagues to turn-around the Society and, although there’s a lot still to do am proud of what we achieved. I’ve also enjoyed working with Central Government, and believe we’ve come a long way in the last year, after years of inertia. But, earlier this year, I really felt I needed a rest, and I’ve also been saddened by the premature loss of former colleagues. Life, as they say, is not a rehearsal.
I’ve loved my time with Newham, and been very proud of its ICT Service. As Socitm’s President I got to see, or hear about, all sorts of Council organisations, but few could match Newham’s ICT accomplishments – especially now we finally have our shiny new offices. Even so, it was going to be difficult returning to local government bureaucracy after such a different year, and with such a talented team in Newham demonstrating that they can do very well without me, thanks very much, it somehow seemed unfair, in any case, to return and cramp their style. Many congratulations to Geoff and the Team on doing such a great job.
I’m now looking forward to taking two or three months off to spend some time with Chris catching-up with all the things we’ve let or go or meant to do, and to take time to reflect on what to do next; despite the economic woes, there are a lot of opportunities out there, and I’ve had some interesting offers.
I’ll be working until the end of July, when I’ll also be signing-off this Blog.
Here’s that Socitm Digital Britain response that I mentioned last week.
The OEP puts ICT Centre Stage; it is a great opportunity, and I’m already having slight misgivings, therefore, about my announcement, today, that I’ll be retiring early from Newham.
When I started on the Socitm secondment, many colleagues expressed the view that I wouldn’t go back to the “day job”, although I had every intention of doing so, at that stage!
Still, a lot can change in a year. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of working with Socitm colleagues to turn-around the Society and, although there’s a lot still to do am proud of what we achieved. I’ve also enjoyed working with Central Government, and believe we’ve come a long way in the last year, after years of inertia. But, earlier this year, I really felt I needed a rest, and I’ve also been saddened by the premature loss of former colleagues. Life, as they say, is not a rehearsal.
I’ve loved my time with Newham, and been very proud of its ICT Service. As Socitm’s President I got to see, or hear about, all sorts of Council organisations, but few could match Newham’s ICT accomplishments – especially now we finally have our shiny new offices. Even so, it was going to be difficult returning to local government bureaucracy after such a different year, and with such a talented team in Newham demonstrating that they can do very well without me, thanks very much, it somehow seemed unfair, in any case, to return and cramp their style. Many congratulations to Geoff and the Team on doing such a great job.
I’m now looking forward to taking two or three months off to spend some time with Chris catching-up with all the things we’ve let or go or meant to do, and to take time to reflect on what to do next; despite the economic woes, there are a lot of opportunities out there, and I’ve had some interesting offers.
I’ll be working until the end of July, when I’ll also be signing-off this Blog.
Here’s that Socitm Digital Britain response that I mentioned last week.
Friday, 3 July 2009
Dining with the Father of the Web
Over the last week, I’ve had one or two conversations with Microsoft and Buying Solutions colleagues about what was to happen to the PSA09 licensing deal. The introductory offer was initially available until15th June, which was always going to prove challenging for some to take advantage of, especially considering the compressed window of opportunity resulting in slippage in getting the contract agreed and signed. Several colleagues contacted me to say that, although they would benefit from the deal, they had insufficient time to get purchasing authority agreed by the deadline. A colleague from Buying Solutions ‘phoned me yesterday evening to let me know, “hot off the press”, that it had been agreed to extend the deadline to 15th December, which is great news. He was at today’s meeting to report on progress, and also to get LCIO Council input to the terms of reference for negotiation of an Oracle Public Sector Licensing Agreement, and representation on its Governance Board.
Today’s Local CIO Council meeting reconfirmed its commitment to openness – publishing its minutes publicly, and not just in Socitm members’ pages, so I’m not going to say anything about it here.
However, I intended, last night, to mention the mind-blowing statistic reported by Christine Connelly – that the NHS has amassed 10 petabytes (that’s 10,000,000,000,000,000 bytes) of images in the 18 months since it switched to digital imaging for X-rays – (but forgot until now).
This (Thursday) evening there was a joint dinner for the Government CIO & CTO Council communities. Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt were guests; John Suffolk introduced Tim, who made a pre-dinner speech in connection with his new role as an adviser to UK Government on public information, in which we were all challenged to identify data that we could liberate to facilitate mash-ups, research and reuse. Andrew Stott, in his new role of Director of Digital Engagement, seems to have planted his people on tables to collect our deliberations.
As a senior local government officer I cannot comment on political aspects of “Opposition to the philosophy and practical implementation of Transformational Government is emerging as a key element in Conservative Party policy as the Tories gear up for the next election”, but I will say that, whatever your views about national ID cards and a”database state”, joined-up public sector infrastructure remains a key service enabler and a critical efficiency objective.
Actually, one of the things we did discuss at today’s LCIO Council meeting, was consideration of party policies and a future item to discuss how we’d effectively engage with Government of whatever persuasion, after next year’s election (but we had to send Roy Marshall out of the room because he’s not even allowed to think such thoughts!)
Today’s Local CIO Council meeting reconfirmed its commitment to openness – publishing its minutes publicly, and not just in Socitm members’ pages, so I’m not going to say anything about it here.
However, I intended, last night, to mention the mind-blowing statistic reported by Christine Connelly – that the NHS has amassed 10 petabytes (that’s 10,000,000,000,000,000 bytes) of images in the 18 months since it switched to digital imaging for X-rays – (but forgot until now).
This (Thursday) evening there was a joint dinner for the Government CIO & CTO Council communities. Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt were guests; John Suffolk introduced Tim, who made a pre-dinner speech in connection with his new role as an adviser to UK Government on public information, in which we were all challenged to identify data that we could liberate to facilitate mash-ups, research and reuse. Andrew Stott, in his new role of Director of Digital Engagement, seems to have planted his people on tables to collect our deliberations.
As a senior local government officer I cannot comment on political aspects of “Opposition to the philosophy and practical implementation of Transformational Government is emerging as a key element in Conservative Party policy as the Tories gear up for the next election”, but I will say that, whatever your views about national ID cards and a”database state”, joined-up public sector infrastructure remains a key service enabler and a critical efficiency objective.
Actually, one of the things we did discuss at today’s LCIO Council meeting, was consideration of party policies and a future item to discuss how we’d effectively engage with Government of whatever persuasion, after next year’s election (but we had to send Roy Marshall out of the room because he’s not even allowed to think such thoughts!)
Thursday, 2 July 2009
Help beat this Microsoftie!
Here’s an interview with Phil Pavitt, who will shortly be moving to the HMRC, which I’m expecting will be one of the most transformative events in Government IT this year, if not decade!
The Local CIO Council is meeting at the School of Government on Thursday, and there is a joint meeting of the Local and Central CIO Councils here on Friday.
Christine Connelly, the NHS CIO, was our after dinner speaker on Wednesday evening. We were impressed with her candour and refreshingly open approach. All the questions were about how the local public sector can engage effectively with what’s generally seen as an immovable public sector silo, and she convinced us that change is afoot. If she’ll at least participate in the CIO Council, unlike her predecessor, that will be a step in the right direction.
In the bar, afterwards, Jos Creese, Glyn Evans, Martin Ferguson and I chatted about how to challenge (many of) our peers to engage more proactively in driving Government transformation, and how to encourage the next generation of leaders – fired up and ready to take-on and change the world – to take-over from our generation, and those of us who persist in seeing ourselves as technologists, rather than business leaders. I observed that, unlike many who seem to prefer to sit on the sidelines criticising and throwing brickbats, some of us find the time to get involved, are prepared to stick our heads above the parapet and work for change, but someone else observed that we all are becoming weary, which I think is possibly true!
I see that Glyn Moody is calling-on his colleagues for back-up to counter the not inconsiderable resources that this “Microsoftie” can bring to bear next week’s debate!
Speaking of Microsoft, this article is about its Data Centre developments to support Azure and Cloud services, I guess, but not the Government Cloud?
The Local CIO Council is meeting at the School of Government on Thursday, and there is a joint meeting of the Local and Central CIO Councils here on Friday.
Christine Connelly, the NHS CIO, was our after dinner speaker on Wednesday evening. We were impressed with her candour and refreshingly open approach. All the questions were about how the local public sector can engage effectively with what’s generally seen as an immovable public sector silo, and she convinced us that change is afoot. If she’ll at least participate in the CIO Council, unlike her predecessor, that will be a step in the right direction.
In the bar, afterwards, Jos Creese, Glyn Evans, Martin Ferguson and I chatted about how to challenge (many of) our peers to engage more proactively in driving Government transformation, and how to encourage the next generation of leaders – fired up and ready to take-on and change the world – to take-over from our generation, and those of us who persist in seeing ourselves as technologists, rather than business leaders. I observed that, unlike many who seem to prefer to sit on the sidelines criticising and throwing brickbats, some of us find the time to get involved, are prepared to stick our heads above the parapet and work for change, but someone else observed that we all are becoming weary, which I think is possibly true!
I see that Glyn Moody is calling-on his colleagues for back-up to counter the not inconsiderable resources that this “Microsoftie” can bring to bear next week’s debate!
Speaking of Microsoft, this article is about its Data Centre developments to support Azure and Cloud services, I guess, but not the Government Cloud?
Friday, 26 June 2009
Investing in our future...
Earlier this week, Richard Carde (by teleconference) John Stockwell and I were involved in a discussion with Andre Tytheridge (2e2) about progress in the NTC programme. Richard is working on the updated business case, as part of which we felt a further brain-storming/ SWOT analysis is called-for - given the degree of change since the original vision was established.
For example, the realisation of some infrastructure objectives, as envisaged in 2005, is still proving elusive. Whereas, at that time, Gartner was forecasting that “WiMax access solutions that are suitable for enterprise users that telecommute from rural areas (or urban areas where no alternatives exist) will be available by 2006 and may offer lower costs and multivendor interoperability, compared with other proprietary solutions”, in fact, genuinely broadband wireless solutions, such as WiMax, have been much slower to develop. We are therefore considering other technology, such as LTE (Long Term Evolution).
Other changes include, of course, the economic recession, changes in government policy, leadership changes, supplier positioning and the potential challenge to the exercise of Well Being powers as happened in Brent.
I had the opportunity to review and comment on Socitm’s response and policy briefing on the Digital Britain report, which I think is excellent. Look out for its publication next week!
On Wednesday evening I attended “A Shared Vision for Smarter Services”, chaired by Socitm’s President, Steve Palmer, hosted by Andrew Miller, MP, in the House of Commons Dining Room, and presented jointly by Socitm and Global Action Plan supported by Logicalis, IBM and CA. The event was held to launch a consortium of diverse and influential organisations calling on Central Government for a £1 billion IT stimulus package that will lead to smarter, more environmentally efficient, higher quality public services.
Steve stressed that we weren’t looking for a Government handout; the proposal is that funding be provided strictly on an invest-to-save basis, with agreed repayments being deducted up-front from future budgets as now practised by many local government organisations.
Following Steve’s opening remarks, Andrew Miller spoke in support of the proposition, having just come from the floor of the House where he had been speaking on the just-published Cyber Security Strategy. Andrew chairs PITCOM (the Parliamentary IT Committee) and, as you can see from his biography, is otherwise well positioned to support our cause. He spoke with particular enthusiasm about the innovation of UK companies such as Miniframe in developing products with efficiency and environmental benefits.
Trewin Restorick, Director of Global Action Plan, also spoke, highlighting the economic pressure on future generations that follows from the recent public expenditure commitments to stave-off economic collapse, with the double whammy of the accompanying increased pressure on public services. He highlighted the fact that the Government commitments to 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 (34% by 2020) and the tax of £12 per tonne of emissions on organisations with energy bills above £1m, with accompanying rewards to the most efficient, could result in some interesting cross-subsidies.
There followed a Q&A session for the panel, which included representatives of the sponsors. I asked a question about the rationalisation of supply implied by all this transformation and efficiency and how this can be squared with supporting a thriving, competitive economy and full employment. The answers seemed to imply that I was concerned about protecting public sector jobs; they concerned generating the capacity, through efficiencies, to invest in serving unmet demand (new jobs, I guess) but what I was really getting-at was the effects upon the supply side.
However, this was an interesting event, with unanimous support from the capacity audience and, besides; I always love visiting the Palace of Westminster!
There was lots of news, this week but I’ll confine myself to highlighting the appointments to these two important Cabinet Office IT posts. I wonder if they’ll be at next week’s CIO Council meetings?
For example, the realisation of some infrastructure objectives, as envisaged in 2005, is still proving elusive. Whereas, at that time, Gartner was forecasting that “WiMax access solutions that are suitable for enterprise users that telecommute from rural areas (or urban areas where no alternatives exist) will be available by 2006 and may offer lower costs and multivendor interoperability, compared with other proprietary solutions”, in fact, genuinely broadband wireless solutions, such as WiMax, have been much slower to develop. We are therefore considering other technology, such as LTE (Long Term Evolution).
Other changes include, of course, the economic recession, changes in government policy, leadership changes, supplier positioning and the potential challenge to the exercise of Well Being powers as happened in Brent.
I had the opportunity to review and comment on Socitm’s response and policy briefing on the Digital Britain report, which I think is excellent. Look out for its publication next week!
On Wednesday evening I attended “A Shared Vision for Smarter Services”, chaired by Socitm’s President, Steve Palmer, hosted by Andrew Miller, MP, in the House of Commons Dining Room, and presented jointly by Socitm and Global Action Plan supported by Logicalis, IBM and CA. The event was held to launch a consortium of diverse and influential organisations calling on Central Government for a £1 billion IT stimulus package that will lead to smarter, more environmentally efficient, higher quality public services.
Steve stressed that we weren’t looking for a Government handout; the proposal is that funding be provided strictly on an invest-to-save basis, with agreed repayments being deducted up-front from future budgets as now practised by many local government organisations.
Following Steve’s opening remarks, Andrew Miller spoke in support of the proposition, having just come from the floor of the House where he had been speaking on the just-published Cyber Security Strategy. Andrew chairs PITCOM (the Parliamentary IT Committee) and, as you can see from his biography, is otherwise well positioned to support our cause. He spoke with particular enthusiasm about the innovation of UK companies such as Miniframe in developing products with efficiency and environmental benefits.
Trewin Restorick, Director of Global Action Plan, also spoke, highlighting the economic pressure on future generations that follows from the recent public expenditure commitments to stave-off economic collapse, with the double whammy of the accompanying increased pressure on public services. He highlighted the fact that the Government commitments to 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 (34% by 2020) and the tax of £12 per tonne of emissions on organisations with energy bills above £1m, with accompanying rewards to the most efficient, could result in some interesting cross-subsidies.
There followed a Q&A session for the panel, which included representatives of the sponsors. I asked a question about the rationalisation of supply implied by all this transformation and efficiency and how this can be squared with supporting a thriving, competitive economy and full employment. The answers seemed to imply that I was concerned about protecting public sector jobs; they concerned generating the capacity, through efficiencies, to invest in serving unmet demand (new jobs, I guess) but what I was really getting-at was the effects upon the supply side.
However, this was an interesting event, with unanimous support from the capacity audience and, besides; I always love visiting the Palace of Westminster!
There was lots of news, this week but I’ll confine myself to highlighting the appointments to these two important Cabinet Office IT posts. I wonder if they’ll be at next week’s CIO Council meetings?
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Short enough for a Tweet
It’s great to see that Martin Ferguson and others are continuing a lively Socitm Blog. For me, this represents the best means of keeping up-to-date with Society developments, although I also like the format of the new weekly newsletter.
Apologies, once more, if you’ve been affected, as several have told me they have been, with the continuing problems with the Newham ICT Team’s Byte Night site at JustGiving.
I’m sure you’ve all read about the “Seer Android Beta” in use at Wimbledon, this week? There’s some more stuff about “Augmented Reality”, here.
Meantime, the New Scientist has this story of how e-mail patterns can provide advance warning of an organisation reaching crisis point.
Apologies, once more, if you’ve been affected, as several have told me they have been, with the continuing problems with the Newham ICT Team’s Byte Night site at JustGiving.
I’m sure you’ve all read about the “Seer Android Beta” in use at Wimbledon, this week? There’s some more stuff about “Augmented Reality”, here.
Meantime, the New Scientist has this story of how e-mail patterns can provide advance warning of an organisation reaching crisis point.
Monday, 22 June 2009
Information, Innovation & Improvement
The problem with e-Government was always that Government somehow created the impression that this was the opportunity for a supplier "feeding frenzy" whereas, as I commented on many occasions, the reality should be quite the opposite; it always had to be about rationalisation. I assumed that the quandary that Government found itself in was the need to encourage efficient public sector services while at the same time maintaining a buoyant economy for IT suppliers.
In this recession, however, it appears that any pretence that service transformation through ICT can be achieved without rationalisation of supply has been abandoned. Whilst, as many commentators have observed, the economic climate is creating opportunities for CIOs to step up to the plate, seize the initiative and require services to use corporate ICT infrastructure effectively, the outlook for suppliers who are unable to innovate to keep market share in a less diverse, and much more competitive, market are bleak. John Suffolk's post about a "Government App Store" is just the latest in a series of pronouncements that no longer equivocate, but finally make clear some of the potentially less positive realities of e-Government.
The banks, not unreasonably, have come in for a lot of stick recently, but well done First Direct for its "Social Media Newsroom".
Socitm has been deliberating branding revisions to reflect the way that it has evolved in the last 18 months, and announced the changes on Friday. The announcement includes a link to downloadable versions of how the new branding will be used, which includes the following, which incorporates a new tagline emphasising our focus on the "I" for information.
Apologies to anyone who has tried to use the Newham ICT Byte Night Team's JustGiving site and had difficulties. It was "upgraded" early on Saturday, which seems to have caused all sorts of problems. The performance was very slow, my Blog widget wasn't being updated, and I couldn't log-in. A lesson in how not to do it! Using Twitter was the only way to find-out what was going on, until JustGiving e-mailed me early this evening. The site now seems to be accepting donations, but other difficulties remain. All in all –this is a pretty poor service to the many charities that increasingly rely on this business.
In this recession, however, it appears that any pretence that service transformation through ICT can be achieved without rationalisation of supply has been abandoned. Whilst, as many commentators have observed, the economic climate is creating opportunities for CIOs to step up to the plate, seize the initiative and require services to use corporate ICT infrastructure effectively, the outlook for suppliers who are unable to innovate to keep market share in a less diverse, and much more competitive, market are bleak. John Suffolk's post about a "Government App Store" is just the latest in a series of pronouncements that no longer equivocate, but finally make clear some of the potentially less positive realities of e-Government.
The banks, not unreasonably, have come in for a lot of stick recently, but well done First Direct for its "Social Media Newsroom".
Socitm has been deliberating branding revisions to reflect the way that it has evolved in the last 18 months, and announced the changes on Friday. The announcement includes a link to downloadable versions of how the new branding will be used, which includes the following, which incorporates a new tagline emphasising our focus on the "I" for information.
Apologies to anyone who has tried to use the Newham ICT Byte Night Team's JustGiving site and had difficulties. It was "upgraded" early on Saturday, which seems to have caused all sorts of problems. The performance was very slow, my Blog widget wasn't being updated, and I couldn't log-in. A lesson in how not to do it! Using Twitter was the only way to find-out what was going on, until JustGiving e-mailed me early this evening. The site now seems to be accepting donations, but other difficulties remain. All in all –this is a pretty poor service to the many charities that increasingly rely on this business.
Friday, 19 June 2009
An Important Customer Service Channel
On Tuesday 7th July there’s to be a London Public Mobile Portal event at Prospero House (241 Borough High Street), which will include presentation of the TfL/ Newham Public Sector Mobile Portal (PSMP), with Phil Pavitt as a keynote speaker. You can view the agenda and register through Capital Ambition at http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/capitalambition/events/event.htm?pk=62
Earlier this week Richard Carde and I met with James Lee for a PSMP progress review.
Three more London boroughs are now “under construction”, and six are expected to be live within the next three months. Many more boroughs have expressed interest and more than half London’s boroughs have already booked for the above event.
Much needed clarification of the PSMP development phasing has now been provided. (Basically, the phases are Information, Interaction & Transaction.) We realise that we previously created some confusion over what’s available now versus what’s in the pipeline, and now aim to be more precise in our communications.
A number of exciting developments are in-hand, including the ability to pre-reserve parking places, track the availability of park and charge, and blue badge spaces, and a journey planner for roads.
We expect PSMP to play quite an important part in Newham’s new Customer Services strategy.
Earlier this week Richard Carde and I met with James Lee for a PSMP progress review.
Three more London boroughs are now “under construction”, and six are expected to be live within the next three months. Many more boroughs have expressed interest and more than half London’s boroughs have already booked for the above event.
Much needed clarification of the PSMP development phasing has now been provided. (Basically, the phases are Information, Interaction & Transaction.) We realise that we previously created some confusion over what’s available now versus what’s in the pipeline, and now aim to be more precise in our communications.
A number of exciting developments are in-hand, including the ability to pre-reserve parking places, track the availability of park and charge, and blue badge spaces, and a journey planner for roads.
We expect PSMP to play quite an important part in Newham’s new Customer Services strategy.
Thursday, 18 June 2009
All Change...
The racing at Le Mans was great, with Peugeot diesels winning for the first time, and a great performance from a new Aston Martin LMP1 Team, but my travel arrangements were a bit of a disaster. After having spent a lot of money getting my car done-up, it had electrical problems until we broke-down on the motorway just outside Rouen. I have European break-down cover, but the journey home still involved four trailers, a lot of hanging around in depots and at the Calais dockside, and we got home at 2.00am on Tuesday. TVR – Totally Variable Reliability!
Sadly, whilst at Le Mans, we heard that Peter Wheeler, who presided over the marque’s most successful years, has died - in a year that so far seems to me to have been dominated by untimely deaths.
In a week that was busy with reshuffle news we heard that Tessa Jowell would pick-up the Digital Engagement portfolio vacated by Tom Watson, and Tim Berners-Lee will head a panel of experts advising Tessa on how the Government can best use the web to maximise information reuse. We also heard that Lord Carter is to step-down. Yesterday, the Government published its Digital Britain report – its strategic vision for ensuring that “the UK is at the leading edge of the global digital economy”. We heard that Martha Lane Fox is to become the UK’s digital champion but, although responsibility for digital inclusion has passed to Lord Mandelson’s new “Department for Business, Innovation & Skills”, it wasn’t clear whether there was to be a new minister for digital inclusion.
The COI is to audit government departments’ website usage and present comprehensive figures on the cost, quality and use of them by June 2010.
One in five adults who don’t currently have the Internet at home will have within the next six months, but two in five don’t want it.
A possibly radical, market-moving development from Google was announced; it’s set to launch “Fusion Tables” that will sidestep the limitations of conventional databases.
On Wednesday I overslept but thanks to unusually light traffic arrived at the RAF Club, in Piccadilly, for the BCS’s latest CXO Network breakfast. This was a debate under Chatham House rules, with John Suffolk asking questions of the network. Unattributed notes of the meeting will be published in due course; meantime, the notes of the BCS Thought Leadership debate on “The Death of the IT Profession”, which I recently attended, have been published. I do enjoy these debates, which are stimulating and, I find, help clarify and shape thoughts about the subject matter; there is an archive of past debates.
Sadly, whilst at Le Mans, we heard that Peter Wheeler, who presided over the marque’s most successful years, has died - in a year that so far seems to me to have been dominated by untimely deaths.
In a week that was busy with reshuffle news we heard that Tessa Jowell would pick-up the Digital Engagement portfolio vacated by Tom Watson, and Tim Berners-Lee will head a panel of experts advising Tessa on how the Government can best use the web to maximise information reuse. We also heard that Lord Carter is to step-down. Yesterday, the Government published its Digital Britain report – its strategic vision for ensuring that “the UK is at the leading edge of the global digital economy”. We heard that Martha Lane Fox is to become the UK’s digital champion but, although responsibility for digital inclusion has passed to Lord Mandelson’s new “Department for Business, Innovation & Skills”, it wasn’t clear whether there was to be a new minister for digital inclusion.
The COI is to audit government departments’ website usage and present comprehensive figures on the cost, quality and use of them by June 2010.
One in five adults who don’t currently have the Internet at home will have within the next six months, but two in five don’t want it.
A possibly radical, market-moving development from Google was announced; it’s set to launch “Fusion Tables” that will sidestep the limitations of conventional databases.
On Wednesday I overslept but thanks to unusually light traffic arrived at the RAF Club, in Piccadilly, for the BCS’s latest CXO Network breakfast. This was a debate under Chatham House rules, with John Suffolk asking questions of the network. Unattributed notes of the meeting will be published in due course; meantime, the notes of the BCS Thought Leadership debate on “The Death of the IT Profession”, which I recently attended, have been published. I do enjoy these debates, which are stimulating and, I find, help clarify and shape thoughts about the subject matter; there is an archive of past debates.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Another Sleepless Night, Please!
We’re used to the occasional story of how, after 50 years, a war-time letter eventually finds its way to the intended recipient. Well I think I’ve just experienced the e-equivalent. A Socitm e-mail, sent at 16.07 on 09/06/2002, turned-up in my (junk) mail-box yesterday morning!
Socitm strongly agrees with research by Coleman Parkes and Parity suggesting that lack of awareness of online public services is hampering take-up. As Martin Greenwood commented, “we have lots of evidence to back this up. Council are generally poor at marketing and promotion - although, having said that, we know that up to 30% of the population still visit council websites each month.”
The first British Standard for Data Protection – a specification for a personal information management system – has been produced by the British Standards Institute, and the Information Commissioner’s Office has published new guidance on privacy impact assessments.
On Friday 2 October, The Newham ICT Management Team will be joining hundreds of other professionals in a sponsored sleep out on the streets of London. Byte Night raises money to help Action for Children tackle the root causes of youth homelessness and get thousands of children and young people off the streets and into secure accommodation with education and training opportunities that can change the course of their lives.
Each year, at least 75,000 children and young people experience homelessness. One in 3 attempt suicide and 1 in 7 young runaways are physically or sexually assaulted (this figure rises to almost 1 in 2 after a week).
Byte Night is a unique event that takes place across the UK. In 2008, it raised £470,000. Now in its 11th year, it is one of the single biggest fundraisers for Action for Children. Our support of Byte Night is vital to ensuring it continues to support the thousands of vulnerable young people Action for Children work with each year.
Please help us to have a sleepless night!
I’m on a week’s holiday from today, during which I’ll be attending the World’s greatest motor race.
Recently I was notified that I’d been voted onto the Silicon CIO50 list for the third year running. Alas, I will again be unable to attend the Awards Dinner because it clashes with Le Mans!
Socitm strongly agrees with research by Coleman Parkes and Parity suggesting that lack of awareness of online public services is hampering take-up. As Martin Greenwood commented, “we have lots of evidence to back this up. Council are generally poor at marketing and promotion - although, having said that, we know that up to 30% of the population still visit council websites each month.”
The first British Standard for Data Protection – a specification for a personal information management system – has been produced by the British Standards Institute, and the Information Commissioner’s Office has published new guidance on privacy impact assessments.
On Friday 2 October, The Newham ICT Management Team will be joining hundreds of other professionals in a sponsored sleep out on the streets of London. Byte Night raises money to help Action for Children tackle the root causes of youth homelessness and get thousands of children and young people off the streets and into secure accommodation with education and training opportunities that can change the course of their lives.
Each year, at least 75,000 children and young people experience homelessness. One in 3 attempt suicide and 1 in 7 young runaways are physically or sexually assaulted (this figure rises to almost 1 in 2 after a week).
Byte Night is a unique event that takes place across the UK. In 2008, it raised £470,000. Now in its 11th year, it is one of the single biggest fundraisers for Action for Children. Our support of Byte Night is vital to ensuring it continues to support the thousands of vulnerable young people Action for Children work with each year.
Please help us to have a sleepless night!
I’m on a week’s holiday from today, during which I’ll be attending the World’s greatest motor race.
Recently I was notified that I’d been voted onto the Silicon CIO50 list for the third year running. Alas, I will again be unable to attend the Awards Dinner because it clashes with Le Mans!
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