Friday 14 March 2008

IT Services are Dead!

So busy yesterday, no time to post! I was in sessions from 9 till 5, speaking at one of them, chairing the afternoon session and at the UCISA AGM from 5 till 6.30. Still made it to the drinks reception by 7.15 though!

An interesting morning about social networking and innovative communications. We started with a pre-recorded talk from Brian Kelly entitled IT Services Are Dead. A good talk to give to Directors of IT Services! It did have the sub-title Long Live IT Services 2.0 though, so perhaps there is hope for us! Brian's talk focussed on the need for IT Services to transform themselves and provide a supportive framework for new technologies and ways of collaborating, and encourage a culture of openness. For example by using Creative Commons licences contributing to community activities, and not developing local system when other solutions are available. I won't go into too much detail as if you click on the link above, you can listen to it.

This was followed by Andy Powell, continuing the theme and talking about putting the user in control of the tools they use. User centricity, in terms of personal learning environments and personal research environments. Adopting Web 2.0 techologies will be disruptive, and we don't know what's round the corner. Currently we're on a roller coaster in a dark room, and our eyes are still getting used to the dark!

Two very entertaining and thought provoking talks.

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