From Edison to iPod

Friday saw my first meeting with one of the new Faculty PVCs - I'm trying to get round them all in the next couple of weeks to start a dialogue about how we can best support them in their new role, and make some suggestions about how we might handle IT support in the new structure. It was a very positive (and fun!) meeting, and I learnt a lot - especially about the history of music recording!

Today a few senior colleagues from the professional services talked how we might take forward some thematic discussions about 3 key strategic areas - the student experience, research performance and internationalisation. We'll be having some more in-depth discussions over the next month to look at synergies between the different departments and also identifying gaps and priorities for development.

It was appropriate perhaps just after we learnt about the IC winning the RIBA award that today was the Post Occupancy Evaluation of the project. I took part in a three and a half hour meeting where we went right back to the original drivers for the project, the business case, the brief, appointment of consultants etc. Given that we (CiCS and the Library) had the original idea in about 1998, and started the business case in 1999, we had to really test our memory to go back that far. The meeting had representatives of the architects, consultants, project managers, construction company as well as the user clients. It was basically a lessons learnt exercise (perhaps the main one being try and finish a building before you actually open it), and there were many which will be applied to future projects.

IC gets RIBA award

I'm going to use a real local phrase now - I'm dead chuffed that the Information Commons has won a prestigious RIBA award. Only two were awarded in Yorkshire this year. Congratulations to all of the Design Team - the architects RMJM (especially Matt and Colin) and the University clients of CiCS, the Library and Estates. The building will now go forward for a national prize, the winners of which will be announced at an awards dinner in London at the end of this month. I will be shopping for my new posh frock shortly, and am wondering if we win will I get a chance to do my Gwyneth Paltrow impression and cry profusely whilst thanking everyone? I suspect not!

The building is a source of delight and pride to all of us who were involved in its conceptualisation and design - and what's more important, the students love it as well, which is after all who it was designed for. It was a true partnership between CiCS and the Library, and we're really pleased that the judging panel were so impressed with it. So, fingers crossed for the end of June, but we are up against some stiff competition, including St Pancreas Station and Terminal 5!

Edit: Press release just issued by the University

So what is Enterprise Architecture?

Spent the day in London at UCISA meetings – began with a Communication Group, mainly discussing the UCISA web site and how we might target it more to our intended audience. A well as add some additional functionality – RSS feeds, blogs, wikis etc.

Then the UCISA Executive proper. Started with a presentation from the Open Group about Enterprise Architecture and something called TOGAF. JISC are funding a number of pilot projects to investigate an enterprise architecture approach to service oriented development at Universities. I must admit I was somewhat lost as to the value of this, and will need to sit down with someone and have it explained to me, and what benefits it might bring us, or even if we’re doing it already!

We also discussed a couple of projects we hope to undertake – one to produce a guide for calculating the costs of breaks in IT service to better understand how we should be approaching Business Continuity spending, and another to produce toolkit for institutions on student email outsourcing. We all agreed that this needed to be done sooner rather than later, as we are all beginning to look at it.

Final meeting of the day was the Annual Conference Organising Committee – lots of suggestions for speakers, social events etc. We’re also keen to reduce the carbon footprint of the conference, so looking at not giving free pads of paper to everyone, making most of the programme available on line, and an alternative to the bag that everyone gets. Apparently one conference recently gave everyone large paper bags, but they made so much noise, no-one could hear the conference sessions!

After an early morning train and 3 consecutive meetings in the same room, we finished too late for the 1730 train back, so I’m eating a Cornish pasty on the later train, and will miss my clog dancing session tonight!

Newsletter - printed or electronic?

Someone has, quite rightly, asked why we've just published a printed glossy copy of our Newsletter if we're trying to reduce printing. They've requested an electronic version.

Well, the pdf version is available from our home page, or direct from here if it's gone from the homepage by the time you read this.

Last year we did some surveys and focus groups on how people wanted to receive information and keep in touch with us, and it was quite obvious that people had different preferences - some preferred electronic, some preferred printed. So, we decided to do it in both formats - we've reduced the number of printed copies drastically, and only send a few to each department, and point people in the direction of the pdf version. There's a fair amount of PR involved in the production of the Newsletter - one of the criticisms of IT departments in general is that we don't market ourselves as well as we should and people therefore don't see the value, or the breadth, of what we do. A professional, well-produced Newsletter with interesting and informative content is one way to improve this. Printed copies can be given to colleagues and visitors for them to browse through. Piles of them can be put in the Information Commons for students to pick up - we know they do this, but don't read emails we send them! We've also found that our own staff like to have their own copy - any that get one and don't want it, can always return it to the Comms team.

I'd be interested in any comments on the format and content - both from inside and outside of the Institution!

Internal Auditors - Friend or Foe

Discussions with Internal Auditors are always interesting, particularly when deciding what to audit next year. Do I go for areas where I know there are problems and want help to come up with solutions - but do I really want the solutions to come in the form of a 22 page Audit Report with numerous recommendations and get hauled in front of Audit Committee for obviously being incompetent? Or do I pick areas where I don't think there are any problems - but then still get a 22 page Audit Report with.... and you can guess the rest. Or (more fun) do I pick areas where I think the Auditors will be totally clueless and we can run rings round them? Yesterday we went through a number of areas and came up with about 6 areas from which they'll pick 4 (4 audits a year is just not fair...). Data Security/Information Leakage will almost certainly be the main one - should be fun. One of the things they want to know is what controls we have in place to stop users connecting portable storage devices (such as USB sticks) to PCs and laptops! Well, that will be an easy one to answer.

Looks as though we might get an audit on our Green IT policies as well - I'm not too bothered about that one as I think we're fairly good on that. My mission at the moment on this topic is to stop people printing stuff - I am amazed by how much paper we use - people still print documents out which have been emailed to them and file them, (perhaps if I ban filing cabinets in the department....), we run a perfectly good electronic diary, and yet I see people with printed copies of it - in colour, and as for papers for meetings - don't get me started on that one again!

IT Director 1.5 meets Web 2.0

This Web 2.0 stuff is starting to get to me. I started with a Facebook account, then started this Blog, opened Flikr and Photobucket accounts, then last week in Barcelona started to Twitter. I've just spent the last hour trying to get my blog posts to appear as tweets, (come on, keep up...). I've wrestled with RSS feeds and discovered Twitterfeeds. I've even got my Facebook status linked to Twitter.

This weekend I was having a pint (or 3) in a very good pub in York, where I mentioned logging-in to Facebook to a couple of friends - "you actually log-in to Facebook?", one of them said, "that's so yesterday". I've now got to sort out Friendfeed to find out what he was talking about. Reminds me of my son who told me over a year ago that he didn't use email because it was so old fashioned.

Why do I do it? Several reasons. One, like garlic bread I believe it's the future - I'm running an IT department where the majority of our users are 20 or under. We HAVE to use this stuff and understand what they're doing and how they communicate. We also have to look at how we could take advantage of these technologies to improve our working - I can see a great use of web 2.0 technologies for collaborating on projects for example. As a non technologist in a technology department, I also love how these things are so easy to use - no horrible user interfaces, no training courses, no manuals required. Everything I've done in the last year I've taught myself - yes, I've used Google a lot and read a loads of help forums - but I haven't been beaten yet. I can sign in to most apps using my OpenID, everything's integrated - (even my dot mac account is getting in on the game and I can post pictures straight from iPhoto to Facebook) and it's all free!

Web 3.0 is on it's way and I'm worried that we haven't got our heads round Web 2.0 yet - we have made some great progress with our Innovative Communications and Student Learning Communities projects, but until we have people actually using this stuff for real we're not going to keep up.

Dead pigeons, and a lucky one

Went for a walk round a deserted building this morning - part of the Jessop Hospital which has been derelict and empty for several years. We're looking at possible uses for it, including turning it into teaching space. Some nice rooms with plenty of light, lots of corridors and poky rooms (typical of an old hospital), and numerous dead pigeons. Even a live one which had been stuck in a room for a while so a colleague caught it and threw it out of a window. It felt good to be wearing a hard hat again - not done it since the IC opened. It will be an exciting project if we get the go ahead.

Exec meeting this afternoon, where we discussed many strategic issues including whether staff should wear uniforms. Other discussions centred around how we manage our involvement with teaching space, and how projects should be handled at the delicate go-live stage, where it's important that everyone is kept informed.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, Chelsea Flower Show was brilliant yesterday.

Back to work

Straight back to work and a departmental meeting first thing. Presentations on the recent telephone upgrade (which went very well - thanks guys), sustainable computing, the new self service helpdesk (going live very soon), projectslite ( a way of managing smaller projects and pieces of work without using the full suite of project management tools), and the University records and archives (an interesting look at some of the records out records manager has discovered in the archives - lots of fascinating insights into the history of the University). Nice to see everyone and catch up.

Spent the afternoon interviewing for some new University posts, and am about to dash off and do the same thing for 4.5 hours this morning - good job I kept up with my email while I was away last week. Then tonight I'm off to London so that I can spend tomorrow at one of my favourite events - the Chelsea Flower Show!

Home at last

A last meal at my favourite restaurant in Barcelona, a trip to the Sagrada Familia to see if they're any closer to finishing it (they're not thank goodness - I shall be disappointed when it stops being a building site) and a short flight later and I'm home. An excellent conference - a good agenda with interesting sessions and good presenters - something that I find very important. It can be a riveting subject, but if the presenter's no good, then I soon turn off. A lot of things to think about when I get back to work! The theme of the conference was emerging trends, and ones we need to keep an eye on are cloud computing, context aware networks, social trends, virtual worlds, 3d printing and intelligent objects.

Oh - and I learnt how to Twitter!

Virtual worlds and intelligent objects

According to a session on virtual worlds, 9 out of 10 virtual world projects within organisations fail. The most popular virtual world is Second Life, but there are others. An area where VWs have been successful is education - I mentioned in an earlier post some examples, but they can also be used for Can be used for teaching social skills, training and simulations.
Role based and scenario driven training exercises are well understood and to do them in a virtual world can save money and reduce danger. For example, a multi agency exercise – fire, ambulance, police – simulating an incident in a city centre can be very expensive and disruptive - a lot less so in a virtual world. They're also being used for training military personnel how to
survive in an urban environment and to simulate large scale evacuations.

IBM have built a virtual data centre display information from many remote data centres
Most virtual worlds can import 3d information so buildings etc are easy to create

Avatar enabled collaboration is an area which is growing and is proving successful if the scope is kept small - for example on projects. Examples include Sun's Virtual Workspace and qwaq forums.

User interfaces will develop and become simplier (anyone who's tried Second Life will know that it's not easy - my avatar definitely has a mind of her own!). The type of intertial sensing used in the Wii will lead to a different generation of user interfaces. Alpha brainwave sensors are apparently just coming onto the market, enabling you to move a cursor or an object just by thinking about it. Even more scarily - these are already priced at only $299!

There may be a use for virtual worlds in social networking - for example replacing the coffee room and water cooler for remote workers.

Some interesting discussion on demographics - I was suprised to learn that the average age of active SL user is over 40. Other VWs are targeted at younger audiences eg Habbo Hotel for young teenagers. A new VW called Barbiegirls went from 0 to 1m users in 6months – guess who that was targeted at! The child and sub teen market is the huge success story of virtual world and 9 out of 10 virtual world residents are under 14. But - they don't have spending power, eCommerce in virtual worlds therefore hasn't taken off the way it was predicted to.

Legal matters are still one of the biggest issues. Apparently the police aren't interested if someone steals your virtual property because it's virtual, and doesn't exist - but if you sell some virtual property, then the tax office is interested.....

Some interesting discussions on avatars - can you have a sensible business discussion with a pink rabbit for example. And as avatars get more realistic they get less believable and enter the Uncanny Valley.

All in all a good, thought provoking session on how we might think about using VWs.

The last session was on context aware computing and intelligent objects. A definite theme of the conference. I just found it scary!

Geek and Poke strike again

Given the last post, how could I not share this - sent to me by some colleagues!

How the CIO should manage the CEO....

...Or "If you have a yes-man working for you, one of you is redundant!" — Barry Rand of Xerox

Well presented talk about how we as CIOs should work with and manage our Senior Managers especially the CEO or Vice Chancellor

It sounds simple, but the use of time is the starting point for improving the CIO's position as a business leader. Some Gartner research has shown that most CIOs' engagement with senior business colleagues is limited — 71% spend less that one 1 day per month, or an average of less than 20 minutes per day.
Those CIOs who routinely spend the most time learning and engaging are more involved in setting business strategy, having their advice sought more by the CEO, and spending almost a quarter of their IT budget on transformational projects rather than just keeping things going.

We need to engage senior management/CEO not on IT issues, not on business operations issues, but on business success – it’s all about focus.

There was an interesting slide about the right and wrong questions a CEO should ask a CIO – wrong ones include why is IT so expensive?, How can we cut IT costs? Right ones would include How is IT helping us win?, How we can use IT to get a strategic advantage?
The CIO's challenge is changing from "doing things right" to "doing the right things."

Emerging trends

Excellent presentation by Nick Jones on Emerging trends - one of my favourite Gartner speakers - very enthusiastic, great presenter and usually has an interesting gadget in his pocket. I'm trying to get him to Sheffield, not just to talk to the department, but also to talk to the University senior management about the potenial of IT.

This was a session on emerging trends, and taking a fairly long term look - not just at technology trends, but economic and societal which will have an impact on our use of IT and the role of IT departments in the future. Innovations come from unexpected places and in unexpected ways and we need to take a broad view

Many potential developments were rattled through by Nick in his hour long talk, so here's a selection:

The Web. Used to be like an online magazine – we accessed info and read it. Web 2.0 – about community and social interactions. Groups of peers and people working together and user-created deliverables.
Web 3.0 will be about context – what I need to know here and now. Real time information. It will be proactive and take into account location, context and mood. Blurring boundaries between the virtual and real world. Interfaces will spread out into the surrounding environment. Chios will be cheap, and almost anything that can have one, will - so we'll be surrounded by intelligent objects

Cloud computing – an emerging paradigm combining several concepts. There's a technical architecture with many processes. A business model of pay by use and an acquisition model for functionality. Users don’t know or care where service is – it’s in the cloud.
Early examples alreadyv around are Amazon web services and Microsoft Livemesh. Apparently the technical and business implications of cloud computing are huge, and we were encouraged to start pilots in our own institutions. I don't really understand this at all, so will have to do some investigating when I get back.

User interfaces – evolving fast. New interfaces for old functions – eg iPhone. New sorts of interfaces – flexible screens will be here very soon. Microprojectors – by 2011 they will be abe to project an A3 image from a projector the size of a sugar cube.
The new generation of interfaces will combine information and become more social. Perhaps if your phones detects that your in an airport, and running, then it won't put a call though. Eventually the interface will shift off the device and into surrounding environment - remember those waving arms interfaces from Minority Report?

3D printing (aka fabbing). Basically these are personal manufacturing devices. I thought they were like teleportation devices - you put an object in a machine somewhere, and it comes out in another machine somewhere else! Fab at home machines are already only $3000, and the price is falling all time. I thought these were amazing devices - imagine getting your furniture from IKEA as a file, and printing it at home ready made....

Robots - Lots of work going on in this area - especailly in Japan. The Japanese seem to have a thing about robots. Several areas where these are being developed for - to carry out dull, dirty or dangerous jobs; for carrying, lifting, and rescues; home healthcare – especailly to to look after old people; humanoid robots to be receptionists, companions or co-workers.

Human augmentation. Today it's about restoring normal performance levels. Tomorrow it will be about achieving above normal performance levels – very controversial.
Is it discriminatory? Or ethical?

Power. Demand is increasing but batteries are not getting better fast enough. Innovate ways of harvesting power are being developed from vibration (your trainers will generate enough power to keep the iPod in your pocket running), and thermal body heat from sensors on your skin.

Finally Nick ran through some scenarios - a sort of "day in the life of" - for 20 years time and we were encouraged to do this in our own organisations. Make the predictions look real and use a long time frame to avoid arguments about timing. Our emphasis should be on intelligent, always-on objects and recognising that the impact on business activities will be more significant than specific technology advances.

He suggested that on Monday morning when we get back we should set up some brainstorimng sessions on 3d printing, mobile robots, cloud computing. We need to build a robust process for tracking technology innovation – scan, track, evaluate - and expand the scope of technology tracking to incorporate business and societal trends. Use scenario planning and visioning exercises to identify possible long term opportunities.

Watch out for Monday morning then.....