Happy New Year, and welcome to the Internet of Things

A Happy New Year to all of you, and welcome back!  I hope 2015 brings you peace, health and happiness.

A brand new year is ahead of us, and I've been giving some thought to what my priorities are in the first few months. I will be concentrating on:

• The action plan following the staff survey and all of the data we have collected about the results
• Implementing our Customer Service Strategy which we circulated to our staff just before Christmas and will be launching more widely soon
• Improving our stakeholder relationships
• A common framework for IT support across the university
• Putting in place processes to better plan, design, build, transition and deliver services

My colleagues on the Exec also have priorities that they will be taking forward, and I'll share them with you over the next few days.

One thing I haven't managed to achieve yet, is a trip to CES - the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It's the place where all the new gadgets and inventions are showcased, and the consumer space is definitely the place to look. Being a bit of a gadget girl, I'd love to go. Big thing this year - well, everything. The Internet of things has really taken off.  Everything that can be connected to the internet, will be. Everything is now in place to link our phones, TVs, appliances, cars, and homes. Computers, storage sensors, and wireless network connections have all become cheap enough to add networked intelligence to practically anything.

For example, Whirlpool has a new washer/dryer that speaks to the Nest thermostat. With its motion-sensing technology, the Nest knows when nobody is home. It tells the dryer, which then switches to a lower-temperature setting. The clothes dry more slowly to save energy because no one is in a hurry to put them on. The user does not have to program this behavior; the dryer and thermostat work it out for themselves. Is that a bit spooky? Or just very clever? 

Apparently they're also working on a coffee maker that will connect to your fitbit, to turn itself on as you're coming in from a run, or makes stronger coffee if you've had a bad night sleep!

Crowdsourcing your IT strategy

University of Michigan.
In 2008 massively decentralised. Had 193 desktop support systems, 125 networks, 44 email systems, 102 helpdesks!! Spending a lot on IT. I'm not really surprised.

So, formed central IT department, appointed a CIO. Had to produce a Campus Wide IT strategy. Had to represent the whole University, including all of their campuses which were relatively independent, all departments and units and all major staff and student roles. It had to provide direction, so chose rolling 5 year window, updated annually. Definitely not a wish list of IT projects. Needed a strategic plan that came with a well thought out and sustainable financial road map. Important that it had buy in.

Original process was to have an IT strategy team, interview people, write a document, take it back and socialise it. So, set off and interviewed the deans and senior staff and distilled notes into themes. But, how to get faculty buy in? So, interviewed and had workshops with 20 senior IT staff. Different needs became apparent. So, central IT senior managers developed the themes into strategies. But that didn't work as academics questioned their authority.

So decided to crowd source it. Faculty staff wrote the strategies, IT people, wrote how they would deliver it. Project team became facilitators and coaches. Used Google docs as the tool. The interviewees became the writers. No need to then socialise it because they had written it.

Took and extra year but was worth it. Process of getting the campus to work together was probably worth as much as the strategy. It was endorsed by Deans, academics, senior managers and students.

Now being reviewed and some parts being rewritten, by the faculty staff. Had become part of the culture.

Lessons learned:
The conversation is at least as important as the strategy. Distribute the ownership.
Get non IT people heavily involved in the process. Central IT need to be in the background.
Get it wrong to get it right. Give the community time to have multiple goes at it. Ask lots of questions. It's all about partnership.
Take advantage of collaboration technology. They used Google docs, and built a culture which accepted commenting on and editing other people's work.
Also used Google hangouts a lot.
You need a really good editor. Mustn't look like it was written by a committee, and be concise. Is a tendency to bloat with crowdsourcing. Need a disinterested third party to edit it. Also brought it into one voice and one writing style.
Have a strong champion at a high level.



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