In a session on electronic management of assessment (EMA) this morning, a couple of useful JISC resources were announced. Transforming assessment and feedback with technology provides ideas and resources to enhance the assessment and feedback lifecycle.
The other, Electronic management of assessment in Higher Education: processes and systems, is a guide to to help universities improve business processes and choose information systems to sport assessment and feedback.
The improvement and standardisation of processes was something that came out as a major issue in this talk, and it was often only when an HEI tried to implement EMA that the different processes in departments were uncovered.
Another favourite soundbite from this session "We still assess students by traditional methods including handwriting an essay or an exam. Something they will probably never have to do again in their lives."
Thursday, 3 March 2016
Posted with Blogsy
Use of digital in learning and teaching
Opening session had 4 speakers talking about different aspects of use of digital technology in learning and teaching.
Opening speaker, Principal of Loughborough college, started with something that resonated with me, as she reminisced about what it was like to be a student in the 70s. No mobile phone, no internet, no google, no PC, no social media. Our only tools were a biro and a single landline for the whole hall.
Now, people are predicting that Within a decade 60% of retail jobs could be done by robots. And many more. 11m people put out of work by machines? Are we moving towards an egg timer economy, only low paid and high paid jobs existing.? But this intelligence is only artificial, will never replace the power of the human brain. So, we must embrace digital and new technologies. We need diverse, agile and on demand approaches to learning. Creative pedagogies, self organised learning, flipped, playful learning, learning from peers - vision for teaching and learning for FE and HE
Next up was the professor of digital learning at Wolverhampton talking about mobile learning. Is it dead? When the phrase mobile learning was coined, about 10 years ago, there were phones, limited smart phones, limited 3G coverage, and no tablets. Mobile learning was e-learning's dream come true. It offered the potential for completely personalised learning to be truly anytime, anywhere. Instead, we've ended up with mobile access to virtual learning environments that are being used as repositories. So, in practice, students reading their notes on the bus. For what went wrong, and some suggestions for the future, read this article about the talk here. It's a good, thoughtful piece.
Next up was Ian Dolphin from Apereo who have a number of open source products including Sakai, Opencast and Xerte. He talked about a conversation which had recently happened in the US about the next generation digital learning environments. There was general agreement that current VLEs are Inflexible, course and teacher centred, don't adapt well to student centred learning New VLEs:
Final session was on the importance playful learning. Need to be more creative. Stop teaching students stuff they can teach themselves. Create time in the curriculum for playful learning. And of course, we had balloons!
Opening speaker, Principal of Loughborough college, started with something that resonated with me, as she reminisced about what it was like to be a student in the 70s. No mobile phone, no internet, no google, no PC, no social media. Our only tools were a biro and a single landline for the whole hall.
Now, people are predicting that Within a decade 60% of retail jobs could be done by robots. And many more. 11m people put out of work by machines? Are we moving towards an egg timer economy, only low paid and high paid jobs existing.? But this intelligence is only artificial, will never replace the power of the human brain. So, we must embrace digital and new technologies. We need diverse, agile and on demand approaches to learning. Creative pedagogies, self organised learning, flipped, playful learning, learning from peers - vision for teaching and learning for FE and HE
Next up was the professor of digital learning at Wolverhampton talking about mobile learning. Is it dead? When the phrase mobile learning was coined, about 10 years ago, there were phones, limited smart phones, limited 3G coverage, and no tablets. Mobile learning was e-learning's dream come true. It offered the potential for completely personalised learning to be truly anytime, anywhere. Instead, we've ended up with mobile access to virtual learning environments that are being used as repositories. So, in practice, students reading their notes on the bus. For what went wrong, and some suggestions for the future, read this article about the talk here. It's a good, thoughtful piece.
Next up was Ian Dolphin from Apereo who have a number of open source products including Sakai, Opencast and Xerte. He talked about a conversation which had recently happened in the US about the next generation digital learning environments. There was general agreement that current VLEs are Inflexible, course and teacher centred, don't adapt well to student centred learning New VLEs:
- Should be easier to integrate other tools
- Accessibility should be built in
- Should support collaboration
- Should support learner analytics
- Should be more personalisable, for individual learning styles
Final session was on the importance playful learning. Need to be more creative. Stop teaching students stuff they can teach themselves. Create time in the curriculum for playful learning. And of course, we had balloons!
Wednesday, 2 March 2016
Robots, VR and social media
Quick round up of the rest of the day at Digifest. A very packed session from Eric Stoller on the use of social media in education. Lots of interaction, and discussion about how social media can be used to enhance various aspects of the educational experience. These include student engagement, employability (interesting discussion about how we should be encouraging students to build up profiles and endorsements on sites like LinkedIn), critical thinking and Alumni engagement.
Favourite quote of this session- "Social media takes time to learn. We haven't got the hang of email yet."
Then there was a session about engagement with students, and a progress report of the JISC digital student initiative.
Many of us collect feedback about what our students think, but few of us engage students in the development of our digital strategies.
The project has produced a tool to benchmark our student digital practices.
Have also developed a student digital experience tracker. Enables universities to gather evidence from students about their digital experience and track changes over time. Make better informed decisions about the digital environment and better target resources. This is being piloted at the moment,
Couple of examples of digital student engagement:
Harlow college have created a student digital partnership. They have appointed Student Digital ambassadors who do the following:
There's also a lot of technology to play with here, including virtual reality headsets
Fetching aren't they? At least it matched what I was wearing. And of course there's robots, including my favourite, Nao. I want one for the department, I think it would do a lot to enhance our wellbeing!
Favourite quote of this session- "Social media takes time to learn. We haven't got the hang of email yet."
Then there was a session about engagement with students, and a progress report of the JISC digital student initiative.
Many of us collect feedback about what our students think, but few of us engage students in the development of our digital strategies.
The project has produced a tool to benchmark our student digital practices.
Have also developed a student digital experience tracker. Enables universities to gather evidence from students about their digital experience and track changes over time. Make better informed decisions about the digital environment and better target resources. This is being piloted at the moment,
Couple of examples of digital student engagement:
Harlow college have created a student digital partnership. They have appointed Student Digital ambassadors who do the following:
- Represent the college in digital focus groups
- Help in organisation of at least one digital activity
- Promote use of technology with fellow students
- Act as role model for good use of technology, eg staying safe.
- Paired with digital leaders
- Help in creation of resources
Birmingham City University work collaboratively with students and pay them to work with members of staff to enhance the student experience. Lot of work has been done around improving retention by creating a mentoring programme for first hers using social media.
Fetching aren't they? At least it matched what I was wearing. And of course there's robots, including my favourite, Nao. I want one for the department, I think it would do a lot to enhance our wellbeing!
Impact of Cloud
Workshop on cloud computing.
Cloud is inescapable. Huge growth. Many vendors now only offering cloud solutions.
Benefits, increasingly towards time to market, faster access to infrastructure.
Size of device has gone down, amount of data has increased. We also own many more cloud enabled devices. Can set up old devices as cloud devices, eg as webcams. As we get to Internet of things, even smaller, more devices, much more data. Struggling now. Will get worse
Use cloud at home, fitbit, Spotify, app stores, music etc
At work, Dropbox, Google apps, azure, salesforce
Our expectations of our relationships with organisations have changed. We're used to accessing services anywhere on any device. If we don't like something, will just download another app. Having the services we need. We expect companies to look after our data securely.
So, organisations are changing. Multiplatform provision, agile development, rapid release. Security around applications rather than perimeter. Proactive monitoring of social media. IT governance. Making workplace employee experience as slick as consumer experience.
The IT function is changing. Change in control, consumers have choice. Change from data to information. Changing the way we recruit. We have information security mangers. UI/UX teams, more API development platforms. More contract managers. More business partners. More process improvers.
Also, our data is in many more different places. Do we know where it is? Mainly no :-)
Vendor maturity is a challenge. Some build up business, then fail. Vendor error also an issue, gives a different sort of risk profile. Failures can cause huge impact on our services. We are dependent on them, services are out of our control.
Early stage impacts of cloud include access to massive compute and storage resources, access to content and learning, access to new platforms and social collaborations. But, what are future impacts going to be?
Despite all the hype about cloud computing, we have mainly kept doing what we've always done with new applications and new titles, the real impact of cloud is only just starting to be visible.
IaaS, PaaS, SaaS is where we are.
Where we're going is machine learning as a service (MLaaS) and Business process as a service (BPaaS) this is where new impacts will be.
Cloud only works if you think it through end to end. So, if you put all your services in the cloud, they will still be down if your connection goes down. But, they won't be if authentication to those services is still on campus. Can't think where he got that example from!
Real impacts of cloud. You store your data in the cloud, your organisation loses the data when you leave. Your data is sold without your knowledge, you can't get insurance. Your data is shared for medical research purposes, and your life is saved by early intervention due to predictive analytics.
Internet of things, machine to machine interaction, there will be huge impacts.
If the fridge won't speak to the oven, you may have to go out for dinner....
Cloud is inescapable. Huge growth. Many vendors now only offering cloud solutions.
Benefits, increasingly towards time to market, faster access to infrastructure.
Size of device has gone down, amount of data has increased. We also own many more cloud enabled devices. Can set up old devices as cloud devices, eg as webcams. As we get to Internet of things, even smaller, more devices, much more data. Struggling now. Will get worse
Use cloud at home, fitbit, Spotify, app stores, music etc
At work, Dropbox, Google apps, azure, salesforce
Our expectations of our relationships with organisations have changed. We're used to accessing services anywhere on any device. If we don't like something, will just download another app. Having the services we need. We expect companies to look after our data securely.
So, organisations are changing. Multiplatform provision, agile development, rapid release. Security around applications rather than perimeter. Proactive monitoring of social media. IT governance. Making workplace employee experience as slick as consumer experience.
The IT function is changing. Change in control, consumers have choice. Change from data to information. Changing the way we recruit. We have information security mangers. UI/UX teams, more API development platforms. More contract managers. More business partners. More process improvers.
Also, our data is in many more different places. Do we know where it is? Mainly no :-)
Vendor maturity is a challenge. Some build up business, then fail. Vendor error also an issue, gives a different sort of risk profile. Failures can cause huge impact on our services. We are dependent on them, services are out of our control.
Early stage impacts of cloud include access to massive compute and storage resources, access to content and learning, access to new platforms and social collaborations. But, what are future impacts going to be?
Despite all the hype about cloud computing, we have mainly kept doing what we've always done with new applications and new titles, the real impact of cloud is only just starting to be visible.
IaaS, PaaS, SaaS is where we are.
Where we're going is machine learning as a service (MLaaS) and Business process as a service (BPaaS) this is where new impacts will be.
Cloud only works if you think it through end to end. So, if you put all your services in the cloud, they will still be down if your connection goes down. But, they won't be if authentication to those services is still on campus. Can't think where he got that example from!
Real impacts of cloud. You store your data in the cloud, your organisation loses the data when you leave. Your data is sold without your knowledge, you can't get insurance. Your data is shared for medical research purposes, and your life is saved by early intervention due to predictive analytics.
Internet of things, machine to machine interaction, there will be huge impacts.
If the fridge won't speak to the oven, you may have to go out for dinner....
Opening Digifest keynote, the Power of Digital
Opening session at Digifest is about the Power of Digital for Change and opens with a short video featuring our own astronaut, Tim Peake from space.
Opening introduction from Paul Feldman, relatively new Chief Executive of JISC. He stresses that it's not just about digital, but what we can do with it. How we can use it as a force for change.
Then the Chair of JISC, David Maguire. Need to combine vision and pragmatism. Build things that work. JISC does three things:
Some practical challenges we all face
JANET upgrade, national learner analytics system, more technology and content agreements, open access agenda not right yet and needs improving, research data management developments and rekindling JISCs leadership of TEL.
Next speaker is Andrew Harrison about creating great digital spaces for learning.
The rules are changing.... Some major influences of space include: The Internet has changed notions of place, time and space; Emerging new methods of teaching and learning; Blending of living and learning.
More emphasis now on informal learning spaces. The cafes, parks, social spaces are all important aspects of planning learning spaces.
Need to create a different landscape of learning. A shift from physical to hybrid learning spaces, where technology is an integral part of the learning experience. But one type of space does not replace the other. When in a virtual space, you are still in a physical space.
Spaces to support blended learning are bigger, more flexible, easily reconfigurable, lots of technology, access to natural light, more space per student. These are often boring. Obviously not been to The Diamond... No need to be. Need for estates team, technology team and TEL teams to work together to design these spaces. Maybe more space per student, but will get better utilisation.
Libraries changing from their traditional role as a repository to informal learning spaces, collaboration spaces, virtual spaces, learning commons (or maybe Information Commons).
Successful digital space has to take account of
Change is not about looking at tools and how you use them. Think first about what are we trying to do? Who do we need to work with. Start from practice and intention, not tools. Engage with human experience not technology.
Change doesn't come from predicting the future, that restricts us from embracing stuff we haven't imagined yet.
Favourite quote of the keynote "Telling a learner to turn off their mobile device is the same as the old "look me in the eye young man". It didn't work then either."
Opening introduction from Paul Feldman, relatively new Chief Executive of JISC. He stresses that it's not just about digital, but what we can do with it. How we can use it as a force for change.
Then the Chair of JISC, David Maguire. Need to combine vision and pragmatism. Build things that work. JISC does three things:
-
Shared digital infrastructure and services, eg JANET, Eduroam, future developments include learner analytics
-
Sector wide deals, eg with Microsoft, Amazon web services, ejournals
-
Expert and trusted advice eg on open access, cloud advice
Some practical challenges we all face
-
Digital Wild West - BYOD, Wikipedia scholars, limited IP respect. Everyone expects everything to work on everything and is an expert on everything.
-
Students moving faster than university policies, systems, practices and staff . Solution is not to slow students down!
-
Keeping up with demand, building industrial strength solutions, MOOCs, VLE, student systems
-
Breadth vs depth. How do we meet the need of digital champions, whilst improving digital literacy of those that aren't experts
-
HE sector is not a huge one. Not a huge market for our specialist systems around students. Need some sort of shared infrastructure to deliver systems effectively.
JANET upgrade, national learner analytics system, more technology and content agreements, open access agenda not right yet and needs improving, research data management developments and rekindling JISCs leadership of TEL.
Next speaker is Andrew Harrison about creating great digital spaces for learning.
The rules are changing.... Some major influences of space include: The Internet has changed notions of place, time and space; Emerging new methods of teaching and learning; Blending of living and learning.
More emphasis now on informal learning spaces. The cafes, parks, social spaces are all important aspects of planning learning spaces.
Need to create a different landscape of learning. A shift from physical to hybrid learning spaces, where technology is an integral part of the learning experience. But one type of space does not replace the other. When in a virtual space, you are still in a physical space.
Spaces to support blended learning are bigger, more flexible, easily reconfigurable, lots of technology, access to natural light, more space per student. These are often boring. Obviously not been to The Diamond... No need to be. Need for estates team, technology team and TEL teams to work together to design these spaces. Maybe more space per student, but will get better utilisation.
Libraries changing from their traditional role as a repository to informal learning spaces, collaboration spaces, virtual spaces, learning commons (or maybe Information Commons).
Successful digital space has to take account of
-
Space - size, technology
-
Place - well designed meaningful space
-
Process - learning and teaching approach including use
-
Experience - total student experience including before during and after the learning event
Change is not about looking at tools and how you use them. Think first about what are we trying to do? Who do we need to work with. Start from practice and intention, not tools. Engage with human experience not technology.
Change doesn't come from predicting the future, that restricts us from embracing stuff we haven't imagined yet.
Favourite quote of the keynote "Telling a learner to turn off their mobile device is the same as the old "look me in the eye young man". It didn't work then either."
Hello!
After a month of no blogging, hopefully I'm back! At the end of January I had a few days off to celebrate a rather significant birthday in Venice, and when I got back, I had some family news, my Mum and Dad both in hospital. Together with being in the middle of writing our planning statement and financial forecasts for next year, something had to go, and it turned out to be this blog. Hopefully will get back into the swing of it now, and I have a few posts to let you know what did happen in February which I'll try and post over next few days.
At the moment I'm at Digifest in Birmingham, organised by JISC and celebrating all things digital. So, I'll try and keep you up to date with what's going on, and as usual, posts maybe in note form as I write them during the talks, rather than good english!
At the moment I'm at Digifest in Birmingham, organised by JISC and celebrating all things digital. So, I'll try and keep you up to date with what's going on, and as usual, posts maybe in note form as I write them during the talks, rather than good english!
Friday, 29 January 2016
Thursday, 28 January 2016
Carnival time
Well, January is proving a bad month for blogging! A number of reasons.....
I'm spending some time reviewing digital services at another University which has meant I've been there for 4 days this month. Always interesting to, to cast an eye over another places services. I can make suggestions, but they are of course only my personal opinions - and I learn a lot from them too.
I've also taken a few days leave. I had a bit of a significant birthday last Saturday - I know, difficult to believe isn't it :-) and had hinted quite heavily that I didn't want to spend it in Sheffield. So, I spent it in Venice instead. Which was rather nice. Nice of the Venetians to open Carnival on my birthday as well.
Other things over the past week include further work on our planning statement, a meeting with a colleague as part of the Campus mentoring programme , and a review of a major incindent we suffered last week when we lost our internet connection for several hours due to two separate cable issues from our internet supplier. I was away from Sheffield at another University when it happened, and couldn't understand why I couldn't connect to our roaming wireless service, Eduroam. I rebooted my iPad, turned wifi off and on again, blamed the other institution.... Until I remembered how Eduroam works - it has to authenticate back at your home instittiton, which of course was unreachable... Another service we need to add to things we lose when our Janet link goes. We're seriously considering how we can mitigate against these failures. We always thought that two links gave us enough redundancy, but now we're not that sure.
So, I'll leave you with a short video of the opening of Carnival - quite spectacular.
I'm spending some time reviewing digital services at another University which has meant I've been there for 4 days this month. Always interesting to, to cast an eye over another places services. I can make suggestions, but they are of course only my personal opinions - and I learn a lot from them too.
I've also taken a few days leave. I had a bit of a significant birthday last Saturday - I know, difficult to believe isn't it :-) and had hinted quite heavily that I didn't want to spend it in Sheffield. So, I spent it in Venice instead. Which was rather nice. Nice of the Venetians to open Carnival on my birthday as well.
Other things over the past week include further work on our planning statement, a meeting with a colleague as part of the Campus mentoring programme , and a review of a major incindent we suffered last week when we lost our internet connection for several hours due to two separate cable issues from our internet supplier. I was away from Sheffield at another University when it happened, and couldn't understand why I couldn't connect to our roaming wireless service, Eduroam. I rebooted my iPad, turned wifi off and on again, blamed the other institution.... Until I remembered how Eduroam works - it has to authenticate back at your home instittiton, which of course was unreachable... Another service we need to add to things we lose when our Janet link goes. We're seriously considering how we can mitigate against these failures. We always thought that two links gave us enough redundancy, but now we're not that sure.
So, I'll leave you with a short video of the opening of Carnival - quite spectacular.
Thursday, 14 January 2016
Planning, recruiting and degree ceremonies
Earlier this week we had a Service Strategy Board where we had a look at the key objectives for next year for each of our Service Areas. Some key things coming up including our VLE review, a new digital media hosting solution, implementing our new teaching and learning strategy, a new BI/MI solution, our new research IT support team - and many more! Over the last couple of days me and the rest of the departmental executive team have been on an awayday pulling all of this together, as well as adding in other big initiatives including digital transformation, into our strategic plan for next year. Our theme is capability - helping the University achieve its business objectives by increasing its capability and capacity to do things.
Capability came into our other set of discussions over the last couple of days, which was about looking at how we can increase the pool of people we recruit from in order to increase diversity. We talked about recruiting for potential and capability, rather than just for skills people have on the day, and being more flexible in our recruitment practices.
One disadvantage of being away over the last couple of days was missing our winter degree ceremonies. As usual we record and stream live all of the ceremonies, as well as producing DVDs, USB sticks and our famous handshake videos.
A real team effort - thanks to everyone. Here's some photos from the day to give you a flavour of what's involved.
The AV team suited and booted ready to operate the cameras
A view from behind camera one
Some of the backstage production kit
And the creative mediateam producing the recordings
Well done everyone involved!!
Capability came into our other set of discussions over the last couple of days, which was about looking at how we can increase the pool of people we recruit from in order to increase diversity. We talked about recruiting for potential and capability, rather than just for skills people have on the day, and being more flexible in our recruitment practices.
One disadvantage of being away over the last couple of days was missing our winter degree ceremonies. As usual we record and stream live all of the ceremonies, as well as producing DVDs, USB sticks and our famous handshake videos.
A real team effort - thanks to everyone. Here's some photos from the day to give you a flavour of what's involved.
The AV team suited and booted ready to operate the cameras
Some of the backstage production kit
And the creative mediateam producing the recordings
Well done everyone involved!!
Friday, 8 January 2016
Fridge cams and robot projectors
A Happy New Year to you all, and welcome back. The first week back after the Christmas break always seems longer than 5 days, and the things we talked about before Christmas a dim and distant memory. But, we son get back into the swing of things, and this week I've been having some discussions about setting up a Digital transformation team - I dont think it wil be called that, but that's it's working name.
We've also had a Process Improvement Unit Steering Group where we had a report form a recent event to improve and streamline the production of our prospectus which has been very successful.
I'm doing a bit of work over the next few weeks to help another University review its IT systems and services, and I've spent a day there getting to know the IT staff.
Finally, I've been keeping my eye on what's been going on at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. New technologies often appear in the consumer space first, and it important we keep up to date with them. Things that have caught my eye this year include wearable gadgets, which are getting smaller, and more integrated with clothing, 3D printing, which is quickly becoming mainstream, and virtual reality.
Some of the weirder gadgets include the smart fridge cam
which takes a picture of the inside of your fridge everytime the door opens so you can check what's on the shelves whilst you're shopping.
And the Tipron - a cross between a robot and projector. Apparently it learns the layout of your house and can wander into your bedroom and project the weather forecast onto the wall... Spooky!
We've also had a Process Improvement Unit Steering Group where we had a report form a recent event to improve and streamline the production of our prospectus which has been very successful.
I'm doing a bit of work over the next few weeks to help another University review its IT systems and services, and I've spent a day there getting to know the IT staff.
Finally, I've been keeping my eye on what's been going on at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. New technologies often appear in the consumer space first, and it important we keep up to date with them. Things that have caught my eye this year include wearable gadgets, which are getting smaller, and more integrated with clothing, 3D printing, which is quickly becoming mainstream, and virtual reality.
Some of the weirder gadgets include the smart fridge cam
which takes a picture of the inside of your fridge everytime the door opens so you can check what's on the shelves whilst you're shopping.And the Tipron - a cross between a robot and projector. Apparently it learns the layout of your house and can wander into your bedroom and project the weather forecast onto the wall... Spooky!
Wednesday, 23 December 2015
December round up and party pics
Sorry - not posted in a while.So, a quick round up of the last couple of weeks. As part of our student systems project we've been scoring the ITPD responses from interested suppliers. For those who are interested in the acronym, that's Invitation to Participate in Dialogue. This is where we take the suppliers who got through the first round in our tendering process, and score their detailed answers to a number of our questions, to decide which ones to take to the next stage. A lot of people have spent a lot of time on this over the last couple of weeks, as scores are done individually, then moderated in a group, and then aggregated into the final scores for the Sponsorship Group to take the final decision on the next stage. All this has been completed in a relatively short period of time, so well done to all involved.
I've also been talking to a group of Sheffield Leader participants about challenges facing leadership in Universities, and meeting with the Sheffield City Region CIO forum, which brings together the CIOs from local authorities, the NHS and the Universities. One of the big topics on the agenda was devolution in the Sheffield city region, and what that might mean for us.
Of course, the highlight of the last couple of weeks has been the famous CiCS Christmas party, and this year for a change we were entertained by the excellent magician Steve Faulkner, who visited every table and entertained in the bar afterwards. My last post of the year wouldn't be complete without a few pictures from the event, so here goes, and I hope you all have a very Happy and Peaceful New Year.
I've also been talking to a group of Sheffield Leader participants about challenges facing leadership in Universities, and meeting with the Sheffield City Region CIO forum, which brings together the CIOs from local authorities, the NHS and the Universities. One of the big topics on the agenda was devolution in the Sheffield city region, and what that might mean for us.
Of course, the highlight of the last couple of weeks has been the famous CiCS Christmas party, and this year for a change we were entertained by the excellent magician Steve Faulkner, who visited every table and entertained in the bar afterwards. My last post of the year wouldn't be complete without a few pictures from the event, so here goes, and I hope you all have a very Happy and Peaceful New Year.
Friday, 4 December 2015
Digital transformation workshop
Yesterday I went to a Digital Transformation event run by Gartner
It was an interesting workshop, and introduced by looking at some of the drivers behind digital transformation, and some of the leadership issues, as well as some advice on how to start an initiative. As always, these workshops are made all the more interesting by having people there from a mix of sectors, and this session we had representatives from public sector, education and manufacturing. Here are a few notes I took:
Technology is everywhere, and has moved beyond the screen. The first 3D printed components are now in production Boeing 777s - technologies such as 3D printing are no longer for fun! Information and intelligence are being added to many products, gamification is being added to digital learning systems.
Leadership in this era is becoming more complex. There are paradoxes:
Operational excellence vs business innovation. So, you must improve the business model that feeds you while creating a new one that won't let you starve.
Acting quickly to gain an advantage requires long term pattern recognition. It's not just about acting in the moment but having a long term insight and collecting the right data.
Working together beyond organisational borders while creating a united offering. we need to interact and collaborate with many different organisations and groups, but offer a coherent service to our customers eg Apple have a very coherent app store, but a huge number of people outside the company are contributing to it.
You are providing a product or service at a moment in time, but the digital value of that product needs to evolve over time.
Digital business and services are technology dependent, but technology alone is irrelevant. Social sciences, culture etc are just as important
Digital leadership therefore requires leaders to move beyond the management of definitive goals, and into a world defined by numerous contradicting objectives with more team based delivery.
Digital business transformation is not a one off, therefore it is dangerous to call it a programme, which implies it has a finish. It is really a culture change.
In setting up a digital transformation initiative start with the why? Why are we doing it. Define the digital business principles.
Then look at the driver, what do you want to get out of it? Is it business growth? Customer experience? Mobility? Operational excellence? IoT?
Then come up with a design plan. What are you going to do?
Get commitment to embark on a journey, not to finish it.
What is the blueprint? Narrow all of the ideas down to the digital business opportunities you want to develop.
Then look at what operating model you are going to use - how are you going to do it. Various ways you can begin including building a bimodal capability or implementing a framework for working with small vendors. Establish the governance, and consider whether infrastructure and support changes are needed.
Leave the "how" till last.
The rest of day was spent doing exercises - looking at how digital transformation might work on a few different case studies. Interesting day, and very relevant to the digital transformation programme (oops, mustn't call it a programme), we are about to set up.
It was an interesting workshop, and introduced by looking at some of the drivers behind digital transformation, and some of the leadership issues, as well as some advice on how to start an initiative. As always, these workshops are made all the more interesting by having people there from a mix of sectors, and this session we had representatives from public sector, education and manufacturing. Here are a few notes I took:
Technology is everywhere, and has moved beyond the screen. The first 3D printed components are now in production Boeing 777s - technologies such as 3D printing are no longer for fun! Information and intelligence are being added to many products, gamification is being added to digital learning systems.
Leadership in this era is becoming more complex. There are paradoxes:
Operational excellence vs business innovation. So, you must improve the business model that feeds you while creating a new one that won't let you starve.
Acting quickly to gain an advantage requires long term pattern recognition. It's not just about acting in the moment but having a long term insight and collecting the right data.
Working together beyond organisational borders while creating a united offering. we need to interact and collaborate with many different organisations and groups, but offer a coherent service to our customers eg Apple have a very coherent app store, but a huge number of people outside the company are contributing to it.
You are providing a product or service at a moment in time, but the digital value of that product needs to evolve over time.
Digital business and services are technology dependent, but technology alone is irrelevant. Social sciences, culture etc are just as important
Digital leadership therefore requires leaders to move beyond the management of definitive goals, and into a world defined by numerous contradicting objectives with more team based delivery.
Digital business transformation is not a one off, therefore it is dangerous to call it a programme, which implies it has a finish. It is really a culture change.
In setting up a digital transformation initiative start with the why? Why are we doing it. Define the digital business principles.
Then look at the driver, what do you want to get out of it? Is it business growth? Customer experience? Mobility? Operational excellence? IoT?
Then come up with a design plan. What are you going to do?
Get commitment to embark on a journey, not to finish it.
What is the blueprint? Narrow all of the ideas down to the digital business opportunities you want to develop.
Then look at what operating model you are going to use - how are you going to do it. Various ways you can begin including building a bimodal capability or implementing a framework for working with small vendors. Establish the governance, and consider whether infrastructure and support changes are needed.
Leave the "how" till last.
The rest of day was spent doing exercises - looking at how digital transformation might work on a few different case studies. Interesting day, and very relevant to the digital transformation programme (oops, mustn't call it a programme), we are about to set up.
Wednesday, 2 December 2015
Let's get connected
Monday spent most of the afternoon interviewing for an exciting new post - Head of Research IT. Can't say much at the moment of course, but wath this space. hope to announce something soon.
Yesterday I was in London. In the afternoon talking to JISCcom, the commercial arm of JISC. I was with the CIO of Sheffield city Council, and we are working together, along with other public sector bodies across the city, to improve connectivity, in order to improve the delivery of services. I have an interest in getting our wireless network, Eduroam, rolled out across the City, and the City would like to have their network out there, as well as free connectivity for the people of Sheffield. Once the connectivity is in place, we can look at how we can use it to drive improvements in the services we all offer. Exciting times, and it's great to work across the boundaries of different organisations on a City wide project.
After killing time in London for an hour ( I saw a Lego train in Covent Garden - how cool is that), I was off to the Chemistry Club - a networking event for CIOs from across many different sectors. Great to catch up with colleagues from the Government Digital Service, Tesco, the BBC and many others. Only downside was I had to travel back on a late train, to Doncaster - luckily I got a lift back from there. Hanging around on Donnie station for 30 minutes at 2330 waiting for a connection didn't fill me with joy...
Yesterday I was in London. In the afternoon talking to JISCcom, the commercial arm of JISC. I was with the CIO of Sheffield city Council, and we are working together, along with other public sector bodies across the city, to improve connectivity, in order to improve the delivery of services. I have an interest in getting our wireless network, Eduroam, rolled out across the City, and the City would like to have their network out there, as well as free connectivity for the people of Sheffield. Once the connectivity is in place, we can look at how we can use it to drive improvements in the services we all offer. Exciting times, and it's great to work across the boundaries of different organisations on a City wide project.
After killing time in London for an hour ( I saw a Lego train in Covent Garden - how cool is that), I was off to the Chemistry Club - a networking event for CIOs from across many different sectors. Great to catch up with colleagues from the Government Digital Service, Tesco, the BBC and many others. Only downside was I had to travel back on a late train, to Doncaster - luckily I got a lift back from there. Hanging around on Donnie station for 30 minutes at 2330 waiting for a connection didn't fill me with joy...
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