Back in January, I presented a keynote at the BETT Conference in London. Presenting to a full room of higher education decision makers, I explained my thoughts on the future of education and technology. During the question and answer session, one area which attracted special interest was our social collaboration offering and its value in read more
The term “sing along” is often used to indicate a very famous tune that (almost) everybody can sing. A famous example is a theme from 1930-ties Disney cartoon “Who´s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”. Back then, and since the early middle ages, the Big Bad Wolf was a kind of universal threat used in read more
As the local IT support person for my village (I’m sure you know what I mean) I was approached on Christmas Day by one of my neighbours, who’s grandson needed to get online using a new Windows 8 machine. It was an emergency; he needed to activate Football Manager 2013. Now, as CTO, of course read more
It is now more than eight weeks since I wrote down my New Year’s resolutions. Despite a promising start, some of them are still waiting to jump off the page and start jogging towards a healthier, fitter, calorie reduced future.And I’m not talking about only my personal wellbeing but,just a simportantly, about my professional health read more
With fewer Pounds, Euros or Dollars in the consumer pocket, flat performance in many categories and upward pressures on input costs, consumer goods companies are turning to Business Analytics to help turn round their fortunes. A large, global cereal and snacks company recently, (Feb 2013) announced the creation of a new senior leadership role: Vice read more
“What does the Firm of the Future look like?” It’s a question people keep asking. Sometimes we ask it from a sustainability perspective. How can we interact with the environment in such a way as to cause minimal adverse effect, and equally to ensure that the business can evolve as it needs – sustainable use read more
Keeping up to date with IT is just as important in the educational sector as it is in any other. If schools are to stay ahead of the game and continue to produce technologically advanced citizens of the future, it becomes essential that educational institutions truly embrace digital innovation. This is because the migration to read more
A couple of years ago I rewrote one of the smaller products that my team has responsibility for. We needed to add significant new functionality and the existing software’s design was going to make this challenging. Hence I took the decision to rewrite the existing code in a way that would make it quicker to read more
A long time ago, going back to the 1980s and 1990s, the rationale behind the implementation of ERP ‘Enterprise Resource Planning’ systems was all about businesses breaking down their internal business process silos and coming together under the overall ‘enterprise’ banner. So, rather than each business function or department having their own silo based objectives read more
The engagement of Governments with citizens during the 20th century was performed most effectively through broadcast media; newspapers, radio and ultimately television. I say engagement, but how much engagement does one-way communication foster? Now, well into the 21st century, we have supplemented broadcast mechanisms with two-way interaction using technology; most interestingly through the medium of read more
For a long time organizations have been outsourcing their application management. Initially, outsourcing happened only with servers and databases with focus on availability, response time and cost reduction. Later, applications were also outsourced, mainly those that were technology-oriented: some SAP applications or the Oracle custom-made applications. By having introduced process models like ITIL and CMMI read more
Alfred’s alarm clock awoke him with the latest Top 5 hits from the Irish charts, in line with the preferences he had set in his virtual assistant. Why 5:15 am? On the wall was flashing the answer: the personal automated agenda indicated that he should take a day off and go to Barcelona; the flight read more
Digital Technology is transforming many of our lives. It used to be that technology innovations would target the enterprise first and eventually, as the costs reduced, reach the home. Now, in the New Normal, the rise of consumer technology innovation coupled with ubiquitous connectivity has – for many areas of technology – reversed this trend;employees read more
Over the last couple of months I have found myself thinking time and time again of this quote attributed to Bruce Lee: “One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.” When working on or reviewing technical architecture, software designs or code read more
The Wall Street Journal European Edition of 14 February 2013 reports that the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) in the USA issued guidance that businesses should in effect hire more (former) criminals. Employers should not allow a history of criminal conviction to unduly influence them when it comes to hiring. If two people are very read more
I am a fan of the Asterix comics’ series, just like many Europeans are. I tend to think it is a part of the European (and not only the French) education, but only recently I started to re-read Asterix comics in different languages. In English, “Fulliautomatix” is the name of the Asterix’s village smith. His read more
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