Weeknotes

Weeknote 396: Football

Things that I have learned this week: Building products is fun. Building products with other people is even more fun. Building products that aren't software is even more fun than that. There's something about the eyes sparkling, moment of revelation thing that's addictive when you are able to inspire it in others. It's why I … Continue reading Weeknote 396: Football

collaboration, Management

Agile/Flexible/Smart working tips

Another review and reworking of hints gleaned from the book Remote for a client I'm currently working with, here are some handy hints on how to support working when you don't have everyone in the same office at the same time... - make sure there is time-overlap as to the hours that people work/work in the … Continue reading Agile/Flexible/Smart working tips

CIO Priorities

CIO Priorities 30 – Use Data Better

Whether you subscribe to the view that data is the new oil, or maybe think it's the new nuclear waste, there is no doubting that there is an awful lot of the stuff floating around organisations these days. The massive volume of data stored in most businesses is probably less to do with more quantitative … Continue reading CIO Priorities 30 – Use Data Better

General

CIO Priorities 29: Improve User Experience

Ideas about Service Design have started to permeate into the world of the IT department. For most it's about the approaches necessary to develop customer-facing digital services. But for some it's also being applied to improve the way in which technology is delivered to people inside the organisation. And by that I mean the customer … Continue reading CIO Priorities 29: Improve User Experience

CIO Priorities

CIO Priorities 28: demonstrating value

The value of IT is obvious, right? You'd have thought after seven decades of organisations investing in computing we'd have a clear, evidence-based answer to that by now. But a quick search of the internet shows that there isn't an obvious answer. Value in IT comes in two general flavours: things that save you money … Continue reading CIO Priorities 28: demonstrating value

Weeknotes

Weeknote 395: nogomet

This week I have learned: despite my Irish loyalties, I became involved this time. get out there. Feel uncomfortable. Test yourself. a different talk every time isn't the way to build a business as a speaker. But where's the fun in saying the same stuff over and over again? My little boy's leaving infant school. … Continue reading Weeknote 395: nogomet

CIO Priorities

CIO Priorities 27: Changing Culture

For many years now it's been an accepted truism that technology is rarely the means of change in an organisation, it's merely an enabler. And yet despite this being common wisdom, organisations still tend to put a great deal more focus on changing technology than they do changing behaviours or culture. As Tom Peters puts it, … Continue reading CIO Priorities 27: Changing Culture

CIO Priorities

CIO Priorities 26: Enabling search

Organisations these days have a lot of information. But the truth is that whilst the virtual filing cabinets of the average organisation are filled to the brim with all manner of stuff, there's not much there of value. Certainly not in comparison to the information scale of the internet. In pure volume the data that … Continue reading CIO Priorities 26: Enabling search

CIO Priorities

CIO Priorities 25: Enabling access to the back office

For some years now I've had a fairly simple explanation of the impact of digital on established businesses. Primarily it's about how customer expectations are forcing organisations to make systems and processes that previously existed in the back office, hidden, exposed to the outside. This can be tortuous. Systems and processes that were designed with … Continue reading CIO Priorities 25: Enabling access to the back office

CIO Priorities

CIO Priorities 24: Replatforming legacy

For many years our friends in the Finance team have been able to argue that a computer system is a tangible asset, something that has book value. It's meant that you've been able to treat computer systems as capital assets, amortising the cost of them over a number of years in that witchcraft that is … Continue reading CIO Priorities 24: Replatforming legacy