David vs Goliath clash on web communication technologies

The Internet continues to expand, evolve and develop. Born as a technology out of a military requirement, Arpanet, the ubiquitous nature of the Internet has meant that mankind has developed all kinds of uses for this communication medium. I sometimes think what would happen, if one day we woke up and found that the Internet was gone. The Internet has managed to permeate and touch our lives unlike no other technology. We are increasingly becoming more and more reliant on it to satisfy our insatiable urge for knowledge and entertainment. We can now, even watch our favourite television programmes across the Internet and stream our favourite programmes across continents ourselves using technologies, such as the Slingbox.

For this blog, as with most of my articles, I won’t reinvent the wheel, and as always will use existing web related resources, wherever, possible. In today’s blog, I am aiming to:

1. De-mystify web conferencing, webinars, teleconferencing and video conferencing.
2. Provide a list of web conferencing/webinar solutions/teleconferencing/video conferencing for small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and larger businesses.
3. Provide further resources/reviews for informed decision making.
4. Explain the difference between web conferencing/webinars and teleconferencing.
5. Explain the benefits and features of online meeting software.

One of the problems that bloggers like me and indeed the general public/businesses are facing these days is the old adage, big fish, eat small fish. The IT solution arena, faced with global competition and diminishing returns, a desire by the big players to have monopolies etc has led to the IT market undergoing significant reshuffle and consolidation. This has led to a great deal of confusion on who owns who, especially if you are not actively following the IT industry. For the uninitiated and for the benefit of everyone, the Internet infrastructure is already largely managed by Cisco routers. To provide Cisco with competition in this arena and to strengthen its other networking products, last week HP purchased 3Com.

Let’s stick with the theme in the previous paragraph. Within the web conferencing, webinar, teleconferencing and video conferencing solutions, the demarcation of what now signifies a particular solution is becoming blurred as they all seem to be morphing together, so in the not too distant future, what this morphed technology will become and be called, is open to speculation. This thought is further strengthened by the acquisition of WebEx by Cisco in 2007 and the recent offer in October, this year, of video conferencing solution provider, Tandberg ( UPDATE – This offer, incidentally, has been upped again in November). Within the video conferencing arena, telepresence, has been touted as the next killer application, although while gaining some ground within larger corporates, it hasn’t really taken off. That may change with Polycom’s new telepresence solution. Polycom has created a clever alliance with Microsoft by licensing its technology, thereby protecting its position. As Tandberg bites the dust, in this David vs Goliath battle, so far the Goliath’s seem to have the upper hand as these solutions move into the lucrative world of Smartphones.

Best solutions for SMEs

Dimdim is free for up to twenty users as a hosted solution and free for upto 50 users if a business hosts it on its own servers. I was quite impressed with their clever use of YouTube for their tutorial videos. One site that I visited levied some criticism of its features and I was quite pleasantly surprised to view the first comment submitted was by one of their employees informing the reviewer that his criticism had been submitted to the developers for further investigation. I predict that Dimdim is the web conferencing platform to watch for and should very soon be giving the big players a run for their money.

Yugma is my next free solution and is free for up to 20 people as well. Again, Dimdim and Yugma are the rising stars of the web conferencing world and both offer Pro versions for businesses.

For teleconferencing, I haven’t been able to find many solutions (I admit, I was researching web conference solutions in more detail) but having used BT MeetMe in the past, I believe it is available cost effectively for SMEs. Skype, does allow for upto 25 users to have a teleconferencing call across the Internet FREE but be wary of the possible loss of quality on calls. Skype Video conferencing (requires a web camera) and is currently limited to a one to one session.

Best solutions for larger businesses

It is worth reading Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for web conferencing 2009 prior to making any decisions as it is a great in depth report and to view a comparison of the top ten (In their view). For other reviews, please click on the following: Review 1, Review 2, Review 3.

For larger businesses the names that are most recognised are (in no particular order), WebEx MeetMeNow, Microsoft’s Office Live Meeting, Citrix GoToMeeting, Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro, Fuze Meeting, Intercall, iLinc, MegaMeeting, Glance, WiredRed e/pop, Zoho Meeting, Elluminate Live, IBM Lotus Sametime, Unyte Meeting, PGi Netspoke webconferencing, and others.

To end this week’s blog, I can inform everyone of the topic of next week’s blog. Recently, I have been assisting the CIO Executive Council to promote the Council as the UK Liaison Development Director. Next week, I’ll be discussing reasons why UK CIOs should become members of the CIO Executive Council and how the council can assist the CIOs agenda, as this is an organisation managed by CIOs for CIOs.

To become a member/further information, please contact me ahmed@itfindit.com – http://council.cio.com/.

If you would like to attend our next event detailed below, (CIOs only), please send me an email:

European Regional Membership Meeting, London, Westfield, LLC

Dec 2nd, ‘09, 9 am – 4 pm Europe/London (GMT+0)

Description

The CIO Executive Council invites you to join host Gerhard Karba, Global CIO of Westfield, LLC at their facilities in London for an agenda rich with discussion surrounding the latest challenges CIO’s are facing in guiding their companies into the economic upswing. There will also be a Council sponsored dinner on the 1 Dec at 1830 hours at The Meat and Wine Company Restaurant. The meeting itself begins on the 2 Dec at 0900 hours to 1600 hours.

Specific agenda items:
1. Gerhard Karba will lead a discussion on how CIOs can influence and manage demand on IT services as we emerge from the recession by addressing the lack of an enterprise “master plan.”
2. Council General Manager Pam Stenson will present the Council Board of Advisors’ influence agenda for 2010, “The Journey to the Future-State CIO,” and engage participants in how to develop and execute on this agenda.
3. Group CIO Ian Alerton of Wachovia will present on how innovation has played and will play a key role in moving his enterprise into better economic times strengthening his company’s market position and accelerating their growth.

‘Boring’ label shows industry is ignorant about GCSE ICT – A CW Readers response

Over the past few months, quite a lot has been said in Computing/IT magazines/forums and discussions on the state of affairs of the current GCSE in IT/ICT within the UK. That includes me as well, as I have referred to the state of IT education etc in previous blogs – Nurturing future IT Professionals and leaders and The future graduate and the IT and computing skills shortage. I was trying to catch up with my obligatory reading and had just reached page 14 of ComputerWeekly (CW 3-9 Nov 09) when I came across Ruth Nuttall’s letter. I found it was a breath of fresh air and an interesting read as it’s not often that we receive the views of teachers on this important subject. I could have just inserted a link to the page but in spite of my best efforts to find the article on CW’s site, I couldn’t locate it. So, I have actually done it the hard way as I just wanted all of you to read it, so I have actually sat down and re-typed Ruth’s entire letter. Reproduced thanks to ComputerWeekly and Ruth Nuttall, ICT teacher and computing co-ordinator Hazelwick School, West Sussex. Ruth said:

I read with increasing irritation the article “Boring IT GCSE must go” (computerweekly.com/238165.htm). I am a computing and ICT teacher at a school in West Sussex, and this article summarises all of the assumptions and lack of knowledge typified by journalists and certain types of business people. The headline itself displays a basic ignorance of ICT/ computing in education – there is no such qualification as a GCSE in IT.

We teach GCSE ICT and an equivalent course called OCR Nationals (ICT). In an educational context, the subject is called information and communication technology. There are many different qualifications at GCSE level that can be opted for, including the courses we offer, the DiDA course, BTECs etc. I am not disputing that the subject of ICT has suffered in recent years – in the past it has been taught by non specialist teachers, as it was not possible to train as an ICT teacher until relatively recently. This use of non specialist teachers is one of the main reasons that the subject has come to be seen in some schools as boring and out of date.

In my department, most ICT teachers did a degree in an ICT or computer science field, or have worked in the IT industry and trained as ICT specialist teachers. We are constantly updating what and how we teach to engage and inspire the children who do an ICT GCSE at my school. Most GCSE syllabuses allow schools the flexibility to adapt the course to suit their needs – the GCSE course that we follow has four coursework projects, two are proscribed (spreadsheets and databases) but the other two are free choice, and could be on any topic from programming to web design to animation or game design.

However, due to the lack of subject specialists in some schools, often teachers choose to do topics such as word processing and desktop publishing as their free choice. This is what can lead to the idea that ICT is boring. It is not clear from your article what role E-Skills has in the development of future syllabuses. The GCSE ICT offerings from each of the major exam boards are already changing next year, and these specifications have been finalised and approved.

There is an IT diploma that is being developed and is in its first year of delivery – this is something that E-Skills has been heavily involved in. Is it possible that you have confused this with the GCSE ICT offerings? The diploma is aimed at 14- to 19-year-olds and can be taken at three levels, and so could be equivalent to GCSEs or A-levels. There is also a GCSE in computing being offered by the exam board OCR as a trial in September 2010. At this point it is worth noting that ICT and computing are related but very different subjects, somewhat like the difference between business studies and economics, or geography and geology. Not all ICT teachers have the academic background required to teach computing.

You seem to use the terms ICT, IT and computing interchangeably in your article, and to have confused all of these different types of qualifications. The final comment in your article from British Airways CIO Paul Coby is deeply offensive to me and my fellow teachers – “GCSE IT teaching is appalling and out of date”. How precisely does he know this? How many schools has he been in and seen what is being taught? Or is this based on anecdotes and preformed opinions?

We work hard at school to motivate and inspire pupils, and we have a large and successful ICT department that offers a variety of ICT or computing courses. We may be the exception that proves the rule, but to dismiss all teachers and a whole subject area out of hand and without a voice from teachers is foolish and lazy.

Houston, Windows is counting down 10,9,8,7…

I was sat quietly rocking away the other day and started to think whether it would be a good idea to do a review on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 (As benefits to organisations cannot be realised without a Windows Server 2008 backend infrastructure). As is always the case, any version of Windows attracts pundit reviews galore, so I am doing a different kind of review. A review that touches on the key features of Windows 7 and provides some links to Server 2008, for in depth coverage. As ever, Microsoft has never been good at reviewing its own products, as is evident from their website, top 10 reasons to buy Windows 7! Windows 7 is also the first operating system to offer native support for Multi Touch . 

Home Users:

 First things first. Home users will be happy to learn that the Windows versions have been simplified.  There are three versions for home users, Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate. For most home users, the premium version should suffice. For home users who need multiple installations, there will be a family pack that can be installed on upto three machines. To decide which version to go for, click here

 Windows Vista came with quite a few applications; Windows Media Player, Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Mail, Windows Media Center, and Windows Movie Maker. Windows 7 has scrapped bundling Mail, Photo Gallery, and Movie Maker and moved them into an add-on pack called Windows Live Essentials . The two major applications that arrive with Windows 7 out of the box are Windows Media Player, now at version 12, and Windows Media Center. To download Windows Live Essentials, click here. Paint, WordPad and calculator have new versions in Windows 7 but nothing that I consider worth roaring about.

 The key improved features of Windows 7 for home users (arguably for organisational users as well) are: 

1. Better wallpapers, better user access control (UAC) that avoid annoying pop ups,
2. Libraries are a welcome addition and allow one library to show the contents of several folders. For example, store your music in the Public Music folder, and those tunes automatically appear in every user account’s Music library.
3. Device stage is a concept whereby all connected devices, such as Bluetooth, USB etc all appear within the devices and printers control panel. This removes the confusion experienced by earlier version of Windows where different devices appeared in different places within the control panel.
4. HomeGroup, enables easier networking within the home and automatically finds other PCs/laptops on the same network. It was much needed as users with little IT experience always found hard to network their home PC’s together and as a result couldn’t share files and printers etc.
5. Shortcut keys in Windows 7 are quite creative and are a sign that the Windows 7 team had opportunity to look at the minor details as well as the major overhaul and is quite welcome and useful. For example, placing two windows side-by-side on a crowded desktop took a lot of mouse manoeuvring in Windows XP. In Windows 7, you click the first window, and press Win+Right arrow to scoot the window against the right edge. Follow up with a Win+Left arrow on the second window, and you’ve lined them up side-by-side, ready for quick information swapping.
6. The new taskbar melds the old Quick Launch toolbar with the traditional taskbar, providing a single place to both launch applications and switch between them. Replacing the mix of small Quick Launch icons and large textual buttons, we have simply a row of large icons. Left clicking an icon either starts or switches to the app. If the application has a single window, clicking the icon switches directly; if it has multiple windows, clicking the icon presents a thumbnail view of each window, requiring a second click to switch to a specific window.
7. Jump lists are special context menus shown on the taskbar and Start Menu icons that allow quick access to application-specific functionality. 

Organisational Users (Mostly excerpted from Computing 21/10/09):

I have taken the following from Computing’s article as their version was quite succinct and easy to follow. For large organisations, Windows 7 Enterprise Edition adds several potentially significant new technologies, including AppLocker, DirectAccess, BranchCache, federated search and Bitlocker To Go. However, pretty much all of these features require a server infrastructure based on Windows Server 2008 R2 before they can be enabled. Windows Server 2008 also supports virtualisation.

The key improved features of Windows 7 for organisational users are: 

1. DirectAccess (One of my readers, Han Coumans, has explained DirectAccess very well – Click here) is a new way of accessing a corporate network, DirectAccess, avoids VPNs entirely DirectAccess uses globally routable IPv6 addresses and IPSec to provide direct, secure end-to-end connections between client and server. Unlike other VPNs, which require a kind of “dial-in”, DirectAccess connects automatically and transparently; in fact, even prior to logging in, DirectAccess authenticates the machine with the remote network, allowing system policies and software updates to be rolled out. It is disappointing though that Windows Mobiles cannot be controlled and continue to be managed by Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 (MSCMDM 2008). Future DirectAccess technologies may incorporate MSCMDM as well. That would be welcomed by organisations as that would make a truly complete offering.
2. AppLocker gives administrators the ability to apply a white list of applications that are allowed to run on client systems using Group Policy settings, while DirectAccess provides laptop users with the means to connect securely to the corporate network without needing a virtual private network, using an IPv6-over-IPsec encrypted connection.
3. BranchCache is a new feature designed to offer better access to information for workers in a remote branch office. As the name suggests, it caches data transferred over the network, with cached data either held on a server or distributed among the client PCs at the site.
4. Federated search (see sample screen above) extends the search capabilities seen in Vista to allow users to search not only their own computer, but to send out the search request to data repositories such as SharePoint and have the results merged with those from their own computer.
5. Bitlocker To Go extends the Bitlocker encryption technology introduced in Windows Vista to support removable media such as USB Flash drives. Administrators can also set a policy that requires users to encrypt such media before they can be used.

Nurturing future IT professionals and leaders

My blog has been nominated for an award within the CIO/IT Director category, recommend my blog for the shortlisted candidates at:

http://www.computerweekly.com/nominate.Voting for shortlisted entries will open on 27th October

(This is a sister article to – The future graduate and the IT and Computing skills shortage)

“The price of greatness is responsibility”- Sir Winston Churchill

So, there we have it. Churchill, grasped the essence of my topic, quite aptly. Today’s CIOs, local government, schools, colleges and universities owe it to future generations to support and nurture our future IT professionals and Leaders. It just isn’t good enough for us (everyone involved within the IT industry) to pass the buck anymore. We can all either sit on the fence and do nothing and continue to whinge over the future, or, hey, let’s just be positive and do whatever we can as individuals to inspire youngsters to join our beloved profession. So, what can we do? Actually, quite a lot. It’s like JFK said;

“Think not what your country can do for you, think what you can do for your country,”

or if you are a Hoff fan, like me;

“You were spared to lead the great fight. Don’t turn away in fear. One man can make a difference and you are going to be that man”.

Let’s be those men/women. Here is a starter for 10, to get you going.

1. Join Computing’s, tomorrow’s IT Leaders initiative and their associated LinkedIn group.

Now, don’t just join this initiative but become active participants. Your thoughts and interaction will push this initiative to a successful conclusion. What do you think should happen to encourage youngsters? How can we engage and involve local CIOs, local government, schools, colleges and universities? All these types of questions need to be asked.

2. Why can’t we have a standard degree and masters across the UK/accredit the e-skills Information Technology Management for Business (ITMB) degree nationally? (Taught at 13 universities already)

There are too many versions of IT degrees nationally. As such, employers are never certain of the skills that a new IT graduate will bring with them. Is the answer to have an IT degree/masters standard?

3. For IT leadership (CIOs), City University, London is launching a new masters course. Again, why can’t we have such a course at a national level?

4. Work placements and open days, organised by CIOs.

Almost, every UK town and city has organisations that have CIOs. Every CIO should be advertising at least two work placements every year. In addition, open days should be held by IT departments for school delegations of up to 30, twice each year. The format should include representatives from every department, showcasing how these departments utilise IT and the benefits, cost savings etc enjoyed by that department with the IT department explaining why that solution was chosen and the process, for example, invitation to tender (ITT) and project management methodologies used. This would give school children a unique overview of IT within an actual organisation while showcasing the commercial, business and IT elements by those departments.

CIOs also need to consult with local councils etc to organise open career days within schools where CIOs explain the merits of a career within IT while explaining popular career paths etc.

The e-skills council is currently organising many similar activities but I feel that the e-skills council need to include the above and e-skills also need to market all their activities with a renewed vigour as the message that they want to deliver is still not getting through.

To finish the article, the other good news is that the current GCSE ICT syllabus is being replaced for a new GCSE ICT syllabus in September 2010. There was always concern within the IT fraternity that the current GCSE ICT syllabus did not provide the foundation required to enter the profession and was ill equipped to handle recent developments within ICT. The new syllabus is much better and has taken into account the maturity of IT within organisations and as such provides a much better foundation for aspiring ICT youngsters.

The finishing quote for this article, had to be from my favourite builder, Bob the builder;

“Can we fix IT?” “Yes, we can!”

Hammering down data storage using nails

My blog has been nominated for an award within the CIO/IT Director category, recommend my blog for the shortlisted candidates at:

http://www.computerweekly.com/nominate.Voting for shortlisted entries will open on 27th October

“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” Abraham Maslow

I will let you all in on a secret. I started researching data storage with the aim of providing an overview of data storage but the more I researched, the more confused I became. The forerunners to today’s data storage such as primary and secondary storage still exist and then we have new technologies, such as Solid State Disk (SSD) drives becoming increasingly popular. In the end, I returned to my own experiences in data storage and then it suddenly dawned on me. The reason, I was writing this article was that unlike the early days of IT, when all I used to do was to have servers backed up on tapes and carry them in the boot of my car (Yes, in those days that was the Disaster Recovery strategy). Data storage is now a behemoth.

Storage can even in this day and age be added cost effectively. The storage expo at London, Olympia on 14-15 October had many vendors exhibiting their solutions and I am providing this link as it is a rich source of vendor information. Another article that highlighted the nine data storage companies to watch shows innovative ways that are being utilised by newer entrants to the market.

The title of this blog reflects the reality. I have yet to come across any organisation who holds an IT induction for employees (even that is quite rare) that includes, a best practice session on how users can administrate their own data well enough to contribute towards the data cost effectiveness, return on investment (ROI), Total cost of ownership (TCO), energy and carbon reduction of an organisation’s data centre and highlights the data storage policy (if one exists, it isn’t often enforced either). Well, herein lies the problem. Users don’t know how to control, avoid duplication or when to delete data that is no longer required. It is then taken for granted that their data has a right to reside on the network as long free space exists within that network drive, for example.

The irony is that this is not where it all stops. Email is often used as a filing system, even when user mailboxes are given quotas. I have even witnessed organisations where quotas are enforced but archiving of data on user system hard disks encouraged, just to adhere to minimising disk usage on network storage (Obviously, no data security issues). This is even before we start discussing technologies such as SharePoint. Now, this is where it all starts falling apart, as until now users, for example, would have been given quotas on file/email but as soon as organisation’s start implementing technologies such as SharePoint, all quotas suddenly seem to vanish, almost by magic, as if they were not really required on SharePoint. Users suddenly realise that hang on, let’s just move our file estate to SharePoint. Data storage performance bottlenecks can add to these issues as well. So, in essence, what we have is a scenario where files may be duplicated many times over. Good Data storage solutions take account of these scenarios and implement solutions that address all this duplication and if implemented correctly, will save an organisation considerable finances while contributing towards their green credentials.

In summary, a data storage solution should look at an organisation’s entire data estate including file servers and document libraries. If that is not the case, in essence, all they are doing is using a hammer to drive a nail through data storage while ignoring the reasons for driving the nail through. Gartner has recently released a Magic Quadrant for storage resource management and SAN management software, and I highly recommend that it should be read prior to embarking on a storage project.

For those of us, embarking on choosing data storage solutions, I will take the opportunity to provide a quick primer on the key technologies and methodologies involved, please click on the links below, as I feel that if these technologies, are to be implemented, these terms need to be understood (Deliberately not detailing the technologies):

DAS, NAS, Fibre Channel, ISCSI, HyperSCSI, AOE, Infiniband, VTL, de duplication

Global digital communications, VOIP and Unified Communications

To sign petition on Prime Ministers, 10 Downing street website against Social Media Abuse, please go to:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/SocialMediaAbuse/

My blog has been nominated for an award within the CIO/IT Director category, recommend my blog for the shortlisted candidates at:

http://www.computerweekly.com/nominate.Voting for shortlisted entries will open on 27th October.

Even a few years ago, connecting international offices was a nightmare in terms of complexity and associated cost. The attraction to connect many offices has many advantages. It helps cut the carbon footprint of employees through less travelling, enhances communications security, as files are not required to be kept on the laptop/removable media, it can save telephone costs by using Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) technology, allows collaboration of employees globally through Unified Communications (UC) technologies and creates an infrastructure that is scalable according to the requirements of the business.

The technology that is increasingly being utilised to setup this global infrastructure is Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS). MPLS utilises both Class of Service (CoS) and Quality of Service (QoS). This means that data is prioritised according to let’s say, video/voice. For our example, if Video/Voice carries a CoS of 7 that would mean that it has a higher priority for transmission to let’s say data files and then the QoS could reflect that further by fine tuning other parameters such as latency etc.

When creating an international communications strategy, it is advisable to identify the requirements very carefully and to choose a global service provision partner that has experience of enabling international communications such as BT, Cable and Wireless and others.

The improvement that most businesses require immediately is to connect their employees remotely to their internal business network for reaching their business documents, presentations and business applications. The way this is achieved is through ensuring that the headquarter (HQ) or business data centre site has a larger capacity link compared to other sites, as this will be the link that will be the most used by all other sites and remote workers. A few years ago, many businesses used to host all their data and business applications at their headquarter sites. Now, increasingly, as businesses are growing and capacity (bandwidth) is becoming cheaper, they either have their own data centres or use Cloud Computing services.

Next, each remote site’s data requirements are mapped out and the required capacity agreed and enabled. In parallel, most remote workers are granted access to the business systems by using secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections and associated solutions such as iPass and RSA SecureID .

Once, the global infrastructure is setup, businesses can start to think about moving away from their Private branch exchange (PBX/PABX)’s telephone network and to start utilising VOIP for Internet Protocol Telephony (IPT). It is also worth noting that VOIP is not allowed in many countries as these countries would like their own country’s Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) carrier to carry the VOIP voice traffic and thus make money themselves. Many VOIP solutions, get around these by breaking out voice transmissions locally, in country, and if, for example, they have their own international VOIP system, to utilise their own network for the international traffic only.

An immediate transfer to a complete VOIP system is not required by most vendors and is facilitated by the introduction of VOIP gateways that link the legacy PBX to the new VOIP system. That ensures that investment in the current PBX is realised until a transition to the eventual VOIP benefits and system is completed. The largest disadvantage of VOIP systems is their inability to cope with electricity blackouts (Design consideration can overcome this) and tracing emergency VOIP calls (potential solutions currently being offered by vendors). Most VOIP vendors also sell UC solutions as well. This is where the power of the digital communications strategy starts to pay dividends. VOIP, for example, allows the user to have one extension globally. The power of unified communications is that it starts to utilise presence awareness (Where someone actually is/logged in to a computer/device) and starts to present that information to anyone who wants to connect or collaborate with that individual. This allows geographically diverse teams to connect anytime, anywhere globally. This could be via email, instant messaging, web conferencing, voice, SMS, Fax and even through collaborative technologies such as SharePoint. Now, follows an example:

Peter Smith was reluctant to go to the US but sales were down and a major potential client beckoned. Peter logged off his computer and phone system and made his way to Heathrow airport. Once checked in, he decided to make some calls to colleagues. A quick conference on the laptop ensued that meant he was discussing the project with a global team that he could view and discuss the final phases of a project with, across three offices globally. He was now walking to board the plane and quickly transferred his call to his mobile and continued walking. The call had ended and he had an urgent message to leave another colleague. He knew his colleague was in a meeting and would be checking his emails on his laptop frequently, so he left a voicemail (Voicemail would be emailed as text to his colleague). Once at the US office, he logged in to the system and had instant access to all his files and his personal phone extension.

I am intentionally not discussing VOIP or IP technologies in general as I feel that Unified Communications is where businesses should be making an investment. According to Gartner’s 2009 magic quadrant for Unified Communications, Microsoft’s UC solution is considered to be the leader, with Cisco, IBM and Siemen’s communications following closely. It was interesting to see that Avaya is only a strong contender and it is noteworthy to inform everyone that Avaya completed its acquisition of Nortel recently (the quadrant does not reflect the acquisition). There are quite a few VOIP/UC vendors currently and I would suggest that the one’s to watch are Microsoft, Cisco, Mitel and Avaya.

The ugly side of social media

To sign petition on Prime Ministers, 10 Downing street website against Social Media Abuse, please go to:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/SocialMediaAbuse/

My blog has been nominated for an award within the CIO/IT Director category, recommend my blog for the shortlisted candidates at:

http://www.computerweekly.com/nominate .Voting for shortlisted entries will open on 27th October

Well, welcome to everybody once again and please do not forget to vote for me by clicking on the link above. Something happened last week that just soaked up all my energy and to be honest, I had expected something similar to this to happen within the UK for a while now. The ugly scenario I found myself in was that a friend’s adult daughter had been subjected to a vicious and malicious social abuse attack of the worst sort. Now, while you are holding that thought, there are quite a few reasons, I was expecting this to happen.

Firstly, parents tend to turn a blind eye to kids safety and either allow them to create social media accounts or just do not have any kind of web/content filtering at home and as a result their kids roam the Internet freely and blatantly disregard the minimum age limit impositions. I use MS Windows and MS have a free package called family safety that allows my kids to experience the Internet but blocks or allows websites, and decides who my kids can communicate with in Windows Live Spaces, Messenger, or Hotmail.

Secondly, as social media’s popularity went from 0-60 in approx 5 seconds (equivalent of), most governments got caught off guard. That means that most of today’s young adults found themselves in a situation where their parents and schools had not taught them how to defend against social media attacks and the information that they needed to protect against, for example, ID theft. Social media training is only just trickling through within the UK for students in the 11-13 year grouping.

Thirdly, Social Media abuse is a relatively new area for most global police forces and as proved by my friend’s case, can easily transgress borders. So, while it may be relatively easy to prosecute someone within the UK for social media abuse, it becomes a nightmare scenario for anyone who wants any justice or apprehension on foreign soil.

We found it quite alarming that inspite of facing a constant tirade of harassment, blackmail, bullying and ID theft across the Internet by this individual, the UK police force was reluctant to engage the foreign country’s police to request assistance from them. While I acknowledge that the police cannot do anything about this type of crime overseas, surely it should be easy to send a message akin to email requesting assistance to locate and arrest this individual under the relevant local laws of that country. The irony was that the country in question’s authorities took this very seriously but we could not go directly to them as we had no idea of who and how to engage, whereas if the request was made by the UK authorities, i.e. the UK Police force, the perpetrator could have been arrested (letters have been written to the original investigating officer, police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson and the home secretary, Alan Johnson requesting support to arrest this individual).

The sequence of events that have unfolded since had a profound and devastating effect on my friend’s kid and even though an exceptionally talented student, the stressful experience, resulted in failed exams as a result of these malicious activities. The family were very concerned regarding her mental state of mind as these social media attacks via Facebook and other methods had now progressed to digitally creating lewd and obscene material on the wider Internet itself.

This type of social media abuse will not go away and will continue to repeat itself, as currently, there is no legislative or global agreement, such as the Virtual Global Taskforce – Fighting global online child abuse, to tackle social media abuse and the only global policing agreement is Interpol. This will become a global problem and needs to be addressed globally by creating a global agreement to tackle cross border cases of social media abuse, before someone dies.

We have already had high profile cases, such as the woman who killed her daughter, before the police force realised the seriousness of the case – and the recent case of the teen victim who faced abuse across Facebook for four years -

A fellow group member on another social media site, Janet, posted a comment (See full comment, dated 8.10.09) that I wanted to share with everyone. In Australia they have an organisation called beyondblue (similar to the UK’s Samaritans), who have a very useful checklist to see if someone is suffering from depression, reproduced here to assess anyone who may need urgent help and assistance (Listed below courtesy of Janet). 

For more than 2 weeks have you ……

1/ Felt sad, down or miserable most of the time
2/ Lost interest or pleasure in most of your usual activities

If you answered Yes to either of these questions continue with the checklist.

3/ Lost or gained a lot of weight OR had a decrease or increase in appetite?
4/ Sleep disturbance
5/ Felt slowed down, restless or excessively busy
6/ Felt tired or had no energy
7/ Felt worthless OR
Felt excessively guilty OR
Felt guilt about things you should not have been feeling guilty about
8/ Had poor concentration OR
Had difficulties thinking OR
Were very indecisive
9/ Had recurrent thoughts of death.

Add up the number of YES responses 1 – 9.

A total of 4 or less Unlikely to have depression illness
A total of 5 or less Likely to have a depressive illness 

If anybody can advise me on how to stop this individual further damaging the reputation of this future aspiring professional, please drop me a direct email at: ahmed@itfindit.com

 Useful Links:

Facebook safety

Cyber Bullying on Facebook

Dealing with Cyberbullying

 Child exploitation and online protection centre – (CEOP) Report Abuse

 Virtual Global Taskforce – Fighting global online child abuse

Can IT Management failure be caused by a deadly disease? Part II

If you enjoy my blog, please recommend my blog for the Computerweekly IT Blog Awards 2009 in the CIO/IT Director category at:

http://www.computerweekly.com/nominate

Dr Deming has always stood out in the crowd for me personally, as he continued to teach in what he had always believed in, even when he was doubted on his own home soil. This has always been a trait of most great leaders and in the true spirit of leadership, the knowledge and conviction he had developed for management was not held back but was applied with tremendous success in Japan. This was enough to create the ripple effect/tipping point for his teachings to be given credence back home in the US and Europe. A testimony to his success is the fact that at Toyota’s headquarters, his framed photograph has an even larger frame than the founder of Toyota, Kiichiro Toyoda.

Dr Deming originally developed, what he considered the five deadly diseases of western management (Two more were subsequently added, excessive medical care costs and excessive legal damage awards, not discussed in this post).

I agree with one of my readers, Thomas Keplar, who posted a comment a few days ago, “Lot of good idea’s in TQM, also a lot of areas that still must be understood that TQM will not provide answers other than as Ishakawa said “unless you have senior
management buy in, do not implement TQM”. It is a well known fact, comprehended by the recent credit crunch, management of the banks and the finance sector, that, businesses do not fail, management fail. As I go through this post, hold these two thoughts, as the importance of these two thoughts will become clarified.

“Unemployment is not inevitable but of bad management”- Dr Edward W Deming.

The five deadly diseases that cause IT management failure

1. Lack of constancy of purpose  

This happens for three reasons. Firstly it happens, where the most senior IT position is a functional Head reporting into a board Director, for example, Head of IT reporting into a Finance Director. In this scenario, senior management, i.e. the CEO and the board, have not been able to communicate well enough to the Finance Director and hence the Head of IT, the business vision and the direction and/or there is a lack of planning for the future. In this situation, the information provided to the Head of IT, is second hand and as the information has been forwarded, the Head of IT, cannot understand the perceptions, background and discussion that may have led to that business vision and direction. This is management failure, in the making, as the board have failed to understand that IT should be represented directly at board level.

Secondly, it can happen where IT is represented directly at board level, the IT Director/CIO does understand the business vision and the direction but the board as a collective have no planning for the future and while they are looking after their, “cash cows”, they do not have the product of tomorrow.

The recent banking crisis is evidence of this happening. Although, explaining it is quite complicated and the way banking in general works reflects that as well, in a nutshell, the banks had, inadvertently, started to finance an expansion of lending by borrowing. IT Management, were not, in my opinion, privy to this information and as evidenced in the 90’s, rogue trader, Nick Leeson’s case (the achievements of these traders and their ability to circumvent systems and procedures).

Thirdly, as future products and innovation is stifled (Both by the business and within IT – Lack of innovation), the roadmap is unclear; processes and IT controls become inadequate and subsequently cause the failure of the business. If on the other hand, the future was planned effectively, for example, it would have been quite clear to the bank that this sort of lending was high risk. As such, it should have been reflected within banking IT systems and as a consequence would have been caught or captured by the intelligence built into the authorisation processes.

2. Emphasis on short-term profits

Again, there are two ways of looking at this. I will not go into the business aspects now but will start to deal with only how the second disease impacts IT departments.

This happens when IT departments either become quite insular or are lead to become insular as despite their attempts to, for example, attract additional funding for programmes of work that work towards longer term planning, they are stifled and are forced to think short term and are constantly, “fire fighting”. Innovation is frowned upon and newer innovative ways of using IT for competitive advantage cannot happen in this kind of environment.

This results in sacrificing the long term growth of the company for short term gains. The emphasis is on short term profits/dividends, no matter what. IT is contributing to anything it can do to raise the value of company stock, in the short term only.

3. Annual rating of performance

This is an area of Dr Deming’s theories that I do not have to adjust for IT. The annual rating of performance is an arbitrary and unjust system that demoralises employees and nourishes short term performance. It has an added side effect as it annihilates team work and encourages fear.

This annual rating of salaried people is also called the Merit system, annual appraisal and management by objective – management by fear is a better term. This system works by rewarding employees for what they have done in the past year, i.e. performance pay. The effect is devastating as the employee must have something to show and this in turn nourishes short term performance and annihilates long term planning and team work. As each employee is encouraged, to show and prove their individual contribution to qualify for the performance pay, it stifles team working. Even if individuals are working productively as a team, inadvertently, they are identifying ways in which to use the team work to justify that all important, performance pay!

Dr Deming’s theory encourages teamwork in its true sense. Actively listen to other team members’ views and ideas and counter members’ weaknesses while using the strengths of the team. This is impossible under a merit rating.

Even more damaging is the fact that when ratings are given out they cannot be understand well enough by employees and as to why they were not rated high enough.

It would be better if this system was a lottery where at least there is a good reason not to understand better, as employees would not feel superior or inferior.

4. Mobility of management

The annual rating of performance encourages mobility of management. As employees are not getting a raise, they are not loyal anymore. This has a devastating effect on the business as people have no roots in the company and are not there long enough to understand the business well enough. Management requires good knowledge of the company, its problems, production and service capabilities and that takes a long time.

For example, if a project manager has just arrived at the business and does not understand its culture, overview of its IT systems, IT and business strategy and is made to work on an individual project, how can he/she understand the overall  impact of what it is they are delivering?

5. Use of visible figures only

Finally, we arrive at disease number 5! Most IT departments will use figures that are known, for example, service desk figures. This is because most business schools and graduate degrees encourage us to use these figures. The power is in knowing known, unknown and the unknowable.

Now, the question some of you may ask is that, if it is unknown, how could it be important? Well, we need to understand the multiplying effect of a happy customer and also the unhappy one. Understanding these figures is absolutely crucial for IT departments, as just with the given example, if we can understand the multiplying effect, we can harness the effect and turn the unhappy customers into IT ambassadors within the business.

Final thoughts

As always, I look forward to your feedback, and encourage all my readers to post their opinions, both here and within the forums that I am a member of.  

Do you have any areas of IT that you would like me to discuss? Please feel free to suggest any future posts by leaving your comments. I am currently compiling a list for future blogs.

For further information:

The W Edwards Deming Institute

Dr. Deming – The 5 Deadly Diseases 1984

Can IT Management failure be caused by a deadly disease? Part I

If you enjoy my blog, please recommend my blog for the Computerweekly IT Blog Awards 2009 in the CIO/IT Director category at:

http://www.computerweekly.com/nominate

“Does experience help? NO! Not if we are doing the wrong things.”- Dr W Edward Deming.

There is always someone in your life that becomes truly inspirational. Sometimes that inspirational figure towers over others not only for their accomplishments but for their belief in their transformational capabilities without the  desire for masses of financial reward. Statistician and management guru, Dr Deming was such a thought leader. Dr Deming is considered the father of Total quality Management (TQM). He revolutionised Japanese manufacturing as he couldn’t find an audience in the US after WW II, because managers at the time thought that poor quality was caused by people who just didn’t want to do a good job.  They didn’t think there was much managers could do to improve quality except exhort employees to do a better job.

Deming’s basic message was that quality is a management responsibility, and poor quality was almost always the result of systems imposed on workers which thwarted people’s desire to do high quality work. He taught the Japanese managers how to empower production workers to investigate problems and systematically improve processes.  He taught that teamwork and long term, trust-based relationships with suppliers were far better than adversarial relationships.  He emphasised a culture of continuous improvement of both processes and products. Deming’s teachings combined with Just-in-time methods and Kanban elevated the Japanese to the pinnacle of manufacturing as we know it today.

Well, why is this all important? Simply because Deming’s teachings, today, are utilised within computer systems as well.

“A system is a network of interdependent components that work together to try to accomplish the aim of the system. A system must have an aim. Without the aim, there is no system.” Dr W Edward Deming

Now that we all understand who Dr Deming was and his contribution to our everyday lives, especially driving reliable cars! Its a bit too late now and I can’t write anymore but later in the week, I will spell out Dr Deming’s theories and attempt to provide an answer to the question, “Can IT Management failure be caused by a deadly disease?”

Current and future IT Leadership

If you enjoy my blog, please recommend my blog for the Computerweekly IT Blog Awards 2009 in the CIO/IT Director category at:

http://www.computerweekly.com/nominate

“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” – JFK.

I read with interest Computing’s 10th September 2009 article, Developing the IT Leaders of tomorrow . I have been within the IT industry for approximately 15 years. I became fascinated by IT while I was managing my own business.  The business was subsequently sold to make way for my new IT career, throttled along by John Major’s promise of Europe’s largest semiconductor plant to be built locally in Wales by LG. That was badly timed as the semiconductor market shrank soon after and LG never moved in. IT jobs were at their peak with such a shortage that I remember reading Computing and Computer Weekly editions almost an inch think, primarily with IT related jobs.

How did I plan to enter the IT fraternity? Well, having left school without any O or A levels, I studied part time towards a HNC Business and Finance while working full time and followed that with a B.Sc (Hons) Business Information Technology. During the degree, I found a placement at a local business and by the time I qualified, I had been working in an IT department for a few years. Comptia, Prince 2 Practitioner and ITIL qualifications followed with full membership of the Institution of Electronics and Technology.

In 2005, I joined a business and subsequently became the Head of IT. Redundancy followed in 2006 and since then I have been assisting businesses and the public sector through interim opportunities.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, that’s because I consider myself lucky as I have the qualifications, experience, business, IT skills and to add icing to the cake, came through the IT ranks having started as an assistant network administrator.

The statistics that I am reading are most interesting. 40% of CIOs are sourced external to the IT department, 54% of IT staff feel that there is no scope for progression, 14% of 2008’s IT graduates are still unemployed and in 2010 7,700 more IT jobs will be outsourced. Here is both a statistic and fact, in 2008-9, BT received 4800 applications for 130 jobs! These statistics do not promise much of a career for aspiring IT leaders.

We are experiencing a shortfall of people applying for IT degrees as many students realise that there is no scope to enter the IT profession, after all, why would a business want to employ a local graduate for the average graduate salary of £17.5K when they can get three outsourced graduates as part of an outsourcing contract. I highlighted this in my blog, recently, The future graduate and the IT and computing skills shortage . The recent decision by the government to ensure that job vacancies are advertised in local job centres and Job Centre Plus online for at least a month prior to allowing foreign talent is a step in the right direction.

I have no doubt in my mind and agree with Computing’s article that we are sat on a skills shortage time bomb. So, what do we have to do? To create the IT leaders of tomorrow, we have to cross the initial hurdle of convincing the youth of today to join the IT fraternity. We then have to provide them with the same opportunities that I had to build up the skills and experience. That combined with appropriate IT degrees/qualifications that are aimed at meeting business requirements (View my blog, as above for more detail) is what is required.

If on the other hand, we as a nation can only pay our IT graduates a salary that is just above the minimum wage, then we are destined to be followed by an industry dominated by the large outsourcers. I am passionate about IT and what it can achieve and remain committed to do what I can to further this cause. So, in my comment to Computing (Most of this article was posted as a comment), I told them that if they needed assistance, all they had to do was call on me….