V3 Hot Seat

Earlier this month I was asked to take part in the V3 Hot Seat.  V3 are well known in the industry for their reviews of the latest products and keeping us up-to-date with the latest tech news.

Some of the questions weren't the typical ones I get asked as a CIO!  Such as, my favourite film and my favourite place to escape.  Nevertheless, it was great to be asked and I really enjoyed taking part. 

http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/interview/2289759/v3-hot-seat-steve-watt-cio-at-university-of-stAndrews


I've just read V3's article (posted today) about Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, who has announced he's going to retire within the year.  What a guy he is!
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2290835/top-10-steve-ballmer-antics-as-microsoft-ceo-prepares-to-retire

Scotland’s Digital Future: Delivery of Public Services Roadshows

I was delighted to be involved in one of the roadshows earlier this year. 

http://blogs.scotland.gov.uk/digital/2013/03/22/47/

In with the IT Crowd - Press Release

By the University of St Andrews Press Office:

 

The University of St Andrews IT department has won two awards.

Steve Watt, Chief Information Officer at the University, was voted ICT Leader of the Year at the 2013 Holyrood Connect ICT Awards.  Appointed in 2010, he has begun a transformation project aimed at revitalising the St Andrews IT Services department and improving services for users.

Mr Watt fought off strong competition from shortlisted candidates from Edinburgh City Libraries, Edinburgh Napier University and the Crown Office.

At the same ceremony in Glasgow, the St Andrews department also won the Green Award – for “effective use of ICT to deliver environmental benefits.”

Again the team faced strong competition - in the form of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and the Scottish Government - to take the accolade.

The team also narrowly missed out on the night, in the competitive category of Project Delivery Award which went to South Lanarkshire Council.

Steve Watt said: “I was absolutely thrilled to receive this award.  Since taking up my post as CIO at the University three years ago, we’ve been on an incredible journey and this award further acknowledges that our strategy is focussed in the right direction.  IT provision in universities and the public sector is changing dramatically – and we need to embrace ‘Scotland’s Digital Future’ – supporting the transition to a world-leading digital economy.  At St Andrews we’re engaging with other educational institutions and public sector bodies to work together and we’re actively looking for opportunities to share knowledge and services.”   

The University of St Andrews, which is celebrating its 600th anniversary this year, is committed to reducing its carbon footprint. IT power management has a significant part to play in this.  Around 30% of the electricity consumed by the University is used to power ICT equipment, with a large proportion powered 24 hours-a-day.

The University redeveloped an existing building on a brownfield site into a state of the art data centre, which saves the institution at least £65K per year on its electricity bills. 

These latest successes add to a number of awards won by IT Services recently.  Earlier this year the department received an Honourable Mention for Facility Design Implementation in the Green Enterprise IT Awards 2013 and the department also became the first university in Europe to achieve Two Star Service Desk Institute accreditation.

Last year the department was a finalist in the UK IT Industry Awards.

http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/news/archive/2013/title,223074,en.php

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Notes to Editors

For image please contact the press office.

Issued by the Press Office, University of St Andrews

Contact Fiona MacLeod on 01334 462108/ 0771 414 0559.

Ref: (awards 31/07/13)

View the University’s latest news at http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/news/

 

 

 

 

 

(Steve Watt was nominated for the ICT Leader award by Dundee-based online technology company, brightsolid)

    

 



 

Case Study - Staff Email

Brightsolid online technology specialises in the cloud delivery of business critical applications.  The Dundee based company currently host our staff email; delivering a secure, fully managed and hosted hybrid cloud environment.  Find out more here:

http://www.brightsolid.com/assets/images/PDFs/Case%20Study%20St%20Andrews%20Uni.pdf

 

 

Ofcom report on communications

In 2011 Ofcom produced their first report on the state of the UK communications infrastructure following a requirement to do so by the Digital Economy Act 2010. The report was updated in 2012. This is a very fast moving area with the 4G rollout, superfast broadband and a variety of new digital broadcast services only a few of the current programmes underway. For anyone with an interest in this area the report is well worth a read. I've a specific interest in the Scottish perspective as a resilient and fast communications infrastructure is vital in underpinning the sharing of services across organisations or to support different ways of working for University staff and students. A link to the report is provided below.

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/telecoms-research/bbspeeds2011/infrastructure-report.pdf

Office of the Future

In developing a strategy ive been looking further at what the Office of the Future might look like and in looking around it looks like there is significant change in workplace design and indeed a move towards no fixed office space.

There is a growing trend towards more "touch down" spaces which are becoming more common in all verticals.  Also there is a recognition that workplace design is crucial whether this be in a fixed, mobile or flexible approach.

Significantly to cater for the 1.3 billion mobile workers predicted by 2015 (IDC Group) several large hotel chains are introducing work spaces and its quite clear that hotels are no longer just places to sleep. For example Marriott have introduced “Workspace on demand”, Westin have introduced "Tangent" and Hilton also a similar solution. In all cases power provision is key along with decent WiFi along with flexible furnishings etc. Likewise in Higher Education there is a growth in flexible learning spaces.

With regards to fixed office space there is also some major changes in the way some organisations are approaching this.  From my research ive found that Office Space is the second largest cost for most companies and its generally only used one third of the time. Accenture is one organisation that has abandoned permanent offices in favour of a more mobile. Interestingly management consultants have predicted for a while the demise of office space however I think technology is only really caught up in the last year or so making this approach more workable. Although there have been many successful home working programmes true mobility is only really become possible as WiFi has become more ubiquitous and more devices small and personalised.

With the roll out of 4G and a move towards wireless network roaming the next 12 months will again provide more technological underpinning of mobile working placing very different demands on IT departments. The need for a changing model of service delivery has never been greater.

 

Enterprise Mobility Summit - 11th June 2013

I recently particpitated in a Panel Discussion at the Computing Enterprise Mobility event in London. The topic was - Enterprise of the future - what will the office of the future look like?

This is a question that is relevant to all industries and may even need the term "office" defined as it can mean different things to different people especially as the workforce continues to become more mobile and our personal and work lives merge.

 The Panel focussed on the following questions and the views were interesting!

• Which is the primary work device of the future - desktop, laptop, tablet, smartphone, ultrabook, hybrid or some combination of all of these?
• Will touch-screen functionality migrate to desktop and laptop platforms?
• How does a bespoke Enterprise App Store benefit businesses?
• Will a user-centric EMM strategy help to increase security and reduce costs?

In higher education I'm generally seeing a tablet device being used as a supplementary device to a fixed pc or laptop and the smartphone becoming the norm for students to own. At present touch screen technology is moving rapidly to become dominant on laptops however other than in the consumer market I'm not seeing this moving to the fixed desktop pc environment. 

There appears to be wide spread adoption of EMM across a range of industries primarily to manage an end user tablet or smartphone within the organisations specific policies. 

I'm watching this area with interest as ever as its moving at a pace which impacts on the supporting backend infrastructure. Likewise from a facilities perspective there is an increasing move towards demands for touchdown areas with power and flexible learning spaces rather than what has traditionally being provided.