ClickRich

Christmas round the corner means one thing- Business Continuity Planning

2011-11-18T08:45:00.001Z

So, the decorations are going up in the streets, the nights are drawing in and Starbucks have switched to red cups. It can all only mean one thing. Christmas is upon us. However, for those in IT, the other herald of the season is calling for us to brush off our business continuity plans and work out how we keep the wheels turning with skeletal staff.
In the hospitality and leisure industry, the problem is particularly acute as when customers and staff are wanting to party, we need to keep the party going. So, I'm pleased to report that we have closed off our plans. A couple of months of consulting with colleagues, partners and suppliers have come to a close and our arrangements are in place. Scenarios have been identified; systems and processes mapped; contingency plans are written; the control centre has been resourced (with a fancy dress theme- it's not all work work work); and deals have been done with key suppliers.
It's hard to get fired up about Christmas in late summer and it's amazing how many IT companies need to be convinced there's a discussion to be had, but it just goes with the territory and we're all glad now it's done. Now we can look forward to the sound of sleigh bells etc with everyone else. Ok... and maybe a few tweaks to the plan.

Snatched from the jaws of victory

2011-11-16T20:54:00.001Z

Last week I found myself needing a taxi in the West End of London and I walked for about 15 minutes (or a dozen blocks in US money) before I was finally able to hail one down. Frustratingly, I could see available taxis in the distance, but only long enough to tease me with their yellow lights before they melted round a corner. I had an "Ah ha!" moment, realising the market for an app which could broadcast my geotagged need for a taxi pronto and drivers in the area could swoop to my location. My mind raced with the thrill of seizing upon the opportunity- from writing the business plan through to a glitzy launch.
So, you can imagine my annoyance this week when I found that someone had beaten me to it. Still, perhaps they've executed the idea badly? Perhaps there'll be flaws in their offering? Sadly not. I have to hand it to Hailo, they've done a great job. The "first time use" experience is slick, the app is intuitive, the marketing is simple but effective (it was the sight of a Hailo emblazoned taxi which drew my attention to the app) and it works. Available on the iPhone and Android, I highly recommend Hailo- even if they did beat me to it.

A lesson in healthcare from the game Balderdash(TM)

2010-09-21T11:34:00.002+01:00

I was fascinated to learn something new by playing the game Balderdash. In case you've not played the game before, you are basically given a word from a card and need to guess what it means from amongst a selection of options provided by other players and the real answer from the card. I was challenged with Question 4 from the card below:

Frankly, I had no idea. I was shocked, given my line of work, to hear the answer:

Who would have thought it?

IMT decisions back in the hands of the hospitals

2010-09-16T17:02:00.001+01:00

The rules of the game have changed. Since the inception of the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) in 2005, the responsibility for specifying, procuring, configuring and deploying major hospital systems has been centralised and the role of local management had become one largely characterised as facilitation. Now though, following a Department of Health review and the announcement in a ministerial statement that the NPfIT is “no longer required”, executive decisions regarding the full breadth of Information Management & Technology (IMT) need to be back on the agenda of board meetings up and down the NHS in England and Wales.
The announcement is that the centralised approach of NPfIT is no longer relevant and IMT decisions should be local, with more modular systems being selected from a plural system of supply. What is more, the tone set in the white paper is continued- that healthcare provision needs to improve, yet the costs need reduce. So providers quickly need to pick up the mantle and take control of how IMT will enable their organisation to deliver this objective.
This new onus on Trust boards brings the need for them to be more tech savvy than they have previously needed to be. Not only are the decisions and responsibility for system delivery back with them, but a plural market requires significantly more expertise, not only in system selection, but also in architecting how more modular systems will be orchestrated to deliver their digital platform. As the Operating Framework for the NHS in England puts it, the approach is about “connecting all” rather than “replacing all”. Integration is the name of the game and the challenge of making a handful of interoperable systems drive an organisation is exponentially more demanding than merely multiplying up the effort of making a single system work.

Futura font, Passendale cheese and Walter Mossberg, courtesy of Hunch

2010-09-16T10:49:00.001+01:00

I arrived at the Hunch.com site with excitement, having read an interview with the founder, Caterina Fake, where she promised to personalise the internet for me. On choosing to sign up using my Facebook account (which saves loads of time and avoids having to remember yet more account details), you are immediately faced with the fairly startling truth that Hunch will only be able to personalise the internet by having access to some very personal information. At least they challenge this head on and you know where they are coming from, and why.
I was then asked to answer a series of question so Hunch can learn more about me. Some of the multiple choice questions were tricky to answer as my life often falls into the "none of the above" category. However, I pressed on and even found myself choosing to answer more questions than considered essential. It was fun and I was optimistic.
So, at the end of the process I was provided with a set of "top 5" recommendations for lots of (seemingly endless) categories- from books to magazines and cars to credit cards. Whilst I found this mildly intriguing it didn't pop up any surprises and, to be really honest, had a slight whiff of product placement (4 Apple product recommendations even though I answered a question saying I was more of a PC user); stating the blooming obvious (who doesn't like "The Wire"?) and simple wrong calls (the site is heavily biased to East Coast US even though my Facebook profile clearly says I'm British and live in the UK). That said, I will be trying Futura font, Passendale cheese and Walter Mossberg (tech writer) at the next available opportunity. The proof of the pudding will be in whether I like these things.
Hopefully in time the dataset being used to drive the collaborative filtering will become richer and provide more insightful suggestions. The range of suggestions needs to grow and become more localised too. However, for that to work they need to encourage me back. To my mind there isn't a sticky enough element to the offering to compel me... but know they now so much about me, I'm sure they'll find a way.

Things to do before I die #67385: Write a good IT Strategy Book

2010-05-11T14:55:00.002+01:00

I was recently asked by a client for an example of an "IT Strategy". Although the language, grammar and punctuation all seemed to make sense, the sentence struggled to be processed by my brain. I couldn't, at the time, express in words why this was such a difficult request to satisfy. With the benefit of some time to mull over it and a blog, I will explore this question now.
In short, an IT Strategy is a very difficult thing to nail down. Perhaps this is why there are (by my reckoning) only three books stocked by Amazon on IT Strategy:

By way of comparison, Amazon stocks thousands of titles about IT Service Management (search for ITIL) and there are at least 11 books which were 'written' by Katie Price alone... I gave up counting (and near enough the will to live) on page 2 when I realised that other authors have seen fit to write about Miss Price too.
Advanced Searches on Google for IT Strategy .doc documents are similarly fruitless, or at least bear largely unpalatable fruit. We can put aside that most such documents are commercially confidential because there are usually enough exceptions in the public sector- or leaks! The results are there (all 6,460 of them) but invariably these 'strategies' are more tactical in nature rather than a strategic framework to support business cases, projects and service management decisions. Frequent bloopers are wish lists of projects and esoteric statements such as "we will buy only Microsoft" (whether or not you drink from the Microsoft fountain this is a dictat which helps in too narrow and exclusive a way). Still, poor examples there may be, but all this criticism is actually neither here nor there if the result is of the highest possible value which the IT function could make to the organisation.
Before I continue, I should explain this is an exploratory article so I welcome any further contributions as to why there are few books on IT Strategy.
First of all, the valuable component of an IT Strategy is not really an object. Yes, there is a document (or all manner of communications media) as a deliverable, but it is the exercise of going through the process of designing, developing, implementing and reviewing IT strategy which provides immeasurable value to an organisation. You can have a great document, but only with alignment to the business, education and ownership will the organisation use it to great effect.
Any IT Strategy worth its salt intrinsically links to, is guided by and enables the Business Strategy, so often the deliverable is contained within a deliverable of wider scope. This also leads us to conclude there are as many IT strategies as there are unique organisations. Yes, IT strategies often share common themes, but although boilerplate may be a helpful starting point, it will ultimately constrain or miss opportunities for the subject. What is fit for purpose (in process and deliverable) for one team is not fit for another organisation.
So, this explains why a definitive reference for IT Strategy has not yet emerged. Perhaps we should ask the prolific Jordan to give it a go?

Caught on Google Streetview

2010-03-23T16:00:00.008Z

On reading the news that almost all of the UK is now covered by Google's Streetview I did the obvious and had a virtual nosey around my own home, my family's homes and various friends' homes. Then I began to wonder whether that car with the contraption on the roof which we saw on holiday last year had anything to do with Google... and it did. Zooming in on the location from memory I was able to see Mr and Mrs Clickrich driving along the A9 in Scotland. I'm pleased to say faces and numberplates were appropriately blurred. Amazing technology! Here's a compilation of the stills of us zooming... ahem, cruising by (these things don't measure speed do they?).

CircleBath. Yes, it's a hospital.

2010-02-08T13:14:00.011Z

Looking at these photos which I took last week, you'd be forgiven for thinking that I've been hanging around rather swankier bars than normal. However, these are actually from the new CircleBath hospital. ClickRich has been working on this project for the best part of 4 years so it's really exciting to see the vision becoming reality and being so highly acclaimed.
What? You still don't believe it's a hospital? Well, take a look at the much better quality photos on our architect, Foster + Partners', website where you can see real healthcare-shaped things. In that gallery of photos you can glance at one of our state-of-the-art digital operating theatres, but in terms of technology, that was still a fairly simple win really. I look forward to bringing you more news about the tech in due course, including some healthcare firsts.

A whole new battlefield for Apple and Microsoft

2010-01-07T11:32:00.006Z

For months there has been speculation about Apple announcing an ultra thin tablet computer which has been dubbed the iSlate. Now Microsoft has trumped the announcement (in terms of the timing at least) by presenting 3 slate PCs running Windows 7 from HP, Archos and Pegatron.
It doesn't look like technically the slate PC is anything but an incremental improvement on the tablet PC concept, but the point is that in terms of desirability and utility to the user, slates may be the breed of products which finally establish the tablet as "mass market".
For now, analysts are expecting the slate to stimulate growth of the $950m (£597m) US market for tablets, but I think the impact of the slate will either see it become considered a whole new format distinct from tablets (tablets often still have keyboards), or a redefinition of the tablet. It will also be interesting to see, as the price reduces over the next 5 years, what this does for eReaders such as the Kindle or the Sony. These devices can still boast the strengths of e-ink readability and long battery life, but the gap is closing.

Hypervisor Star Wars

2009-12-29T11:05:00.006Z

With the technobabble name of Hypervisor, I think that warrants a slightly science fiction post title, don't you?

Server virtualisation, which is achieved using one of the hypervisors on the market, is on the agenda of every CIO or CTO at the moment, whether that is for server consolidation or a grander move towards utility computing and the much vaunted cloud. So, I decided I would rub my twopenneth together and post where my thinking is at on this theme.

When I look at this sort of infrastructure technology I’m looking at the clarity of roadmap. Whatever decision a CIO/CTO makes, they’re going to live with it for probably about 5 years so when I’m reading about the big players (Microsoft Hyper-V, VMWare and Citrix XenServer), I’m not just trying to see who can do what now, but who is demonstrating thought leadership which will put them in good stead for the future.

Now, you don’t even need to go digging very far to analyse Microsoft Hyper-V… you just can’t rule it out. The biggest OS company in the world, and with many $billions sunk into datacentres that they need to start to build revenues off, they simply will not drop the ball on server virtualisation. You might as well value MS shares at mere cents if you do! Interestingly, they probably haven't the greatest feature set right now (they can't do real time migration), but they will architect their product really well so the features will arrive in due course and they will not be killed any time soon. Beyond that you can see how they will develop Hyper-V in the medium term. I can see an interesting triple play emerging with Hyper-V, Azure and all those datacentres.

That triple play brings us to VMWare. It took me far too long to get my head around why EMC bought them because I couldn’t see the synergy. Anyway, a month or two ago they announced a 3-way partnership between Cisco, VMWare and EMC called Acadia and all becomes clearer. This is really exciting. Not only can I buy virtualisation technology, but I can buy myself a private cloud. Aside from that (as if you need it), VMWare have good public domain information about their roadmaps and you can see how a client can go from legacy server infrastructure, through consolidation to private cloud and public cloud. They also have a very mature vision of what separation of logic and hardware can do for you and that sort of quality thinking will keep driving their product development.

Now with Citrix XenServer I see more uncertainty. With a Market Capitalisation of $7bn and profits of $150m, Citrix aren't, in my opinion, big enough or equipped with the right strategic partnerships to ride this wave to the next level. So, they will only exist if they are bought (in fact, I’d have thought that much of their MktCap is acquisition speculation) and until that happens, I wouldn’t make a 5 year investment decision on them. There are acquisition rumours, but it needs to be the right buyer. I don’t think Oracle would be the right buyer for me- I don't see any synergy as potent as that envisioned in Acadia for example. With all that, their tech may well be great but I’m not even going to look until there is that corporate stability.

A great book here is The Big Switch by Nicholas Carr. Treat yourself. It plots the future of utility computing out and takes it to places where really innovative companies are playing- like 3Tera (watch the demo on their website where you just build your infra in a Visio-style GUI). Yes, 3Tera is too bleeding edge for us in midsize corp for now, but it will pay to keep an eye on how their balance sheet develops.

A really exciting future no matter which mast you nail your colours to. The one true lesson we would all agree on is, don't do nothing.

Explaining service oriented architecture using the analogy of local economics

2009-12-09T14:31:00.007Z

Modern enterprise systems are complex and differences in approach are, perhaps, well described using the analogy of a town’s economy. The traditional approach of buying functionality as packaged systems and configuring the last few features is like the communist approach to town planning where the vendor is the state. The state strictly defines the services in the town from the butcher and the cobbler to the grocer and the taxis. For the system to continue to work, almost all changes (except perhaps the colour of the baker’s walls) must be escalated to the state for review, evaluation and decision. When the state agrees a change is a good thing, it simultaneously makes the change across all towns in its jurisdiction. As the town grows, this approach increasingly restricts further growth until a state of bureaucratic paralysis and economic stagnation is induced- the fact that the town can be any colour is frustratingly irrelevant when all the towns are functionally the same and real differentiation is not possible.

In a system built to service oriented architecture concepts the state’s governance moves to the client side. In our town, the economy is liberalised and trusted to market forces such that individual services can be defined autonomously from state controls. Thus, an ecosystem develops. A service owner can choose to respond to market needs and is free to specialise, compliment someone else’s service or wrapper another service to add value. For example, a taxi driver could encapsulate a cobbler service to create a new “home delivery shoe repair service”. In theory the cobbler service can be modified and as long as the published “service definition” is up to date, the taxi driver can maintain the quality of their overall service without needing detailed information about how the cobbler’s internal operation works. There are few restrictions to even consuming services from other towns. The state still has a responsibility to deliver essential or generic services such as core infrastructure and a directory of the town’s services, but its role is mainly about maintaining the rules of the economy (=standards), rather than trying to deliver value added services. With limited state intervention, growth breeds further growth and the macro economy of the town responds organically to external influence, especially competition.

Tele-Wine Tasting

2009-12-09T14:00:00.006Z

Cisco, BT and Chief Wine Officer combined some Christmas cheer with a technology demo wonderfully last night. The team used a telepresence room in Cisco's London HQ to host a wine tasting evening from similar kit in BT's New York office. This was a fantastic test of the technology due to the need for it to allow extremely nuanced communication between two groups of people. Only two further things are needed from Cisco to make the wine tasting as good as having everyone in the same room:

1. Object teleportation- removing the need for the wine to be sourced and stored at each location.
2. Time machine- it had to be remembered that it was just 1pm for our valient hosts, who matched us glass for glass (except for the sommelier who diligently spat after each sip).

So, nearly there Cisco. Piece of cake.

Meanwhile, until such tweaks are made, a telepresence room has been set up by Cisco at the Copenhagen Climate Conference (and will stay for about a year thereafter), both to facilitate collaboration and also as a great demonstrator of a technology with the potential to reduce the need for travel.

Jurisdiction and Governance in Force.com

2009-10-13T23:49:00.004+01:00

Many thanks to the kind people of Salesforce who hosted a CIO Roundtable at the Andaz hotel in London. More about the hotel later. The event wasn't just about sales pitch. It was a frank discussion about the wider benefits and issues of cloud computing. I think just one person around the table wouldn't agree with the summary that it's not about whether cloud computing should be adopted, but a matter of when and how. The afternoon was studded with some fine examples, but one of my challenges in healthcare is that when it comes to storing NHS patient-identifiable data, we need to store it in England. That's right, Connecting for Health do not even trust the Welsh or the Scots with the data! So, this was something of a damp squibb for the adoption of cloud computing (especially with the salesforce model where all users share a single instance). However, all credit to Tim Barker, who went away and came back to me with a way of residing some data in a specific jurisdiction, but without compromising the user experience of logic in Force.com... such as Swiss Banks might like when they want to physically hold some data within the country. Tagged "cloud data governance", PerspectSys have created ways of running salesforce.com applications in the cloud, storing private and sensitive data at home, under real or perceived control, and retaining all of the rich functionality of the salesforce.com apps.

Lots of Paper is Required to go Paperless

2009-09-14T09:57:00.005+01:00

When you are going paperless in your hospital, do not underestimate the amount of time it takes to digitise reference data, lists, protocols, pathways, images, order sets etc. This is just one pile of books I came across to support the complex and lengthy discussions between our IT analysts and front line users.

It is not all about choosing and implementing an Electronic Patient Record product, it is more about making it work for your clinicians through detailed configuration. Sure, some vendors will have some information hard wired into their product and some will provide "out the box" configs, but you need to realise that to do this well in a hospital, or across multiple specialties, the effort can dwarf the equivalent product costs. Your hospital is not "out the box".

I'll go and make a cup of tea then...

2009-09-13T21:32:00.001+01:00

What can IT Procurement Learn from the Construction Industry?

2009-09-10T11:28:00.004+01:00

A letter by Mike Stranks to the 10th September 2009 edition of Computing Magazine "Overhauling government IT procurement" reminds me of a concept I've long advocated in our organisation, but not posted about yet. Mike looks to the construction industry, which has a much better record of programme success than IT (well, they have had several thousand years to work it out!), and observes that the role of design and construction is split between organisations. Along with a savvy client (often a chartered professional) these three parties create the necessary environment for programme success. In IT, the design and build roles are usually not distinct and are therefore usually awarded to the same company. This is especially true in public IT procurement where, ironically, the public purse want to derisk the delivery by passing that risk on to a prime contractor.

I wholeheartedly agree with Mike. Closing a deal for the design and build before the problem is understood means that the parties are playing with alot of uncertainty. Either the problem will be easier than expected to solve and the client pays more than was necessary, or as is more often the case, the problem is more difficult to solve than expected and the supplier either needs to play a game of "change request charges" to recoup the extra costs or the project fails to deliver.

By seperating the design piece out, the client is able to procure build services with a much better understanding of what they are asking to be done, and the incentives in the 3 way tie up are also more balanced. Classic conflicts between design and build are mediated between organisations which include the client rather than pitch the client against a single supplier who naturally has their own interests at heart.

Mike makes a strong case for chartered engineers in this process. Hooray to that too, but that's a subject for another topic.

Indicating the Way to Quality Care

2009-07-15T21:52:00.006+01:00

The NHS Information Centre has published a set of 200 indicators of quality care. This is the result of a piece of work started by Darzi's report 'High Quality Care for All' and you can tell the clinician involvement has been continued into the deliverable with the phrase "assured by clinicians for use by clinicians". The report, downloadable in specific sections, is structured around pathways so that the indicators are clinically relevent. I've not done a count of indicators to see whether the report really has 200 indicators, but I actually find it refreshingly transparent that many sections of the document as described in one way or another as 'to be done'. It has to be said that the mechanics of governance and maintenance have been put in place around the report too so it will continue to evolve. The indicators address Effectiveness, Patient Experience and Safety, and therefore reflects current progressive thinking about what value means in health care (see "War on Waste" by Ali Parsa).

More Money Than Can Be Spent? In a Credit Crunch?

2009-07-13T21:28:00.009+01:00

I had a fascinating meeting with a senior officer of the Department of Health today to look at access to innovation funding through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and some of the projects under their mentorship. What was particularly surprising is that we are seemingly conditioned to expect that funds are scarce, but actually fewer innovation grants are allocated than are available. A later check in the NIHR Annual Report confirmed that the organisation has an annual sum to spend and that for almost all categories, the 2008/09 spend is less than the forecast for 2009/10- implying that this year was underspent. This is not a criticism because the organisation rightly sets the quality bar high, but it is still a surprise that we're not generating enough good ideas to qualify for funding. Long live the Government's enthusiasm for innovating our way out of the credit crunch... thinking caps on people!

Leonardo the Inspiration for Robotic Surgery

2009-06-25T15:20:00.004+01:00

In the fourth of my posts from the NHS Healthcare Innovation EXPO, I'll share a video I took of a magnificent piece of technology- the Da Vinci surgical robot. Designed so that surgeons could operate remotely on soldiers in the battlefield, the robot is increasingly being used for challenging laproscopic procedures. In this video you can see, briefly, how two surgeons are able to control extremely dextrous instruments in a confined space. At the last count I heard of, there were only a small handful of these robots in use in the UK. Unfortunately, it is hard to imagine what might drive an increase in adoption as it is difficult, if not impossible, for a healthcare provider to be reimbursed more for improved outcomes or for carrying out more complex procedures for which there is no tariff.

Virtual Worlds for Healthcare

2009-06-22T23:02:00.007+01:00

The NHS Healthcare Innovation EXPO had an excellent demonstration of a Secondlife simulation- sort of the virtual world of healthcare helping to make the real world of healthcare better. Put together by Imperial College London, the Medical Media and Design Laboratory (MMDL) explores how to use digital media in healthcare. Although created to explore new models of care delivery in the widest sense it seems that the Secondlife simulation fulfils a fairly immediate training need.

Fantasmagorical Train Ride

2009-06-22T08:13:00.005+01:00

There I was thinking "Here we go on another commute from Leeds to London", when the onboard WiFi opened my eyes to a whole world of possibilities. Suddenly we were on a magical mystery tour where "No map contains our current position". Just as I was holding out for our arrival at Narnia, The Garden of Eden or Atlantis, we pulled into Kings Cross. Disappointing.

No Shortage of help in NHS Innovation

2009-06-18T18:00:00.007+01:00

We all know that the economic situation is going to make the public purse smaller (in absolute or real terms- depending on who you believe) over the coming years so it makes sense that the NHS looks to innovation to improve the value of healthcare service delivery. It should therefore be little surprise that healthcare is burgeoning with organisations and talented people to help those with good ideas bring them to fruition. I've spent much of today meeting with these organisations to understand what's hot and what's not in healthcare innovation and will be posting on them in due course.

Many thanks to Brian Winn, Marie Maher and Dr Nigel Sansom of the NHS National Innovation Centre and Dr Peter Blenkinsop of NHS Innovations for taking the time to explain their organisations roles. They have some exciting projects going on. I'm not sure I have absolute clarity yet of how it all works because there are other organisations in play and, as you can imagine, there is much history in "idea generation" in the NHS which has created pockets of capability which is now being joined up. For example, on just one lap of the exhibition hall, you could see stands for NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, NHS National Innovation Centre, NHS Innovations, NHS National Institute for Health Research, NHS Improvement and NHS Technology Adoption Centre... and this excludes CfH, direct involvement from the Department of Health and occasional engagement with the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency. Perhaps a more consolidated structure would be more effective?

Posting from the NHS Healthcare Innovation EXPO

2009-06-18T09:41:00.006+01:00

I'm typing this post from the very glamorous NHS Healthcare Innovation EXPO 2009 at ExCeL in London. I'm not sure why EXPO is all uppercase, but I am sure that it is by design because this is a slick looking event in terms of marketing, the presentation of the venue, the stands and the supporting materials. It's the beginning of the day, with a Director of NASA kicking things off right now and luminaries to follow such as Prof. Lord Darzi and Martha Lane-Fox (the Government's new Digital Champion). I can only hope that the content of the EXPO lives up to the quality of the event. The big question for me is whether what is clearly a substantial amount of taxpayer money being driven into healthcare innovation is delivering results? Let's hope I'm not disappointed.

Sustainability is not just about being green

2009-06-09T20:58:00.000+01:00

The evidence that our planet is undergoing major climate change is all around us, but whether or not you accept that is irrelevent (yes, and possibly parochial). Sustainability is a word often attached to the "green lobby" but actually, it has far wider connotations and there are few excuses to be cynical. I thought that this video about our changing world illustrates the point really well.

Watch the video and then consider how these trends, which are beyond any one of us to change or escape, will affect your business. This is also what sustainability is about. Further, all these extra babies will be needing energy and resources too. In fact sustainability is not just about how much pain can you tolerate, or how can you dodge the bullets- there is opportunity in change for the smart and agile.

Will $2.5bn of Chinese Healthcare IT spend trickle through to innovation?

2009-04-29T10:33:00.001+01:00

By most commentators' estimations, healthcare IT lags that of other sectors, in maturity terms, by a decade or more. This situation has been created by decades of underinvestment. More recent effort in England to inject £billions into healthcare IT procurement have simply reinforced the entrenched positions of the incumbent suppliers who wield monolithic architectures based on outmoded service models. In fact, most of the circumstantial evidence shows that the 'investment' in English healthcare IT has squeezed the very start-ups who were the new lifeblood.
The rearchitecting of IT is what the sector needs to enable the new models required to balance the rising expectations of consumers against the downward pressure on the public purse. More focus needs to be placed on interoperability of loosely coupled components and useability than on further bloating the feature sets of systems breeding their own information silos.
So, what difference will, by very conservative estimations, several billion USD from China make? Well, the early signs are promising with comments from IBM's Labs, who are one of the few major players who have made serious attempts to implement open standards at scale. However, there is still an overriding fear that the opportunity in China might be squandered if a procurement approach is taken which fails to ignite the marketplace. Those of us who want to buy our IT from a fertile, imaginative and interoperable marketplace have our fingers crossed.

Should we turn Corporate Hospitality on its head?

2009-04-20T19:08:00.004+01:00

I'm sure many readers of this blog, like me, are in a "decision making*" position and therefore enjoy hospitality courtesy of suppliers and potential suppliers. Well, I'm wondering whether there is a role for customers rewarding suppliers with hospitality? Now before you say "Isn't payment incentive enough?", "Are you mad?" or, I day say "Shush, you're giving the game away!" please hear me out. Now, I work in information technology, and many IT companies, particularly the large systems integrators and outsourcers, feature corporate hospitality somewhere in their business development strategy. Perhaps it is more pervasive in IT than other supply chains (my observation looking round the tables of Twickenham, Silverstone and Cowes) because of the abstract nature of many of the goods/ services sold, the emotional attachment to large procurement and complexity of subject matter leading to a strong emphasis on brand trust? I digress...

However, my thought is that only in rare circumstances do the people who lead service delivery directly benefit from financial mechanisms between customers and suppliers designed to reward quality and high performance. Perhaps it would be effective to reward good service with some entertainment for individuals? You can imagine that across procurement budgets of £tens millions this could provide a great return in terms of achieving stretch from those responsible for delivery who are otherwise difficult to motivate from outside their line management.

Has anyone tried this approach? I'd be interested to know.

Maybe it's just too radical an idea. I fear being outed by the IT establishment as I type this... and my boss!

* I've long been amused when asked "are you the decision maker?". If only it were that simple.

Replies to "donotreply@..."

2009-01-25T21:27:00.005Z

On reading an automated message confirming a flight last week, I starting musing on whether anyone ever, in a bored moment perhaps, reads the replies people send to "donotreply@" email addresses. I think there's a great stocking filler book in there somewhere! Just imagine... from the mundane queries to the most profound of outpourings. Reams of this material is sat on the world's email servers, unsighted by human eyes. We should begin a quest to explore this lost world.

Then an Internet search turned up the strangest of phenomenon. Many automated emails are sent with the reply having a "donotreply.com" domain address and someone actually owns that domain. Read more on The Consumerist about what he finds.

When is the Internet not the Internet?

2008-08-27T22:50:00.002+01:00

The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) of the UK has this week decided to ban Apple from showing an advert “in its current form” which claims that “all parts of the Internet are on the iPhone”. This is an interesting conclusion. Apple should have expected controversy, but by the same token, the ASA ruling was by no means a given and Steve Jobs’ merry-band have the right to feel more than a little aggrieved with the ruling.

A lack of support for Flash and Java were cited by the ASA as reasons why the claim is not reasonable, but the truth is that the Internet is complimented by a myriad of plug in technologies and I don’t think it is reasonable to assume that all of them, or a major subset of them, must be available to a browser for it to be considered capable of accessing the Internet in its full glory. I won’t get really pedantic and highlight the difference between the web and the Internet, and therefore what I consider to be the even greater folly of the ASA’s actions.

The custodians of the Internet, the W3C, define standards for distributing hyperlinked webpages. The iPhone can handle those standards. Proprietary add-ons are considered beyond the remit of the Internet standards and are subject to natural market adoption patterns. Therefore, I would say that it is reasonable to claim that the Internet, as defined by the W3C, is available for browsing on the iPhone. Otherwise, where does it stop? RealPlayer? PDF readers? XML/XSL? Who is the authority who decides if it is not the W3C?

The ASA have set what I consider to be a dangerous precedent. In assuming that Flash and Java are de facto technologies of the Internet, rather than optional, they are undermining efforts to make the web more accessible through the promotion and adoption of standards by web browsers.

Apple has so far been silent on the ruling, but don’t expect it necessarily to lie down and accept this without clarification. Perhaps it will see the irony and make counterclaims based on any browser which doesn’t support its video player technology, QuickTime?

What is Microsoft and Google's battle for Yahoo really about?

2008-07-29T21:25:00.005+01:00

Some may wonder why the battle for Yahoo is rolling on and on... Yahoo's shareprice has rollercoasted from sub $20 in late January to about $30 on Valentine's day and then gradually withered as Mircosoft talks collapse and then risen again with rejuvinated talks. It just runs and runs. The reasoning behind the acquisition, we're told, is related to advertising synergies. However, is that the real game here? Sure, advertising technology synergies would justify the wholesome premium over the market capitalisation, but is there more going on?

I think so. I believe that this is about positioning for the next stage of the web. Web 2.0 has seen the enabling of user-generated content and the driving of our apps to the web. The next stage is shaping up as what is being called "The Cloud". Nothing less than a battle over where our bits are processed and stored is unfolding and Yahoo, Microsoft and Google are the major protagonists. This is an order of magnitude more valuable than an advertising play. This will be a bigger phenomenon than e-commerce.

All three companies are sat on immense infrastructure investments. According to Debra Chrapaty, Corporate Vice President of Global Foundation Services at Microsoft, their Live service is adding no less than 10,000 servers per month to its datacentre infrastructure. Microsoft is building datacentres hand over fist (6 at my last count) and if the Illinois one is any measure of the rest of them, then they are a $500m capital expenditure each. That is the kind of money it takes to carve out a significant portion of "The Cloud" market... and to do it without hesitation or shouting about it. Yahoo would at the least be a shortcut to a good chunk of that sort of infrastructure, not to mention a userbase of first movers already dabbling with data storage on The Cloud with the trusted consumer brand.

I think this is one huge game of poker to see who blinks first. Microsoft doesn't want to cite this huge latent value in Yahoo, otherwise they'll hardly get themselves a bargain. Yahoo directors are trying to force Microsoft's hand and bring this objective into the open to justify their steadfastness.

Google watches from the sidelines. Happy to push up the price Microsoft pays. Safe in the knowledge that it is less in need of such a consumer trusted brand- it has one already. Happy to pick over any remnants from the fall out.

Watch this space.

Dear Jet2

2008-06-18T14:52:00.004+01:00

Rather off topic for this blog, but I wanted to try and get a message to Jet2. Apologies to the usual readers who won't get their fill of technology enlightenment this time! Jet2 have neither a non-premium phone line nor email address, so I thought they might pick this posting up.

Dear Jet2,

I recently flew Leeds to Nice return with your airline. My baggage did not appear on the baggage belt in Nice so I suffered much inconvenience during my trip. I was surprised to be advised that even if my baggage were found, I would have to return to the airport to collect it and no effort would be made to have it delivered to my hotel.

The apology letter I was given in Nice was the most insincere and patronising piece of correspondance I've ever seen. It must have been at least a 3rd generation photocopy, the company logo was printed as "file not available", no phone or email address was provided for me to follow up with and, to give just one example of the tone, had the cheek to remind me my baggage should be "appropriately robust". You lost my bag. This was not the time or the place to be lecturing me on my obligations to you. Although my bag was in no way a 'designer' one, I was surprised to see that if it had been, I would not have been recompensed for it's loss in the event of it not being found.

On my return home to the UK, I was naturally keen to follow up with you at Jet2. Your website had no phone numbers charging less than a premium rate and there was no email address so I was forced to suffer the humiliation of paying 50p per minute to ask you where my bag was (during which time I was played a unnecessarily lengthy prerecorded message). The Baggage Claims Department took all my details (with the 50p per minute clock ticking) before arrogantly telling me that they don't look for bags until 3 days after the flight and that I would have to call back the next day where they would hear my case. This is terrible customer service.

Of course, I've now starting looking through the rest of your T&Cs to see what other indignities I might suffer later on in this process. My bag contains some valuable items so I wanted to see what compensation I might recieve if it were not found. I was extremely disappointed to see that "original purchase receipts (to evidence the age and value of the item)" would need to be provided in the event of a claim. This seems grossly misfair. I don't consider it reasonable to ask for these- who keeps receipts for clothes beyond a month or so?

I would very much like you to contact me to tell me what you are doing to find my bag; demonstrate some humbleness at the error of you and/or your agents and busines partners; and tell me either how you are going to reconnect my bag to me or recompense me for my loss. I shouldn't have to chase you, pay you for the pleasure or have to prove that the items in my bag were of any value as long as that is within a reasonable range above which you could rightly expect further evidence.

Yours faithfully,

There's Low Power GPS in the Air

2008-04-07T13:26:00.005+01:00

Anyone who has owned a mobile phone with built in GPS (e.g. Blackberry Curve, Nokia N95) will welcome the work of Air Semiconductors who have created a GPS solution which drains as little as 1% of the power of previous solutions. The prodigious battery munching capabilities of the GPS on N95 led this particular user to be something of an electricity junky.

Air Semiconductor, who are backed by Pond Venture Partners (they know a thing or two about semiconductors- the team include some of the brains behind ARM), also explain how their Airwave-1 chip eliminates time-to-first-fix and hence provides an instantaneous location. The combination of these two innovations means that not only mobile phones, but digital cameras, will be able to geotag images seamlessly... and enable a whole raft of other applications.

As the owner of 3 Nokia N95 chargers (kept in multiple locations in my life "just in case"), I'm really looking forward to this technology arriving in the consumer marketplace.

Complex Event Processing in Healthcare

2008-04-06T19:04:00.008+01:00

It is interesting how new ideas and technologies rise to meet the needs of one industry and then diffuse into other industries. Classic examples are the trickledown from aerospace into the motor industry, and the application of diagnostic imaging technology into airport security.

I've recently spotted the early stages of a technology which has risen in the investment banking sector now starting to find its feet in healthcare. The technology is known as complex event processing (CEP).

As recorded on Wikipedia, a complex event is "what one infers from simple events" and gives the example of a lady in a white dress, a man in a tuxedo and lots of rice flying through the air being a wedding. In banking, CEP is used to take on board very simple events (e.g. sell prices) and infer from them something richer (e.g. market trends) from which a decision can be made (e.g. go short on a specific portfolio stocks). A search on Google of "complex event processing healthcare" returns a relatively modest 193,000 results. I can see this exploding and look forward to checking in with Google Trends in due course to see the references rolling in.

One area of health care where I think this will hold great value is in post-operative recovery monitoring of vital signs. The Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland recommends that during anaeasthesia and recovery a variety of monitors should supplement clinical observation. The challenge is that once outside of theatre the available clinical resources are limited and can only observe on a sampled basis. Also, the analysis of the monitor readings is trying to spot early onset of a complex range of problems such as hypoxemia, hypoventilation, hypotension, hypertension, hyperthermia, hypothermia and dysrhythmias.

In the event of deteriation, rapid response is a critical success factor in intervention. Different jurisdictions recommend different frequencies of monitoring (research for this article found a range from 5 mins to 30 mins for most vital signs) so you can't help but feel this is driven by the limiting factor of resources rather than clinical need. In fact, muscle relaxants (one possible intervention) are often chosen on the basis of an onset speed which is measured in minutes, not tens of minutes. CEP could be applied to spot problems on a real time basis, moving the limiting factor onto being the monitors' sample rates rather than the care pathway. I'd be very interested in talking to anyone who's working in applications in this area.

Like many other technologies in healthcare, no doubt we will see the rise of this technology met by the acronym being misinterpreted as clinical event processing. Look out for that!

Unanswered Nokia N96 Questions

2008-03-18T15:57:00.004Z

So, after Nokia's announcement about their new N96 being available soon, and the release of some spec information, the questions are starting to be asked that really matter. Most of these are from users of the Nokia N95, for which the N96 is the logical successor.

The official specs don't show whether the fantastic features which the N95 has will have a more punchy processor to chew through them on the N96; whether this processor and battery combo will extend the life of the phone between charges; or whether the slow initial connection to GPS will be resolved.

There's some speculation about the processor. Survivor82 seems to think (from a 'reliable source') that the TI processor of the N95 will be replaced by another ARM designed processor from STmicroelectronics. Aside from the clock speed between the ARM1136 at 330MHz (TI) and the ARM926EJ at 393MHz (ST), we need to wait and see on whether this is an improvement in real terms.

Today's Award for Stating the Bleedin' Obvious....

2008-03-17T21:20:00.005Z

...goes to Philip Shaw, chief economist at Investec, who said:

"Five billion pounds represents a substantial sum."

I can see why he holds down that job, with such a tight grasp of quantitative analysis :) Actually, to be fair to Mr Shaw, I'm sure the quote was plucked from a longer answer to a hardcore question around the turmoil in today's financial markets (this sentence is the one to protect me from a defamation suit- can you tell?).

CreativeCraving brings Cafepress-like service to UK

2008-01-15T22:37:00.000Z

Way back in July 2006 I suggested that someone should set up a business like Cafepress but with a UK based operation- rather than from west coast US. This was partly out of guilt from buying a $5 mug from Cafepress and then paying nearly the same to post it back to the UK from San Fran. I still felt the price was reasonable, but just imagine the carbon footprint!

Anyway, someone from Creative Craving has contacted me... it's been done. And done well. I would normally feel envious that I'd spotted an opportunity and someone else has exploited it before me, but I sincerely don't begrudge the great job they've done. I hope to be a customer soon and see if the experience lives up to the anticipation.

Apple Join New-Year dieting fad with MacBook Air

2008-01-15T21:51:00.000Z

OK, so who saw the MacBook Air coming? Any mention at Consumer Electronics Show? No. The next expected step from Apple to be announced in the Steve Jobs keynote at Macworld 2008 was variously touted, but was broadly along the lines of exploiting the market position gained by the iPod Nano, iPhone and Apple TV. BUT NO. How's this for breaking the rule book... an ultrathin laptop! Or THE ultrathin laptop? Given the number of suppliers needing to cooperate around the launch of a innovative laptop, it is amazing that it was kept so well under wraps. The closest whiff we all had was the speculation around the FlashMac- technology which we see here in the solid state drive.

Actually, perhaps all that just shows how far my finger has strayed away from the pulse?

It is not yet known when true devotees will be able to dig deep into their pockets in the UK, but there are surely many waiting for the excuse. The common theme to all of Apple's product launches recently has surely been their ability to exceed expectations... and with each launch those expectations get higher.

Actually, despite this post following the attention grabbing headline announcement, I think the most impactful thing mentioned by St.Steve of Jobs is the hi-def Apple TV. The MacBook Air clearly has the wow factor and will be snapped up by niche buyers, but hi-def has far wider appeal and relevance. Surely Apple have to open up to having products like this being resold through high street consumer retailers? That's where people realise that hi-def is what they always wanted. Will Apple do it? This stuff is too good to sit in minimalist 'computer shops'.

Post for Technorati to register my claim for www.clickrich.co.uk

2008-01-09T23:24:00.000Z

Sorry folks, just publishing this post so I can claim the blog under my new URL www.clickrich.co.uk.

Technorati Profile

ClickRich is Back

2008-01-09T22:48:00.000Z

No, it's not the title of a song.

After a break of 6 months or so I've decided to dip the old quill in the ink and post on my blog again.

The reasons I stopped are complex, and probably the subject of another post, but as aLUKEonLIFE noted, many of us had scampered off to Facebook.

After some playing with FB and dabbling with my old feeds again, I can see how the two Web2.0 phenomenon each fulfil different roles in my world. Also, reading of my blog's demise on someone else's blog gave me the sort of social connection that Facebook otherwise satiates. Blogging is not just sitting in hotel rooms writing posts. There are real people (and the odd webcrawler) reading this stuff- and that's deeply satisfying (even the crawlers- well, someone programmed them you know).

So, I hope some of you out there have not retuned your RSS feeds to more worthy authors and we can get back to the business of blogging hapless posts about my antics and hopefully the odd bit of healthcare IT insight!

Google's Worst Kept Secret

2007-11-05T21:03:00.000Z

Well, the rumours about Google launching a phone have been around since at least December last year and the hype has gradually been building. However, when you look at the number of partners involved in the first tangible news on the Google Phone, you begin to be amazed at how they've kept it as quiet as they have.

Web2.0 Will Re-Ignite of the Value of Information

2007-07-17T22:37:00.000+01:00

The Internet killed the value of information. Information became so pervasive that traditionally information-based businesses needed to reinvent themselves to survive because a few button clicks in Google (or even AltaVista) could open up a library of information more impressive than most... well... libraries. Professional service providers became undermined by automated tools and strove for added value.

With Web2.0 allowing almost anyone to become a publisher, you might have expected this trend to continue. Has it? Will it? Actually, I'm going to be rash and make a prediction. Safe in the knowledge that I can delete this post down the line, I'm going to put my head on the block of futurology. I believe information has become such a commodity that people are finally starting to recognise the value of good quality sources. Others might say that we've all experienced misinformation online and that such scraping of the barrel was bound to induce a hockey stick kicker. Differentiation has real meaning. Wikis compiled by professional service providers are garnering a respect not seen since the late eighties. Beware the expert- they're back, and they really are experts!

The true acid test though, is "are people prepared to pay for it?" Look out for those green shoots. Expect a resurgance in subscription newsletters, but watch for the subtle transfer to the blog format. Round the corner is a new wave of knowledge commerce.

Food Heroes

2007-06-24T21:26:00.000+01:00

Regular readers will know the hallowed reverence with which I acclaim engineering heroes of yesterday. They will therefore understand how delighted I am that, perhaps, the greatest engineer of his time Isambard Kingdom Brunel has been at last been given the accolade of having a crusty bloomer named after him. About time too.

Congrats to The Boston Tea Party cafe in Exeter who have put The Brunel sarny together. Exactly what a peppered pastrami with horseradish mayo, tomato, red onion and rocket in granary has to do with the son of a Frenchman who designed ships, bridges, tunnels and railway stations is anyones guess. Fortunately, The Boston Tea Party do a great Latte, so they can name their sandiches what they like!

My Toothbrush is more Powerful than my First Computer

2007-05-27T15:50:00.000+01:00

Reading an article in the latest Wired magazine about microprocessors in the home, I was astonished to see that even my electric toothbrush has a chip which is capable of processing 10 Million Instructions Per Second (MIPS). Sure, that oomph is probably only telling a motor what to do and managing the power around the rechargeable battery, but then you can still drive a Lamborghini at 30 mph if you want to.

This prompted me to find out how my first computer compared- the ZX81. The processor was a Zilog Z80 with, according to Lud's Linux Corner, just 0.58 MIPS.

So, my toothbrush has nearly 20 times more processing power than my first computer... discuss!

I'm an Electricity Junky

2007-04-28T15:51:00.000+01:00

Going about my work I carry around a plethora of devices, all with a nasty ampere habit! I need to feed this habit. The problem has been exaggerated by the recent arrival of a Nokia N95, whose GPS feature (with the navigation subscription) has been wholly useless to me (I know where I've been going) but which I leave turned on for the pure fun of it. BUT IT SUCKS POWER. Add onto this my tendancy to leave bluetooth on all the time means that I've formed an acute sensitivity to where the power sockets are in any room or building I enter. No matter whether it is a bar, a friend's home, a business partner's office or public buildings, I enter rooms with my eyes wide open and scanning the skirting board like a junkie needing a fix.

What with our sources of energy becoming increasingly precious and our cravings for power sockets increasing, what would you call the resulting phenomenon?

Power pinchers? Power poachers? Socket surfers? Electricity junkies? Ampere addicts? Hz hoppers (hertz hoppers)? Volt hoovers?

Tags: technology, mobile phone, ampere addict, fix, electricity junkie, GPS, junky, hertz hopper, habit, Hz, power pincher, power poacher, socket surfer, volt hoover, Nokia, N95, navigation

Microblogging- a Sort of Electronic Graffiti?

2007-04-10T13:18:00.000+01:00

There was a fantastic article in today's Financial Times by Chris Nuttall titled "Micro-bloggers of the world keep it short" which describes the phenomenon which is set to put all us macro-bloggers with the dinosaurs- Micro-blogging.

Unlike blogging, micro-blogging puts more emphasis on the aggregation of even more sporadic information through sites and apps such as Twitter, Tumblr, Jaiku, Mozes and Moodgeist. The article quotes Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, on how the limiting of posts to 140 characters (the SMS single message limit) is like "...writing on a wall and if some chooses to read it they can do".

As a child of the 70s and 80s, it strikes me that this is analagous to graffiti. On the surface, it seems futile, but it shows that many people are driven to hang their short thoughts out there and people do enjoying reading them- and not only to find out how free 'Mandy' is with her affections or who "was here".

Tags: technology, Internet, blogging, blogger, micro-blogging, microblogging, macro-blogging, macroblogging, graffiti, Financial Times, FT, Twitter, Tumblr, Jaiku, Moodgeist, Mozes, FT

Review of a Spartan Healthcare Computing 2007

2007-03-22T19:29:00.000Z

I have great respect for the organisers of the event, the British Computing Society (at least, I think they're involved somewhere along the line) and the exhibitors who made a brave stand, but that was the problem with Healthcare Computing 2007- it felt like the last stand. Having two posts in a row about the stiffling of innovation in the health care sector and I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but the event really depressed me.

Most annual shows for any industry sector worth billions of Euros are showcases of the latest and greatest technologies with all the buzz that goes with it. It simply wasn't all that. Harrogate was not ringing to the beat of deal making and new product launches. It was like stepping back at least 5 years. Perhaps more. I was going to have a harrumph at Cerner for emphasising the divide between the have (...an NPfIT contract) and the have nots (...an NPfIT contract) because their stand dwarfed most others... but at least they supported the event. BT, iSoft and the other big contract holders didn't even show up. Having been a supplier in another sector not too long ago I really appreciate the costs associated with exhibiting at such an event and therefore the valiant efforts of those who showed.

I spotted suppliers at the event who had chosen not to exhibit. They, and some of the exhibitors who could be frank with me, lamented the fact that of the thousands of people who pass through the depleted halls, only a handful of people are buying. The rest are not as they've no decision making power.

Still, with 90 minutes of my time there to go, I finally found a couple of tech nuggets. They were well hidden, reflecting the lack of recognition of anything new, but that makes the opportunity all the greater for us.

Tags: technology, health care, innovation, UK, healthcare IT, health care IT, Cerner, exhibition, Harrogate, Harrogate Computing 2007

Has State Managed Health Care Stifled Technology Innovation?

2007-02-22T18:04:00.000Z

This will almost certainly prove to be a controversial post. I don't intend to offend, but I do wish to stimulate debate.

The hypothesis of the debate is that since the creation of the National Health Service in 1947, the UK health care sector has not been conducive to developing new technologies.

Although this has been in my mind for a while a piece of evidence came to me in a presentation on medical imaging at the IET London Local Network last night by Teresa Robinson, a Consultant Clinical Scientist in Bristol. Thanks for that Teresa, although I must stress that these are my views. Teresa showed that the early Computed Tomography (CT) research and development was done in the UK by EMI. The presentation also noted various British luminaries in the advancement of medical imaging.

EMI made a huge commercial success from innovations in such areas as radar, millimeter waves, microwave and CRT. This spans a period from WW2 through to recent decades. For some reason, EMI could not repeat that success with CT (which is also in the radiating electrophysics domain) and EMI abandoned its efforts in that arena. Now, just a few decades on, the CT industry is dominated by Siemens of Germany, GE of the US, Phillips of the Netherlands and Toshiba of Japan. These are all countries with what you might call progressive health care systems.

What went wrong? Perhaps EMI did not find a domestic marketplace full of clients ready to try new techniques?

I feel that customers drive innovation. It is their hunger to do things better, faster or cheaper that compels industry to satiate that hunger. Free health care at the point of delivery is a great vision, but have we lost the leading edge? Are the two mutually exclusive?

Tags: technology, Health care, innovation, NHS, National Health Service, UK, medical imaging, CT, Computed Tomography, GE, Siemens, Phillips

Going Ga Ga for Open Process Frameworks

2007-02-19T22:01:00.000Z

Not since Jim felt the same techno-twinge of excitement 339 days ago in March 2006 has anyone posted anything on a blog about Open Process Frameworks (OPF)*. Anyway, yours truly was trying to reconcile our organisation's Testing Process with a third party's who we need to demonstrate compliance to. In needing a little Google-help I stumbled across the Open Process Framework Repository Organization.

The description on the tin isn't going to see this competing with Britney's shaven head for popularity in the search engines... "a public-domain object-oriented framework of free, open source, reusable method components". However, this is a gold mine for IT professionals. Anyway, if you haven't already sensed that this is serious competitive advantage stuff, then more fool you... I'm not telling anymore. You need to find out for yourself.

I've only bounced around one small corner of this vast repository, but I'm sure this will be helping to shape our IT organisation work for years to come.

*quick Technorati plug.

Tags: technology, information technology, IT, metamodel, analysis, method, ontology, Open Process Frameworks, OPF, OPFRO, Open Process Frameworks Repository Organization, policy, procedure, repository

Technology Entropy in 3D Visualisation

2007-02-05T22:39:00.000Z

Not long ago visualisation was the preserve of cutting edge aerospace research. In the last decade, it was still the preserve of high end workstations from organisations like Silicon Graphics. Those folks are still leading the pack, but now fairly ubiquitous PCs and Macs can be used with the right software to create stunningly rendered environments. Still, I was amazed to see recently that 3D visualisation has moved into the realm of the FREE Adobe Acrobat Reader. The 3D images need to be created from a CAD package with the $995 Adobe Acrobat 3D product, but then anyone with Reader can view and manipulate the image. Sounds dull huh? Just try it...

Have a look at this jet engine data sheet. Zoom in on the engine in the top right corner of the sheet and then use the special toolbar to pan, zoom and rotate. Also, try the tabs on the left hand side to add or remove components and assemblies.

Absolutely amazing. Just remember this is a free viewing tool.

There is a warning message here for other specialist technology companies. You need to keep innovating to stay in business. You can't hold back the knowledge from progressing into the main stream- I call it 'technology entropy'. We're seeing the same in healthcare with Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) which are used to store and distribute complex and large MR and CT images. We are moving from this being the exclusive domain of heavy iron manufacturers into being wrapped up in terrabyte drives, browser applets and broadband connections.

Tags: technology, technology entropy, visualisation, visualization, Adobe, 3d, Adobe Acrobat 3D, Adobe Acrobat Reader, SGI, healthcare IT, PACS, render, IT

Google Ten Things

2007-01-31T09:12:00.000Z

A colleague highlighted Google's Ten Things to me. Fantastic ethos.

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.
2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.
3. Fast is better than slow.
4. Democracy on the web works.
5. You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.
6. You can make money without doing evil.
7. There's always more information out there.
8. The need for information crosses all borders.
9. You can be serious without a suit.
10. Great just isn't good enough.

Have a look at the source for more information.

We were already applying some of these in our business, but we will learn from the others.

Tags: business, Google, ten things

How Tech Savvy are You? Vista Wizard or Vista Wotnot?

2007-01-31T00:24:00.000Z

When impressing upon people how tech savvy you are, don't sum up your cutting edge knowledge in terms of what you read about the launch of Vista this morning in "Metro" (the free London paper). We want to hear about how it compares with the Mac OS roadmap, whether the pricing model is too complicated and how it reflects the Windows Presentation Foundation- not that it "is apparently better than XP". $200 billion says it is better than XP!

Sometimes, you meet people like that and wonder why they are in IT.

Tags: technology, information technology, IT, Microsoft, Windows, Vista, career, jobs

Skype Users Fall Foul of Law with Lie Detector Tech

2007-01-29T18:23:00.000Z

Recently Skype integrated lie detector technology from KishKish into its VoIP client as a paid-for service. Law firms such as Pinsent Masons point out that this is illegal to use on several counts in the UK.

Whilst undoubtedly an intriguing service, you wonder who'd make use of it- fast food delivery companies suspecting tricksters? Suspicious partners? I wonder how many false positives these technologies flag up?

Anyway it's naughty so don't do it... but let me know if you have and it works.

With the proliferation of plug-ins as organisations like Skype open their source code and APIs, this sort of technology will become easy to download from 3rd parties for install by consumers. This will be incredibly hard to detect and prosecute. Especially if, as this report on the National High Tech Crime Unit records, the police are ill equipped to cover the basics.

Tags: technology, VoIP, high tech crime, lie detector, Skype, KishKish

Brand Sincerity

2007-01-22T20:53:00.000Z

Some Leadership consultants spoke in our Monday morning prayers today. They talked about how great companies that sustain phenomenal growth over long periods of time often have 'brand sincerity'. A great test of this sincerity is that they communicate the same message (brand values, principles, strategy, purpose etc) to the public, as they do to their employees.

Some businesses even buy their public domain advertising in a way which targets their own employees.

I know of many companies which would fail this brand sincerity test. How would yours fare?

Tags: business, strategy, leadership, brand sincerity, principles, purpose, values

How Will the Apple iPhone get to market in the UK?

2007-01-09T22:53:00.000Z

Today at MacWorld Expo, Steve Jobs made the much anticipated announcement that the iPhone will be launched this year. The story is being covered thoroughly across the blogosphere with particularly good coverage at Engadget. In short, a very exciting looking product.

The phone will be launched in the US mid year, then Europe before the end of 2007 and Asia in 2008. The prices being announced in the US are based on a Cingular exclusive 2 year contract from $499 for the entry level phone.

My question is- how will this play out in the UK? The networks are very powerful and their model of subsidising at the point of sale is particularly aggressive. Phones that would otherwise retail at around £500 can actually cost the user only a hundred pounds up front if they are on a sufficiently high usage contract. I've never paid for any of my phones because of my business usage, despite opting for the high end business phones each year [Note that it is not unknown for a monthly bill to exceed £1,000 so I don't feel especially priviledged about the situation].

Watch out for announcements.

Tags: Apple, iPhone, technology, telephony, mobile, phone, contract, tariff, network, 3, Vodafone, Orange, O2, mobile

Can Gerry Robinson Fix the NHS?

2007-01-08T20:44:00.000Z

Essential viewing starting tonight in the UK for all healthcare industry professionals is "Can Gerry Robinson Fix the NHS?" on BBC2 at 9pm. This British Business Guru spent 6 months in Rotherham General Hospital and the sneaky preview at The Telegraph suggests that he found it a very frustrating (but rewarding) experience. He cites the considerable challenges in the public sector and the difficulty in motivating consultant doctors to work more hours/more productively in coming to the conclusion that all is not lost. What is needed to manage these "brilliant, extraordinary people" are really excellent managers.

I agree. I think there are other ways to motivate the consultants too but I'll be interested to see if the programme covers these.

I'll be interested in seeing what the local press reaction to the programme is. So far the Yorkshire Post has been quite non-committal.

Tags: Gerry Robinson, health, health care, NHS, Rotherham General Hospital

Wandering the US with WanderingDave

2007-01-06T12:52:00.000Z

Ah, this is what Saturday mornings are for- sitting back with a large pot of coffee, in your dressing gown, just following hyperlinks round the web and seeing what takes your fancy (I think we used to call it surfing). Absolutely no objective in mind. Just browsing for the curiosity of it. Actually, I'm meant to be working through a list of chores where item 1 is "Complete tax return" but, not having read about the power of starting, I'm in task-avoidance mode.

And I'm glad that I am, because I've found one of those gems to add to my feeds- WanderingDave's blog. Dave Burke has a whole website supporting all manner of media, from podcasts and newpaper columns to audio that he hopes will be syndicated by radio stations as he does what many of us would want to- and takes a year 'out' to travel round the US.

Stay tuned. It should be fascinating and fun. Where will he go? What will he make of those places? Thanks to Technorati for helping with my aimless browsing.

Tags: WanderingDave, Dave Burke, road trip, blog, blogger, blogging, US, Technorati

YouTube Not Being Criticised for Once

2007-01-04T23:36:00.000Z

It's interesting that in the Saddam video inquiry everyone is being mentioned as being set to get a wrap across the knuckles... except for YouTube. The taunter, the videoer, those responsible for security and the TV stations have all been put under suspicion of something-or-other by either the Iraqi authorities, foreign politicians or the media. No one has, as yet, accused YouTube of anything- who originally hosted the video online.

I'm not saying that they should be accused of anything, but it is the new fangled players who often are first to be attacked- not last.

Interesting.

Tags: Saddam, video, YouTube

Keep it Simple with Healthcare IT

2007-01-04T22:08:00.000Z

In healthcare IT you hear alot about interoperability and integration of systems. Whilst this is extremely valid, I and my peers often lose our colleagues in technical jargon and presume that the sector is more mature than it really is. Some problems are more immediate than that.

If you watch how a retail assistant, waiter/waitress or bar tender interacts with their terminal, it is very quick and rapid fire. Tokens often allow near instantaneous log on. Then they punch some buttons and walk away. Do they put time aside at the end of their shift to reckon up? No. How long do you think it took to train new joiners? Not long- they probably picked it up on the job.

Now look at how clinicians access healthcare IT. Ouch.

Add that to the list.

Tags: technology, information technology, IT, health, healthcare, health care, healthcare IT, user experience, retail IT, hospitality IT, hospital, clinician

The Tesla- the Best Kept Electric Car Secret

2007-01-03T21:50:00.000Z

Don't worry. Although I do think that climate change is a very important issue of our time, this isn't some sort of New Year's resolution to change my blog's subject. However, here's a well kept secret about electric cars that's worth knowing.

Most people turn their noses up at the idea of an electric car. When you ask people what it would take for them to drive one, they start to quote petrol sportscar-like numbers. You know the ones:

0-60mph in 4 secs
250 mile range
248hp
Over 130mph

Right?

Well, what if I were to tell you that those numbers were taken from the specification of a car due to hit the US market in Feb 2008? Only about a year away. It looks great too.

Find out more and put your name on the waiting list at the website of Tesla Motors. Let's hope the project goes well.

Tags: electric car, climate change, environment, environmentally friendly, green, motor, sports car, Tesla

"Save the Planet" Ecademy Club Founder on YouTube

2007-01-03T21:40:00.000Z

The climate change author, Anthony Day (of Will Climate Change Your Life? fame), interviewed Michelle Clarke- a 5 minute summary is shown here. Another Al Gore convert.

Tags: Anthony Day, climate change, ecademy, environment, green, global warming, Michelle Clarke, Al Gore

Merry Christmas from Santa, his Reindeer and Me

2006-12-22T12:17:00.000Z

In what will probably be my last posting until the New Year I'm going to generously wish all readers a Merry Christmas by 'stealing' a message from someone else (let's call it 'social networking'). Anyway, this made me laugh and I love the mannerisms in these characters.

Merry Christmas

Tags: Christmas, Christmas card, greeting, music, song

British Computer Society Recommend CfH Changes

2006-12-22T11:58:00.000Z

A report by the British Computer Society is being widely reported at the moment. I wish to do little else than add my voice to those who say "here here". I believe it is a very rounded review and I would urge anyone in the NHS, DH or Healthcare IT to read the full version- and not just what they read in the press.

The only thing I would add is that a move away from monolithic systems to interoperable standards will require an evolution in the maturity of healthcare IT (See There be Dragons in Phase 4). The commercial environment required to enable this out-of-cashflow investment would probably be too large to run alongside NPfIT. As expensive as it is, the systems being implemented through LSPs are only an incremental improvement at a functional level rather than a fundamental rearchitecting. We need to focus on some core areas and keep them simple if this is to work.

Tags: technology, healthcare IT, health care IT, IT, information technology, NPfIT, CfH, NHS, BCS, British Computer Society, IT architecture, interoperable, monolithic

New 2009 Ferrari Dino Spotted?

2006-12-21T22:58:00.000Z

Have I spotted a prototype of the top secret 2009 Ferrari Dino? It is rumoured to be an "entry-level Ferrari to slot below the F430"- this would certainly be that. Or could it be the latest in a craze for ironic modifications to Smart cars in W1, London?

So hard to tell...

Tags: cars, automobiles, Smart, London, Ferrari, modified

NHS Cautiously Proceeds with Patient Records

2006-12-20T23:43:00.000Z

It's been announced that Lord Warner has decided that the NHS should press on with the National Care Record System- albeit in a watered down 'summary' format and with the ability to opt-out and keep your data local.

I welcome the news. Well, I welcome the progress bit within the news. We're out of the gate. Personally, I'm happy for the brakes to be taken off the technology but the media suggests that the public thinks differently. This announcement leaves the path open to eventually extend the summary records into being more detailed and provides the opportunity for people to see the benefits. I want all of my medical records on line NOW and I want to contribute to it. It's my information and I feel that future clinicians I have the misfortune to need the services of will be able to serve me better if they have more information. The further away I am from my friends and relatives at home when I need that help, the more I want the information available to clinicians with my life in their hands.

Security? It's doable. What's more, do you know what they're doing now? When were you last asked for your consent? Believe me, technology will be better- it can be explicit. The problem with health care is that moral dilemmas are always a short step away which can bring progress to a stiffling halt. Am I the only person who wants to live longer and healthier?

And in case anyone asks... GPs do not represent me. The media keeps giving the GPs' opinion as if it is surrogate for the public. Not so. Ask me.

Tags: technology, health care, healthcare, IT, healthcare IT, health care IT, information technology, EMR, Electronic Medical Record, EHR, Electronic Health Record, NCRS, National care Record System, NHS, National Health Service, CfH, Connecting for Health, NPfIT, National Programme for IT

LinkedIn Upselling leaves something to be desired...

2006-12-20T22:52:00.000Z

Now. I'm a big fan of LinkedIn, but even I was left not in the least bit tempted by this attempt to encourage me to extend my professional network. With all due respect to my friends Liz and Bela, librarians are not the top of my list of "must network with". Where are the astronauts, lion tamers and QCs?

Tags: technology, Internet, web, LinkedIn, professional networking, social networking

Partying with Geeks is Fun

2006-12-20T22:22:00.000Z

Next year why don't you come down to the British Computing Society Younger Professionals Group Christmas Party (BCSYPGCP for short)? This year's event was so much fun you might forget that most of the revellers are professional developers OR testers ELSE businessmen. The event was held at No.5 Cavendish Square- purporting to be a private members club, but seemed to me to be a night club cunningly dressed up as a members club. Nevertheless, we had a great VIP area, a modicum of champagne, nibbles and the opportunity to listen to the diverse careers of those present.

Many thanks to Mervin, Portia, Mark T, Phil, Ed, James, Mark and Abdullah for your company. Mark has even be set the challenge of trying to find this blog from what little information he gleaned from me- watch this space. Sorry to those I didn't bump into (or maybe you were lucky), especially the hostess Jenny, Nigel, Houston & Tom (keep the Brunel spirit alive).

Tags: technology, information technology, IT, BCS, British Computing Society, Christmas, party, younger professionals group, No.5, Cavendish Square, London, UK

Does IT Matter?

2006-12-13T00:23:00.000Z

In May 2003, Harvard Business Review published a paper authored by Nicholas G. Carr titled “IT Doesn’t Matter”. A business partner of ours sent it too me and yes, it was thought provoking, and yes, it nearly made my blood curdle.

A Technorati search shows that the article has been widely reported on by AccMan and Navarik. The title isn’t a total red herring designed to hook you in before it makes some clever ironic play. The paper really does make the case that at a strategic level “IT Doesn’t Matter” because it is approaching commodity status. Quite simply- I disagree, especially in health care IT.

1. The article paints a static picture of any company’s IT investments. This is a war of continuous evolution rather than a battle between individual systems.

2. I would argue that the commoditisation of IT provides the opportunity for organisations to construct orchestrated solutions disruptive to markets and their competitors. Customers can apply technologies in ways that the creators of the building blocks had not imagined. This is a highly competitive capability which depends on organisation competence and agility.

3. The investment in IT is being painted in black and white. Because the customer was not intelligent, IT investment was focussed on features that solve problems without consideration of how the problems are solved. The “how” has become crucial because for features from many suppliers to work together requires an understanding of this architecture. I would agree there was overinvestment in features- but only now are we looking at the architecture.

4. You cannot compare, as Nicholas Carr does, IT to electric power or railways by analogy at almost any level. Information simply does not conform to the First Law of Thermodynamics. If the physics don’t stack up, nor will market comparisons. We’re talking about tools for knowledge workers, not core utility services.

5. Technology as a competitive factor in health care is only just beginning. We are along way off a sector with the characteristics this article is describing. Technology is still widely seen as a necessary evil in this sector which is amazing as few other sectors would benefit from computerisation more than healthcare. It is such a complex sector that control of information will make the controllers very competitive. The status quo suits only the incumbant. Managing vulnerabilities is important, but there is an opportunity for a health care IT company to be created out of the current climate who will lead us into the next phase of IT maturity.

*ClickRich’s New Rules of IT Management would therefore be:

Spend wisely, but large investment in health care IT is required to catch up.
Follow on core technologies, lead in how you apply them.
Focus on Opportunities if you are an emerging Health care provider.

Tags: technology, information technology, IT, healthcare IT, health care, Harvard Business Review, IT Doesn't Matter, IT strategy, IT architecture, Nick Carr, Nicholas Carr, HBR, IT management

Is Second Life the new Sharepoint?

2006-12-11T21:33:00.000Z

With much talk over the last 5 years about collaborative technologies there has been a huge investment in portal platforms- from Microsoft's Sharepoint to Oracle's Collaborative Suite. These platforms essentially extend existing comms user interfaces into the browser, but are they about to be usurped by a game? Virtual worlds designed for entertainment are being turned to by corporates and institutions looking for a richer immersive collaborative experience. The most hailed is Second Life, from Linden Labs, which according to Forbes (and reported on FutureHIT), is used by about 40 companies- mostly for a savvy marketing prescence. Some, such as IBM are reported by Chris Edwards of the IET magazine to have 'secret islands' to try out concepts. Starwood Hotels built a concept hotel so they could gauge the feedback of virtual guests. Campus: Second Life is even structuring learning facilities for use by real life institutions with profiles for their students.

Will this become the norm around corporate offices? Induction Courses the world over will have to add the agenda item "Build Avatar".

Tags: technology, Internet, virtual worlds, Second Life, collaborative technology, Linden Labs, Microsoft, Sharepoint, Oracle, Collaboration Suite, avatar, Campus:Second Life

Get a Blog. Get 3 degrees of Seperation!

2006-12-05T08:21:00.000Z

Read this amazing story about Jason Happe of GA who lost a Swiss Army Knife his grandmother had given him. Years later, a blogger called Rick Lee picked up the knife in the forest of West Virginia and posted it on their site. The site was seen by someone who'd served in the army with Jason and, via his father, the knife made its way home.

Fantastic. It just shows how a sense of community has grown around the blogosphere.

Tags: technology, Internet, blog, blogosphere, Jason Happe, Rick Lee, Swiss Army Knife

IE7... no, Firefox 2.0. No IE7... or maybe Firefox?

2006-12-04T22:53:00.000Z

I've mentioned before how I'm broadly very pleased with IE7 to the point where it has retaken the mantle of "Preferred Web Browser, Autumn 2006" from Firefox2.0. I've not mentioned that this was largely on the strength of the "Feeds" feature.

I was interested to read in the Jan 2007 edition of PC Pro that they prefer Firefox2.0 so maybe I'm wrong? They clearly are paid to review products. I just fit this around a busy day job. What would I know?

Not only do they prefer Firefox2.0, but it is on the strength of the feed features! I looked into this a little further and they basically find my source of irritation with Firefox an improvement- that is the drawing of summaries into a live bookmark. The thing is, I was thinking that it's 'neat' for Firefox to have the feeds running off the favourites menu navigation, but I find it an irritation to keep returning there to flick through sources when IE7 can have the feeds pegged to the left hand pane. HOWEVER, being forced to reappraise my assessment and I can now see that you can do the same with Firefox2.0 from the View menu.

So, after all that, the debate is wide open again at ClickTowers. IE7 and Firefox2.0 are neck and neck, until I look into it again...

Tags: technology, Internet, Internet Explorer, IE7, Firefox 2.0, information technology, Mozilla, Atom, Microsoft, browser, RSS, feeds, live bookmarks

Internet Explorer 7 Choking on Technorati

2006-11-29T08:33:00.000Z

I've been using IE7 for quite a few weeks now and it's managed to usurp Firefox 2.0 as my preferred browser for general web use. I still use Firefox but only for very specific things where it just pips Internet Explorer 7. However, IE7 does seem to have a problem with the Technorati site from time to time. It's not all the time, but at least once a day it downloads the page HTML and starts pulling down the images etc when it seems to choke on something "Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site... Operation abandoned"

From this screenshot you can see that it might be the advertisment at the right hand side which is in Flash 9.
In terms of plugins, I only have the Google Toolbar running and I can't imagine that causing instability (the core of IE should be fairly immune to plug in vagries anyway?).

Has anyone else experienced problems?

Tags: technology, Internet, Internet Explorer, IE7, Firefox 2.0, Flash 9, Technorati, crash, Microsoft, browser

Boutique Cinema vs BIG Screen Experience

2006-11-28T22:05:00.000Z

Last night I went to see Casino Royale. Great film. I had in mind a stroll down to Leicester Square for the definitive big screen experience. However, on the recommendation of a colleague I tried "The Screen on Baker Street", one of small chain of just 7 small boutique theatres called Screen Cinemas. What probably particularly grabbed my attention was the mention of comfy chairs and beer and wine. Further, on calling the booking line the Yorkshireman in me was singing from the moortop heathlands at the champion price of just £6.

OK, it wasn't a huge screen or ear drum thumping volume, but it was more than more than up to the demands of this action film. The seats were sure comfy (perhaps more protection from the rear would be appropriate for those unfortunate to be sat in front of us lanky streaks with wayward knees- sorry Mister). The beer was fine. The ice cream was suitably up class. The staff were marvellously helpful and even loaned me a spoon when my ice cream was found to be lacking the prepacked one. I sadly let down their hospitality by leaving the spoon at my seat despite promising otherwise. I hope they let me back in next time.

Unfortunately the bar was light on savoury options (just peanuts really) but hotdogs wouldn't have suited this classy joint. Tapas? Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed it and will go back for more- with just two screens I might have to wait a while until they bring in the next feature or travel to one of their other two central London cinemas.

Tonight I'm particularly heartened to see that to have watched the same film, at about the same time, from a similarly positioned seat, on the same day at the Odeon Leicester Square would have cost more than twice as much. Oh, and from my experience there would have been more teenagers keen to impress their dates with how loudly they can shout.

Viva the boutique!

Tags: cinema, screen, film, The Screen on Baker Street, Casino Royale, James Bond, 007, Odeon, entertainment, London, boutique, W1

There be Dragons in Phase 4

2006-11-24T19:11:00.000Z

Software Development organisations need to be very aware of the maturity model of their industry. Based on the forming, storming, norming, performing model of change management I've devised the following phased model of IT maturity. The bigger they are, the more aware the organisation needs to be because in Phase 4 lurks the small start up who wasn't even on your radar, but who will bring you down.

Phase 1 (embryonic)
-Niche technology pockets addressing specific challenges
-Feature focus. No one minds how you solved the problem, as long as you solved it.

Phase 2 (childhood)
-Technology pockets grow so as to bump up against each other
-Boundaries are created
-Interfaces cause unexpected complications that result in under delivery

Phase 3 (adolescence)
-Responding to the escalating costs and complexity, clients reduce the downside risk and consolidate suppliers
-Fewer boundaries
-Gorilla takes all

Phase 4 (adulthood)
-With benefits realigned with expectation, clients turn to maximising the up side and exploiting new generation technologies
-How you've been solving the problem becomes VERY important, because it needs to be consistent with other methods, frameworks and ecosystems
-Creation of platforms for effective competition
-People who can master taking the same components and reuse them in interesting ways will create new business models that redefine the market

Now we can discuss where your company or sector is, and where you're heading.

Tags: technology, information technology, IT, software development, maturity, model, IT architecture, software architecture, developer

Boost for Healthcare IT from Microsoft

2006-11-23T21:59:00.001Z

Thank goodness Microsoft has finally published its Connected Health Frameworks. A whole toolbox for the healthcare IT sector.

This is a welcome announcement for a sector looking for an IT shot in the arm. I was privileged to see this a few months ago and am glad it’s now in the public domain so we can talk about it. It will be extremely interesting to see how healthcare IT organisations respond to the release. Which will crawl into their shells and which will embrace?

We need to see some maturity in this market. Consumers will expect it.

Tags: technology, healthcare, health care, healthcare IT, Microsoft, Connected Health Frameworks, IT architecture, information technology

Full Page Search Engine Ads in London Daily

2006-11-23T21:28:00.000Z

If ClickRich was starting to look like a "Search Engine Special", with this being the second post on the subject today, then don't be surprised if it happens one day in the real world of publishing. This is because I was amazed to see Microsoft taking out a full page advert in this morning's Metro newspaper in London. A colleague tells me that they had a 'wrapper' advert yesterday. Incredible. The search engine wars are hotting up!

Only recently a friend was remarking how amazing it is that Google is one of the world's largest companies, yet he'd never seen an ad or met anyone who works for them. That could change quickly.

Tags: technology, Internet, search engine, Google, Microsoft, Live, Microsoft Live, London, UK, Metro, newspaper, advertising, advert

Google Threat to Technorati?

2006-11-23T21:20:00.000Z

It was only a matter of time, but Andy Boyd seems to have spotted Google dabbling with integrating blog search technology into its heavyweight main search engine.

A bit of competition for Technorati will keep things interesting.

Watch this space.

Tags: technology, Internet, blog, blogs, blogosphere, search engines, Google, Technorati

Vacuuming whilst I Work

2006-11-21T17:02:00.000Z

As I sit here in my office something amazing is going on in my living room. A robot is vacuuming the carpet for me. All I had to do was charge the iRobot Roomba and tell it to start and off it goes vacuuming, detecting and avoiding obstacles, concentrating more on the dirty bits and even getting under the sofa where my Dyson hasn't been in years.

With 120 minutes of battery life, I'm just leaving it too it. On the first use it needed emptying regularly (partly due to the small container and in part due to how long since the last vacuuming). However, the point is that you use it more regularly to keep on top of things. The results are great.

I still need the Dyson to help me do the sofa and curtains but when it comes to replacement, there's no need to go for the full blow-your-house-down model- a handheld should suffice. The future is here now. I'm only surprised this technology isn't more pervasive throughout the major players... in the same way that no one would have been impressed if I'd started this post with the statement that a machine is washing my clothes in the kitchen. Next up: Ironing (pleeease!)

Tags: technology, vacuum, vacuuming, Hoovering, iRobot, Roomba, Dyson, consumer electronics, robot, labour saving, automatic

PACS is dead. Long live PACS

2006-11-16T23:43:00.000Z

It is my prediction that the days of the acronym "PACS" are numbered. Picture Archiving and Communications Systems are the hospital systems that store all those digital diagnostic images- X-ray, mammogram, MR, CT etc.

They need phenomenal storage capacity (Terabytes) and distributing those images (usually of the DICOM format) from the imagers to radiologists is therefore non-trivial.

When did you last hear an application based IT system have to define itself as a communication system? That's inherent in the fact that it is information technology. It feels illogical to make a big deal out of that, reflects challenges largely in the past and aspires to monolithic systems. I try and use the terms "DICOM Storage", "DICOM Viewer" and "Radiology Writer" to describe the constituent parts and apply as appropriate. Processes are being reengineered such that these elements are being reused in ways the inventing technologists hadn't imagined and the PACS term will itself be reengineered.

There's a lot of inertia in the acronym by virtue of the intellectual capital (deals, research papers, products, implementations) invested in it, so I don't expect a change any time soon... but watch this space

Tags: technology, medicine, medical, health, health care, healthcare, healthcare IT, Health care IT, PACS, Picture Archiving and Communications System, acronym, CT, MR, radiology, etymology, hospital, x-ray, xray, diagnostics

Google helps to Diagnose Patients

2006-11-16T22:49:00.000Z

As a one time sufferer of the rare illness henoch schönlein purpura, I'm very familiar with the concern surrounding undiagnosed conditions. In my case it was the 80's and the efforts of a non-medically qualified, but very concerned, mother were more effective than the doctors in diagnosing an illness that aflicts just 14 people per 100,000.

So, I was very interested in how doctors are beginning to embrace the technology of the raging-consumer success that is Google. A British Medical Journal article reports on the success rate of search engines in helping unravel unusual and complex symptoms. Ironically, it is usually professionals that pioneer new technologies which subsequently filter into the high street and home. In this case it's been the reverse. Nevertheless, better late than never.

So, is this the end of doctors? Not really. Using Google, users successfully identified 58% of diseases published from a range of symptoms from The New England Journal of Medicine. It takes a qualified, intelligent human being to take that success rate beyond 80%. The computer is just doing what computers have always done well- to sift through huge amounts of knowledge (in this case pretty much the accumulated medical knowledge of the human race) and present it back in a prioritised fashion. You can't train a human to do that.

Tags: technology, medicine, medical, British Medical Journal, diagnosis, Google, henoch schönlein purpura, Internet, New England Journal of Medicine, search engine

Cisco to Invest in Demonstrator Baseball Stadium

2006-11-15T23:56:00.000Z

You have to wonder how bleeding edge we still are with wireless technology when Cisco needs to take such a prominent role in a project to build a $400-500m stadium for the Oakland As. This implementation does sound jaw dropping but it tells me that clients, construction companies and even tech partners aren't ready to treat these technologies as business-as-usual.

Still, I'm feeling the 80 applications they've considered!

Tags: technology, wireless, Cisco, Oakland, As, Oakland As, baseball, bleeding edge, construction

Adults need to know about Line Rider

2006-11-13T22:08:00.000Z

This is a post for the adults out there. This is because everyone under the age of 18 will know about this phenomenon already. Nothing makes you feel middle aged like being sent a link to a website which you think is really cool and then to find out that the kidz have been blogging about it for nearly 2 months (thanks to Technorati's chart for that info). The toy (the author says it's not a game because there's no objective) is called Line Rider, and very easily enables you to draw lines that a little character can then sledge down... or crash.

In its simplicity the game is really fun, but the big hook is in how people are recording their results to YouTube. These videos made my 10 minutes of playing look pathetic. Either there's some seriously mispent youths evolving out there, or the next generation are evolving some talent beyond mere hand-eye coordination.

Tags: technology, Internet, Flash, Macromedia, YouTube, Technorati, toy, game, Line Rider, line rider

3.5G Data Card Brings Life to Commuter Train

2006-11-13T21:36:00.000Z

On the red eye express where most of my fellow commuters seemed dead to Monday, my new 3.5G data card from Vodafone (Qualcomm under the hood) was the only sign of life this morning. The card seems a bit slow to make its initial requests (I guess theres some validation going on) which is frustrating, but once in full stream it is seriously quick. By the time I'd done the painless installation I only had chance to try the various basics so that's about all I can review at the moment. However, even then (maybe 5 minutes use) I'd used about 1.5 of my 50Mb per month tariff. I'll have to keep an eye on that!

In the software there appears to be a neat WLAN finder directory. However, entering Cafe and London results in a long enough list that you don't seem able to navigate beyond 'C' and Costa Coffee. A minor gripe in an otherwise pleasant out-of-the-box experience.

Tags: technology, mobile, data card, 3.5G, HSDPA, gadget, Qualcomm, Vodafone, tariff, WLAN, Costa Coffee

Engineering to Make You Proud

2006-11-11T18:23:00.000Z

So I was on an internal American Airlines flight a few days ago and I thought I'd flick through their in-flight magazine to see what I could spend my last few dollars on. This is the nation that brought you "Man on the Moon"TM and "The Production Line, Inc", so there had to be some great gadgets.

Well, they practically had to lift me off the floor when I saw the iPod toilet roll holder.

I could hardly contain my incredulity when, on the same page, I saw both adverts for a device to help your beleagured pet to climb onto your furniture AND a gizmo for scaring them off. Can we not make our minds up? Pets on the bed or pets off the bed? Let's not confuse our labradoodles with these messages! Perhaps the idea is that you buy both and keep your canine friend exercised?

You wonder whether this in flight magazine is there for the entertainment more than the revenue opportunity. Thank you American Airlines.

Tags: American Airlines, AA, canine, cat, dog, gadget, gizmo, inflight magazine, inflight, ipod, toilet roll, aviation, shopping

Studying Blogging

2006-11-10T15:41:00.000Z

What did you study at school or university? Latin? Maths? Physics? Well, some lucky students in Interactive Media Studies (or is that Strategies?) at Bournemouth University have, as part of their studies, been asked to set up a blog. Although not all have embraced the idea, see The Reluctant Blogger, the blogosphere has been fanned with a flurry of new bloggers. Some of opened up with good humour (that was my tactic, how long will it last?), others matter of factly, but it will be interesting to see how they pan out over the duration of the course. Point your RSS readers at Bournemouth Uni!

Tags: blog, blogging, the Reluctant Blogger, Bournemouth University, IMS, Interactive Media Studies, Interactive Media Strategies, Internet, KatesVoice, MattPDP, media, technology

IET Lecture on Climate Change

2006-11-10T15:13:00.000Z

Thank you to the nearly 40 of you who came along to last night's Institute of Engineering and Technology lecture on "How to Drive a 4x4 and Still Save the Planet" in Bournemouth. I saw no 4x4s or bicycles in the car park as I left, so I presume that everyone got away ok! Any feedback would be welcome. Usually we use paper feedback slips, but in the interests of the environmentally conscious subject matter and to give me a break for not getting round to it, I will take that feedback through comments to this blog and emails.

This year's attendance figures are really showing an upswing, but it would be great to see more students coming along to enjoy the event, including pre and post refreshments. Please contact Mark Linney (mark.linney@selex-comm.com) if you want to become actively involved in the Young Members Section, otherwise stay posted to our Yahoo Groups or IET Local Network website (less up to date, but it's the official site) for details of upcoming events. Of course, stay tuned to this blog too- all Bournemouth events and some others will be posted here.

Finally, a huge thank you to Anthony Day for taking such a complex and interwoven brace of issues and presenting them in such an informative and entertaining way. We rarely have so much debate stimulated by the end of an event and look forward to the publication of your book.

Tags: climate, climate change, environment, 4x4, Bournemouth, Anthony Day, Bournemouth University, IET, Institution of Engineering and Technology, engineering, technology, How to Drive a 4x4 and Still Save the Planet, Will Climate Change Your Life

Lessons in Blogging- Rights and Responsibility

2006-11-07T21:39:00.000Z

A recent series of posts by an employee of a US healthcare provider has landed him in hot water for his criticism of the technology decisions made by his bosses. His postings have been amplified by other blogs. I don't wish to comment on the specifics of this case.

Technology is complicated. There are rarely right decisions. Most decisions are a trade off with associated risk mitigation. When raising concerns in a corporate environment, you will rarely be criticised if you act professionally. The key is to avoid looking like a whinger or someone with an agenda. I'm not saying that senior management is infallible, but if you are not seen to carry your right to complain in parity with your responsibilities, you could find yourself on extended leave.

Tags: corporate ethics, Epic, health care, Healthcare IT, Justen Deal, Kaiser Permanente, technology management

American Climate Apathy?

2006-11-05T00:42:00.000Z

Over my breakfast in Madison, WI this morning, the front page headline of the Wisconsin State Journal read "Helping save the world, one day at a time". I was pleased to see that some Americans, notorious for being the world's gas guzzling Kyoto-dodgers, are giving climate change top billing. However, the midterm electioneers seem to be fighting in very different territory- who is and isn't enjoying the services of same sex escorts and the use of IT in the voting booths, for example. Whilst out and about tonight I'll see if I can gauge public opinion on the climate...

...at least, public opinion as seen through the bottom of a beer glass. If you live in Madison want to avoid the nosey Brit, avoid the Angelic Bar and Great Dane Pub & Brewery.

Incidentally, I was also stunned to see that over $2billion is being spent on the midterm campaigns. More than the last presidential election!

Tags: climate, climate change, Wisconsin State Journal, Madison, Wisconsin, Great Dane Pub & Brewery, Angelic Bar

RIP Pluck RSS Reader

2006-10-30T23:17:00.000Z

It's a sad day at ClickTowers on reading the news that Pluck are withdrawing from the RSS Reader market. It seems that they've found some effective ways at earning revenues by targetting the publisher (and their budgets) which make their consumer facing products nonsensical. I've been a happy user of Pluck for a year or so. Oh well, I'm sure a star will come forward to fill the void. Perhaps it's time to try the inbuilt readers of Firefox and IE7 (another reason that Pluck have thrown in their towel on this one).

Aren't you glad you never got round to that corporate roll out?

Tags: technology, blog, internet, Pluck, RSS, reader, RSS reader, IE7, Firefox

Technorati not indexing properly

2006-10-30T22:45:00.000Z

I've been restrained. I've kept my lid on. It could just be me, you see. I don't want to lower my high brow blog (ha ha) into the gutter and use it to leverage my complaint- surely?

You better believe it.

Regular readers (ok, put your hand down mum) will know that I'm a big fan of Technorati. However, they seem to have stopped indexing my site properly. I've not changed the way I ping. I've not changed the site structure. I upgraded to the Beta Blogger, but the problem didn't start immediately. Anyway, according to Technorati I've not posted anything for about 25 days. The problem seems to get worse too, in that previously indexed posts are being removed from their listing! Stranger and stranger.

Surely it's not just me. Or is it? They're out to get me. I knew it.

The problem is exacerbated by three weeks of three support emails (correctly labelled with support tickets etc) going unanswered. Please please please Technorati. Help me.

Tags: technology, blog, Technorati, indexing, problem, support, search engine

Adobe Acrobat 1: Information Governance 0

2006-10-25T18:40:00.000+01:00

I was looking for a piece of information earlier today and stumbled across a PDF document online courtesy of Google. It turns out that the document is a 'leaked' "Commercially in Confidence" report of the National Audit Office on the NHS's National Programme for IT. The copy I was looking at was on the BBC website. There are some things in the report which would come as no surprise for most professionals, but obviously the press picked up on them and had a field day. What is really interesting though is that either the source or the BBC chose to black out some of the text which they deemed particularly sensitive. Therefore you can't read it in the PDF...

...or can you?

Of course you can. You simply select the blacked out text and cut and paste it into another application. Hey presto, you can read it as plain as day.

It makes for interesting reading, but my point is that office applications are so feature rich these days that users often lose out in the security stakes to them. "Track changes" in Microsoft Word is also a great example. The contracts I, or my colleagues, have been sent where you can recollect the internal discussions and tactics of the opposite parties, never cease to surprise me.

Tags: Acrobat, Adobe, CfH, Connecting for health, NPfIT, National Programme for IT, commercially in confidence, information governance, Microsoft, Word, healthcare, Healthcare IT, NHS, health care, NAO, National Audit Office, security

Abuse of Chatham House Rules

2006-10-20T11:42:00.000+01:00

I was pleased to meet with Richard Granger, the Director General of NHS Connecting For Health, (aka NHS IT Chief) earlier this week. I have to say he was very impressive and it was a good opportunity to hear about the GREAT progress being made in many areas of the National Programme for IT. Clearly, all things the press is not interested in printing.

However, I can't say any more because the event was Chatham House rules. That is, people can take away what was said in the meeting, but it is not to be referenced in a way which makes it attributable to any individual present. This encourages openness and enables us all to learn from mistakes as well as successes.

Richard Granger suffers much at the hands the media. You could argue that's just part of the job- and that is fair enough. My point is that comments which he made last week in a Chatham House rules governed event are now splashed across the pages of the New Statesman and have been picked up by all the usual healthcare IT publishers. We have to lose this rapcious appetite for sensational headlines if we can have reasonable discussions we can all learn from.

Tags: technology, IT, CfH, Connecting for health, NPfIT, National Programme for IT, Chatham House rules, Chatham, health, health care, healthcare, Healthcare IT, NHS, Richard Granger, Granger

How to Drive a 4x4 and Still Save the Planet

2006-10-13T14:47:00.000+01:00

A date for your diaries... I'm pleased to announce the second* of the 2006 programme of the Institution of Engineering and Technology lectures in Bournemouth will be on November 9th.

How to Drive a 4x4 and Still Save the Planet
…Will Climate Change Your Life?

A talk by Anthony Day based on his upcoming book about climate change, exploring what it’s really all about and where we should focus our efforts.

Venue: Bournemouth University (Talbot Campus), Coyne Lecture Theatre
Date and Time: Tea/Coffee from 6:30pm. Presentation from 7pm, Thursday 9th November 2006
Meeting contact: Richard Atkinson, Bournemouth Convenor, richard.atkinson@clinicalexcellence.org.uk

This talk is free and open to anyone interested in the topic.

*What happened to the first, I hear you cry? Well, the IEE merged with the IIE to create the IET in the middle of this year (got that?). The previous lecture, "45 million miles from Earth" predated the merger so went under the auspices of the IEE.

Tags: climate, climate change, environment, 4x4, Bournemouth, Anthony Day, Bournemouth University, IET, Institution of Engineering and Technology, engineering, technology, How to Drive a 4x4 and Save the Planet

How to get your work into the British Library...

2006-10-12T10:54:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Steve who pointed this out to me... on 17 October 2006 we will all have our chance to go down in the history books by taking part in the Biggest Blog EVER and go into the archives of the British Library FOREVER.

17 October has been designated as an historic date. The organisers want as many people as possible to record a ‘blog’ diary of this one day - 17 October - which will eventually be stored by the British Library as a permanent historical record of our national life at the beginning of the 21st century. This is a one off, one day diary done on a mass scale – that will itself make history.

The event asks you to write your blog diary at HistoryMatters and ..."Please include in your blog how history impacted on you that day – whether it be simply travelling past an historic landmark, discussing family history at home, watching another repeat of Only Fools and Horses, or listening to Dad’s 60’s music, again!". You don't even need to come up with something profound- they want to record real life. Diaries can be added from 17 to 31 October.

Or you could just write a book, find a publisher, have the book published with an ISBN number... I'll opt for the blog for now.

Tags: history, history matters, weblog, blog, British Library, social networking

Web2.0 to hit Health Care with Super-Consumers

2006-10-10T22:09:00.000+01:00

Hold on to your hats. Whilst the world's eyes are on the major social networking manouveres by Google, NewsCorp (MySpace), Yahoo et al, there is a breed of niche network providers squaring up to fundamentally change entire sectors. The latest is OrganizedWisdom which enables people to share their health care experience. Whilst the site might not be rewarding today... just watch as the knowledge base explodes exponentially on the back of the user base growth. The whole thing will start to feed itself and, as long as the back end and finances of this service can scale, I predict that this could become the hottest technology in the whole health care sector.

There is a fantastic interview with the co-founder, Unity Stoakes, by Shahid Shah on Healthcare Guy. I've not seen such a well formed description of the impact of Web2.0 on health care. Doctors talk about the Google effect bringing patients in with ideas about what's wrong with them. This is just the start of a new wave of super-consumerism.

Tags: technology, IT, Internet, Web2.0, OrganizedWisdom, social networking, health care, healthcare, consumerism, super-consumerism, super-consumer

Service Oriented Architecture Landmark

2006-10-10T21:17:00.000+01:00

On Monday Salesforce.com, probably the world's leading provider of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) through it's CRM solutions, upped the ante. Now that users are comfortable with the web based software delivery model, Salesforce are making AppExchange (ApEx), their proprietary application language, available to customers and developers. This means that Salesforce will become closer to being a data and processor utility. The utility's services will be available to users through the use of ApEx.

This is a major shift in marketing... not a shift in policy, as this infrastructure play must have been their long term play for many years (otherwise they'd have farmed it out). Salesforce are now in direct competition with SAP. Who'd have guessed that when the company was founded in 1999? That's why they're worth 3 times as much as YouTube :)

Tags: technology, software, service, SOA, SaaS, Salesforce, AppExchange, Apex, SAP, infrastructure, IT, enterprise, data utility

A Future of 'Ologies' in the UK

2006-10-09T12:09:00.000+01:00

On Saturday I surprised myself by attending an interview with Gordon Brown, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, by Anthony Minghella at the Cheltenham Literature Festival. I'm glad I went. Ostensibly, it was an interview about the Chancellor's book (a collection of his speeches over the last decade), but clearly a Prime Minister-in-waiting had to be prepared for the scope of questions to broaden beyond "Who are your favourite authors?".

What it made me realise is that I need to find more opportunities to delve beneath the media politics which come and find you, and upon which we are superficially informed about policy and manifestos. I need to find platforms where politicians are able to expand on their vision. Gordon Brown is an extremely intelligent man with a deep sense of history from which his vision of Britain is born. Party politics aside, prior to Saturday I'd have voted Cameron if I was asked to choose a Prime Minister tomorrow. However, I couldn't imagine, even with an Eton education, David Cameron being able to hold a candle to the depth of Gordon Brown's knowledge of the world and humanity. The snappy style of modern politics doesn't give you a chance to see how the minds of politicians understand and unravel incredibly complex issues. Sound bites don't cut it.

However, much as I applaud Gordon Brown's vision of a Great Britain competing in the global economy with high value science, engineering and technology, I can't reconcile this against the culture of celebrity New Labour has presided over. There have been too many closures of University science departments. Despite this loss of educational capacity, demand is even lower. According to an article in The Guardian., "Engineering and technology has seen the second slowest growth in student numbers, stagnating at around a 4% rise over the 10 years from 1995 to 2005 - and well below the average growth of 56%".

No doubt the reasons are based in deep and complex cultural characteristics beyond the limitations of quick fix mechanisms from Westminster. I fear that David Cameron doesn't have the ability to get to the bottom of these issues. I think Gordon Brown does. Whether the wheels of their parties will allow either man to do anything about it is another matter.

Tags: technology, politics, education, engineering, science, university, Gordon Brown, Cheltenham Literature Festival

A Tan in the UK in late September!

2006-10-05T16:33:00.000+01:00

I've just had a great weekend of sailing, but you have to wonder what's happening to our climate when you can get a tan in just two days in the waters of the UK in late September.

Am I overreacting or wouldn't this have been possible 50 years ago? I'm going to be looking at this Climate Change subject more closely over the coming months so stay tuned.

Thanks to Pod, Pip and Bri for a fantastic weekend.

Tags: weather, climate, climate change, unseasonably hot, sailing, UK

Welcome IPExecSearch to the Blogosphere

2006-10-05T16:16:00.000+01:00

A friend of mine recently set up a blog to help engage potential customers for his Intellectual Property business by explaining the issues at play and reporting on topical situations. Nothing like my unfocussed rantings then!

There are some really interesting articles about Apple's 'pod' and 'podcast' claims and what's happenning with the Rover brand.

Tags: technology, intellectual property, intellectual property rights, IP, IPR, Apple, Rover, patents, trademarks, copyright, IPExecSearch

Bluetooth set to be usurped by Wibree?

2006-10-05T13:11:00.000+01:00

Bluetooth has long had it's critics. It was highly commendable of Ericsson to release the fruits of their research into an open standard, but there has long been a feeling that Bluetooth compromised in many areas. This is hardly surprising given that the potential applications for personal area networks weren't clear back then.

About a decade on and Nokia has come up with something more compact, less power hungry and cheaper called Wibree. They intend to have it ratified as a standard so third parties can adopt it. However, do the third parties have the appetite for another standard when they're already so committed to Bluetooth?

What we need is a killer app for Wibree that Bluetooth couldn't tackle. Then consumers can make up their minds. Been here before? Of course we have. We were surprised when SMS became the killer app of GSM. Videocalls and internet access is being touted for 3G, but take up has been slower than expected. Bluetooth is often used for headsets, but synchronisation with laptops and PDAs is hardly setting the world alight. Personally, I struggled to make it work. Wibree could find applications in more ubiquitous products such as watches, clothing and jewellery.

Tags: technology, wireless, wireless, personal area networks, PAN, Bluetooth, Wibree, Ericsson, Nokia

Freescale to be bought?

2006-09-22T15:56:00.000+01:00

Someone must have read my tip about watching Freescale (otherwise how else would they know?) because they're about to pay nearly $18bn for the whole shooting match.

Tags: Freescale, MRAM, Blackstone, Motorola, Carlyle, Permira, acquisition, buy-out

Humour on our Trains

2006-09-21T22:21:00.000+01:00

I was very amused to hear the aggrieved and candid announcement that the 30 minute delay to our Virgin train this evening was "...due to poor regulation". They can scarecely conceal their frustration with National Rail.

Tags: rail, railways, UK, Virgin, Cross Country, National Rail