Mark Samuels

My wife knows nothing about technology. She doesn’t have a Facebook account and watching her search the web is more frustrating than watching Aston Villa fail to score in four successive Premier League matches.

She cares nothing for the bits and bytes of technology, like much of the world (an oft forgotten detail). But she did mention that she’d heard Apple had released some new technology.

“The Apple iPad,” I said, recognising that while she cares nothing for Steve Jobs’ latest device, she is equally unable to avoid media hype. The iPad – depending on your chosen review – is either a big phone, the greatest innovation ever (since the last Apple innovation, anyway) or the saviour of the publishing industry. Such hype suggests we’re all about to start reading books and papers on our iPads ; my wife’s response to that suggestion?

“Reading is all about relaxing, so why would anyone choose to read a computer screen?”

Quite (now get your own Facebook account and stop using mine to connect with your mates).

I live in a place called Wanstead. If you live in London, it’s on the Central Line loop; if you don’t, it’s to the east. Wanstead is nice. My Dad is always saying: “What I don’t get about this London is that even when a place is nice, there’s something really grim just round the corner.”

He’s right, of course, but he lives in Warwick. And that is basically the posh Midlands. So, he’s a bit spoilt. But Wanstead – when it comes to London and it’s rather frustrating mix of nice and grim – is fairly grand. That sense of grandness is provided by the wide, tree-lined streets, some splendid period architecture and some lovely open spaces, such as the green on the High Street and Wanstead Park.

The village – if you can call Wanstead a village when it’s five minutes from the M11 and served by two Underground stations – has managed to retain a strong identity, particularly as the rest of east London is either being smashed for the Olympics or going to the dogs (or not, in the case of the former dog track at Walthamstow Stadium).

Then last week, a Tesco opened on the Wanstead High Street. It’s been a source of conjecture, debate and protestation. The store takes the place of a former Woolworth’s (RIP, you good retail friend). The protests against the store have been long and loud (hence the delay in the store opening). A particularly vocal compaigner has been a chap called Ashley Gunstock, who admitted using the Leytonstone Tesco branch after being ‘outed’ by a local newspaper. It’s been that sort of debate.

People objecting to the store say Tesco will kill shops on the High Street. Like elsewhere in the UK, shops are always opening and closing in Wanstead – and I guess the presence of a retail giant is hardly likely to help the independents. And the community of Wanstead – and it does have a nice community; we know all our lovely neighbours – seem keen to ensure the shop is empty.

Which is why I was surprised to see people virtually fighting to get into the Tesco earlier this week, while the local Co-op – which is normally packed – was the retail equivalent of the Mary Celeste: “It’s always like this now,” said one of the workers to me at the Co-op.

Change, eh? Who needs it? Virtually everyone, it would seem.

Football is a business. Actually, it isn’t – it’s a sport. But there’s a chance you might have forgotten, given the media’s obsession with football clubs and their cash concerns.

There’s one type of cash concern in football, like Accrington Stanley struggling to survive. And there’s another, where big clubs are struggling to stay as big clubs. Take Liverpool, for example.

Ex-footballers gracing screens with their oh-so-obvious banter keep telling the watching populace that Liverpool “simply have to qualify for the Champions League”‘ because of cash concerns and a need to attract the best players. But it’s a sport and I couldn’t give a stuff about who needs to be in a specific competition because of business issues.

Then there’s the big club justification – “Liverpool are a massive club that deserves to be in the Champions League”. Liverpool, of course, are a massive club with a “brand” (another dreadful term that has become associated to Sky-era football) that commands global recognition. Good for them. But such prestige does not mean Liverpool – or anyone else – has a divine right to be successful.

Look at Leeds, Newcastle, Nottingham Forest, Derby, Sheffield Wednesday, et al – all of whom are big clubs, finding they have no divine right to be in the top flight, never mind Europe.

Football is cyclical, you see and teams drop from the elite. Nothing is more sure. Liverpool are struggling, Manchester United have their own financial concerns – Manchester City are spending big, Spurs are on the up. Things change.

Look at the Villa. We were the biggest club in the world in the late ninteenth and early twentieth century; we were the global “brand”. Post-Second World War football in Aston has seen some high points and quite a few low points. At the minute, the Villa are thinking about being successful again. We shall see.

But no club has a right to success. And no club “has” to be in any competition, despite what the pundits would have you believe.

The winter edition of CIO Connect magazine was printed and posted pre-Christmas; it’s probably hitting desks around now. The magazine includes an interview with BA CIO Paul Coby, keynote speaker at CIO Connect’s recent annual conference. There’s also a special report on sourcing, a feature on delivering change and an article on eating your own dog food – where CIOs of leading suppliers explain how they innovate for customers.

As ever, thanks to all the CIOs, business leaders and technology experts who contributed their time and opinions. Below is a full-list of featured participants:

• Paul Coby, CIO at British Airways
• David Cooper, CIO at TalkTalk
• Mark Brown, IT director at ISS UK
• Dave Allerton, IT director at RHWL Architects
• Fiona Capstick, vice president and geographic integration executive at IBM’s Office of the CIO
• John Johnson, vice president and former CIO at Intel
• Lorie Buckingham, CIO at Avaya
• Derek McManus, CTO at O2
• John Murphy, acting director of information systems services at Trinity College Dublin
• Andy Bellamy, IT Director at TDG
• Chris Evers, head of IT at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
• David Bulman, CIO at Aegis Media
• Colin McLauchlan, head of IT at King & Shaxson
• Dharmesh Mistry, CTO at Edge IPK
• David Bason, IT director at Shoosmiths
• Peter Dew, CIO and group director of human resources at Ceva
• Robbert Kuppens, CIO at Cisco Europe
• Simon Hazlitt, co-founder of Majedie Assset Management
• Peter Rogers, senior project manager at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust
• Paul Mendes, head of IT at Chesterton Humberts
• Dean Branton, group director of business transformation and infrastructure services at KCOM
• Ade McCormack, consultant at Auridian and columnist for the FT
• Gerry Cohen, chief executive at Information Builders
• Richard Bewley, chief marketing officer at Best of the Best
• Mark Ridley, IT director at Reed.co.uk
• Jim Boots, senior BPM advisor at Chevron
• Karl Deacon, CTO at Capgemini
• Martin Butler, founder of Martin Butler Research and former chairman at Butler Group
• David Head, director at La Fosse Associates
• Dominic Batchelor, senior associate at Ashurst LLP
• Danièle Tyler, solicitor at Ashurst LLP