Mark Samuels

I’ve been on holiday for the past week. Well, I say holiday – I live in London and we visited Leigh-on-Sea for a few hours one day. The main point is that I haven’t been at work. And during that time away from my desk, a piece I wrote on the social CIO for silicon.com was published. The piece suggests that not enough IT chiefs are championing social media and collaboration:

The media consensus would have us believe that we are on the cusp of an information revolution, where everyone across the world is using Facebook to poke their peers and Twitter to tweet their views. As ever, an element of caution is required. Change is occurring but the revolution is patchy at best.

There might be 500 million Facebook users around the globe but that still leaves almost six and a half billion non-users. What lies behind such figures is a broader socio-economic change. The number of people using Facebook has doubled year-on-year and the up-and-coming cadre ofyounger employees expect to use social technologies in the workplace.

Such expectations create significant challenges for the executive team. The CIO, as the individual with responsibility for organisational IT, should be at the apex of that challenge. That, however, is not necessarily the case.

To read the full article, please click here.

Summer’s recently released CIO Connect magazine featured a profile interview with Deloitte UK partner and CIO Mary Hensher, a people person with a passion for the potential of IT to change business. The feature covered the following areas:

1. Deloitte UK CIO Mary Hensher is only too aware of the fact that she remains a scarcity amongst the rarefied air of UK business leadership; a woman with a responsibility for technology at a leading firm.
2. There is hope that the balance will once again shift towards women, and that hope comes in the form of social media: “Technology used to be anti-social; now it’s social,” says Hensher, referring to the increasing prevalence of collaborative technology.
3. “You need pioneers to prove that new models of working are possible,” says Hensher. “Part-time employment will not work in every job but IT should be more accommodating. Employees need to be as flexible as they can. A good working relationship can make new models work.”
4. Information is everything. It is crucial that a central core of IT experts are retained in-house to ensure that client data is secure: “We can’t afford ignorance and managing secure data is essential,” says Hensher.
5. Hensher says issues of security and mobility come together and create concerns around connectivity: “The challenge is to connect your people effectively,” she says.

To read the full article please, click here.

While I was away on paternity leave, Computer Weekly published my feature on cloud computing, security and audit trails. Here’s the intro, with a link to the full article below:

“Do you fear the auditor more or the attacker?” asks Peter Bassill, chief information security officer at gambling giant Gala Coral Group.

It is a key question for IT leaders thinking of dabbling in on-demand computing provision through the cloud. For Bassill, there is only one answer, particularly for firms operating in highly regulated sectors: “A lot of companies fear the auditor more. If you hold data internally, you can show the auditor your controls, but the cloud makes such demonstrations more difficult.”

The resulting complications mean many businesses still shy away from on-demand IT. About 40% of UK companies use cloud computing systems, according to the Information Systems Audit and Control Association. This represents a significant proportion of British organisations, but implementation levels – certainly with regards to large-scale enterprise systems – are nowhere near matching the cacophonous intensity of supplier hype.

For the full feature, click here.

I’ve just written a feature for Financial Director, which shows that cloud computing has received mixed reviews but can save the FD and CIO money:

The terminology associated with the dark art of business technology can sometimes make finance directors feel as if they are back at school. Bamboozled by a series of buzzwords developed by the technical clique, they could be forgiven for tuning out when the chief information officer (CIO) begins bending their ear.

“Never use ‘I’ in columns,” was one of the first lessons I received as a journalist. Oh, there I go – breaking the rule…

Still, my errant behaviour is a small ripple in comparison to the first-person obsession of modern journalism. The thinking behind not using ‘I’ is simple; the reader wants to read your opinions on a subject, not the story of your life. Few people are interesting enough to write in the first-person (God, yes. The Queen, maybe).

There’s another reason for not using the word ‘I’. You’re writing a column, so everyone knows it’s your opinion. In other words, you’re stating the obvious. And it’s boring.

Which makes the national media’s obsession with first-person accounts slightly baffling. The Mail, for example, presents a daily collection of extended rants – telling the reader how the journalist bravely gave up fish paste for Lent. Or something of that ilk.

No paper is immune. This weekend, The Guardian Magazine on Saturday splashed with one man’s story of why he doesn’t eat meat anymore (there was another cover story from the same author in today’s G2). I don’t eat meat either; can I have a book contract?

So, what’s to explain the rise of I-journalism (see Steve Jobs, I can be clever with ‘I’ too)? Probably a combination of factors: limited resources; the rise of celebrity culture, where every one is famous for 15 minutes; and the cult of the individual, where everyone believes they have something interesting to say – and everyone is meant to find it interesting.

Which begs one final question. Why am I writing this self-obsessed blog…?

I have always loved electronic music. I am, after all, a child born in the 1970s that grew up in the 1980s. When I was still in the early years of primary school, The Human League – who are, to me, the epitome of home made UK electronica – were dominant in the pop charts.

Still, that often counts for little. Most of the people I knew as I grew up thought electronic music “wasn’t real”; it was made by computers and not by tough guys playing guitars. That opinion is rubbish. Unlike most guitar music, which simply borrows from previous bands from previous eras, electronic artists are often at the musical vanguard.

Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, The Human League, New Order and the like were followed in the 1990s by a bunch of ambient hipsters – such as Aphex Twin, Global Communication and Seefeel – that mixed sampling and electronica to create something epic and beautiful.

Now everything has gone full circle – electronic music is back in the charts and artists are busy making songs that either sound like 1980s pop or that simply sample New Romantic records. Still, I’m happy – anything is better than a bunch of indie bores recycling Rolling Stones and punk riffs.

Which brings me to the 8bitcollective – the online chiptunemedia community. Completely open, 8bc allows users to upload their take on classic pop. The rather brilliant collection of chiptunes are based on the music of 1980s gaming technology, the other sound of my early years – from the ZX Spectrum to the Nintendo Gameboy.

The following three tracks are the best I’ve found on the site as yet, but there’s probably other gems. If you like computer-based electronica, check it out. Sometimes, borrowing and re-interpreting the past really is the future:

• My Bloody Valentine – Loomer: A really beautiful version of a shoegazing classic
• The Smiths – William, It Was Really Nothing: Personally, I think this cover allows you to appreciate the brilliance of Jonny Marr’s chord changes…
• The Album Leaf – Another Day: Smashing take on a latter-day ambient track

The nature of work has changed. Want proof? Search LinkedIn and see how many people choose to define their job role with what might previously have been seen as non-traditional, even esoteric, terms:

1.    4,475,626 results for owner
2.    3,677,739 results for consultant
3.    1,911,106 results for specialist
4.    537,068 results for advisor
5.    469,201 results for founder
6.    468,044 results for expert
7.    405,901 results for freelance
8.    398,420 results for contractor
9.    365,215 results for writer
10.    138,506 results for speaker
11.    84,840 results for strategist
12.    61,032 results for ambassador
13.    50,013 results for thinker
14.    45,848 results for visionary
15.    42,614 results for guru
16.    20,318 results for blogger
17.    16,270 results for evangelist
18.    4,582 results for entreprenuer
19.    3,094 results for gatekeeper
20.    1,637 results for futurist

Old favourites – like freelance and contractor – are still popular. At the start of the last decade, such descriptions were seen as being catch-all phrases for individuals operating at the fringes of the formal economy and providing an outsourced service to larger businesses.

Twenty years ago, futurologists predicted something called ‘the internet’ would allow us to all work flexibly. Now, in a new economy driven by collaborative technologies, freelancing has become the mainstream. A global economy of contractors is fast-developing, with individuals selling their expertise on-demand.

Old monikers – such as freelance and contractor – do not necessarily encapsulate the act of work. The result is a collection of meaningful/meaningless terms that are used to describe what people actually do, or would like to do.

I wonder how the table will develop as the economy changes? Feel free to suggest other esoteric descriptions.

I’ve been updating my blog. Well, actually I’ve done some of the updating. The vast amount of grunt work has been done by my good friend Jonny – he is a very decent egg. The end result of this updating process is that the blog has been moved from one platform (Mr Site) to another (WordPress).

I am currently uploading old content to WordPress. Re-publishing this old stuff in a backwards chronology is a bit like living your life in reverse style – dead features lists have been re-born, Wimbledon is still rubbish. And Aston Villa are still about 6th in the Premier League (again).

List stories are great, aren’t they? Easy to produce and as addictive as super-strength editorial crack, journalists, bloggers and Uncle Tom Cobley churn list stories out like there’s no online tomorrow.

My Twitter feed seems to be a constant trickle of lists, with the latest bunch of social media gurus keen to impart their knowledge on topics like search engine optimisation and social networking. Good for them.

And good for me, as I jump on the top tip bandwagon and ride into the search-optimised sunset. Ladles and gentlespoons, let me unveil my top five types of numbered list stories:

• Top 10: The all-time favourite – most top tip lists come in tens and there’s a reason for that; it’s a round number
• Top 100: The ultimate list story – particularly good for top album blog entries. And for Channel 4 TV shows compiling clips from the 1980s
• Top 5: Half a top ten but not necessarily half as good. Great for your basic, short tip list
• Top 6: Also has a nice, round feel. Useful for list compilers that are aiming for ten, but who quickly run out of ideas
• Top 9: There’s an honesty about giving a top nine; the complier knows they’ve only got nine points and they’re admitting as much

I recently saw a ‘Top 9′ list story where one respondent complained that the journalist hadn’t bothered to round the list up to ten. That might be so, but at least the journo was honest – the scribe clearly got to nine and ran out of ideas. I mean, it’s not like these list stories take five minutes to put together.

I was on holiday in Norfolk last week. Very nice it was, too. I hung around on the beach with my family and counted crocodiles with my daughter. That second bit was in a zoo, by the way – not on the beach…

Fading in and out of network coverage, I spent most of my time in East Anglia without the information conduits that provide my daily fix of Aston Villa news (the Worldwideinterweb), pointless babble from people I don’t really know that well (Twitter) and pictures of people I once knew doing REALLY CRAZY THINGS, like drinking (Facebook). I’ll be honest; I missed all that online rubbish.

I mean, it’s good to go without stuff you like once in a while. Like having a period without booze, dropping your reliance on email and web stuff can leave you feeling cleansed and healthy. My lovely wife – bored with my continual logging on – used to challenge me to have internet free days (IFDs).

I’ve done a few IFDs. They’re OK, but you spend most of the day thinking about how you can stop yourself from logging on. Which means you’re just as internet-obsessed as usual, only you’re thinking rather than actually doing.

A seven day IFS (internet free stretch) allows you to move beyond thinking/stopping/doing. There’s that first period of twitchiness, but you slowly get used to having no online access. In fact, you start to rely on other conduits; in Norfolk, I bought a newspaper every day and read it cover to cover. And I even used Ceefax on our non-digital TV. Yeah, man – old school.

Anyway, I’m back home now and the first thing I did was turn on the computer. I discovered I’d missed out on absolutely nothing, but it was nice to have ‘new faithful’ back. It’s tragic, I know. But I am a sucker for all that online crap.