IT came in for a bit of a kicking today, as Baby-Face Osborne put the boot into public sector goolies across Whitehall.  “£6.2bn is just the start suckers,” you can imagine him screaming in the mirror shortly prior to taking the podium.  Bless him: “I’ll squeeze you until the squeaks pip!”

Can public sector IT departments absorb their share?  You can’t help thinking that they probably will.  More pressure will come.  Then we’ll see the need for savings rather than just shavings.

IT people often complain about the difficulty they face in making business managers ‘understand’ why they need big lumps of cash for stuff like obscure networking boxes, software rollouts, and application development.  But let’s not forget that this complexity also benefits IT departments, who can actually protect themselves with it as bean-counters (when you screw them up properly) can be made to get all jumpy about the unknown consequences of pulling the wrong programme, or yanking out the wrong lead.  However, both scenarios begin with the rationale that we – as IT people – know what’s best for it.  Can that be right?

IT is in its infancy, let’s not forget.  The rules are still being written.  So when was the last time you got pretty damn fundamental about your approach to how you operate your network, your helpdesk, your security, your data?  Exactly how sure are you that there aren’t opportunities – maybe in processes, maybe in products, maybe in people – inside your department to cut completely unnecessary waste? 

Make the time to review it by evaluating opportunities to automate, or consolidate.  Make technology work harder.  And imagine Baby-Face is looking over your shoulder.  You’ll want to punch him, but let him have his say first.

Click here see story from Computer Weekly – http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2010/05/24/241335/government-cuts-95m-from-it-budget.htm

What’s £6 billion of immediate spending cuts between friends?  In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t anywhere near enough to scupper the birth of our new ‘ConDem Nation’ as the Liberals opted to overlook the straight-out-of-the-blocks eagerness of the Tory axe as small beer.  A pragmatic outlook…  When the total overall deficit is nudging ever closer to £1 trillion, cuts are going to have to run a lot deeper than that.

So watch out public sector IT.  Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon…  Sat in the back-room rather than out and about delivering ‘front-line services’, you can mount your defence with talk of community empowerment, green efficiencies and collaborative productivity gains; it won’t wash.  Florence Nightingale you are not.  Dixon of Dock Green you shall never be.  You are a paper clip.  Economise or be destroyed… please.

Except it won’t really play out like that will it?  Not least because public sector IT departments really are working hard to demonstrably support the improvement of services on the front-line while at the same time underwriting the processes that strip out expensive inefficiencies from back-office operations.  “White elephants aside, we are value for money,” comes the retort.  And before the management on high reply, “sorry, I’m going to have to napalm everything here to within an inch of its life anyway”, we beg the question: do these technology ignoramuses really know what they are cutting back on?  “IT is pretty well plugged into to everything nowadays you know.  What if an oojamaflip fails, or an ossilating pamplebum joo-joo went on the blink?  They’d be dead bodies piling up in the street by teatime…”

The truth is that right at the heart of pretty much every public sector IT department, swathed as they are in software sophistication and network complexity, are manual checklists, duplicated spreadsheets and other pre-1980s working practices that would make a Business Transformation & Efficiency Improvement Change Management Consultant blush.  They are what gets used to fight fires with; diverting precious resources away from innovation, development and renewal.  There’s the waste with no argument not to cut.

So either keep it all hidden from the bean-counters that stalk your corridors or, for all our sakes, automate IT so that the budget you have left can be spent on the things that really matter rather than the operating processes that really don’t.

Chances are, you are time-poor.  Indeed, despite the advances in mobile communications, cloud services, intelligent gizmos and the like, you are more time-poor than you’ve ever been.  Less time to think, less time to plan, less time to learn, less time to get out of work and go and have fun instead. 

The IT industry is trying to sell you stuff.  Stuff that makes IT go faster, stuff that’s cheaper, and more secure.  Stuff that will save your organisation money, reduce delay and ineffiency in business processes, and requires less skill from IT operators and users alike. So you buy it…perhaps?

But what you really want is more space and time. Your own Flux-Capacitor™ that will suspend the laws of motion and let you clear the decks so you can concentrate on what really matters in your job; namely, realising the value you can bring about by applying IT in fiendishly clever ways.

OK so the Flux-Capacitor might be just snake-oil, but there are real strategies you can pursue, and technologies you can adopt, that will dissolve the fire-fighting duties and increase the proportion of time you can spend upon progressive IT strategy.

This blog is here to comment upon pertinent topics, inform and possibly even inspire IT professionals – from sysadmins to CIOs – to find ways of taking your intellect away from the meat-grinder and into the microwave. If most of your time today is spent on ‘essential’ IT operations work, then you risk suffocating that meagre percentage remaining that exists for IT innovation.

We’re working on it, but if you’ve got any ideas to contribute and share in the meantime then please let us know.

Every home in the UK will have access to super-fast electricity, which is the broadband of the post-industrial age, just as soon as utility providers get around to delivering it, said Gordon Brown today.

“We aim to make Britain the dominant digital power in the world by the time I’ve retired from politics,” claimed Brown, who is learning computer skills on a state-of-the-art BBC Micro.  “Broadband is a very important thing; something that makes travel and many other time-consuming processes completely obsolete.  It will also save billions in making government departments cleaner, more efficient and with more upholstery options.  We probably won’t need the net 17 million or so jobs that broadband will create.  Good grief no; we’ll be too busy enjoying ourselves taking part in e-petitions and playing Wii.”

Rather than leave the development of ultra mega broadband to market forces however, the Prime Minister has indicated that his government would favour market intervention:  “Our policy is to speak to BT and make them understand that this is right for Britain,” he added.  “A very stern talking-to you understand, not just a bit of a chat and what-not.  I might even shout.”

In related news, Virgin Media has been demonstrating its revolutionary 200Mbps broadband service at the Ideal Home Show.  “We put this box here, and this other one over there, then we press this button and…look…see it works,” remarked Virgin’s chief liability, Richard Branston.  “It’s even easier in real conditions.  It’s so artificial here; the broadband goblins don’t really like it.”

Computer Weekly are supporting the CARE 3 Peaks Challenge, an initiative for IT professionals to help raise funds to tackle poverty by scaling the highest peaks in England, Wales and Scotland inside a 24 hour period.  There are looking for teams of IT pros to join the challenge…
Find out more or register your interest at http://www.carechallenge.org.uk/IT.  

So if you think that big server upgrade (or whatever) you are planning is a tall order, then consider what it must be like to find enough food to eat today.  Or if that’s too hard to imagine, contemplate instead the challenge of climbing Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowden in the space of 24 hours.

Have a look at http://www.carechallenge.org.uk/IT – it could be the most important thing you do all year.

The age old ploy of using geek-speak to dupe management and users is in danger of backfiring upon IT professionals according to experts gathering at an international industry shindig somewhere in Belgium.

Specifically, hapless users confronted with jargonated gobbledygook pertaining to Internet security threats are at risk of doing themselves more harm than good by glazing over, pretending it isn’t happening and hence falling victim to all manner of malware nasties.

Duval - popular in Belgium

“There are some people in the profession who to some degree enjoy the mystification of what they do,” claimed ex-US Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff, clearly after having consumed a few too many bottles of Duval. 

You are damn right Mr. er… Chertoff.

“With cybersecurity, the task is to make the architecture more user-friendly and to teach people better,” he added, before banging on about his old army stricture about being able to call an entrenching tool an entrenching tool (or perhaps not).

Click here to read the proper story.

Those crazy plastic-manglers at Mattel have accessorised Barbie with a pink laptop, Bluetooth headset and – get this – a watch, and called her a ‘tech support’.  Forget larking on the beach in a bikini; this babe is having enough fun down in the basement talking idiot users through IP configs, and rummaging around behind the server cabs for that old bag of cable ends.

Turn it off, wait, then turn it back on again

One positive use already identified for the doll – other than wedging the comms room door open – will be to raise the debate concerning women in the male-dominated world of IT.  Reading the reaction to this story in all the usual places, opinion is split between those apparently disgusted that Barbie still exists in 2010, and those (predominately female voices) who find it somewhere in a sliding scale between harmless fun and ‘empowering’.

Let’s not forget that Barbie is a doll for children, most likely girls under the age of ten.  In that context, the ‘tech support’ aspect of this toy is more laudable than most of the other get-ups we know Barbie for.  And we are dying to see the ‘Barbie’s IT Department’ action set that you’ll be able to get with it in time for Christmas.

We are suspicious that ‘cloud computing’ is one of those things that isn’t quite here yet, despite the fact that everyone seems to bang on like it is.  For example, the fountains of knowledge up at Gartner claim we will all be living in cloud cuckoo land by a week next Tuesday (OK so maybe it’s more like a sizeable minority by 2012 or something) but perhaps this is too premature. 

According to Computer Weekly, a recent cloud focused event found that many businesses who had embraced the cloud (that just sounds silly doesn’t it?) boasted IT savings of anything up to 90%.  It’s all to do with harnessing utility processing power at cheap accessible rates rather than running your own datacentre/s blah blah blah.

A cloud, earlier

Now permit us to skirt over all of the technical detail here but, merit-worthy as this all sounds, it doesn’t necessarily address all the niggly stuff that IT departments have to contend with on a daily basis.  More technology… pah…how about better processes for a change?  We are supposed to be masters of technology, but the development of cloud computing seems to have everyone contemplating radically different infrastructure set-ups in order to march to its tune.

In the next ten years, you will likely buy a hybrid car rather than an electric one.  Why?  Because the reality is that near-term.  As such, will all your IT really exist within a cloud, or is it more likely that the weather will gather from time to time and then blow away?

A bit like US presidents pumping trillions into firing pieces of junk at the planet Mars, UK politicians talking big on IT and technology in general are obviously trying to reflect back all the associated positive attributes onto themselves.  What’s not to like about someone painting pretty pictures of a better tomorrow?  A vote winner right there; just wave an iPad around, go on YouTube, get Twitter and Facebook crazy, and promise to shove a big pile of broadband up everyone’s nose.  

Yes, we are a bit cynical.

Passing without comment on this blog at the time, was the sad news that Labour MP David Taylor had died last Boxing Day.  So why mention it now?  Because with many years experience at the sharp end within a sizeable IT department, Mr Taylor was one of the few parliamentarians who understood anything of any substance regarding IT.

Instead, brace yourself.  Not only for the inevitable surfeit of horrifically over-simplified and inaccurate IT-related ramblings from poorly briefing politicos, but also for the ensuing responses from equally ill-at-ease ignoramuses who might in fact have good reason to shout-down their opponent’s tech-drenched manifesto pledge but who will – rather unfortunately – do so really badly.

Right now, somewhere, at the end of some speech-writer’s pen are the words: “After all, we are all IT users now…”

Not ALL of us mate…

On 6^th April, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) will collect new powers enabling it to discharge the sort of stern clip around the ear that recalcitrant corporate data abusers rightly deserve.   Ahead of the big date, the Deputy Info Comm himself has been on the PR offensive to balance the iron fist of £500,000 fines on the one hand with the olive branch of guidance, sympathy and a nice cup of tea in the other.

Working at the ICO must be a bit like being a police officer attached to the ‘don’t drink and drive’ initiative circa 1975.  Everyone says it’s an important and worthy cause, but not enough to radically alter behaviour.  Not yet anyway…

Unlike the booze lobby who dragged their heels encouraging drinkers to leave their car keys at home, at least the ICO has an ally among the vendor and reseller community.  At least when they aren’t overdoing the FUD anyway…

Dare to look at your inbox and they’ll be sales pitches telling you that if it isn’t impending regulatory compliance of one form or another that is hours away from burning down your house and strong-arming your kids off to a Siberian gulag, then bet your bottom dollar the ICO will soon be rapping your quivering buttocks with court summons to pay a £gazillion data breach fine.   But scare tactics only work up to a point, and it’s encouraging to see that the ICO appreciate that fact.

What broke the back of the drink drive problem wasn’t just shock and awe, or education – it was honesty.  People were honest with each other, admitting they’d done it, that it was wrong, and that they wouldn’t do it anymore.

Honesty in terms of data breaches would start with many IT depts admitting they don’t have a terrific handle on exactly what the hell is going on event logging and reporting wise, and that in the event of a critical issue they wouldn’t have the internal resources to deal with it.  While that may necessitate a technical solution from a trusted source, internal corporate paymasters need to sit up and listen too.

Keeping data secure is a strategic issue, and not simply an operational one.  IT pros may or may not need help to solve it, but they could all do with extra time and resources to avoid it getting washed overboard by other ‘priorities’.