tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40477654663357660672024-03-05T10:07:38.608-08:00ITManageCastTaking the "blah" out of blogging on IT Project, Service, and Operations management topics.Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.comBlogger136125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-19891046413248352642018-05-20T18:57:00.001-07:002018-05-20T18:57:23.489-07:00itManageCast Ep000 - ITMC Rebooted<iframe style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/6615692/height/90/theme/custom/autoplay/no/autonext/no/thumbnail/no/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/forward/tdest_id/415866/render-playlist/no/custom-color/87A93A/" height="90" width="100%" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe><br /><p>The podcast that takes the blah out of blah-gging about Information Technology service management, leadership, and project management.</p> <p>This first episode introduces you the listener to the hosts, the premise of the show, and what to expect in the next episodes.</p> <p>Contact itManagecast via Twitter @itManageCast or email at <a href= "mailto:itManageCast@gmail.com">itManageCast@gmail.com</a></p> <p>Thanks for listening!</p> <br /><p><a target="_blank" href="http://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/6615692/tdest_id/415866">Check out this episode!</a></p>Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-35229224718734264162016-03-29T07:23:00.000-07:002016-03-29T07:23:55.052-07:00Adventures in PMP Certification - Bootcamp Review<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As mentioned in the previous post, last summer I attended the <a href="http://corporateoasis.com/pmp-certification-exam-preparation/" target="_blank">PMP prep bootcamp in Vancouver put on by Corporate Oasis</a>. So in today's blog article I'll give you some feedback on my experience to help you make your own decisions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">First off, I quickly learned that <a href="http://www.pmi.org/PMBOK-Guide-and-Standards.aspx" target="_blank">the PMBOK materials</a> are extensive. Perhaps that's not the right word... massive? Either way, there is a LOT of material to cover, even for someone like me who has been managing IT projects for many years. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The main reason that your years of experience may not be as helpful as you'd think is because the exam itself is based specifically on the content of <a href="http://www.pmi.org/PMBOK-Guide-and-Standards/pmbok-guide.aspx" target="_blank">the PMBOK (R) Guide</a>, and not necessarily the "common sense" approach you've learned through experience. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now that all said, in previous discussions with Paul Robinson of Corporate Oasis, I learned that the materials used for the bootcamp and subsequent self-study are varied and pulled together into a comprehensive learning program. The first mark in favour of this particular bootcamp was Paul letting me peruse the materials before signing up for the class so I could get a sense of the quality.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Corporate Oasis leveraged <a href="https://www.velociteach.com/" target="_blank">the Velociteach program</a>, which uses a textbook, audio CDs, flash cards, a quick reference guide (read: cheat sheet format), and a customized student workbook. All these materials are extremely helpful as we all have different learning styles and you can work with what works best for you. That would be the second point in favour of the bootcamp.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thirdly, the bootcamp ran for three very full business days. This accelerated program reduces the workplace impact, but all the material still gets covered, including some in-class quizzes to test your learning pace. That all said, you can't be distracted by work or other things during these three days so you'll need to plan your time accordingly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Paul led the classes and has an excellent instruction style. He was highly interactive with the class, measured the pace of delivery based on the progress of the class, and had intentionally kept the class on the small-side of sizing to enable us to get to know each other and learn with and from each other. So I think that's points four and five in favour of this bootcamp. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Due to the compressed schedule, there isn't time to teach you how to use the learning materials themselves - but the assumption is that the class is being taken by adults who've learned how to learn, and understand their own optimal learning styles. So be aware of that going in, but it's not so much a mark against the bootcamp, as it is a warning if you are expecting to have your hand held through the process.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is homework during the bootcamp period, but again, to accommodate the compressed schedule that's necessary. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So in summary, I would strongly recommend if you are pursuing your PMP certification to take a recognized bootcamp to ensure you get a necessary immersion in the PMBOK materials. And if you are looking at your PMP Bootcamp options, I would suggest you take a good look at the Corporate Oasis offering.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If you'd like more information on the Corporate Oasis PMP bootcamp feel free to contact me through Twitter @itManageCast or my itManageCast@gmail.com email, or contact the team at <a href="http://corporateoasis.com/" target="_blank">Corporate Oasis</a> directly at:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Calgary: (403) 456-3402</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Vancouver: (604) 282-7898</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Toronto: (416) 855-0292</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span>Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0Vancouver, BC, Canada49.2827291 -123.1207375000000249.1169101 -123.44346100000001 49.4485481 -122.79801400000002tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-83854134128953184882015-07-13T14:43:00.000-07:002015-07-14T06:00:47.237-07:00Adventures in PMP Certification - Where to Start?<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I thought I'd start a new series of posts to follow my personal journey in obtaining my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Management_Professional" target="_blank">Project Management Professional certification (the PMI PMP certification)</a>, as I get a sense this is an area where many can learn from my experiences and avoid their own mistakes!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Very brief background to set the stage - I'm a 20+ year veteran of IT, primarily IT infrastructure and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITIL" target="_blank">IT Service Management </a>focussed, with 10+ years of project management experience. Currently I'm looking for my next role but I never did "bother" to get my PMP certification. So now I am.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Getting the PMP cert has always been in the back of my mind, but never made it onto my career roadmap as I figured my experience & education in the area outweighed the need for the three letters to put on my resume & business cards. Well, this particular certification has been well accepted by the industry in general and <a href="http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/project-management-certifications,2-670.html" target="_blank">having the experience PLUS the certification is what employers are looking for</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So my journey started by having coffee with friends and associates who currently hold the designation and asking them about their journeys, and where to start. There are nearly as many approaches to this as there are people I spoke with, but in the end I chose this approach:</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Research</span></b><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Start by creating an account on the <a href="http://www.pmi.org/" target="_blank">PMI.org website</a></span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then go to the </span><a href="http://www.pmi.org/certification.aspx" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Certifications page</a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> and read up on the range of certs available to decide which is best for you. If you are reading this, likely that'll be the Project Management Professional (PMP).</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You will also learn about the Application Process for your PMP certification. That's a detailed form you'll need to fill out. I've only just started mine, but follow this blog for any advice I have for you as I progress through my application.</span></li>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Learn</span></b><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Start with self-study unless you have the time/money to take a full-on PMP course. Then once you are comfortable with the basics, take a PMP exam bootcamp and study until you're ready for the exam.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I started with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/G.-Michael-Campbell/e/B001JP9TJI" target="_blank">G. Michael Campbell's Project Management Sixth Edition</a>, which I found an easy read and a nice starting point.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You'll also want to obtain a copy of the <a href="http://www.pmi.org/pmbok-guide-and-standards/pmbok-guide.aspx" target="_blank">PM-BOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge)</a> which you can get in hardcopy or softcopy. This is a dry read on its own, but it is the text on which you'll be tested.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I just last week completed the <a href="http://corporateoasis.com/pmp-certification-exam-preparation/" target="_blank">Corporate Oasis PMP Certification Boot Camp</a> course hosted in Vancouver at the <a href="http://www.tacitconsult.com/" target="_blank">Tacit Consulting offices</a>. More on that later.</span></li>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Certify</span></b><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This part I haven't gotten to yet, but if you follow my posts you'll hear how it goes and any advice I have for you.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So those are the high-level quick steps I'm following toward my goal of PMP certification. I'm looking forward to continuing my path to certification and sharing what I learn with all of you.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If you have any advice or input from your experience I'd really love to hear about - feel free to contact me at itManageCast on <a href="https://twitter.com/itmanagecast" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, Gmail, or <a href="http://ca.linkedin.com/in/jasonkennedy" target="_blank">Jason J Kennedy on LinkedIn</a> to share your thoughts and experiences.</span><br />
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Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0Vancouver, BC, Canada49.2827291 -123.1207375000000249.1169131 -123.44346100000001 49.4485451 -122.79801400000002tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-80140554575148459582015-06-04T14:03:00.000-07:002015-06-05T10:55:23.139-07:00itManageCast Episode 8 - PMP Best Practices and Certification<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWoTB42LIDOpM5jfnQ_KqdsgPG7v6T8Yx-Y09GPDq7qHTpz62ny7Ic1mNMX-SZPfxz9jOCc71mXLnL5BYirJWkZbhQIxr48qKMdjjO4a2Dgytv1hkd3cwTE2gl2Una3-Rija10fjNUTW9O/s1600/PaulRobinson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWoTB42LIDOpM5jfnQ_KqdsgPG7v6T8Yx-Y09GPDq7qHTpz62ny7Ic1mNMX-SZPfxz9jOCc71mXLnL5BYirJWkZbhQIxr48qKMdjjO4a2Dgytv1hkd3cwTE2gl2Una3-Rija10fjNUTW9O/s200/PaulRobinson.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This week on the itManageCast podcast we were fortunate to join Paul Robinson of <a href="http://corporateoasis.com/" target="_blank">Corporate Oasis</a> at his home on Mayne Island, and sit down for a great chat that ranged across a few topics but included the value proposition of project management knowledge, the importance of and how to apply an interdisciplinary framework of best practices, and various certifications, particularly the PMP.</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We hope you get as much value out of listening to this as I did spending the time with Paul, and encourage you to contact him directly or via our show if you have any further questions or feedback.</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In addition we discuss a new Internet of Things (IoT) enabling technology from Chinese chip manufacturer RockChip, the HP Discover 2015 conference, and how to access webinars on IT Security and Privacy.</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>To download this weeks podcast, click on the link below:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://ia801503.us.archive.org/31/items/itMCEpisode8/itMCEpisode8.mp3" target="_blank"><b>itManageCast Podcast Episode 8</b></a></span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Links from our show notes are:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Paul Robinson's email: Paul.Robinson@corporateoasis.com</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://corporateoasis.com/" target="_blank">Corporate Oasis Website</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.pmi.org/" target="_blank">Project Management Institute</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.rock-chips.com/" target="_blank">RockChip</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://discover.hp.com/Discover/Events/LasVegas2015" target="_blank">HP Discover 2015</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.vivit-worldwide.org/" target="_blank">Vivit Worldwide</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.sans.org/webcasts/" target="_blank">SANS Webcasts</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Listen on Stitcher Internet Radio:</b></span><br />
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Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-49592297061255546702015-05-06T18:51:00.000-07:002015-05-06T18:51:08.534-07:00itManageCast Episode 7 <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX4j-9mTsSXHeAOk4SPDzkkD_XnKd7gBYRZADvDIc_ZegIRkvitx1FeaRBQcSlV62nKolJSumI6rn13AOhweqgGMpF8dsyfDvQlYvkeFZi8WIVlbpDsFEbBofJVGCNXvZskArQXn48d69a/s1600/Template.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX4j-9mTsSXHeAOk4SPDzkkD_XnKd7gBYRZADvDIc_ZegIRkvitx1FeaRBQcSlV62nKolJSumI6rn13AOhweqgGMpF8dsyfDvQlYvkeFZi8WIVlbpDsFEbBofJVGCNXvZskArQXn48d69a/s1600/Template.jpg" height="94" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For episode 7 we didn't have any guests for you, but we did cover a variety of IT news and events of interest to our listeners.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Host Jason Kennedy discussed the Procurify brand launch event he attended a couple of weeks ago, and most notably shared about that cloud-services innovator's bold move of launching a trade magazine - weird eh? But cool, and a good read.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.procurify.com/" target="_blank">Company website </a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://blog.procurify.com/" target="_blank">Procurify blog articles</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://start.procurify.com/procurement-sense-magazine/" target="_blank">Procurement Sense magazine downloads</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRaW_WqwIH37CrQA-j95XcN7RFLsN7lhv-xdzRPBAmGsW_02LCPN8ARr-aoKZLflUji5r4guHZVOzLJgcdqSaPL4ca-h8DV05KWeYeSJSTmRtV6V14jnpsX5OzZftcLKvklBb34K34EdS7/s1600/ProcurementSense.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRaW_WqwIH37CrQA-j95XcN7RFLsN7lhv-xdzRPBAmGsW_02LCPN8ARr-aoKZLflUji5r4guHZVOzLJgcdqSaPL4ca-h8DV05KWeYeSJSTmRtV6V14jnpsX5OzZftcLKvklBb34K34EdS7/s1600/ProcurementSense.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Click the link below to download the audio for this podcast.</span><br style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;" /><span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px;"><b><a href="https://ia601507.us.archive.org/6/items/itMCEpisode7/itMCEpisode7.mp3" target="_blank">itManageCast Episode 7 </a></b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We also discussed the recent NDP majority election in Alberta, CA and are interested to hear from YOU what ripple effects that may have in the energy and tech sectors in Alberta and beyond.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Send us your feedback via email itManageCast@gmail.com</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Follow us on Twitter! @itManageCast</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then we spoke about a few conferences and events of interest to IT professionals including:</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ITSM </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">High Performance Service Management Workshop</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thursday May 28 in Vancouver BC</span><br />
<span id="docs-internal-guid-6563ed99-2be1-f9b1-cee3-25cf3a11dd38"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.itsmf.ca/events/" style="text-decoration: none;">http://www.itsmf.ca/events/</a></span></span><br />
<span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>HP Discover</b></span></span><br />
<span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">June 2-4 in Las Vegas Nevada</span></span><br />
<span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">discover.hp.com</span></span><br />
<span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The 15th Annual Healthcare Summit</b></span></span><br />
<span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">June 22-23 in Kelowna, BC</span></span><br />
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-6563ed99-2be3-464a-255d-80e040aa8746"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>SANSFIRE 2015</b></span></span><br />
<span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">June 13-20 in Balitmore, Maryland</span></span><br />
<span id="docs-internal-guid-6563ed99-2be3-c37a-5377-4f9e3180da1a"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Registration: <a href="http://www.sans.org/u/464" style="text-decoration: none;">http://www.sans.org/u/464</a></span></span><br />
<span id="docs-internal-guid-6563ed99-2be3-e61c-0f93-069d89c9bf58"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Event Information:</span><a href="http://www.sans.org/u/464" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://www.sans.org/u/464</span></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The itManageCast podcast is available for download on Stitcher Radio by <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=65480&refid=stpr" target="_blank">clicking this link</a>.</span><br />
<br />Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0Vancouver, BC, Canada49.2827291 -123.1207375000000249.1169131 -123.44346100000001 49.4485451 -122.79801400000002tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-36085517170883173662015-04-24T10:44:00.001-07:002015-04-24T10:44:58.501-07:00itManageCast Episode 6 - Vivit Worldwide with Rocky Pisto<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBDTZgHPNHvszqZqjp_AdNo7tkHzMFTdGCsj7l4ElkadWTlr3ag6bQSkEbVhH9znGEuo1CR9UVJ01yf3tVmI0vWyL7Zw6Y5aGSgjOhQgXx8rsJs5PbWNXO6Dwjk4CC1Lp-ui3nmjaMYsLG/s1600/Rocky.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBDTZgHPNHvszqZqjp_AdNo7tkHzMFTdGCsj7l4ElkadWTlr3ag6bQSkEbVhH9znGEuo1CR9UVJ01yf3tVmI0vWyL7Zw6Y5aGSgjOhQgXx8rsJs5PbWNXO6Dwjk4CC1Lp-ui3nmjaMYsLG/s1600/Rocky.JPG" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Have you heard about Vivit Worldwide? Well apparently 30,000 of your peers around the globe have and are using the HP Software User community to hone their skills and knowledge - not just with the HP software products but with the workflows and practices that make the use of those tools into a business solution.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rocky Pisto, the Engage Coordinator for Vivit Worldwide joins us to discuss the user community, how people can leverage the knowledge and experience of 30,000 peers, and the value you get with a free membership to this group.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All this and more in 30 minutes of fun and informative audio perfect for the commute of any busy IT professional.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX4j-9mTsSXHeAOk4SPDzkkD_XnKd7gBYRZADvDIc_ZegIRkvitx1FeaRBQcSlV62nKolJSumI6rn13AOhweqgGMpF8dsyfDvQlYvkeFZi8WIVlbpDsFEbBofJVGCNXvZskArQXn48d69a/s1600/Template.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX4j-9mTsSXHeAOk4SPDzkkD_XnKd7gBYRZADvDIc_ZegIRkvitx1FeaRBQcSlV62nKolJSumI6rn13AOhweqgGMpF8dsyfDvQlYvkeFZi8WIVlbpDsFEbBofJVGCNXvZskArQXn48d69a/s1600/Template.jpg" height="94" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Click the link below to download the audio for this podcast.</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 17px;"><b><a href="https://ia601509.us.archive.org/14/items/itMCEpisode6_201504/itMCEpisode6.mp3" target="_blank">itManageCast Episode 6 - The Vivit Worldwide with Rocky Pisto</a></b></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"></span><span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><i style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">For feedback on this or any episode of the itManageCast podcast, or to recommend topics or guests for future shows, please contact us via Twitter @itManageCast or email us at our GMail account.</i><span style="line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"></span><span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Links:</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">email Rocky at:</span> <span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="mailto:rocky.pisto@vivit-worldwide.org" style="text-decoration: none;">rocky.pisto@vivit-worldwide.org</a></span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.vivit-worldwide.org/" target="_blank">Vivit Worldwide HP Software User Community</a></span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For more information on Rocky's paintings:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkiYVTogXlzGpQhmt317OU6Uty9REsX2rxIc5sCtRF5j4sHZRT1xb1VH9On3iyUCwki1WILt0a9JqF45UekzaOR4IKMUC8J4Hsc13RGiXejnZpDXyggyscG8b_RsMvq4nTAhUtKftj6dnV/s1600/RoccoPisto.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkiYVTogXlzGpQhmt317OU6Uty9REsX2rxIc5sCtRF5j4sHZRT1xb1VH9On3iyUCwki1WILt0a9JqF45UekzaOR4IKMUC8J4Hsc13RGiXejnZpDXyggyscG8b_RsMvq4nTAhUtKftj6dnV/s1600/RoccoPisto.png" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="mailto:roccopistoart@gmail.com"><span style="color: #0563c1;">roccopistoart@gmail.com</span></a></b><br />
<span style="color: red; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.roccopistopaintings.com/"><span style="color: #0563c1;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>www.roccopistopaintings.com</b></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold;">
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</span>Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-59161918985742136582015-03-02T08:18:00.001-08:002015-03-02T08:18:19.477-08:00itManageCast Episode 5 - The Quality Assurance Consultation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1GrSH8Wya0v9jJ4OsqP_AJjKTThDkci5iL2fsGcIcYE-Uafc3BnSM-hEIv4ZBL6I8r6vyqX_Oe1g3X__SXAeypggmS01NcpIMpz3NvMedW_-XRu9N8vxWSm15p2CqetKYfBqsn6ThH3bi/s1600/ChristopherScharer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1GrSH8Wya0v9jJ4OsqP_AJjKTThDkci5iL2fsGcIcYE-Uafc3BnSM-hEIv4ZBL6I8r6vyqX_Oe1g3X__SXAeypggmS01NcpIMpz3NvMedW_-XRu9N8vxWSm15p2CqetKYfBqsn6ThH3bi/s1600/ChristopherScharer.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Listen in to learn more about how to engage your business and support your development teams with deeper insight into the function of Quality Assurance with guest Christopher Scharer, in today's podcast.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Christopher holds deep </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">experience in software development and automated software testing, working in the field since 1980. With experience in data-driven, keyword-driven and hybrid methodologies, Christopher has helped companies achieve testing success in a wide variety of business applications in the banking, finance, & healthcare industries.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">In our conversation we define in clear terms what the expected function of QA (Quality Assurance) within the Software Development LifeCycle (SDLC) is, contrast that against Quality Control, and look at implication of different development methodologies and the application of QA.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX4j-9mTsSXHeAOk4SPDzkkD_XnKd7gBYRZADvDIc_ZegIRkvitx1FeaRBQcSlV62nKolJSumI6rn13AOhweqgGMpF8dsyfDvQlYvkeFZi8WIVlbpDsFEbBofJVGCNXvZskArQXn48d69a/s1600/Template.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX4j-9mTsSXHeAOk4SPDzkkD_XnKd7gBYRZADvDIc_ZegIRkvitx1FeaRBQcSlV62nKolJSumI6rn13AOhweqgGMpF8dsyfDvQlYvkeFZi8WIVlbpDsFEbBofJVGCNXvZskArQXn48d69a/s1600/Template.jpg" height="94" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">At a higher level, we also explore how to engage your IT function and business units in the support of developing QA skills or functions, discuss the merits of in-sourcing and out-sourcing QA, and discuss the most important skills and traits to seek out or develop for Quality Assurance professionals in today's IT marketplace.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">All of this in 30 minutes of engaging conversation that will appeal to any IT or business professional.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">Click the link below to download the audio for this podcast.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7yg_5Z7x9Hpc2FNWWhuaUZHbnc&authuser=0" target="_blank"><b>itManageCast Episode 5 - The Quality Assurance Consultation</b></a></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">For feedback on this or any episode of the itManageCast podcast, or to recommend topics or guests for future shows, please contact us via Twitter @itManageCast or email us at our GMail account.</i><span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Links:</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">To contact Christopher Scharer directly please email: </span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="mailto:Christopher.Scharer@Vivit-Worldwide.org" style="text-decoration: none;">Christopher.Scharer@Vivit-Worldwide.org</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span>Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com2Iowa, USA41.8780025 -93.09770200000002738.854508 -98.261276000000024 44.901497 -87.93412800000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-57058356997612134422015-02-16T16:10:00.000-08:002015-02-16T16:10:22.256-08:00Podcast Episode 4 - The Disaster Recovery Discussion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5gNE85QqgKwV81D3FOPAMifMLq7AO8d1eo7PBxBjnXwrrHlbgrmWccK-ii5g3F6M_ZAT98wqLI8_MTiL1kP_bhLl9x2XTXYli7jvWjxUf0OHNygAgNNg7QTQcDDiFOHWTwh-UfvWV65zX/s1600/TomWahl.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5gNE85QqgKwV81D3FOPAMifMLq7AO8d1eo7PBxBjnXwrrHlbgrmWccK-ii5g3F6M_ZAT98wqLI8_MTiL1kP_bhLl9x2XTXYli7jvWjxUf0OHNygAgNNg7QTQcDDiFOHWTwh-UfvWV65zX/s1600/TomWahl.JPG" height="320" width="309" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In episode 4 of the itManageCast podcast, Tom Wahl joins host Jason Kennedy to provide insight into Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity planning for the IT professional. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In this 30 minute conversation Tom and Jason explore the essential aspects of disaster recovery and business continuity, where they are the same and where they are different. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We also discuss where the IT professionals responsibility for these services should ideally begin and end, and how to engage the other business functions in your organization into ownership over them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last but not least, Tom provides some insight into where to start if you are tasked with providing a disaster recovery plan for your organization.</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Click the link below to download the audio for this podcast.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7yg_5Z7x9HpaWRsTEtsQUpSR1U&authuser=0" target="_blank">itManageCast Episode 4 - The Disaster Recovery Discussion</a></span><br />
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<i style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">For feedback on this or any episode of the itManageCast podcast, or to recommend topics or guests for future shows, please contact us via Twitter @itManageCast or email us at our GMail account.</i><span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"> </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><b>Links:</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">to contact Tom Wahl directly email: </span><span style="font-family: Arial; white-space: pre-wrap;">tom@twltd.com</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com1Vancouver, BC, Canada49.2827291 -123.1207375000000249.1169131 -123.44346100000001 49.4485451 -122.79801400000002tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-14302147476374734252015-02-05T14:32:00.000-08:002016-05-02T15:57:43.349-07:00Podcast Episode 3 - The IT Service Transformation Talk<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Gilles Marchand of GMar Consulting joins host Jason Kennedy for a 25 minute conversation to discuss a sensible approach to undertaking IT Service transformation. </span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We discuss in depth what it is, what it isn't, and how to ensure successful outcomes. </span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Gilles provides some insight into how to gain business sponsor support for IT Service Transformation activities, and how to leverage these principles to improve the efficiency of your IT operations.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/4338320/height/360/width/640/theme/legacy/autoplay/no/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/backward/no-cache/true/" style="border: none;" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
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</span> <i style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Click the link below to download the audio of the podcast:</span></i><br />
<i style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></i> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #fefdfa; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><b><a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/itmanagecast/itMCEpisode3.mp3" target="_blank">itManageCast Episode 3 - The IT Service Transformation Talk</a></b></span></span><br />
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</span></span> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX4j-9mTsSXHeAOk4SPDzkkD_XnKd7gBYRZADvDIc_ZegIRkvitx1FeaRBQcSlV62nKolJSumI6rn13AOhweqgGMpF8dsyfDvQlYvkeFZi8WIVlbpDsFEbBofJVGCNXvZskArQXn48d69a/s1600/Template.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="58" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX4j-9mTsSXHeAOk4SPDzkkD_XnKd7gBYRZADvDIc_ZegIRkvitx1FeaRBQcSlV62nKolJSumI6rn13AOhweqgGMpF8dsyfDvQlYvkeFZi8WIVlbpDsFEbBofJVGCNXvZskArQXn48d69a/s1600/Template.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">To watch the video recording of the podcast on YouTube, click <a href="http://www.itmanagecast.com/p/podcast.html" style="color: #7d181e; text-decoration: none;">Podcast</a> here or at the top of this page.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;"><i>For feedback on this or any episode of the itManageCast podcast, or to recommend topics or guests for future shows, please contact us via Twitter @itManageCast or email us at our GMail account.</i> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Links:</span></i></span></h2>
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<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">email: </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-c597650a-3124-49a5-2163-4eb5584433f8" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">gmarconsulting@outlook.com</span></span></li>
<li><a href="http://www.itsmf.ca/" style="color: #7d181e; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">itSMF Canada</span></span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.pmi.org/" style="color: #7d181e; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small;">Project Management Institute</span></a></li>
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Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0Vancouver, BC, Canada49.2827291 -123.1207375000000249.1169131 -123.44346100000001 49.4485451 -122.79801400000002tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-70494791547682708532015-01-28T07:59:00.001-08:002016-05-02T15:55:35.799-07:00Podcast Episode 2 - The Database Conversion Conversation<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In our second episode <b>Chris Umphenour</b> of Life Center Ministries joins host Jason Kennedy to discuss lessons learned from a database conversion project in a small to mid-sized IT shop.</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Chris shares his experiences regarding planning and shares advice on how to ensure you are set up for success if you need to undertake a database conversion project under time and budget constraints. We also enumerate the key roles and responsibilities needed within the project team to see success.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" msallowfullscreen="" oallowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/4338029/height/360/width/640/theme/standard/autoplay/no/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/backward/no-cache/true/" style="border: none;" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Click the link below to download the audio of the podcast:</span></i><br />
<a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/itmanagecast/itMCEpisode2.mp3" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">itManageCast Episode 2 - The Database Conversion Conversation</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To watch the video recording of the podcast on YouTube, click <a href="http://www.itmanagecast.com/p/podcast.html">Podcast</a> here or at the top of this page.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><b>For feedback on this or any episode of the itManageCast podcast, or to recommend topics or guests for future shows, please contact us via Twitter @itManageCast or email us at our GMail account.</b></i> </span><br />
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Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0Tacoma, WA, USA47.2528768 -122.4442905999999947.0803978 -122.76701409999998 47.425355800000006 -122.1215671tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-51081530197858680472015-01-20T09:14:00.000-08:002015-01-20T09:14:52.121-08:00Know Thyself to Recover from Demotivation<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In many activities, and most certainly in the process of a job search, it is common and expected to hit valleys of enthusiasm, or feel de-motivated. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The human psyche constantly moves through cycles of energy or enthusiasm for any activity we undertake - our work, exercise, chores about the home. Quite frankly, we will not be able to pro-actively "level out" these peaks and valleys nor should we. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What we need to do is understand what emotions and experiences are driving those highs and lows so that we can respond to them in a self-constructive manner.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A fascinating "big data social media" </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/science/30twitter.html?_r=0" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">study released by social sciences researchers</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> in 2011 noted that regardless of where you live and what you do, your enthusiasm - your motivation level - is going to naturally cycle through the day, week, month, and year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The science behind this is explained in a variety of articles and studies and to sum it up, it's normal - there's nothing "wrong" with feeling un- or de-motivated at times. What that signals is that there is an underlying cause for the feeling that requires your response in a timely manner. </span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b style="background-color: white;">Ask yourself why?</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So key to addressing lows or "dips" in your motivation is understanding why you are feeling that way. This can be complicated, and sometimes a bit scary. And let's be frank, I'm not a psychologist or spiritual advisor, I just play one on TV. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, to share with you what I've learned through my current process of job transition is that it can often be easier to catch up on missed episodes of your favourite show on Netflix rather than knuckle down to the job search, but if you get at the root cause you will get re-energized and move forward with increased enthusiasm that shows through to everyone you meet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Taking on new challenges can be exciting and invigorating at first - the motivational peak. But once under-way, the risks or concerns - what might go wrong - start to creep up, and your motivation can (and usually will) slump. Planning ahead for those slumps will help you move through them with minimal impact, and keep you moving forward.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b><i>"Plan...and use slow-down periods to re-energize..."</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Expect that you are going to hit some lows, some lack of motivation. Plan some time during the motivational peaks to assess what the motivating factors are, and consider the risks that you might find demotivating - then plan, and use those slow-down periods to re-energize, focus, and move yourself forward.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Human emotions - generally - follow the "universal rules" of cause and effect. Take pause to consider the cause and you can affect the effect.</span><br />
<br />Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-66429998436941543152014-12-17T18:41:00.000-08:002014-12-23T09:38:08.372-08:00Cloud ReMix - How Personal Use Can Influence Business Decisions<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most of us spend a lot of time reading and thinking about cloud services for business use, and learning ways to ensure we make the best use of these types of services to benefit our business. Gaining the most efficiency, lowest cost, and least risk.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These are all valuable considerations, and important to be focussing on when making any cloud-based investment in IT services. But what framework do we use use to make these evaluations?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was recently contacted by a cloud services company called <a href="https://www.singlehop.com/private-cloud-hosting/dedicated-private-clouds/" target="_blank">SingleHop</a> and they wanted to share an infographic they had designed. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie1vBAH0kT16gxqiwy82bLXsdVR7oCkwfsv-mcfckVUtyogLu1JoC_A5ptt279wU4DpW-6QcICl2y43le_X6iDhfj0keZI-OzpSs1HQOmOZaoKjG5XQUdyYzWAWEIMCXEiCKeOCUTJPVM3/s1600/SingleHop+LITC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie1vBAH0kT16gxqiwy82bLXsdVR7oCkwfsv-mcfckVUtyogLu1JoC_A5ptt279wU4DpW-6QcICl2y43le_X6iDhfj0keZI-OzpSs1HQOmOZaoKjG5XQUdyYzWAWEIMCXEiCKeOCUTJPVM3/s1600/SingleHop+LITC.jpg" height="640" width="225" /></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The correspondence I had with Dave from SingleHop prompted me to think about leveraging ways I use the cloud in my day to day life to form the criteria used to evaluate cloud services for business use.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">...leveraging every-day cloud experiences (makes the) world of business IT services in the cloud ... much less "mystical."</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Further to that thought, is the consideration of how we IT professionals can communicate more effectively with other business professionals when we want them to understand how business services are enabled by cloud-based IT services. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By leveraging their every-day cloud experiences all of a sudden the mysterious world of business IT services in the cloud become much less "mystical." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What do you personally use the cloud for every day, or each week? I use it for storage of photos and video, collaboration & productivity with partners on various projects, and email. The fact is, Google holds the lion's share of my personal cloud-based activity and why? Because it's convenient, reliable, and inexpensive.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you think about it, that reflects back on key cloud-service metrics such as <b>agility</b>, <b>quality of service</b>, and <b>economics</b>. And in thinking about how we value these metrics in our personal use of cloud-based services, we can frame ways to <a href="http://www.itmanagecast.com/2014/12/two-tips-to-communicate-value-of.html" target="_blank">better communicate those metrics with others</a> who don't live in the IT world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So take a quick look at the graphic from SingleHop, and think about how you can influence business decisions about cloud-based business services based on more familiar personal interactions with the cloud.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And thanks Dave for sharing the graphic. Nice work.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-43704274904296797992014-12-10T10:41:00.000-08:002014-12-10T10:45:51.553-08:00Three Quick Tips That Will Save an IT Project Manager's Reputation<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You're a great IT project manager. You know it, and more others should. But for some reason, you struggle with the hand-over part at the tail end of the project. The infamous "Transition to Operations."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You have all the deliverables completed & signed off, but the new service just seems to struggle and flail like a fish that just hopped out of the bowl and onto your desk. And while you may have moved on to the next project, the business service owners fighting with the last implementation are now muttering under their breath. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How can this be avoided?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One sure fire way is to be thinking of the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Technology_Infrastructure_Library#Service_transition" target="_blank">transition to operations</a>" from the outset of the project planning & chartering. And think about how this service will be supported and operated daily by the people who will be responsible for it, and the people who will be using it. Likely, you've already got those considerations on your check-list, and that's great.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But are you making sure that the operational & support documentation delivered through the project reflects this? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here are, for your consideration and feedback, three simple ideas to ensure that the documentation to support the hand-over of the completed project are both useful, and used!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Build in time for the experts to document their work.</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the most common concerns a PM will hear from the IT subject matter experts - the technicians, analysts, or engineers on their project team - is that they only have enough time to do the work, not write a story about what they've done. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is your responsibility as the PM that your project plan and task lists (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_breakdown_structure" target="_blank">work breakdown structure</a>. etc) include ample time and clear expectations that any system configurations, support procedures, or operational maintenance tasks are documented clearly. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Communicate this expectation clearly, early, and often. But it won't be enough to tell the team what to do; you need to empower them to do it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Provide the experts with simple tools to document their work. </span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's often not going to be enough to tell people what to do. A true leader will lead them; show them what is expected and support them in getting it done. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Have some simple templates available at the outset of the project to share with the technical experts supporting the project delivery. Don't accept "it is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-documenting" target="_blank">self-documenting</a>" as an answer. Ever. It really isn't. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You should review all the support and operational documentation output of the project. You don't necessarily need to understand every nuance, but you DO need to be able to read it and get the gist. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Technical experts are rarely writers by trade or skill. It's just not what they do. They will take short-cuts in their documentation, and rightly so, as they understand it - they built it! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But what happens in four or five years when the service needs an overhaul and that particular person isn't with the organization any longer?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What happens when the project rolls out and a more junior resource is tasked with operating or supporting the technology aspects of the new service? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Consider these scenarios when reviewing the documentation with the technical authors.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And those tips help get the documentation needed by the technical folks completed - but what about the support model for the service?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Have the end-users of the service contribute to the support model.</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The documentation to ensure that the service has a clear model of support, escalation paths, and service expectations should always have input from a small, careful selection of those who will be active end-users of the service once it goes live.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Be selective in who you involve, and bring them "nearly completed" drafts of the support model to review and contribute to in order to respect their time and keep potential re-writing to a minimum. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Following these simple tips should help others see what a great IT PM you really are.</i></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><b>If you have other tips and tricks for IT Project Management, or feedback on these ideas, please share them with me in the blog comments or via my Twitter account - <span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://twitter.com/itmanagecast" target="_blank">@itManageCast</a></span></b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Thanks for reading, and have an awesome day!</i></span></b><br />
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<br />Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0Vancouver, BC, Canada49.2827291 -123.1207375000000249.1169131 -123.44346100000001 49.4485451 -122.79801400000002tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-47870845082375276382014-12-05T09:03:00.000-08:002014-12-05T09:03:38.782-08:00Procurify - What is Cloud-Based Spend-Management Software?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last night I had the pleasure of being invited to attend the<a href="http://www.procurify.com/" target="_blank"> Procurify</a> event hosted at <a href="http://www.kpmg.com/ca/en/Pages/Default.aspx" target="_blank">KPMG Canada</a>'s offices in downtown Vancouver. The event offered some exceptional networking opportunities but also gave some insight into the Procurify solution of a "cloud-based, online and mobile spend-management software."</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As the solution is targeted at the finance folks there was an interesting mix of people and I must say that KPMG & Procurify were excellent hosts. The mix in the audience was an exceptional bonus to the event and provided the opportunities for many to have conversations that ranged beyond the traditional IT/cloud services discussions and talk about diverse business challenges and opportunities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i><span style="font-size: large;">"Procurify...takes finance and accounting processes that take hours or days and reduces it to minutes..."</span></i></b></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The presentation itself included a panel discussion of the service offering, including some quick case studies and a walk-through of signing up & using key functions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The panel consisted of (L to R):</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Praven Gupta</b>, <i><a href="http://www.quickmobile.com/" target="_blank">QuickMobile</a> CFO/COO</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Herman Chandi</b>, <i><a href="http://www.procurify.com/" target="_blank">Procurify</a> VP of Business Development</i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Norbert Huber</b>, <i><a href="http://www.kpmg.com/ca/en/Pages/Default.aspx" target="_blank">KPMG</a> Partner, Management Consulting & Technology Enablement</i></span></li>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTP7llieNUFa7hM0YT96Joxrt0jtIk7D6ELF3aHJP_yFEGr0_0JkF7iucDu9QFu7XKtLukiA3m3PqBvvHgkkxsuHcMUqfQjNiE0eU13jN4pMBUXn1CUGDwab88-hg0zkPjbD-oC_6XgI4u/s1600/Procurify-Panel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTP7llieNUFa7hM0YT96Joxrt0jtIk7D6ELF3aHJP_yFEGr0_0JkF7iucDu9QFu7XKtLukiA3m3PqBvvHgkkxsuHcMUqfQjNiE0eU13jN4pMBUXn1CUGDwab88-hg0zkPjbD-oC_6XgI4u/s1600/Procurify-Panel.jpg" height="167" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The elevator pitch for Procurify is that this subscription service which scales to any size business takes finance and accounting processes that take hours or days and reduces it to minutes by making the interface simple to use, and accessible where-ever the people who need it are.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The business workflows targeted by this solution seem to be procurement and travel or other expenses. The workflow was remarkably simple, and watching it in action made me a little jealous of those who have adopted it. I've had to work with the manual processes that this solution targets in the past and have felt the pain. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As paperwork and chasing people down isn't my strong-suite, the built-in receipt scanning/upload and automated expense submission/approval workflows integrated into the Procurify solution had me drooling a bit. You simply use the mobile app on your smartphone, take a photo of your receipt from the app, and upload it with a minimum of other information needed. I can see how this could be a game changer for increasing efficiencies and transparency for corporate spending. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>"...biggest challenge with start-ups in Vancouver is getting support in your home town."</i></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Praven Gupta provided some interesting insights on his real-life use of the service, but in the open Q&A afterwards, provided one of the most insightful quotes of the night. When the panel was asked what the biggest challenge as a start-up in Vancouver was, Praveen responded that the "biggest challenge with start-ups in Vancouver is getting support in your home town." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The observation was that while Vancouver is becoming a hotbed for innovative start-ups and increasingly provides great resources to bring the best & brightest entrepreneurs here, local-based business seem reticent to adopt their products and services - all the big and early sales go over-seas or outside of Vancouver. Praveen challenged Vancouver based business to better understand the service offerings being developed locally and engage with them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><b>"...biggest challenge with cloud offerings is integration..."</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Earlier in the presentations, when giving an over-view of what a cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) solution offering is, Norbert from KPMG made the observation that one of the biggest challenges with "cloud (offerings) is integration" implying that having multiple SaaS services can increase the likelihood of data integration and integrity risks. This is a valid point that I'd love to explore deeper with other cloud & SaaS experts - feel free to share your opinions on that matter please!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So in the end, a great and informative event, and I'm very thankful to Procurify and KPMG Canada for inviting me to attend, observe, and share what I've learned with you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For more information on <a href="http://www.procurify.com/" target="_blank">Procurify</a> or <a href="http://www.kpmg.com/ca/en/Pages/Default.aspx" target="_blank">KPMG Canada</a> please check the links in this blog, or follow them on Twitter:</span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">#GoProcurify</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">@Procurify</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">@KPMG_Canada</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As always, I appreciate your comments and feedback on this article and any others via Twitter or email.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">@itManageCast</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">itManageCast@gmail.com</span></div>
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Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com2Vancouver, BC, Canada49.2827291 -123.1207375000000249.1169131 -123.44346100000001 49.4485451 -122.79801400000002tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-85840188250263771432014-12-04T09:47:00.001-08:002014-12-04T09:47:45.570-08:00Two Tips to Communicate the Value of Virtualized IT Operations <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you are in the process of, or have transitioned servers or applications to a cloud-based or virtualized solution, you have increased your value to the rest of the business. But how do you communicate that effectively? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How do you clarify the value proposition of IT operations leveraging cloud-based solutions for IT service delivery? You make sure that speed and agility are metrics that those who you support understand, by bringing the value proposition to them on their terms.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. Choose Metrics Wisely</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are three key areas you will most easily be able to measure meaningful business value:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Economics</b> - what does it cost to run IT</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Quality of Service</b> - in the eyes of the end users of the services</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Agility</b> - velocity of deployment in response to changes in business</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is likely not news to anyone in IT operations roles, but often we struggle with the practical implementation and communication of these metrics. In another article we'll talk about implementation, but here's a few tips to get you started thinking along the lines of "what can we do to help the business understand our value to them?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the June 2014 <a href="http://www.gartner.com/technology/summits/na/it-operations/" target="_blank">Gartner IT Infrastructure and Operations Management Summit</a> this was one of the hot topics many IT operations managers struggle with. We know how to define the value and performance metrics of the infrastructure in ways that we understand, but does the CFO, CMO, or CxO get that?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. <strike>Know</strike> LEARN Your Audience</span></h2>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgztUU_ULeh6JNbwU-BJ0DZygDnbuvNjwsIEMGaBTw0ITsA-K_RssD2w4c0eIqaFN3JRf9_VqpGxJLwBlA3-Z5t5OleaTX2XsDQY7XBMOruJ0xpqZvq1p6gsLJuDepKfhoxn1fxiuf6YbOH/s1600/listen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgztUU_ULeh6JNbwU-BJ0DZygDnbuvNjwsIEMGaBTw0ITsA-K_RssD2w4c0eIqaFN3JRf9_VqpGxJLwBlA3-Z5t5OleaTX2XsDQY7XBMOruJ0xpqZvq1p6gsLJuDepKfhoxn1fxiuf6YbOH/s1600/listen.jpg" height="146" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To make sure those who hold the purse strings get the value delivered to the business by IT operations, we need to communicate with them in terms that matter to them. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The three areas I presented above are great, but meaningless if you just use formulas you've Googled to obtain statistics that you'll put in a Power Point presentation for your upcoming budget review. You need to invest some time in understanding what your audience perceives as value, and then communicating the information to them in that context.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Identify people in the key business areas</b> served by IT operations <b>who can help you understand what they value most</b> in the IT service you deliver to them. Perhaps they are getting IT services from others that you weren't aware of - understand why. Not so that you can provide those services instead, but so that you can better understand why they see those options as a value. Use your active listening skills, and learn about their part of the business - don't jump in immediately with offers of help for their challenges, but understand them better.</span></li>
</ul>
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<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Leverage your PMO</b>, or if you don't have a PMO, <b>those responsible for business development projects</b> to make sure they understand the services and abilities of the IT operations group, and your willingness to better understand how they seek to deliver business projects. The way forward together may not always seem clear at first, but project managers are vital allies to IT operations; they almost always have the ears of those you most wish to influence.</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So if we have defined the metrics, and communicate them effectively, we can now communicate our value proposition to those who determine our financial fate. So the next question is, how can we use these metrics to improve our own ability to deliver services? Sounds like a good topic for an upcoming post...</span>Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0Vancouver, BC, Canada49.2827291 -123.1207375000000249.1169131 -123.44346100000001 49.4485451 -122.79801400000002tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-15153392195798187542014-06-10T12:15:00.001-07:002014-06-10T12:15:40.774-07:00Gartner I&O Summit 2014 - Pre-Conference Workshops<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ3Lv_wiotUrnQTfikjieNUbhfd6qCPZEI0t_uVtsPIFh41dNt8IA7V3fS_YtHxErpJZhcWIw0Uf0tMvoqL_tT0U_5s-jMCbn7Gf3dPx6eM05bnbellUbh2zMK7RWsG3FDI6WxhvDMsdVF/s1600/IMG_20140609_072529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ3Lv_wiotUrnQTfikjieNUbhfd6qCPZEI0t_uVtsPIFh41dNt8IA7V3fS_YtHxErpJZhcWIw0Uf0tMvoqL_tT0U_5s-jMCbn7Gf3dPx6eM05bnbellUbh2zMK7RWsG3FDI6WxhvDMsdVF/s1600/IMG_20140609_072529.jpg" height="320" width="180" /></a>This year I have been privileged by my organization to attend the <a href="http://events.gartner.com/en/summit/na/it-operations" target="_blank">2014 Gartner I&O Summit</a>, hosted in the Gaylord Palms in Kissimme Florida.<br />
<br />
This blog article is the first in a series that will provide some of my insights, opinions, and findings from the four days I'm spending here learning, collaborating, networking, and exploring ideas.<br />
<br />
My Gartner experience started on Sunday with two workshops:<br />
<ul>
<li>Using Gartners I&O Maturity Model to Road Map Improvements</li>
<li>The Art and Science of IT Service Catalogues and Portfolios</li>
</ul>
<br />
Each workshop was highly interactive and well facilitated by Gartner Analysts.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
Using Gartners I&O Maturity Model to Road Map Improvements</h3>
Now I had a slight leg up on several in this workshop as I've worked my way through using the <a href="http://www.gartner.com/document/2481415" target="_blank">I&O (Infrastructure and Operations) Maturity Assessment</a> this past March, so I was somewhat familiar with the tool, and had a Gartner analyst explain it briefly to me over the phone. The concept is based on the premise that by answering a series of questions (the full assessment takes about 1.5 hours to complete) in four I&O maturity dimensions (read: categories) you will get a score that will give you an approximate measure of the maturity of the I&O of your organization.<br />
<br />
The average score of those who complete the assessment is 2.31 out of 5. Only 10% of companies surveyed have scored 3.0 or greater. That said, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pub/jay-pultz/4/a0a/655" target="_blank">Jay Pultz</a>, the analyst leading the session, did acknowledge that very few companies have completed the survey a second time to assess their progress. This is something Gartner will like to see more of their customers do.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.secondprism.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/IT-operations-gartner_maturity_model.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.secondprism.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/IT-operations-gartner_maturity_model.png" height="149" width="200" /></a>The value in conducting this assessment is that you get an understanding of where the growth opportunities are for your organization, where your key challenges are, and assistance in planning how to address them.<br />
<br />
The four dimensions assessed are people, process, technology, and business. Of the latter two, Gartner means how you manage the technology, more so than what technologies are in use, and at what level do you interact with other business units in your organization.<br />
<br />
The importance of the exercise is to understand how to mature the I&O capabilities of your organization, which in turn assists your organizations ability to grow and transform without IT infrastructure and operations being an anchor or area of business risk<br />
<br />
We did not complete the full assessment in class, but rather took a high-level pass at it in groups to ensure we understood not only the methodology, but more importantly the value, and how to interpret results and their impact on business.<br />
<br />
This exercise resulted in giving our group insight into key areas where I&O leaders can have the greatest impact, why they would have that impact, and key steps to take. Many of the groups around the room focused on engaging the people in their I&O teams, and leading them to better understand how their work contributes to the goals of the business.<br />
<br />
Gartner advises repeating the assessment every 6-12 months if you are actively working on a maturity road map plan you've devised from the recommendations that the assessment provides you.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Art and Science of IT Service Catalogues and Portfolios</h3>
Debra Curtis and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanneadnams" target="_blank">Suzanne Adnams</a> facilitated this session and Debra started by managing our expectations with the statement that the development of these tools are much more ART than SCIENCE!<br />
<br />
Some interesting facts I learned at this working session were that catalogues and portfolios will be unique to each organization, reflecting the business values and culture, and that for I&O, these are strategic communication tools of enormous value.<br />
<br />
<br />
There were four key take-aways that I learned from this session, and each was enormously valuable:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>A service is an action, not a thing</li>
<li>We must focus on what value is delivered, rather than how it is delivered</li>
<li>Other IT organizations are partners in service delivery, not customers</li>
<li>A definition of a service will almost never be exclusive to one group within IT</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-39004348270253228232013-05-07T08:12:00.000-07:002013-05-08T07:43:32.293-07:00BCNET 2013 Keynote<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.09375); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><div>UBC's CIO Oliver Grüter Andrews MC'ed the event this year, and started by introducing the chair of BCNET, Michael Hrybyk. Michael noted this year is the 13th annual event, and there are over 500 registrants. Additionally we were informed of some key growth metrics this year:</div><div>1. All public post secondary institutions in BC are now members of BCNET</div><div>2. BC Libraries cooperative just joined BCNET</div><div><br></div></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">As an interesting note for those who might wish to speak at BCNET, there is no CFP (Call For Papaers) for the conference; the BCNET sub-committees each get a slot and determine the topics and speakers from within their groups.</span><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Noteworthy" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><b><br></b></span></font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Lastly, Michael announced that the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Data Safe service hosted at TRU is now available to all BCNET members.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.09375); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><div><br></div></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">With that, the keynote speaker, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Jer Thorp was introduced. His topic was "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.09375); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Making Data More Human."</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.09375); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><div><br></div><div>Jer starts by asking us to consider"What is the human experience of technology; what is the subjective experience we are increasingly facing?"</div><div><br></div></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">We told that at any given time, there are more than 1M people in the air. Jer then s</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">hared a digital moving image illustrating the global air traffic system, that impresively illustrated context for that number, helping us grasp a ridiculously large number in context of things we can easily express.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.09375); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><div><br></div><div>Jer recommends reading the book "Infinite Justice" by David Foster Wallace.</div><div><br></div><div>We're provided with a definition of data - measurements of something.</div><div>Contains an act of measurement, and that data is continually tethered to the something that was measured.</div></span><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Noteworthy" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><b><br></b></span></font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Example - Keppler Sattelite viewing the Cygnus-Lyra returning digital photographs continually; </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Watching these images for transit is akin to watching a lightbulb 20 kms away to see if a mosquito flies in front of the bulb. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.09375); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Paladies is the supercomputer crunching this data</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.09375); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><div>~4,000 potential orbiting planets identified. The condiseration of how to represent this data in a meaningful way is the key.</div><div><br></div><div>Data has character, every data set has unique character</div><div>How we can visualise that data is related to its character</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Jer shifts gears, and talks about manipulating the visuals of the data in three and four dimensions. Consider the "Minority Report" style interface. Oblong is the company that built the minority report interface, and it is actively in use today. But it's not yet as accepted as it could be, although it has new collaborative features where people can grab the data relevent to them, pull it out and work with it without affecting the whole.</div><div>"Collaborative systems usually don't work because one person is driving, and the other people are jerks."</div><div><br></div><div>Measurement</div><div>Use the Ooh/Aah methodolgy - draw them in with the Ooh factor, and keep them interested with the Aah.</div><div>Peoples patterns of their lives is highly predictable given the data avilable for tracking their movements via cell phone tracking, or social media postings.</div><div><br></div><div>How can we model how people are sharing data on the web?</div><div>Examples given that are dramatic and effective:</div><div>Peoples data can be used without them being aware - opportunistic sensing</div></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.09375); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">OpenPaths is an open project for your phone that sends your location data somewhere you and others can see it, which gives people the experience of data ownership, and first party access to their data.<div>People who generate data should have access to that data.</div><div>It is a reality that cellular phones have become the virtual biographer of our lives.</div><div><br></div><div>If we remind ourselves of our personal relationship with our data, we will take conversation more seriously with those who want it.</div><div>We should always ask ourselves "What experiences have we had that resulted in this data being produced?"</div><div>Bringing data into public spaces removes the "choice" to not view it</div><div><br></div><div>Distant reading is the new paradigm for data analysis: New systems bring us to the idea of distant reading where viewing our data at a higher level, from a further distance, new patterns emerge.</div><div><br></div><div>Examples cited are:</div><div>Monk</div><div>Rhyme-brain</div><div><br></div><div>3 things we need to be considering</div><div>1. Data ethics - we need this conversation outside of just privacy</div><div>2. Data ownership - the coming central issue over data</div><div>3. Data possibilities - rapid change gives us the opportunity to consider where data usage might be in 5 years</div><div><br></div><div>Jer's primary tool for data visualisation is "Processing" - MIT open source data visualisation software</div><div><a href="http://O-c-r.org" x-apple-data-detectors="true" x-apple-data-detectors-result="0">O-c-r.org</a></div></span></div>Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-64347728075311247862012-06-19T10:05:00.003-07:002012-06-19T10:05:52.781-07:00IBM and Evidence Based Medicine Decision Support SystemsJeffrey Betts from IBM makes a repeat appearance at the conference to discuss how the IBM Watson project can be leveraged for evidence based medicine and clinical decision support systems.<br /><br />The Watson systems understands natural language, generates and evaluates hypothesis, and learns by homing its own decision algorithms. The solution has been developed hardware agnostic, but is generally run on parallel HPC systems for optimal response times.<br /><br />The key point of this lecture is that computers are by default and historically poor at responding to unstructured data. Human minds have natural abilities to view unstructured data and identify patterns, and this is the goal of a true expert system such as Watson aspires to be.<br /><br />Jeffrey takes us through screen shots of a case of an oncologist using Watson to assist with a consult. It was an interesting update for which no one in the audience had any questions.<br /><br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad<br /><p class='blogpress_location'>Location:<a href='http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Hwy%2097%20S,Kelowna,Canada%4049.883815%2C-119.498942&z=10'>Hwy 97 S,Kelowna,Canada</a></p>Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-59860501658214283852012-06-19T10:05:00.001-07:002012-06-19T10:05:40.911-07:00itManageCast Review of 12th Annual Western Cdn Health SummitThis week I've been in Kelowna attending my third Western Canadian Healthcare Summit, and while I have been blogging summaries of some of the more interesting sessions, this entry is intended to be an over-all review of the conference, venue, and most importantly, the value of the time spent in Kelowna.<br /><br />Let me start by saying that I rarely if ever am disappointed to have to be in Kelowna. So <a target="_blank" href="http://www.rebootconference.com">Reboot Communications Ltd.</a> couldn't pick a better city for this in my opinion. While the weather was crappy (like everywhere in BC) so far this week, and I still can't swing a golf club, my colleagues at UBCO, the UBC Southern Medical Program, and Interior Health make it worthwhile for me to be here, outside of the conference itself.<br /><br />So what unholy deal exists between Carla Tadla and Keith Baldry? While I certainly don't have anything against Keith personally, it would be a nice change to have a fresh face for the event emcee/moderator. Not that he takes much speaking time, but it's just getting a little long in the tooth. Something that isn't long (enough) is the hashtag for the event - #HCYLW. I get what it means, because I'm here and I've thought about it a bit, but is it really a tag people would search on? I would suggest something a bit more descriptive like #WstrnHCSummit or some shorter variant that is slightly more self-explanatory. <br /><br />And on the topic of technology, at the start of day two we have no conference wifi, and ergo, my blogging & tweeting will be restricted. Perhaps by design? :-) Those are some extreme measures to keep rogue bloggers like me under control. I'm thinking it's by design (or GE Healthcare only paid for one day?) as the passcode changed on the second day, but this wasn't announced until enough people complained around 10:00. I'd encourage the organisers to address that more quickly in the future, or at least let attendees know that it was a technical issue if that was the case. Otherwise, it just appears to be disorganisation, which my experience with Reboot would make me think that unlikely.<br /><br />The theme for Tuesday seems to be big data, so I'm enjoying this, although I must admit I was surprised to see Jeffrey Betts from IBM presenting for the second year on IBM Watson. That said, it was interesting in so much that he was able to provide us with a case study of use in an oncological patient discussion to provide deep and wide evidence based patient care.<br /><br />The big data panel discussion was excellent and was a highlight for me of the second day. Excellent panel, and great job by the conference planners.<br /><br />However, since it's only 1.5 days of session content, I think the organisers should be more consistent with the level of speakers and topics. The audience seems to mostly be clinical administration, so I get that there needs to be logistics/supply chain discussions and I can tolerate that, but I get the feeling that some of the panels were really stuck for speakers as not all were of an equal calibre, or regarded by the audience as being the appropriate subject matter experts for their topic area.<br /><br /> If the organisers could get more content like we had on Monday morning and all day Tuesday, I'd encourage adding a half day to the conference. All in all, my biggest take away each year is the networking, and I have to thanks HP Canada in large part for their facilitation of that!<br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad<br />Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-60153325899946253282012-06-19T10:02:00.001-07:002012-06-19T10:02:18.244-07:00Big Ideas About Big Data in Health CareLindsay Kislock, ADM in the BC Ministry of Health, introduced the panel and started the discussion on the premise that health has to be proactive with the data at our disposal, and be responsible and forward thinking about how we can turn health data into positive health outcomes.<br /><br />Dr. Tom Karson spoke first, informing us that globally, we are in the zettabyte era, and we cannot do anything with this volume of data in healthcare without big data analytics. Genomic sequencing & epigenomic analysis are given as examples of big data that medical research and practice need to have and manage daily.<br /><br />Dr. Karson clarified the reality in our healthcare systems where there is no governance or standardisation of the data sets that individual groups within the provincial health system, and that this is the lowest step of the DELTA five stage maturity model for data analytics. dr. Karson's point was that we need to evolve through this maturity model to better use the data, but that we cannot do that without in parallel establishing and maturing governance over this data.<br /><br />Additionally, Dr. Karson insisted that we must develop, recruit, and educate the appropriate talent pool to manage big data, and be able to turn data to information, and then to insight. <br /><br />Julie Lockner from Informatica followed to discuss how we prepare our data centres for big data. The questions came up around pure capacity, security and governance, and obtaining the skills needed to manage these systems.<br /><br />When asked what is stopping people from dealing with big data better they say: "Time constraints on business analysts and lack of skills for staff in how to manage big data."<br /><br />We are next introduced to the concept of hadoop, which allows for real-time massive data processing on standard hardware platforms, as an Open Source solution.<br /><br />Our last speaker on this topic is Rachel Debes, a biostatistics researcher from Cerner. Rachel states that the two biggest drivers towards big data solutions is electronic medical/health records, and the emergence of an accountability framework for the Canadian healthcare system. I would suspect that she is overlooking medical research requirements and data generation/analysis, but I'll assume she's targeting the clinical administrative audience here.<br /><br />ADM Kislock asked the panel "is big data bad?" and the response was that it is not, but it's all about the governance and skills to handle that big data responsible and effectively. <br /><br />A question came up from the audience as to whether the protections we put in place around big data in the possession of healthcare are nullified by patients and the general populations freely placing health and health-care information in the public domain via social media, which can be mined by anyone who wishes to invest in that. <br />My thoughts are that people will place this information in the public domain along with all kinds of other things that if that data were placed into government care we would be held accountable, and the fact that people are irresponsible with their information, or that people on an individual level doesn't feel that certain information is actually "private" doesn't absolve us of our responsibility to protect the data given into our care. If the public voice eventually changes the definition of what is "private" or "personal information"<br />then we will adapt our levels of governance accordingly.<br /><br />Dr. Karson provided an answer to this question that mostly aligned with me thoughts, and cited the regulations we work under in the healthcare industry.<br /><br />Dan Gonos from HP asked the panel their thoughts on the challenges with mining unstructured data. Dr. Karson answered that unstructured data is best mined if you have discrete unstructured data and you understand the data sources, so that the algorithms can be modified to assume contexts. Julie added that certain vernacular can complicate free-form data, further to Dr. Karson's point.<br /><br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad<br /><p class='blogpress_location'>Location:<a href='http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Hwy%2097%20S,Kelowna,Canada%4049.883815%2C-119.498942&z=10'>Hwy 97 S,Kelowna,Canada</a></p>Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-57069627181948289572012-06-18T13:46:00.001-07:002012-06-18T13:46:41.331-07:00Innovating in Health Care While Managing Fiscal ConstraintsIda Goodreau, Board of Directors, Genome BC & Adjunct Professor, Sauder School, UBC<br /><br />Premise is that public sector always views innovation as something that drives up costs. Private sector doesn't see it that way, because of what innovations they allow into the business.<br /><br />Ironically, while health care costs across the Western developed world are increasing rapidly, hospital spending specifically has trended down in the last 12 years. The well known and discussed paradox is the demand for high quality care within a fiscally sustainable system. Patients (who are taxpayers) want improvements in life expectancy and functionality, while taxpayers (who are also patients) want greater system efficiencies at lower costs.<br /><br />The definition targeted is a diminished gap between GDP and health care spending within 20 years.<br /><br />Innovation in health care over the past twenty years an be measured as successful if we use extended life expectancy as a metric, but not if we measure it against the cost. It seems cold to put a price against the length of a life, but this is the reality that the population wants, per the paradox we discussed earlier.<br /><br />So the crux is how to adapt innovations that improve health outcomes at reduced costs. The innovations in question are technology devices, drugs, and information, process redesign, and over-all system redesign. We know what all these innovations can and should look like. We need a model for cost-effective integration of these innovations, and an agreed upon set of metrics for measuring progress and assessing risks.<br /><br />Ida suggest we need to look at systems around the globe where healthcare is privatized, as those are driven by business economics to be the most innovative. The key factors to be considered are:<br />Lower cost and consumer direct payment<br />Simplification<br />Closer to the patient<br />Re-invention of delivery by use of existing technologies<br />Right-skilling the workforce<br />Standardised operating procedures<br />Copying and then building<br /><br />Ida proposes also that innovations should be frugal to deliver superior value at a fraction of the costs typically seen, and new technologies should be designed to work within an integrated continuum of care.<br /><br />Ida re-iterates that the core issue with Canada's healthcare system and why we cannot make the urgent changes needed to innovate cost effectively is that "no one is really in charge."<br /><br />The innovations and the cost reductions are both necessary, and have been put off for years, but time is running out, as we are approaching a tipping point. Ida proposes that Canadian health care leaders must align, and agree on how to make the public system leverage the optimizations that privatized health care solutions use.<br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad<br /><p class='blogpress_location'>Location:<a href='http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Water%20St,Kelowna,Canada%4049.890987%2C-119.497086&z=10'>Water St,Kelowna,Canada</a></p>Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-89201052258179059702012-06-18T10:21:00.001-07:002012-06-18T10:21:26.919-07:00Complexity Exceeds Cognition - How Analytics Will Transform HealthcareDr. Graham Hughes, Chief Medical Officer, SAS<br /><br />We are challenged to provide meaningful and useful health care information available online to every Canadian. Big data is about how much data we are getting from where, how quickly, and how to turn it into meaningful information.<br /><br />This was an interesting exploration of one of the Game Changing technology disruptors, and how it can, should, and is being leveraged to improve health outcomes.<br /><br />Health information is still in silos, and needs to be integrated or federated in meaningful ways to enable clinical decision support systems (CDSS). Carolina's Health Systems in North Carolina has been innovative in this area.<br /><br />Structured and unstructured data continues to expand rapidly, and not all of it is electronic, and most of it continues to grow in the silos. Data-intensive mega trends such as population based patterns, personal signatures, genomics, home monitoring, mobility, & social media.<br /><br />Home Depot in the US expects to have an aisle dedicated to home medical monitoring systems in two years.<br /><br />IT consumerisation and mobility have provided us a platform for ubiquitous bidirectional access to health care resources. We are introduced to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.fitbit.com/">fitbit</a> which provides 24x7 wearable health monitoring. This is worthy of further investigation. Health oriented apps are growing rapidly, allowing EMR access by patients. Telemedicine continues to evolve and reduce the demand for face-to-face health care provisioning. Gaming theory continues to improve the engagement of people in preventative healthcare and wellness. The immediate impact and benefit that might be missing in personal engagement of wellness is provided by gamification of peoples health monitoring. Influence networks leveraging social media provides a platform for quicker responsiveness to health care interactions.<br /><br />The price for sequencing the human genome is below $1k, this is an example of how meaningful use of health care information is being made affordable, but the challenge is to use these innovations to improve specific patient outcomes through primary care and wellness. Again, we create mounds of data, but need to turn this into useful information accessible to patients and health care providers in a proactive manner.<br /><br />Predictive analysis feeding into CDSS allows us to better understand risks in individual and population level health actions. We can identify potential patient cohorts who need intervention based on health habits and target them with the appropriate wellness services. At an individual level, we can better understand how our individual health situation may be impacted by various health care or wellness decisions. Treatment sequences by populations demographics can ensure better medical outcomes in clinical situations.<br /><br />The problem is we are going to be over-whelmed by a tidal wave of data, the opportunity is that we will have the information we need to improve health outcomes.<br /><br /> <br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad<br /><p class='blogpress_location'>Location:<a href='http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Water%20St,Kelowna,Canada%4049.890987%2C-119.497086&z=10'>Water St,Kelowna,Canada</a></p>Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-77477840448308942432012-06-18T09:38:00.001-07:002012-06-18T09:38:17.529-07:00Healthcare Success Stories from Western CanadaWestern Cdn Healthcare Summit 2012<br /><br />Healthcare leaders from the Yukon, Alberta and British Columbia shared their stories of challenges and visions in the search for effective and efficient healthcare delivery throughout Western Canada.<br /><br />Introduced by: Donna Lommer, VP Residential Services & CFO, Interior Health Authority of B.C.<br />Speakers:<br />Graham Whitmarsh, Deputy Minister of Health, Province of British Columbia<br />Chris Mazurkewich, EVP & COO, Alberta Health Services<br />Stuart Whitley, QC, Deputy Minister of Health & Social Services, Government of Yukon<br /><br />Chris spoke first, shared some statistics about the scope and depth of AHS (Alberta Health Services). AHS is down the road that HSSBC is taking, and has insight to share for BC folks. A key comment is that the merger was done, and the details are being worked out post-change.<br /><br />A primary metric that AHS uses to measure success is hip and knee elective primary replacements per annum. The integration of EMS is a current large initiative, and response times are publicly available to ensure transparency and availability. EMS has been a stand-alone entity, but this is changing. This allows the EMS responders to have greater support and options and provision deeper care quicker.<br /><br />AHS believes that having a deeper and wider integration of clinical services across the province allows for quicker innovation and response to discovered administrative or clinical challenges. <br /><br />AHS has asked clinicians and staff to identify game changers in health care, and some identified are standardized discharge methodologies and metrics, allowing communities and families to be better prepared for when patients are discharged back into the communities.<br /><br />Wellness is a major push, with high profits and demand from private sector to license a successful regionalized program. AHS feels they are ready to move their primary care networks to the next level, but have identified that good governance is vital to that success. What that next level really looks like was not described.<br /><br /><br />Stuart shared an anecdote that illustrated that it is important to focus on need by examining where risk is.<br /><br />Stuart asked us rhetorically how we innovate and transform health care in Canada. We are referenced to the innovations happening in EU Nordic countries. Extraordinary technological innovations are occurring daily, but the cost to accommodate and implement these are barriers to adoption. Transformation therefore must occur in the management and funding, as well as the current culture of health care. Negotiations with practitioners is the beginning place.<br /><br />Acute disorders are stealing attention from the chronic issues which Canadians are increasing with high-risk health behaviours increasingly dramatically in school aged children. Interventions must start here, and we must look further upstream to be more preventative and intervene before conditions become acute, and warrant more expensive treatment.<br /><br />Top 30 users of the Yukon health care system, on average, incur more than $150k each year. A key issue in their acute issues is prolonged alcoholism.<br /><br />Many small, simple innovations focussed on the upstream aspects of the health care system will (and have been proven in the Yukon) reduce the costs and improve delivery of health care.<br /><br /><br />Graham Whitmarsh presented the innovation and change agenda diagram. The three pillars of the program are:<br />1. Effective health promotion & prevention<br />2. Integrated & targeted primary & community health care<br />3. High quality hospital services<br /><br />A series of metrics were shared for each of these three pillars to identify what is working in the past year, and what isn't, and where to focus efforts this year. Over $250M in savings is expected from HSSBC next year.<br /><br />Royal Columbian & St. Paul's improvements are planned and committed to.<br /><br /><a target="_blank" href="http://ThinkHealthBC.ca">ThinkHealthBC</a> is where this strategy is shared with the public. We are provided a teaser, but if you are interested in learning more about the strategy, current results, and next steps, you should check out the site.<br /><br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad<br />Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-64002335294968669142012-06-14T21:05:00.001-07:002012-06-14T21:05:54.643-07:00Navigating Internet PrivacyShifts in the modern Internet landscape are creating new challenges and business imperatives for security, IT and legal professionals. Join our panel of experts as they examine the legal, regulatory and public policy initiatives that are impacting online businesses, Internet usage and Internet security today, and tackle the most pressing questions in today's marketplace, including: prospects for new privacy legislation; the potential impact on how companies operate and design products; conflicts that may arise with the development of cloud computing; legal jurisdiction over international data flows in "the cloud?"; the progress of online tracking and advertising; the impact of increasing calls for Privacy by Design from policymakers and organizations; and the rise of rise of class action lawsuits in the privacy sphere.<br />Justin Weiss, Senior Director, International Privacy and Policy, Yahoo and<br />Trevor Hughes, President and CEO, IAPP<br /><br />We started with the topic of kids. The COPA is currently under review, including verifiable parental consent issues. The business consent mechanism for that consent is payment card requirements.<br /><br /><br />I asked about teen use of social media, and the right to be forgotten. Particularly when teens post things online that they might regret later. The answer from Trevor was started with the fact that Social media adoption by youth was higher than any any other age group last year, for under thirteen, the parents are complicit in kids getting onto facebook. As a society we are evolving in how we think about our personal histories. We cant teach our kids how to use social media, they will teach us. The answer is that our perception of personal pasts is shifting with this young generation in North America, and it doesn't mean the same thing to us as adults that it will to the next group of adults. So we told that teens wont regret later what they post today. I don't really agree with this moral philosophy standpoint, but it is interesting that privacy experts are using this as an argument.<br /><br />Next we discussed the right to be forgotten specifically in the EU. This includes the portability of your data, and that implies that social network providers would allow you to vote with your data. The expectation currently does not exist that you can control information about you on the Internet; but how much of this was uploaded by you? How much information about you is uploaded by someone else? Who owns this, and who has the right to remove it? The contra to this is that just because it is difficult to do doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done. The thought came up that more practical than the right to be forgotten is the right to know what is online about yourself. Trevor & Justin indicated that there are already business coming online to purge and/or correlate aggregated public information about you. Last question on this topic was what happens when you die? When you die, your data and how your data is handled should be the responsibility of your estate, but compliance regulation is not enforcing this - yet.<br /><br />We move to the discussion about the e-privacy directive and cookies, and tracking. This concept originally came about because of the stateful nature of the web. Cookies have become much more sophisticated and dangerous, and easily abused. Any modern website can contain 16-20 cookies on their front page. This number is more than likely on the very small side of the average. The EU is proposing informed consent for each cookie. Alternative state management and information grooming tools are being developed to proactively circumvent any legislation.<br />So we need to clarify that there is a difference between tracking technologies and cookies. By focussing the issue on cookies we are looking at the more transparent technology, but others that are far less transparent do not use cookies to track you. So the legislators and the public need to be aware of this difference. The caveat considered is "unless the tracking is expressly requested by the consumer of the online service." Advertisers and third party data collectors should and are be the ones who are targeted by this legislation.<br />Browsers are the interface here, and we have four or five real vendors of note here, and it may well be that browser settings will be the key to finding a solution here. In the end we come back to the risk of technology specific legislation, versus focusing on principles of privacy. The case of browsers including "private browsing" options is shown as a case in point of how the market can respond to demand by simplifying the interface to give us what we actually want.<br /><br />Trevor explains that OBA (online behavioural advertising) is intended to be targeted to ensure that it is beneficial to you, but often comes across as invasive and creepy. Other privacy issues are starting to over take this one, as industry slowly starts to self-regulate. Its not by any means a perfect state, but it is progress. Yahoo provides icon solutions to let users know which ads are targeted and which are not. <br />There is a scope creep issue here, because cookies are often involved in gathering the data for OBA, so law makers need to approach this topic, once again, very carefully to not paint any forthcoming legislation into a toothless corner.<br />I asked about the scenario where facebook provides hook-up and dating site advertisements to 14 year old boys, and this became an interesting conversation around whether the advertisers or the host holds responsibility for the advertisements, and if they are allowed to have enough information to know your age. My opinion is that since facebook has this info about us already, <br /><br />Justin's prediction on the headline for online privacy for this year will be "a google technology team bypassed default preference settings in Safari browser" which was todays headline. This will continue to fire the flame on regulation because it is apparent that self regulation isn't working.<br /><br />trevor expects a $20M settlement over a privacy issue n the US that will drive more compliance.<br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad<br /><p class='blogpress_location'>Location:<a href='http://maps.google.com/maps?q=13th%20Security%20&%20Privacy%20Conference&z=10'>13th Security & Privacy Conference</a></p>Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4047765466335766067.post-48974734482814731922012-06-04T16:08:00.001-07:002012-06-04T16:08:41.535-07:00Game Changers - A Day of Innovation Keynote SummarySukhi Gill, CTO EMEA & HP Fellow<br /><br />The idea is to gauge innovation value by how excited the business units outside of IT get with the concepts. Conversations are sparked by discussing major disrupters and how to get budget to keep the lights on and innovate.<br /><br />Case in point, the new Galaxy phone is equivalent computing power to a rack of servers and storage from 2000. How do we get the business to take the "cool" things like incredible hand-held power, pervasive network access, and social media and get them to fund IT to enable those things they want to use to be usable.<br /><br />Adopting new technologies without a business model to support them is setting yourself up for failure. In most organizations, IT innovation lags behind business, and we're constantly playing a game of catch-up.<br /><br />So what are the top three disruptors?<br />Consumerisation of IT, or BYOD as it's more familiarly known in our industry. Start with allowing email access through consumerised devices, then address the mobility challenges of which apps should be allowed, and which should not. Virtualisation and mobile delivery of the core user functions of business applications is where we should focus our attention.<br /><br />Cloud is continuing to pervade, and the convergence of clouds will make public cloud offerings more appealing. The IT department will have to change, as they are more so brokers of movement to cloud services, and must manage the IT supply chain with extreme diligence.<br /><br />Big Data and real-time analytics. 85% of organisational data is not formatted in a way that meta-data is available to readily locate and understand the context of the data. We are increasingly forced to understand unstructured data by legislation, and the pure quantity. Sukhi provided the idea of placing sensors in our luggage to track where it is via our mobile devices, where most of the actual information is available, and the technology is all about, but the data isn't used,mor even understood where to be found. This example is how a consumer demand drives business technology change.<br /><br />If we as IT leaders lead budget conversations with infrastructure upgrades and software revisions, we won't make our case. If we talk about real business problems, and how we can address them with game changing technologies, we are more likely to get the funding needed to balance operations and innovation. Identify the biggest business problems, break down the complexity of the problems, and look for options to solve those components. We must be bold in addressing the disruptive technologies with the business.<br /><br />Consider writing a business briefing document that poses "what if our competitors did this before us?"<br /><br />Have an annual budget planning meeting with the business units where you share a roadmap with the business units on how your business could be disrupted, and spark a conversation you've prepared for on how to adapt proactively. Scenario planning is vital, as is holding workshops using demonstrations. As an example, corning.com and hp.com have public domain videos of what the future technologies they are developing are like.<br />Combine innovation in infrastructure refresh projects.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad<br />Mr. Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00169901494284453816noreply@blogger.com0