It started for me with a fascinating lunch hosted by the Information Technologists’ Company on HQS Wellington. As always, an impressive keynote speaker in Professor Richard Susskind OBE but you’ll have to ask David Blunkett about his concerns regarding Home Office confidentiality –I thought you were supposed to kiss a lot of frogs, not let them whisper in your ear!
Microsoft launched the latest release of their Azure platform which addressed the concerns Peter, our CTO, had held. So much so that he had ported our PAOGA web service over in a matter of hours.
The governments TSB (Technology Strategy Board) Innovate11 event at the Business Design Centre was well attended with fascinating exhibits from SMEs covering all sectors and with Vince Cable committing further financial support for UK innovation.
Then to the Software Satisfaction Awards dinner, courtesy of Sift Media, with compare Alastair Campbell – not as amusing as Brian Blessed last year (I say that in case he shouts at me again!).
An evening at The Hospital Club in Covent Garden for the ‘Europe & New York City – a match made in start-up heaven’ organised by Glasshouse Group. Very tempting when you consider the appetite for IT investment on the other side of the pond and the advantage that emerging competitors are enjoying BUT that US Patriot Act is a real issue and I believe that Europe has an advantage in the Privacy & Trust global opportunity. That said, sharing a smoke with Charlie Muirhead outside, we agreed that a visit to the NYC Jazz Clubs is long overdue!
Invited by the Cabinet Office and TSB to the Ensuring Trusted Services event at which Francis Maude announced the Government Digital Services, a new team within the Cabinet Office led by Mike Bracken tasked with transforming government digital services, and the commitment to ‘Digital by Default’. PAOGAs commitment is to add ‘Privacy a Priority’ to this initiative.
I still wonder why huge, successful multinational companies such as Microsoft and HP qualify for government grants at the expense of UK SMEs who are struggling.
In November I attended a Ctrl-Shift event ‘To Hoard or to Share’ specifically for the growing community (comptitors, partners, suppliers, customers, etc.) looking to address the concerns of Personal Information privacy.
I highly recommend their research The New Personal Data Landscape which you can download for free.
Fujitsu held an ISV event at their Baker Street Offices to present their Tier 3 Cloud, with a number of complimentary services, and to announce their Microsoft Azure platform. It was interesting to hear some speakers defending the status quo and promising that ‘things will soon be back to normal’, whatever that means. They seemed blind to the dramatic consequences that high speed broadband and access to low cost, secure storage will have on the way organisations and individuals interact. Of course there are a significant number of individuals resisting such change using the spurious excuse of ‘security’. It is only this lack of confidence that is holding back a more efficient, cost effective and environmentally responsible means of communication and interaction.
And then to the Business Cloud Summit 2011 from Sift Media – an annual event I always look forward to. Well organised, great speakers and focussed streams addressing business and technology.
JP being interviewed at Business Cloud Summit 2011 by Stuart Lauchlan, Head of Editorial at Sift Media
Very kind of JP Rangaswami, Chief Scientist at Salesforce, to point me out as someone who has been championing the benefits of user-centricity for the last decade and that ‘now the hour has come’.
PAOGA finished off the year with Christmas Lunch at The Queens Head.
A chance to thank everyone who has stuck with PAOGA through times when Privacy was unfashionable, and those who have recently joined us to make the vision a reality in 2012.
This would be a good time to visit our web site again for an update.
