Tony Smith,that Housing IT Guy https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy @HousingITguy

Some thoughts on IT and UK SocialHousing from a unique perspective of over 25+ years working with over 100 RSL's, Councils and social landlord groups in the UK, Ireland & Australia. Also a healthy music knowledge music over the last 5 decades Available for independent housing RSL implementation, procurement of HMS, Repairs, CRM, EDM, DLO, Financial, Scheduling systems, critical friend etc. In Scotland I work with the folks at Arneil Johnston Check us out on Soundcloud /housingitguy

Saturday 21 September 2024

Aint No Room

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

I have come across BIM / Building Information Modelling in many recent projects. Mostly in London based providers who are developing, however these are also innovations that can be leveraged in more historic and traditional situations and environments, 3D design and visualisation. Its clear to me that standards are being defined. The Construction Operations Building Information Exchange (COBie) non-proprietary data format, looks like the early leader. Hopefully this is the VHS survivor, not the innovative Betamax format, back in 1990’s we all wished had won!

Providers, consultants and professionals I have worked with in Development, are all excited at the way standard formats like COBie, can smooth collaboration throughout the build. Post handover, contractors and Socialhousing staff can also use this data to take better informed decisions going forward.

In terms of the direction of the individual UK social housing regulators, providers having better information on the location of all fitted features, with ability to share more info with residents and manage our assets better is where we are going.

BIM is good and its clearly going to be a strand of how we will better manage assets in the future, hopefully recording and identifying components mapped to three axis and easily represented visually. The potential is there to improve the performance of our assets and how they use (or lose) energy well. Successful mapping of data points, hopefully in the thousands not hundreds in our buildings can provide a vast amount of information, which can be manipulated and overlaid with other data, perhaps collated via IOT sensors.

For all the excitement of virtual modelling and having all this information to hand, its interesting how many building organisations, still have limited Asset Management solution capability, or it is siloed and looked after by two men and a dog, who fiercely gatekeep access to it. Worse of all there are still too many organisations stuck with data in Keystone, hampered by Silverlight vulnerabilities, now further isolated from the main network by ICT, for security reasons. Asset data is better integrated into wider solutions, such as CRM, Repairs, Compliance, Voids and for general use of the housing team. While BIM might be aware of an M&E installation for ventilation, does the servicing team realise that the filters should be checked & cleaned annually to keep the kit working well?

So, if considering getting started with BIM, ensure you consider it as part of your wider Asset Management data regime. Thinking about it as a whole, the #Socialhousing sector will potentially be in a better position to improve the lives of our tenants, shared/leaseholders and satisfy those evolving regulator demands, from whatever corner of the UK, we need to conform to.

Are you getting best use of your Asset Management information?

Get in touch , for a chat soon over a cuppa and a biscuit or two ☕😋

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I would be pleased to connect with you on LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy Message me with any issues or queries, you would like to be explored in this blog. We generally receive a couple of suggestions each month.

The Vines – Ain’t No Room.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here

Could we help you or your organisation? Our contact details are here , get in touch we will be pleased to chat about your problems and help with your organisation issues.

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Monday 9 September 2024

Are We With The Co-Pilots ?

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

I don’t know about you, but are you finding AI is falling a bit short of what you expected? It is a little for me to be honest.

In the 70’s and 80’s I am sure we were promised moon beans served by cyborg chefs & robot butlers and all this intelligence was going to handle a lot of our mundane hassles. You know, the ironing and boring rubbish like that. Unfortunately, most of it seems focused more on deskilling & taking away creative jobs, painters, photographers and journalists. We are still ironing and will be doing so, for long into the near future I am sure, while the internet is clogged up with AI creations, this is less good all round. In fact future AI trained on other source AI generated content can only degrade the concept.

Copilot as you are probably aware, is being plugged as the Microsoft lead AI product and a great money spinner at £24.70, per user per month. The annual cost exceeds many per seat costs for M365. In fact pretty much any demo of D365 etc will feature a mention of Copilot multiple times. In terms of socialhousing applications built into D365, multiple sales folk will mention it in demos, although concrete use cases are actually pretty thin on the ground. Its always ‘coming soon’ apparently. So don’t waste your time getting too excited there. On more than one D365 demo I have had the response, “Best not to try to use it here as yet!”.

AI including others such as ChatGPT for sure is capable of providing 80%+ of the help, but currently still needs that last 20% of human sense check. Otherwise we can look like fools. Productivity can be improved, but only if you can crack decent accuracy. All the Microsoft stack has AI capability, i.e. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams. In Word for example, Copilot will not knockout much in the way of meaningful new organisation policies, but could give you some great pointers to what might be right or wrong with what’s there.

AI to summarise emails or documents can help you determine some of the wood from the trees and potentially get you 80% to where you need to be. While AI can determine the ‘tone’ of a dialog, this may be not much better than the experience of a staff member with a couple of years working on the job. ‘Soft Skills’ are a human trait and certainly will remain so.

AI Translation while useful is nothing particularly new. Google Translate has been translating over 50 languages for ages.

What about Copilot in Excel and PowerBI reporting? Well here’s some opportunities. It can have a go at building queries for you, although with limits when cross-joins or complex imaginative extracts are needed. Again, ability of a skilled staff member to take the grunt work as a starting point, will save time.

In Outlook bog standard rules can be enhanced for sure, however I would always value an experienced staff member over just going with AI. While you can use AI to organise your Inbox, where is the fun in that eh?

My favourite use of AI by far currently and something I would recommend to all however applies to Teams. I am sure you do battle with the Teams frustrations daily, however the most useful features are AI transcription and summarisations. Ideal for easily documenting supplier demos/remote meetings, quickly finding specific terms and conversations etc. An unexpected bonus of the Covid years and the shift to more hybrid demonstrations (shunned & exotic prior to Covid), which would have felt strange or lacking reverence previously.

If you are considering dipping a toe into Microsoft AI, just give it a look with a single user and put it completely through its paces. If you can see ROI, then crack on. If you cannot at this time justify it, maybe come back later. Across 12 months AI is bound to leap forward and improve, maybe come back and review it then.

AI can help you, but don’t assume it’s your silver bullet (as yet). If you are getting any additional practical and accurate uses out of Microsoft Copilot or other AI for UKhousing, please be in touch.

Are your Social Housing ICT solutions doing a good job to support you?

Reach out just get in touch , for a chat any time over a drink and some Ginger Nuts ☕😋

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Ladytron – I’m with the Pilots.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here

Saturday 31 August 2024

What Presence ?

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

I am often banging on in socialhousing solution and transformation projects I am involved with, about incorporating thoughtful comms. Without it (whether you regard it as ‘fluffy’ or not), we cannot keep staff and management well informed, set expectations and efficiently communicate. If a project may take 12,18, 24 months or more to complete, that’s a long time for humans to stay focused on. So, everyone needs some help.

Hopefully, we have an organisation comms team or staff member(s), who can assist ICT or the project team. If we have some of these folk, we expect they are well skilled, often with qualifications and experience they can supply and also generally some PR skills too.

It’s generally recognised that good comms starts with openness and a desire to engage. Communication is a two way street and when we forget that, organisations have generally failed. In addition internally, we expect the comms team to be involved with the outside world too. IE responding to residents, customers, the press and others, reacting to concerns, problems and other challenges.

In this blog on occasions we have explored resident issue, particularly around that perennial challenging area ‘repairs’, but also others such as ‘knowing our customers better’, case management and self-service. Often its lack of integrated joined up thinking. These days (those post Don-old) we are all plugged into social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, BlueSky, LinkedIn etc. Indeed, I have a lot of followers who are tenants, leaseholders and other residents and I hear a lot about their issues and concerns. These help me consider real life when assisting organisations with process review and new solutions. Getting their problems solved often rely on comms working properly with managers and staff to be flexible and proactive.

Strangely, some of our largest UK social housing providers seem to be getting even more remote from their customers and not using ICT solutions or integrated comms, to bridge the gap. The regulator ticks off and appears to place many of these on ‘the naughty step’, on a monthly basis.

Some larger providers seem to be purposely closing down social media channels, and reducing means of residents communicating issues/concerns. Examples are Sanctuary and GreenSquare Accord. The latter left Twitter back in April 2024, at a time a lot of criticism was being received there.

I cannot understand why organisations, particularly ones that are meant to have a clear social purpose, think just putting their fingers in their ears, will help some of the obvious issues go away. Typically residents get involved in setting up their own social media groups, podcasts etc and if issues are not being addressed, they will drive the comms, (as some are with GSA). Running away from the moral high ground and not addressing issues, does not reflect mostly my view and experience, of over a hundred RSL’s and other providers I have worked with historically. Every organisation that goes down this path, soils many hundred others who can be wrongly regarded as ‘just the same’.

Residents and the sector deserves better and I know I have seen on the whole are capable of delivering better.

Do your SocialHousing solutions support your CRM & Case management? - Problems?

reach out just get in touch , for a chat over a brew and some Hobnobs ☕😋

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Orange Juice - What Presence?.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here

Thursday 22 August 2024

The Birmingham School Of Business School

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

It's that time of year again, when in August A-Level and University results drop. Clearly causing stress and worry for students everywhere across the UK.

I too have a son who will be experiencing this next year and clearly I and most other contacts of mine will have had this same experience at some time of their life. I was reminded of this just a week ago when I met up at the Marble Arch pub, Rochdale Road in Manchester for a few refreshers, with two school mates (who I don’t see way enough TBH ).

All of us (still) have extremely responsible careers and experienced reasonable success. Its fair to say we have tried to improve things, if that’s me in Social Housing, or the other two in Civil Service or the water industry. One thing that connects us is the fact we left school with enough GCSE's, however none of us went directly to sixth form and on to university. We all potentially could, but didn’t.

University education doesn't guarantee success

At some point in older years we all did qualifications, including for me an extremely valuable degree (BSc in Applied Computing), at the School of Hard Knocks (AKA Manchester Poly, now the Metropolitan University of Manchester). I would not have chosen anywhere else, particularly as I worked throughout my five year course. None of the three us stopped there, for example I did a City & Guilds in photography. Famously, one of my school mates was John Mettrick, who ran the Briss butchers shop in The League of Gentlemen. Excellent organic butcher, doing great work back in Glossop, High Peak.

All of our courses were undoubtedly of use in our working and wider lives, however we all agreed that those courses and formal education absolutely did not define us. That is the lesson that this year (and all years for that matter) need to absolutely take away. Those courses and results (good or bad) do not define you, and you should not get hung up on it.

I have worked with many fantastic and inspirational people. The reality is that while qualifications help, in few cases have I found its defined those people. I have met many inspirational ICT folk who thought they were going to be vets and failed at those courses. They are now the people I contact to pick their brains, not on canine rheumatism, but cybersecurity.

The point of this blog is the message that you should continue to learn & improve yourself, but don’t let those results define you. Good people and organisations will nurture and mentor you if you seek them out, those experiences will complement those academic endeavors. There is a world beyond academic achievements, good workplaces will guide you in the journey beyond the velvet curtains of experience. Once you find them, embrace them, through them you will better find yourself.

If you are struggling with inefficient SocialHousing solutions, reach out

please just get in touch , for a chat over a brew and some Chocolate Gingers ☕😋

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The Fall - The Birmingham School Of Business School.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here

Friday 2 August 2024

Fifteen Years

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

I was asked last month by Housing Technology magazine, to comment on the changes over the history of the publication, and pleased to give an honest third party view.

No doubt, a lot has changed however much is still the same. The sector probably now has much bigger merged providers, still struggling to serve residents better with repairs, complaints & other services.

The word cloud from my 15 years of blogging on social housing ICT looked like this :-

This is not too wide of the mark I guess.

Having suitable efficient systems for housing management is still a key objective. That might be a HMS, of which options are continually under consolidation and limitation it seems, or MS Dynamics D365 or another CRM platform orientated option. A theme seen in the last 5-8 years has been the introduction of D365 without eliminating several of the legacy solutions underneath. The worst of both worlds in my opinion.

Consolidation and sale of suppliers and systems, one a month at times, has limited traditional choice. while a couple of new solutions have been emerging, you can understand the urge to just build something as a DIY approach. Some solutions have disappeared or suffering losing their leaders.

Excel spreadsheets and workarounds feature greatly in my posts. These have not gone away, we don’t appear to train staff to any greater degree to utilise spreadsheets any better and we still after 15 years have way too many. Maintaining high data quality is still a challenge for many.

I wonder at times if we procure solutions any better, many organisations still don't use soft-market engagement properly, or demonstrations. Its still not unusual to see a half day demo for a full HMS that will be costing upwards of several million pounds. Also that often the right questions are still not being asked.

Good integration or lack of it still looms large, despite it being a key driver of efficiency and better GDPR compliance. Why on earth are we not sorting that?

Legacy solutions still seem to plague us in the sector, in applications and infrastructure, with some landlords still some way behind with upgrades and patching.

One other aspect I have noticed is how providers still don’t work with suppliers close enough. As a supplier historically, 20% of my customers always got 80% of the supplier attention. We often pay suppliers crazy amounts, why are we not pressing our organisation agendas better and sharing our needs and concerns? It’s an acquired skill for sure, however something that can be learned and nurtured with help from the right Critical Friend. Often that help can save more than you spend on them, I have been told.

Read my HT contribution here and do of course subscribe to that excellent organ, if you don't already. If you do, please let them know I sent you!

Will we be performing better in the next 15 years then? With the right help and approach you could be.

If you are struggling with inefficient SocialHousing solutions, reach out

please just get in touch , for a chat over a brew and some Jammy Dodgers ☕😋

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The Levellers - Fifteen Years.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here

Thursday 25 July 2024

Shut 'Um Down

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @HousingITguy or LinkedIn here https://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

Its all very well for you switched on and on the ball organisations, all your quality data in the Cloud and most of your staff applications presented in any modern browser they want to work with. But spare a thought for the Councils and Socialhousing providers, who are still working hard to complete (or maybe just start) that journey. It’s not through want of trying generally I would say. Often budget holds organisations back, sometimes its way more complex, or cultural. While the benefits of Cloud should be quite obvious, however suppliers often fail to make the case for a sale, particularly finance budget holders !

Pretty much eight out of ten of my recent clients, have been trying to move on from something, often multiple challenges. All sizes of organisation are facing this, from managing under 150 homes on an MS Access solution, up to those having tens of thousands assets. Keeping cybersecure is also a growing challenge.

A recent theme has been the vulnerabilities of one of the sectors old favourite Asset Management solutions Keystone, showing up being discovered, getting on for two years since Microsoft pulled security updates for Silverlight. That was no surprise however, since I originally blogged about it in early August 2012, a full 12 years ago. The on-premise servers its installed on can be ‘isolated’ from the network and outside world, although this does make it more challenging to use asbestos info and other asset data, particularly to enhance repairs service and keep it safe & compliant. A quick move off Keystone is not particularly practical to its owners suggested replacement. It certainly looks like a slow transition if its selected. There are good alternatives out there, although insight and third-party guidance would be advised, for folk going down that path.

Solaris desktop in all its glory

Its amazing how much old kit is out there, much of it way beyond its sell-by-date and some clearly on its last legs.

If I had £50 for every time ICT techie told me that they dreaded servers needing a reboot and feared they might not come back up, I would certainly have £600 this year by now. Late, great names such as SunOS, Solaris pop up, decade old not-upgraded SANs, either technically out of support or close too practically. While many organisations have been in a transition off these boxes/platforms for some months or years, clearly some are yet to start on that journey.

The other area that pops up are legacy domains. Some of these are sometimes in the EU and being used in the UK or visa-versa, clearly not totally compliant after Brexit. Also, there are still many group organisations with remnants of original constituent domains left over. These often contain lots of unstructured data, files, documents, spreadsheets etc, many of which historically should have been data cleansed. Again, easier said than done in order to achieve a sufficiently high level of social housing GDPR compliance.

An accurate and up to date infrastructure and application inventory is an essential tool. Clearly, running on recent versions of our applications (harder when not Cloud apps OBVs) is also essential, particularly where we need to rely on supplier helpdesks for support. Its not unusual for me to encounter applications many years out of date, which based on software contracts helpdesks shouldn’t even be taking calls for. However, annual support and maintenance is still being paid on time!

So, have ICT check and update your inventory, getting a short-medium term strategy formed to migrate away and shut your troublesome legacy hardware & infrastructure down. While its perhaps not a quick move, it will shore up foundations to a smoother future for staff and your ICT team supporting it all

If you are stuck on legacy SocialHousing solutions, reach out

please just get in touch , for a chat over a brew and some digestives ☕😋

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Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson - Shut 'Um Down.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here