Beat Dis

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK
or LinkedIn here uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/

  

It's not often the social housing world beats the Barclay's etc. of the business world, the Scottish FA and Cancer Research in IT innovation. Sure we figure annually  in the lists of 100 best places to work. So we should, most of us are a fluffy, caring lot. 

But IT innovation? Did you think you mis-read that one?

Our IT budgets are not the biggest out there, frequently we have to do more with less in a constantly changing regulatory  environment. Frequently IT people come into the sector and criticise the system and applications that we have at our disposal to work with. Often I spend time trying to fit projects to shrinking budgets and am used to meeting some pretty innovative folk.

One of my favourites I have worked the last year with is Yarlington, based down in Yeovil, South Somerset. Granted, a county many may think of as quite sleepy (if people can actually place it on a map at all, that is). We probably race through it to get to Devon or Cornwall now and again, but leave the inhabitants to have a quiet life, make excellent craft cider and those flying machine things at Westland & BAE.

Well, a quiet revolution has been going on down there. In contrast to many with GIS, they have worked with local authority, ESRI, and their stakeholders, to provide a global view of geography, people, YHG customers, crime, listed buildings, social factors etc. Yarlington then found a cost effective method of deploying that to everyone in the organisation, using tools from the great Mapchannels resource, who might be able to make use of it. All existing internal data sources are available too, providing over a hundred different layer combinations. This helps Yarlington put customers and residents further at the heart of what they do.

New sign-ups can view their new neighbourhood in terms of proximity to nearest Post Office, surgery or recreation facilities or parks. Also crime hotspots, local transport provision etc. the repair team can be more efficient as they know where listed properties, trees and features are present, saving time, effort and reducing (paid for) local authority searches. New developments can be targeted to new areas of need, many in successful new developments further afield than the traditional heartland of South Somerset. In these austere times, Yarlington is doing all they can to be in their customers corner. This is a tool that makes that a reality, day in day out.

I saw the presentation and video Karen Dumper and Chris Reed put together for the initial sessions for the UK IT Industry Awards. It was inspirational and showed the outcomes not the under the bonnet techie aspect of the solution. Emphasis was on how they had satisfied their customers, a theme and a message I make myself blue in the face trying to do, with many housing organisations. It's about them (the customers or customer users) not us stupid!

Last week I was knocked out to hear that they had beaten the competition hands down. A humble housing 'David' taking on 'Goliath's. Read more about it here http://www.yhg.co.uk/news/13-11-14/Yarlington_wins_top_award_for_I_T_project.aspx 

In my book we need more of this. IT working properly for the users & residents, people being freed up to innovate and think out of the box.

You can link with me on LinkedIn here - uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/ It would be great to connect !

Read on to The End of those dial-up days:

http://tonysmiththathousingitguy.blogspot.com/2013/09/end-of-my-high-wire-days.html

Bomb The Bass - Beat Dis .


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

PS As usual, if there are subjects you might like me to tackle on this blog, please get in touch and let me know!

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Olympian

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK
or LinkedIn here uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/

Are you going to any of the London based housing events next week? (19th/20th November 2013).

You can find me at Olympia for the NHF IT Managers conference and exhibition on Tuesday. Please come and say hello if you follow this blog or my twitter feed at @hotpixUK

Prices look to be much more reasonable this year and rightly so, in the current climate of austerity. Worth getting out of the office for, plenty of interesting sessions and the exhibition of IT suppliers, looking to help spend your IT & systems budget too!

I will be going to Mr Grants excellent HT (Housing Technology) Magazine annual bash at Pizza Express too, so do say hello if you spot me by the bar with a beer!

The day after, Wednesday it is Homes at Excel on the east of town, which is also looking like a good event this year.

You can link with me on LinkedIn here - uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/ It would be great to connect !

Gene - Olympian .


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

PS As usual, if there are subjects you might like me to tackle on this blog, please get in touch and let me know!

File Under: 360,1stTouch,4Js. 07854-655009 , 07854655009 , 07854 655009 ," ""07854 655009"" ",07854-655009,#UKHousing,1st Touch,3squared, Acutence,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,App,Associates,ACL,Abritas,AMS,AX,aspireview, BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Process Review,Business social networking, Blockwise, Block wise,BI,BancTec,BluTek,Bluebox, Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Cx,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics, CHR,Citrix,Civica,Clearview,CMS , CCS IT Keystone CCSIT, Contractor Systems,CORE,CorVu,Cost Reductions,Covalent,CRM,Crystal Reports,CTI,CTX,Customer Relationship Management,Cashflow, COA,Coactiva,Codeman,Comino,Competitive Dialogue process,complex IT procurements,Component Accounting,Consilium,Consolidation,Consultancy,Consultant,Contact Manager,Context,CIH,Chartered Institute Of Housing,Cadcorp,Cerrus Saturn,convergeOne,CACI,CPL Director, Deeplake,Development Systems,Document Management,Documotive,datasystems , Microsoft dynamics GP 2013 ECMK,EDRMS,England, English,EnterpriseBI,ERP Systems,ERP,Elmhurst,Estatecraft,EDM,ESRI,Exponential-e, Finance,Financial Systems,Financials, Factorwise,Facebook ,Fusion, Getting best from,gotonysmith, Grasp,Grip,GeoSolveIT,GIS,GGP, HouSys,Housing software,HG,Housemark survey,Housing Blueprint,Housing Group,hotpixuk, HousingIT,hotpix,Hardware,Hitex,Housing Contact Company, Impact Response,implementations,In House,In4,Infoflow,Information Technology,Informix,inHouse,in-house workforce, Innovation,Inside Housing,Internet Portal,Invu,Ireland,Irish,IT Budget,IT Training,iWorld, Innovation Group Apex,ITIL, In4Systems Promaster,IT,Insight, Keylogic,Keystone,Kirona,Kypera,Keyfax, Ledgers,Linkedin,Locality,Liquid Voice, MD ,Mr Void , MrVoid, Measuring Change,Mebus,Miracle,MISCS, mobile functionality,Monopoly board images and pictures, Montal,MS Dynamics,MS Dynamics CRM2011,Miracle Software,Management Reporting,MI,M3,MIS,MIS-AMS,Mobysoft, Northgate Codeman,Neighbourhoods and Communities, Northgate,Notice,NROSH,NINTEX , NINTEX workflow,Nintexworkflow, OA,OGC Buying Solutions,Ohms,OJEU Limits,OmFax,Omniledger,Open source software,open tender,OpenHousing tonysmith@hotpixuk ,,Opti-Time,Oracle,Orchard,Outsource and outsourcing,OpenContractor,ORS,OneServe, PIMMS Data Systems, Paloma,performance management systems,PfH,Pick,PIMMS,pimms4communities,Planned maintenance,People Value,Plus,Peoplevalue,PM,Progress,Promaster,Proval,Pyramid,PRINCE2,prince,Pamwin, QL,QLX,Quiss,Qlikview, Registered Providers,Registered Social Landlord,Rent Increase Freezes,Repairfinder,Reporting,Reports,ROCC , Rocket,RPs,RSL,Reality,ReAct,reidmark,RM865, Saffron,SAP,Scots, Scottish,Scotland,SDM,sector,Server Virtualisation,servicing, Servitor,Sharepoint,Simdel,Simdell,Slash and Burn,Social Media,Software,SQL Open Housing,SQL Reporting Services,SQL reporting services,SQL Server,Star rating,Stores and Stock,Strategic Asset Management,Sunguard ,Surveys,Sx3,System alignment, Systemwise,SM,Sequoa,Serros,SP,Scout,score,Swordfish,Serengeti,SOTI,south view,Sunguard,Service Charges, Template,Task,Terminal Services, tonys , tonysm , tonysmi , tonysmith, tonysmithth, tonysmiththa, tonysmiththat, tonysmiththath, tonysmiththatho, tonysmiththathou, tonysmiththathous, tonysmiththathousi, tonysmiththathousin, tonysmiththathousing, tonysmith@hotpixuk , tonysmiththathousingg, tonysmiththathousinguy, sharepoint, share point Three Star,Today,Total repairs,Tribal,Twitter,U2, tonysmith , tonysmiththat , thathousing , thathousingIT , thathousingITguy ,TED,Tagish Casework,TP Tracker,Telecetera,Tagra,Trace, UniClass Enterprise,Unidata,Universal Housing,Universalcredit, universal credit, universal credits,UC,Universe,Unrest, UK, United Kingdom ,Ukhousing,UK Housing, Van Stock,Voice and data,Vantage Sentinel,Version One,Visualmetrics,Voluntas, Wales,Welsh,Windows Server,Workflow and tasking,Wheatley, Xmbrace,XML ,XenApp,Xen App

Something Better Change

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK
or LinkedIn here uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/

What on earth is Marissa Mayer of Google, er no sorry Yahoo thinking about?
First she directed a makeover of photographers social media website Flickr to be more like Facebook, losing most of the sensible features that photographers enjoyed, back in May 2013. See old Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Marissa_Mayer&oldid=556752091 , the current one has been edited by a loyal Yahoo employee to erase that.

The official Flickr help thread of more than 298 pages and 29,000+ of complaints was ignored at http://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157633547442506/ The ever helpful Thea Lamkin closed the monster thread because of the amount of disk space being chewed up

In October, a few weeks ago Yahoo Mail was Google-ised. Now Marissa was Google employee 20 and still maybe has those letters running through her like a stick of rock. Unfortunately now she has brought all the stuff that people hate about Google mail to Yahoo Mail. Without fixing some of the faults in the last incarnation.

So, neat tabs that allowed you to work with 5 or 6 emails or a search site by side were gone. A bit like the old MS-DOS you close what you are doing and have to open your new thing. That annoying but not readable history view is displayed, a-la Gmail.

Contacts are a mess too. Due to poor use of the screen estate, the contact page is now longer. Most of the common fields you need are hidden and need revealing before you can fill them. E.G. Address, Website, even ‘Job Title’ to add to the always present ‘Employer’. So, more clicks than ever before. Why not just let customers switch on a view of all, all the time. Was that a problem needing fixing then?

The biggest irritation for me is that when I add a contact and need to select my country. An irritation already my country does not come up defaulted ‘United Kingdom’. No, we get the leader of the free world, ‘United States’ at the top (where else), but a list that cannot be navigated by typing a letter. A ‘V’ for me, used to get me to ‘Vanuatu’ and three arrows up, would find me ‘Blighty’.

I use Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail. Sad to say that Hotmail I now find the most usable and that is rubbish.  I don’t know if any of my readers have been frustrated by the Yahoo mail redesign? Then again we are used to it in housing. Anyone done the migration from Optitime DRS 4 to 5, Windows 7 desktop to 8 or even just Windows 8 to 8.1? While you might have to do the first one, put the last two completely out of your mind, for a few years...

The situation might get worse too as more of our business solutions are hosted and updated for us in the cloud. Something we need to be aware of when procuring these solutions, our freedom to take or delay upgrades that might have a detrimental effect on user productivity, customer satisfaction or other key metrics in our organisations.

We must not let ‘suppliers’ think we don’t have a choice. We can check our contracts, give notice and up sticks. Even ‘free’ software takes a slice of revenue from us, in ad referrals and click through’s. New ideas and companies come along all the time to challenge the status quo, then decline. Just like Ford, Courtaulds, GEC, IBM, DEC, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook have in the past and A.N.Other will in the future.

Paraphrasing from Darwin “It is not the strongest of the software that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change, in the way their customers find useful”. If Marissa survives another 18 months at Yahoo I will be very surprised

You can link with me on LinkedIn here - uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/ It would be great to connect !

Read On, Bigger, faster, better, is there any point upgrading then?

http://tonysmiththathousingitguy.blogspot.com/2012/02/harder-better-faster-stronger.html

 

The Stranglers - Something Better Change .


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

PS As usual, if there are subjects you might like me to tackle on this blog, please get in touch and let me know!

File Under: 360,1stTouch,4Js. 07854-655009 , 07854655009 , 07854 655009 ," ""07854 655009"" ",07854-655009,#UKHousing,1st Touch,3squared, Acutence,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,App,Associates,ACL,Abritas,AMS,AX,aspireview, BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Process Review,Business social networking, Blockwise, Block wise,BI,BancTec,BluTek,Bluebox, Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Cx,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics, CHR,Citrix,Civica,Clearview,CMS , CCS IT Keystone CCSIT, Contractor Systems,CORE,CorVu,Cost Reductions,Covalent,CRM,Crystal Reports,CTI,CTX,Customer Relationship Management,Cashflow, COA,Coactiva,Codeman,Comino,Competitive Dialogue process,complex IT procurements,Component Accounting,Consilium,Consolidation,Consultancy,Consultant,Contact Manager,Context,CIH,Chartered Institute Of Housing,Cadcorp,Cerrus Saturn,convergeOne,CACI,CPL Director, Deeplake,Development Systems,Document Management,Documotive,datasystems , Microsoft dynamics GP 2013 ECMK,EDRMS,England, English,EnterpriseBI,ERP Systems,ERP,Elmhurst,Estatecraft,EDM,ESRI,Exponential-e, Finance,Financial Systems,Financials, Factorwise,Facebook ,Fusion, Getting best from,gotonysmith, Grasp,Grip,GeoSolveIT,GIS,GGP, HouSys,Housing software,HG,Housemark survey,Housing Blueprint,Housing Group,hotpixuk, HousingIT,hotpix,Hardware,Hitex,Housing Contact Company, Impact Response,implementations,In House,In4,Infoflow,Information Technology,Informix,inHouse,in-house workforce, Innovation,Inside Housing,Internet Portal,Invu,Ireland,Irish,IT Budget,IT Training,iWorld, Innovation Group Apex,ITIL, In4Systems Promaster,IT,Insight, Keylogic,Keystone,Kirona,Kypera,Keyfax, Ledgers,Linkedin,Locality,Liquid Voice, MD ,Mr Void , MrVoid, Measuring Change,Mebus,Miracle,MISCS, mobile functionality,Monopoly board images and pictures, Montal,MS Dynamics,MS Dynamics CRM2011,Miracle Software,Management Reporting,MI,M3,MIS,MIS-AMS,Mobysoft, Northgate Codeman,Neighbourhoods and Communities, Northgate,Notice,NROSH,NINTEX , NINTEX workflow,Nintexworkflow, OA,OGC Buying Solutions,Ohms,OJEU Limits,OmFax,Omniledger,Open source software,open tender,OpenHousing tonysmith@hotpixuk ,,Opti-Time,Oracle,Orchard,Outsource and outsourcing,OpenContractor,ORS,OneServe, PIMMS Data Systems, Paloma,performance management systems,PfH,Pick,PIMMS,pimms4communities,Planned maintenance,People Value,Plus,Peoplevalue,PM,Progress,Promaster,Proval,Pyramid,PRINCE2,prince,Pamwin, QL,QLX,Quiss,Qlikview, Registered Providers,Registered Social Landlord,Rent Increase Freezes,Repairfinder,Reporting,Reports,ROCC , Rocket,RPs,RSL,Reality,ReAct,reidmark,RM865, Saffron,SAP,Scots, Scottish,Scotland,SDM,sector,Server Virtualisation,servicing, Servitor,Sharepoint,Simdel,Simdell,Slash and Burn,Social Media,Software,SQL Open Housing,SQL Reporting Services,SQL reporting services,SQL Server,Star rating,Stores and Stock,Strategic Asset Management,Sunguard ,Surveys,Sx3,System alignment, Systemwise,SM,Sequoa,Serros,SP,Scout,score,Swordfish,Serengeti,SOTI,south view,Sunguard,Service Charges, Template,Task,Terminal Services, tonys , tonysm , tonysmi , tonysmith, tonysmithth, tonysmiththa, tonysmiththat, tonysmiththath, tonysmiththatho, tonysmiththathou, tonysmiththathous, tonysmiththathousi, tonysmiththathousin, tonysmiththathousing, tonysmith@hotpixuk , tonysmiththathousingg, tonysmiththathousinguy, sharepoint, share point Three Star,Today,Total repairs,Tribal,Twitter,U2, tonysmith , tonysmiththat , thathousing , thathousingIT , thathousingITguy ,TED,Tagish Casework,TP Tracker,Telecetera,Tagra,Trace, UniClass Enterprise,Unidata,Universal Housing,Universalcredit, universal credit, universal credits,UC,Universe,Unrest, UK, United Kingdom ,Ukhousing,UK Housing, Van Stock,Voice and data,Vantage Sentinel,Version One,Visualmetrics,Voluntas, Wales,Welsh,Windows Server,Workflow and tasking,Wheatley, Xmbrace,XML ,XenApp,Xen App