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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I am the greatest

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/
 
Is your IT team ‘the greatest’ and do you give maximum satisfaction for expenditure per user? What price satisfaction then?

These are some of the things that the annual ‘HouseMark Information, Technology and Communication Benchmarking’ report aims to find out, by taking into account 144 housing organisations.

A little slimmer than previous years, the report suggests that RSL’s spend between £4K-6K on each ICT user, where LSVT’s appeared to mostly spend less. Notoriously, I have always wondered how accurate figures were, as I knew of organisations that deliberately submitted lower costs and others submitted very accurate figures and not surprisingly appeared in the lower quartile (higher cost section) of results.

One surprising conclusion is that costs did not seem to correlate to perceived satisfaction. Spending more on ITC does not appear to guarantee a better user experience or a more reliable system. I am unsure if many finance directors and managers will appreciate that outcome, as general up-time appears to be between 97-100%.

It would have been very useful to compare ICT costs across the six main housing management systems. This is not possible in this year’s report, but might well reflect where they have been used to create staff efficiencies.

A question I have been asked many times over the years, is “How many ICT staff do you think we should have?”. I am pleased to say that my usual finger in the air guess of one FTE (Full Time equivalent) post per 1,000 homes, is still a pretty good baseline. How does that compare for your team? IT staff remain stubbornly expensive at an average of over £41K, with ITC salaries in Yorkshire over £4K higher than in the North West of England. Maybe gods own county is not so frugal after all. 

Consolidation is often thought to reduce IT costs, this report suggests that smaller (perfectly formed) RSLs of under 5,000 homes appeared to perform better and cheaper on average. Of course the provision of many remote offices can push up costs.

Another interesting fact is that having a DLO appears to reduce ICT average costs, as well as saving your organisation 20% on your VATtable repairs.

The report highlights the current  ‘Digital by Default’ agenda as a driver for more web based resident portals and a drive to self service. From what I have seen recently, the drive to move Universal Credit and other current benefits online, is assisting take up of this type of channel shifting. As can be imagined, this reduces the cost of an enquiry or transaction from around £10, down to a mere fraction of that, providing enough customers move to use web portals.

It’s my view that tenants and customers still need a number of reasons to go to the HMS portals provided. This might well point to better integration with social media, local twitter feeds/Facebook/Google+ pages etc, to entice people in. Discount/reward schemes may also be a way to bring people in. A few RSLs to my knowledge have used social media very well in emergency situations, extreme weather, crime, lost children etc.

To help get residents on-line, a trend was identified to move old hardware into schemes that had exceeded its 3 year depreciation as a business tool. Thus the green box can be ticked and costs of disposal deferred or avoided. If your organisation is going down this route, do not overlook support provision, or that this older gear will be more prone to breakdown.

Download the full report for bedtime reading at: http://www.housemark.co.uk/hmresour.nsf/lookup/HM_ITC_BM_rpt_2013.pdf/$File/HM_ITC_BM_rpt_2013.pdf

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 !

A House - I Am The greatest.


(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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Paperback Writer

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/





For housing financials, there are a number of options out there. You know the usual suspects; Sunaccounts, OpenAccounts, Dynamics and lately SAP are getting in on the act with larger Housing Groups. As many people know, I was a MS Dynamics GP reseller when at the old shop. Dynamics however can be found way beyond the sphere of RSL's and HA's however.

No offence to accountants, but in some ways it’s all counting beans [Complaints will be coming on Twitter...], but all systems have their stronger points and unique features. Although, as bean counting is not the most exciting activity, few evangelists seem to be out there writing interesting books on their capabilities. So imagine my surprise when my old friend and ex-MIS Microsoft Dynamics GP consultant Ian Greive tipped me off that he had collaborated in a new book on Dynamics GP 2013, the latest version. I am always interested in friends when they get published, I know the excitement of seeing my photographs in print!

Ian has done a fantastic job on the Microsoft Dynamics 2013 Cookbook, with Mark Polino. It brings together over a hundred tips and techniques to ‘leverage’ (as Microsoft seem to say a lot) this new release. Amazon are charging nearly £60 for it, but I have found this direct ebook link from just £19.50 - http://www.packtpub.com/microsoft-dynamics-gp-2013-cookbook/book

A sample chapter can be had here http://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/9781849689380_Chapter_08.pdf?utm_source=packtpub&utm_medium=free&utm_campaign=pdf 

 The book attempts to help the user to break out of the habit of sticking with the habits of the version of the system that they originally went live on. We are all perhaps a little guilty of that, we often find it reassuring to stick with what we know. Maybe, but it takes someone sometimes to reveal what we are missing. The sample chapter takes the user through many little known hacks and techniques. If you have the test Fabrikam company database accessible, you can try the examples right from the start.

For folks who learn best by watching and seeing, Ian also has been busy on a video course too - http://www.packtpub.com/content/microsoft-dynamics-gp-techniques/video When I worked with Ian he was always one of those people who knew his stuff, tried hard to get into the business problems he was there to assist with. He has certainly done a cracking job here and the resources all worth a look if you are one of the many Dynamics GP users out there. Shame I am not on commission (honest!).

Check Ian Greive out on his colour and cloud themed blogs at http://www.coralcurve.co.uk and http://www.azurecurve.co.uk If you comment on any of those, let him know I tipped you off.

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: Housing Twitter, who is who?

The Beatles - Paperback Writer.


(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,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, 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

Beautiful Future

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/

I was up in lovely Edinburgh again this week at The Corn Exchange, Slateford for the (cunningly named, apologies to George Grant...) Technology In Housing event. As it was the first of its kind, it was refreshing to see all the main system suppliers with stands. Also a relatively good turnout from local LA housing teams and RSLs.

I must give a quick shout out to Jim McKee Tenant Participation Officer from North Ayrshire Council, who I had the good fortune to walk in with. Like me he is involved with a community library and I know there are many gold nuggets of lessons learnt that will help mine where I volunteer on the board at www.Grappenhall.org.uk

I think it’s a difficult nut to crack in Scotland due to geography to get housing people together. However everyone learns such a lot by doing so, it’s often worthwhile to brave the A9, Scotrail or FlyBE (often referred to as ‘MayBE’) to knock around some housing ideas, best practice and opinions. A bit like user supplier and product groups. Often ignored, but actually really useful to customers. A pet hate of mine, but as I commented at the event, in the past I have urged customers until I was blue in the face to attend user groups, if only for the networking opportunities with fellow users of the application or HMS.

Most sessions involved a few suppliers with a end user or housing consultant representatives, such as myself or Colin Moss, who it was good to see for a pint at Cloisters before the event too. I am a big fan of Colin’s straight forward approach and I have known him for nearly 14 years. Like me he cuts through the jargon and often the sales hype for customers to arrive at a practical result. 

It was very refreshing for the event to be very un-salesy. Stewart Davison from Capita in particular came up with many ideas and techniques that could be of use to many of the end-users and IT staff in the audience. Many of those ideas confirmed that in some cases, low tech does hit the spot. For example, a sticker with a barcode or QR Code on a central heating boiler or other component might well link to the information needed rather than £25K of mobile kit to access attribute details.

In many ways the thing I think should be taken away from the event was that there are many ways to crack a nut and suppliers or suppliers via consultants can often achieve a cost effective solution for your needs. An external voice can certainly guide housing teams to think out of the box and well worth the purchase order.

There was much talk of the future. In particular what the role of mobile working or social media might play going forward. I, like Martyn Rees of Civica agree that more and more consumer hardware is being used by business. A trend that is sure to continue, when a ruggedized device might be ten times as expensive as a consumer one. Mobile software that is truly agnostic is what your tenders should be specifying, so whatever tablet or smartphone style device appears (and they appear so frequently these days), users can take advantage of it.

Social media was a hotter topic on the panel than in the audience seemingly, although I believe it will be inescapable wherever you are in the UK (if it’s not already), regardless of your organisations attitude to control and risk. Different sites need different approaches and attract different sorts of audiences. The existing skills of generating a quarterly newsletter may well fail to cut it when transplanted to SM. New ideas and approaches are needed, such as what Prospect are doing with https://www.facebook.com/FromThereToHereaWesterHailesStory  . Integrating SM with your HMS still seemed to be much theoretical and still reliant on a managed, manually thinking, updating and participating.

Finally, where is the future for housing IT? Some suggestions were made about improved reporting, particularly this element coming out of the box from suppliers. This does seem to be at long last appearing after the fad for Business Objects (BO), a Universe and users expending much effort to product reports from scratch. Web browser based access another convenient requirement, together with web hosting/cloud, in order to allow access from office, home or any public wifi network.

Still, no panel had an ‘HG Wells’ on it, nor any crystal balls were in use. Much like Colin Moss, I have seen mainframes come and go, 8” floppy’s become 5.25 Twiggy disks, then 3.5”, PC’s to proliferate in the workplace, then become a no-no as servers are virtualised and clients become thin again. I agree with Colin that you cannot reliably look forward too far. Technology develops now on a 3-6 month cycle, rather than a two to five year one, like as in the 1990’s. Legislation comes and goes too. We all remember NROSH, dropped at the whim of politicians. So, predictions are perhaps best to avoid for the future, as the changes will not stop coming thick and fast.

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, data conversions - how far should you go?

http://tonysmiththathousingitguy.blogspot.com/2012/11/how-much-is-enough-data-conversions.html

Primal Scream - Beautiful Future.


(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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Wishing (I had a Photograph Of You)

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 there any users of Yahoo Flickr out there? A lot of my work contacts take photos and many are on Flickr. I have been on there for about 4 years. If you are unfamiliar with it, Flickr is a photosharing website angled towards a photographic community. People on there know me as HotpixUK and I have nearly 6,500 followers and have had 1.5 million views on my 1,055 images.  I take my photography seriously and Flickr allowed me to make friends around the world, share techniques and tips etc.

It is a community of people bonded together by photography and few of my contacts I know in real life. Most I will never meet as they are in Iran, Argentina, India etc. It was a very clean and minimal user interface. Like a gallery. I pay £15 a year for a Pro account with stats and no ads.

If I go to The Tate, The Photographers Gallery in London, Bluecoat in Liverpool, Cornerhouse in Manchester, Ufizzi in Florence or the Louve in Paris, we see images/paintings/photographs surrounded by lots of wall or white space. That's how those things are best appreciated. There’s generally a caption telling us about technical or image details. Flickr previously focused on the image, caption, comments on it, groups it may have been added to and sets that the photographer organised images into.

I have completed a number of projects over the years and organised them into sets. I have one of the homeless winter night shelter in Warrington - http://www.flickr.com/photos/hotpixuk/sets/72157622888049236/ , various numbers 0-30 http://www.flickr.com/photos/hotpixuk/sets/72157629892831953/ and Edinburgh Festival Performers http://www.flickr.com/photos/hotpixuk/sets/72157631463655258/ among others. I am proud of my images and quite keen to show them off to anyone who might appreciate it.

Change is a constant and I am an agent of change. I am constantly involved with helping change systems that people use and the processes they use. Change generally is worth doing if it saves time, effort, adds efficiency, improves things. They work best if the target audience are part of that process and over donkeys years have had this confirmed, time after time. This prototyping enables tweaks to what is being proposed before we are ‘pre-maturely’ physical. That phrase sticks in my mind from my old lecturer at Manchester Poly, Ian Beeson. I think he eventually ended up at Bristol University Of The West Of England. Get in touch mate if you read this!

A design project I have involved with recently has involved lots of prototyping with wire-framing (maybe more on a future post on the attractions/benefits of that) and that effort will drastically remove doubt and slash development costs. I saw that myself with a HPM (Housing Process Management) project at my old MIS-AMS shop with ActiveH. 15 months of discussion and only 9 months of development got us 90% to where we needed to be. More jaw-jaw, not code-code (adapted from Churchill). 

Anyone who knows me will perhaps confirm that I am a bit of a ‘sponge’. Sit me near any customer, employee or user and before long my curiosity will mean I ask and try to understand the context in which people work. What they need, what’s important to them and who they are, what they feel. Only by knowing that, can something (a product, software, service) can be shaped around them successfully. There needs to be a channel of trust too. For me that was my mobile number. If any customer of mine was dissatisfied they could phone me directly, any time of day. I still do it today. I doubt if any other customer of a HMS (Housing Systems Supplier) has a direct line to their system suppliers director, and could rely on fast action to resolve issues via it? Customer relationships are the keystone to successful systems.

Yahoo did a radical redesign change to Flickr this last week on a Monday Night with no prior notification or seemingly understanding of their customer base. A help forum thread at http://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157633547442506/ shows the extent of the response to this upgrade. Thea Lamkin, lead on the thread (http://www.flickr.com/photos/thealamkin/8744800801/ ) has tactfully disabled comments, as the only ones expected are negative ones.

Spookily enough she was clever to do this as over 24,000 Flickr users (so far as at 24/05/2013) have shared their opinion on how they feel about the recent ‘upgrade’. Unfortunately 98% of feedback has been less than complementary. For some reason the tempting carrot of 1TB of free (yep free, really free, like Wild Willy Barrett) didn’t calm the backlash. Tackling that one, anyone with even a slight photographic skill, will probably not want people stealing their shots on the net. So like me they probably post small watermarked versions with high JPG compressions (5 or 6). 1TB would only be useful if I could upload RAW format, which I can’t. Therefore a free TB makes a great headline, but is worthless to 99% of Flickr users.

No users to my knowledge were warned this was coming or had the chance to provide feedback of any kind. The new layout is very much ‘montage of images’ which is slow to load. There is limited emphasis on comments and sets, one of the keystones of what I found useful and other semi-serious photographers. Many of the forum comments describe how Flickr has been transformed to a Facebook timeline style. In many ways Flickr has chased the FB way. Surely though, if photographers wanted to post on Facebook they would be doing that already? Well I do, but rarely serious stuff that I want to share with a very different audience on Flickr.   

Worse than not telling folk, Flickr (and Yahoo) are not now listening either. Apart from above mentioned irritations, pages now take an age to load (at least here on my ADSL line in Warrington, Cheshire, Old England). I am not in silicon glen or silicon roundabout, so not seeing lightning downloads on my devices, I am afraid to report. Customisation options are not available either like in the past. I cannot have a gallery type view with white space or easy and fast to navigate thumbnails.Yahoo knows best.

I am acutely aware that we all need to turn a dollar. I visited the USSR in the 1980’s and inter-railed Prague, Yugoslavia & Bulgaria in the soviet era and accept that capitalism is not perfect, but can and does work, if we tackle it in a caring way. If Yahoo are needing to move to an ads model for all, just give us pro accounts for free, give us an ad in the top right hand corner and some stats. If we click through we make the 30p for Yahoo. For goodness sake though, don’t mess with the mechanisms proper photographers use on the site, like sets, notes, comments, tags, white space etc. Don’t bother suggesting you are building massive data centres Yahoo either, to give us all 1 TB. As your bean counters will already be aware, only 0.02% of Flickr users might find that useful.

A very revealing insight into the lack of understanding of Yahoo’s Flickr customers is to be seen right here:
Asked at a Yahoo press conference on May 17 2013 whether Flickr would be "shuttering" its Pro accounts, CEO Marissa Mayer said that she wanted "everybody to have professional-quality photo space", and that "there's no such thing as Flickr Pro because today, with cameras as pervasive as they are, there's no such thing, really, as professional photographers". In response to "outrage" from professional photographers, Mayer apologized via Twitter for wording her answer "terribly", saying that she was referring to the changes to Flickr's storage space and the number of photographs that people take.

I find that quite insulting. I sell quite a number of images. 90% of people roaming the streets with an iphone, Galaxy or whatever who upload dozens of images a day, could never produce that type of stuff, or have images published.
Its ignorance. Understand your customers and you understand your product Marissa.

I am happy moving on however, search for ‘HotpixUK’ on Google and I am sure you will find me. Let’s see if Yahoo wakes up to the mistake that they have made here. There are plenty of Flickr alternatives more focussed to photographers, I will mourn the loss of my valued contacts, but here are some of the more tuned in alternatives:

http://www.technewsdaily.com/18170-3-flickr-alternatives-for-disgruntled-photographers.html
http://www.ipernity.com/apps/gm
http://www.smugmug.com/

I was so happy with Flickr up to last week, but now I find myself looking seriously at other places. Yahoo may becoming the 21st century version of Lycos, Flickr like Geocities. The moral of this blogpost is respect your customers. Remember we have two ears and only one mouth. More listening is what we are made for. Get into your customers minds, understand their needs, fears and aspirations. If you don’t, you may be toast. Little more than a footnote over at the internet archive, that's where you are heading Flickr, I am afraid.





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 !

A Flock Of Seagulls - Wishing (I had a photograph of you).


(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,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Process Review,Business social networking,Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics,
CHR,Citrix,Civica,Clearview,CMS ,Asprey e-state pro, ECMK , Innovation Group Apex, Mr Void , MrVoid, In4Systems Promaster, CCS IT Keystone CCSIT, Northgate Codeman, PIMMS Data Systems, datasystems , Template,COA,Coactiva,Codeman,Comino,Competitive Dialogue process,complex IT procurements,Component Accounting,Consilium,Consolidation,Consultancy,Consultant,Contact Manager,Context, MD , Director , Housing software, UK, United Kingdom,Contractor Systems,CORE,CorVu,Cost Reductions,Covalent,CRM,Crystal Reports,CTI,CTX,Customer Relationship Management,Deeplake,Development Systems,Document Management,Documotive,ECMK,EDRMS,England, English,EnterpriseBI,ERP Systems,Finance,Financial Systems,Getting best from,Grasp,Grip,hardware,HG,Housemark survey,Housing Blueprint,Housing Group,Impact Response,implementations,In House,In4,Infoflow,Information Technology,Informix,inHouse,in-house workforce, HousingIT, Innovation,Inside Housing,Internet Portal,Invu,Ireland,Irish,IT Budget,IT Training,iWorld,Keylogic,Keystone,Kirona,Kypera,management reporting,Measuring Change,Mebus,Miracle,MISCS, mobile functionality,Monopoly board images and pictures, Montal,MS Dynamics,MS Dynamics CRM2011,Neighbourhoods and Communities,Miracle Software, HouSys, Northgate,Notice,NROSH,OA,OGC Buying Solutions,Ohms,OJEU Limits,OmFax,Omniledger,Open source software,open tender,OpenHousing,Opti-Time,Oracle,Orchard,Outsource and outsourcing,Paloma,performance management systems,PfH,Pick,PIMMS,pimms4communities,Planned maintenance,Plus,PM,Progress,Promaster,Proval,Pyramid, QL,QLX,Registered Providers,Registered Social Landlord,Rent Increase Freezes,Repairfinder,Reporting,Reports,ROCC, NINTEX , NINTEX workflow , Rocket,RPs,RSL,Saffron,SAP,Scots, Scottish,Scotland,SDM,sector,Server Virtualisation,servicing, Universalcredit, universal credit, universal credits, Servitor,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, Factorwise, Blockwise, Block wise, Task,Terminal Services,Three Star,Today,Total repairs,Tribal,Twitter,U2, 07854-655009 , 07854655009 , 07854 655009 , "07854 655009" , tonysmith , tonysmiththat , thathousing , thathousingIT , thathousingITguy ,UniClass Enterprise,Unidata,Universal Housing,Universe,Unrest,Van Stock,Voice and data,Wales,Welsh,Windows Server,Workflow and tasking,Xmbrace,XML

Best In The (Housing) World

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/

While doing some work at one of my customers the other day, during a spot of downtime I had a look at the Housing Technology IT Supplier Review 2013. I don’t know if you caught this, if you are in Housing IT I am sure George Grant emailed you to let you know it had been completed.

Two results that made me smile were the areas where my old shop MIS-AMS came top of the pile; CRM and Asset Management. In some ways I was not surprised as that's two modules and application areas I know like the back of my hand. Also I had a lot of involvement in the design, implementation and customer facing aspects of getting those two modules right. They are pretty good to be sure (as I recall two of the Irish customers telling us), but seriously are they that much better than specialist offerings?

MIS-AMS ActiveH comes out way better than Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Surely is that not cream of the crop, supported by one of the world’s leading desktop software authors? MS Dynamics CRM did score highly on value for money, but then surely it should be, due to volume discounts and the like. So did the respondents skew the results? Strangely I had this conversation with an old colleague at another housing management systems supplier later in the week. I didn’t think so.

The differences boil down in my opinion to that old chestnut integration and look and feel. Adding Dynamics CRM or maybe Civica’s Contact Manager to a vertical market set of modules, such as a HMS provides training and significant integration issues. Out of the box costs are quite low, plumbing it all together is where resource, frustration and compromises slip in. So I am not surprised that bespoke CRM integrations score currently below out of the box CRM with all its links with Rents, Repairs, ASB, Web Portal, Planned Maintenance, Service Charges, Care, Development and Financial modules. Microsoft Dynamics CRM has come a long way from its original ‘bag of integration tools’ approach of a few years ago, but for most I don’t think it’s quite there yet.

Asset management is another mystery area. How on earth can a generic asset management module from the smallest player in this sector score higher than a specialist module such as Keystone, built by a team of ex-surveyors around housing needs? If I were Keystone I would be a bit worried. If I were Promaster or PIMSS I would be calling a working party to ask why on earth that might be.

If you are an ICT manager reading this or an Asset Manager, you can probably guess why the responses looked like they did. What are your day to day difficulties with your modules in place? It’s probably lack of or inconsistent integration, maybe a silo style approach which does not bring the main organisation into the orbit of asset management. Visibility counts for a lot when your housing officers are on the scheme and cannot answer basic asset orientated queries. Off-shore islands of data held in a separate asset management system (some even in a foreign database that has difficulty talking to your main ones) are not conducive to efficiency.

Opportunities to integrate well with voids, planned works, response repairs both ways are laborious, unreliable and often just abandoned for just that reason. I would guess from experience that Keystone is the best integrated of the respondents, hence it’s up there near the top. The Capita (old IBS) module deserves to be up there too. Obviously with Capita or MIS-AMS ActiveH, integration consists of setting the right parameters and code tables, not calling in the plumbers!

No-one should take any of the above as an endorsement (...other HMS & bolt on modules are available, all trademarks acknowledged etc..). The choice is always down to organisation needs. Just because it works in one RSL does not guarantee it will work in yours.

If you have a badly performing Assets or CRM module, get in touch, you know where to find me!


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 !

Dr Feelgood - Best In The World.


(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,Aareon,Academy,ActiveH,Alignment,ALMO,Anite,Apex,ArchHouse,Archouse,asbestos,Asprey e-state pro,Asset Management,Aurora,Average IT Costs,BO,BPR,Browser Applications,Business Objects,Business Process Review,Business social networking,Castle,CBL,Cedar Open Accounts,Change,Cheaper Housing IT,Chics,
CHR,Citrix,Civica,Clearview,CMS ,Asprey e-state pro, ECMK , Innovation Group Apex, Mr Void , MrVoid, In4Systems Promaster, CCS IT Keystone CCSIT, Northgate Codeman, PIMMS Data Systems, datasystems , Template,COA,Coactiva,Codeman,Comino,Competitive Dialogue process,complex IT procurements,Component Accounting,Consilium,Consolidation,Consultancy,Consultant,Contact Manager,Context, MD , Director , Housing software, UK, United Kingdom,Contractor Systems,CORE,CorVu,Cost Reductions,Covalent,CRM,Crystal Reports,CTI,CTX,Customer Relationship Management,Deeplake,Development Systems,Document Management,Documotive,ECMK,EDRMS,England, English,EnterpriseBI,ERP Systems,Finance,Financial Systems,Getting best from,Grasp,Grip,hardware,HG,Housemark survey,Housing Blueprint,Housing Group,Impact Response,implementations,In House,In4,Infoflow,Information Technology,Informix,inHouse,in-house workforce, HousingIT, Innovation,Inside Housing,Internet Portal,Invu,Ireland,Irish,IT Budget,IT Training,iWorld,Keylogic,Keystone,Kirona,Kypera,management reporting,Measuring Change,Mebus,Miracle,MISCS, mobile functionality,Monopoly board images and pictures, Montal,MS Dynamics,MS Dynamics CRM2011,Neighbourhoods and Communities,Miracle Software, HouSys, Northgate,Notice,NROSH,OA,OGC Buying Solutions,Ohms,OJEU Limits,OmFax,Omniledger,Open source software,open tender,OpenHousing,Opti-Time,Oracle,Orchard,Outsource and outsourcing,Paloma,performance management systems,PfH,Pick,PIMMS,pimms4communities,Planned maintenance,Plus,PM,Progress,Promaster,Proval,Pyramid, QL,QLX,Registered Providers,Registered Social Landlord,Rent Increase Freezes,Repairfinder,Reporting,Reports,ROCC, NINTEX , NINTEX workflow , Rocket,RPs,RSL,Saffron,SAP,Scots, Scottish,Scotland,SDM,sector,Server Virtualisation,servicing, Universalcredit, universal credit, universal credits, Servitor,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, Factorwise, Blockwise, Block wise, Task,Terminal Services,Three Star,Today,Total repairs,Tribal,Twitter,U2, 07854-655009 , 07854655009 , 07854 655009 , "07854 655009" , tonysmith , tonysmiththat , thathousing , thathousingIT , thathousingITguy ,UniClass Enterprise,Unidata,Universal Housing,Universe,Unrest,Van Stock,Voice and data,Wales,Welsh,Windows Server,Workflow and tasking,Xmbrace,XML