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!

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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!

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Private Universe

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 was very interesting on the 1st May to see how pruned down the Universal Credit (UC) trial has become. Day one of what was going to be a representative test of the new IT and back office systems for six months has been reduced to a very restrictive test in Ashton-Under-Lyne, borough of Tameside, Greater Manchester. To their credit as plucky northerners, they have already thought about internet access for claimants, at libraries and the town hall.

Ashton-U-Lyne you have your 15mins of fame.

Having grown up in social housing in the Glossop area I was familiar with Ashton, long journeys on the (far from express) 236 (formally the no 6) and 237 bus  which passed through it. My first job took me close to Ashton old road too at GEC Higher Openshaw (lovingly called the Go Easy Club). That part of east Manchester had been by-passed from much of the regeneration going on elsewhere. My fathers brother, my uncle Arthur lived there in Pennel street. When my Auntie Gladys died in 1999 their two up, two down terraced house fetched just £8K. So it is an area with some deprivation.

Times have changed though, for the better. My auntie and uncle missed the Commonwealth games at the stadium and its conversion to The Etihad, also the Metrolink extension up to Oldham is trickling wealth eastwards. It’s a place where a new system could be tested as all human life is there. The funny thing is that it’s not actually happening that way.

No more than 300 people will be processed over 6 months on this system. Only straightforward stuff, nothing complicated, single people, no children or dependence, no care responsibilities, no homelessness, everyone must have a bank account and a valid NI number. Almost certainly this will be a resounding success. If it isn’t, the IT development so far has got to be absolute pants. Well no-one is stretching the testing here and just as well, there has been four different directors overseeing the IT development in the last 6 months. I think this reveals what a hot potato this one is. You would think they would be thinking outside the jacket then?

Well seemingly not. This trial will test only the simplest group and only a minuscule number of them. Is this usual IT system testing practice? Not at any company I have ever worked at. The ‘use cases’ I have always worked with have always been the most complex we can devise. You learn quite soon that if you don’t start there, your system designs are guaranteed to fail. 

This £550M IT project has had its challenges, see http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/11/universal_credit_project_director_hilary_reynolds_replaced/
There are some interesting links at the bottom of that page too.

The Guardian on day one of the trial had this to say:
If the quality of the spelling on the first page of the universal credit online application offers any insight into the overall readiness for the launch, then it is tempting to speculate that preparations were somewhat rushed.
The first step of the claim form for the government's flagship welfare reform initiative, billed as the biggest change to the benefits system for 60 years, invites people to input a security code, "separating" each word with a space.

Probably more a reflection as to the country that the software was written, maybe Vietnam, India or Russia.

The whole point of a successful pilot is to try the new system in a number of regions (the initial intention) and use that as an opportunity to learn. With the hindsight of experience, I would guess that many of the real-life complex cases that occur have not yet been designed into the system or not yet delivered. Hence the charade of a micro test in Ashton-Under-Lyne. As mentioned, IDS will surely be able to declare this trial a “complete success” in October when it’s planned to be in the can. It’s doubtful though that anything that falls out of the ‘strictly normal’ can be validated in this box ticking exercise.

In my experience when you gloss over detail or problems it bites someone on the bottom before long. It might be an age thing, but I do like this stuff all coming out (or sometimes looking for it) up front, rather than finding it later and having all the stress of that. Failure to do it costs someone money, fills the pockets of consultants and suppliers. This time it will be the taxpayer picking up the bill, not politicians or the DWP, for badly specified, tested or implemented Universal Credit IT.

So it will give me no pleasure to see this fail, as I (and you my friend) are paying for it.


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 : Life In the hacked Lane

Crowded House - Private Universe.


(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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Reality Poem

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/

A week or so ago I was chatting to my local PCSO (Police Community Support Officer) at a Police Surgery at the community library that I am involved with in South Warrington.

We were talking about the levels of crime around the streets we were in and I pulled out my iPhone firing up the CrimeMap App (itunes.apple.com/gb/app/crime-map-england-wales/id422541257 ).

Once 'Everything Everywhere' had got its finger out I could see a range of ASB and other pretty minor crimes from up to Feb 2013. I was quite pleased to see that to encounter some violent crime I would need to travel a fair distance! If I needed some drugs it looked like they may only have been twenty minutes walk away.

NB: CrimeMap data only available in England, NI and Wales.

He was amazed I had this in my pocket. It is just one of a range of Augmented Reality ( AR ) apps starting to emerge of interest to the general public and organisations such as RSL’s and other Registered Providers. Initially the realm of wraparound video glasses, the emergence of most of us having smartphones and tablets is bringing AR down to a more useful and practical level.

Layar (http://www.layar.com/)  is another cracking app, apparently with 40,000 editors adding content worldwide, great for use within a strange town or city to view what you see differently. Find a museum, a piece of history or a restaurant using a layer put over what you point your tablet at and where your GPS location is. Comments can be added by users and with events can be rendered over the view of the device camera. Additional digital content can be added to print or images. Lonely Planet are one publisher currently onboard.

When abroad after a sticky situation on an overnight train from Madrid to Algeciras many years ago backpacking, I always learn some local language to get by. It’s tempting though to look at apps like Google Translate, which will attempt to translate local signs and text directly, just using your smartphone camera.

The potential this has is a great mash-up of channels, all working to enhance everyone’s day to day experiences of the real world. As you would expect, advertisers are already on board with this. A quick search on the apple store for ‘augmented reality’ gives over 1,400 apps. Excluding games, there are a number of useful apps here, from identifying that plane flying overhead, to sales apps (from companies like Tesco & others) to the NCP car park finder.

How could your organisation innovate using AR for social housing? Downloading that CrimeMap App for your ASB team, to use on the scheme might be a good start!

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: So is social housing getting the message across yet?

LKJ (Linton Kwesi Johnson) - Reality Poem.


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

PS 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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Home Computer

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/


Working in housing or general IT nobody can have missed that channel shifting going on, to try to drive customer requests towards the web.

I was only with a customer this week where they are looking to make this a reality to reduce customer service centre traffic and also improve satisfaction. The latter a tall order as there is a battle to drive the general public onto the internet to access services and particularly those categorised as “Digitally Excluded”. Top of the list include many residents in social housing and the elderly.

In the UK, government agencies have seen huge success in driving much traffic on-line and reducing back office jobs. Some that I use a lot are buying my car tax disk and filing income tax/vat on a regular basis. These work very well and have weaned us off using a post office (dwindling in number) or local tax offices by providing the convenience of doing it yourself.

Universal Credit, just a few days off now is structured around internet access being key. Putting aside the flaws of bedroom tax and other aspects of changes, this will be a big ask, particularly for many claimants who have had no real access to computers or web enabled smartphones. This news article from Wales earlier this month http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-21733644 highlights some of the difficulties.

Indeed, the community library at Grappenhall (see http://grappenhall.org.uk/)  that I am involved with, has a catchment area of affluent retirees, who are cash poor and need a way to access benefits. In a climate where we are losing libraries because its perceived we all use the internet to garner our information, the community library is proving a useful hub in helping these people access the benefits to which they are entitled.  

A number of RSL’s have woken up to the agenda of digital exclusion and are doing what they can to provide access for residents, also silver surfer training. This can save £250 or more annually on shopping costs as well as plugging them in to the new online benefits culture. In theory, particularly older claimants can be signing up to all the benefits they don’t know about currently, as with UC they will all be in one place.

Johnnie Johnson Housing Trust are one local to me that I am aware of that are providing internet access at many of their retirement schemes. They have also provided some degree of training and shared access equipment where practicable which is fantastic for their customers. While nobody would claim this was a silver (surfer) bullet, it’s a great step forward and over a couple of years has increased internet penetration for them from around and estimated 6% to nearer 40%. Not to forget too, the wifi provided can also be used by housing staff to access main systems via the internet or Citrix Receiver. I have myself become a fan of ‘Receiver’ using it on an iPad touch. It’s easily usable on even a small device like that for small amounts of work, rather than spending much more cash on dedicated mobile solutions.

Another avenue is the refurb of old smartphone kit for the digitally excluded and supply ultra-cheap or nearly free. See http://www.virtual-strategy.com/2013/03/28/moduslink-and-newton-circus-join-forces-increase-digital-inclusion A great idea and a super name in ‘Silverline’ geddit? Now this is one angle that might work for our demographic. It would be hoped that sons & daughters might gift tablets to their parents to get them on-line, but older devices and targeted apps might be the way forward.

If you have some initiatives on-going as usual, please get in touch. Thanks everyone for getting in contact, feedback always welcome!

Read on to : The Channel shift Agenda - Are you embracing it?

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 !

Kraftwerk - Home Computer.


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

PS 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,
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Home And Dry

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/


You will have no doubt read that news item last week about how Yahoo have banned working from home (WFH). Marissa Mayer would clearly like to see those employees clocking in and out, being visible around the place.

It does make me wonder if the Yahoo offices look anything like those scenes over at Google. You know, a bit like at Bromford Housing Group; crash areas, open plan kitchens, leather sofas, booths where you can update Facebook, Twitter, PInterest and other social media. That approach makes your work environment look more like a home environment, the theory being that as employees, the line between the two becomes blurred and we spend longer at work (hopefully working!). Admittedly Google HQ (at least the London one) has more video games, more designer furniture and antique lampshades that any (forward thinking) RSL I have ever visited. Check it out here - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/picture-galleries/9461561/Inside-Googles-quirky-new-London-headquarters.html?frame=2303595

Reading behind the Yahoo headline however, the reality is more like 200 or so out of 12,000 employees who used to exclusively work from home. Well does this penalise honest workers who have carved out a fair work-life balance while going their roles well OR reveal the amount of shirking that happens when you work from home? When exactly should WFH be appropriate?

For many that is down to organisational culture, how well employees are managed, monitored and what kind of IT infrastructure supports them. That last point is crucial. If an employee can adequately work at home or on the move with full access to systems, documents and files, they can take full use of virtually everything they have at their fingertips in the office. Can you say that of your systems? How many documents are still the subject of an office paper chase?

In an age where EE are offering 4G at £42 a month, it’s a sad fact that many places we have social housing, there is seldom decent 3G. WiFi is a great way to get around this. One RSL I work with have put this in to many schemes, with a view to tackling Digital Exclusion. While residents pay a small service charge for this, it’s ideal for travelling staff who can get on to Citrix Receiver on a tablet/ipad or laptop. This means their full desktop is available when sitting with residents.

I have experienced traditional environments where working from home was allowed. In one case a programmer was perceived to have abused that privilege. As a punishment, all working from home was banned with some disappointing and discouraging consequences. In my experience where working from home has been successful (particularly in the IT area) people can be best managed in a goal based way. I.E. ‘products’ (in the PRINCE2 definition) of some kind should be delivered for a set time or date. The employee can then arrange their home day however they wish in order to hit that deadline. Thus you can fit the school run, a bit of shopping, waiting for that delivery or whatever around your day as long as you deliver. WFH is often relevant just for certain roles, projects or positions at different times. It’s important to make that point clearly to staff to remove ambiguity. They also need to act responsibly and fairly while in a work role.

Justifying WFH can be done based on many factors. Better for people and the environment, perceived greater efficiency, reduction in mileage claims where staff travel direct to sites (not via the office) etc. Provision of decent systems, Citrix/Terminal Services, hardware and data connections obviously introduce costs. Many organisations are allowing or encouraging BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). This can cut costs and make WFH much more convenient for staff. Access to systems needs then to be controlled and also deployment of apps etc on those users devices.

I work very much like that currently and more inclined to work way more hours than is perhaps healthy. I do miss the opportunity to ‘collaborate’ in a traditional office environment. That was one aspect cited by Mayer and a particular thing she wanted to achieve. It is enjoyable being out however and I do like being in business attire when on site. Anyone who knows me well will know my extensive tie collection, one that would allow me to work in one place and not wear the same tie again for over 6 years, if I had a mind to. The nice thing is when the shirt and tie is replaced with t-shirt and jeans, there is a psychological break from work to home. I know then when to stop!

Read on to: What's stopping us getting more mobile?

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 !

Gerry Rafferty - Home and Dry.


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

PS 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

What a waste ....

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/


A conversation with a director at one of my housing customers started me off thinking about this post. The track by that great Rock and Roll artist and lyricist Ian Dury “What a waste” came to mind and by gold vinyl copy of ‘New boots and panties’ up in my loft. Also the definition of waste used by Vanguard and John Seddon. Waste was easier to see in my first role as a technician apprentice in an electrical engineering manufacturer. Pallets of miss-sized components, wrongly wired assemblies and vacuum circuit breakers dispatched back to Kyoto as defective. It was very visible and obvious. 

Outside of manufacturing it’s less obvious but taking the time to look, you will see it. All around you. Waste also has a habit of multiplying in the service sector rather than anyone working quickly to nip it in the bud. In housing we are all broadly doing the same things with the same flows, while trying our best to absorb variety, from residents and needs.

Response repairs is one great area of low hanging fruit that can bring savings as well as improve the experience of residents and cutting waste. How often have you contacted your bank, telephone or insurance provider with the same issue or variations to it? Think of your time that was wasted, the frustration you felt and how it shaped the impression of the organisation you dealt with.

Residents feel the same when very similar issues are being constantly logged, like electricals keep tripping or repeated heating issues. How often in these cases do we hear from residents, “Well this is the n’th time I have contacted you about this.... Three response repairs will cost anywhere from about £450 upwards and at the end the resident is still not happy. The means of flagging up this type of thing when repairs are being logged is not rocket surgery.

Simplistic housing management systems can generally flag up if the same SOR (Schedule of Rate) item is selected. This is useful, although not too practical as the repeated fault is rarely exactly the same, (as anyone working in repairs diagnosis or job entry will tell you). System checks on repeated faults within the same SOR section or within the same attribute/component are more useful at the front line. For example, more than 2 calls within 8 weeks or of total aggregate value of over £400 might trigger an inspection or housing officer contact. Intelligent use of workflow or scripting can make this automatic. Rules can be set per trade, scheme, tenure type etc. The outcome then can be more satisfactory from the resident and finance viewpoint.

Looking at the flow of work logically it makes sense to tackle issues and attempt to solve problems as early as possible in the process. To shine a torch on specific areas decent reporting coupled with some imagination is essential. Out of the box reports if supplied at all rarely bring much imaginative thinking with them. Also, never expect them to match the variety faced by yourselves as an RSL. I.E. If your stock is rural, student short lets, include aspects of care, asylum seekers or predominantly elderly, different issues will arise. Reporting needs to be moulded to these variations pinpointing exceptions, which can be used to modify flow.

Examples are where cumulative thresholds are being breeched or repairs being repeated when actually under (response repair or original builders) warranty. In some organisations this can amount to 5-8% of the total repair budget. Identify more of these at the front line and the resident need for repair can be satisfied at zero cost. A small RSL I work with estimated that they could save approaching £200K if every occurrence like this was caught when logged.

Technology particularly workflow is the enabler for these savings and should be given the IT resource needed to put these triggers in to enable these savings and service improvements.


What a waste.


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

PS 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