Souter Consulting Limited

Please sign up for the SCL newsletter

Justin Souter — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:23:47 +0000

Introducción

As trailed in a previous post, SCL’s new branding, I’m planning to fire out a (mostly) regular e-mail newsletter.

My platform of choice is Mailchimp. I guess I found it through using SurveyMonkey, as the two companies (although not formally linked, I believe) had a cross-promotion going, and frankly I haven’t felt the need to look at other options. My gut feel was that Mailchimp really get it, but I realise there are other choices, so let me know if I’m missing something!

Obviously, I’d love you to sign up if you’re interested. The following is basically my work in progress and expect to be cranking things up in early / mid-September.

Where I’m at

There is now a sign-up page
Learning how to set up a e-mail newsletter template using the Mailchimp system
Need to build the recipient mailing list
Need to put a mini-process together to collect content to add value to readers
Need to add a widget to the SCL site and publicise the newsletter

Re the mailing list, I’m planning to send out an invitation to sign up, rather than put anyone I’ve met on the database. Mailchimp’s advice is to go this way, rather than risk getting blacklisted for spamming…

Resources

Mailchimp have some terrific support & help resources, including videos and the written guides I’m wading through. I’m pretty stoked about it all, and have written notes about it all in the following section, as prompted by the Mailchimp docs.

Prep

This is what I plan to cover – so any feedback would be gratefully received. Sub-sections I came up with are:

Potential content
Target readership
Goal
Sections
Frequency

Potential content

Events
1. Plancast link
2. Events, interesting ideas
3. Workshops / programmes
What I’m reading
1. Articles
  1. Delicious
  2. Useful & thought-provoking links
2. Books
  1. Goodreads
  2. Amazon store
People I’ve met
Blog posts – both mine & other people’s
Customer success stories
Overhead
North East developments
Any questions?
Using tech for business benefit

Target readership

Customers
Potential customers
Partners
Competitors!
Supporters

Goal

Keep SCL in mind
Influence perceptions
Float ‘long-term’ ideas
Create connections
Introduce partners

Sections

Introduction / ToC
Links, events, people
Customer work
What I’m reading
Twitter, Blog posts

Frequency

At least once a quarter

Wash up

So, that’s it folks! If you’ve managed to read this far, please accept my sincere thanks – and let me know your feedback in the comments :-)

Microsoft’s Online Services presentation to @NEBytes

Justin Souter — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:22:31 +0000

Introduction

As per my recent post about Onyx & Cloud computing, I’m interested in business opportunities in the Cloud space, rather than the more technical stuff. I guess I’m interested from the business-technical angle.

I’ve recently been investigating what Microsoft is up to, and below is my presentation to the NE Bytes massive on the topic. fyi:

North East Bytes (NEBytes) is a User Group covering the North East and Cumbrian regions of the United Kingdom. We have technical meetings covering Development and IT Pro topics every month.

Key points

Microsoft is spending billions on its cloud play, and recognises that security is a top issue
Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) is a SaaS offering, including SharePoint and Exchange, and therefore not restricted to being browser-based
BPOS is a way of growing business for Microsoft in the SME market, and at the same time providing Partners with Cloud opportunities
- I.e. Microsoft is not planning to stiff its channel by providing outsourced IT solutions as an alternative to existing Partners [well, that’s my reading of it!]
From a non-technical perspective, the offerings are thus (as of the time of writing):
- Compliance
- Development
- Communications
- Collaboration, and
- IT Management
There also seem to be a growing list of Partner solutions for migration and add-on services (e.g. for SharePoint)

My presentation

In summary, the slides were a brief introduction to the impact of Cloud (courtesy of Richard Holway), and a talk through some slides from standard MS marketing deck for BPOS / Online Services.

Ne Bytes Presentation August 2010

View more presentations from Justin Souter.

Microsoft blurb

These are couple of related MS documents I’ve been reading to better get my head round all this.

The 15 minute guide to Microsoft online services BPOS business value whitepaper

Discover what I read / have read

Justin Souter — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 07:43:44 +0000

Intro

Reading helps me keep up with the latest developments, learn about best practice, and stimulate new thinking.

I’ve found myself recommending books to folk I meet, usually via an e-mail. To try and short-circuit this somewhat clunky approach (and make a trickle-feed of associate wonga), I’ve created this Amazon Associates store.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I should say that the store was inspired by that of Wood Holmes :-)

I’ve also put a cloud of my delicious tags underneath so you can track what I bookmark online – please click here to zip to the bottom of this post.

Amazon Book Store

btw, apologies for the rather pants operation of the widget, this was pretty much the best I could do with the code on offer from Amazon. For a better look & feel, try the dedicated page on the SCL site.

Delicious links

SCL supports The Difference Engine

Justin Souter — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 12:32:00 +0000

Introduction

A post about the role Souter Consulting Limited has played to help The Difference Engine recently.

Demo Day

You might have seen the case study of how Souter Consulting helped launched The Difference Engine at the turn of 2009. In that context, it was fantastic to be part of the team (led by Caroline Theobald of The Bridge Club) at the business end, helping the Jon & the teams pitch to London-based investors this Monday past.

The Demo Days were split between Tyneside and London – the Tyneside version taking place on the Tuesday before Thinking Digital. I was lucky enough to see them as part of Thinking Digital University, and (come to think of it) in a fairly raw state at Superventures.

Video

You might want to check out The Difference Engine TV

The Story of the Difference Engine: Spring 2010 from The Difference Engine on Vimeo.

SCL’s role

In this instance, I attended the demo day & sat at the back of the auditorium at Microsoft’s London office in Victoria Street, giving the Twitterati blow-by-blow updates and helping generate buzz around The Difference Engine programme itself.

Twitterstream

The widget below hopefully shows the interchange of tweets during the session, and how things progressed. Otherwise, check out What the Hashtag directly.

We could have done this as a live-blog, but I think it worked quite well just using Twitter. Something for the future!

I’m presenting at Nicola Cook’s “Business Building Bootcamp”

Justin Souter — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 14:43:52 +0000

Introduction

You may be aware that Nicola and I form a tremendous double-act, and deliver social media strategy workshops. Nicola has asked me to present to her upcoming business building bootcamp (more details below). Draft title is “Learning how to integrate Digital & Social Media into your lead generation strategy”.

Flyer information

“Do you need to improve your sales? Are you frustrated that your business results do not reflect your potential?

If so, then please take 2minutes to click on the link below and find out more about our upcoming Business Building Bootcamp.

Jam packed with the latest sales & marketing strategy, including Digitial Media Strategy, Pipeline Development, Persuasive Presentations, including lots lots more. You and a colleague could benefit from 2 days intensive training combined with 2 tailored consultancy sessions and all for less than the price of a summer holiday!

Register Now!

To find out more either click on the Register Now link to view our dedicated webpage or call us on +44 (0) 191 478 8377

Finally, thank you for taking the time to review this information and I look forward to welcoming you to our Bootcamp in a few weeks time.

Sincerely,

Nicola Cook

Aurora Consulting”

Course outline

More details in this PDF:

Business Building Bootcamp

Follow this link to register & hope to see you there!

I’ve got a couple of weeks to put the presentation, but Colin Kendall is 7 Presentations is helping out, so hoping to minimise the text, and maximise the accessibility of the talk! :-)

Preso: The importance of cloud computing and related market opportunity

Justin Souter — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 16:31:20 +0000

Introduction

Last week I attended an internal workshop with Onyx Group, to help them discuss the next steps for their cloud offering.

My slot was wedged between a fascinating talk about online backup from Alexander and Saaher from Securstore, and Steve Caughey of Arjuna Technologies Ltd (fyi this useful video re Arjuna’s Agility product).

My job was to give the 30k foot view of the wider trends and business context which make cloud computing a computing trend to watch.

Gartner take

The following quote and hype cycle graphic are taken from Gartner’s press release

Cloud Computing. As enterprises seek to consume their IT services in the most cost-effective way, interest is growing in drawing a broad range of services (for example, computational power, storage and business applications) from the “cloud,” rather than from on-premises equipment. The levels of hype around cloud computing in the IT industry are deafening, with every vendor expounding its cloud strategy and variations, such as private cloud computing and hybrid approaches, compounding the hype.

I think the ‘overall’ Hype Cycle usually comes out in August, so it’ll be interesting to see this years… :-)

Slides

Having suggested I publish my slides online, one of the audience wondered whether they would be in the Cloud: good point (the slides on Slideshare)! We’re [well certainly I am] beginning to take being able to publish things online cost-effectively for granted…

Onyx cloud & business opportunities deck v0.6

View more presentations from justingsouter.

My take

As you can see from my slides, I largely agree with Nick Carr in The Big Switch: Rewiring the World from Edison to Google that the Cloud is going to have, as yet unknown effects on the IT industry – mostly to the good. And now is a good time to be doing something about it!

Appendix: Hype Cycle re social software

Gartner Hype Cycle report also contains some interesting statements re software which services social media needs:

The following have tipped just past the Peak of Inflated Expectations:

Social Software Suites. Awareness of social technology is high because of the popularity of related consumer social software and Web 2.0 services. Within businesses, there is strong and rapidly growing evidence of experimentation and early production deployments. The movement from point tools to integrated suites has brought broader adoption but also high expectations. Disillusionment is beginning based on the realization that, even with a suite, much work must be done to build an effective social software deployment. [JGS emphasis]

Microblogging. Microblogging, in general, and Twitter, in particular, have exploded in popularity during 2009 to the extent that the inevitable disillusionment around “channel pollution” is beginning. As microblogging becomes a standard feature in enterprise social software platforms, it is earning its place alongside other channels (for example, e-mail, blogging and wikis), enabling new kinds of fast, witty, easy-to-assimilate exchanges.

Technology to support innovation

Justin Souter — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 07:46:00 +0000

Intro

A post about my interest in tools to support idea gathering and the innovation process. Part of a growing series [ok, so I'll make it part of a series when I do the next post ;-)].

Definition

As ever, Wikipedia provides a decent definition:

Innovation is a change in the thought process for doing something or “new stuff that is made useful”. It may refer to an incremental emergent or radical and revolutionary changes in thinking, products, processes, or organizations.

Following Schumpeter (1934), contributors to the scholarly literature on innovation typically distinguish between invention, an idea made manifest, and innovation, ideas applied successfully in practice.

In many fields, such as the arts, economics and government policy, something new must be substantially different to be innovative. In economics the change must increase value, customer value, or producer value.

The goal of innovation is positive change, to make someone or something better. Innovation leading to increased productivity is the fundamental source of increasing wealth in an economy.

Run up – aka my interest in this area

One of the courses in my second year on the Executive MBA at Cass Business School was corporate strategy. The course introduced me to Knowledge Management, which chimed with a latent interest in ideas.

When I joined Fujitsu Services in 99 (then ICL), it was the height on the dot.com boom, and business incubators were all the rage. I volunteered to work with the guy is FS heading it up, but the bubble burst before anything meaningful happened. :’(

I worked in the Knowledge Management practice for 5 years, and IMHO innovation is the other side of the coin to KM.

I also took part in the internal ‘Innovation Pays’ suggestion scheme, and even managed to get my bit of Fujitsu to agree to adopt the scheme, but unfortunately it got crowded out by other business priorities. The only tools in use were an intranet page, e-mail and a spreadsheet.

I like to think I have ideas of my own, so I guess there is a yearning for the possibilities that new ideas can offer.

Wikinomics

I thought I should tip my hat to this book by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams. Keep concepts it introduced to me:

That Coase’s Law might be breaking down – i.e. the idea that organisations form because they are the most efficient way to share information
Crowdsourcing – using the wisdom of crowds to solve problems etc.
Open innovation – instead of hoarding ideas and patents, share them with others to grow the pie and make money out of ideas you can’t do anything with (more to do with intellectual property)
Ideagoras – getting the crowd to share and build ideas together
Prosumers – work with your customers to create new products

Concept

This emerging space make me think of the impact that CRM had with managing the sales process. I imagine it used to be done mostly on spreadsheets etc., until software came along that helped bring the whole function of sales under control (although the Wikipedia article suggests it’s not always implemented successfully!).

My feeling is that is has been a domain which has been underserved with tools, and hopefully this situation is being addressed. My understanding of innovation management software tools is that they help with:

Idea management – capture ideas
Innovation mgmt – take you through a process to winnow the ideas and bring the ripe ones to fruition
Power of the collective – bring different skills into play

Tools

A growing list that I’ll update as I find others:

Blurb from Spigit’s wikipedia entry

A bit of a cheat, but a useful summary of what they’re up to & which hopefully gives you a feel of how such a tool can be used:

Spigit is a company based in Pleasanton, California that provides a SaaS platform for enterprise innovation management. The company provides three core services:

(i) Internal employee innovation management through collaboration and crowdsourced feedback;

(ii) External customer, partner and citizen ideas management; and

(iii) Prediction markets for internal and external crowdsourced forecasting.

The company’s stated goal is to make organizations better at innovation and business decisions through community, analytics and workflow.

So you get the general idea!

Wash up

I’m putting this post out there, to get the balling rolling. I plan a future post on case studies and consultancies in this area.

Quick write up of ‘Data Reveals Stories’

Justin Souter — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 14:39:46 +0000

Introduction

Yesterday I attended ‘Data Reveals Stories’: Hoult Session # 2 with mySociety – with the blurb describing it as:

Northern Film & Media host mySociety for our second Hoult Session: a one-day seminar in Newcastle on June 16 about how Britain’s new wealth of open data can be harnessed to reveal hidden stories, tell new ones, inspire practical services and provide a new point of research for film and television.

One of the key reasons for attending is that I had blogged this about how Government data could / should be made available, and mySociety is a key player in helping make that happen (and also some pretty creative things with that data).

The following post is about my impressions, but isn’t a record of the day – I’m doing it more because Ewan asked me to type up the flipchart notes I had taken ;-).

Impressions

An early quote from Tom Steinberg was that the mission of mySociety is:

How to use the internet most efficiently to improve lives

It was an interesting session, about how the stories around data have been driven by the access to data enabled by the Internet.

It as also mainly a session about how to use public sector data – in that the Public Sector are either duty-bound and / or able to make available their data. In the private sector, data is often a source of revenue or competitive advantage, so is only available through third parties (like NGOs), as Francis Irving explained.

Tools

Ewan McIntosh has helpfully tagged some notable websites mentioned in his delicious links, but also getting a namecheck were:

After lunch Tom talked about the following clusters:

Google

Using site search syntax like “site:bbc.co.uk”
Also “filetype:xls salmonella site:scotland.co.uk” – to seach for all Excel spreadsheets containing references to salmonella on the Scottish Government’s website

Compiling it yourself

Crack open a new Excel spreadsheet & start typing!
Also, Google Docs, Freebase.com, and Surveymonkey

Screen-scraping

Apparently ScraperWiki is a great resource for this

Crowdsourcing

Scenic or not – a website to harness the wisdom of crowds to rate various parts of the UK in terms of how ‘scenic’ it is :-)

Something that struck me is how many of mySociety’s tools are based on games, making it fun for people to participate and contribute.

Afternoon session – my flipchart notes

I took part in the ‘Tools’ break-out session, and (as above) I said to Ewan McIntosh that I’d type the notes:

Flipchart 1 – tools

There were questions around Data:

Where one could find the datasets that underlie all of the above
Are there search or query tools to drill into the data sources
Are there websites which signpost these datasets
There was mention of Up My Street
There was also a question mark about how to find out about data sets in particular domains

Flipchart 2 – tools #2

Discussion around RSS wondered about how a feed could be re-published and stakeholders could then comment on what they thought about items in this feed.
There were also questions around Geocoding or tagging content with metadata
More questions around where to find crime information / data
We’d be finding out information about retrieval, but there was a question about how to publish data sets and / or where to find a repository for raw data

Flipchart 3 – ‘Data set compendium’

Following on from the thoughts captured in the previous charts, the group brought together a mini-requirement of what would be helpful (i.e. this repository for raw data) – which I called the ‘Data set compendium’, for want of a better name! ;$
One of the group was interested in “What problems are we trying to solve”
The group was looking for a ‘meta-database’ of public data sources
Ideally it would have ratings & reviews of each data source, with the ability to identify the source of the data, and allow users to annotate / describe the source
Another useful field would capture who was using the dataset, and what for?
If the system could allow datasets to be clustered in terms of similar topics, and inter-relationships between datasets established / shown, that was seen as desirable
Francis said that something along these lines was available at Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network:

CKAN is the Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network, a registry of open knowledge packages and projects (and a few closed ones).
CKAN makes it easy to find, share and reuse open content and data, especially in ways that are machine automatable.

Flipchart 4 – Detailed tools

There was a question about where to find actuarial data [perhaps via the ONS, said Francis]
Tools for ‘manipulation’ and / or visualisation
List from Francis:
- He recommended the programming language, Python
- Apparently Many Eyes has an embed feature
- Freebase is useful for cleaning up data
- Excel, Google Docs & MS Access all good
- Yahoo Pipes
- RSS feed into Google maps – e.g. the RSS from Fix my Street & this example I’ve just made for Chester-le-Street w00t!
- EduBase – “The up to date database of educational establishments across England and Wales.”

Flipchart 5 – Upload

Tools / sites for helping process data:

Elance “provides a simple and cost effective way to hire and manage your team online.”
Crowdspring
Mechanical Turk
Journalisted – “Journalisted is an independent, not-for-profit website built to make it easier for you, the public, to find out more about journalists and what they write about.”
Dr Foster – “Dr Foster is the UK’s leading provider of comparative information on health and social care services.”
Crime maps – I googled this and found CrimeMapper

Wash up

Um, that’s about your lot, or else this post will never go live…! ;-)

Photos

Technology Strategy Board – potential sources of funding

Justin Souter — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 08:27:17 +0000

Introduction

Last week I attended a presentation by the Technology Strategy Board about two competitions they are running. It was the morning before Thinking Digital, and included an enjoyable presentation by Ewan McIntosh (more details at Partnering for Innovation: NoTosh helping launch £18m digital fund).

I thought it would be useful to reproduce the related material here, for those of you out there looking for start-up funding etc.

Blurb from Sian Brereton

The following is a copy-and-paste of an e-mail from Sian Brereton – Lead Technologist, Creative Industries – at the Technology Strategy Board (btw I have checked with Sian that it’s ok to publish this info):

Please find attached details of two competitions for grant funding that have just been launched which may be of interest to your organisations:

1) £18m – Collaboration across Digital Industries (Opens 14^th June for fasttrack projects and 12^th July for larger projects)

2) £5m – Metadata: Increasing the Value of Digital Content (Opens 13^th September)

Application is by dedicated application form. Further information on how to apply and guidelines for completing the application form can be found at http://www.innovateuk.org/competitions/.

The Creative Industries KTN is running a series of events to assist with building partnerships and projects associated with these competitions. For more information please go to http://creativeindustriesktn.org/.

Hope this is all helpful! :-)

Documents which have further details

Collaboration across digital industries

Metadata: increasing the value of digital content

Presentation from Cloudcamp Gateshead with slides & video of my talk

Justin Souter — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 12:09:58 +0000

Introduction

A post covering my recent attendance at CloudCamp Gateshead on May 5, 2010.

The organiser, Ross Cooney, asked me to give an introduction to Cloud Computing, and was kind enough to edit the footage taken by Northern Net.

As of the time of writing this post (2nd June 2010), the slides have had 8847 views, so I thought it might be helpful for folk to see the me present the material. :-)

To that end, the post consists of:

The slides
The video
Some background info about Cloudcamp

Slides

Introduction To Cloud Computing Cloudcamp V0.375 Old Ppt For Slideshare

View more presentations from justingsouter.

Video

Only thing I would say is that Ross gave me 5 minutes, and I took 10 – sorry Ross! ;-)

More info on Cloudcamp

I’ve copied the blurb below from the Cloudcamp website, to give you some background:

Mission

CloudCamp was formed to provide a common ground for the introduction and advancement of cloud computing

Through a series of local CloudCamp events, attendees exchange ideas, knowledge and information in a creative and supporting environment, advancing the current state of cloud computing and related technologies. As an informal, member-supported gathering, we rely entirely on volunteers to help with meeting content, speakers, meeting locations, equipment and membership recruitment. We also have corporate sponsors that provide financial assistance with venues, software, books, discounts, and other valuable donations. To become a member, simply register. Anyone may attend a meeting, there are no fees or dues.

Why Cloud Computing ?

The ability to scale your business and infrastructure — on demand with out capital outlay.

The ability to flow over (even if it’s just the coffee ordering system) — on demand without commitment.

Who should attend:

Anyone wishing to further Cloud Computing or just learn what all the fuss is about!

Developers, Architects, Analysts, IT Management and Executives, from App Dev through to Production.

Entrepreneurs, founders and leaders of start-up/early-stage companies, venture capitalists and industry analysts.

Reasons to attend:

Understand how to integrate Cloud Computing Services into your business

Find ways to cut fixed infrastructure costs while increasing reliability and scalability

Learn from from others about their use of Cloud Computing Services

Wash up

Hope you find this useful and please get in touch if you’d like to talk further.