Comments for Rust Report

Comment on Changing times, changing roles by Peter Holland

Peter Holland — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 08:47:54 +0000

now is not the time to jump ship, nor is it a time to shed staff. Unfortunately, the knee jerk reaction in the market means that IP and opportunities are lost with staff. This is going to create a greater problem for these companies long term. Staff cuts create two major problems in the market:

1. new staff will be wary about staff changeovers in short periods
2. clients watch what happens to staffing numbers. The FUD factor kicks in when clients think a company is not doing well in the market.

Comment on Firing up in the year of the dragon! by Alan Smith

Alan Smith — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 02:01:03 +0000

Points well made, Len. Just started to read Satyajit Das’s book “Extreme Money” – coupled with your comments it makes sobering reading. I think that weather forecast – “wet and windy” is about right. In times of confusion, stress, pressure and uncertainty, clarity of thought that is well communicated is worth its weight in gold. Well, these are times of confusion, stress, pressure and uncertainty. Those with clear thinking and clear communication will, at the very least, stand out. And as you also ask, who does this well at the moment?

Comment on ICT 2012 outlook – The end of business as we know it! by Wayne_B

Wayne_B — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:27:50 +0000

This is an interesting perspective but I think it misses a number of fundamental points.

The business technology relationship was locked in during CY11 during corporations strategic planning process. There may well be businesses that are changing the way that technology is deployed but far more business are looking at a conventional and some what conservative approach. What a technology led strategy offers in standardised processes and efficiencies it lacks in differentiation.

Cloud services may evolve during 2012 but the core issues of Data Governance/PID and legislation such as the Patriot Act continue to inhibit the places in which cloud computing can impact business. Any business that holds confidential data that may have implications from third party country regulation will inhibit the adoption of cloud.

Social Media already impacts large aspects of our lives but the connection between the public face of consumers (where many are anonymous) and growing wallet share or protecting brand is fraught with difficulties. Social Network analysis is an interesting field however banks and telco’s probably hold the riches sources of that data and its use is protected by legislation. The recent Qantas and now McDonalds twitter campaign disaster highlight the reason corporates are cautious about the use of social media. No one doubts the value of interacting with “Generation me” however like an ageing babyboomer using the language of gen y, corporates run the risk of looking more out of place than the did to begin with.

Mobility is a core trend however internally hosted corporate technology services continue to drive the current uses and frankly until the emergence of truly generic technology services delivered via the cloud and aggregated in some sort of individualised application service bus at the device this trend of internal driven applications will continue.

Cloud and mobility will continue to be the domain of the SME and the consumer through CY12

Social Media will remain a mine field until the next very cool idea solves the problems of identity and control of messages.

Comment on Practical IT strategy development by Jerry

Jerry — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:47:04 +0000

Always good to see alternate views on what makes for a good IT strategic planning approach. In the end as long as your plan is focused on what the organizations cares about rather than inward on technology, you may succeed.

Comment on Australia to have 35 million mobile subscriptions by 2015 by Pav

Pav — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 05:41:04 +0000

Are you okay if we republish this article on our website? I am happy to put your reference in the end of the article.

Comment on When is social media pointless? When you forget old media rules by Bill Bennett

Bill Bennett — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 03:19:04 +0000

I couldn’t agree more.

The message is more important than the medium. (With apologies to Marshall McLuhan).

People are still enthralled by social media, pretty soon they’ll realise its just another channel.

Comment on When is social media pointless? When you forget old media rules by Alan Smith

Alan Smith — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 01:13:49 +0000

Spot on, Hannah. I summarize it all thus: social media programmes work when they have purpose. Otherwise, it’s just more noise (and as you note, dynamite often creates large bangs).

Comment on ICT lobbying: consolidate or wither on the vine by Philip N Argy

Philip N Argy — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 04:53:40 +0000

There is nothing wrong with NICTIA that a commitment of its members can’t remedy. NICTIA’s dormancy is attributable to many factors including the lack of an effective secretariat and a post-GFC world in which volunteer time and effort are given low priority.

The vision of presenting a united voice on matters of consensus and of learning more about each other’s views on matters where we did not all agree remains, to me, a compelling reason for having a loose, unincorporated body like NICTIA. But members have been too busy to participate, perhaps because no issue has arisen to galvanise them into action.

If members are willing to make the commitment to participate, I’d be prepared to re-invigorate from the Chair.

Comment on There’s nothing clever about a best-kept secret by Rod

Rod — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 02:55:52 +0000

Hi Alan,

Good call. I agree with you on this. There are so many great companies out there..often produced by way of fantastic entrepreneurial initiative. However, marketing and publicity is often not a strong suit of the engineer.

We write world-class helpdesk software, and it’s used everywhere, but the company is full of software developers and techies that just want to code…

Time to invest in a bit more telling of secrets I think.

Thanks,
Rod

Comment on ICT lobbying: consolidate or wither on the vine by Adam Redman

Adam Redman — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:01:31 +0000

There are too many disparate voices in Australian ICT and there are too many groups approaching business and government, diluting the message of everyone else. But ICT is not alone here, there are more associations than you can point a stick at across all Australian verticals and new one’s are being created everyday. A couple of interesting illustrations can be found in the ‘environmental’ movement – ostensibly they have the same overall agenda but have become fragmented to the point where audiences can pick and choose to the ‘nth degree. Another great example is in trust marks on bread in the supermarket – there are healthy heart ticks, fibre plus ticks and etc etc. So as a consumer (read Government) I spend half an hour reading these things when ultimately I just want to buy some damn bread for lunch.