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CISG 2013 | EVENT REVIEW | 53
Y
ou can't help but wonder at the consistency of the weather in November over the years. Siting on the train being buffeted by
wind and rain on my way south to Brighton for this year's CISG2013 Conference, I remember similar weather previously whilst heading north to St Andrews. And if the vagaries of the weather are uncertain most delegates to this year's Conference were feeling the same about a potential uncertain future. However, IT people are nothing if not optimistic and resilient, and there was a buzz at this year's Conference and a willingness to embrace change and challenge the future. Day one got off to an Olympic start,
literally, with an opening keynote from Gerry Pennell, Director of IT at the University of Manchester (and ex CIO of LOCOG) which was both inspiring and informative. Gerry gave us terrific insight into the challenges for IT in supporting the Games and provided some future thinking on how we might leverage vendors and partners differently to meet the future. Gerry was followed by Kevin Roberts of Abilene Christian University, Texas. Kevin talked of the experiences in encouraging change in his University and the necessity of sometimes just doing. Kevin was entertaining, informative and demonstrated enthusiasm along with the will to focus on the student, and enhancing their experience whilst at the University. Finally, Andy Youell director of HEDIIP, brought the day's presentations to a close by ably describing how we all need to contribute to redesigning the Information Landscape. Andy was keen to stress the opportunity before us to lessen the burden on our organisational reporting whilst offering to review the value of the data we supply as a mechanism to ensure everyone's efforts to really contribute to the suggested benefits of big data. Sadly, day two was missing one of our
opening presenters due to illness. However, Andrew Carr, CEO of Bull UK did a great job in Stephen Booth's absence presenting a balanced view of the power of analytics and the features associated with becoming a high performance organisation. There is never a dull moment when Tim Marshall
The future’s Bright-on! by David Telford, Assistant Director of Information Services, Edinburgh Napier University
takes to the stage. Tim, CEO at Janet, helped define the Cloud in varying degrees and drawing on his considerable experience suggested approaches to successful use of Cloud resources. The journey to the Cloud was presented as a series of steps and a discussion of the opportunities and risks highlighted for delegates to join that journey at a point appropriate for their organisation. CISG tried something new this year and
held a Crowdsourcing event. Delegates were well supported by Jisc colleagues which explored a range of topics on organisational structures, operating creatively, skills and innovation and agility in corporate governance. These sessions were entertaining and produced some real creative thinking and solutions. Crowdsourcing was followed by Business
showcases that, as always, focused our minds on the roadmaps for our vendors and reminded us of the need to partner with them to implement great IT solutions. Luke Taylor from the University of
Bristol and CISG Chair informed us of an important UCISA Community of Practice formed around Enterprise Architecture. Toby Price went on to demonstrate some
Enterprise architecture Practice with an overview of the work done with Imperial College and the lessons learned to date. Toby espoused the importance of executive buy in, cementing the value of quick wins and embedding the ideas into the culture of the organisation. Mike Page, Head of ARD and Business Processes at the LSE brought the day's programme to a close by discussing CRM while thinly alluding to a number of song titles and bands. The final day of the Conference was
surprisingly well atended given the wonderful dinner and networking late into the previous evening. For those who made it, they were well entertained by an Academy Award winning acting performance from Sam Denniss as part of his group's feedback session on the Crowdsourcing events along with a quite remarkable video production feedback from another. The groups provided not only entertaining feedback back but real and often innovative thinking on the subjects they tackled. What followed next was a whirlwind
ride through technology and what's coming from Graham Whitehead, a prodding sometime provocative presentation from James Woudhuysen, Professor of Forecasting and Innovation at De Montfort University and some real thought provoking ideas from Charles Leadbeater. It's really worth checking out all these presentations on the Conference website. What a great Conference. Roll on
CISG2014 in Manchester, 12-14 November. ET
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