Applications

The most telling session at the Better Connected Live event in Birmingham at the end of last month was the Q and A that ended the morning session on day one. The 20 minute Q and A drilled into the heart of the challenge and the problems of being a digital authority in 2016.

Many organisations have data quality problems. Some organisations have data quality problems so serious it stops them from using key systems in a meaningful way. When that happens, sometimes the consultants get called.

Changing how you access your data and interact with staff and citizens. Legacy systems are generally fit for purpose but most of them still propagate silo-based infrastructure and have a support and management overhead that works directly against a true low-cost service delivery model. Arcus Global has a genuinely NEW way of delivering real change and… Read more »

Merging Service / creating a “national” Software / Platform for Local Government.There have been suggestions that some councils are just too small. You can see the whole discussion here: I thought I would pull out some of the points I have made in the discussion, as I thought they were worth sharing: In terms of… Read more »

The Department for Communities and Local Government recently conducted an extensive study into the use of digital technologies by those in Local Government. The report discovered that for 72.7% of authorities, legacy systems and infrastructure is the biggest barrier to developing their digital offerings.  This statistic was echoed by the suppliers taking part in the… Read more »

It is widely accepted that early education is of major importance to an individual in the long term, especially for those most disadvantaged. However, the process of educating a child is not limited to primary school, being also highly influenced by a home learning environment and quality pre-schooling. The UK Government is trying to raise awareness and taking action… Read more »

When a Council writes a tender specification, they are often pretty specific in terms of the type of software they want and restrictive in the experience they require bidding companies to have. This process can often hinder new technologies or companies with new and innovative products from winning tenders, despite the fact that they can… Read more »

Forecast: ‘generally sunny with a distinct lack of a personnel’ now that everyone is taking their holidays. The theme of this month is most definitely productize – a word that filled me with architectural suspicion previously – but now I can say with some certainty that the road from application to product can be broken… Read more »

Zoho CRM is a flexible, low cost and fully customisable Customer Relationship Management system. One of its features is that email communications can be traced against contacts within the system, either by using a free Zoho Email account, or by purchasing the mail add-on and using your own domain email address. This post is about… Read more »

Image: nuchylee / FreeDigitalPhotos.net An interesting post at the Software Advice (website) blog on Public Sector and the Cloud was recently pointed out to me and it got me to thinking about the differences between the Public Sectors in the UK and the USA. It also brought to the fore the similarities. In the post… Read more »

Please don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing against the victor in the general sense! I’m not overly afflicted with that particular British meme which means that we always root for the underdog. It’s just that it’s so old now, so very, very old! My dissertation for my MSc was in AJAX techniques and, in the… Read more »