For the last 3 years Microsoft has run a conference aimed at people who help design and build MS-based solutions in response to organisational needs.  Turnout is normally excellent (out of around 250 delegates, there were only 2 no-shows), and Microsoft invite some high-quality speakers to discuss topical events.  This year, the theme is "The Future of IT", obviously with a Microsoft slant.

Day 1

9:15 - decent venue, good turnout, keynote topic still to be determined.  The main auditorium is packed, with everybody rammed in like sardines, feels like an economy flight!

11:00 - interesting keynote, with Microsoft emphasizing the shift from software to services, and a big push towards Cloud computing - Live Mesh is going to be an important technology over the next few years!

11:30 - "Windows Server - Datacentre Ready?" gets off to a bad start with a non working remote connection, but improves rapidly with an introduction talking about providing IT services to the "Millennial Generation".  The conclusion I took from this is that it is a "Yes" - providing you buy into the Microsoft approach to Datacentre management - which is a large commitment, especially for smaller organisations.  Really surprised to hear that the "Server Core" configuration doesn't support the .Net Framework, which makes modern web services via IIS7 pretty much useless on the Core platform - seems like a missed opportunity. 

Another Microsoft technology, Hyper-V seems about 18 months behind the virtualisation leader VMware, but there are some very interesting integration possibilities for individual desktop apps, and the demonstration of 3 different versions of MS Word running side-by-side with no desktop footprint was impressive.

NB: at this stage, I give up trying to update this blog via an iPhone - updates will therefore depend on my laptop connection!

Lunch - Had an interesting talk with Paul Foster, Microsoft's robotics expert - his aim is to build a working robot (loosely based on an arachnid) during the two day conference, and demonstrate it at the closing keynote; so far, so good!

15:00 - Steve Lamb, an "IT Pro Evangelist" (who definitely seem to have the coolest jobs in MS) gives a very interesting talk on the inherent aspects of security, both good and bad, within virtualisation services. Also showed an excellent video, which I highly recommend you check out: ShiftHappens (YouTube Video).

16:00 - The CIO of Newham City Council gives his perspective on the 10 key principles which he is trying to instil into his organisation. Nothing particularly revolutionary, although it is refreshing to hear his attitude to the use of "social networking" services by staff, which seems to be - providing they meet their goals/objectives, and don't bring the Council into disrepute - they are welcome to get on with it.

Day 2

8:45 - Early start today for review of the "Changing Landscape of IT", which is it was proposed that the organisations that have shown the biggest growth over the past few years have been those that have embraced IT as a key part of the business, and not just as a cost centre.  It also highlighted the

9:30 - Keynote speech from Ben Ravani of Microsoft's Global Foundation Services division, which is responsible for delivering Microsoft's key web services, including Live ID (1 billion transactions per day), Live Mail (800 million messages per day) and Live Messenger (2 billion messages per day). He put forward a convincing case for building services as "Pods" capable of running on standardised hardware from multiple datacentres, thereby providing an inbuilt DR capability and removing the need for expensive power infrastructure support services.

10:30 - Next session is a lively and engaging presentation from Dave Coplin, an Enterprise Strategy Consultant with Microsoft, talking about Social Computing at Work. Highlighted the fact that most people have better IT provision (hardware and connectivity) at home than at work.  In making use of online services, most users don't care how services are delivered - just the results that are returned from them.  In a similar vein, the enterprise mindset will change from a requirement to train users in IT, to accepting that the majority of new users (or Millennials) will be technically proficient, and will be expecting to use technology and services they use at home.  A key idea is that you shouldn't think of Social Computing as MySpace and Facebook, but the principles that make them work; for example, your online reputation is an important factor in social networking, whether it is on LinkedIn, Xbox Live, or any other service.

In a related note on how "Social Networking" might evolve, Nova Spivack has done some interesting work that shows the journey from Information to Intelligence:

• Web 1.0: The Web - Connects Information
• Web 2.0: Social Software - Connects People
• Web 3.0: Semantic Web - Connects Knowledge
• Web 4.0: The Metaweb - Connects Intelligence

11:45 - The Data-aware Enterprise is the topic of the next presentation.  Whilst it is a competent from a technical point of view, most of the content is around the features and functionality that can be delivered within SQL 2005 and 2008, rather than a more strategic approach to data management within the enterprise.

14:00 - Another highly entertaining and informative presentation, Next Generation Datacentres looks at how Software + Services can be delivered, and the demands these services can place in infrastructure.  Outlined our current thinking that Datacentre operations is focused on Servers, rather than Services. For services such as Hotmail, the components are based on "rack-units", each of which is non fault-tolerant, and the applications are specifically designed to run within a distributed environment. Outside of a database, there is NO state recovery; if a server fails, it is reinstalled with no further analysis or recovery.

Dynamic Services Platform (DSP) Solution Approach is the (current) name for "Microsoft Service's view of a service-oriented datacentre operating model, providing an end-to-end view and approach to delivering services out of a datacentre."  Microsoft currently operate approximately 600,000 servers, and this number is growing at 10,000 per month.  In recent reports, Google, Amazon and MS were said to be responsible for 1/3 of ALL server CPUs delivered.

The DSP Solution Approach is based on knowledge of (and focus on) the service, encoded in software models (SML), which can be worked on across the IT Lifecycle, with end-to-end standardisation. SML is being developed via the Common Model Library (CML), which applies real-world examples to a theoretical model.  With this approach developers should NOT define the layout or configuration of an O/S, except within a limited scope (CPU/Memory), and users should only be allowed to define the features required, not technical issues that should be hidden from the customer.

At this stage, the discussion got into a level of technical detail that was beyond my (rusty) knowledge of MS management services, however (I believe) the gist of the message is that the DSP model, where possible, allow non-developers to define solutions within Systems Center software, in an object-orientated way.

I read with interest the post below in the e-access bulletin, the comments from my distinguished friend, Julie Howells regarding accessibility, Julie knows her stuff and I tend to make an effort to read when she writes or gets up to in the big wide world. In this post her thoughts mirror much that I (we) have been saying to our customers (and work colleagues) for some time, Accessibility and compliance are NOT the same thing and I would even go as far as to say that accessibility has little to do with disability at all.

Accessibility is about being able to get to the information available and then doing something useful with it, its less about building in 'features' for disables users and much more about not building barriers to users. Its makes sense therefore, to make sure that the user experience is well designed and clear to all users, their expectations are met with consistent and clear navigation and structures and that they are left feeling confident in the service you, as a supplier, are offering.

Full posting from the E-access Bulletin below, copy right and details on how to subscribe are included as per the copyright agreement

E-Government Bulletin, 28 April 2008: Digital exclusion; Public bodies sell on eBay; Common web accessibility problems. 

The need to move beyond pure technical 'accessibility' of websites to the creation of 'fantastic user experiences' for disabled people online was the keynote theme at last week's E-Access '08 conference on access to technology by people with disabilities, hosted by the publishers of E-Government Bulletin.

Julie Howell, Director of Accessibility at digital agency Fortune Cookie and former digital policy manager at blindness charity RNIB, told delegates the simply ensuring the special access technologies such as the text to speech screen readers used by blind people could read information on a website was no longer enough.

"We should be creating rich, engaging, fabulous user experiences for disabled people," Howell said. "It's not about taking text and just having it read out loud."

If accessibility is defined as the ability of any person using any technology in any circumstance to access content, it will mean that for example a blind person's screen reader can find the content and read it out, Howell said. "That, however, is no guarantee that blind person will be able to do their shopping in a reasonable amount of time, or complete their task at the same cost as a sighted person would.

"My definition of equality is the ability of a disabled person to achieve a goal in the same time, at the same time, at the same cost, and at the same convenience as a person who doesn't have a disability. I've never understood why I, who can see, should have it easier on the web than my friend, who is blind."

Howell outlined plans for her work as chair of a new British Standards Institution technical committee to create the first British standard on web accessibility (see E-Government Bulletin issue 257, 18 February 2008).

She said a draft standard would be released for consultation in September and pledged the final version would be published in the first quarter of 2009. The standard will cover key recent developments in internet technology such as 'Web 2.0', rich internet applications and the need for modern websites to work across platforms including mobile phones, Howell said.

NOTE: To view the slides used in Julie Howell's presentation, see the programme page at:
http://www.headstar-events.com/eaccess08/
Further coverage of E-Access '08 including the keynote presentation will appear in our sister publication E-Access Bulletin. To register for this free newsletter see:
http://www.headstar.com/eab

+COPYRIGHT NOTICE.
- Copyright 2008 Headstar Ltd.
Regular circulation or reproduction of the bulletin by third parties is forbidden. Properly accredited articles (always including source details, bulletin subscription details and web address) or entire single issues of the bulletin (including this notice) may be forwarded to individuals or groups of people as long as it is made clear that to receive a regular copy, people must subscribe individually. For queries about article reproduction, syndication or other copyright issues please email copyright@headstar.com .

As reported on the BBC technology site the ICO have also pointed out that users need to give the option of opting IN not OUT of the PHORM tracking system.

In our previous post we discussed just this, users expect to be asked to opt IN to these types of services they may not understand why opting OUT means (will the Internet break?).

This move is good news for users, it meets their expectations for the way that the Internet works, and causes them less confusion, why PHORM wanted an opt OUT solution, is I guess, known only to them.

In association with Chelford solutions and Sitecore,  I was recently asked to write a paper on the WCAG and ATAG, the focus was on version 1 of these initiatives rather than the still to be completed version 2.0, i tried to focus on the user aspects of the processes and as is my want leant towards the parallels between usability and accessibility, grateful thanks to Mike Ellis or electronic museum fame for the multiple peer reviews and edits

"Building accessibility and usability can often seen as a desirable add-on to your web project, something you do after the graphics and technical development has been completed. The process of making your site service can be seen as either extra effort, with limited benefit to the organisation or as simple tick box activity run the site through a few automated checks make a few changes to comply with the rules ad there you have it job done.

A standards compliant site is not necessarily accessible or usable.

In truth accessibility should be part of the structural design process, part of the technical development process and a continuous process owned by the business once the service has gone live. The effort involved, however, is easily manageable by using the resources available online, which will guide you through the processes, and solutions which are designed to help make this process part of your business process.

Understanding the roles of the WAI, the aims of the WCAG and the ATAG will lead you towards, accessible, and by definition usable, web solutions which will meet the legal requirements, but more beneficially increase your organisations profile, and improve the experience for all your site visitors."

Share this post :

Ensuring a website can be accessed by those with disabilities has been widely discussed and many public sector organisations are following the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) guidelines on accessibility when developing their web-based services. However, how does accessibility impact usability? Is there any need to distinguish between the two? What about the wider experience of interacting online? ....

full article here

Share this post :

Sounds daft really, if you want your site to look engaging, attract users and bring encourage your audience to take up your services. make sure that your web site is credible and focused.  The basic principles focus on making sure that the content you publish and the language you use makes sense to your users.

Professor Fogg at Stanford University published a set of 10 guidelines to web credibility in 2002 that can still be put to good practice today.

Something that has nothing to do with the web but has the potential to be seriously cool to a massive degree.

Professor John Hendry at Imperial college has introduced the potential for a meta material that, he claims can bend light...so what you cry! well apart from the staggeringly massive implications that come from changing the basic laws of physics, the potential for such cloaking devices is the (for the geek's amongst us) the really cool bit. if you wrap an object in a material that bends light around it, then, it becomes to all intense a purposes, invisible, (star trek anyone), actually to be fair to the professor, he claims transparency rather than invisibility, but I'm wondering if J K Rowling will be claiming some IP payments ?

Phorm, the latest and, allegedly greatest, ad tracking / management / filtering software to be pressed into the public eye has been getting a few column inches lately based mainly on the claim that it tracks where user go and which sites they visit.

Formerly 121media, the adware people, Phorm claims that it’s a :

“proprietary ad serving technology uses anonymised ISP data to deliver the right ad to the right person at the right time - the right number of times. Our platform gives consumers advertising that's tailored to their interests - in real time - with irrelevant ads replaced in the process.”,

It’s the "tracking users" thing that has people tied up in knots, but in a recent bbc interview with Phorm the most interesting point came from way that users can 'opt out'

The company states that, when you opt out of the service then the systems at the ISP "check for the presence of an opt-out cookie.".

which means that if you opt out and then delete your cookies, your opted back in by default, not good. If I opt out I expect to stay opted out. It also means that by default you have opted in, so users who may not be too familiar with web cookies, may not opt out because they do not understand the implications.  Always assuming that this opt out statement is clearly presented to all users.

Finally why "opt out" at all , I "opt in" to mail lists, I should be given the option to "opt in" to target ad systems, or is the company be worried that too few users would be happy about being tracked, and so decide not to "opt in" no matter what the assurances?

One to watch 

John Morse - Information Architect

Every so often, I decide to switch my home page from a basic Google search box to something else - whether it is another Google service such as iGoogle, another search engine, such as Microsoft Live, or another portal service, such as My Yahoo! - because:

• I want (believe?) that I should be using a service that aggregates the information I use most often, onto a single page;
• I need (really?) to use additional services (such as currency convertors) on a regular basis;
• somebody has recommended a site as the answer to all the problems of the Internet;
• at heart I'm a techie, and I want to make sure that I'm not missing out on a service that's better than Google;

And invariably each time I end up switching back, normally within a few hours, for one (or more) of the following reasons:

• Speed - I've yet to find another website that loads more quickly than the Google search page;
• Performance - in part related to speed, but more about the quality of results that are returned;
• Need - when you get down to it, how often to you actually read every item in every RSS feed you are subscribed to, or use every widget on your customised homepage?
• Aesthetics - even though Google makes its money from advertising, its home page is conspicuously clear of adverts, and in particular, adverts served from third party services;

Are there any lessons to be learnt from this?  Perhaps not; after all, this is my personal opinion, and I know plenty of other people who are more than happy with their content-rich services (such as Netvibes), but for me, I think Google have the right approach:

• keep the first page as clean, functional and fast as possible;
• let users find content easily;
• resist the urge to provide a page that tries to deliver everything, and overwhelms the user with information.

Whilst readind jesse james garrett's book the elements of user experience, which has been sat in my to do list for ever, i came across the following quote

"..if your site is difficult to work with, you probably are as well"

genius!

Blogged with Flock