John Lawlor

ICT research in Europe is set to get a major boost in 2011 with the announcement today by the European Commission of a call for proposals for research projects worth 1.2 billion euros.

The projects will include a number of Public Private Partnerships:

The future Internet
ICT for energy efficient buildings
ICT for the fully electric vehicle
ICT for factories of the future.

These four projects have a combined budget of 220 million euros. Details of other budget provisions are available here (PDF).

All documentation is available through the links above. The deadline for submission of proposals is 2 December 2010.

The research funding is part of Europe’s Digital Agenda (launched in May 2010) and is the first significant increase for EU ICT research in more than 10 years. The digital agenda has seven priority areas:

1. Creating a digital Single Market
2. Greater interoperability
3. Boosting Internet trust and security
4. Much faster Internet access
5. More investment in research and development
6. Enhancing digital literacy skills and inclusion and
7. Applying information and communications technologies to address challenges facing society like climate change and the ageing population.

Further details on the Digital Agenda and the seven priority action areas are available here.

The Commission expects that SMEs will benefit from the work programmes funded from the research funding, which will be welcome in the current economic climate.

There are many opportuities for funding available on the EU Information Society website, which is always worth keeping an eye on. Let’s hope the research under these calls is successful and leads to an improvement in the lives of European citizens. We still have a long way to go to catch up on our American and Asian competitors.

Below are my slides from the presentation to the CIO-Connect event on Social Media on 20 May last in Dublin. You can also find them on SlideShare.

Feedback to the presentation was very positive and I’d particularly like to thank Barbara Dosseter, Delivery Director of CIO-Connect for this very generous comment, which she posted on her LinkedIn profile:

“In Dublin’s fair city where… I saw the BEST presentation/discussion on Social Media yet. Given by John Lawlor of Trinity College at the CIO Connect lunch – Creating Collaborative Conversations. Practical and as a tenured IT person John dealt with the realities and concerns. His factors for success – Speed & Flexibility, Ease of Use, Demand Driven and Individual Value First. I am going to revisit the presentation because there was soooooo much meat in it. Thank you John, you’re a true advocate and truly inspiring.”

If you would like to discuss Social Media for your organisation, please contact me directly; if you’d like to share your own experience of implementing or championing Social Media, please leave a comment below.

This interesting and very cleverly done video had had over 70,000 views since being posted in the past few days on YouTube. It is also generating the usual mix of light and heat in the accompanying comments.

Whatever one’s personal views about Social Media, I think it would be foolish to ignore the reality and the potential (for good and bad) of these new means of communication. In both my work and personal lives, the use of many types of Social Media has become a daily reality and, in some cases, a virtual necessity. I share the privacy concerns of many people and also share their aprehension that these media could be used for ill-intentioned purposes. But these concerns – particularly about badly intentioned uses – could apply to any technology. Should that stop us from using them? I suggest not.

The arguments in the YouTube comments about some inaccuracies in the video are, in my view, irrelevant. Although most of the content has been published in different formats before (see, for example, the excellent slideshare presentation by Hareesh Tibrewal of Social Wavelength that covers much of the same material), what is important is that the video sends a very powerful message that Social Media are increasingly important phenomena in our work and personal lives.

On 20th May next, I am giving a talk to CIOs in Dublin (see Upcoming Events on the top right) on how Trinity College is implementing and using a variety of Social Media tools for teaching, collaboration, sharing, promoting the College, etc. Why not come along if you are in Dublin? Further details are available from Cio Connect. I’d love to see you there.

What are your views on the use of Social Media? Are you an enthusiastic adopter or a sceptic? Can you see only good, only bad, or a mix of benefits and drawbacks? If you have experience of using Social Media in a personal or work context, why not share your thoughts here by leaving a comment?

I went along this evening to a pretty full lecture theatre in Trinity College’s Science Gallery to listen to Venky Narayanamurti of the Harvard Kennedy School speaking on the subject of science, technology and society. He is a man clearly passionate about his topic and spoke with conviction, vigour, animation and not a little humour. Venky spoke about the great inventors – Edison, Watt, Einstein, Pasteur- and how invention and innovation come from applied science, research, experimentation, use cases and what he termed “grand challenges”. He spoke passionately about the need for an understanding of science among our leaders and hailed Obama’s commitment to the sciences in his inaugural speech:

“We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.”

Vekny spoke about how innovation does not always have to come from inventing something new, but can also come from finding new and imaginative ways of using something that already exists. He cited the case of Ushahidi, an open source, ”crowdsourcing” system that uses simple mobile technology, such as phone, SMS, and web, combined with geolocation and mapping software on the Internet to track emergency and crisis information. Ushahidi is a fantastic example of how collaboration and innovation, coupled with existing technology, can come together to solve real world problems. It was used in Kenya to map incidents of violence and peace efforts throughout the country based on reports submitted via the web and mobile phone after the 2008 elections. It was used in India to monitor elections and it was used in Washington DC to deal with the aftermath of their snow this year. It is now being used to monitor the crisis in Haiti after the earthquake.

In question and answer following his speech, Venky’s answer to one question stuck with me. Asked about invention and about how and whether people should focus their efforts, Venky said, ” You can’t be everywhere, because then you are nowhere.” How true.

It was a wonderful evening in the Science Gallery and I look forward to attending more lectures there. The lecture was recorded, so I hope it will find its way to YouTube or iTunesU.

If you were at Venky’s lecture and would like to add your thoughts, please leave a comment and add to the record.  If you have used Ushahidi, or know about the application, I’d also love to hear from you. And, finally, if you have had experience of crowdsourcing, please share your thoughts and experience here.

I am preparing a talk for CIOs on the topic of ‘Social Media – Creating Collaborative Conversations’. I’d like to hear from people who have made the corporate leap into social media in their organisations or who have views or expertise to share on the subject. Questions you might consider include:

• What advice would you give to CIOs and their organisations in adopting social media?
• Can you point out good and bad examples of the use of social media?
• What, in your experience, has worked well and worked badly in the adoption by organisations of social media?
• What is the future for social media in the enterprise and what are the implications for CIOs and their organisations?
• What lessons have you learned from using social media in your organisation?
• What are the risks for organisations in adopting social media and making them available to employees?
• What are the specific challenges for business as workers engage in new conversational behaviours and have the ability to spread knowledge inside and outside the corporate firewall?
• How can CIOs work with other executives to ensure that the use of social media is well-managed?
• How can organisations create collaborative conversations that benefit the business?

If you have any views on these questions, or have additional information to add, I’d like to hear from you.

Please leave a comment or use the contact form to share your experience.

The Twittersphere was loaded tonight with Tweeters complaining about a major failure in Eircom’s DNS service. I have been having ongoing problems with Eirom, which is one of Ireland’s main ISPs, and have little satisfaction in getting my problems resolved. It is clear from tonight’s events that I am not alone. I had to rely on O2′s mobile broadband service for much of the evening.

Thanks to a number of Tweeters, I was referred to OpenDNS, which is a provider of free security and infrastructure services that make the Internet safer through integrated Web content filtering, anti-phishing and DNS. I had to sign up for a free account, which was very easy to do and took just a few minutes. Once this was done, I changed the DNS entries in my broadband router and I was up and running on the web again.

I am still looking forward to the day when I can dispense with Eircom’s “service” all together.

What has your experience with Eircom’s broadband service been? Leave a comment and let me know, though I expect I already know the answer.

I discovered this great programme from Evernote over the weekend. Available in both free and premium editions, it enables users with an Evernote account to store snippets of information, thoughts, pictures, documents, etc on the web. I regularly write notes and post-its to myself but often lose, mislay or simply forget about them. With Evernote, all those notes can now be stored simply and conveniently in one place on the Web for later processing. It is also possible to share your online notes with other Evernote users.

The service is available on a wide range of platforms, which is one of its most attractive features. There is a client for Windows and Mac, a version for the iPhone and other smartphones, a browser service and an email service. This means that it is pretty easy to capture and store a note, picture or document on any device no matter where you are. I tried to install it on my Blackberry but had problems with the Blackberry software. However, it was not a problem, as there is a mobile web version as well and the email service can be used with equal convenience.

The free service is pretty generous. It gives 40Mb of storage a month, which should be plenty to capture and store short notes or a few pictures. You can later move them into your preferred tool or system, or delete them when you have dealt with them. The subscription service costs $5 per month or $45 per year and gives 500 Mb of storage, more options and added security. I’m going to stick to the free service for the moment and see how it goes.

So why not check it out and if you like it, leave a comment and let me know.

ActiveWords, is a computer desktop productivity tool that automates many common activities that users perform every day. As you type, ActiveWords logs each word, even if a text editor is not being used. Once the appropriate function key (F8) is pressed, the action associated with that key word is performed. Actions can be any of the following:

• Substitute text
• Launch a programme
• Open a document
• Navigate to an Internet site
• Send an email
• Open a folder
• Run a script.

This is a great time saver and I have become a fan already. It cuts out a lot of pointing and clicking and makes life on the desktop just that little bit easier.

I use the keyword “outlook”, followed by F8 to open Outlook. I email several people regularly and by associating a keyword with them, in seconds I can open up a new Outlook email already addressed to them. I also use a few documents regularly and a short keyword opens each of them for me. There are a number of add-ons available for the product that are quite useful. These provide pre-defined keywords and menus for use with popular Internet services such as Google, MSN and Yahoo.

At the moment, I understand that ActiveWords is only available for the Windows platform.

You can download a free 60-day trial from the ActiveWords website. I was very pleased, shortly after downloading the programme, to be contacted by Buzz Bruggeman, one of the owners of the business, offering to go through the programme with me on a Skype call. Now that’s what I call service!

So why not check it out and if you like it, leave a comment and let me know.

Have you implemented Microsoft BPOS or are you considering implementing it?

I am carrying out an assessment of Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) and its suitability for use in large organisations.  If you have implemented BPOS or if you are a user of BPOS, I would really like to hear about your experiences of implementing and using it.

What problems did you encounter, from a technical perspective? How did you migrate from previous platforms, e.g. Webmail, Outlook 2003, SharePoint 2003, etc. What use have you made of OCS and Live Meeting? What about non-Microsoft browsers, such as Firefox, Safari, etc. Do you use other platforms, such as Apple and mobile devices? What approach did you take to roll-out, particularly in larger organisations? How many users did you have to cater for? How have you found the service  from the perspectives of security, availability, reliability, resilience, etc? And how have you found it from the perspectives of usability and accessibility?

What went well in your project? What benefits did your organisation gain from the implementation? What was the user and techcial training requirement? How have users adapted to the service and what has their experience been?

I’d really appreciate if readers would share their experiences with me and leave a comment here. I will collate all comments for a later blog post.