IBM Research on Uses for Vegemite

Glen Wrightwick from IBM is now talking about examples of their smarter planet initiatives. Apart from the obvious examples, such as the fact that the current dumb electricity grid cannot detect failures, he had some less obvious examples, such as Corporate Brand and Reputation Analysis (COBRA) for Vegemite.

Development of Young Professionals

I crept out of the opening session of the 2009 International Young ICT Professionals Conference in Sydney, to talk to some of the exhibitors. This conference has a different focus to the usual technical IT event. This is about career development for young professionals. It is applicable to other professions and some of the people here are qualified in other disciplines, such as economics. Most of the exhibitors I am familar with, such as the ACS Foundation, who organise scholarships for students. Inspired Training Solutions I was not familiar with are delivering short courses on business practices for professionals. IBM have an unusual exhibit on their Smarter Planet initiative, with a colouring in competition for adults. Charles Stuart University are talking about their Master of Information Technology (MInfoTech) and Graduate Diploma of Information Technology (GradDipInfoTech) courses, but interestingly CSU also offer industry certifications as well.

Occupational Skills Profile Model

The Occupational Skills Profile Model (OSPM) from the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC) is an attempt to standardise skills and occupations in the Canadian ICT sector. It is similar to the UK's Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). Unfortunately like SFIA, OSPM suffers from being a proprietary system which requires payment of a fee to use. It also suffers from excessively large and complicated documents. "Occupational Skills Profile Model: A Foundation for the Future" is 544 pages (10.6 Mbytes) of PDF. ICT is a global business and it seems unlikely there is much difference between the jobs in the UK, Canada or anywhere else. Those doing OSPM and SFIA need to pool their resources and provide something we can all use in a format we can use.

The Occupational Skills Profile Model (OSPM) was developed by the Software Human Resource Council (SHRC) to standardize skills and occupations in the Canadian ICT sector, the public sector and educational institutions. It is the foundation for identifying, recruiting, retaining and retraining workers, and is recognized as the national standard for describing ICT occupations in Canada. ...

The 36 current occupational profiles defined by the OSPM include software and hardware occupations to be compared across industries and over time, and give employers the ability to target and address skills gaps within their organizations.

... skills are grouped into five areas:

• Technical/Functional Skills
• Business and Management Skills
• Personal/Interpersonal Skills
• Software/IT Environments
• Hardware Environments ...

From: "Occupational Skills Profile Model: A Foundation for the Future" , Reference Manual Version 3.0, Information and Communications Technology Council Inc., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 2007

ps: The ACS uses SFIA for its courses and I had to come to grisps with it for the Green ICT course.

Stopping ACM sending junk mail

For more than 20 years I have been a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). This is one of the oldest IT bodies and has been respectable and useful, up until now. In the last year I have noticed an increase in the number of annoying email messages from ACM.

The number of newsletters, announcements, surveys and renewal reminders from ACM has been getting annoying, to the point where I am considering cancelling my membership. The problem is that apart from the printed publications, all I see of an organisation like ACM is the email. If that email starts to look like junk mail from dishonest spammers, then reputation of the organisation starts to suffer.

The use of the web for e-commerce also changes perceptions. ACM was in the habit of including on the renewal form some suggested items. These were things I had not asked for, such as a subscription to the ACM Digital Library and a donation to some initiative. Each year I would have to cross these out and recalculate the correct, much lower total amount. However, when the same thing happened with the online renewal this went from being a charming idosyrancy to something which looked like attempted fraud. ACM should discontinue this practice as it looks, at best unethical, if not technically illegal. It is simply enough with an electronic renewal to add extra items if the member wants them.

In addition, the perceptions of what an organisation does changes with email. Previously the ACM would send me a membership reminder several months in advance. This made sense for overseas members contacted by paper mail. The reminder could take a long time to arrive and filling out the renewal and mailing it back took a long time. But email does not take as long, nor does online renewal. As a result sending a reminder months in advance looks like an attempt to get money the organisation is not entitled to. ACM need to shorten the reminder period to just a few weeks.

An occasional email alert can be helpful, but too many get annoying. ACM send far too many email notices and make it very difficult to stop them. I contacted my supposed "Personal Customer Service Representative" (an annoying fiction: does this mean that when that person is not on duty I get no service?) and asked to just receive official announcements of elections and the like and one renewal reminder. This didn't happen.

When I received the next email announcement I clicked on the link to stop them and that worked. However, it only stopped that particular announcement. Logging into the ACM customer site I found I could remove myself from various announcement lists, but there were a lot of them and no way to just click "official items only".

With all the announcement items un-clicked, hopefully ACM will not send me so much junk mail.

ACM has been a worthwhile organisation, but it needed to balance the need to service members with the need not to annoy them.

ps: In going through the customer site I found some useful services I was not aware of, such as an ACM v-card available to each member and online books.

Work Integrated Learning

A new take on an old idea is Work Integrated Learning: integrating the student's work into their formal education. In a way this is just a formalisation of how learning normally happens and is the universities catching up with what has been done in the vocational education sector. The Australian Collaborative Education Network provides information on Australian developments:

ACEN is a newly formed network of interested practitioners and researchers involved in work integrated learning in Australia. Collaborative Education currently exists in various forms including internships, cooperative education, work placements, community based learning, clinical rotations and sandwich year.
ACEN provides peer support and opportunities to share good practice in collaborative education on a national level with associated international links.A database of interested practitioners is maintained by the Australian Collaborative Education Network and registered members will be notified of
state, national and international activities. ...

From: Australian Collaborative Education
Network (ACEN), 2005

... Principles of work-integrated learning

Work-integrated learning exposes students to the complexity and context of professional practice and can occur:

on campus through structured
authentic activities and assessment derived from specific learning objectives in
units;
in simulated workplace settings on campus;
as work experience in
the industry / professional workplace; or
as a community-based learning
activity which will normally involve some work off campus.

Work-integrated
learning activities may include:

work experience in industry (eg field
placement, practicum, professional practice, community-based learning or
internship);
project or 'capstone' activities;
schemes and events; or
simulated work environment (eg mock pharmacy, moot court, in-house
production, simulated stock exchange or other as deemed appropriate through
normal faculty approval processes).
In undertaking work-integrated learning,
students:

apply and refine their current knowledge and skills, and learn
new knowledge and skills;
apply, reflect on and critique their experience as
part of assessment; and
are normally coached or mentored by industry staff
in the workplace.

From: Work-integrated learning policy, QUT, 03/11/2006,

National ICT Careers Week

National ICT Careers Week starts 28 July 2008. This has events about computer and telecommunications careers. It is aimed at young people and their parents. There are events across Australia.

17 July TAS	Landing that job! Australian Computer Society - Tasmania
18 July NSW	Virtual thrills, robots and computer games Macquarie University Computing Department North Ryde Campus
22 July NSW	Diversiti ICT Hiring Influence Report 2008 Diversiti Level 12, 2 Park St, Sydney
27 July VIC	ICT = Great Jobs + Great Money ITCRA - Information Technology Contract & Recruitment Association
28 July NSW	Testing trends and developments for the enterprise Australian Computer Society - NSW Branch Level 1, 280 Pitt St Sydney (Sydney Mechanics School of Arts)
28 July NSW	Computing workshops for high school students Macquarie University Computing Department North Ryde Campus
28 July NSW	NCSS Programming Challenge University of Sydney School of IT
28 July ACT	CIT Information Evening Canberra Institute of Technology Reid Learning Centre, Constitution Avenue, Reid
28 July SA	Careers in the Digital Content Industry Mobile Enterprise Growth Alliance (MEGA) Careers Forum, Education Development Centre, Milner Street, Hindmarsh
29 July NSW	Digi-Girls Robotics TAFE NSW Northern Sydney Institute Crows Nest College, 149 West St
29 July QLD	Faculty of Information Technology Annual Teachers' Luncheon Queensland University of Technology Faculty of Information Technology
29 July SA	Careers-On-The-Go University of South Australia School of Information & Computer Science Bradley forum, Hawke Building level 5, City West campus, University of South Australia
29 July NSW	Forensic IT & Electronic Discovery Australian Computer Society - NSW Branch Norman Selfe Room, Level 3 280 Pitt St Sydney (Sydney Mechanics School of Arts)
30 July NSW	Showcase and Forum TAFE NSW Northern Sydney Institute Studios A & B, North Sydney College, 213 Pacific Highway, St Leonards
30 July VIC	Australian workplace culture – what to expect and tips for a smooth transition Australian Computer Society - Victoria Branch The Tea House 28 Clarendon Street South Melbourne
30 July SA	Meet Dr Karl! University of South Australia School of Information & Computer Science
30 July NSW	Business Intelligence Competency Centre Australian Computer Society - NSW Branch Mitchell Theatre Level 1, 280 Pitt St Sydney (Sydney Mechanics School of Arts)
31 July NSW	Careers Evening University of NSW, School of Computer Science and Engineering Sydney Mechanics School of Arts Level 1, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney
31 July NSW	Trying to provide your students with the right career start Western Sydney ICT Skills Taskforce Department of State and Regional Development - Level 2, 470 Church Street, Parramatta
31 July VIC	ICT Careers Night Australian Computer Society - Victoria Branch Telstra Theatrette, Exhibition St, Melbourne
31 July QLD	ICT Careers - Your Future Australian Computer Society - Queensland Branch
31 July ACT	Careers Counsellors Forum: Promoting ICT Careers in the Australian Public Service Australian Government Department of Finance and Deregulation Radford College, Bruce
01 August QLD	Robotics Workshop - Professional Development for Teachers Griffith University School of Information and Communication Technology Multimedia Lab 2.20, Multimedia building, Gold Coast Campus, Griffith University
01 August WA	GO3 Electronic & Entertainment Expo GO3 Electronic & Entertainment Expo Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre
01 August SA	Science and technology breakfast University of Adelaide School of Computer Science and School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Eclipse function room Adelaide university campus
01 August SA	Computer Science & Robotics - media welcome University of Adelaide School of Computer Science and School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Eclipse function room Adelaide university campus
01 August SA	Where does a career in ICT lead? - media welcome University of Adelaide School of Computer Science and School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
02 August VIC	Monash University Open Day Monash University Faculty of Information Technology
02 August VIC	ICT & Careers Expo Victorian Information Technology Teachers Association Memorial Hall, Melbourne High School
02 August VIC	From study to workplace: an ICT pathway for girls Victorian Women in ICT Network Melbourne High
03 August QLD	ICT and Engineering Careers and Study Options Presentations at UQ Open Day University of Queensland School of IT and Electrical Engineering
17 August VIC	Open Day Swinburne University of Technology Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies
20 August WA	ICT Grad Connect Australian Computer Society - WA Branch Novotel Langley Ballroom Adelaide Terrace, Perth
28 August VIC	Go Girl - Go for IT Victorian Women in ICT Network Deakin University
28 October VIC	I'm Informatics: Turning raw data into useful information University of Melbourne, Department of Information Systems Theatre 1, UniMelb ICT Building, 111 Barry Street, Carlton

Giving conference presentations to culturally diverse audiences

Recently I have been attending a few professional conferences and giving talks in other countries. This is hard work, both for the presenter and audience. So here are some suggestions as to what is needed. Presenters need to invest the time and effort to make a presentation which can be easily understood by an audience with a diverse background and for whom English may not be their first language.

What to say

You need to introduce yourself, your organization and your topic. Tell the audience who your are and how you come to be involved in the topic of the talk. Tell them what it is you will talk about and how it will be useful to them. In may cases the audience can understand what they are being told, but not why they are being told it. Reassure the audience that details of the talk are available in their proceedings, on the web or from you later. This saves them worrying about taking detailed notes.

Have a clear outline of what you intend to talk about, show this to the audience and then stick to that. Have a clear start, middle and end to the talk. The audience will otherwise get lost as to where you are in the talk.

Stick to the topic and to your area of expertise. It is all too easy to stray from the topic and express your non-expert views on irrelevant topics, or worse show your ignorance of the areas of expertise of the other speakers and the audience.

Keep to time limits set for your presentation. Do not use up the question time with talking and do not run over time, even if the moderator seems to think it is okay. Part of being a professional is being disciplined and the credibility of a speaker on any topic can be destroyed by their being unable to stick to the time limits.

If invited by the moderator to introduce yourself, you should do so before saying anything else. Don't talk about the previous talk, about unrelated topics, or thank the organizer for inviting you, or talk about companies you are not associated with. The audience will be sitting there wondering "who is this person?", "what are they trying to tell us". At the end of the talk it is okay to extemporize, after the audience know who you are and by what authority you speak.

In introducing yourself, or preparing the introduction for the moderator to read out, do not be too boastful, bit also not too modest. Customize the introduction for the topic and audience. If you had a major role in developing something you will be discussing, then include that. You can't assume the audience will know you foundered a company or were involved in developing a standard.

You should not say something is "interesting", or "fraught" or use slang such as "a plug", or terms such as "dramas". If it wasn't interesting you would not be talking about it. If it is "fraught" you need to explain in detail in what way, and use different words the audience is likely to know.

Don't ask the audience about local conditions, as it suggests you have not bothered doing any research.

When use the full expanded title of something before using the acronym. This is both to show you know and for people who will have difficulty distinguishing between an acronym and an English word they do not know.

You need to explain the government, legislative or other context, for example do not just mention some law, without saying which level of government and which country it was from.

When referring to another person, use their full name and their affiliation. Don't assume the audience will know who "Tom" is for example, even if they have seen them in a previous talk.

Do not insult or attack the conference organizers or the sponsors. If you have differences with those behind the conference, then you should not be speaking at it. Similarly do not blatantly plug the conference or sponsors: the audience did not come to hear sales pitch.

Tell some person anecdotes to illustrate the points, but do not attempt to tell a joke unless you are very sure it will not be offensive to the audience or just not funny.

Slides

Slides should contain a small amount of very large legible text, illustrated with graphics and photos. You should include web or contact details on the last slide so people can find out more. Include references to source materials on the slides or in supplementary notes. Do not assume the audience will have the supplementary notes, as in many cases they will just have a copy of the slides.

The W3C has guidelines for accessible web design, intended for people with a disability, but these can also be used to make clearer materials for international audience.

Technology to help?

Conference organizers can help with presentations via better technology. Where there are several people on stage, it helps to have a screen at the foot of the stage facing the speakers which duplicates whatever is on the main display. This way the other participants do not need to crane their necks around and put their backs to the audience (which is impolite) to see what the presenter is showing.

Also a very large countdown clock showing how many minutes the speaker has left is useful. Some KL pedestrian crossings have countdown clocks and this could be emulated with a computer application. It could have the display change from green to amber when time was almost up and then change to red for the last few minutes. This would be a polite way to remind the speaker to keep to time, as it is difficult to politely remind them.

Perhaps with some commercial presentations, where time is money, a more extreme intervention is needed. The speaker could be asked to nominate their summary and conclusion slides. The automated system would flip to the summary slide automatically when time was almost up and to the conclusion slide when time was up, taking control away from the presenter. That may sound Draconian, but where a presenter takes twice their allotted time, either due to poor presentation skills or in a misguided attempt to get more than their fair share, this can ruin an event.

You might consider going further and asking the speaker which was their summary slide and which was their conclusion slide, then have the system automatically override their presentation and flip to these slides. Moderators without these tools will just have to do their best to be firm with presenters, so as not to inconvenience the later speakers and the audience.