G-Cloud is live. After one of the shortest, leanest procurements in UK government history, we’re told that 1,700 services are available to government from nearly 300 suppliers. Although the process was short, for many suppliers this was hard work – often the first time they have dealt with government or the first time they have encountered terms such as “impact level 3″.  Crunching through the results must have been a challenge for the Cabinet Office team too – credit to them for getting there.

The question for many suppliers, though, will be “what now?”

Where are the customers?  Who do we talk to first?  How do we monetize the investment we have made in setting up this IL3 infrastructure at our cost?  Chris Chant has mentioned, several times, that Marks and Spencer don’t ask their potential customers “how many of you will buy a shirt?” Continue Reading

Big data – is it much ado about nothing or is it, as it’s hyped to be, the saviour to many an organisation? People are still struggling to come to terms with big data and exactly what it is. Either way, it has certainly established itself as the key technological trend for 2012.

For a variety of reasons, organisations are now gathering and storing more data than ever before. In its raw form, however, data is useless. It is information which is of benefit to a company – thus begging the question, how do you get information from data? Simple: data analysis.

Big data is the process of taking large, complex data sets, which may come from a range of sources and in a variety of formats, and analysing it to extract relevant, tangible information from it. Whether it is garnering greater insight into the behavioural patterns Continue Reading

I’ve just returned from my “sheep dip” sorry new hire training on the US west coast. What movie did I watch on the plane on the way over, you’ve guessed it

MONEYBALL

How kul is that?

(You can tell I’ve been on the west coast as I’ve started using words like kul which I haven’t done since the 70’s.).

The story of Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane’s successful attempt to put together a winning baseball club on a budget by employing computer-generated analysis to draft his players.

A film with data science and predictive analytics at the heart of it – I’m now trendy, I can tell people what I do at dinner parties and they’ll understand.

“Yes I employ Peter Brand Characters who are great with numbers”

One of the points I took away from the film was that the Billy Beane character had to stand firm with his commitment to a radically new approach despite a torrent of resistance Continue Reading

More and more content is moving onto the web.  Everyday millions of people put their trust in Facebook, Google and others to store treasured family memoires and photographs.  We know this trend is exploding exponentially.

But what about organizations?  Will engineering, pharmaceutical and financial services companies feel confident enough to put their trust in some centrally managed service?  Will they embrace OnDemand computing services to store and process business critical content and data?  This is now serious stuff, not holiday snaps.

The short answer is yes.  Many are already doing it.  Oil & Gas companies needing to share information on a new joint venture, and needing a place to collaborate with partners, suppliers and Governments, Continue Reading