The enshittification of technical support information

Posted on By Mark Wilson

I apologise to anyone inadvertently offended with the title of this post, but if the BBC’s Technology Editor can use the word “enshittification” as an example of retrograde progress, then so will I. It was also the American Dialect Society’s “Digital Word of the Year” in 2023, so that seems fair.

You see, I’m writing this on my phone, as I wait for my PC to be rebuilt onto a new corporate setup (and as the US Election results come in, which have not lightened my mood).

One of the issues I had whilst preparing to wipe all my data was a OneNote export process which said:

“OneNote cannot pack these sections because some sections have not yet been fully synced and could not be downloaded. These pages will not be saved. Continue anyway? Yes | No”

Great. It’s probably some embedded media that no longer exists… but that message is not very helpful for identifying a problem. There are hundreds of pages of notes across about a hundred sections. Which pages won’t be saved?

Still it could be worse. There’s plenty of cutesy messages these days that say something along the lines of:

“Oops, something went wrong”.

Nice. What went wrong? Can you give me a clue please so I might be able to find a resolution to the issue?

A brief history of technical support resources

When I started working in IT, we didn’t have the World Wide Web. Admittedly, we didn’t have as much information at our fingertips either but IT support often required a subscription to a database of knowledge articles. These were created by the software vendor and were reliable. At ICL we had something called PC-PARIS (PARIS was the support knowledge base). Microsoft had TechNet subscriptions with support information and updated software. Both of these were distributed to subscribers in CD-ROM format. This was a time when a typical Internet connection ran at around 33Kbps.

Errors had codes. We could look up what they meant and identify the cause. Not now. What does “[your application] ran into a problem and had to stop” mean?

As the web took off, so did blogs. People like me posted answers to problems we found. Then big websites started SEOing their way to the top and user-submitted content was the way forwards. Some of that content was good. Some of it less so. And we’ve all seen that geek on an online forum who doesn’t answer the question but instead provides a terse comment as to why the thing being asked is totally wrong because why would anyone do it that way anyway?

AI FTW?

Now we have AI answering the questions. Google or Bing will insert an AI-generated response at the top of the search results and, sometimes it’s helpful. But it’s an LLM – it literally makes stuff up based on probability. Some of that stuff is just wrong.

I may just be a grumpy old man, but I really just want detailed problem reports, accurate analysis, and reliable search results. Because not all progress is good progress.

Think about the end-user experience

Posted on By Mark Wilson

I recently marked 30 years working full-time in the IT industry. That’s a long time. When I started, we didn’t all have laptops (I shared a PC in the office), we had phones on desks, administrators to help with our… administration, and work was a place where we went as well as a thing that we did.

Over time, I’ve seen a lot of change: new systems, processes, ways of working. But right now is the biggest of them all. For the last nine-and-a-half years, all of my work has been stored in one Office 365 tenant. Now it’s being migrated to another, as part of some cleanup from a merger/acquisition that took place a while ago.

I’m just a normal end-user

I’m just a user. Albeit one with a technical background. And maybe that’s why I’m concerned. During the Covid-19 pandemic, I was issued a new laptop and everything was rebuilt using self-service. It went very well, but this is different. There is no going back. Once my laptop has been wiped and rebuilt into the new organisation, there is no “old machine” to go back to if I incorrectly synced my data.

Sure, I’ve done this before – but only when I’ve left one employer to go somewhere else. Never when I’ve been trying to continue work in the same place.

People change management

To be clear, the migration team has been great. This is not your typical internal IT project – this is being run properly. There are end-user communications, assigned tasks to complete to help make sure everything goes smoothly, FAQs, migration guides. ADKAR is in full flow. It all looks like it should go swimmingly. But 30 years of working in tech tells me to expect the unexpected (plus a tendency to be over-anxious and to catastrophise). And modern security practices mean that, if I was to make a copy of all my data on an external drive, “just in case”, I’ll set all sorts of alarm bells ringing in the SOC.

I’ll have to roll with it.

The schedule

So, there’s the technical issues resolved – or at least put to one side. Next is the migration window. It runs for 2 weeks. But the second of those weeks is the school half term holidays in a sizeable chunk of the UK. I, for one, will be away from work. I also have an assignment to complete by the end of the month, all the usual pre-holiday preparations squaring work away, and this is whilst I have two days taking part in an AI hackathon event and two days when I’m on call for questions in relation to our Microsoft Azure Expert MSP audit. “I’m sorry, I can’t find that information right now because I’m rebuilding my PC and migrating between Microsoft 365 tenants” isn’t going to go down well.

In short, there is no good time for my migration. And this is what it’s like for “real” end-users in our clients’ organisations. When they don’t want to clear down their email or delete old data it’s (generally) not because they are awkward (well, not always). They have a job to do, and we (IT) are doing something with one of the tools that they use to do that job. There’s uncertainty about how things will work after the migration and they need to allocate time. Time that they may not have.

Walking in someone else’s shoes

All too often, us IT folks just say “it’ll be fine”, without understanding the uncertainty that we impose on our customers – the users of the systems that we manage. Maybe it’s good for me to stand in their shoes, to be a typical business end-user, to understand what it’s like to be on the end of an IT project. Maybe we should all do it more often, and then we can run better projects.

Featured image by Kosta from Pixabay.

Monthly retrospective: August 2024

Posted on By Mark Wilson

I know it’s nearly the end of September now, but here’s my look back at what I got up to in August…

The two most significant events were:

Right. Rant over. What else did I get up to in August?

  • Well, for starters, I actually wrote a blog post (not just the one about my holidays). Inspired by one of the challenges my team faces, I wrote about choosing between chats and channels in Microsoft Teams (and the types of channels that should be used). Spoiler: if you want to collaborate, or to communicate with more than a few users, choose a channel. Though, as one colleague pointed out, if the decision needs a flow chart, it’s probably too complicated…
  • I needed to visit the Apple Store in Milton Keynes and found that it’s moved, expanded, and has a huge new screen across the entire back wall. My pictures don’t do it justice but it’s a big improvement on the old store…
  • I found myself commenting on a former colleague’s LinkedIn post about Klarna replacing human employees with AI. There’s enough in there for a whole blog post… but I think it’s worth a look at Marcus’ post and the various replies…
  • I also weighed in on my colleague Glenn Akester’s post about the Crowdstrike outage (not a “Microsoft outage”!) looking at what happened, and critically, some of the lessons we can learn to reduce the impact of similar problems in future.
  • I also got involved in a discussion about Gartner Hype Cycles, after it seemed the whole world picked up on one article by the Economist that seemed (prematurely, in my opinion), to be suggesting that AI is through the hype now (and that not all technologies go through the hype cycle).
  • Following on from the AI post, we move to the underlying data:
  • I’ve had a Bookings page on Microsoft 365 for a while but it doesn’t get much use. That was until I added it to my LinkedIn profile and posted about Node4’s partnership with Elastio for ransomware protection. The first contact came soon after. Admittedly, it wasn’t a customer but it was good to connect, understand someone else’s proposition and bear it in mind for the future!
  • A colleague flagged a CIO post by Brian Solis about “the end of digital transformation and the rise of business model innovation”. He was asking if the digital transformation term is tired and if AI will make business leaders rethink their business models to make good use of it. Again, I think, given time, I could write a whole post on this topic but here’s the top line:
    • It’s an interesting article but predicated on the author’s view that much digital transformation missed the transformation part and digitised existing processes. I think that’s the key there – abuse of a term for marketing purposes… 
    • Many people skipped the business transformation part (what we used to call business process re-engineering). The author seems to be saying that we now need to do that, but using AI… and dreaming up a new term “business model innovation”.
    • I don’t think we need new terms to confuse the issue. What we need is to double down on Digital Transformation. AI is part of the toolset, but it’s also the latest shiny thing. I still think this post that I wrote five years ago has legs. 
  • On that note, I’ve started to write a book… on digital transformation (to be co-authored with my colleague Bjoern Hirtenjohann). More on that as it starts to take shape.
  • Diving into tech for a moment, this post explains why I’ve been receiving emails from Microsoft about a deleted Azure subscription. They were concerning but everything seemed to work, so I put them to the back of my mind. It turns out that it’s just really bad communication and, retiring outdated “Access to Azure Active Directory” subscriptions is removing a legacy method for integrating Azure AD (now Entra ID) with Office 365 (now Microsoft 365). There’s more on the Access to Azure Active Directory subscriptions in this post by Jason Fritts.
  • Before I wrap up this month’s retrospective, here’s a couple more articles that piqued my interest:
    • Sonos’ CEO was forced to admit that S2 isn’t coming back, because the technical architecture has moved on and it can no longer work. Time will tell whether this becomes a really damaging point in the company’s history. They’ve ridden out controversy in the past (over technical obsolescence) but it really is important to listen to customer feedback on your app. Personally, I find it unusable and mostly rely on Spotify’s integration with my Sonos speakers…
    • High-end racing bikes are now vulnerable to hacking. Yep. You read that correctly. Wireless gears can be hacked… potentially to impede other riders’ progress.

Watching and listening

It seems I haven’t been posting any photos recently (not since my holiday), so in place of the normal section on photography, a couple of things I’ve been enjoying recently:

  • Watching series 1 of Sherwood on BBC iPlayer. We haven’t got further than episode 1 of the second series yet (and season 3 has been commissioned), but I found series 1 fascinating from the perspective of someone who was only a child at the time of The Miners’ Strike but has seen the long term implications of the UK’s move from manufacturing to a services economy.
  • Now that you can only pause an Audible subscription once a year, I’m trying to find things to spend my surplus credits on (and then cancel my subscription). Non-fiction can be a bit heavy sometimes (and I listen to a lot of podcasts) so I tried some fiction… KL Slater’s “Message Deleted” was quickly consumed via my AirPods as I went about my weekend activities!

That’s all for now – watch out for September’s retrospective in a week or two!

Featured image: author’s own

The rise of the local cloud

Posted on By Mark Wilson

The discount retailer Lidl recently found its way into the news as its parent company began offering cloud services to outside organisations. That got us thinking about Node4’s UK-based cloud services, and how, sometimes, a local cloud is exactly the solution that’s required to meet clients’ needs.

The rise of self-service cloud services

Its well-known that Amazon Web Services (AWS) began when Amazon realised the value of its own IT systems and the investment it had made in shared services. Amazon had created a shared IT platform so its engineering organisations, which were previously spending a high proportion of their time on IT infrastructure problems, could instead focus on customer-facing innovation. As the shared services provided value for amazon.com, Amazon saw the potential in providing web services to other organisations and AWS was born. Through AWS, Amazon began providing external customers access to an on-demand cloud computing platform on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Since then, we’ve seen Microsoft (Azure) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) launch and compete with AWS. In the US, Europe and elsewhere, these three “hyperscale platforms” dominate cloud computing services.

Unexpected item in the bagging area

With the rise of the hyperscalers, the major systems integrators suddenly had new competition. Companies didn’t have to invest in their own infrastructure – they could consume services according to demand. And if they weren’t running their own infrastructure, then they didn’t need someone to host and manage it for them.

Some of the major SIs launched their own clouds, but they have never had the scale or the traction of the hyperscalers. So, the SIs partnered with one or more of the hyperscalers, albeit reluctantly, to respond to customer demand.

Germany is particularly well-known for its stringent privacy and data protection laws but it’s not unique. In response to this, the hyperscalers began placing datacentres in specific regions to address data sovereignty concerns. Here in the UK, Microsoft opened the UK South and UK West regions in Azure. AWS and GCP made similar investments. And let’s not forget that markets like China are so large that they have their own hyperscale providers!

In the middle at Lidl

Recently, the German discount retailer Lidl made the news as its parent company Schwarz Group started to offer cloud computing and cybersecurity services to corporate customers.

In a remarkable parallel with AWS’ history, the Irish Times reported that Schwarz started with a system built for internal use in 2021. Schwarz Digits, an IT unit that initially served only the group’s internal needs branched out to serve external clients in 2022. Now there’s an independent company within the Schwarz Group, StackIT, existing alongside XM Cyber and the group’s minority investment in a German AI startup called Aleph Alpha.

Marketed as “the German business cloud”, StackIT’s main selling point is that all client data is processed and stored exclusively in Germany and Austria. It offers a suite of cloud services, focused on the German retail (unsurprisingly), health and public sectors.

The case for local cloud

So why am I writing on the Node4 blog about a German retailer’s entry in to cloud services? Surely they are a competitor? Well, yes and no. StackIT is all about the German market – it’s their USP. Node4 is expert in the UK mid-market. We don’t compete, but there are some parallels. Whilst Node4 hasn’t grown out of a retailer (we were born into datacentre hosting and connectivity), we do have a local cloud for UK-based clients.

So why might you want a local cloud?

  • The most obvious reason is data sovereignty. Depending on the service that your company provides to its customers, you might be required to keep data in-country. This may be for regulatory purposes or simply to meet a contractual requirement.
  • Whilst public cloud can be made secure, some organisations may have heightened security requirements that necessitate keeping data within national borders to mitigate risks associated with transferring data outside the local jurisdiction.
  • If performance is a concern, running services locally can reduce latency and improve performance, especially for applications that require real-time processing or have high bandwidth needs. And sometimes it’s just about keeping application layers close to one another.
  • From a corporate social responsibility perspective, it’s good to support the local economy. And other economic and political factors may mean that avoiding the potential geopolitical risks associated with relying on foreign cloud providers is prudent. If the war in Ukraine has made us question our energy and food sources, for some organisations the source of their IT services is critical too.
  • And sometimes, particularly if your application workload is to be “lifted and shifted”, with limited or no transformation, then a local cloud can be more cost-effective than the hyperscale platforms.

Node4’s Virtual Datacentre (VDC) is designed to address the needs of clients who need a local, UK-based cloud. We can offer a geo-resilient UK-based self-service cloud platform, with full automation, predictable consumption billing and 24×7 support. As a bonus, if you’re currently struggling with Broadcom price increases, it’s simple to migrate into our cloud too!

The Pragmatic Cloud

At Node4, we talk about the “Pragmatic Cloud”. We are open and transparent about the reasons for the recommendations that we make to our clients about their cloud investments. We can do this because Node4 is in a reasonably unusual position within mid-market managed services providers. We partner with Microsoft to provide hyperscale capabilities in the public cloud, but we also have our own hosting and connectivity options, including hybrid and edge capabilities. We can offer something for everyone.

So, whether it’s hosting/co-location services for the servers that you run (whether as a private cloud or simply using traditional management methods), self-service infrastructure as a service (IaaS) on our VDC platform, or expert advice on adopting Microsoft Azure to modernise your applications, we can help.

Feel free to get in touch using the contact details below – and let’s have a conversation.

This post was originally published on the Node4 blog.

Featured image by Michael Reichelt from Pixabay.

Self-scan stress in Sainsbury’s. And why don’t UK supermarkets use electronic shelf labels?

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Almost every Thursday morning, before I start work, I visit the town market to buy food. After that, I do the weekly supermarket shop. Most people can understand me shopping locally and supporting the market. The question I’m sometimes asked is why I don’t do the supermarket shop online? It’s partly because I’ve learned that the store is well-stocked on a Thursday morning and I can do the weekly shop in 20-30 minutes. There’s also an element of dissatisfaction with previous online supermarket shopping experiences.

I mostly shop at Sainsbury’s. There are some items that we get from Lidl in the next town (though there’s an Aldi locally now, so that may change) and I have to go to Tesco or Waitrose for some other items because the local Sainsbury’s is too small. I also use Costco. Basically, I know what I can get where, at what price/quality.

“SmartShop”

In Sainsbury’s, I use the SmartShop self-scanning technology. According to the Sainsbury’s website:

“SmartShop is the new way to shop at Sainsbury’s. Just scan, bag and go, it couldn’t be easier!”

I started to use this a few years ago, when Sainsbury’s ran a campaign to encourage its use. Then, just a few weeks ago, some tills were removed in our local store to enlarge the self-checkout area. I’ve also switched from using the app on my phone to an in-store handset as I found the barcode scanning to be more efficient.

Random checks

A few months ago, almost every shop was being selected for a “random” check. Sainsbury’s explains that:

“Sometimes customers can double scan an item by mistake, or an item might end up in your trolley that hasn’t been scanned properly. So from time to time we might ask you to have your shopping re-scanned by one of our colleagues.

These rescans are random and they’ll only happen at checkout.”

These were annoying (as it was a regular occurrence), but understandable, until one time the entire shop had to be re-scanned. One of the advantages of self-scanning is that you can carefully place your items in bags so they are not damaged. I watched as my items were re-scanned and roughly repacked for me. I took a deep breath and walked away.

I understand why stores do this. Shoplifting is a huge issue nationally, thought more of a problem in some stores than others. But this policy on self-scans is effectively saying “we think you might be stealing from us”. There’s no apology when no theft is found.

There is an argument that self-scan is also a cost saving measure for supermarkets. That needs to be weighed up against the shrinkage and the customer experience. Some stores simply won’t install self-scan in certain areas, because of the risk.

The “random” checks stopped for a while but today, I was selected again. It’s fair to say that I did not respond well. In fact, I was enraged. 12 September is not a great day for me (it would have been my late Father’s birthday) but I honestly don’t know if that was a factor in my anger when a full re-scan was required. I insisted on speaking to a manager – I don’t believe the scans are random and I’m sure there’s some pattern recognition on my shopping habits via my Nectar card. The last couple of weeks’ shopping was small (with one teenager away from home). This week I spent more, including alcohol, and it felt like I was being singled out.

Pricing errors

The irony is that, after the store re-scanned all my shopping, I found mistakes in their pricing! Far from me adding to Sainsbury’s shrinkage bill, they were not passing on advertised savings to customers.

Readers will probably be familiar with the concept of discounts for loyalty card holders. Tesco has Clubcard, Sainsbury’s has Nectar, other retailers have their own schemes too. These are controversial for some, but I’m comfortable accepting that I trade my data for cash. After all, I give data about my habits away all the time on the Internet, using “free” services (if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product).

I found that Sainsbury’s had not passed on a Nectar discount on one of my items. Furthermore, because the ePOS system was not configured with the correct price, it would presumably have been overcharging every customer who bought that item and used their Nectar card.

Then, later in the day, I spotted that some of the personalised Nectar offers from a SmartShop scan were not passed to me when I’d had the full shop scanned through a normal till. Those offers were actually a reason for me to buy multiple items, rather than just one. They had increased the volume of the sale, but I’d ended up paying the full price.

Both of these mistakes were corrected by staff but they shouldn’t have happened.

In summary, when Sainsbury’s systems suspected I might have been shoplifting, it actually turned out that they owed me money.

Teenage kicks

I started my working life in retail. As a teenager, I worked for Bejam (now Iceland), and then a few years at Safeway. It was mostly stacking shelves but also warehouse work and checkouts when the store was busy. I saw the change from manual pricing to ePOS with barcodes, and I worked on a number of store openings and refits. After I decided to go to Polytechnic instead of joining Safeway’s management programme, I came back in my holidays and worked night shifts. That period of my life taught me quite a lot about supermarket retail and, fundamentally, not much has changed since. Of course, there have been some developments – like just-in-time deliveries replacing in-store warehouse space and the creation of digital services such as online shopping and self-scan.

One thing that does seem to have changed though is the checks on price labels. At Safeway in the late ’80s and early ’90s, it was a full-time job to check every price in store and manage changes/promotions. If the shelf edge labels didn’t match the computer then the customers were charged the wrong price. That was taken seriously back then.

This attention to detail seems to be gone. I imagine it was a cost-cutting efficiency (as is self-service). Nowadays, I regularly spot pricing errors in Sainsbury’s and it usually leads to store staff removing errant shelf edge tags. And Sainsbury’s are not alone – the local Co-op and OneStop stores seem to have similar issues.

Electronic shelf labelling

So, why don’t UK supermarkets use electronic shelf labels (ESLs), like those seen in continental Europe? I did some basic analysis and it seems that early trials were inconclusive, with concerns around cost, technology and operational challenges. So, just like any IT system really.

On the other hand, the benefits include efficiency, dynamic pricing, customer information and sustainability. The Grocer reported in 2021 that ESLs were making a comeback but I’ve not seen much evidence to suggest it’s happening quickly.

So what might ESLs cost for a store like the one where I shop, which was only built 5 years ago?

My local Sainsbury’s store cost £3.3m to build and is 1610 square metres in size. A few prompts to an AI assistant has told me that:

  • A store this size can be expected to stock 20-25,000 product lines.
  • The cost of ESLs can vary depending on the brand and features but an investment for 10,000 lines would be around £50-80,000.

So, about £125-200,000 for a store this size (between 3.7 and 6% of the £3.3m budget) to have accurate pricing in store.

No business case?

The thing is, that, in addition to my teenage shelf-stacking, I have some IT experience of working in retail. When I was at Polo Ralph Lauren in the early 2000s it was a lot easier to justify application spend than infrastructure. If IT spend doesn’t add to the bottom line, then the business case is unlikely to be approved. And if stores make more money from advertising offers that are not applied, why would they invest in a system to display accurate pricing?

Call me a cynic, but could that be the real reason why UK stores haven’t invested in electronic ticketing?

Featured image: author’s own.

A two week trip around Europe by train #MarkAndBensExcellentAdventure

Posted on By Mark Wilson

My June/July 2024 retrospective was written as I was preparing to head off for a couple of weeks’ travelling with my youngest son, Ben. Well, after a few weeks back at work and with August’s roundup on the horizon, I thought I’d look back over what we got up to on #MarkAndBensExcellentAdventure.

A few words about Interrail/Eurail

Ben and I travelled by train, using a ticket called an Interrail pass. Interrail has been around for years and works across 33 countries. It’s also known as Eurail. Confusingly, European residents use Interrail and international visitors use Eurail. I know. It’s counter-intuitive. I just had to get over it, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference in practice. Oh yes, and “European” is defined by geography, not politics (so the UK is still European).

There are various passes available – either global (which is European, not global!) or single country passes. Passes can be valid for a block of time, or for a certain number of days over a period. I spent €833 on two 15-day second class global passes (one youth, one adult). For reference, one train journey in the UK can cost hundreds of pounds, so that seems very good value. The passes can’t be used in your home country, except for one outbound and one inbound journey. For us that was a CIV journey on any UK operator from Bedford to St Pancras International and onwards by Eurostar to Amsterdam, and the return back from Lille to St Pancras International and on to Bedford.

When I first “interrailed”, in the early 1990s, you couldn’t use Interrail on high speed rail services (e.g. TGV). Now you can, but you’ll pay a supplement for a seat reservation. Interrail reservation space on some trains is limited (so book ahead). Interrail/Eurail will sell you the reservation, for a premium, or you can buy it from the in-country train operator.

Professional me was interested in the “digital transformation” of Interrail since I last used the scheme. Basically, instead of a dog-eared piece of paper with journeys filled in by hand, it now uses an app. The app is pretty cool actually and shows where you are going/have been (in map or list form) as well as helping to plan and activate journeys on your “pass”.

There is a paper option, I think, but I didn’t use that. I also needed to download separate apps for various cities’ public transportation services. Normally they have a day pass that can save money but it varies from city to city.

One final point, in some places, an Interrail pass will provide other discounts. For example, in Interlaken, our travel on the BLS ferries was included if we added it as a rail trip, and the funicular to Harder Kulm was half price. Other discounts can be seen in the Interrail/Eurail app.

The trip

Here we go, day by day, with a brief summary of what we got up to. It’s in bullets, because if I write it in prose you’ll never read it all!

Day 1

  • Not the best start: East Midlands Railway train from Bedford cancelled; jumped on a Thameslink service, which was delayed at Luton because the relief driver was delayed (presumably stuck on the cancelled EMR train); then switched trains again and made it to St Pancras International in time.
  • Huge queues for the Eurostar but well-managed and we made it through security, and were the first passengers onto the platform (thanks to Real Time Trains telling us which door to wait close to).
  • Comfortable, but delayed journey to Amsterdam.
  • Tram to our hostel (more on that later), then into Amsterdam.
  • Wander around the city soaking up the atmosphere.
  • Frites!
  • See the incredible Stationsplein bike park with over 7000 spaces at the station.
  • Dinner and back to the hostel. Dutch food is better than its reputation suggests. Well, I suppose it wasn’t really Dutch food, but we found an excellent Hummus Bistro.
  • Cityhub is the most incredible hostel:
    • Miniature pods provide privacy, and meant that this hostel was not cheap but was far less expensive than any city centre hotel.
    • It’s like something from a sci-fi movie.
    • Everything is controlled with an RFID tag on your wrist, including access to the bar, so self-served drinks go on your bill.

Day 2

  • More wondering around the city, including a boat trip on the canals. There are many operators but we chose Flagship.
  • The XXX is the city logo, not what you might otherwise think…
  • The view with the church is the Zuiderkerk, as featured in Claude Monet’s 1874 painting viewed from across the river Amstel.

Day 3

Day 4

  • The Nightjet “sleeper” to Vienna:
    • Delayed leaving Berlin (it disappeared from the departure board for a while, which was disconcerting), not yet upgraded to the new stock, but I really wanted to do this!
    • ÖBB/Nightjet provides a little goodie bag with things to help passengers sleep. Slippers, ear plugs, eye mask, face cloth, water and snacks. There’s also a breakfast order to complete (and a pen to complete it).
    • A while after leaving Berlin, the steward took our tickets (which have to be printed on A4 paper), took the breakfast orders, and converted our cabin from seats to beds. I’d thought we’d use the seats for longer (and convert it after dark), but the bed is still comfy.
    • Our room has a wash basin, mirror, etc. but I realised there’s only one shower for the whole carriage. Not much chance of getting in there in the morning, so I tried it in the evening instead. As to be expected, water pressure is limited, but it’s warm and it did the job!
    • I spent the rest of the evening relaxing on my bed, watching the trains as we called at a variety of stations, and my son said it felt a bit like the scary Thomas story when Oliver and Isabel hide from the diesels as they run away to Sodor!
    • Part way through the night I gave up on the tiny pillow and used the duvet instead. I think I woke every time the train stopped. So much for the “clickety-clack” (or modern continuous welded rail version) helping me sleep.
    • Shortly before 6, an electronic alarm woke me… set by the steward. After getting dressed and repacking all my gear, I ate my breakfast, though our order was incomplete as the catering had no working facilities to make hot drinks.
    • So that was the end of my Nightjet odyssey. I finally got to experience a sleeper train! Perhaps, if we do it again on a budget trip, I’d go for a couchette… but I might have to try the full experience again one day with the new Nightjet coaches…

Day 5

  • If Berlin is full of character but not the most attractive place, Vienna/Wien is beautiful but a little bit dull.
  • Ben had tracked down a coffee shop for me, as he knew I was missing good coffee.
  • We visited some “palaces” – one was a government building, another an auction house – but they were open to the public and had amazing architecture.
  • Lunch was a Wiener Schnitzel, of course. (When in Rome… or at least in Wien…)
  • I was exhausted so went back to the apartment for a while, then met up with Ben again in the evening… and introduced him to weiss beer.

Day 6

  • We’d realised that heading west across Austria to Swizerland would be slow… but we could squeeze in a quick trip to Munich/München:
    • I booked us a pitch at The Tent. When I stayed 30 years ago it was just a space on the floor of a big marquee but now there are various accommodation options.
    • After wondering around a bit, and a visit to a beer garden, we headed to the Hofbräuhaus for an authentic Bavarian meal and entertainment. Great fun!
    • I loved the short time we spent at the bar next to Pfistermühle – chilled house and a bottle of beer!
    • Then back across the city to catch a tram back to The Tent.

Day 7

  • Up early to travel to Switzerland.
  • Bern is stunning but we stayed on the train and headed for Interlaken.
  • Camping again. A last minute two night reservation at the excellent TCS site, which is ideally located across the river from Interlaken Ost station.
  • Then onto a bus to Bönigen for a swim in Lake Brienz/Brienzersee.
  • Interlaken itself is nothing special, but the scenery around the area is stunning.

Day 8

  • Another day in/around Interlaken, starting with a train to Brienz then a ferry (paddlesteamer!) to Giessbach falls.
  • We swam in the falls, and hiked to the top, then headed back to Brienz and on to Oberried am Brianzersee for some more lake swimming.
  • Ben left his phone behind on the station but, because this is Switzerland, it was still there when we returned!
  • After eventually getting back to Interlaken, we found the funicular to Harder Kulm was open (it had been closed in the morning due to technical issues). The views are incredible… though a rainbow on the Jungfrau was an extra bonus.
  • Then, back down to the campsite for a simple meal and some sleep.

Day 9

Day 9 was a travel day, in two parts:

  • Then, a few hours to take a look around Luzern. This was one of the places Ben had particularly wanted to visit.
  • It is beautiful, even when the sun didn’t shine for us!
  • Then it was time to catch another train to Lugano, and on to Milan/Milano.
  • This took us through the Gotthard base tunnel (not the more scenic pass) and also gave some glimpses of the Italian Lakes, though nothing that made a good photo.
  • We had enough time in Milan for a couple of hours in the city centre and a very good meal (Italian, of course).

Day 10

  • Up early, to catch the train to France, via Genoa.
  • We set up camp near Nice, at Parc des Maurettes. I was a little shocked that the floor was stone (I literally had to bash the pegs into the ground with a rock), but that was to be our home for the next three nights…
  • After pitching the tent, we caught the train to Juan Les Pins and walked back to spend the evening in Antibes.

Day 11

  • 34°C and still very warm overnight. Gravel floor. Noisy neighbours. I didn’t sleep. In fact, I spent most of the night in a chair close to the campsite reception, where I had access to power and Wi-Fi for some photo editing and battery charging.
  • In the morning I did some washing, and booked into a hotel for the next two nights. One with air conditioning.
  • Ben was visiting a friend in a nearby village, so I had to move all our luggage (two large packs and two daysacks) on my own. Luckily it was downhill to the station at Villeneuve-Loubet and the hotel was immediately adjacent to Nice-Ville station.
  • After checking in, I got a couple of hours’ sleep, before Ben came back and we explored Nice. Which was nice.

Day 12

  • Monaco Monte-Carlo. Boats, cars, a visit to see the Prince’s cars, lunch, the foyer at the casino, a look at the racing circuit. Cool.
  • But Monaco is just, not real somehow. It’s dripping with wealth but, after a few hours, it was time to go.
  • We stopped off at Cap d’Ail for a swim, and then at Eze, where I was charged €20 for two cans of Coke.
  • Then we waited for a bus to Eze village, that didn’t come. So we caught the train to Villefranche-sur-Mer, which was lovely. I later found that, at one point, I had been just a few metres away from a friend, staying there with his family, but we had missed each other!

Day 13

  • We left Nice and caught the train to Cassis, and a bus down the hill from the station towards the town.
  • Cassis was probably my favourite destination on the whole holiday. I’m planning a return visit with my wife.
  • Somehow, even thought it was last-minute, Ben and I had managed to book two spaces in a shared dormitory at Cassis Hostel. We lucked out there. It was cool enough, even without air-con, and the infinity pool was the icing on the cake.
  • But the highlight was that afternoon’s walk – to the Parc National des Callanques – which had some of the most stunning scenery I’ve ever seen, albeit a challenging walk in the heat:
  • In the evening, I’d earned a swim in the hostel pool, and a lovely steak dinner (washed down with a local red wine) along with soaking up the atmosphere in Cassis:

Day 14

  • After catching the bus to the station, and then waiting around there for a while, we finally caught a train to Marseille and then on to Avignon.
  • Avignon is pretty, but not as impressive as I remember. And you have to pay to go on the bridge now. We didn’t. You get a better view from above anyway! Look carefully towards the horizon (in the other direction) and you might also see Mont Ventoux.
  • Another piece de boucher (steak) dinner, then back to our accommodation.
  • I was glad we’d switched from camping to an aparthotel next to the TGV station as a huge thunderstorm came through that night…

Day 15

  • Up early to catch the 7:15 TGV to Lille. Four and a quarter hours to cover the entire length of France. This is why high speed rail is such a benefit for those countries that have invested in it…
  • The trains from Paris were full (at least for Interrail) – probably something to do with the Olympics – but I’d booked a TGV that bypassed Paris and then we were getting a Eurostar that came through from Brussels. That meant a few hours hanging around in Lille. Ordinarily, that’s no problem but we had our luggage and were tired.
  • We found a cafe and hung around there for a bit before heading back to the station.
  • Then, onwards towards the UK, through the channel tunnel and back to the land of poor phone signal.
  • The last leg back to Bedford was uneventful, and we were re-united with Mrs W!

4755 kilometres; 44 trains; 42 places; 10 countries

(The 8 countries the app shows is wrong. We passed through Belgium and Czechia. We also travelled to Monaco.)

On reflection

I was the one who wanted to take the sleeper train; I was the one who suggested Amsterdam would be a good first destination; and I was the one who insisted on booking our trains out and back a couple of months ahead of time; but the rest was all down to Ben. We quickly realised that it wouldn’t work to go to Copenhagen on the way to Berlin, and he wanted some flexibility in the second half of the trip, but what we did is remarkably similar to my trip, 30 years ago.

For me, this was a trip down memory lane, but wonderful to share it with Ben. For him, new adventures, a sense of what travelling can be and, I hope, some lifetime memories of a trip with his Dad.

Photos: all the author’s own

How to communicate in Teams: channels, or chats; standard, private or shared?

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Love it or loath it, over the last few years Microsoft Teams has emerged as the dominant collaboration tool for companies, large and small. But, let’s face it, how much has the typical organisation invested into getting the most out of Teams? The same can be said for most of Microsoft 365 – we buy the licences and expect people to just get on and use it.

I could, and probably should, write a post about technology adoption, but this one is about Teams. Specifically about when to create a chat and when to use a channel. And what sorts of channels to use when. And if you want a post about technology adoption, here’s one I wrote several years ago…

You see, a few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to attend the Commsverse conference. And one of the talks I found insightful was Robert Mulsow (in/robert-mulsow)’s “How to select the right communication in Teams: Feedback from the field”.

What’s the problem?

Teams has two forms of text-based chat:

  1. Chats, created from a conversation. Informal. Ad-hoc. No real management.
  2. Channels, created as a shared space within a Team. Designed to scale, supported by SharePoint.

My (organisational) team has both! And no-one knows where to post:

  • We have a “chat”, but that’s been problematic since one of the team (who probably created the chat) left the organisation. And there’s not much that an admin can do to support a chat – it’s all down to users.
  • We also have a Team, with some channels. But some people in the team prefer to use the chat (something to do with notifications). Oh yes, and we currently work across four Microsoft 365 tenants. That will change, but for now it’s not easy (that’s mergers and acquisitions for you…)

Which to use when – chat or channel?

It’s actually quite simple. Use chats for 1:1 or 1:few conversations. And then leave them behind, until you chat with that person or those people again. Chats are not intended to scale. They are for ad-hoc comms with small groups of people. They are absolutely not intended for groups of many people.

When you want to create a collaboration space, create a team. That team will have a “General” channel, and you can create more to suit the collaboration requirements of the team. 

Simple. All I need to do now is convince my colleagues to stop using the team chat. Hmm. Maybe not so simple.

But there are many different types of channel!

Channels inside teams can be standard, private or shared.

To understand these, it helps to understand the relationship(s) between Entra ID (ex-Azure Active Directory) and Teams. And that comes back to the concept of a tenant. I wrote about tenants a few years ago.

“[…] Each organisation has a Microsoft Online Services tenant […] each tenant has a single Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). There is a 1:1 relationship between the Azure AD and the tenant. […]”

Microsoft Online Services: tenants, subscriptions and domain names, markwilson.it, January 2020

Think of your tenant as an office block. When business partners visit from another office block, they come through the entrance area. If they have the wrong badge, they won’t get in. They are signed in as guest and escorted to a meeting space. That’s how it works in Teams when you are invited to a meeting.

Now, let’s go a bit further with this analogy. Regular guests may get their own badge and they can go directly to meeting without being escorted. They are not just authenticated but are authorised for access. Channels are the Teams version of rooms that guests can go in/out of.

Once upon a time, to switch tenants, we had to exit Teams and go back in with some different credentials. In our office block analogy that’s leaving the building and going into another. But now, it’s more like a bridge between (office blocks). You can access another tenant with your own “badge” – you don’t need guest access.

This is where Shared Channels work. It requires a trust to be established in Microsoft Entra ID and in technical terms it uses external identities and cross tenant access settings. This is more difficult to control as there are no specific badges to revoke – it relies on a trusted partner organisation to provide access. The key word here is “trust”.

In our analogy, shared channels really just show the corridor and the room, everything else in the office block is hidden from view (behind locked doors).

Confused?

All of this flexibility is potentially confusing so let’s bring it back a level – think about what you want to share. And it’s not as clear with external access and shared channels as it was when you had to exit/enter as a guest.

It gets even more complicated with sensitivity labels – they are inherited. You can’t drop down to a lower level of security later. Let’s just leave that to one side for a moment.

Which to use when?

Which to used depends whether you are collaborating or communicating.  

  • How many people are involved? You can add people to a chat but they don’t inherit the permissions on files. When you remove members they can access existing information but can’t add more.
  • Chats can get out of hand quickly so in most cases you’ll want to consider a team.
  • If you don’t already have a team, think about about future requirements and scope. You might just create a channel in an existing team!
  • If there is already a team in place, check if there is a channel for the topic and post there or create a channel as applicable. And what kind of channel will be driven by its intended use. And you must have policies to allow.

Here’s a flow chart to help the decision!

As you can see, it’s too complicated really. People just want to send a message. But, if the necessary Teams and channels are in place, with guidance, then it should be straightforward.

I’ve added a little more of Robert’s guidance to consider in the table below:

When creating a…Remember to…
Group chatRename the chat so it makes sense in future
Pin the chat
TeamUse a clear name
Provide a description
Create tags
Channel (any type)Use a clear name
Provide a description
Post in a channelUse the subject line
Use tags (if applicable)

And, in addition to all of that, issue some clear collaboration guidelines for people to follow.

Conclusion

Chat or channel is simple – if you want to collaborate, or to communicate with more than a few users, choose a channel. The type of channel is less straightforward – but in most cases you’ll want a standard channel in your Team. Only when you start sharing information across organisational boundaries (between tenants) will you need to think about guest access, shared channels and private channels.

Featured image: Microsoft Image Gallery

An updated approach to Virtual Desktop Infrastructure: Azure Virtual Desktop on Azure Stack HCI

Posted on By Mark Wilson

With the general availability of Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) on Azure Stack HCI, organisations have a powerful new platform for providing virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) services. No longer torn between complex and expensive server farms, or desktops running in the cloud – the best of both worlds is here.

The complexities of managing an end user computing service

Over the many years I’ve consulted with IT departments, one of the many common themes has been around the complexities of managing end user computing services.

It used to be that their investments in standard PC builds had led to a plethora of additional management products. These days, Windows (or, more accurately, Microsoft 365) does that to such a level that the layers of added products are not needed. With a Modern Workplace solution, we can deploy a new PC from a factory image, log on with a username from a recognised domain (for example user@node4.co.uk), build that PC to meet corporate standards and get the end user up and running quickly with access to their data, all in a secure and compliant manner.

But there have always been edge cases. The legacy application that is critical to the business but doesn’t run on a modern version of Windows. Or the application with a licensing model that doesn’t lend itself to being installed on everyone’s PC for occasional use. For these cases, virtual desktop infrastructure has been a common approach to publish an application or a desktop.

For other organisations, the use of VDI is seen as an opportunity to abstract the desktop from the device. Either saving on device costs by buying lightweight terminal devices that connect to a farm of virtual desktops, or by using the secure desktop container as an opportunity to allow access from pretty much anywhere, because the device doesn’t directly access the organisation’s data.

I’m not going to advocate for one approach over another. Of course, I have Opinions but, at Node4, we start from the position of understanding the business problem we’re trying to solve, and then working out which technology will best support that outcome.

A shift in the landscape

Whilst Microsoft has had its own remote desktop offerings over the years, they’ve tended to partner with companies like Citrix rather than develop a full-blown solution. Meanwhile, companies like VMware had their own products – though with the Broadcom acquisition and sale of its VDI products (including Workspace One and Horizon), their future looks uncertain.

This makes customers uneasy. But there is hope.

Microsoft has not stood still and, for a few years it’s been maturing its VDI in the cloud service – Azure Virtual Desktop.

AVD provides a secure, remote desktop experience from anywhere, delivering a virtualised desktop experience that’s fully optimised for Windows 11 and Windows 10 multi-session capabilities. With various licensing options including within key Microsoft 365 subscription plans, AVD is now an established service. So much so that there are even products and services to help with managing AVD environments – for example from Nerdio. But, until recently, the biggest drawback with AVD was that it only ran in the public cloud – and whilst that’s exactly what some organisations need, it’s not suitable for some others.

A true hybrid cloud solution

(At this point, I’m tempted to introduce a metaphor about when cloud computing comes to ground. But fog and mist don’t conjure up the image I’m trying to project here…)

Recently, there has been a significant development with AVD. It’s largely gone unnoticed – but AVD is now generally available on Azure Stack HCI.

Azure Stack extends the robust capabilities of Azure’s cloud services to be run locally – either in an on-premises or an edge computing scenario. Azure Stack hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is a hybrid product that connects on-premises systems to Azure for cloud-based services, monitoring, and management. Effectively, Azure Stack HCI provides many of the benefits of public cloud infrastructure whilst meeting the use case and regulatory requirements for specialised workloads that can’t be run in the public cloud. 

Some of the benefits of running Azure Virtual Desktop on Azure Stack HCI

There are many advantages to running software locally. Immediate examples are to address data residency requirements, latency-sensitive workloads, or those with data proximity requirements. Looking specifically at Azure Virtual Desktop on Azure Stack HCI, we can:

  • Improve performance by placing session hosts closer to the end users.
  • Keep application and user data on-premises and so local to the users.
  • Improve access and performance for legacy client-server applications by co-locating the application and its data sources.
  • Provide a full Windows 11 experience regardless of the device used for access.
  • Unified management with other Azure resources.
  • Make use of fully patched operating system images from the Azure Marketplace.

What about my existing VDI?

Node4 will aid you in finding the best path from your existing VDI to AVD. Our consultants are experienced in using Microsoft’s Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure to establish an AVD landing zone and to take a structured approach to assessing and migrating existing workloads, user profiles and data to AVD.

Why Node4 is best positioned to help

I’ve already written about how Node4’s expert Consultants can help deploy Azure Virtual Desktop to meet your organisation’s specific needs but that’s only looking at one small part of the picture.

Because, for those organisations who don’t want to invest in hardware solutions, we have hosted services for Azure Stack HCI. We also provide flexible and secure communications solutions. And we’re an Azure Expert Managed Services Provider (MSP).

I may be a little biased, but I think that’s a pretty strong set of services. Put them all together and we are uniquely positioned to help you make the most of AVD on-premises, co-located in one of our datacentres, on a Node4 hosted platform, or in the public cloud.

So, if you are looking at how to modernise your VDI, we’d love to hear from you. Feel free to get in touch using the contact details below – and let’s have a conversation.

This post was originally published on the Node4 blog.

Unveiling the real treasure: moving beyond ERP to unleash (and protect) the power of data

Posted on By Mark Wilson

In our rapidly changing world, sophisticated ERP solutions are becoming more crucial than ever for organisations looking to streamline operations and strive for operational excellence. But whilst the ERP plays an instrumental role in that, it’s vitally important to recognise that it’s not just the ERP system that holds value – the real treasure is the data within these systems.

For years now, IT leaders have been talking about a “data-centric world” and how to “democratise” access to the hidden treasure that an organisation’s data contains. And it’s still the case that the monumental value and potential of business data should not be understated. But since 2023, we’ve seen a shift. No longer is it just about the data – the rise of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools has moved the conversation on to how AI can be used to help us better understand and use the data that we hold.

When I’ve spoken to our clients, I’ve seen their thirst for AI-driven insights. AI, coupled with robust data, holds the potential to shift paradigms, drive smart decisions and boost operational efficiency. However, before we can unlock this vast potential, the data needs to be structured and labelled correctly.

The value of structured data and correct labelling

When correctly structured and labelled, data empowers organisations to accurately understand their operations, pinpoint potential bottlenecks and unleash the value nestled in their ERP solutions.

In refining this data, we allow AI models to consume it effectively, driving insights that empower organisations to predict trends, anticipate customer needs, enhance supply chain processes, reduce overhead and foster innovation. Essentially, we convert the commonly inaccessible gold beneath the ERP systems into a well-drilled, fully accessible mine that yields precious insights — the real treasure.

But there’s another source of data that exists outside the core business systems. The ERP holds a trove of operational data that we can index, query and search, but our unstructured data has potential, too. We can ingest it to a modern data platform where it can be cleansed and interrogated. The raw information, once difficult to analyse and gain insights from, becomes useful, and the rise of AI assistants like Microsoft Copilot means we need to think about how these new tools can and should be used.

Getting ready for Copilot

As one of the largest Microsoft partners in the UK, Node4 hears a lot of buzz about Microsoft’s Copilot AI Assistants (of which there are several).

Just as Delve taught organisations to think about what could be indexed and searched in SharePoint and elsewhere, there are some preparatory steps needed for Copilot too. Copilot can only see what an individual can see, but often that’s more than was intended.

Node4 can work with clients to assess readiness including privacy, policies, monitoring, integration and training. And, of course, we’re constantly monitoring developments so we can advise on new announcements, like Copilot+.

The spectre of ransomware

Another trend that we’re seeing is the rise in ransomware attacks. Cyber-insurance data from September 2023 showed not only a 12% increase in ransomware claims frequency; but that that 36% of claimants paid ransoms (often after negotiating down the amount). 

In 2024, ransomware attacks are expected to evolve with more sophisticated techniques. And, in the same way that more extreme weather events have demonstrated we really can’t ignore climate change, the rise in ransomware means we can’t say “they won’t go after us” anymore. Ransomware is not just an issue for large multinational organisations – it’s increasingly a problem for small and medium enterprises too.

What this means is that all that data that we’re talking about unlocking value from needs to be protected. Our clients are talking to us about resilience and immutability – the ability to protect their data from attack.

Data resilience and immutability: the cornerstones of a data-centric approach

Data resilience and immutability (the ability of data to endure and remain unchanged, respectively) are vital. They ensure businesses can withstand unexpected events and safeguard their strategic intelligence. This is particularly true in the light of today’s escalating threats, such as ransomware attacks, which have jeopardised many businesses’ operations globally.

Every data-generated insight within an ERP environment is a precious source of intelligence. This intelligence can provide an invaluable competitive edge, and so it’s not surprising that it’s become an enticing target for malicious attacks. Ransomware, in particular, can hold this treasure hostage, dramatically disrupting a business’ operations and possibly leading to insurmountable financial or reputational damage.

In this context, it’s crucial to secure data with impregnable defences against such threats. At Node4, we prioritise data protection, resilience and immutability as cornerstones of our service offerings. The prosperous mine of business intelligence in ERP systems demands top-notch security protocols and safeguards.

The critical necessity of securing data

Just as an ERP system is valueless without correctly structured and labelled data, the impact and efficiency of this data can be catastrophically neutralised without adequate backup and security measures. Recovering data after a devastating event like a ransomware attack can be a painful, costly and time-consuming undertaking. However, these hurdles can be significantly mitigated, if not entirely avoided, through effective backup strategies and stringent data security policies.

At Node4, we believe that securing and regularly backing up data is not just an option – it’s a critical necessity. That’s why we’ve invested in state-of-the-art data centres with high performance interconnects and immutable storage options. The fact that we run our own data centres, as well as being one of Microsoft’s strongest UK partners means we’re able to work with clients for private, hybrid or public cloud. Our business continuity and recovery solutions cover all aspects of data resilience, and this comprehensive protection is imperative to maintain the integrity and availability of data essential to ERP processes.

The journey ahead: from ERP to data-driven intelligence

ERP solutions are undoubtedly substantive components of a robust business structure. They serve as the backbone of operational processes and hold potential to streamline business workflows. Yet it’s crucial to shift our focus beyond the ERP system and unlock the real source of value residing within – structured, organised, and secured data.

As we continue to take organisations on a digital transformation journey, the true winners will be those who understand and master the mechanism that turns raw data into decisive insights. These forward-thinking organisations will harness the power of AI effectively, backed by well-structured and secure data, to drive efficiency, innovation and competitive advantage, while diligently protecting their treasure from emerging threats. This is what we call AI transformation.

The journey from ERP to data-driven intelligence is underway. Embarking on it will not only shape the future of organisations across the world, but also dictate their survival in an increasingly interconnected and data-driven world. In the orchestration of this transformation, the ERP may conduct the score, but it’s the data that composes the symphony and, ultimately, steals the show.

This post was originally published on the Node4 blog.

Featured image by yatsusimnetcojp from Pixabay.

Retrospective: June/July 2024

Posted on By Mark Wilson

In 1999, I left the only company I’d worked at since graduation. After 5 and a half years (plus a year or so during my degree), I moved on from ICL and followed a colleague to Capita, to be part of a new Microsoft practice. I still remember the conversation on the night before I started: “so, what’s it like to be unemployed, Mark?”. Leaving a place where I was comfortable and respected to start again elsewhere was a big deal for me so I wasn’t amused. Even more so as I’d taken out a mortgage on a house a year or so earlier.

I can’t remember the timings but it soon became clear that a recent re-organisation had changed the focus. The Microsoft practice was no longer a priority. My colleague left Capita soon afterwards. I remained, in a strange organisation, like a fish out of water. I made the most of it, built up my technical skills, and annoyed a few people by taking an outsourced client through the Technology Adoption Programme for Exchange Server 2000. (I was told that “our standard is Exchange 5.5. – you can’t just put in a new version”. Well, I did.)

I stuck it out for 18 months before I left to travel and work in Australia. That was a shorter trip than originally intended (a different story, which involved returning to the UK to settle down with Mrs Wilson). The point is that I learned not to build my career around other people. If I moved jobs again, it would be for me (or in one case, redundancy).

So why tell this story? Well, I’ve written on previous posts about my journey into my current team – and I feel like I’ve found a place that suits me and where I can make a difference. But June was an unsettling month as we prepared for a change of leadership for the Node4 Office of the CTO. It’ll all work out – but I won’t pretend I found it easy. And it reminded me that, however much respect I have for my outgoing CTO, there’s only one person responsible for where I take my career – and that’s me.

Right, enough of the career history lesson. What did I get up to more recently?

At work

Work highlights included:

  • Renewal of my Microsoft Azure Solution Architect Expert certifications.
  • Attending the second and third modules of my level 5 leadership and management training (inclusive leadership; and driving and implementing strategic change). I missed the first module in April, so will have to go back next year to learn about developing my personal leadership brand.
  • Two days at Commsverse – a Microsoft Teams conference organised by, among others, two of my former colleagues (Mark Vale and Martin Boam), at a really cool venue (Mercedes-Benz World). I have a whole load of blog posts planned from that event, though the backlog is pretty huge now. In the meantime, here’s my Twitter thread:
  • I managed to get a couple of posts published on the Node4 site, even if my own blog has been a bit quiet:
  • I also got my paws on this one, though only as an editor:
  • A trip to the North East, to help a client define their future technology direction, including facilitating a workshop with around 15 of their team to identify the challenges that they face.
  • Preparing for the audit (and hopefully renewal) of Node4’s Azure Expert Microsoft Solution Provider competency in a few weeks’ time.
  • Time spent together as a team, planning the future for the Node4 OCTO.

At home (the tech)

CCTV

I’ve been looking to install some CCTV at home for a while. Whilst many would recommend I go down the Ubiquiti route (UniFi Protect), I decided to save some money, using Reolink cameras with my existing Synology NAS.

So far I’ve installed an RLC-811A, which was also my first foray into PoE-powered devices (with a UniFi PoE adapter). Despite the low price, it’s remarkably good camera, both day and night, with the added bonus that it’s supported by Home Assistant.

Correlation or causation?

Sadly, it wasn’t enough, but was it really just a co-incidence that, as I changed my addressable LEDs from blue to red and white, England scored a goal in the Euros final?

And some writing

One blog post that did make it out of the door:

Ignore the hype, but think about getting AI ready

At home (the rest)

Whilst I’m not getting to many of Matt’s cycle races at the moment, I did head up to Darlington with him for the British National Circuit Race Championships. The race didn’t end as we hoped – he crashed – but his on-bike camera footage has 2.8 million views on Instagram at the time of writing!

He was back on the bike the next night as we went down to London for the Via Criterium at the London Cycle Festival. Oh my. What an awesome event. And a good result for Matt too…

And he’s got some decent results in some of the other crits… here’s Otley:

That bike didn’t last much longer though… this happened a week or so later, but he did at least jump back on and ride it to the finish!

And only a couple of days ago, he got caught up in a crash at Sheffield. I’ll be glad when the crit season is over.

I’ve been just as busy travelling around the country with Ben, as he visits the universities he might like to apply to. I missed the Warwick weekend but with Exeter, Bath, Bristol, Nottingham and Cardiff it’s been full on. And, just as when I did the rounds with Matt a couple of years ago, it’s left me wishing I could do it all again, knowing what I know now!

And, as for that car that I spent lots of money insuring recently. Yeah, not what I had in mind…

Watching

I haven’t written much recently about our TV watching, but in addition to my Tour de France addiction that has to be fed each July, Nikki and I have enjoyed:

  • All the light we cannot see, on Netflix. Set towards the end of World War 2, this mini series shows how the paths of a blind French girl and a German soldier collide, guided my the medium of radio. As a bit of a radio guy, I found it quite magical, along with this (unrelated) tweet: Where was Hilversum, anyway?
  • Douglas is cancelled, on ITV. Episode 3 is difficult to watch, but persist – the twist at the end of Episode 4 is worth it!

Travelling

I wrote most of this post as I was preparing to head off for a couple of weeks’ travelling with my youngest son. In fact, that’s why the June retrospective is mashed up with half of July… I’ll be off travelling for the other half.

It’s also meant a very busy week getting ready. New purchases from outdoor shops: lightweight sleeping bag; new walking trousers; new trainers. And cleaning my down jacket (because it might still be cold at night in the Swiss Alps). Rab Equipment are ace:

Tomorrow morning we should be catching the Eurostar to Amsterdam. Or we will be if today’s Microsoft Azure/Microsoft 365 outage and the separate but still severe Crowdstrike/Windows outage don’t affect my journey! I really must stop catastrophising…

Photographing

Elsewhere

A few things that caught my eye over the last few weeks…

  • Improving your messaging:
  • Milton Keynes Geek Night:
  • Wellbeing:
  • Initial view on Copilot-generated meeting notes:
  • Lazy coding:
  • It’s going to get harder to buy a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement:
  • More on getting your message across:
  • Tech life in China:
  • AI image generation:
  • Business strategy planning:
  • It seems I have a new soapbox… more on Copilot meeting notes:
  • And this is what two professional writers think of AI (and more):
  • Another post where I suggest that AI may not be very good for society…
  • Especially when senior Microsoft personnel seem to “forget” that we have copyright laws:
  • I do get cross when people suggest that a company running Microsoft software is somehow making bad choices and should be avoided:
  • A thread on how AI was amazing. And then it started making things up. It’s not much help if I have to check the output…
  • I feel this discussion will continue to run on for a very long time yet:
  • It affects employee engagement too:
  • You did read the terms of service, right?
  • Customer service calls in real life:
  • It seems that we really are spending more time in meetings:
  • Apparently I’ve spent over 15 years scrolling through Twitter…
  • A slightly different take on introversion:
  • Just imagine if AI did become self-aware:

Featured image: author’s own