Socitm has published details of the eleven ‘parallel sessions’ on the programme for Socitm 2007, the Society’s annual conference being held in Belfast 14-16 October. Delegates will be able to attend up to 4 of these sessions during the conference.
The parallel sessions cover both managerial and technical perspectives and include:
‘Extreme’ shared services: presented by Ian Lowrie, chief executive Adur District Council, this case study will explain why the council has agreed with Worthing District Council to share one workforce, and anticipated benefits in terms of savings on management overheads and rationalization of business systems.
Greening IT. Presented by Tim Dawes of Nineveh Consulting, this session will explore what can be done to reduce spiraling emissions from the manufacture and use of IT kit. Long-cherished ideas about how IT infrastructure should be designed and managed will be challenged!
Death by Powerpoint Written and directed by Paul Levy of The Rational Madness Theatre Company - back at the Socitm conference by popular demand following the tremendous reception for their Socitm 2006 workshop - Death by Powerpoint tells the story of what happens when we work to live and end up living to die.
Computer Forensics: presented by Bruce Thomson, security & compliance manager at the London Borough of Hillingdon, this session will explain the benefits of having an in-house capability to produce evidence of computer misuse at work to support HR and criminal evidence procedures.
Business continuity management: this workshop, presented by James Royds of Socitm Consulting, will show how risks created by rising threats, dependencies and expectations can be managed. Delegates will learn how to create or improve a business continuity plan, share experience, or discuss how BCM can be used to make significant improvements to day to day operations.
Take up of online services/channel migration Alastair Gilchrist Director of Parking at Westminster City Council and Vicky Sargent, author of the recent Socitm Insight report Better marketed: achieving success with take-up of online services, will illustrate the role of the service manager in developing e-services that customers will happily migrate to from traditional (and more costly) methods of interacting with their council.
Transitioning ICT to provide real value to customers: Martin Wright, consulting director, The Infrassistance Company will set out what can be done to make IT a valuable contributor to the business - and be seen as such - rather than as a tiresome cost that can be reduced through outsourcing? He will explain how IT value can be increased - sometimes by doing less – and what IT managers need to do in order to achieve this.
If you like a challenge you’ll love Customer Data Integration (CDI) The starting point for this workshop is that councils really need to know who their customers are, and to improve the quality of the information they hold about them. Presenter Tony Ellis is a veteran of CDI who has built and implemented two council-wide master customer databases (for Brent and Hammersmith and Fulham).
Improving user satisfaction through participation, involvement and communication: Most local authorities under-perform when it comes to getting users involved in the development of new systems and the delivery of ICT services, says Professor Les Worrall of the University of Wolverhampton, who was instrumental in developing Socitm Insight’s user satisfaction survey. Most of this workshop will be spent discussing how to generate effective user participation.
Website usability and the integration of third party software: Usable websites are absolutely critical for service transformation facilitated by the internet. Better connected 2007 highlighted the way third party software is integrated as an important aspect of usability. In this workshop, Better Connected reviewer John Fox will present examples of good and poor practice based on his experience of dealing with integration issues at Salford City Council
The well informed organisation?: PA Consulting Group and Socitm Insight are conducting a pre-conference survey of Socitm members to capture their perceptions of how information and knowledge is used in their organisations. This will stimulate discussion of approaches to knowledge management, which is pertinent not only to the agendas of efficiency and shared services but also to the role of IT professionals in light of the emergence of the Chief Information Officer.
The conference has been generously sponsored this year by:
Avaya - a leading global provider of communications networks and services
BT - one of the world’s leading providers of communications solutions and services operating in 170 countries.
CA - the leading independent enterprise IT management software company in the world.
Clearswift - the only vendor to offer comprehensive, policy-based content security in all three deployment methods: as software, an appliance and a managed service.
ComputerWorld (Wales) Ltd - providing the business community in Wales with IT solutions for over 15 years.
Fujitsu – offering customers relationships based on long-term partnership and a realistic view of the benefits technology can offer.
Lagan - specialising in providing solutions for customer service centres, case management, shared services, social services and the single non-emergency number (e.g. 311) markets in the UK and US.
Siemens - enabling sharing and management of communications to meet the needs of modern public services.
SunGard - a leading public sector ICT supplier for more than 25 years.
Further information:
Vicky Sargent or Peter Coates, Socitm Press Office
Tel: 0845 094 5641 vicky.sargent@socitm.gov.uk or peter.coates@socitm.gov.uk