ITP Techblog

Here's a quick weekly update from ITP CEO Paul Matthews

This week, we have some incredible webinars coming up over the next week or so, with Privacy Commission John Edwards today, a panel of Rod Drury, Ian McCrae and Eva Sherwood talking next Tuesday about tech leading the Covid-19 recovery, and NZ Govt CDO Paul James next Friday talking about Covid-19 in the public sector.

Plus, what we're doing with events in May and June, ITP Branch elections postponed, get involved in our Professional Guidance Working Group, and listen to my RNZ's New Technology segment from yesterday.

Friday Live this week: Privacy in the days of Covid-19

This afternoon at 4pm we're excited to welcome Privacy Commissioner John Edwards to the Friday Live webinar. More info

John will talk about privacy in the days of Covid-19, and answer your questions. There are heaps of privacy issues at the moment, from contact tracing through to surveillance and so much more.

As always, we also feature a tech news roundup with the TechBlog team and heaps of Q&A with John. This'll be a great one!

More info

Heaps on next week

The final week of Level-3 lockdown (hopefully!) sees a bunch of awesome ITP online events to get involved with.

Tuesday 2pm: Final weekly Tech Chat Tuesday

Next Tuesday will also see our last of the lockdown Tech Chat Tuesdays, so if you've been along to any of these, or if you haven't, come and be part of the last one! More details

Tuesday Webinar: Tech and the Covid-19 recovery

4pm Tuesday, Free. More details

This will be an absolute cracker! We're excited to welcome Xero Founder and ITP Honorary Fellow Rod Drury, Orion Health founder Ian McCrae and Deloitte business consultant Eva Sherwood discussing how Tech can lead New Zealand's recovery.

I highly respect all 3 of these leaders and can't wait to talk through their vision of how tech can lead the recovery, and put your questions to the panel. More details 

Friday Live Webinar: GovTech in a Covid-19 lens

4pm Friday, Free.

Next Friday we welcome NZ Government's Chief Digital Officer Paul James as he outlines the impact Covid-19 has had on the tech side of the public sector, the challenges and opportunities, and what the future looks like from a GovTech context.

More details and registrations will open for this shortly.

ITP events over the next couple of months

Speaking of events, we've also been looking at what ITP events - both digital and face-to-face - will look like in the short-term future. 

Our Friday Live Webinars have proven really popular and we're committed to keeping this series running indefinitely. It's a great way to engage with our members and others, especially those in more remote locations and overseas.

Following next Friday, these will move to fortnightly and on a new day: 4pm Thursdays. Following consultation, this seems the best time for our members post-lockdown. We have some really exciting guests coming up, so don't miss this!

After next week, our weekly Tech Chat Tuesdays will move to monthly, on the first Tuesday of the month. We hope you'll still enjoy engaging through these events and we'll be especially pushing for new and prospective members to come along and have a chat with our existing members.

We're also constantly evaluating when ITP will re-launch face-to-face events, once it is safe to do so of course. At this stage, there will be no face-to-face until at least mid-June, and we'll be evaluating June/July in 2 weeks from now. 

The final decision on face-to-face event resumption will be made based on (1) when we can do this safely, adhering to all requirements to keep our community safe, and (2) when people are ready to come back to live events. I can't give an exact time yet, but I can assure you we're planning some great events once we're up and running again!

ITP Branch and Board Elections Postponed

ITP's Executive and National Board have been thinking about what to do with the Branch Committee elections this year, in light of the Covid-19 lockdown situation.

While the election could still technically be held, the reality is that our community are far more focused on keeping their businesses and themselves afloat over this time. Most branch committee activity is also in temporary abeyance, given events and other activities can't happen at the moment, so it's a little moot.

For these reasons, the Board has made the decision to change the branch committee elections this year and ask our existing committees to remain in place until 2021.

This means there won't be a membership election process this year. However we know that there will be members around NZ who are keen to contribute, so please contact us if you're keen to consider being on a committee and help with kick things off again with a bang and we'll look at co-opting. It's always good to get new people involved in our local committees!

Separately, there has also been some consideration about the National Board, with some positions normally being up for re-election as well. This was considered in detail by the Executive (President, Deputy President, and myself in a Society Secretary role) as they are not directly affected by the decision either way. The existing Board did not participate in the decision to proceed with that or not. 

Following consultation with our current branch committees (94% of which supported the Board election also being deferred), the President moved a motion to modify the bylaws to reflect these changes and this was seconded by the Deputy President. Wearing my Society Secretary hat, I fully support this decision in the circumstances. 

The modified Bylaws are now on the ITP website, with changes to Schedule 11 (Branch Rules) - adding 3.8, plus new sections 3A and 3B. These changes are a one-off move to ensure our community can focus on what they need to be focused on at the moment, and to ensure our organisation continues to have strong leadership through this crisis.

A massive thanks to our 65 existing Branch Committee members who have indicated they are staying on, initially in a caretaker role but then helping us kick things off with face-to-face events again once it's safe to do so. They're a hugely important part of the ITP family.

Please don't hesitate to contact me directly if you'd like to discuss any aspect of this.

Professional Guidance Working Group - want to get involved?

One of the roles of a professional body is providing guidance to IT Professionals about professional practice. In our case, this takes the form of the Code of Ethics, as well as a broader Code of Practice and Professional Knowledge Curriculum.

The Working Group will focus on reviewing these documents for currency and clarity, plus looking at what other guidance we, as an organisation, should provide. It's a great opportunity to "give back" to the profession and looks great on your CV.

The time commitment for the Working Group is around 2-3 hours a month plus meetings, with most meetings happening online for the moment.

If you're interested in getting involved, flick a note through to [email protected] with your CV (or a link to LinkedIn). It'll be fun!

Discount on ITP Short Courses

And lastly just a reminder, given the current Covid-19 lockdown, we've made all of our courses available online, bumped up their availability heaps over the next month, and are providing an additional 20% discount for everyone.

With at least 2 different courses available every week, all delivered live and interactive online, here's a great opportunity to use this time to upskill you and your team. Pick and choose the courses that suit you.

Use the discount code covid19 to receive an additional 20% discount on all course registrations during Covid alert level 4 and level 3. This is off the listed price and is in addition to discounts for members and staff of Corporate Partners.

The current courses are listed below and we'll be adding more regularly. Let us know if there's another topic you'd like to see included and we'll do our best to bring it to you.

View all courses on the ITP website

RNZ New Tech: Microsoft, Aussie Govt vs Google/Facebook, and Zoom fatigue

This week I talked with Kathryn Ryan on RNZ's New Tech about Microsoft's move to open a new datacentre region in New Zealand, plus the Australian Government's attempt to force Google and Facebook to fund the traditional media stories they link to, and after lockdown - do you have "Zoom fatigue"?

You can listen here