ITP Techblog

Nau mai haare mai, Welcome, ITP members and supporters to news in brief on 22nd August 2022. First up I have to shout out to everyone in Whakatū Nelson (my home town), Tasman and elsewhere who are cleaning up after the incredible volume of rain over the last week. Thinking of you all and so very pleased everyone is safe after the events of the weekend. 

To technology things! I love collaboration tools (slack, teams, miro boards, mural, google suite) they were revolutionary for many of us during lockdowns and have really changed the way we work over the course of the last decade. So I was surprised to see collaboration tools listed in this article The 6 most overhyped technologies in IT, the main complaint seemed to be the many different point solutions, how some of these technologies don’t play nicely together and the hope for a future seamless collaboration experience. None of this persuaded me, I still love collaboration tools.

This did get me thinking about streaming services and the many point solutions we all interact with. Personally (please don’t judge me) I have 8 streaming apps (including TVNZ and TV3 on demand) installed on my iPad. Some come bundled with other services and I do go through regular phases of thinking I will drop a range of them. What I am missing as a consumer is an aggregation service - one index across all of the services I subscribe to with a single UI. Or am I dreaming? 

If you haven’t watched it already Stuff’s Fire and Fury documentary is worth watching, on who’s driving a violent misinformed New Zealand - and why. InternetNZ’s article on How to stop misinformation being a superspreader? Is also worthy reading. 
This is topical, and will become increasingly so as we head into first local government and then central government elections. Like many of you I read this article on a prominent misinformation group encouraging followers to apply for key roles in the general election with interest, is this a storm in a tea cup or a real threat? We have also seen media coverage on members of similar groups running for local government. What we read, who the author is and how credible the sources has never been more important to understand.

He kōnā mai, bye for now, Vic 

Te Hīkoi Roa: A journey of Māori towards information technology mastery

I have really struggled to write this update on Chapter 13 Te Hīkoi Roa: A journey of Māori towards information technology mastery from the book From Yesterday to Tomorrow, 60 years of Tech in NZ. Written by the fabulous wahine toa (a brave strong female leader) Robyn Kāmira, the deputy President of IT Professionals, and exceptional leader within our industry. So I struggled wanting to really do this powerful, important chapter justice. 

Robyn uses the lens of her own experience and observations to discuss Māori holding a place and ownership within a technology sphere and onto strength and mastery of capability. She reminds us that we can’t improve if we don’t measure, the absence of Māori owned and led businesses during the formative years of this industry and highlighting the growth and strength we have seen recently. 

She challenges our thinking on the role of government, wondering aloud Robyn poses a range of excellent questions throughout the chapter, including these:

1. What is the responsibility of government agencies that hold non-public (restricted access) information about Māori to effectively address ongoing socio-economic disparities that are confirmed by that same data — or enable access to it by Māori providers who could address it?
2. How can Māori influence the integrity of data and reporting that non-Māori organisations use to acquire funding for programmes with outcomes that are not delivered, and that ultimately affect our collective futures?
3. How can Māori be involved at the initiation and subsequent stages of information systems to ensure data is represented in context and data quality metrics from a Māori perspective are included? For example, health information systems that record whānau (extended family) and caregiver connections beyond two named parents, that recognise the real-life ways that whānau collectively care for their members; information systems that recognise multiple names for one person depending on the context (i.e., legal, known-as, te reo and ancestral names); and information systems that identify those for whom cultural approaches are a critical part of their well-being.

I love that Robyn has told us so much of her own story here, even the heartbreaking elements like this quote:

“It was in this decade that I joined the Institute of Information Technology Professionals (ITP), because prospective clients and others had difficulty believing a Māori woman was an IT professional and didn’t hesitate to inform me of this fact.”

Robyn is a staunch supporter of the need to change the face of our industry. Embracing manaakitanga, welcoming and encouraging diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging. Please read this chapter, it is powerful and worthy your time.

Articles and Reminders

This caught my eye, NHS IT supplier held to ransom by hackers https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-62506039

Drones flying blood samples between hospitals - awesome - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lancashire-62507262

Quick Reminders

• How to become an effective CIO short course series - coming up in September
• NZ Information Security Manual Fundamentals - coming up in 2 weeks time
• Cyber Security Essentials - coming up in October

Survey - How do we feel? About where we work - please fill this in if you haven’t already and if you have, thank you very much. Results out next Monday and next survey on How do we feel? About your current role will be out Friday this week.