Blog Entries

Lotusphere 2010: choose the window to your corporate soul

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 14:00:00 +0100

If you are a CIO or a CEO then there is a very serious question that you must answer this year. Will you be an analytically or a collaboratively-driven organisation? The answer to that simple question will not only frame the future employee desktop and next generation business application strategies for your organisation, but will also dictate the competitive achievements of your company during the next economic cycle.

Sometimes the problem with being as big as IBM is simply [...]

There is little difference between an internet scam and bad customer service

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:00:00 +0100

I read some great books over the Christmas break. One was a longitudinal study on the characteristics of a breakthrough company (and why Gartner was not considered one by the author), and the other was on competing in business through the use of analytics.

Regardless of the titles and topics, both focused heavily on the importance of understanding customers. No rocket science there but that's the fascinating thing about customer service. Attention to the little things pays big returns. [...]

Think of the last quarter as pre-season training for 2010 and get reacquainted with your staff

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:00:00 +0100

I attended the Christmas drinks for the Queensland chapter of ISACA last week as a guest of CA. As long term sponsors of the ACT Brumbies Spuer 14 team they managed to engage head coach Andy Friend to drop into Brisbane as the guest speaker.

Of all the speakers I have heard this year - ranging from Dan Ackroyd to Malcolm Galdwell to John Farnham and Peter Beattie - Andy was by far the most inspirational. By the end of his 20 minutes, if he had of [...]

Longhaus four years on

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:00:00 +0100

As I recounted 3 years ago in an entry called One Year On, our start-up phase was based on a 4-year plan which ends in a few weeks time. It was at that stage that the plan was to sit down and evaluate our options regarding the company and whether or not to push on. While we wished ourselves every success I am also sure that we could not have foreseen all that lay ahead when in 2005 I begged of my wife to give me four years to screw up, threw in the towel at Forrester and called my old friend Sam [...]

Calls for content contributors for the World Computer Congress 2010

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:00:00 +0100

The World Computer Congress (WCC), in one year's time, will provide a boost in the arm for the Australian and near-shore ICT market. Last week I was asked to fill the position of Deputy Chairman, International Program Committee, which yesterday I accepted.

The role includes responsibility for coordinating the right commercial content into the right streams of the conference to marry the objectives of the academic content provided through the International Federation for Infor [...]

Longhaus' new digital strategy

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:00:00 +0100

From 2010 Longhaus will launch LTV as the master brand to host Longhaus' online digital strategy. Under the Longhaus Television master brand will sit different channels each streaming a subset of Longhaus developed research and programming.

LTV will continue to represent the company's founding drivers of bringing quality, transparency and tactility to ICT based research in Australia, with a long term goal of delivering up-to-the-m [...]

Is it better to keep going on this or admit defeat and blog about the challenge of ICT policy?

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:00:00 +0100

It was always going to be a tough assignment and a large part of me is disappointed that the job is only half-done. As of today, we have received over 1,250 views of the 13 policies outlined on the Naked Chief blog in the last few weeks.

The areas of biggest interest were certainly ICT Strategy support for small business, Assigning an economic value to a digitally connected life, and Introducing LAMP into the secondary education curriculum. So for any budding policy writers out there c [...]

ICT Policy #13: Set a government standard for company references

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:00:00 +0100

The Naked Chief wishes to thank Sam Higgins for this policy contribution.

At some point or another everyone has been asked to provide a reference. Whether it is for a close personal friend, professional colleague or supplier there is value in the support of one person's reputation or organisation's brand for anoth [...]

ICT Policy #12: Consistency of chargeback and capital management

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:00:00 +0100

Thanks to Sam for filling in for me while I was sick. This one comes from him.

Shared service providers are continuing to emerge across governments in Australia. From shared Financial and HR business processes to the provision of common ICT network and data centre infrastructure. However, a consistent issue that faces many [...]

ICT Policy #11: Government ATMs - the free enterprise service kiosk

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:00:00 +0100

Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) changed the face of banking forever. I remember my first "trip" to use one in 1982, two years before the demise of the $1 note. The ATM was embedded in the wall of the bank and ironically I had to line up to use it while the queues inside the bank remained remarkably small. Sure it took a while to figur [...]

ICT Policy #10: Move over classic languages; enter Kodu

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:00:00 +0100

As a kid it was bug-catchers, Mechanno, and as I got older the 200-in-1 electronic kits from Tandy, and Dick Smith that helped me understand how things worked. Dad tended to draw the line at power tools (though shotguns and rifles were fine?!). Our television was the oldest in the neighbourhood and servicing it was a re [...]

ICT Policy #9: Introducing LAMP into the national curriculum

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:00:00 +0100

The national curriculum for technology subjects within Australia's secondary education sector makes for very interesting reading. As guidelines for an educational framework it is comprehensive and structured in its approach to outlining the fundamental achievements and milestones that students must reach to graduate in senior ICT subjects. As [...]

ICT Policy #8: Central licencing bureau

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 14:00:00 +0100

When it comes to ICT, national competition does not even stop at the company level. In many cases state-based parochialism hinders Australia's national interests. The cases in point are numerous from train guages to the Murray Darling river system, and more recenlty the squabbling over which piece of the NBN will go to which state jurisdiction [...]

ICT Policy #7: Constitutional change for ICT

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 14:00:00 +0100

Today's policy asks whether a constitutional change to recognise and define multi-jurisdictional projects that represent the national ICT interest is achievable. So let me start this conversation by saying that the fear of God does not exist in modern commerce and for that reason the ICT industry is often treated with a mix of both awe and conte [...]

ICT Policy #6: A netbook for every public servant

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:00:00 +0100

In the early years of this decade the ANZ embarked on an ambitious cultural change initiative that saw them emerge from the back-markers of banking service in Australia to the front-runners for several years in their position as the country's "lender of the year". Unlike many organisations, they started this massive program of change at the f [...]

ICT Policy #5: More mobile representatives in government service

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:00:00 +0100

Mortgage brokers changed the banking industry and its accompanying service ecosystem. Mobile mortgage brokers took that to an even greater level. The public sector has for many years offered service capability extensions for transactional type activities through outlets including Australia Post for everything from rates to passport processing, and car [...]

ICT Policy #4: Fund and build a purpose-built application development campus

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:00:00 +0100

Equitable industry-based funding in government budgets has always been a contentious issue. Close to the top of the industry winners are always mining, agriculture, and manufacturing. And much of the budget funding that goes to support these industries is significant investments in ports, rail and harbour-facilities to enable the import and expo [...]

ICT Policy #3: Assigning an economic value to a digitally connected life in support of greater ...

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:00:00 +0100

The economic value of a human life is often used in public policy decision making. It is regularly used to determine the viability of mega-infrastructure projects such as highway upgrades through notorious black-spots, or tunnels to fight traffic congestion. That is, if a particular stretch of the Pacific Highway is regularly responsible (or the [...]

ICT Policy #2: Encouraging ICT strategy thinking within small business

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:00:00 +0100

First a few facts. 80% of Australian SMEs do not have an ICT strategy and most buy their technology from the retail channel on an ad-hoc basis.

Taking 1-man operations out of the equation, Australia has about 700,000 small business operators.In fact, the vast majority of Australian companies are SMEs. As such, much work is done in Australia by g [...]

ICT Policy #1: Why do all public servants need a government email address?

peter.carr@longhaus.com — Sun, 31 May 2009 14:00:00 +0100

The rising prevalence of freemail is driving change across the enterprise email market. And the simple fact is that a single user identity as opposed to a single corporate identity may provide the best long-term solution for email management both within and outside the public sector. When it comes to "corporate [...]