IBM Research on Uses for Vegemite

Glen Wrightwick from IBM is now talking about examples of their smarter planet initiatives. Apart from the obvious examples, such as the fact that the current dumb electricity grid cannot detect failures, he had some less obvious examples, such as Corporate Brand and Reputation Analysis (COBRA) for Vegemite.

Development of Young Professionals

I crept out of the opening session of the 2009 International Young ICT Professionals Conference in Sydney, to talk to some of the exhibitors. This conference has a different focus to the usual technical IT event. This is about career development for young professionals. It is applicable to other professions and some of the people here are qualified in other disciplines, such as economics. Most of the exhibitors I am familar with, such as the ACS Foundation, who organise scholarships for students. Inspired Training Solutions I was not familiar with are delivering short courses on business practices for professionals. IBM have an unusual exhibit on their Smarter Planet initiative, with a colouring in competition for adults. Charles Stuart University are talking about their Master of Information Technology (MInfoTech) and Graduate Diploma of Information Technology (GradDipInfoTech) courses, but interestingly CSU also offer industry certifications as well.

Enterprise Social Networking for Business

Greetings from the 2009 International Young ICT Professionals Conference in Sydney. The program is designed for young professionals, recent graduates and university students to advance their career in Information Communications Technology (ICT), focusing on business issues. I am speaking Social Networking for Business" at the social networking stream. Currently Benjamin Patey, CIO of CSC Australia is talking on "Enterprise Social Networking for Business". He is taking an interesting and entertaining approach of some role playing and participation. I was worried that my talk may repeat what Benjamin was talking about, but it appears the two talks are complementary: he is talking from the corporate point of view, whereas I am talking from the individual professional and their development.

Google Wave Social Networking for Business

After the Google Wave Hackathon in Canberra on Friday I have more if an idea of what this is about. I will explore some of the implications in my "Social Networking for Business" talk in the Entrepreneurship stream of the International Young ICT Professionals Conference in Sydney on 3 September 2009:

Social Networking for Business: The Year It All Changes - 2010

Running your company, or the country, using social networking software and a mobile phone

Social networking web sites, such as Facebook are popular for keeping in touch with friends. But the same technology can be applied to promoting a young ICT professional's career and in the workplace to help run a business. Business orientated social networking systems will be demonstrated, along with the software used for this by the ACS in its education courses. The application of the this technology on a smartphone will also be demonstrated.

See how to:

1. Use social networking to promote your career
2. Implement social networking software in your workplace
3. Run a business, or a nation, from your phone
4. Benefit from free open source software ...

From: "Social Networking for Business: The Year It All Changes - 2010"

Social Networking for Business

I will be speaking on "Social Networking for Business" at the 2009 International Young ICT Professionals Conference, 3 to 4 September 2009 in Sydney. Another speaker is Fiona Balfour, former CIO of Qantas and Telstra. The program is designed for young professionals, recent graduates and university students to advance their career in Information Communications Technology (ICT), focusing on business issues. It is interesting to see that TATA are one of the sponsors.

Social networking web sites, such as Facebook are popular for keeping in touch with friends. But the same technology can be applied to promoting a young ICT professional's career and in the workplace to help run a business. Business orientated social networking systems will be demonstrated, along with the software used for this by the ACS in its education courses. The application of the this technology on a smartphone will also be demonstrated.

See how to:

1. Use social networking to promote your career
2. Implement social networking software in your workplace
3. Run a business, or a nation, from your phone
4. Benefit from free open source software

2009 International Young ICT Professionals Conference

3 to 4 September 2009 in Sydney

Program

Day 1 – Thursday 3 September 2009
8:30	Registration
9:00	Conference Welcome Jason Ming, NSW Young IT Chair
9.05	ACS Welcome Anthony Wong, ACS NSW Branch Chair and National Board Member
9.20	Richard White CEO and founder of CargoWise edi Pty Ltd
10.00	Keynote Creative ICT Futures Graeme Wood- Wotif Founder
10:40	Morning Tea
11.10	Student	Technical	Professional
	Standing out from the crowd while maintaining your work life balance Debbie Timmins – Young Professional of the Year 2005 and Yohan Ramasundara- Immediate Past Director of Young IT Professionals Board	What does Computer Science have to offer to the Young IT Professionals Dr Chris Johnson - Associate Professor, Australian National University and Director Computer Science Board of ACS	TBD
11.50	Break
12.00	Skills Development	Careers	Entrepreneurship
	Essential communication skills for today’s IT workplace Jill Noble – Principal, Pivotal HR	Express IT	Social Networking for Business Tom Worthington- Author, Net Traveler
12:40	Lunch
13:20	Internationalisation of the ICT Industry Varun Kumar – Head, TCS Operations in Australia and New Zealand
14:10	Accelerating your Career and ACS Foundation Opportunities John Ridge – Executive Director ACS Foundation
14:40	Panel Discussion – How to be Successful in the ICT industry?
15.00	Afternoon Tea
15.20	Innovative Software Development – An Australian Perspective Glenn Wightwick – Director, IBM Australian Development Lab
16:00	Keynote Executive Leadership - Transforming Businesses through investment in Information Technology Fiona Balfour (Former CIO Qantas and Telstra)
16:30	Sponsor
17:30	Wrap Up Jason Ming, NSW Young IT Chair
19:00	Networking Dinner Dinner Chief Guest – Kumar Parakala – President Australian Computer Society and Global COO - IT Advisory practice, KPMG MC – Yasas V. Abeywickrama – Director Young IT
Day 2 – Friday 4 September 2009
9:00	Welcome Jason Ming, NSW Young IT Chair
9:10	TBD
10.00	Where is technology going? Dr Paul Scully-Power – Executive Chairman, Prime Solutions Pacific and Australia’s first astronaut
10:40	Morning Tea
11.00	ACS Exciting Membership Pathways
11.20	Green ICT – The Impact & Opportunities for Future ICT Leaders Bianca Wirth – A Green IT advocate and Advisory Board Member, Computers off Australia
12.00	Establishing IT Services Businesses and Exit Strategies Julie Irwin - A Winner of IT's Million $ Babes Award 2007
12:40	Lunch
13:20	TBD
14:10	TBD
15:00	Leadership - Today’s Leader Sarma Rajaraman – CIO Genworth Financial
15.10	Afternoon Tea
15:30	International Aspects of ICT Neville Roach - Chairman, Smart Services CRC, Former Chairman Fujitsu Australia, an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) and 2008 Overseas Indian Honour Award recipient from the President of India
16:00	Stewardship the Profession Requires from Tomorrow’s Leaders to Make a Difference Mark Lloyd – A national ICT identity and thought leader
16:50	Scholarships Presentation, Wrap up and Closing Remarks Yasas V. Abeywickrama MACS, Director, ACS Young IT Professionals Board

Social Networking for Education and CO2 Reduction

I will be talking on "Learning to lower costs and carbon emissions with ICT" at the ACS Victorian Branch 2009 Conference, 15 May 2009. In this I am arguing that applications such as the Moodle e-learning and Mahara ePortfolio/social networking can reduce carbon emissions. These tools replace travel and classrooms for education and so reduce the carbon footprint of education. Also they teach the students how to work this way, so that in their workplace they can replace meetings and meeting rooms with web based tools.

I find online tools very useful for business, but the impediment is to find people to work with who are able to use them effectively. The idea that young people just naturally learn to use the web is a myth; they still need to be trained on how to use it effectively. Even IT professionals, who know how the tools work, do not use them effectively unless shown how.

Another example of using the web for CO2 reduction I will use for the conference is getting there. I have been using the web for "Finding a green way to get to a green conference". So far I have managed to find trains from Melbourne to Ballarat, with a side trip to Box Hill Institute to discuss vocational sustainability training for computing students.