Details of past events can found below. Where the speaker has given the consent, copies of slides and presentations will also be available for download. Also, some of the talks have been recorded. The videos are available for viewing on the Past Events Media page or on our YouTube channel.

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Thursday 26th April 2012

title :	Outsourcing and offshoring: getting it right
speaker :	Richard Newton, Consultant and Author
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London, 18:00 for a 18:30 start

Over the past twenty five years outsourcing has evolved. It has gone from being a new phenomenon to an everyday tool in the design of a business’s operating model and the achievement of business objectives. As part of this evolution a variety of large organisations have grown up, typified by the massive Indian outsourcers. These firms provide a range of onshore and offshore services. Some businesses have had multiple generations of outsourcing contracts. Yet, with all this experience, outsourcing is not always as successful as it should be, and it is not always well understood by those choosing to outsource. Some businesses have used outsourcing to drive significant cost savings and performance improvements. But there are plenty of case studies of businesses who have got their fingers burnt, or at least not achieved the level of performance desired. In this talk, Richard will look at some of the lessons to develop a truly effective relationship with an outsourcer, how to work smoothly with offshore teams, and finding the balance between onshore and offshore models.

Richard is an independent business adviser and author of eight popular business books, including several on project and change management. He has worked with a number of organisations on setting up and optimising outsourcing arrangements.

Thursday 22nd March 2012

title :	The What and Why of Agile
speaker :	Allan Kelly, Consultant & Founder at Software Strategy
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London, 18:00 for 18.30 start

Agile has broken out from the code face, CEOs talk of Agile Business, Business Analysts are signing up en mass for Agile classes and it even got talked about on the Today programme. However after over a decade of Agile software development there are still plenty of individuals and teams out there who are still trying to understand what it is and why, even if it might be for them.

In this talk Allan Kelly sets out to answer the questions: What is Agile?, Why is Agile beneficial? and How might a team start to adopt Agile? Armed with the answers to these questions Allan will to show why large organizations such as the BBC, Financial Times, HSBC and British Gas are using it, and why the UK Government IT strategy advocates Agile.

Allan is a founding consultant with Software Strategy, working with companies to implement and deepen Agile methods, and specialises in aligning company strategy to products and processes. He has written many journal articles, is an experienced conference presenter, and wrote the book 'Changing Software Development, Learning to be Agile'. His new book 'Business Patterns for Software Developers' is due for publication in early 2012.


Slides (7.8 Mb)

Thursday 15th March 2012

title :	Beyond mouse and keyboard: Post-WIMP and novel forms of interaction
speaker :	Dr. George Buchanan and Jacques Chueke, Centre for HCI Design, City University, London
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London, arrive 18:00 for a 18:30 start

SCIENCE WEEK EVENT

The introduction of novel hardware for computing and gaming during the last decade is changing the way we control everyday devices because it provides, for instance, haptic, gesture-based, voice activation and eye tracking interactions. Dr Buchanan will describe the work being done at the Centre for HCI Design on new types of interaction, and Jacques will report on his PhD project to investigate the cognitive issues that these new technologies present to the user, and how the user explores interfaces that are new and visually unfamiliar.

Dr Buchanan is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Informatics, Centre for HCI Design. His research interests encompass information interaction: from web search, through browsing digital libraries, to accessing information on a mobile phone. His main current interest is to discover how people interact with newly found documents, and how computer technology can assist users to make better informed and relevant decisions.

Jacques worked for 10 years on internet and software projects for large companies in Brazil, and has taught at PUC-Rio. He has been a PhD student in the Centre for HCI Design since October 2010.

Thursday 16th February 2012

title :	Subjects are not Objects - Enterprise Modelling using Projective Analysis
speaker :	Bernie Cohen, Hon Visiting Professor, City University
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London, arrive 18:00 for a 18:30 start

Joint event with BCS FACS

A systems analyst who seeks to identify an enterprise's requirements for systems and services will try to elicit from the enterprise's stakeholders their models of the enterprise's structures, functions, purposes, performance, supply chain, markets, competition etc., and to articulate those models in the style of the day, be it object-oriented, agent-based, formal, structured or soft.

Accounts of this practice reveal that stakeholders are often reluctant to expose their 'true' models, either because they conflict with some 'authorised version' or because they don't actually know 'what is going on', or why.
A side-effect of the analysis is often an altered understanding by the enterprise's stakeholders of  relationships between their own desires and those of their peers, managers, customers etc., which usually reveals political, personal, technical and financial risks that extend far beyond those envisaged by the original project brief.
This phenomenon reveals the sources and, to a large extent, the components, of enterprise models to be 'subjects' — systems that anticipate the satisfaction of their own desires — rather than the 'objects' with which our classical engineering modeling frameworks were designed to cope.

We introduce 'Projective Analysis' (PAN), a modeling praxis, framework and toolset in which subjects' models of their enterprise may be articulated, composed and manipulated to reveal the risks to which their enterprise is exposed and to evaluate the actions that they propose to alleviate them.

Bernie Cohen spent 18 years as a telecom systems engineer with ITT, developing real-time software for Europe's first SPC telephone switch and the world's first PCM exchange, and eventually founding the Software Research Group at STL Harlow, where he wrote one of the first textbooks on Formal Methods. In 1984, he was appointed to the Racal Chair of IT at the University of Surrey. In 1990, he briefly returned to industry with Rex, Thomson and Partners, a safety critical systems consultancy, before taking the Chair of Computing at City University, from where he retired in 2003. His research interests have gradually moved from telecom systems design to the gaps between formal computer science and human agency.


Slides (680.3 Kb)

Thursday 19th January 2012

title :	Turing's legacy or What did Turing ever do for us?
speaker :	Dr Sue Black, University College London Dr Peter J Bentley, Visiting Fellow at SIMTech, A*STAR Julian Wilson, Associate Director, Christie's Sarah Winmill, Director of IT for Support Services, University College London
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London, arrive 18:00 for a 18:30 start

This year is the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing, Bletchley Park codebreaker and much much more. Our guest speakers discuss who Turing was, his contribution in so many areas and his effect on our lives today. Don't miss it!

Sue is a Senior Research Associate at University College London. Sue founded BCSWomen, a Specialist Group of the British Computer Society, in 2001, and was chair of the group until 2008. She has been instrumental in championing the saving of Bletchley Park. Sue is founder of the new GoTo Foundation @gotofdn.

Dr. Peter J Bentley has been called a creative maverick computer scientist. He is an Honorary Reader at the Department of Computer Science, University College London (UCL), Collaborating Professor at the Korean Advanced Institute for Science and Technology (KAIST), a contributing editor for WIRED UK, a consultant and a freelance writer. He has published approximately 200 scientific papers and is author of the forthcoming Digitized and seven other books, including the popular science books Digital Biology, The Book of Numbers and The Undercover Scientist. He is a regular contributor to television and radio.

Julian Wilson joined Christie's Books & Manuscripts department in 2008 as a Specialist after spending eleven years at the antiquarian booksellers Maggs Bros, where he ran the Natural History department.

In his years at Christie's, Julian Wilson has helped to catalogue the Foljambe Collection of natural history books (April 2008) as well as many other fine natural history, science and travel books, including maps and atlases. Highlights during this time have included the negotiation of the sale of the Max Newman Collection of Alan Turing offprints to Bletchley Park in January 2011, and a British record for a first edition of Darwin's On the Origin of Species (£103,250, November 2009).

Julian’s expertise lies in all aspects of natural history and science, and he is particularly interested in the relationship between voyages of exploration and the acquisition and scientific description of natural objects -- Alexander Shaw’s 1787 book composed of samples of Tapa cloth collected during the voyages of Captain Cook (£115,250, September 2010) has been one such highlight. The fields of science and exploration also offer enjoyable opportunities for involvement with non-book lots, such as the Apple-1 computer which sold for £133,250 (November 2010) or the Enigma machine which fetched £67,250 in the same sale -- both world records for these objects.

Julian has a fascination with paleontology, geology and the earth sciences, and is a member of the History of Geology Group at the Geological Society of London. He is a Council member of the Society for the History of Natural History and a past Chairman of the T.E. Lawrence Society.

Sarah Winmill is Director of IT for Support Services at UCL, delivering administrative services to over 9,000 staff and 24,000 students. Previously she was Head of IS Services at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and Chair of the Charities Consortium IT Directors Group (CCitDG), the premier membership group of IT Directors of major UK Charities.

Throughout her career Sarah has focused on the needs of the customer rather than the latest technology fad. She has particularly enjoyed the challenge of delivering IT within some of the the UK’s most well known arts heritage destinations, the Royal Academy of Arts, Historic Royal Palaces (including HM Tower of London and Hampton Court Palace), and the Royal Albert Hall.

Sarah is a Chartered Fellow of BCS, holds an MSc in Data Communications, and is currently studying for an MBA with the Open University. In 2008 she was a Finalist in the Intel IT Leader of the Year, at the BCS IT Industry Awards, and in 2009 received a ComputerWorld Laureate for her work publishing the V&A collections online.

Hastag for this event is #BCSTuring

Slides (9.1 Mb)

Thursday 17th November 2011

title :	NLP for project management: making soft skills less hard using NLP
speaker :	Dr Peter Parkes, Peak Performance
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London, arrive 18:00 for a 18:30 start

We know that “soft skills” are essential for project management. And project management relies on getting things done through others. So how can we make project delivery that bit more effective? Peter will introduce us to Neuro-Linguistic Programming, (NLP) in an engaging and interactive talk. He will give an overview of some key techniques, which will help project managers improve their soft skills and deliver more effectively.
Peter has held senior roles in project management in the public sector, private sector, public private partnerships and ‘big 4’ management consultancies. He started his journey in NLP in the early ‘90s and progressed to Master Practitioner and is a trained Coach and Mentor. Peter is author of the BCS publication “NLP for Project Management”


Slides (1 Mb)

Thursday 20th October 2011

title :	AGM followed by Reducing the culture gap between IT and business professionals
speaker :	Mike Waterston, Managing Director, Waterstons ltd
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London, 18:00 start

Winning board support for IT projects has always been a challenge for the modern CIO who often feels isolated and side lined by senior management. Many frustrated CIOs think the answer to resolving this is to gain access to, or better still a seat on, their organisation's Board of Directors.

Mike will outline the issues that need to be addressed by the IT Professional if they want to be taken seriously by their Board or Executive Committee colleagues.

Mike Waterston has almost 40 years of experience in business of which 19 years were spent with Tioxide PLC the Titanium Pigments Group now owned by Huntsman. The remainder of his career has been spent developing and growing Waterstons into a successful IT Consultancy and Services company with his wife Sally Waterston."


Slides (1.9 Mb)

Thursday 15th September 2011

title :	Washing Away Cave Paintings - A technical evolution
speaker :	Ian Hughes, Feeding Edge Ltd
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London, 18:00 start

Ian Hughes will share some of the history of human communication and how the current wave of emerging technology in virtual worlds, inputs and outputs to systems and the increasing social and game related concepts being applied, are the catalyst for massive cultural change socially and in business.

The premise is that whenever we get too locked into a way of working, a process or a technology, and declare "that is the way it has always been done" we run the risk of being very quickly overtaken by the rapid advance of technology.

Ian is the founder of Feeding Edge Limited. He presents an emerging technology slot on the ITV kids show The Cool Stuff Collective, and when online is known as epredator. He is chairman of the BCS Animation and Games Specialist Group

Tuesday 12th July 2011

title :	Presentation skills for career development and professional success
speaker :	Dorothea Stuart, Public Speaking Coach/Trainer and Personal Branding Expert
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London, 18:00 for a 18:30 start

Presentation skills are essential for career development and professional success. In a lively interactive session you will learn about three presentation mistakes most people make and how to avoid them!

If you believe good presenters are born not made, think again. In your time you’ve learned many skills: riding a bicycle, driving a car, computer programming...You can apply your ability to gain new knowledge and skills to your communication. Whether you are a nervous presenter or someone who needs to sharpen up your performance you learn something useful from this session.

Dorothea Stuart, MA, MSc is a public speaking coach/trainer and personal branding expert working with professionals. She teaches public speaking at South Thames College.

Slides (3.5 Mb)

Wednesday 15th June 2011

title :	Open Source Software: Should I? Shouldn’t I?
speaker :	Dai Davis
venue :	IET, Savoy Place, London

Open Source” is an IT industry buzzword. The use of open source is indeed prevalent. There are currently some 180,000 different open source projects and by the time you have read this flyer, another will have started. The current growth of Open Source is exponential. What exactly is Open Source? What are the business risks associated with using it? How can those risks be minimised and avoided. There are some 2,000 “standard” licences that fall into the “Open Source” category. How can you ascertain which ones may be being used by your software developers? Should you ever consider starting an Open Source project yourself?

The presentation will cover:

● An overview of the law of copyright and its application to computer software.
● What are the distinguishing features of Open Source Software?
● What are the distinguishing features of Open Source software licences? An overview of the common licence forms: GPL and Creative Commons.
● Enforceability of Open Source software licences (including the seminal US case of Jacobson v Katzer).
● How and when is Open Source Software used in companies?
● How and when should open Source Software be used?


Dai, who has specialised in the field of IT law for some 25 years, will discuss these topics from a highly practical viewpoint. There will be ample time for audience questions and discussion.


About the Speaker
Dai Davis is a solicitor as well as a Chartered Engineer. He is therefore well placed to speak on these issues.

Thursday 19th May 2011

title :	Trust Services - The New Web Infrastructure Layer
speaker :	David Rennie, Identity Assurance Consultant to the Digital Delivery Programme, Cabinet Office
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London, arrive 18:00 for a 18:30 start

How do you trust what people claim to be true? How do others trust what you claim? On the web, there is no systematic way to do this. But that is changing. David will explain how governments and businesses around the world are exploring how to build a layer of trust services into the web.

David is a leading thinker in identity management who, as an independent consultant working for the UK government, has been promoting trust services as an enabler of online government.


Slides (898.1 Kb)

Thursday 28th April 2011

title :	The Truth About Data Quality
speaker :	Jon Evans, Principal Business Consultant, IPL
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, arrive 18:00 for a 18:30 start

Completeness, conformity and consistency are all essential elements of good data quality, but are they enough? Can you trust what your data is telling you? Honesty, integrity and credibility are all too often overlooked in information quality initiatives. Using a case study from the world of health, Jon Evans will explore the concept of "data truth".

Jon Evans is a Principal Business Consultant at IPL, a leading UK IT services company specialising in the delivery of intelligent business solutions and has over 15 years experience within this field.


Slides (1.5 Mb)

Thursday 7th April 2011

title :	Are you MBCS but not Chartered? (Member only event)
speaker :	Adam Thilthorpe, BCS Director for Professionalism Mike Underwood, CEng CSci FBCS Assessor Keith Taylor, Chairman of the Fellowship Panel Janette Bolton, BCS Membership Assessment Team Leader
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London, arrive 18:00 for a 18:30 start

The evening will commence with Adam putting Professionalism and CITP into context, why its relevant and how can we become established as a respected profession. This will take in the use of standards within professions, why being the son of a Red Arrow is not all its cracked up to be, the trouble with projects, Government at the top of the food chain and why being a CIO is the only breeding ground for the next generation of companies.

Mike will discuss the requirements for becoming CEng and CSci whilst Keith will provide a description of the SFIAplus framework and how it fits into the requirements for becoming a Chartered IT professional (CITP), obtaining a Certificate of Current Competence and the requirements for becoming a fellow. Janette will lead an overview of what the assessors are looking for at Stage 1 & 3 of the CITP application process. Overall the evening will provide guidance on how to submit a robust chartered application and proceed through the process. This will be followed by a Q&A session which will provide an opportunity to ask any questions that are not clear or how your specific non standard applications go ahead (like if you’re a contractor). Whilst advice on specific applications may not be provided it may be helpful to bring your completed application form along.

Bios of speakers:

Adam Thilthorpe joined BCS as a key account manager in 2005 but now leads the development of the Institute’s professionalism in IT initiative. He speaks regularly at BCS and industry seminars and conferences engaging with companies and organisations that employ IT practitioners. He raises awareness of the changes in the profession; the challenges and the opportunities.
Adam gained his early experience in the City of London with financial institutions JP Morgan Chase and Co and Georgeson Shareholder.

Mike retired after 33 years working for TRL at Crowthorne, initially as a Noise and Vibration Engineer and later a Software Engineer. He subsequently worked for three years as a BCS Regional Operations Manager, until the BCS abandoned Regions and moved all membership operations back to the main Swindon Office.
Mike has been a volunteer BCS assessor for CEng, CSCI, FBCS and CITP for the past ten years. He is a member of the BCS Branches Management Committee and of BCS Council, and is a former Chair of the Berkshire Branch.

Keith Taylor has had a long career with IBM, working in product design, performance analysis, and quality and project management. The projects that he worked on included mainframe processors, graphics, process control, mobile applications, and business middleware. He also developed new user interface concepts in a joint project between IBM and Microsoft.
Since retiring from IBM, he now works with the BCS in a number of roles both with his local Hampshire branch and also with the BCS IT awards as a moderator. He is on the BCS Membership Committee, where he is chairman of the Fellowship Panel.

*Reserve list means that the all the places available have been booked, those registered will be placed on a reserve list which does not guarantee a place, although it is noted that there are likely to be spaces available.

Slides (848.9 Kb)

Thursday 24th March 2011

title :	Emerging Trends in Mobile Apps
speaker :	Katie Lips, Mobile Strategist & Founder at Little World Gifts
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London, arrive 18:00 for a 18:30 start

Katie will offer an overview how leading mobile apps ecosystems are becoming an innovation playground for visionary developers and entrepreneurs. Whilst "New Mobile" is fast becoming a crowded space, successful mobile businesses are those that deliver the best tools, game play, consumer and user experiences. From mobile games, to AR, to virtual goods and m-commerce, Katie will outline some trending concepts and share case studies on the hottest mobile apps.

Katie is an active speaker on mobile apps and ecosystems, she previously founded SMS archive Treasuremytext and virtual goods startup Little World Gifts. Katie is author of "The Amazing iPhone", "Winning iPhone Strategies" and "Predicting the iPad".


Slides (6.1 Mb)

Thursday 17th March 2011

title :	Investing for Innovation: How Enterprise Architecture enables the Future - SCIENCE WEEK EVENT
speaker :	John Good, Enterprise Architect, ITV
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London, arrive 18:00 for a 18:30 start

It's a given that change is the only constant. Innovation is a critical response. How should an Enterprise Architect, with a responsibility to determine the best return on investment in Information Technology and ensure strategic alignment, make sure that they enable that innovation? John will draw upon his experience in ITV to explain the challenge and how it can be met.

John is a well known speaker and trainer on the topic of Enterprise Architecture who has had many years experience in both consultancy and in-house roles.


Slides (1 Mb)

Thursday 17th February 2011

title :	Application Software Security for All
speaker :	Colin Watson, OWASP
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

The creation and promotion of knowledge about information security can help counter fear, uncertainty and doubt. The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is a not-for-profit worldwide charitable organisation focused on improving the security of application software. It believes that application security should be visible, so that people and organisations can make informed decisions about true application security risks. Colin will discuss how OWASP is structured, funded and operates. He will introduce some projects which may be of immediate use to attendees such as the Top Ten (referenced by PCI DSS) and the Software Assurance Maturity Model (SAMM). He will then describe one OWASP project in more detail - AppSensor, a conceptual framework and methodology that offers prescriptive guidance to implement intrusion detection and automated response into an existing application.

Colin is based in London as a consultant with Watson Hall Ltd specialising in application security. He is also chair of OWASP's Global Industry Committee.


Slides (1.7 Mb)

Thursday 20th January 2011

title :	Are You Social or Anti-Social?
speaker :	Jemima Gibbons, Social Media Writer and Consultant Joanne Jacobs, Social Media Expert Consultant LJ Rich, Freelance Producer/Reporter @BBCClick & more The evening will be Chaired by Dr Sue Black, Senior Research Associate, UCL
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

The role of Social Media Strategist or Chief Collaboration Officer may soon become a key management role in successful companies. Will having a person working in this position enable companies to increase their social awareness, their internal communication and collaboration and therefore their profitability? Or is it, along with all of social media a current fad that will soon fade from our memories and disappear?

Recent high profile cases such as the prosecution of Paul Chambers and the attack on Sarah Baskerville by the Daily Mail will be discussed.

Come and hear from our expert speakers to find out what they think and why.

#tag for the event is #BCSsocial

Thursday 18th November 2010

title :	Delivering Mission Critical Systems
speaker :	Colin Butcher, XDelta Limited UK
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

The design and implementation of highly available mission-critical systems requires a more disciplined approach than is common in the IT industry. The rapid pace of change and the wide range of available technologies make it increasingly important to have a good understanding of the underlying principles and a clear view of how to apply systems to solve business issues. Colin will discuss the factors governing systems availability and performance, complemented by real-life examples of the design and implementation of all aspects of a system from hardware and infrastructure to application software.

Colin has considerable experience with mission-critical and safety-critical environments. He has been responsible for the architectural design, implementation and trouble-shooting of several major systems, including satellite control, air traffic monitoring, manufacturing, retail and healthcare infrastructures. Colin is a well-known presenter of both technical and leadership seminars.


Slides (630.6 Kb)

Thursday 14th October 2010

title :	AGM followed by Dealing with Information Overload
speaker :	Ian Price, Grimsdyke Consulting
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

The deluge of data is ever increasing on a daily basis. The issue at the heart of information overload is not the technology itself but the way in which we use it. Its march is not altogether implacable but will, discipline and the support of senior management are needed to reverse the trend. Ian will discuss information overload and how to deal with it effectively.

Ian has over 20 years in the telecoms and payments industry and has been leader of three technology start-ups. He is author of forthcoming business book "The Activity Illusion."


Slides (327.5 Kb)

Thursday 16th September 2010

title :	The Axe Man Cometh - but is there a silver lining in the Cloud?
speaker :	Tony Heritage, IBM Central Government Team
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

As government budget cuts start to bite, IT seems in line for some major cutbacks. Can Cloud computing save services, and indeed offer significant service enhancements? Could it not just save on budget, but save IT professional’s jobs, indeed can we be heroes of the national rescue? Or is it just pie, rather than clouds, in the sky and we're all doomed to the axe... Come and listen and debate with Tony and your fellow members, both in and out of the Public Sector.

Tony is an IBM Client Technical Advisor within the Central Government team, helping departments and agencies to get the most from their IT expenditure. Tony led the technical stream for the initial phase of the Data Centre rationalisation that introduced the G-Cloud and now works with Departments to understand the strategy's impact on ICT service delivery.

Thursday 20th May 2010

title :	Social Computing in the Enterprise Comes of Age
speaker :	Stef Shoffren, Avanade UK
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Social computing has progressed in leaps and bounds over the past few years, growing up from simple isolated departmental instances of discussion forums or blogs to fully fledged integrated applications that can incorporate many of the aspects of social computing seen on the public internet. How can companies now harness these tools both internally with their employees as well as externally with their partners and customers to deliver tangible business benefits?

Stef is a leading thinker on using social computing to deliver business benefit. He has recently helped large blue chips clients to deliver collaborative applications that add value to their businesses. He has presented at large technical conferences including Microsoft TechEd and Microsoft Architect Insight.

Slides (1.6 Mb)

Thursday 22nd April 2010

title :	The use of automated testing tools throughout the traditional software development lifecycle
speaker :	Dr Phillip Isles MBCS, Test Manager, HSBC Private Bank
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Software testing, or a lack of testing, is often blamed for high-profile system failures. Usually, there is an underlying reason why testing was ineffective, which is often a lack of time to run all planned tests. Can automating some of the tests help? Phillip will describe some of the testing tools available to teams (including Business Analysts, Developers and Testers), and provide examples from his testing career over the last ten years.

Phillip is a hands-on Test Manager, responsible for all the software testing activities within the UK sector of HSBC Private Bank. He manages teams of test analysts in India and China. He is also the chair of the ISEB Software Testing Accreditation panel, and a member of the Software Testing Specialist Group committee.

Slides (2.4 Mb)

Thursday 18th March 2010

title :	Business Change in Kensington and Chelsea
speaker :	James Archer, Business Analyst, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Debbie Paul, Managing Director, Assist Knowledge Development
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Firstly, James will present on a major change programme, the transformation of Adult Social Care at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The presentation will include the key issues and outcomes for the project, including the business analysis work James carried out to resolve the issues and find effective solutions. Debra will then use the experiences from James’s project and will discuss the principles and approaches adopted by business analysts when defining and evaluating options for business change.

James Archer is a practicing Business Analyst and Project Manager with 20 years ICT experience mainly in the public sector. He speaks and teaches on various aspects of Business Analysis to organisations across the UK and is a co-founder of the Business Change Specialist Group of the BCS.

Debra Paul is the Managing Director of Assist Knowledge Development, a training and consultancy company. She jointly edited and wrote the bestselling BCS publication, Business Analysis. Debra is a regular speaker at business seminars and is a founder member of the BA Management Forum, co-founder of the BCS Business Change Specialist Group and an ISEB examiner for Business Analysis.

Slides (1.8 Mb)

Thursday 11th March 2010

title :	Data to Decision to Action in London's Traffic Systems
speaker :	Derek Renaud, Chief Engineer, Technology Delivery Group, TfL Norbert Buch, PhD Associate, Kinston University and TfL
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Managing and controlling London’s traffic flow is a complex task. Different kinds of information can be gathered from the streets. Consolidated data is then used to derive manual and automatic decisions for coordinated traffic management in the capital. Information is then passed to road users to help them make informed travel decisions.
An overview of the current and emerging systems will be provided.
To improve responsiveness, the IRID (Image Recognition and Incident Detection) project was successfully implemented with the London Traffic Control Centre. Norbert Buch will show how existing cameras are used for this monitoring task and will introduce 3DHOG (3D histogram of oriented gradients) as the latest example for video analytics in traffic management.


Derek is chief engineer in the Technology Delivery Group within the Traffic Directorate in TfL. He currently leads a development team looking at the latest advances in CCTV, Communications, Detection and Street Products associated with traffic control.

Norbert is an electrical engineer who has worked in the automotive industry and in oil prospecting. Previous to his work in Kingston, he was responsible for the design and delivery of several embedded sensor system at Quantum Prospecting Ltd. and Kristl, Seibt & Co, Austria.



Slides (1.6 Mb)

Thursday 18th February 2010

title :	Cloud Computing and the Law
speaker :	Miranda Mowbray, Senior Technical Contributor, HP Labs Bristol
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Miranda will speak about some foggy legal issues to do with cloud computing, including access to data by foreign governments, data usage rights and security. She will give some examples from customer agreements currently used by prominent cloud computing providers. She will also mention some new research that may resolve some of these issues.

Miranda Mowbray is a Senior Technical Contributor at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, where her research interests include online communities and privacy for cloud computing. A paper by Miranda and some of her HP colleagues won the Best Paper Award at CloudCom, the 1st International Conference on Cloud Computing. She is a Fellow of the BCS.

Slides (1.5 Mb)

Thursday 21st January 2010

title :	Tomorrow's Women, Tomorrow's World
speaker :	Dr Sue Black, Head of Department, University of Westminster Maggie Philbin, BBC Rebecca George, Partner at Deloitte Mohan Koo, MD at Dtex Ltd Professor Rob Macredie, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Brunel University
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Do come along, hear what our panel have to say and ask them your questions.

When punch cards and paper tape were the norm the workforce in computing was approx. 50/50 male/female. That is not the case these days, it is more like 80/20 male/female. It is well accepted that a balanced team produces a more productive workforce, so what can we do to encourage women back into IT? Dr Sue Black discusses the reasons for the lack of women in IT, advises how to support and encourage women in your company and is joined by a panel of notable men and women in technology giving an insight into what needs to change. We will use social media at this event to facilitate interaction with a global audience.
Dr Sue Black is Head of Department of Information and Software Systems at the University of Westminster: http://www.sueblack.co.uk. She is interested in research in the area of software quality, especially helping companies to improve the quality of their software. Sue founded the BCSWomen SG in 2001, she sits on BCS Knowledge Services Board and is a BCS Council member. Sue is a well known speaker on women in IT, and Bletchley Park, most notably on BBC News 24 and the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. Details of the campaign to save Bletchley Park are at http://www.savingbletchleypark.org/

Bios of speakers:

Maggie Philbin has worked in radio and television for 30 years on a wide range of science, medical and technology programmes. Currently providing analysis and comment on technology and a regular reporter on BBC 1’s “Inside Out”, she has a unique resonance with audiences, having grown up with them on much loved shows like “Swap Shop”, “Hospital Watch” and “Tomorrow’s World”. Many of the everyday gadgets we now take for granted were demonstrated on live television for the very first time by Maggie – the first truly mobile phone, the first car navigation system, the first fax machine, even the first supermarket barcode reader.
Over the past decade, Mohan Koo, Managing Director of Dtex Systems, has led multinational teams in the delivery of specialised information security solutions and investigative incident response projects for Defence, Government, International Banking and a diverse range of other organisations. As a co-founder of the Dtex Group of Companies, Mohan has driven the group’s global expansion throughout Asia Pacific, EMEA and South America. Dtex specialises in the development and delivery of solutions to track and control data handling and the sharing of sensitive data. As the true value of data becomes recognised, Mohan is working closely with regulators and law enforcement agencies to shape the way that government departments and corporations value and protect the vast quantities of personal data which flow through their systems every day.

Rebecca George is responsible for Shared Services business development in Central Government. She is currently working at Deloitte. Previously Rebecca was a Director with IBM, managing IBM's processes and her team internally while developing business opportunities and maintaining relationships externally. She has worked across Central Government since 2001. Rebecca has practical experience of re-engineering and implementing e-business processes at the same time as managing a multi-country organization. During her time with IBM, she worked in sales, business process re-engineering and HR. During 2000 and 2001, she re-engineered and implemented the recruitment process for EMEA which supported an organization of 160,000 employees. Rebecca has been involved in raising the profile of women in IT since 1997. She worked with Sir John Egan on his review of skills for sustainable communities.

With over 15 years of research experience, Professor Rob Macredie has worked with a range of organisations, ranging from large, blue-chip companies, through small businesses, to government agencies. Rob's key interest lies in the way in which people and organisations use technology, and his research aims to determine how work can be more effectively undertaken by improving the way that we understand how people and technology interact in organisational (and social) settings. Rob has taught widely in Computer Science and Information Systems, has run a range of university-programmes in these areas and has held managerial roles as a Head of Department, Dean of Faculty and Head of School. He is currently Professor of Interactive Systems and Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Brunel University, and a Fellow of the BCS.

Thursday 19th November 2009

title :	The end of the Private Citizen - or good corporate ID management?
speaker :	Mr David Evans, BCS HQ and others to be confirmed
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

"ID Cards: The end of the Private Citizen - or good corporate ID management?"

ID Cards have always been about much more than the bits of plastic, as a huge data management and identity harmonisation programme has been underway for some years. What is the state of play: What should it be?

Presentations from speakers, followed by questions and answers. Come and join in what should be a stimulating evening.

Note: this event is booking fast - please register asap to assure your place.

Tea and biscuits from 6pm for a 6:30 start. Wine, juices and light refreshments to follow.

Thursday 15th October 2009

title :	Virtualizing? Why Management and Security go together like ham and eggs!
speaker :	Andrew Driver, Partner Technology Specialist , Microsoft
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

With so many organizations looking at virtualization, effectively securing and managing both virtual and physical environments becomes ever more critical. The importance of showing Partners and customers how we have approached and successfully overcome these challenges cannot be stressed too highly. This session will look at security best practices and at how Microsoft Security and Management tools can provide a comprehensive and integrated solution to protecting both virtual and physical environments.

Andrew has enjoyed a variety of roles including Microsoft Trainer (awarded trainer of the year in 2005), consultant, infrastructure/security designer and support specialist. Andrew works with many teams within Microsoft and is often called upon to present at events such as Infosec, VM08 and Storage Expo. He has also worked with many Partners including Novell.

Thursday 17th September 2009

title :	How to fail in outsourced programme delivery (without really trying): It’s time to focus on the role of the client in ensuring success.
speaker :	Dr Harvey Maylor, Director of the International Centre for Programme Management at Cranfield School of Management, UK.
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

The recent report by NAO and subsequent hearing of the Public Accounts Committee analysed the failure of the National Offender Management System. This was particularly interesting because for the first time, the role of the client in the failed programme was seen as at the root of the failure. Neither government nor IT are alone in having this challenge with outsourcing. Based on an analysis of many large outsourced programmes, the top 10 ways to fail are identified. These provide a check-list for both programme managers and outsourcing organisations of their respective behaviours. These are contrasted with the behaviours of the Intelligent Client and a path for development of Intelligent Client practices is proposed.

Harvey is the author of a best selling management book and is actively engaged in a number of funded research projects and networks. He has developed courses and taught Programme and Project Management, Operations Management and Research Methods at University of Bath, Cardiff Business School, NIMBAS (Holland and Germany), Copenhagen Business School, Warwick Business School and Kasetsart University (Bangkok, Thailand).

Slides (2.1 Mb)

Thursday 21st May 2009

title :	Customer service oriented government: The challenge of public sector service transformation
speaker :	Alexis Cleveland, Director General, Transformational Government, and the Cabinet Office Management
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Transformational Government is uniquely positioned to deliver the capability for personalisation across public services by focusing on the citizen, joining up across delivery bodies, and enabling efficient handling of complex issues. Responsible for the Service Transformation Agreement, Alexis Cleveland will assess progress to date and the challenges that lie ahead for this ambitious agenda.

Alexis Cleveland was Chief Executive of The Pension Service, an agency of the Department for Work and Pensions, until August 2007.

Slides (2.4 Mb)
CPD Certificate

Thursday 16th April 2009

title :	Intelligent Fraud Detection: Neural Computing and Artificial Intelligence in the detection of payment fraud
speaker :	Nick F Ryman-Tubb, Honorary Visiting Research Fellow, City University
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

The Times headline reported in July 2008, "Huge rise in card fraud as criminals find rich pickings online", with over £535m being lost in the UK to criminals, often used to fund organised crime and terrorists. Clearly the tools already in place to tackle the problem are not keeping pace. Nick will describe a practical application of Neural Computing and Artificial Intelligence in the detection of such fraud. His project uses a pioneering approach to using "thinking computers" that adapt to the temporal nature of transactions.

Nick Ryman-Tubb has developed solutions for businesses using neural computers for almost 20-years. He founded and was CEO of the UK neural firm that now protects 1-in-7 of the world's mobile telephone subscribers from fraud. He is a well-known innovator, with successes such as the first neural computer to "taste champagne" and "sniff out explosives and drugs".


CPD Certificate

Thursday 19th March 2009

title :	Understanding the bigger picture of business and technology and what that means to you and technology
speaker :	Andy Mulholland, Global Chief Technology Officer, Capgemini
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Everyone knows that Web 2.0 is considered to be "the" technology game changer, but why and how can this affect Enterprises, and how do other popular new terms such as "Agile Enterprise", Enterprise 2.0, Business Technology and Mesh Collaboration connect with this? This will prove to be a thought provoking session that introduces many new ideas.

Andy is a leading thinker and practitioner helping clients realise the impact of new technologies on their business models and has published white papers.

Slides (8.2 Mb)
CPD Certificate

Monday 9th March 2009

title :	Search - the Science Making Tomorrow’s World
speaker :	Dr Andy McFarlane, Senior Lecturer, City University Professor Stephen Robertson, Senior Researcher, Microsoft Research Tamar Sadeh, Director of Marketing, Ex Libris Group Ian Rowlands, Reader, UCL Centre for Publishing
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

This is a joint Meeting with the Information Retrieval Specialist Group.

After five millennia, are traditional 'libraries' heading for the dusty storeroom as loose agglomerations of on-line knowledge are searched by increasingly sophisticated methods? As search takes on the editorial role, will it come to be the author?

In a session introduced by Dr Andy McFarlane, we ask:

What does the history, current science and practice of search tell us?

Professor Stephen Robertson will discuss the history of information retrieval and how we arrived at the current state of search technology.

Tamar Sadeh will discuss current searching practices in the high energy physics community.

We then start to look to the future, asking:

Just how different might the world be when the Google generation are running it?

Ian Rowlands will discuss evidence from his research of this demographic to round off the evening.

Dr Andy McFarlane is Senior Lecturer, Department of Information Science, City University. Andy is chair of the Information Retrieval Specialist Group and co-Director of the Centre for Interactive Systems Research, City University

Professor Stephen Robertson is now a senior researcher with Microsoft Research, Cambridge, but retains a part-time position in the Department of Information Science at City University, where he was full-time for many years.

Tamar Sadeh is Director of Marketing of Ex Libris Group, a leading provider of library automation solutions, and a Doctoral student at the Department of Information Science.

Ian Rowlands is a Reader in UCL Centre for Publishing, part of the Department of Information Studies at University College London.

There will be an opportunity for Questions after each section.

Tea and biscuits from 6pm for a 6:30pm start, with networking and refreshments from 8pm.


CPD Certificate

Thursday 19th February 2009

title :	The Power of Personal Information
speaker :	Tom Ilube, CEO, Garlik
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Who owns your personal information? Every time you buy something and register a new account with a company you lose control over private knowledge about you. Against a background of increasing concern about data protection and privacy, Tom will consider the options for putting control back into the hands of consumers, and the impact this will have.

Through his company, Garlik, Tom is pioneering a range of services to help give people real power over their personal information. Previously, Tom was Chief Information Officer of Egg plc, the innovative online bank. Tom's career spans 20 years with companies including Goldman Sachs, PwC and the London Stock Exchange.


CPD Certificate

Thursday 15th January 2009

title :	The Search for Shared Meaning: How Social Media Changes Everything
speaker :	Dave Briggs, Independent Consultant, Davepress.net
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Time: Coffee at 6:00pm with the talk commencing at 6:30pm, finishing around 8:00pm.

Blogs, online video, photo sharing and social networking are redefining the way that people interact with each other and with organisations. Understanding the implications of this is vital for any organisation which wishes to remain relevant in a Web 2.0 world. Dave will discuss how organisations can approach these new tools, and how such an approach should relate to existing strategies and communication plans.

Dave is the author of Dave Press, a blog about digital participation, and has been quoted in The Guardian about the issue of public servants blogging. He is an independent consultant, working mainly with government, helping civil servants communicate and collaborate online.


CPD Certificate

Tuesday 2nd December 2008

title :	Eight significant events in Computing (please register with Kingston & Croydon Branch)
speaker :	Dr William Olle, T. William Olle Associates
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Retired consultant Dr William Olle, will describe eight of the most important developments of the past 50 years of computing, ranging from the first programmable computer, the creation of memory and discs, through to the invention of the first personal computer in the '80s, and the explosive impact of the World Wide Web and Internet in the '90s.

Bill Olle entered the computing field in 1953 as a graduate student at Manchester University. In 1957, he moved to the Netherlands where he worked in computing for a NATO organization. In 1964, he moved to the USA where he was employed by Control Data and then by RCA. In 1972, after a year in Norway, he returned to the UK and established his international computing and lecturing practice. He retired in 1993. He has attended every IFIP congress and has previously been an invited speaker in Stockholm in 1967 and Canberra in 1996.

Please Register Here with the Kingston and Croydon Branch.

DO NOT USE THE REGISTRATION LINK BELOW.


CPD Certificate

Thursday 20th November 2008

title :	British Computer Society: adapting to our constantly changing world
speaker :	Ian Ryder, Director of Brand, Marketing and Professionalism & International, BCS
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Ian will examine the growing contribution of the BCS to public and private sector thinking on information technology issues, and the importance of the role of brand and reputation in achieving influence. He will outline his aspirations for the BCS and explain his confidence in its future.

Ian is a pioneering thinker, author and lecturer on the subjects of brand strategy, reputation and customer management. Before joining the BCS he was vice president, brand and communications EMEA for Unisys Corporation and director, global brand management for Hewlett Packard. Ian has held senior marketing roles in several major technology companies and has provided independent brand strategy advice to many other companies inside and outside the technology industry.


CPD Certificate

Thursday 16th October 2008

title :	User Centred Design: Delivering the Web Proposition
speaker :	Andrew Lamb, Service Design Manager, Directgov
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

How often have you found web applications that don’t deliver what you want or are so badly designed they’re frustrating to use? User centred design is the discipline used to discover a meaningful proposition and create a user experience that customers will thank you for. Andrew will describe current best practice and share his own successes and failures from nine years of pushing the boundaries.

Andrew is an e-business development specialist who has worked in every web discipline. Previous to his role at Directgov, he was accountable for the customer experience and delivery of NorwichUnion.com, RAC.co.uk and BSM.co.uk.

Slides (4.8 Mb)
CPD Certificate

Thursday 25th September 2008

title :	Avoiding the Trap of IT led business change - Benefits realisation in practice
speaker :	Gerald Bradley, Chairman, Sigma Consulting
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

In spite of all the statistics showing that IT-led business change invariably fails, many continue to fall into this seductive trap. Effective benefit realisation turns this around, starting with the desired outcomes and then exploring how to realise them. Having been refined and proven the over 22 years, the approach has become a de facto public sector standard, recommended as "best practice" by the Home Office and used as a basis for the benefits part of MSP.

Gerald is the author of "Benefits Realisation Management", a regular conference speaker and a leading expert in the field of benefits realisation.

Slides
CPD Certificate

Thursday 15th May 2008

title :	AGM, followed by: IT Strategy is Dead. Now What?
speaker :	Chris Potts - "The world's leading thinker on IT investments"
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Developments in IT have progressively killed-off the traditional IT Strategy (the latest being Web 2.0 and the bizarrely named "shadow IT").

A major paradigm shift is well and truly under way – shifting the strategic IT focus from technologies and the people who deliver them, to investments and the people that exploit them. Depending on your viewpoint, some strange things are happening. People increasingly have their own "de facto" strategies for investing in and exploiting IT, never mind the official strategy. Some companies are abandoning the CIO role, or a corporate strategy for IT, or both. IT departments are splitting up in various ways, either by design or accident.

In this provocative session, Chris will explain how the traditional IT Strategy died, and offer a paradigm for all of us caught up in the process to make sense of what is happening. He will explore the next-generation corporate strategies for IT, and how they impact investment planning, project execution and organisation design.

Chris has just returned home to the UK from a speaking tour of Australia and New Zealand, where he has been called "the world's leading thinker on IT investments". He is the author of the groundbreaking book "FruITion – Creating the Ultimate Corporate Strategy for Information Technology", which was published in the USA in February 2008.

Slides (1.1 Mb)
CPD Certificate

Thursday 17th April 2008

title :	Science and Engineering: a collusion of cultures
speaker :	Professor Sir Tony Hoare, Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research, Cambridge
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London (Joint event with Kingston and Croydon Branch)

Pure Science and practical Engineering lie at two ends of a wide cultural spectrum, diametrically opposed across many dimensions. In every branch of Engineering Science, the intellectual integrity of the discipline, as well as its practical utility, requires that these cultures must not collide. Rather, they must collude in the old etymological sense of playing fairly together. A particular example treated in this talk is the collusion of the Science of Programming with the Engineering of Software.

Tony Hoare has been working in computing since 1958. As a professor in Belfast and Oxford, his interests have included compilers, operating systems and unifying theories of programming languages. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Distinguished Fellow of the BCS.

Slides (64 Kb)
CPD Certificate

Wednesday 26th March 2008

title :	The Scientist, the Accountant, and the Boardroom
speaker :	Professor Clive Holtham, Information Management, Cass Business School, City University of London
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

With the CIO at the boardroom table, have we reached the end of the journey? Or is the information scientist about to grab the Finance Director's hand in a paradigm shift in strategic management? It took the intersection of information management and information technology to move IT from service provider to business enabler. Now the intersection with accountancy and general management beckons another step change in the intelligent exploitation of IT – is this a threat or opportunity for the IT profession?

Clive is Director of the IT Centre for Excellence (Virtual Work and Commerce), City University. He is a founding member of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists.


CPD Certificate

Tuesday 11th March 2008

title :	Surfing the edge of chaos: Use of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) for delivery of complex business change and partnership projects
speaker :	Dr Peter Parkes, Managing Director, Peak Performance Dr Mark Winter, Centre for Research in the Management of Projects, Manchester Business School
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Change Projects are inherently complex. Partnerships, and particularly Public Private Partnerships, are notoriously difficult to govern. Putting the two together has led to some major failures in Benefits Realisation. Peter and Mark will talk about practical application of soft systems methods to bid and deliver these challenging projects in complex environments.

Dr Peter Parkes chairs the London Branch of the APM and sits on the committee for the cross-body working group on governance of Project Management. He is an associate Programme Director with the government agency 4Ps (Programmes for Public Private Partnership).

Dr Mark Winter is a member of the Centre for Research in the Management of Projects at Manchester Business School. A strong exponent of the need to bring academia and industry closer together in project management, he recently headed the UK government-funded research programme, Rethinking Project Management, the biggest-ever review of its kind in the UK. He is also an experienced practitioner in the use of soft systems methodology (SSM) and obtained his PhD working with Professor Peter Checkland, the godfather of Soft Systems, at Lancaster University. He has worked with many organisations across different sectors including the Home Office, the Probation Service, Royal Liver Assurance, Tesco, Warburtons, Astra Zeneca, the Health and Safety Executive and the NHS. Project magazine named Mark one of the top ten PM experts in the UK last year.


CPD Certificate

Thursday 21st February 2008

title :	Agile Programme Management
speaker :	Jennifer Stapleton, Stapleton Business Solutions
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Jennifer will talk about how Programmes can be structured, governed and managed so that they can be as responsive to internal and external change as the business requires.

Jennifer has been cited by PMI as one of the world’s most influential women in project and Programme management for her work in the agile arena, particularly in DSDM. She was Technical Director of the DSDM Consortium for 11 years and is the author of “DSDM, Business Focused Development”.

Slides (119.1 Kb)
CPD Certificate

Thursday 24th January 2008

title :	Provoking Creativity: Imagine What Your Requirements Could be Like
speaker :	Neil Maiden, Professor of Systems Engineering and Head of the Centre for Human-Computer Interface Design Requirements, City University School of Informatics
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Specifying requirements is too often seen as a "stenographer's task". The requirements engineer passively listens and records while the stakeholders state their needs. However, this approach relies on stakeholders knowing what they need, and what they want. But people do not know what they want until they see it. Most useful products come not from stakeholders' imagination, but from an invention. Neil shows that requirements engineering should be a creative process and describes techniques to invent requirements based on results from current research.

Neil has directed inter-disciplinary research in requirements engineering for 15 years and is the Editor of the IEEE Software's Requirements column.

Slides (1.8 Mb)
CPD Certificate

Thursday 13th December 2007

title :	On Time and On Track: Technology in Formula One
speaker :	David France, IT Director, Honda Racing
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

David opens the door on the world of Formula One where technology and the team supporting it are often under extreme pressure. Formula One cars are raced all year all over the world creating intense demand for communications. Testing cars generates huge amounts of data for analysis. And all this is set against a demanding timetable of car development and racing where everything must be ready on the day.

David is an experienced IT Manager with a track record for managing IT organisations, directing projects and managing the relationship with outsource service providers.


CPD Certificate

Thursday 29th November 2007

title :	New Heights – Branch Visit to London Eye
speaker :
venue :	The London Eye

This is an opportunity to network with members and view the London skyline at night! Full details and tickets will be available for purchase on our website from mid October.

Thursday 15th November 2007

title :	Career Development III – How to get your next job in IT
speaker :	Ben Clark, Director FMC – Select Ben Lamb, Independent Software Developer
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

By now you probably know all the basics of how to get to the next step on your career plan, but do you know how to stand out from the crowd? This event promises more insights into the realities of career development. With interactive sessions and networking with members, this will be one you will not want to miss!

Ben Clark has been recruiting IT people for 7 years IT and is a specialist recruiter in Enterprise Architecture for clients in England and Australia. Ben Lamb is an independent software developer specialising in Microsoft’s .NET platform and Open Source.

Slides (55.3 Kb)
CPD Certificate

Thursday 18th October 2007

title :	China and India: threat or opportunity?
speaker :	Charles Chang, Director, Oaksmill Ltd
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

China and India: two massive Asian countries with very long histories. 200 years ago they dominated world trade, and with their current high economic growth are predicted to overtake most of the developed nations in as little as 15 years. Both countries have large, young populations, and a growing well-educated middle class with an appetite for better things. Two huge countries, two huge markets on the verge of becoming consumer economies. Charles’ talk will analyse the key factors of politics, economics, social change and technology; and for each of these draw out the implications for enterprises and for governments. If you are concerned about the future, this should be on your agenda.

Charles previously worked for Gartner and other research organisations and has been tracking India and China for many years. He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society and a Fellow of the Institute of Business Consultants.

Slides (99.2 Kb)
CPD Certificate

Thursday 20th September 2007

title :	But Doctor, I've STILL got a pain in the data flow...
speaker :	Brian Derry, Director of Informatics, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust Andrew Haw, Director of Information & Communications Technology, University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

The National Programme for IT promised to transform the NHS, both administratively and in terms of patient care. The promises seemed too good to be true: a magic pill in a couple of years. Now all we hear are massive slippages with little delivered against spiralling costs. But is this really the case? Where is the programme, our tax money, and some of our careers all heading? Brian Derry and Andrew Haw will give an NHS practitioners' view of the Programme in a joint presentation and debate.

Brian is Chair of ASSIST (Association for Informatics Professionals in Health and Social Care), and is a member of the BCS Health Informatics Forum strategic panel.

Andrew is Chair of the BCS-HIF Professional Development Board and immediate past Chair of ASSIST



CPD Certificate

Tuesday 26th June 2007

title :	The Challenges of Innovating with IT - Joint event with PA Consulting Group
speaker :	Professor Peter Cochrane, co-founder of ConceptLabs Carsten Sorenson, Senior Lecture at the London School of Economics David Elton, Head of IT Strategy Service at PA Claus Nehmzow, Head of Virtual World Services at PA
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

The British Computer Society London Central Branch has joined with PA Consulting Group to hold an IT forum on Tuesday 26th June 2007, as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations on the challenges of innovating with IT.

The event will begin at 6:30pm for welcome drinks with the presentations starting at 7:00pm, finishing at around 8:40pm. Food will be served throughout the evening.

This forum will explore the challenges and opportunities of innovating with IT from a number of different perspectives.

Professor Peter Cochrane, co-founder of ConceptLabs, will share his thoughts on the future of IT innovation in "Finding Not Filing and Computers That Think".

Carsten Sorenson, Senior Lecturer at the London School of Economics, and David Elton, Head of IT Strategy Service at PA, will talk about their new piece of research entitled "Collaborate and Control - the new challenge for senior executives innovating with IT".

Claus Nehmzow, Head of Virtual World Services at PA, will present an example of how a particular IT innovation - Second Life - is forcing us to adapt our methods of working for the future.

This event for BCS members and PA Consulting Group is free of charge.

Thursday 17th May 2007

title :	AGM, followed by: Leading Change Effectively
speaker :	Nick Fewings, Director, The Colour Works
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Nick is a leading expert in change management. Three of the top reasons cited in a survey completed by the National Audit Office and Office of Government Commerce for project/change failure relate to people. In this eye-opening, interactive and thought-provoking session Nick, whose company specialises in personal and team development using a colourful model of behaviours based on Jungian psychology, will help you find out:

• How your leadership style may impact on the changes you are implementing?
• Discover whether you have got the right skills in your team to compliment yours?
• How to satisfy the needs of those affected by the change?

Thursday 19th April 2007

title :	How Secure is Secure enough?
speaker :	Piers Wilson, Principal Consultant & Head of Technical Assurance, Insight Consulting, Siemens Enterprise Communications Limited
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Legal, regulation and statutory requirements today require organisations to show due care. How do organisations arrive at a defensible position?

Slides (894.9 Kb)

Thursday 22nd March 2007

title :	SCIENCE WEEK - Next Generation Web - There’s Something Happening Here That’s Bigger Than Any of Us
speaker :	Euan Semple was head of KM Solutions at the BBC and is now an independent consultant, well known for his Weblog "The Obvious?"
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

As the Web evolves from static web-sites to new ways of collaboration like blogs and wikis we are seeing a step change in the way new insights and profound levels of understanding emerge from knowledge sharing. Euan will examine the future that’s already happening and consider where it might all end up.

Thursday 15th March 2007

title :	Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) — a Checkpoint on National Implementations and on Firms' Readiness - Joint Meeting with BCS Financial Services Specialist Group
speaker :	Alan Jenkins, Bearing Point European lead for MiFID and co-Chair Cross Jurisdiction Subject Group within MiFID Joint Working Group
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Are you prepared for MiFID? This new European regulation, scheduled to go into effect in April 2007, will significantly alter financial services market structure in Europe and is perhaps the biggest challenge for the financial sector in the near future.

Thursday 15th February 2007

title :	A new ITIL for the Integration Age
speaker :	Aidan Lawes
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

For years a common theme for IT practitioners has been the need for business-IT alignment, without it ever seeming to be achieved. Maybe one of the reasons is because it is the wrong goal and we should be striving for integration, not alignment. As part of this refocus, more attention needs to be paid to the whole service life-cycle. This philosophy of integration and life-cycles underpins the recent overhaul of IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL). Aidan will describe the changes and the value to organisations from adopting or adapting to the new version which is scheduled for publishing in early 2007.

Slides (728 Kb)

Thursday 18th January 2007

title :	Managing the IT Supplier/ Government Interface, Joint meeting with BCSWomen
speaker :	Rebecca George
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Rebecca George has worked with the Public Sector for 5 years, initially managing the relationship between IBM and the Government, then taking on business development and sales management roles. She has recently been involved in business development for shared services in the Public Sector.

Rebecca is interested in the interactions between private and public sectors, through procurement and also through delivery. She has been involved in some of the projects the IT suppliers have initiated to improve the way the Public Sector perceives them, for example the Supplier Code of Best Practice and IT Professionalism. Rebecca will talk about the relationship of IT suppliers and the government - context, constraints, initiatives, and progress.

Slides (1 Mb)

Thursday 16th November 2006

title :	How do I know who you are? - Identity Management in the Public Sector
speaker :	Simon Davies, Visiting Fellow, Information Systems Department of the LSE
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Simon Davies is Mentor to the LSE's Identity Project. Now that the Identity Cards Act 2006 has been passed and the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) formed as an Executive Agency of the Home Office, Identity Management in the UK is going to be transformed into something more powerful and more integrated. Our two speakers consider not just the challenges of implementing the biometric technologies to register and verify identity, but also the benefits to the public and their concerns.

Wednesday 8th November 2006

title :	Transforming IT in BT, Joint Meeting with Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET)
speaker :	Clive Selley, CIO, BT Wholesale
venue :	IET, Savoy Place, London WC2R

Please register in advance with the IET.

BT is breaking new ground in the telecommunications industry with its ambitious 21st Century Network (21CN) initiative. This all digital, IP-based network is at the heart of BT's strategy to transform itself from a sleepy local telephone service provider into a global leader in converged communications services. To deliver the systems, platforms and services that will make 21CN a reality, BT Exact, BT's IT operations business, has had to rethink the entire concept of IT. Clive will describe this new approach.

Thursday 19th October 2006

title :	Career Development II - How to get ahead in IT
speaker :	Sam Gordon, Principal Consultant, Harvey Nash
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

Sam Gordon is a Principal Consultant with Harvey Nash, a Global Executive Search Firm with over 30 offices spread across Europe, US and Asia. Sam has worked within the recruitment industry for 9 years placing senior business - facing technology professionals within large Blue Chip organisations and leading consultancies.

Within this open forum, Sam will present practical tips on how best to market and communicate your skills, progression in your career and how to enter the contract market successfully.

Thursday 21st September 2006

title :	Game, Set and Match - Information Systems Architecture for the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. Joint Meeting with the AEA (Association of Enterprise Architects)
speaker :	Bill Jinks - Executive IT Architect, IBM
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street, London

For two weeks every year, Wimbledon requires an infrastructure capable of supporting half a million spectators, half a billion TV viewers, 5 million unique visitors to its web-site and the requirements of the world's media. This unique capability is provided by IBM, who work with Wimbledon throughout the year to drive the business and IT strategy, and provide the technical infrastructure that supports the tournament. Bill Jinks, the lead technical architect, will describe how IT is used to transform the way the club and tournament operate and deliver improvements year-on-year.

Thursday 18th May 2006

title :	AGM And Mobile Technology Update
speaker :	Arnon Meshoulam, Intel Solution Services
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street

Arnon will describe how communications and networking technologies are evolving, both on convergent and conflicting paths, and the implications for mobility users, both personal and business.

Arnon is a Senior Consultant at Intel Solution Services specializing in enterprise mobility, mobile workforces and business transformation. He has been with Intel for 12 years in various roles, including IT management, engineering and services role. Intel® Solution Services is Intel Corporation's professional services organization focused on driving business transformation and competitive advantage to companies through the practical application of new technologies.

Thursday 20th April 2006

title :	Exploring Current Techniques In Combating E-Crime
speaker :	Chris Simpson, Metropolitan Police Computer Crime Unit; Howard Lamb, NHTCU; Gavin Butler, University of Westminster
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street

The evening will look at three areas

o Profiling e-criminals
o Combating national and transnational serious and organised hi-tech crime
o Avenues that are open in London for dealing with computer crime and internet-related crime and to provide advice to individuals and companies in handling e-crime.

Thursday 23rd March 2006

title :	Career Development - It's Not A Lottery
speaker :	Mary Clarkson, Author "Developing IT Staff – a practical approach" Michael Wilson, Professional Development Manager at BCS Sam Gordon, Principal Consultant, Harvey Nash
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street

Mary Clarkson’s book "Developing IT Staff – a practical approach" was published in 2001, based on seven years’ experience designing training programmes for large and small teams. She currently works for Xansa, a leading technology and consultancy company. Mary is active in the BCS, as chairman of Leicester Branch and a member of Branches Management Committee.

What springs to mind when you hear the phrase "career development"? Does it turn you off or are you excited by it? Do you understand what goes into career development? How do you find the next job? Mary Clarkson brings career development to life, explaining what career planning is all about and how to decide what to aim for next. She also explains how to work out your own training needs and develop your skills. She shares her thoughts on writing a compelling CV. It’s your career – invest some time in it!

Michael Wilson will show you how you can you use Career Builder to enhance your career.

Sam Gordon is with Harvey Nash, a Global Executive Search Firm with over 30 offices spread across Europe, US and Asia. Sam has worked within the recruitment industry for 9 years placing senior business-facing technology professionals within large Blue Chips organisations and leading consultancies.

This presentation will focus on practical advice and guidance to help you navigate the recruitment market. Topics covered will include:

1. How to approach your job search
2. How to present your details – including CV composition
3. The best ways to sell yourself to a job
4. Negotiation of contract
5. Building relationships with recruiters to help further your career

The presentation will offer advice that can not only be applied immediately but will also stand you in good stead throughout your career.


Slides (11.9 Kb)

Thursday 16th March 2006

title :	Conscious Machines?
speaker :	Prof. Igor Aleksander FREng, Imperial College London
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street

The lecture will review world effort in the use of computer modelling to understand what it is to be conscious. It will then concentrate on a set of 5 axioms that appear to be essential in capturing particularly the vivid experience of being conscious (qualia and phenomenology in philosophical jargon) and some implementations of this theory. Where next?

Slides (11.4 Mb)

Thursday 16th February 2006

title :	Operational Risk Management And Business Continuity At MORI
speaker :	Ian Barker, Ipsos MORI Compliance and Information Security Officer
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street

MORI is one of Britain's fastest growing market and public opinion research agencies. This presentation will include a review of MORI's business continuity provisions and a look at how these fits with normal business demands. We will also hear about MORI's work during elections and the special plans that are needed to ensure that all goes right on the night. Finally the added dimension of terrorism, how this has prompted a review of business continuity plans, and how MORI has responded.

Slides (72.9 Kb)

Thursday 19th January 2006

title :	IT Law Update - Joint Meeting With BCS Women's Group
speaker :	Rachel Burnett, Vice President (Forums) of the BCS
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street

Rachel Burnett is a solicitor with her own law practice focused on the IT industry. She is author of Outsourcing IT - the Legal Aspects, and co-author of Drafting and Negotiating Computer Contracts, recently published in its 2nd edition. She is editor of the IT Law Guides series published for the Institute of Chartered Accountants on a variety of legal topics. Rachel will give an update on current developments affecting your work as IT professionals: including copyright and database rights, e-commerce, IT contracts, privacy and data protection. She will suggest some practical ways of keeping on the right side of IT law.

Slides (49 Kb)

Thursday 17th November 2005

title :	How Secure Are Your Systems? Understanding Internet Threats
speaker :	Russ George, International Information Security Consultant, CISSP, BS7799 Lead Auditor Roger Cumming, Director of the National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Centre (NISCC)
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street

This evening event looks to explore the current and emerging threats to business and home users alike and will look at real life attacks (including a live Demonstration), and how to best arm yourself and your organisation in protecting your information, be it your corporate image and competitive edge or your personal information; The event will help you to make the best use of Government services in this area, which have been designed to support you by arming you with the knowledge and information you need to help you in protecting your information assets.

Thursday 27th October 2005

title :	Computer Animation - Dr Who And The Advance Of The Software
speaker :	Dave Throssell of The Mill, a world leading visual effects company based in Soho and New York. Among many award winning projects, MillTV are responsible for the Doctor Who special effects
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street

Computer animation moves forward at a phenomenal pace, the creative processes enriched by continuing advances in software. Seen vividly in film and TV work, with the latest Doctor Who series contrasting so strikingly with both earlier series and programmes of just a few years ago. Our talk today will look at how some of the recent developments in software have enabled the creative advances, and the challenges in producing and supporting the software and infrastructures that make it all possible.

Thursday 15th September 2005

title :	Business Process Management: The Third Wave
speaker :	Howard Smith, co-chair BPMI.org, CTO Computer Sciences Corporation Europe and author of the business best sellers, Business Process Management: The Third Wave, and IT Doesn't Matter: Business Processes Do
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street

While the vision of process management is not new, existing theories and systems have not been able to cope with the reality of business processes - until now. By placing business processes on centre stage, corporations can gain the capabilities they need to innovate, reenergize performance and deliver the value today’s markets demand. This talk will describe a breakthrough in process technologies that obliterates the business-IT divide, transforms today’s information systems and reduces the lag between management intent and execution.

Slides (7.2 Mb)

Thursday 19th May 2005

title :	AGM and The Wireless City
speaker :	Simon Norbury, Head of IT, Westminster City Council
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street

Wireless technology opens up many new opportunities. There are already more than 30,000 wireless access points to the internet (hotspots) worldwide and this is expected to grow to 1.5 million by 2006. Westminster City Council is using portable wireless-enabled CCTV cameras as part of a 'zero tolerance' crackdown on criminal behaviour. This forms a key part of the council's 'Wireless City' project, which plans to create hotspots across Westminster to be used by trading standards and planning departments and to offer e-learning opportunities by 17th February 2005.

Slides (4.6 Mb)

Thursday 21st April 2005

title :	Chemistry with Computers, not Chemicals
speaker :	Dr Patricia Hunt, Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street

Photochemical reactions are reactions initiated by light. They are not only fundamental to many biological systems, such as photosynthesis and vision, but also form the basis of new optical technologies. Patricia will talk about the vital role that computational models play in enabling chemists to understand this exciting and rapidly developing area. These insights are crucial to developing solutions for a very broad range of problems, examples include looking at ways to block UV radiation, making new light based sensor devices and improving solar cells.

Thursday 17th March 2005

title :	THIS TALK HAS BEEN CANCELLED OWING TO ILLNESS
speaker :
venue :

Thursday 17th February 2005

title :	Computing on Demand in action
speaker :	Phil Vaughan, Vice President, American Express Mark Lamb, Vice President of Technology, Star
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street

The idea of on demand or utility computing has spurred all large technology suppliers to action. IBM, Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard are all working to increase the automation of their products so that a collection of servers, storage and networking gear will automatically reconfigure themselves to adjust to changing workloads or equipment failure. Much of the technology is now in place but there is still work to be done to make this a viable business proposition. We will be hearing from companies who have implemented computing on demand.

Thursday 20th January 2005

title :	Students/Young Professionals - What do you get out of the YPG BCS London Branch. What services would you like us to provide?
speaker :	Discussion forum
venue :	BCS, Southampton Street

This event is for students, young professionals and other members to network, ask questions and also provide feedback on how we can improve the services we provide for younger members. The evening will be an open forum which will include an opportunity to meet representatives from specialist groups, receive career tips and advice on how to build your career, ask questions and provide valuable feedback to the branch. Hospitality will be provided and will include food and drinks. Numbers dependent, we may continue the networking onto a bar/pub.

Thursday 18th November 2004

title :	RFID - Dispatch from the Front Line?
speaker :	James Stafford, Head of RFID, Marks and Spencer
venue :	IEE, Savoy Place

All the big retailers are in the vanguard of the quest for real time information systems as a way to manage the supply chain efficiently and reduce the amount of goods they 'lose', and Marks and Spencer is no different. Together with other rapidly developing technologies such as logistics planning and process management, they want to use Radio Frequency Identity Tags (RFID) to track objects individually from suppliers through transport, warehouses to the store and shelves. James will describe the Marks and Spencer experience as an early adopter and what they have learned.

Slides (4.3 Mb)

Thursday 28th October 2004

title :	Managing Programmes in the Public Eye
speaker :	Chris Loughran, Technology Integration Practice Leader, Deloitte John Wailing, Technical Director, Criminal Justice IT
venue :	IEE, Savoy Place

Government IT programmes are amongst the most complex and demanding. Success may pass unnoticed but failure can be all too public - remember the long queues at Passport Offices and the delayed tax credit payments? These programmes affect the lives of many UK citizens and place special demands on the IT professionals that manage them. Our speakers will draw on their experiences working on major government programmes to share lessons they have learnt that are relevant to all project managers.

Slides (1.4 Mb)

Thursday 16th September 2004

title :	Harnessing Open Source - "tool-kits for process improvement"
speaker :	Dean Margerison, Independent IT consultant
venue :	IEE, Savoy Place

The acceptance of open source within the IT community has come a long way in the last few years. Moving from a little understood developer lead movement, to the phenomenon we see today, that has the largest of companies sitting up and taking notice. In this talk we cover the basics of what Open Source is and how it can be harnessed by small and large organisations alike. We will then move to a live demonstration of some of the tools developed by the Open Source community that can provide us with a well-needed boost to our ability to manage and deliver projects.

Slides

Thursday 20th May 2004

title :	AGM at 6pm, followed by: A Better Shopping Experience?
speaker :	John Clarke, Director of Group Technical Architecture, Tesco
venue :	IEE, Savoy Place

Those in IT are often best positioned to bring innovation to a business, while simultaneously ensuring technology architecture is aligned with business strategy. John explains how the challenge is met in the fast moving world of a leading supermarket chain.

Thursday 22nd April 2004

title :	Biometrics - Who are you and how do I know?
speaker :	Mike Fairhurst, University of Kent
venue :	IEE, Savoy Place

Spurred by increasing action against terrorism and fraud, biometric identification technologies have matured rapidly. So why aren't you staring into the ATM to get your iris scanned or talking to your front door? As ever the need for standards, infrastructure, people and politics are proving hard to resolve. Mike will give us a quick tour of the history of biometrics, a review of their practical use and offer a view of where and when we will see their exploitation.

Thursday 18th March 2004

title :	Utility Computing - IT services on demand
speaker :	Nigel Edwards, Security Architect, Hewlett Packard Research Laboratories
venue :	IEE, Savoy Place

All the world's major IT suppliers are racing to develop compelling strategies for utility computing - IT services available on demand, pay-as-you-go, without the need to purchase and operate infrastructure that has inbuilt spare capacity. Companies like IBM and HP are forecasting fundamental changes in the way in which IT infrastructure services are delivered in the next 10 years and both organizations are making substantial investments in the technology and business model. Hear about the latest developments in utility computing.

Slides (2.5 Mb)

Thursday 12th February 2004

title :	Foundations of Genetic Programming
speaker :	Dr. W. B. Langdon, UCL
venue :	IEE, Savoy Place

Genetic programming is a new form of artificial intelligence technique that uses heuristic search to evolve new programs automatically. Dr Bill Langdon will describe some applications, particularly in drug discovery, where Genetic Programming found simple models of chemical interaction for drug screening.

Slides (142.3 Kb)

Thursday 15th January 2004

title :	Quantum Computing Realities
speaker :	Qubit, Oxford University
venue :	IEE, Savoy Place

The discovery that quantum physics allows fundamentally new modes of information processing has required the existing theories of computation, information and cryptography to be superseded. With significant progress being made in the practical use of Quantum Computing for securing communications with advanced cryptography, we look at the future of this astonishing technology and the challenges to be overcome.

Thursday 27th November 2003

title :	Is Your Big Change Programme Going to Deliver?
speaker :	Tim O'Leary, French Thornton Partnership
venue :	IEE, Savoy Place

Most organisations still have a poor track record of delivery of major IT-intensive change. Yet there is plenty of advice and methodology about and there has been for years. And even when we do it 'by the book', success is very far from guaranteed. Tim will offer insights into the fundamentals of programme success that you need to see in place to assure successful delivery.

Slides (165.9 Kb)

Thursday 16th October 2003

title :	The Impact of Offshore Outsourcing on the UK's IT Profession
speaker :	Elizabeth Sparrow, Author, 'Successful IT Outsourcing'
venue :	IEE, Savoy Place

Offshore outsourcing is one of the few growth areas in the current economic environment. Ovum Holway has estimated that up to 25,000 jobs in the UK software and services industry will be lost over the next four years as a result of work moving offshore. The financial case is stark - companies report savings of 30% to 50% when IT operations are outsourced offshore. Service providers such as IBM, CSC and EDS are all expanding their offshore operations. What does this mean for the future of the IT profession in the UK? Join in the debate as we look at the impact of this trend.

Slides (5.2 Mb)

Thursday 18th September 2003

title :	Email Spam - a problem for the diplomats
speaker :	Richard Clayton, University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory
venue :	IEE, Savoy Place

Many clever programmers claim to have solved the spam problem, while others look to policemen to lock up the bad guys. However, diplomats who must negotiate an international approach to a global problem will do the key work.

Slides