If you’ve got a VHS tape that you can’t play, or a floppy disc that you can’t read – you’ve officially entered the digital dark ages.  Remember WordStar for word processing in the 1980’s?  Many of us remember using WordPerfect and Lotus 123.  But do you have these applications in your work place now? Information stored in these formats can no longer be accessed (or at least, with much difficulty) and because of this is now lost. Are there any guarantees that Microsoft Word or cloud based software will be “readable” in 50 years’ time or will the file formats be obsolete?

The “digital dark ages” is a trendy term that draws a parallel between the lack of written literature and contemporary writing in the early Middle Ages, after the fall of the Roman Empire around the 5^th and 6^th centuries, and the precariousness of digital information in the 21^st century.

It’s such a worrying situation that Vint Cerf (Father of the Internet and Google Vice President) has begun warning businesses to protect themselves against it.

Cerf says that if we don’t find a solution, our 21^st century will be an information “black hole” for future generations.

Wanganui District Council is aware of the issue and has specialist staff already addressing how we store and archive important information.

The problem is that anything on computers – photos, documents, presentations, software, video games- is all just data. People look at photos and don’t realise that without the software to decode it- those images don’t exist. As technology advances various methods of accessing data may be lost.

In the age of the Internet, Facebook and other social media- it’s hard to imagine that future generations may not be able to access data about us, and – like the Middle Ages – they may not know much about us.

For businesses and councils, where some information needs to stored and be able to be accessed forever, it’s a worrying thought that in 50 years’ time, we can’t access anything we’re storing today. But is it a real problem or just digital doom and gloom?

Next week – Is the digital dark ages real and is there a solution?

Remember when phone banking was introduced? That project would have taken banks years to implement – from the project delivery, through to setting up call centres, infrastructure, training the public on how to use the system, and creating the software to allow it to happen.

Now information technology projects are expected to take months – to create and deliver.

Globally, there is a trend for a shorter delivery time, to the point where customers are given a solution to a problem that they did not know existed.

How do information technologists strategise for this high level of customer expectation? By being smart about what platforms and systems to have in place.

An example at Wanganui District Council is in the way we provide customer information. There are legislative requirements for providing information, and it can be work-intensive to find the information and make it available.

But by implementing cross-platform searching for information, we can get it faster and more reliably to the customer. And we want to work to a point whereby customers can access public information easily online.

The less time staff have to put towards searching for information, the more time can be spent on other areas of service delivery, making the business smarter and more efficient.

GETTING support for information technology change in a bureaucratic risk-averse environment is, perhaps, one of the biggest challenges IT managers face.

The speed at which IT is moving and changing direction requires businesses and IT systems to be agile and responsive – two words that do not spring to mind when I think about bureaucracy.

So what’s the answer? How do IT managers overcome the red tape and manage a risk-averse leadership team?

My advice is to invest wisely in your initial platforms – choose IT platforms which you can build on in stages. If you’ve made the initial investment with development in mind, you only need to make incremental investments to bring about massive change. Incremental change reduces the likelihood of barriers and roadblocks from staff who don’t see the need to invest a large amount of money in IT systems.

Choose your pilot department carefully – preferably one that has raised a specific problem and will embrace any IT solution you put in place and so champion your new software.

Finally, create an environment where it is okay to fail. If change is small, then the amount of time and money invested will also be small if the pilot fails or does not live up to expectations.

It also helps to know the lay of the landscape and use it to your advantage. By that, I mean IT managers should understand the political and cultural environment in which they work.

In a risk-averse environment, finding individual drivers can help your team implement change. Ask yourself what the IT changes mean to productivity and culture. Wanganui District Council has mobilised its workforce with new technology that allows frontline staff to work from the field more effectively. Staff need different tools to get the job done, and IT managers need to listen to their concerns and needs.

The IT requirements for staff in the art gallery are quite different from parks staff or those in customer services.

It is all about evaluating staff needs, and listening carefully while being aware there are handbrakes out there that just don’t like any change. The politically savvy IT manager needs to determine which concerns are legitimate and which can be managed.

-Wanganui District Council information technology manager Jason Simons has worked around the world delivering IT solutions, including providing encrypted systems for governments, banks and corporates.

Wanganui District Council was one of the first councils in New Zealand to introduce Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) into the workforce– something my Information Services team and myself are really proud of.

For a small council we’re really going places. If your business doesn’t have BYOD – not only are you opening your business to security breaches, you’re probably not getting the best out of your staff.

BYOD allows staff and contractors to connect their own devices into the network safely and work remotely and independently in the field. We’ve had excellent take up of mobility with more than 70% of our staff using mobile working.

With secure mobile solutions, staff can gain access to important information in the field, and record data straight into the network. So who better to pilot the scheme that our front line staff in parks and reserves?

Frontline staff include animal control officers, building inspectors, road engineers, environmental health officers and parking officers. They can now work more efficiently in the field and access data and information that may affect how they carry that job out. For managers, productivity has increased and with data being entered on the spot, there is less chance of error.

For the techies – the software we used was highly secure enterprise-grade mobility tools, Citrix ShareFile and Citrix Workspace Suite, deployed by Spark Digital.

Just about every new staff member and contractor will have their own smartphone or tablet. The question for an organisation is whether you allow staff and contractors to use their own smartphones or whether you require them to use “work devices” only. With regard to contractors – this simply isn’t practical.

The issue is – do you allow unfettered access by allowing anybody and any device access to your network? Of course not – as this will expose your organisation to a serious threat – but it happens frequently in many organisations.

Android devices can run java script (a web based programming language) that can seriously compromise your environment by allowing other code to execute on the device. The code can do good things, but it can also do bad things.

One of the reason why Wanganui District Council uses ipads and iphones instead of android devices, is the inherent security, thereby limiting the threat to the organisation.

With BYOD, staff and contractors download software onto their personal device that allows them to access the network systems in a safe and secure environment, and without compromising the security of our information.