"Show and Tell" for those of you who have not attended class 5c of a primary school in the last 20 years and whose senior moments are becoming an everyday occurrence, is the opportunity that a seven year old has to "Show" a special item to the rest of the class and "Tell" them a story of particular interest.  Usually, the more extraordinary the item and far-fetched the story, the more interest will be shown and questions asked to check out if Oscar is telling another porky pie!

My son was in tears and agony earlier this year when stung by a jelly fish on the ankle in Sardinia.  But a week later he was as proud as can be when he rolled up his trouser leg and proudly displayed his purple and yellow scar to rest of the class and declared that he had been stung by a jelly fish.

OK, so I hear all the moans in the background "where is this going", but bear with me this is my first blog and all the children in his class thought it was a really cool story.

Insiders vs outsiders

If you will, consider all the children to be insiders (inside the school) and all the staff to be outsiders (grown-ups).  Exclamations of "No way!", "Did it hurt?", "What did you do?" and "Will the skin grow back?" were coming from the insiders.  However, the outsiders had experience and evaluated the story based on many more years in the real world, quickly recognising the story to be true and that the scar would heal.  The lesson that I took from this, was that if you want someone to quickly and confidently tell you if a story is true and the expected outcome, ask a grown-up - ask an outsider.

I am also used to listening to stories: "The programme is on track."  "It is worth spending £3m because of the benefits it will deliver."  "Yes, we are confident that all the software will be delivered as designed".  But who should I choose to provide me with the Programme Assurance that I need to make sure that I will achieve my desired outcomes?

Let me start this by saying "People are lazy, unless they are doing something wrong, then they are inventive, resourceful and dogged!", but more of that later.

The iPhone is possibly one of the most iconic mobile devices of the decade, but while it is an object of desire which has set the mobile phone market alight, it is not the phone on its own which has made it such a success.

Yes it is beautiful, ergonomic and performs with the kind of calm aplomb that we now expect from the wizards in California. The always-on internet access was no more than the next step and just as obvious. The radical, "blow me away", killer feature is the App. Store. The reason why you want to be always connected is the ability to easily grab an application when you need it and pay for it then and there!

The economic benefits of supplying software in this way for a large enterprise or government are obvious.

Your people have easy, "Self Service" access to approved applications and the purchase and licensing can all be handled automatically. Your staff can become more productive. Yes, you can get that drawing package onto your computer when you suddenly realise you need it at 2am. The cost of supplying that service is reduced as you no longer need 24/7 support staff to perform this function, you no longer have the worry of unlicensed software or worse, something downloaded and unapproved, and best of all you reduce your upfront costs. You no longer have to roll everything out to everyone, just in case. You only pay for what you use, when your people need it, without the complications of per second billing associated with software as a service.

So it all sounds like a fantastic idea and indeed the US Government are busily rolling out their own App. Store for their departments, but what has this got to do with IT security?

Ironically it is the Apple approval process through which all software must pass before it is allowed onto the App. Store that comes under fire the most. This aspect of the Jobsian App. Store is simply an extension to the Apple philosophy, insisting that every piece of software on an Apple must run perfectly and play nice with every other piece of software.

Is your IT pro-actively evolving, using radical evolution, or are you simply defensively recreating through the selfish gene? In talking to a project sponsor on an assignment to identify what he really wanted delivering, his response was a "radical evolutionary approach" to solving his problem. A bit of a conundrum best interpreted as low risk, minimum pain and maximum gain - a civil servant's view and one that everyone aspires to - a quiet but successful life. Making change can be painful and as with biological evolution difficult to achieve. Evolution is described as "gradual accumulation of change in the...

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Which baddies are the most innovative - Godzilla, Daleks or the Borg? In the recent Star Trek film, there was lots of early adoption of new technology - and it all worked. A fresh faced Scotty was able to beam someone between two moving ships, Spock travelled back in time to meet himself and the Romulans were able to destroy Vulcan by drilling down into its core. No need for a death star. Meanwhile in the real world, our competitors seem more and more innovative. They respond to a new initiative almost before we have time to think. Isn't this...

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Its time to look again at your partner relationships. Not so many years ago, the scope of a CIOs responsibility was limited to activities that directly influenced the IT department, such as the definition and maintenance of the IT organisation, the associated IT management structure, management of the IT staff and management of the IT infrastructure. ...and then the world changed ! Accelerated change became the norm as organisations battled with challenges arising from globalisation, new technologies, increased customer demands, increased competition, new legislation and environmental issues. These complex business drivers created new challenges for CIOs in the form of...

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John is a Principal Consultant in the Atos Origin UK Business Consulting business.   He has been around applications development, project & programme management and IS/IT consulting for the best part of 30 years, spanning technologies from paper tape and punched cards to Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing. He has worked mostly in the UK in the central government, health, energy, transport and utilities sectors, although he has also had IT roles in Denmark, Poland, Germany and France. John recently finished an M.Sc. degree in Computing with the Open University to refresh his technical knowledge, which was all done in his spare time. He is a qualified microlight, light aircraft and glider pilot, and he has climbed all of the several hundred Munros - Scottish mountains over 3,000 ft.