Unfortunately I missed the Kaltura Education Video Summit virtual event a few weeks back due to other commitments, but after a friendly email inviting me in I decided to take a look at what was still available.

The home screen with embedded video and virtual hostess

The first annual Kaltura Education Video Summit has been billed as the most comprehensive conference dedicated to online video in education, learning, and training. It looked at ways to harness video to improve teaching, learning and training and offered those attending the opportunity to network with the world’s leading education video experts, connect with peers from leading educational institutions and enterprises around the world.

Kultura teamed up with InterCall, industry leaders in virtual environments and webcasting, to provide a really innovative virtual event.

The conference is structured round the main hall (home area), which offers links to all the talks, resources and sponsors.

Virtual exhibition hall

You can take a tour around or create a virtual agenda, which will help point you in the direction of interesting sessions.

Blackboards’s interactive Booth

This year’s summit had 3 different tracks:

• The Future of Education
• Video in Education
• Enterprise Learning, Training and collaboration

Sharon Flynn, Assistant Director, CELT at NUI Galway, presenting

Each offered interesting presentations on high-level areas such as open and online education, alongside practical talks on areas such as discussion in the classroom, MOOCs and use of YouTube. Some of the talks are more traditional presentations while others are panel sessions and discussions. As well as attending talks you can take a look around the virtual exhibition hall or sit and have a chat with fellow delegates in the networking lounge. You can then pop all the resources and business cards your collect in to your virtual brief case. And of course everything can be shared via Facebook, Twitter or email. You can even upload your own resources and share these with delegates that you meet.

Networking Lounge

All pretty impressive stuff! Surprisingly next year’s video summit will be a physical event!

Blimey, is it that time of year again?

Here’s my annual festive photo of my children – if you look back over the years you can see them growing up. It won’t be too long before they refuse to be in photos and have pretty good Internet skills, so demand I take all the photos down that I’ve put up!

It’s been an interesting year. My current job is significantly different to the one I had before so there’s been a steep learning curve, a lot of travelling and basically a lot to do. That’s OK, I like being busy. Next year is likely to be a pretty big one for me. Firstly, I have significant birthday coming up (no guesses please!) and on top of that my working world is likely to change quite a bit. I’ll try to keep you posted. It’s all about moving (or stumbling) forward. As Theodore Roosevelt said:

“The best thing you can do is the right thing; the next best thing you can do is the wrong thing; the worst thing you can do is nothing.”

Have a great holiday and all the best for 2013.

Scoop.it! allows you to create online magazines on a chosen subject at the click of a button. The freemium option allows to select up to 5 topics, curate resources from various sources and edit the output. You can also export and share your published magazine on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Tumblr and WordPress. If you are willing to pay you can select more topics, use different accounts and track the results.

I haven’t created any scoops yet but I really like the one created by Nader Ale Ebrahim on Virtual R&D Teams. Lots of great articles and links.

Happy scooping and all the best for 2013!

I’ve just returned from a snowy Amsterdam where I attended and presented at the International Digital Curation Conference. Although a former colleague of mine (Ed Bremner) was there to take photos and record the plenary speakers he was unable to clone himself, so I helped video some of the parallel talks using a Flip camera. On the day I battled with the Flip battery life and storage space – Flips only have a 100 minutes of space and need frequent recharging – but I managed to record 12 videos. The videos vary in size but most are around 1 GB.

Since then I have battled with uploading the files to somewhere Kirsty Pitkin (event amplifier) can access them – she is going to edit the files. The place could be public but mustn’t be advertised – so YouTube and similar video sharing sites are out.

So I’m sat at the end of a snow-covered home broadband line with speed restrictions and file upload limits. The whole thing has been a painful process and I think I’ve been going about it all wrong. I am having my own big data problem – ironic in that I advise people on research data management! I’m sure there must be an easier way…any ideas please say!!

The approaches I’ve tried/considered so far are:

• Emailing files was impossible as they are just too big.

• Uploading the files to my public area in Dropbox – this seems to be the most successful approach but is very slow and storage is limited by having a free account. Some files are too big to upload via the Web site so have had to be added using the file system.

• Uploading the files to a public area of my personal work server. This approach requires VPN and breaks in my connection mean I have sent back to square one a few times.

• Putting the files onto memory sticks or a disc and posting it – I didn’t try this as I was hoping using an online approach would be quicker – I may have been wrong, crawling round to Kirsty’s house on my hands and knees may be quicker.

• Uploading files to Microsoft Skydrive or Google Drive – again some files are too big and I was reluctant to try another approach when Dropbox seemed to be working. Each time I try something different I’m guessing it just puts a little more strain on the upload pipe?

• Uploading the files to BitTorrent or other filesharing services might be one way to do it, but they can be a bit dodgy.

• Whatever happened to FTP?!

As I write I have now uploaded 9 of the 12 videos, I’m hoping the others will be in the right place by this time next year… ☹

Most of us who have a partner would probably have to admit that they get on our nerves (at least) some of the time. So imagine working in the same house as them, or even in the same room as them! More people are starting to work from home and there is an increasing number of families where both partners work from home in some capacity. Sounds like fun doesn’t it!

For some reason the topic recently came up on my Twitter stream. Quite a few of my Twitterati explained that they and their partner both work from home and that relatively little has been written about it so far.

So how do they make it work? Having a good working environment is important.

Are they sat in the same room or are they lucky enough to have the luxury of a room each?

I had a taste of working in this way back in 2011 when my husband was made redundant. We made sure we sat in different rooms, but I did find that we settled into traditional roles a little too easily…I ended up cooking lunch and did most of the tea and coffee making. Maybe I just drink more tea?!

But tea and coffee seems to be central to the discussion…

So what about if you have no-one to share your remote working space – do you feel left out?

I’m just hoping someone is going to write me a guest blog post about it all…

iHubbub have written a post entitled Home Working With Your Partner that looks at some of these issues in more depth.

Last week I attended one day of Bett 2013, an event looking at technology for education and lifelong learning. The event comprised of 3 ‘summits’: School Leaders, Technology in Higher Education and Learning At Work; a very large exhibition and several arenas hosting training sessions. It was one of the biggest events I’ve been to in a while, most others seem to have downsized while Bett is expanding – this year it moved into the Excel London. The immenseness of the event did seem to be at times one of its downfalls as Bett attempted to be all things to all people…

Meredith Henson speaking on open-source learning at Technology in Higher Education Summit

I was actually there to present on Improving access to research data: what does changing legislation mean for you? as part of the Technology in Higher Education Summit. My slides are available from Slideshare and there should be a video online at some point. I spent most of my time at Bett attending sessions in the HE summit. The key themes I picked up on were internationalisation, personalization and managing expectations (what do students expect from an institution when they become a student there? A free iphone, a free ipad, or a just to get a job when they finish?).

The lego robot

On the whole the summit struck me as badly put together: talks were rarely grouped around themes, sessions seemed a little behind the times (apparently students access university web sites using their mobiles..), talks were too short and many big technology trends seemed to be mentioned only briefly (relatively little on data experiments, data mining, linked data, gaming, OER, mobile.) It was a real mish mash. I think they would have been better off having less general talks but concentrating on 3 or 4 key themes instead. There would have then been an opportunity to introduce the theme, then offer case studies from the HE world. For example was a panel session on a business case for MOOCs which failed to explain what MOOCs are and offered very little insight on how they will impact HE – a real wasted opportunity. The best session of the day for me was a panel on ‘£9k fees and the National Student Survey: Raised student expectations and how to manage them’ – some interesting discussions on what expectations actually are from an HE and student perspective.

I was actually approached to talk at the event and was given a title, in retrospect I think a different talk – maybe one on introducing the value of data – would have been better received. All the sessions prior to mine had concentrated on learning and teaching, in fact I hadn’t even heard the words ‘research’ or ‘data’ mentioned until in passing in the cloud computing talk before mine. There was a lack of clarity on who delegates would be (apparently IT managers but the UCISA people I sat with knew very few people). I gather it is Bett’s first attempt at having an HE strand, so it’s early days. I recommend they get a few more people in the know on the programme committee and then decide on a focus. Covering ‘technology in Higher Education’ is a big ask!

Anyway, the exhibition was interesting despite a heavy learning towards school teaching. Lots of virtual learning environments, interactive products, use of video and e-learning products. I even got to see Johnny Ball talk, which made it all worthwhile!

Johnny Ball talking about motivation in schools

I’ve been so busy travelling here and there that I forgot to mention my guest post published on the Webexpenses blog.

My guest blog post on the Webexpenses site

Webexpenses provide a software solution (and new mobile app) that let you do expenses in the cloud. The features include:

• Credit Card Integration – Seamlessly integrate credit card data
• SMS – Record expenses in an instant via mobile phone
• Mobile App – Record and capture your expenses where ever you are
• Multi-entity Configuration – Configured to you company’s structure – no matter how complex
• Digital Receipt Attachment – Allow images, documents and emails to be attached to your claims
• Mileage Verification – Clampdown on inaccurate claims with precision mileage calculations
• Carbon Tracking – Calculate your carbon footprint for air, car and rail travel
• Reinforce Policy – Inform users of your expenses policy at point of entry
• Petty Cash Management – Cut costs and control cash floats with flexible management solution
• Duty Of Care – Verify and record your employee’s responsibility to be safe and legal when driving.

Their main objective is “to make expenses something you effortlessly control; not a costly drudge you battle against“. The Web expenses site offers lots of case studies including one by the Museum of London that give ideas on how their service can be used.

We use Agresso at the University of Bath. I have to say I don’t find it that intuitive and on the whole I’m not that keen on it, but then the results of not using it are even more painful!!

Last Friday Marissa Mayer, who was appointed President and CEO of Yahoo in July 2012, told remote employees that they needed to be working in an office by June this year. The pronouncement has sparked a lot of discussion on and off Twitter. So have Yahoo made the right decision?

I’m guessing that Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, had some idea of the wrath that she would incur by last week’s controversial decision to insist that remote workers move back in to the office. Headlines like Back To the Stone Age? New Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Bans Working From Home and Mommy Bloggers Are Tearing Apart Marissa Mayer might mean she now requires a cup of Horlicks before bed time – but then she was brought in to make tough decisions.

Apparently a lot of the remote workers Yahoo had on their books were no longer productive and as Business Insider explains “a lot of people hid. There were all these employees [working remotely] and nobody knew they were still at Yahoo.“. It sounds like Yahoo were doing a lousy job of managing their workforce, both in the office and out. They clearly need to scale down and make people redundant, so this “is a layoff that’s not a layoff.“

I hope ultimately the Yahoo situation won’t put people off trying to become remote workers, or deter employers from employing remote workers. As I’ve said many times on this blog (and else where), it doesn’t work for everyone. The decision needs to one made by employer and employee together. Some people just can’t get themselves motivated without a little encouragement (i.e. they need to be sitting in an open-plan office where management can keep an beady eye on them). Also remote workers need real support to fulfill their potential, they need to be kept in the communication loop and that requires effort. Remote working wasn’t working at Yahoo because people messed up, not because remote working doesn’t work.

Out of all the posts and articles Ive read about the Yahoo situation Tim Sniffen’s An Open Letter to Yahoo! CEO, Marissa Mayer is by far my favourite. Tim, who claims to have been a Yahoo junior server administrator for eleven years, explains to Ms. Mayer that “you do not want me in your office.”

The reasons why are clear…

Tim ends with some PSs…

He sounds like the sort of employee I really wouldn’t want to lose if I was Marissa Mayer. Humour may be the tool they have in fighting their current financial crisis.

It’s Open Education Week #OpenEducationWk and there are lots of great events taking place, online and offline. I’ve been interested in Open Educational Resources (OER) for some time but am getting increasingly excited about open data and possible applications in education. One particularly excellent resource I’ve been using a lot recently is the Open Knowledge Foundation’s School of Data. They have some fantastic courses that will help you find out about many aspects of data from the basics (what is data, finding data, sorting data), analysis of data, story telling with data and to fairly technical areas such as data cleaning. All really interactive with some great images and useful pointers to further resources.

Another really exciting resource/tool is EasyOpenData.com – a simple way to get data out of spreadsheets and make it available for people to use. EasyOpenData has developed by Craig Russell, a Web Developer based at the University of Leicester. Craig has kindly written a brief blog post for us on what he’s hoping to achieve with the tool.

Data, our world runs on data. And most of this data lives in spreadsheets

The recent admission by JP Morgan, that it’s financial model was run in a series of Excel Spreadsheets was a shock to the those in the tech industry, but unsurprising to those in ‘real business’. Spreadsheets are what normal people use to get the job done. Spreadsheets are what normal people use to store their knowledge.

We keep spreadsheets about our DVD collections, our wedding invitation list, our allotment yields. We use them to plan community events and billion dollar investments alike. Countless millions of man-hours are spent every day putting human knowledge in to spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are ubiquitous, comfortable, familiar.

But if spreadsheets are so common, where are they all? Where is all this knowledge?

It is hidden, buried away behind the scenes. Vast submerged stores of publicly useful knowledge buried away on hard drives and shared folders. So much incredibly useful data curated by knowledgeable individuals, but without the skills to make this knowledge public and share it as Open Data.

Those in possession of publicly useful knowledge and those with the skills to make knowledge publicly accessible need to find one another and make open data love.

It is for this reason that I built EasyOpenData.com, which enables you to publish custom-formatted XML feeds using data from your Google spreadsheets. Open Data feeds are publicly listed on your profile and automatically updated with the spreadsheet.

This means that data owners can continue to use spreadsheets to store their knowledge, while opening up this valuable information to the world.

They say that data is the new oil, if this is true, then spreadsheets are the reservoirs and we are all prospectors.

EasyOpenData.com

I’ve just had a go with the LinkedIn Labs InMap. The service allows you to create a visual map of your LinkedIn connections and label the groups. The map is stored and you can revisit it later on to see how your professional worlds are evolving. My map is available online and you can zoom in and see my the details of my network.

It’s really interesting to see how the groups you are part of fit together and the core people that join those groups (connectors). A lot of my network is built around Brian Kelly – no big surprise as he was my line manager for over 11 years.

The groups themselves seemed to divided up into:

• Jisc (and related) people – Jisc Programme managers, people who work for Jisc services etc.
• Web manager people – people I’ve met through the IWMW community
• UKOLN and RDM people – colleagues from UKOLN and the Digital Curation Centre (DCC), other research data management people/li>
• Library people
• BL and IMPACT project people – people I met while working on the EU IMPACT project, quite a few British Library people
• e-learning people – mainly from the University of Bath
• Friends – some of who have some slight connection to work areas, most of who don’t – I don’t usually make a point of adding friends to LinkedIn
• Local people – mainly people I met while living in Melksham and volunteering on environmental projects

It will be interesting to see how my network changes over time. I have never actively tried to develop my LinkedIn profile, I just accept requests when they come in. It would also be interesting to see if I could influence the network, or try to create new groups. Anyway all good stuff to while away an hour or two!

Using open source software has a huge number of benefits, firstly it’s free to use, distribute, and modify, also, as the code is open to everyone it is often easier for bugs to be fixed and features added. Over the years I have had lots of dealings with OSSWatch, which provides advice and guidance on the use, development, and licensing of free and open source software to the Higher Education sector. Unfortunately OSSWatch will no longer receive core funding from Jisc, so will now be moving to a consultancy model.  I’ve worked with lots of OSSWatch people over the years and the services it has delivered have been excellent, I wish them well for the future.

OK. Back to topic… Jennifer Marsh, a remote worker who blogs for Rackspace Hosting has written us a guest post about some new open source offerings in cloud computing software. Rackspace Hosting is the service leader in cloud computing, and a founder of OpenStack, an open source cloud operating system. The San Antonio-based company provides support to its customers and partners, across a portfolio of IT services, including Managed Hosting and Cloud Computing.

*********

Open source cloud software bundles pertinent and powerful tools for companies migrating to cloud technology.

Why do they do it? Cloud servers and data centers provide fast performance and security that isn’t available through private, dedicated servers. Even businesses using dedicated hosted servers can upgrade to open cloud host services to advance application performance.

Here’s more about the latest in open source cloud software.

OpenStack

OpenStack was created as a collaboration to provide businesses with a full range of cloud tools. OpenStack includes a dashboard, a storage control panel, disk image (backup) catalog control and network connectivity device services. Rackspace offers a community of developers from 87 different countries that participate in the project, so new tools and resources are added to the open source software, which benefits every type of business.

Apache’s CloudStack

Apache is known for its open-source web server software, but the community has also contributed to a cloud application for businesses. The application was developed and contributed by Citrix developers, but it also has an open source license. The CloudStack system includes command line tools, VMWare support, network as a service and user management in the cloud. For company administrators familiar with Citrix or Apache, this tool benefits IT managers who are already familiar with the variety of Apache tools available for web servers.

Eucalyptus

Eucalyptus is a cloud service fully compatible with the Amazon Web Services (AWS) system. AWS is a newer cloud product in the market, but it is a reliable source for businesses looking for the power of the cloud. The disadvantage of the AWS system is that many spam sites use AWS to support phishing and insecure applications. For legitimate businesses, Eucalyptus supports a dashboard and image hosting system for businesses just starting out with cloud technology.

Whatever system you choose, the performance and reliability are determined by the cloud host supporting the system. Choose a cloud host that offers the reliability of persistent uptime, a host that offers support if deployment fails and a monitoring system in case a server needs to switch to a backup system.

So WordPress suggested I use a different theme, perhaps they could see my blog was looking a little tired. Apparently the Able theme by Automattic is an updated version of the Andreas09 I had before. So next thing I know I have a new theme. I could probably create a better header (what I currently have is grass – the blog is about remote working…hence grass – do you see what I did there?) but I’m just not great at design aspects. Anyway, in the name of nostalgia here is what my blog used to look like.

If anyone has any suggestions on how I can improve the look and feel, please do let me know.

I’m currently away in Porto, Portugal for ECLAP 2013, the 2nd International Conference on Information Technologies for Performing Arts, Media Access and Entertainment. The conference aims to provide a forum in which individuals and institutions carrying out innovative research in the performing arts can share findings.

One particular presentation, on multistage acting, might be of interest to the readers of this blog because it could easily be adapted as a remote working tool. The presentation entitled Multistage: Acting Across Distance was delivered by Fei Su of the High Performance Distributed Systemsgroup (HPDS), University of Tromsø, Norway. He and his team have been looking at ways of enabling actors in different locations to act and interact together on one stage. Enabling acting across distance support interesting new performances but can also make it possible for actors to rehearse together when not physically in the same place.

Multistage acting – image courtesy of Fei Su, University of Tromsø

Enabling multistage acting is not straight forward and requires having hardware and software systems in place, setting up radio and wired networks, organising sensors to capture the actors and computers to receive and analyse the data. The main hardware used are kinect motion sensing input devices designed by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 console. The separate stages must then be ‘bound together’. The main challenges are dealing with delays (distance always causes some delay in video streaming) and issues with causality (an event must happen before it can be observed and reacted to – so more delays). There are times when synchronisation is critical, for example if actors are dancing together, and times when it isn’t so critical. The research team are working on masking the effects of the delays using the idea of a ‘remote handshake’ as a test. The process is helping them ascertain how much delay is acceptable.

The research project still has a way to go before all the tools are ready to be delivered but I think it will be an interesting one to watch.

I was over at the University of Northampton running a Research Data Management Training for Librarian’s training session with a colleague yesterday. We were in the library and I spotted the Dialogue Café. This is a “a global non-profit initiative that uses high-end video conferencing technology to enable video conversations between diverse groups of people from around the world so that they can share experiences, learn from each other and collaborate to make the world a better place“. Apparently it is a way to provide students and staff of the University with an access to a network of over 4000 likeminded organisations and communities across the globe and the opportunity to share, learn and contribute to the work of others. The main technology used is Cisco TelePresence.

The Dialogue Café is the world’s first open videoconferencing network specifically designed for civil society. There are Dialogue Cafés all around the world: in Northampton, London, Rio de Janeiro, Melbourne, Amsterdam, Lisobon, Ramallah (Palestine), Cleveland (US), Paris and Wroclaw (Poland). They have a Flickr site with images of people using the cafe, and are also on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

What a great idea! I wish I’d had something like this when I was a student, it would have really helped with some of the projects I worked on!

Internetprovider.org have created a new infographic on
The Work From Home Disadvantage. It takes a global look at the challenges of remote working: distractions, noise, equipment problems, bad internet connection, bad posture and so on.

Some of the issues rang true for me. Since our move almost 2 years ago we have suffered from ‘temperamental broadband’ – it’s a little like a teenager and has its good days and bad days! I also have a couple of very demanding cats (open the door, close the door, and repeat) and I’m not convinced that my desk set up is that great, so do get a lot of back pain. But I still believe the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages!

The last 8 months has been a really tough time for all of us that work at UKOLN. In October last year a decision was made by Jisc, our main funders, to cease the core funding for 3 key services from July 31st 2013: UKOLN, CETIS and OSSWatch. Although UKOLN receives other funding – the DCC funding being the other main pot of money – this naturally has had serious consequences. Yesterday the majority of UKOLN staff members were issued with redundancy notices.

I am solely funded by the DCC so my position was questionable. The DCC have now had confirmed funding, all be it reduced, and the majority of my DCC colleagues will continue to have jobs. The plan is for UKOLN to carry on at a fraction of its previous size (it peaked at around 31 staff but now there will just be 4). Obviously this still leaves a lot of people in a very difficult situation. I don’t want to get political about all of this, I’ll leave that to my colleague Brian Kelly (see his post My Redundancy Letter Arrived Today), but this is a very sad situation. Over the years UKOLN has achieved so much in the area of digital libraries, metadata, preservation, information policy and more. Right now my thoughts are with everyone getting made redundant. I really hope they find work places that allow them to use the fantastic skills that they have.

So what about me? Well, I’m lucky enough to have a light at the end of my tunnel. I have accepted a position of project co-ordinator with the Open Knowledge Foundation. I’ll be working on their LinkedUp project supporting the adoption of open data by educational organisations and institutions. I am going to be working part-time for the OKF from the start of May while I see out my commitments with UKOLN and the DCC, I will then be full-timeish from the start of August. This is a really exciting (and scary!) opportunity for me. I’ve been with UKOLN for 13 years and I have learnt so much from my colleagues and peers. Yet at times being part of UKOLN and the University of Bath has felt a little like having a safety net that maybe I no longer need. Time to spring free!

The OKF is an active global network that works as a virtual organisation. There is no ‘epicentre’ or head office (though its registered office is in Cambridge) and the team of employees are distributed throughout the world. I can already see that they have some great ways of working and I’m sure there will be lots of fodder for this blog!

To finish I want to reiterate what I said to my colleagues last week. The 13 years I’ve had at UKOLN constitute a significant chunk of my life. The interesting projects and flexible working haven’t been the only things that have kept me in post. I’ve always been treated with respect and have made some great friends, on the whole UKOLN has been a very happy place to work. I believe I’ve been incredibly lucky to have had this experience, I know a lot of people who would rather not have the job they have. So as Dr Seuss says:

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.“

The Westminster eForum are holding a Keynote Seminar on Mobile and remote working: innovation, data protection and workforce challenges on Thursday, 10th October 2013, Central London.

As increasing numbers of businesses adopt flexible working policies, this seminar will examine the practical, legal and regulatory challenges of a mobile workforce – and ways that integrating the latest IT solutions are being translated into competitive and commercial advantage. Delegates will consider how companies can harness consumer devices, cloud services and improvements to the UK’s communications infrastructure to enable remote workers against a backdrop of the significant push by providers of web-based productivity suites, as well as the emerging data protection issues of enabling off-site access to employees.

Topics for discussion include:

• How are businesses delivering the greater agility and mobility required for IT solutions used by today’s workforce – what are the key implications for productivity, efficiency and training?;
• What are the information security challenges of having a remote workforce?;
• How do corporate IT and HR policies need to adapt to take into account trends including hot-desking, BYOD and flexible working? How effectively are businesses able to oversee and supervise workers off-site?; and
• How far are efficiency and cost savings, and environmental benefits, promised by remote working being delivered?
• With significant staff reductions in recent years due to economic turbulence, how far are mobile working IT solutions enabling organisations to deliver more with less?

Speakers include Stephen McGibbon, Chief Technology Officer EMEA, Microsoft and Simon Rice, Group Manager, Technology, Information Commissioner’s Office. Further confirmed speakers include: John Delaney, Research Director, European Consumer Mobile, International Data Corporation (IDC); Martin Jordan, Head of UK Cyber Response, KPMG; Kurt Mroncz, Corporate Development Director, Regus; Charles Park, Partner, Pinsent Masons; Stewart Room, Partner, Field Fisher Waterhouse and Philip Ross, Chief Executive Officer, Unwork. The agenda for the day is available from the Westminster Forum Projects web site.

Places at Mobile and remote working: innovation, data protection and workforce challenges (including refreshments and PDF copy of the transcripts) are £190 plus VAT; Concessionary rate places for small charities, unfunded individuals and those in similar circumstances are £80 plus VAT. You can book a place online.

This week marked my first working for the Open Knowledge Foundation #okfn (a previous post explains my current job situation). I’m only doing 2 days a week for now but will build it up as time moves on.

OKF (or OKFN, where the N stands for Network) is a global network with staff all around the world and much of their work is also done through volunteers. There isn’t any official central office, though there are clusters of staff in London and Berlin. Anyway all of this makes for an impressive virtual organisation that uses a huge number of remote working technologies.

In my first few days I’ve been introduced to:

• Webex – http://www.webex.com – Cisco webinar software
• Xero – http://www.xero.com – online accounting software for pay and expenses
• Toggl – https://www.toggl.com/ – time keeping software
• Trello – https://trello.com – for project collaboration and management
• Campfire – http://campfirenow.com – group chat
• Grove – https://grove.io – for group chat
• High Rise – http://highrisehq.com – for contacts management
• Gravatar – https://en.gravatar.com – for managing avatars

They also use a number of tools that I am already familiar with:

• Google docs – for document collaboration
• Gmail – http://gmail.com – for email
• Google hangouts – http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/ – for small group meetings
• Google Drive – https://drive.google.com – for document organisation and storage
• Google Calendar – https://www.google.com/calendar/ – for scheduling
• Dropbox – http://dropbox.com – for document transfer and storage
• WordPress – http://wordpress.com – for web site and blogging
• YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOKFN – for videos
• Various discussion lists
• Wikis

I’m sure there is lots more too…

So my plan is to work through the list and write a couple of blog posts on the most useful tools. Watch this space!

So this morning we have some people coming round to look at our wiring and cables! Hopefully they are going to sort it all out for us!

After months of flaky broadband my husband finally decided to do an audit of telephone sockets and cable. It turns out that the telephone wire comes in to one room in the house then does a merry dance around each room, splitting itself several times and ending up at the place the router is plugged in to. Basically the wiring is a mess! This combined with our rural location (we are quite a long way from the nearest radio mast) results in our slow, temperamental broadband. (At least that is our current theory!)

We’re hoping that shortening and improving the cables will give us a better chance of being permanently connected. With all the online tools my new job requires I really want to avoid long periods of being offline.

Interestingly my colleague Brian Kelly has been asking about cabling for his own house. He’s even created a Storify (What cabling is needed for a network in a large house?) with the responses. See below for the tweets.

The consensus among the more technical on Twitter is that you shouldn’t scrimp on cable and it’s worth shelling out for Cat5e and possibly Cat6e if you have it installed professionally. We’ve decided to leave this to the experts, fingers crossed they are as clued up as the Twitteratti!

For further information see the useful link to Automated House: Wiring guide with some guidance on installation of the various wiring systems around the ‘automated home’.