We’ve all felt that sinking feeling, after our favourite operating system or piece of software gets a new update and we realise that the layout has changed and half the features don’t work like they used to. But why do we get so attached to our applications, and why do we find it so irksome when they change? In this week’s episode of the IT Pro Podcast, staff writer Bobby Hellard joins us to discuss the painful process of accepting updates, including why it’s more difficult for organisations in ...
Nov 05, 2021•37 min
Whether it’s a SaaS tool, a product or even just a website, every IT team has to manage some form of customer-facing software. However, while it can be tempting to focus all the attention on the platforms that bring in the bacon, it’s equally important for IT teams to remember their internal customers; the colleagues that rely on IT to do their jobs. In this week’s episode, we learn about some of the challenges of managing the internal IT of VMware, one of the industry’s largest companies. We’re...
Oct 29, 2021•28 min
It’s fair to say that the US has a lot on its plate when it comes to cyber security. Criminal organisations and foreign operatives continue to find new ways to attack public businesses and private citizens, and as digital technology becomes more and more essential for everyday life, cyber attacks on critical infrastructure are becoming an increasingly troubling prospect. As digital aggression from countries like Russia and China becomes more of a concern, the question emerges as to whether the U...
Oct 22, 2021•35 min
Ever since the UK left the EU, data protection has been a hot topic. On the one side government officials on one side argue that current rules are unnecessarily restrictive, while on the other privacy campaigners maintain that any changes to legislation could make it harder for organisations to do business with EU partners. The solution to this conflict may lie in reinterpreting how we think about GDPR, rather than revising the regulations themselves. The UK’s Data and Marketing Association has ...
Oct 15, 2021•35 min
There was a time when an IT leader’s primary responsibility was managing tin, making sure that an organisation’s servers were kept up and running with little or no thought spared to how the rest of the business was using it. Those days are past now, and the modern CIO’s priorities have shifted. IT is now about business outcomes, and CIOs increasingly don’t care what their applications are running on, as long as they’re delivering value. In this IT Pro Podcast Special Edition, presented in associ...
Oct 12, 2021•32 min
Getting hit with a large-scale cyber attack is a nightmare scenario for many IT leaders. Repairing the damage caused by hackers once they’ve infiltrated your system can be both expensive and time-consuming, and the post-breach fallout can be extremely challenging to deal with. But while the technical impact an attack like this can have is one thing, we often overlook the effect it has on the individuals who have to respond to it. Long nights, extreme pressure and high levels of stress are all ha...
Oct 08, 2021•1 hr 6 min
This week marks the 100th episode of the IT Pro Podcast, and to celebrate the occasion, we’ve got a special bumper episode where we’ll be looking back over the last 100 years of technological development. We examine the inventions that have led up to the present day, the impact that they’ve had, and how current innovations may impact the future. Join us as we discuss the birth of Silicon Valley, the world’s first internet service providers and the explosion of mobile technology, along with much ...
Oct 01, 2021•43 min
In a lot of cases, being an IT admin is as much about prioritisation as anything else, and the mantra ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ is one that many technology professionals swear by. However, this approach leaves organisations at risk of having to suddenly fix critical errors with little notice. This is why many businesses have adopted observability, deepening the monitoring of their applications and infrastructure in order to detect potential issues before they become critical. In this wee...
Sep 24, 2021•33 min
The average smartphone tends to look fairly unassuming, but recently, foldable phones have injected a bit of diversity into the market. These eye-catching new devices include foldable screens, and are aimed at businesspeople and power users. But do foldable phones represent a genuine step forward for mobile technology, or are they simply a passing trend that will be swiftly forgotten? In this week’s episode, we dig into what makes foldable phones so unique, and look at whether or not they deserv...
Sep 17, 2021•31 min
In the business world, we often talk about ‘climbing the career ladder’ - and the unspoken implication is that everyone wants to eventually reach the top. In most organisations, this means ascending to some form of senior management or executive role, but what about those that would rather stay where they are? For many IT professionals, reaching a certain level of seniority results in graduating from managing technology to managing people, but the two roles require considerably different skillse...
Sep 10, 2021•29 min
For many IT professionals, the decision to move from a permanent position to a contractor or consultant role has given them more flexibility, better earning potential and a healthier work-life balance. There are those, however, who use legal loopholes to prey on IT contractors, lining their own pockets by cheating both them and HMRC out of rightful earnings. In this episode of the IT Pro Podcast, we’re joined by James Poyser, InniAccounts CEO and founder of OffPayroll.org, to discuss the role th...
Sep 03, 2021•31 min
We all know how drastically COVID has up-ended normal working practices. Organisations had to radically rethink their strategies around digital business, remote working and much more. But after 18 months of breakneck digital transformation, what happens now? In this episode of the IT Pro Podcast, we’re looking at whether organisations should continue building on the efforts of the last year, or whether it’s time to step back and take a break from digital transformation. To learn more, head to ht...
Aug 27, 2021•24 min
In the modern world, digital skills are absolutely essential, but if you don’t have access to technology, developing those skills is easier said than done. We’ve covered the UK’s growing digital divide in previous episodes, but this week, we’re looking at how one MSP is partnering with London-based charity CC Foundation to help close this gap by providing young people with access to digital devices, mentoring and apprenticeship opportunities. This week, Totality Services co-founder Luis Navarro ...
Aug 20, 2021•25 min
The healthcare sector is under a great deal of pressure right now, but while the pandemic has been a challenging time, it’s also led to an explosion in the adoption of digital healthcare tools. IT transformation is having a profound effect on the industry, as new technologies are revolutionising not just how care is delivered, but also how clinicians can track and even predict potential problems. In this episode of the IT Pro Podcast, we talk to Diana Kennedy, CTO of global healthcare provider B...
Aug 13, 2021•34 min
From talking to our friends to getting through our daily workload, there’s very little in modern life that doesn’t depend on the internet in some capacity. But while that’s all very well for most of us, a significant number of people in the UK have little or no access to the internet, and this can be a major problem for issues like skills, employment and more. This problem has not gone unnoticed, however, and efforts are underway to help close this element of the digital divide. One potential te...
Aug 06, 2021•32 min
Cricket may have something of an old-fashioned reputation, with its genteel attire and somewhat languid pace, but just like every other sport, it’s in the process of being revolutionised by increasing use of digital technologies and data. Nowhere is this more evident than in Australia, where cricket remains an almost universal passion. In this week’s episode of the IT Pro Podcast, we talk to Michael Osborne, general manager of technology for Cricket Australia, to find out how the organisation - ...
Jul 30, 2021•22 min
On receiving the news that their planned apprenticeship had fallen through, most teenagers would probably sulk for a bit, and then start looking for jobs in a pub or a supermarket. What they probably wouldn’t do is decide to go it alone, opening up their own network maintenance company to help people boost their broadband. Nevertheless, that’s exactly what Sam O’Rourke did. He joins us this week to talk about what inspired him to launch his own company, the difficulties of starting a new busines...
Jul 23, 2021•24 min
An inclusive workplace isn’t just about supporting people of different genders, sexual orientations or races. Almost 20% of the UK has some form of disability, and it’s important to make sure that our offices, applications and services are set up in a way that is accessible to these people. There are many reasons why this is a good idea; aside from being a legal requirement and a moral imperative, it can bring usability and productivity improvements for all your staff and customers, not just tho...
Jul 16, 2021•30 min
Data is taking on an increasingly important role within organisations around the world, but IT leaders have traditionally struggled to make staff truly understandable or engage with analytics and business intelligence. There are many options for how to approach this particular challenge, but for Nationwide’s business intelligence team, the answer lies in building a culture of self-service data consumption. This week, we’re talking to the leader of Nationwide’s business intelligence solutions Cen...
Jul 09, 2021•31 min
Organisations all over the world are currently grappling with the challenges of how to adapt their culture to a new hybrid-first model. While many potential solutions have been posited, one organisation is taking a somewhat different approach; distributed HR platform Remote.com has turned to virtual reality technology to unite its employees, not just for meetings and brainstorms, but for social and team-building events. This week, we’re joined by Remote’s director of people, Nadia Vatalidis, to ...
Jul 02, 2021•26 min
Cloud is no longer an emerging trend; it’s now been a fixture of business IT for more than a decade. But with the home working revolution firmly cementing SaaS and IaaS tools as a cornerstone of today’s IT strategy, what’s next for cloud computing? This week, we’re joined by Tim Hancock, head of cloud and managed service at UK tech consultancy BJSS, to discuss how the cloud is going to evolve over the coming years, and how prepared UK businesses are to take advantage of these new evolutions. For...
Jun 25, 2021•18 min
When it launched Windows 10, Microsoft promised us the “last Windows”. Six years later, however, the company has reconsidered its position and brought out Windows 11. With its latest operating system promising a new look, an overhauled app store and new cloud integrations, we finally know what the new successor to Windows 10 has in store for users. Join us in this bonus episode of the IT Pro Podcast to discuss all things Windows 11, including key features, what it has to offer businesses, and wh...
Jun 24, 2021•30 min
The growing field of AI development has brought us many wonderful advances, but one of the areas in which it’s becoming most visible is customer service. Chatbots have now become so ubiquitous that it’s often difficult to get through to a real person at all. However, while chatbots are faster and more convenient than a human operator in theory, the reality is often somewhat less than ideal. In this episode, we’re exploring why chatbots can be so frustrating to interact with, how to make them mor...
Jun 18, 2021•29 min
For many years, the tech industry has been complaining about a shortage of technical skills in areas from cloud platforms to container architectures. But while the tech skills gap remains a persistent concern, there is another skills shortage that’s being overlooked by businesses. The UK is falling behind in its level of ‘human-centric’ business skills, according to a new report, including HR and communications. As organisations seek to outfit themselves for a largely uncharted world of hybrid w...
Jun 11, 2021•29 min
Hacking, ransomware attacks and other forms of cybercrime have become a fact of life in the modern age, but while the rates of these attacks have drastically increased, the ability of law enforcement to bring the perpetrators to justice seems to be lagging behind somewhat. Even when suspects are caught, it’s rare for cases to result in convictions. There are a number of factors that contribute to this, including the sophistication of modern anonymisation tools, police resource constraints and ju...
Jun 04, 2021•34 min
One of the most persistent goals in business IT over the past twenty years has been to reach the mythical nirvana of the ‘paperless office’ - a utopia in which paper-based workflows are ditched in favour of digitising documents and records. However, despite the continuing sophistication of scanning and digital document management technology, this goal remains elusive. But why does paper still hold sway over elements of modern business? This week, we’re looking at why the idea of a paperless offi...
May 28, 2021•29 min
Space exploration is currently in the midst of a renaissance, with more and more private companies and national governments launching test flights, satellites and probes. Just recently, scientists generated oxygen on Mars, and flew a remote helicopter over its surface. But what will these advances in space exploration mean for those of us stuck here on earth? The space race of the 60s led to many innovations that we still use today – including LASIK, cordless vacuums and even OpenStack – so what...
May 21, 2021•36 min
For the past decade, we’ve been assured that biometric security is the future, and that soon we’ll be able to do away with traditional forms of identification and authentication in favour of using our faces, fingerprints and even voices. However, while biometric technology is certainly more common than it was in 2010, the promised revolution hasn’t quite materialised. We still have to rely on PINs and passwords for many of our transactions (both financial and otherwise) and biometric authenticat...
May 14, 2021•26 min
More and more employees now use their own personal devices for work, and 2020 saw a particular spike in this behaviour. But what many people don’t know is that your employer is legally entitled to monitor your activity on any device that you use to do your job. This raises a number of thorny issues, such as where the line is between security and surveillance, and whether it’s a violation of employee’s privacy to keep tabs on what they’re doing with their phone or PC. In this week’s episode, we s...
May 07, 2021•33 min
The pandemic has forced all of us online in ways we haven’t been previously, and that applies to hackers and cyber criminals just as much as it does to regular people. Over the past year, threat actors have adjusted their tactics in order to exploit our new patterns of behaviour, which makes defenders’ jobs all the more difficult. In this week’s IT Pro Podcast, we talk to James Bynoe, head of information security at eBay Classifieds Group, to find out how he’s protecting his organisation’s sizea...
Apr 30, 2021•28 min
