panui 21 July
Kia Ora koutou IT Professionals Members and supporters.
Wasn’t Matariki a fantastic long weekend. I got to play with my new work productivity tool - a 12.9 inch iPad Pro. As you know I do love a bit of tech and have been an Apple customer for life (because they made that choice so very easy for me back in the 1980’s) so love how easy it was to add a new device into my set and everything is just there as if by magic. On the device itself, I upgraded my 7 year old iPad Pro when it started losing battery life and behaving strangely often enough it was becoming annoying, so it can be donated to RAD once factory reset. This new work productivity tool (or toy) is lovely, the screen and camera and speed are the biggest improvements functionality, it’s lighter and sleek although I have covered it in a rose gold keyboard cover to act as both a stand and use it on the go. I just need to find my Apple Pencil (which stopped working on my old device a while ago) and I’ll be away. Definitely recommend.
This week has been one of the crazy busiest ones of the year with meetings, hui and many reports to review. With my Digital Technologies industry transformation plan partnership board hat on I have been involved in discussions focused on pathways into the workforce - internships, apprenticeships, enhanced frameworks for connecting the education system with employers to name a few. TEC’s careers strategy, Toi Mai’s workforce development plan and the latest Digital Skills Report are all going to be coming out soon and believe me all make great reading for our industry. I will highlight the insights each raises as they come out.
In the meantime some further insights from our “How do we feel” survey - last time I shared:
- Generally 44% of us feel that 2023 is going better than 2022 did
- Work wise however only 36% feel things are going better than 2022
- In 2022 27% of us considered we were paid really well, this has increased to 54% in 2023
Additionally you told us:
- 47% of you love your jobs currently
- 41% of you have begun or completed training paid for by your employers this year already
- And 25% of us have changed jobs this year
Bridging the Gap
The long awaited ITP podcast Bridging the Gap is live, available on Spotify and Apple but also navigable via podcast.itp.nz
Bridging the Gap is all about sharing stories from our fabulous industry, shining a light on the amazing diversity we have in terms of roles, people and ways to get involved. In essence, you can’t be what you can’t see. We have the first 3 episodes up now and each week I will update you with a new episode as it’s released.
Izzi Lithgow - Today you can listen to and watch the very first podcast with Izzi Lithgow who shares her stories on life as a comms person in the cyber security space. Watch Izzi and I chatting here, or listen on either podcast platform.
Selva Ganapathy - Selva joined me from India at some ridiculous hour of the morning recently to talk about his role as a Community Manager, where he bridges the gap between customers and technical support. You can watch my interview with Selva here or listen via the platforms.
Next week we will have the amazing Elinor Sapir (formerly Swery) and her journey from Auckland to Silicon Valley to Tel Aviv where she is today.
Cyber Security in the news
I see the New Zealand government featured on Hacker Claims this week, rumours are this is somewhat wide spread, carried out by the pro-Russian hackers NoName.
The US Government have launched their Cyber Security implementation plan, haven’t read it yet but worth sharing as this is topical for all of us.
The NZ Police have admitted it’s impossible to ID offshore scammers and that their investigators are ‘not focused’ on solving crimes in this space. Rick Shera started to touch on this in our Fireside chat recently, the need for legislation to better protect against scammers. Lots of awareness campaigns (like Netsafety week below) can only go so far, we also need the sticks in place - I know it’s a global issue we need to be working on together.
Peter has written us a great blog post on Phictionary: Key methods phishing scammers use. Reviewing Nigel Latta’s new show “You’ve been scammed” and talking about “We are in the middle of a 'scamdemic' with reported financial losses from online scams and phishing attacks reaching record levels in most countries.”
Netsafety week
Next week is Netsafety week. The IT Professionals and OptimalBI and Digital Future Aotearoa teams are all participating in “Closed to Harassment” next Friday. An online training course designed to arm us with the knowledge and tools to manage online harassment - I am thrilled to have so many staff involved in this initiative. Hope your workplace can get involved too.
Guidance on use of generative AI platforms
Not in this weeks AI wrap something I thought worth sharing here. A small group of you criticise my pānui as pro-government propaganda - I work hard to provide a balanced view, sharing the positive and the negative on all things tech whether government funded or not.
One area I have been very vocally critical on is how slow the NZ government has been on providing guidance for the public service, and Aotearoa as a whole, on generative AI . Some agencies are just banning it assuming their staff don’t go home and use these tools in their spare time, others are just accepting the use with no boundaries which is scary on many fronts.
Again I am here to praise the Australians and implore their equivalents on this side of the Tasman to be fast followers, ask their permission then deploy this guidance here! Interim Guidance for agencies on government use of generative Artificial Intelligence platforms. It’s commonsense and oh so necessary.
On this train of thought. I know I am pretty lucky to be paid to keep up with all things technology and when people share white papers with me like this one on Frontier AI Regulation: Managing Emerging Risks to Public Safety I dearly want all regulators (again NZ Government agencies) to read this and act accordingly. This is just one example. Time for our government to step up to the challenge.
Blogs this week
Following on from above - my AI wrap this week contains loads of great articles and tools to check out. I used ChatGPT to help me write the blurbs - what do you think of this format?
Peter asks - How much will you pay for a copilot? He talks about how the Microsoft stack is evolving as they integrate their AI functionality into all products. Particularly aimed at developers, “This new evolution turns GitHub Copilot into a context-aware conversational assistant right in the IDE, allowing developers to execute some of the most complex tasks with simple prompts,” - will you let Microsoft write your code?
Job listings have taken a dive, Peter reports, with insights from recruitment companies. What I am hearing from employers backs this up, many are waiting to see what this recession brings, here in Wellington waiting to see how the election pans out and others are already hurting so not replacing staff. Brendan was inspired by this with his cartoon this week with - Ups and Downs.
Transparency key to making human-bot teams succeed - researchers, from Peter on the relationship between chatbots and human workers and ways to make the tools productive.
Finally, Peter reports on a report commissioned by the Digital Technologies Industry Transformation Plan last year on the Māori Technology Sector which came out recently, he describes the priorities highlighted in this report and recommendations.
In Short
I don’t have a playstation at the moment, but if I did, this would be important to me - Microsoft have signed an agreement to keep Call of Duty on playstation
Tesla’s long awaited Cyber Truck is closer to reality with this announcement , But have you seen the Audi Activesphere? Just watch the video, it’s nuts high tech wise
ITP Member reminders
If you are an ITP member then a couple of reminders for you:
Te Red Māori digital technology terms
The full glossary can be found here. This week lets learn:
heria-tō-ake-pūrere = bring your own device
kupuhipa = password
ngā rauemi = resources
Finally, it is winter and we are all being hit by the weather, busy workloads, illness and school holidays are over. Remember to look after your own hauora (wellbeing) and check in with your colleagues how they are going. We are in very interesting times.
Kia pai tō rā whakatā, have a great weekend. Vic
