Kia ora Koutou ITP members and supporters, it’s December 1st and we all know what this means - madness, exhaustion, celebrations, loneliness, spending, and whānau are all upon us. I caught up with a group of former colleagues for our annual catchup earlier this week and we realised we started working together 17 years ago. Digital technology is great industry for making friends and establishing a great network, it can also be a very isolating and lonely industry to work in so keep an eye on your colleagues at this often stressful time of year. 

What we don’t want to see happening in December is layoffs. I can’t imagine what it’s like for any of you impacted by restructures right now. This week we’ve had the news of Unity and Wētā changing their relationship resulting in layoff and potential rehiring announcements, Peter has written up all of the details on this. Chorus also announced a restructure “Dozens of staff to lose jobs as firm moves from ultrafast broadband network builder to operator”; and then there is our own government which will significantly impact Wellington - not specifically digital technology but we should expect our industry to be impacted by these cuts to the government workforce.

Did you see the Guidelines for secure AI system development were released this week? cyber agencies for a raft of countries including our own - thanks NCSC - co-developed this. Well worth a read.

Finally, Nelson College for Girls kindly taught me to touch type which when I started coding was my super power. The rest of my schooling involved handwritten work but today my work is all typed. I have preserved the art of handwriting and write to my 97 year old Nana, friends and aunties to keep my hand in (so to speak) but others in my life have completely stopped handwriting long ago. This article - Can handwriting survive the digital age - poses some really interesting insights like whether there is a correlation in the decline of handwriting and our decline in literacy? Their “conclusion “We may hit a period where writing is less common and less prevalent, but I do think that there will always be a place for writing, and that once we as a society figure out what that place is, there will be a value afforded to writing."

Blogs this week 

Peter’s Editorial today is - The Minister of everything tech-related gets to work - on the appointment of Hon Minister Judith Collins to the range of portfolios that encompass digital technology. 
Brendan was quite inspired but this and created a bespoke cartoon on the Ministers workload - The Lord High Everything Else!

Unity layoffs as mentioned above were a topic Peter has expanded for us this week - Unity’s big u-turn on Wellington and Wētā FX deal

Our guest blog - The vast majority of us have no idea what the padlock icon on our internet browser is – and it’s putting us at risk - is all about the padlock symbol on our browsers, web browser evolution and internet safety.

Getting Started Series - I have started a new series on how to get started learning different Digital Technology jobs. This week is on Software Testing. Feel free to drop me a line - [email protected] - with suggestions on where to go next and how to get started in your chosen field. This is designed for those who are new to the industry, students or career changers.

Events

• Reminder we have the Fireside Chat with Kendra Ross coming up this Wednesday
• Nelson Branch has it’s end of year drinks with a couple of talks coming up on the 12th

The ITP team are in the process of locking in a schedule of short courses and events for 2024 so we have a forward schedule for everyone to align with. It’s going to be great! If you think you’ve got a good topic for a Lunch and Learn or for a Fireside Chat, or have an existing short course you can offer please drop us a line at [email protected]. 

News in Brief

• Lightning was great, actually - a post that really spoke to me, like the author I have enjoyed my lightning connectors for the last 10 years and have heaps that I will need to retire now Apple has standardised (quite rightly) on USB-C.
• The most power for the most money - sticking with Apple, a review of the new M3 MacBook.
• TVNZ’s ambitious digital ad revenue target and the AWS Clean Rooms and Amazon Personalisation AI tools it hopes will help (behind paywall) - TVNZ is tracking and profiling viewers to sell value added service for advertisers using AWS Clean Room.
• Three Waters $107m software contract should be probed, says Gentrack - calls to revisit 3 Waters closed tender for $107M software project. I am really disappointed to read this was a closed tender in the first place and a project over $100M which history will tell us has the potential for many challenges and failure given it’s size.
• Unesco webinar future of work - Generative AI skills we all need.
• Fake websites - Consumer NZ have called out a marketing company who is creating fake websites for tradies companies designed to gather leads, without these tradies knowing this is happening.
• Last day for all of our inactive Google Accounts - these will be closed for good today
• Amazon AI Chatbot - Amazon have announced “Q” their new AI Chatbot

Looking at the Guardian Technology news section today I was kinda surprised to see 5 of the top 10 articles today are Elon Musk related, Cyber Truck, X assault on advertisers x 2, his stance on Jews, recording breaking fortune losses. What does this say about us?

Digital Technology Te Reo Māori terms

Last week I introduced holiday greetings. This week I thought we could learn some email sing-offs. The full list of terms can be found here.

Hei konā mai - Goodbye for now
Mā te wā - Bye for now, see you later
Noho ora mai - Stay well, look after yourself, good bye
Kia pai tō rā - Have a nice day
Nāku noa, nā … - Yours faithfully
Nāku iti nei, nā - Yours sincerely
Ngā mihi mō ngā tau kei mua i te aroaro - Good luck for the future

On that note. Wishing you all a wonderful weekend, Kia kai tō rā, Vic