Pānui Dec 15th
Kia ora koutou ITP members and supporters, welcome to this the final digital pānui for 2023. I probably said this about December 2022 but it feels like we have been sprinting to the end of the year with just as many meetings and other activities continuing right up until the end of next week. Being busy is great in bursts but we all need time to reflect, strategise, plan and breathe. Without this our mahi is rushed, ill conceived and often left incomplete. So I am most looking forward to this next few weeks for those aha moments and epiphanies to hit me. 2024 is going to be another interesting year, hopefully we will shake off the Covid hangover and be able to really embrace opportunities new technologies are presenting us with.
We have lots of year in review themed things in this edition. According to Google Trends this morning our top search queries in the last 12 months for NZ were - weather, stuff, news, google and facebook. Image search wise we searched for images of Chris Hipkins 500% more in 2023 followed by Taylor Swift, Messi, David Seymour (80% more in 2023) and Wednesday. This article also indicates we searched for information on cyclones, the census and King Charles. It seems we were not aligned with global google search trends reported which included Barbie and Oppenheimer, Shakira, Mbappe and Matthew Perry.
Our final event for this year was a Fireside chat with Nadia Yousef - Kendra Ross fell ill on the day so it was great Nadia could step in for her to discuss all things Cyber Security. It was a great discussion and the live audience posed some interesting questions for us both. You can watch it here. Kendra will join me in the new year for her take on the governments cyber investment.
What we don’t love about Tech???
A bit of fun for the end of year pānui, last month we asked you what you hate / what gets under your skin about working with technology. Here’s a summary of those results.
- Hardware wise - Printers, over 50% of us most hate printers, closely followed by VOIP / phone systems
- Other hardware mentioned included electrical charging cables, authentication devices, corporate imaged devices (locked down laptops)
- Collaboration tools - a massive 64% of us really don’t like Sharepoint / One Drive, 41% don’t like Teams and 23% don’t love Zoom
- Other Collaboration tools mentioned included “anything Microsoft” was a common theme, Jira / Confluence are also not popular
- Software we don’t love - Windows at 42% of respondents followed by All things Oracle at 28%, SAP also deserves a mention at 21%
- Jargon we are sick of hearing - the standouts were Pivot, Digital Transformation, Agile and AI / GenAI
- Other Jargon we don’t love included - Platform “it can mean anything”, Sprints “another way of saying work like a workaholic dog non-stop all year” and Blockchain
- Things about our jobs that most get on our nerves - Performance reviews (44% of us), Scrum Masters and Sprints, Standups and Chatbots
Final things worth noting - We don’t like being the people who have to fix everyone else’s home computers and networks “….because I’m supposed to be an expert at this stuff”. Good luck with this one over the holiday break folks.
Blogs this week
Tech workforce first in line for AI augmentation - Peter’s final editorial this year indicates that it’s only us in the digital technology space who are overly consumed with GenAI. He wraps up the year by describing how our own workforce are first the be augmented through use of these tools, including Gartners advice on how to foster an AI Augmented developer workforce.
What's in store for tech in 2024 - the analysts’ predictions - “AI dominated the tech scene in 2023 and is set to cast a long shadow over the industry again in 2024 as businesses move from the experimentation phase to operationalising AI systems.” Summarises this post from Peter on what we can expect in 2024, here he summarises the predictions of leading analysts.
Brendan was also captured by the likelihood AI will continue to dominate our industry in 2024 with his final cartoon of the year - Getting Louder - so true. If you missed any of Brendan’s great Cartoons by Jim in 2023 they are all here on the website.
Google’s Gemini AI hints at the next great leap for the technology: analysing real-time information - Is our guest blog this week. A deeper dive into Google’s new product, what we can expect from it and the privacy implications.
Technology News in brief
Events
- Hi Tech Awards launch events coming in 2024 - I will be at the Wellington event so come and catchup
- Multicoreworld will be on in February in Ōtautahi Christchurch from 12th - 16th. This is a really unique conference, very deep tech, lots of research fellows, you can go along for 1 day or more.
- TechWeek has been announced for 2024 too - May 20th to the 26th.
ITP Members can look forward to lots of events in 2024 - we will be running different series including the Lunch and Learns, panel series, Fireside Chats and providing opportunities for support groups for anyone who is displaced from their roles. I am also going to start a Wellington monthly drop in and schedule the same around the country when I am visiting so members can catchup and chat over their lunch breaks.
Te Reo Māori digital technology terms
I have loved bringing this reo to life in 2023. Reminder we will be turning this into a searchable resource in 2024. To everyone out there who has developed these translations of technology terms into Te Reo Māori thank you so much for your mahi. Not sure I will continue with this in 2024 or what it might be replaced with so any feedback or ideas would be most welcome, email me via [email protected]
Finally
Wishing you all a happy holiday and Meri Kirihimete, whether you are enjoying some time off at home relaxing with friends and whānau or traveling to foreign lands for a white Christmas, I hope you all get time to recharge your batteries. Take care and look out for those around you. Hei konā mai - farewell for now. Vic
