TEXTOS - INGLES III

2018
TEXT 1: New special-purpose computer may someday save us billions

Post-doctoral scholar Peter McMahon, left, and visiting researcher Alireza Marandi examine a
prototype of a new type of light-based computer.

Credit: L.A. Cicero

The processing power of standard computers is likely to reach its maximum in the next 10 to 25 years.
Even at this maximum power, traditional computers won't be able to handle a particular class of
problem that involves combining variables to come up with many possible answers, and looking for
the best solution.

Now, an entirely new type of computer that blends optical and electrical processing, reported Oct. 20
in the journal Science, could get around this impending processing constraint and solve those
problems. If it can be scaled up, this non-traditional computer could save costs by finding more
optimal solutions to problems that have an incredibly high number of possible solutions.

"This is a machine that's in a sense the first in its class, and the idea is that it opens up a sub-field of
research in the area of non-traditional computing machines," said Peter McMahon, postdoctoral
scholar in applied physics and co-author of the paper. "There are many, many questions that this
development raises and we expect that over the next few years, several groups are going to be
investigating this class of machine and looking into how this approach will pan out."

The traveling salesman problem

There is a special type of problem -- called a combinatorial optimization problem -- that traditional
computers find difficult to solve, even approximately. An example is what's known as the "traveling
salesman" problem, wherein a salesman has to visit a specific set of cities, each only once, and return
to the first city, and the salesman wants to take the most efficient route possible. This problem may
seem simple but the number of possible routes increases extremely rapidly as cities are added, and this
underlies why the problem is difficult to solve.
 

"Those problems are challenging for standard computers, even supercomputers, because as the size
grows, at some point, it takes the age of the universe to search through all the possible solutions," said
Alireza Marandi, a former postdoctoral scholar at Stanford and co-author of the study. "This is true
even with a supercomputer because the growth in possibilities is so fast."

It may be tempting to simply give up on the traveling salesman, but solving such hard optimization
problems could have enormous impact in a wide range of areas. Examples include finding the optimal
path for delivery trucks, minimizing interference in wireless networks, and determining how proteins
fold. Even small improvements in some of these areas could result in massive monetary savings,
which is why some scientists have spent their careers creating algorithms that produce very good
approximate solutions to this type of problem.

An Ising machine

The Stanford team has built what's called an Ising machine, named for a mathematical model of
magnetism. The machine acts like a reprogrammable network of artificial magnets where each magnet
only points up or down and, like a real magnetic system, it is expected to tend toward operating at low
energy.

The theory is that, if the connections among a network of magnets can be programmed to represent the
problem at hand, once they settle on the optimal, low-energy directions they should face, the solution
can be derived from their final state. In the case of the traveling salesman, each artificial magnet in the
Ising machine represents the position of a city in a particular path.

Rather than using magnets on a grid, the Stanford team used a special kind of laser system, known as a
degenerate optical parametric oscillator, that, when turned on, will represent an upward- or downward-
pointing "spin." Pulses of the laser represent a city's position in a path the salesman could take. In an
earlier version of this machine (published two years ago), the team members extracted a small portion
of each pulse, delayed it and added a controlled amount of that portion to the subsequent pulses. In
traveling salesman terms, this is how they program the machine with the connections and distances
between the cities. The pulse-to-pulse couplings constitute the programming of the problem. Then the
machine is turned on to try to find a solution, which can be obtained by measuring the final output
phases of the pulses.

The problem in this previous approach was connecting large numbers of pulses in arbitrarily complex
ways. It was doable but required an added controllable optical delay for each pulse, which was costly
and difficult to implement.

Scaling up

The latest Stanford Ising machine shows that a drastically more affordable and practical version could
be made by replacing the controllable optical delays with a digital electronic circuit. The circuit
emulates the optical connections among the pulses in order to program the problem and the laser
system still solves it.

Nearly all of the materials used to make this machine are off-the-shelf elements that are already used
for telecommunications. That, in combination with the simplicity of the programming, makes it easy
to scale up. Stanford's machine is currently able to solve 100-variable problems with any arbitrary set
of connections between variables, and it has been tested on thousands of scenarios.

A group at NTT in Japan that consulted with Stanford's team has also created an independent version
of the machine; its study has been published alongside Stanford's by Science. For now, the Ising
 

machine still falls short of beating the processing power of traditional digital computers when it comes
to combinatorial optimization. But it is gaining ground fast and the researchers are looking forward to
seeing what other work will be possible based on this breakthrough.

"I think it's an exciting avenue of exploration for finding alternative computers. It can get us closer to
more efficient ways of tackling some of the most daunting computational problems we have," said
Marandi. "So far, we've made a laser-based computer that can target some of these problems, and we
have already shown some promising results."

Stanford University. (2016, October 21). New special-purpose computer may someday save us
billions. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 19, 2017 from
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161021121413.htm

TEXT 2: Internet and mobile devices prompt positive lifestyle changes

People are more likely to adopt heart healthy behaviors when guided and encouraged via the Internet,
their cellphones or other devices, according to 23 years of research reviewed in Journal of the
American Heart Association, the Open Access Journal of the American Heart Association/American
Stroke Association.

"Both Internet-based and mobile-based programs can help people become more physically active, eat
better and achieve modest weight loss over 3-12 months," said Ashkan Afshin, M.D., M.P.H., Sc.D.,
lead study author and acting assistant professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and
Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Researchers reviewed 224 studies conducted on generally healthy adults, published between 1990 and
2013. The studies evaluated the effect of using Internet, mobile phones, personal sensors or stand-
alone computer software tools to inspire behavioral changes, such as improving diet, increasing
physical activity, losing weight and stopping/reducing tobacco or alcohol use.

Among the findings:

● Participants in Internet interventions improved their diets, became more active, lost body
weight/fat, reduced tobacco use and cut excessive alcohol use.
● Participants in mobile device interventions (using smartphone apps or receiving text or
voicemail messages) increased their physical activity and lost body weight/fat.
"Programs that have components such as goal-setting and self-monitoring and use multiple modes of
communication with tailored messages tended to be more effective. We also found these programs
were more effective if they included some interactions with healthcare providers.

Clinicians, in particular in primary care settings, can use such programs to help people improve their
lifestyle behaviors and reduce the risk of chronic disease, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes,"
Afshin said.

The available research is limited because most studies lasted less than six months, providing little
information on how effective and sustainable the behavioral changes will be over the long term. In
addition, most studies were conducted in high-income countries with volunteers who were generally
 

more highly educated and motivated than the general public.

"Our study highlights several important gaps in current evidence on Internet-and mobile-based
interventions. We need to evaluate their long-term value, effectiveness in different populations (such
as the elderly and people from developing countries) and how different strategies may increase
adherence to the programs," Afshin said.

American Heart Association. (2016, August 31). Internet and mobile devices prompt positive lifestyle
changes. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 19, 2017 from
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160831223729.htm

TEXT 3: Operating systems, application software and programming languages

Operating system functions

In any computer, the operating system:

● Controls the backing store and peripherals such as scanners and printers. 
● Deals with the transfer of programs in and out of memory.
● Organises the use of memory between programs. 
● Organises processing time between programs and users. 
● Maintains security and access rights of users.
● Deals with errors and user instructions.
● Allows the user to save files to a backing store.
● Provides the interface between the user and the computer - for example, Windows Vista
and Apple OSX. For more information, see the User Interfaces study guide. 
● Issues simple error messages.
In a larger computer such as a mainframe the operating system works on the same principles.
 

Modes of operation
Computers can operate in many different ways requiring different and complex operating systems.

Real-time processing

When the computer has to react within a guaranteed time to an input, a real-time operating system
(RTOS) is used. For example, the engine management system within a car uses a real-time operating
system in order to react to feedback from sensors placed throughout the engine.
A real-time operating system does not necessarily have to be fast. It simply has to be quick enough to
respond to inputs in a predictable way. Embedded computers often contain an RTOS as many are used
to control something.
Computers operating in real time are often dedicated to the control of systems such as industrial
processes, planes and space flights.

Multi-programming
Multi-programming is a method of operating such that several programs appear to be running at once.
The operating system switches jobs in and out of processor time according to priority. For example,
 

while one job is being allocated printer time, another will be being processed in memory. The
processor is so fast that it seems that many jobs are being processed at the same time.

Batch processing
A batch processing system is where programs or data are collected together in a batch and processed in
one go. Typically the processing of payrolls, electricity bills, invoices and daily transactions are dealt
with this way.
This method of operation lends itself to jobs with similar inputs, processing and outputs where no
human intervention is needed. Jobs are stored in a queue until the computer is ready to deal with
them. Often batch processed jobs are done overnight.

Interactive processing
An interactive processing system is where the tasks on the computer system require a continual
exchange of information between the user and the computer system. It can be seen as the opposite of
batch processing.

Multi-tasking
This isn't just about running more than one application at the same time. Multi-tasking allows
multiple tasks to run concurrently, taking turns using the resources of the computer.
This can mean running a couple of applications, sending a document to the printer and downloading a
web page.

Multi-access or multi-user
Modern personal computers can allow multi-user access. A multi-access (or multi-user) system is one
where several users can use the same system together via a LAN.
The CPU deals with users in turn; clearly the more users, the slower the response time. Generally,
however, the processor is so fast that the response time at the most is a fraction of a second and the
user feels they are being dealt with immediately.

TEXT 4: Prove you've got the soft skills IT professionals need

All IT employers have a checklist of core competencies against which they assess candidates, and it's
not just technical skills that must be up to the mark.

Some IT companies look for predictable skills such as knowledge of C++, JavaScript or .Net, but
many others have more surprising requirements. Technology recruits have been known to look for
creativity, the ability to be self-critical and the ability to help colleagues get their jobs done and enjoy
their day.

Developing soft skills for IT graduate jobs

Many IT graduate schemes call for soft skills and commercial awareness just as much – or more – than
 

technical understanding, particularly for business-focused roles such as consulting. Technical

graduates can find themselves up against arts or social science graduates for such roles and can
sometimes miss out due to less well developed soft skills. If you need to build your confidence in
giving presentations or teamwork, for example, consider taking an active role in a club or society
where you can develop these.

Below is a round-up of key skills that are required for almost all IT graduate schemes.

Communication

IT systems are only relevant in a business context so IT professionals need the ability to communicate
well with people at all levels in an organisation, from help desk assistants and PC end users to
company directors. It’s important to be able to listen and understand, as well as explain technology at
an appropriate level for the audience. In client-focusing roles IT professionals must also communicate
clearly with clients to understand and define system requirements.

Demonstrate your graduate communication skills by:

● Keeping verbal and written communication clear, concise and confident.

● Showing you understand your audience and can tailor your communication to them.
● Showing you can listen to and consider the views of others.
● Thinking before you speak.

Planning and organisation

The IT sector is a project-focused industry. Good planning and organisation skills are essential for
graduates entering the tech business, in order to manage tasks on different projects with different
deadlines and competing priorities. Effective planning makes it possible to anticipate problems and
challenges and transform them into positive opportunities.

Demonstrate your graduate planning and organisation skills by:

● Showing that you can put structure to a task or project.

● Highlighting how you scope out an activity and allocate time to individual tasks.
● Showing how you anticipate challenges and issues that could arise and plan contingencies.

Drive, motivation and enthusiasm

Drive and motivation are essential for working in this incredibly fast-paced industry. You need to
enjoy taking on new challenges, pushing boundaries and looking towards the future. Graduate
recruiters warm to enthusiastic candidates because they know that enthusiastic people are motivated
people.

Demonstrate your drive, motivation and enthusiasm by:

 

● Showing you have the determination to achieve an end result.

● Demonstrating that you can keep your optimism and enthusiasm even when things get
tough.
● Showing that you can bounce back from set backs.
● Knowing what makes yourself tick and what types of task and activity you most enjoy
doing.

Problem-solving

Working in IT you need to have the ability to define problems in a timely manner, identify the root
causes, and then gather relevant information to find appropriate solutions. But problem-solving goes
beyond resolving just technical issues. You may also need to suggest enhancements to existing
procedures and processes to deliver improved service, a better product and most importantly, satisfied
clients.

Demonstrate your graduate problem-solving skills by:

● Displaying that you can take a logical and analytical approach to problem solving.
● Showing that you can view problems from a number of angles.
● Demonstrating that you can anticipate potential pitfalls and act to prevent them happening.

Teamwork

Teamwork is essential for sharing knowledge, establishing and building relationships and supporting
all the people involved on a project. Teamwork requires interpersonal skills and at times, leadership
qualities so that you can consider and respond appropriately to the behaviour and motives of others,
adapt your personal style accordingly, or step out in front to bring others with you.

Demonstrate your graduate teamwork skills by:

● Showing that you can build and maintain positive working relationships.
● Demonstrating how you share information with others; support others and show respect for
alternative views.
● Showing how you have contributed to keeping projects on track and to achieving a final
goal, working sensitively and co-operatively with others.
● Showing how you have considered and identified what motivates others and how you have
led by example.
Alex_TARGETjobs. (2012, July 16). Prove you’ve got the soft skills IT professionals need. Retrieved
February 19, 2017, from https://targetjobs.co.uk/career-sectors/it-and-technology/advice/285645-
prove-youve-got-the-soft-skills-it-professionals-need
 

TEXT 5: How enterprise software development is changing. By Cliff Saran, Managing Editor.

During Computer Weekly’s 50th anniversary event, we held a panel discussion at Skills
Matter in London to look into how enterprise software is changing

Software development practices in the enterprise have traditionally focused on delivery high-

quality code built on proven platforms. But the web and the emergence of apps, built on web

scale infrastructure, are rewriting the rulebook.

In fact, businesses struggle to compete with startups that can somehow maximise the value of the new

economy, and are able to undermine traditional business models.

“Over the past 20 years, IT has been set up for efficiency, cost reduction and doing things as safely as

possible,” says Benjamin Wootton, co-founder of Contino.

He says companies are now driven by the need to work faster and are becoming more agile in order to

improve the customer experience.

“This is applying pressure on IT and how we develop software,” he says.

Whereas IT heads previously implemented heavyweight internal IT processes and used outsourcing to

reduce cost and maintain quality, in Wootton’s experience, this style of running IT slowed down IT

departments. “DevOps and continuous delivery allow organisations to operate faster, which is what

enterprises want to do today,” he says.

But Wootton argues that among the challenges for IT leaders is the fact that big enterprises are risk

adverse and tend to stick with a tried and trusted formula, often contrary to contemporary best

practices.

Shifting the enterprise mindset

Kingsley Davis, a partner at Underscore Consulting, adds: “You want to deliver quickly and at pace,

which means having a clear strategy about what things are not important for the product.”
 

Technology such as Docker, to enable developers to create code that can run in their own containers,

along with the ability to have short feedback loops, helps businesses to adapt more quickly. Such

technology and techniques form the basis of the cultural shift that companies of all sizes need to make

to enable their developer teams to become more adept at delivering software quickly, says Davis.

“Culture is very easy to instil when there is a small group of people,” he says. “Hiring is key.”

Davis recommends that IT leaders plan in advance, and hire people appropriate to the direction the IT

strategy is taking.

Russ Miles, lead engineer at Atomist, believes IT leaders can learn much from the way web scale

organisations approach software development. “Organisations of any size have to compete,” he says.

The speed of change is such that IT leaders cannot afford not to adapt their business processes.

“People look at what Netflix is doing and the thing to take away is that agile software development

will only get you so far,” says Miles. “The software itself needs to be as adaptable as the process.”

What this boils down to, says Miles, is that IT leaders need to figure out how to adapt systems and the

work IT departments need to do, to achieve the speed and flexibility required by the business.

A case for smarter analytics

If they cannot meet the needs of the business, business users will go elsewhere, or even develop the

systems themselves.

“Business users are driving software development,” says Frank Ketelaars, big data technical leader for

Europe at IBM. This is a form of shadow IT, he adds. “They use spreadsheet data warehouses as their

own analytics platform.”

Given the need for developers to be productive and create applications quickly, Ketelaars says

technologies such as Apache Spark make it possible for businesses to develop machine learning

capabilities more easily than before.

 

Also, the availability of deep learning services is pushing the boundaries of analytics in terms of the

massive computational intelligence such algorithms can bring to bear on hard-to-solve problems. But

with such technological developments comes new challenges.

Ketelaars says the plethora of analytics tools available makes it hard to validate data models. “It is

extremely difficult working with the variety of analytics libraries and tools that are available,” he says.

What developers need, says Ketelaars, is a route to analytics services via a common programming

interface, giving them the features of an analytics tool within their own applications.

Another challenge facing analytics applications is how to make sense of the data. “Deep learning is

here, but one thing that is missing is context,” says Ketelaars. “If I have a picture with two people

running after each other, and one has a frisbee, I know this image is about playing.”

Deep learning algorithms can instantly recognise the image of two people running, he says, but adds:

“The context changes dramatically if one of them has a chainsaw. This is where context controls what

you should do with the image.”

For Ketelaars, understanding context will be a key requirement in applications, to understand the

meaning behind the analytics. “You have to start thinking about what data you have to control the

behaviour of your application,” he says.

Essentially, applications become smarter, providing users with the information they need based on a

deep contextual understanding of what it deems relevant or important.

Improving tooling

Arguably, there is room for improvement among the array of tools, building blocks and techniques

that developers use to create software, says Phil Trelford, founding member of #F Foundation. “A

general-purpose programming language is a bit like a spanner and we are all trying to build large

systems with spanners,” he says. “What I would like to see is precision tools.”
 

In fact Trelford goes further, saying the industry needs better “meta tools”, in other words software

tools to help the developers of programming tools build precision instruments, rather than generic

spanners.

While, as the saying goes, “a bad workman blame his tools”, software developers are keen to see

improvements in the tooling they use. In part, this helps them cope with the added complexities when

coding and operations become one, as in DevOps, says Trelford.

“Personally, I would like to be able to say, ‘I need to make this thing happen’, then make it as quickly

as possible,” says Miles. But today, developers need to draw together a lot of threads to create and run

applications successfully, and complexity is increasing all the time, he says. “Smart tooling will help

them handle the cognitive overhead,” he adds.

Enterprises appear to be following smaller companies in adopting new, more productive ways to code.

For instance, WhatsApp, which was developed by a handful of Erlang developers, was sold to

Facebook for $19bn, while Walmart recently acquired the F#-based Jet.com e-commerce platform for

$3bn.

While procedural programming languages such as Java and C have been the bread and butter of

enterprise software development, what has been particularly interesting for software development is

the uptake of functional programming in recent years, particularly among companies that need to

support large numbers of internet customers.

As Trelford explains: “Apart from Java, which has huge user groups, the biggest programmer user

groups in London are those of the functional programming languages. I run the functional London

meeting here. We have been meeting here for about six years and we have over 1,000 members. Scala,

I believe, has 1,500-2,000 members and Clojure has been growing, as has Erlang.”

Many proponents of these programming languages talk about how little code they need compared with

using a procedural language, which makes them attractive for writing code quickly, says Davis.

But among the reasons for the interest in functional programming is reliability. Malcolm Sparks,

director and founder of Juxt, says: “One of the issues we still face as developers is how to build really
 

big software systems. The bigger the project, the more likely it is to fail. It is easier to build small

software systems.”

Sparks argues that, ideally, software developers should look at architecting systems by integrating

many small software components, each of which has been developed to be highly reliable. “We are

moving to a world where individual software systems are becoming so critical and so important that

we had better build them using the best tools and the best languages, and this is why we are seeing a

rise in interest in functional programming,” he says. “Functional programming is a better approach for

writing highly reliable systems.”

Changing software development landscape

Among the changes Miles is seeing is that software development is no longer a factory floor to churn

out new products. Rather, he believes software development is evolving into a continuous R&D

practice.

“Companies that regard software as a driver for them are the ones that will win and one of the pieces

of advice I give to company boards is that they should not think of software development as a general

problem that we can solve by throwing more people at it,” says Miles. “Think of software

development as a place where you might be surprised what comes out.”

Enterprises do not often have the luxury of greenfield development, but as Trelford points out, where

enterprises need a new system, there is the opportunity to experiment with the least risk.

Wootton says: “Everyone is always excited about the new greenfield stuff, but there is a real business

case with legacy.” Often, the real business case is actually the J2EE or .Net code that has been running

for a decade or more and requires a big support team.

“You might do something crazy like services on your mainframe, but it turns out this may be where

you get the biggest return on investment,” he says.

“Legacy is a bad thing,” says Sparks. While it is exciting to create new code based on microservices

and perhaps functional programming, the biggest challenge faced by corporate IT is often how to
 

handle a growing legacy of old stuff.

“It can be the millstone that drags you to the bottom of the sea,” says Sparks, who urges CIOs to look

constantly at what can be decommissioned, and have development teams write new applications.

These not only help to move the business forward but, at the same time, enable IT to decommission

something else.

Davis believes that the new techniques available to developers, such as reusable microservices,

containers, functional programming and continuous delivery, offer enterprises an ideal opportunity to

reduce risk and improve reliability.

“It is all about safe, small-scale scalability,” he says. The tools and techniques discussed enable IT

departments to avoid the risk of modifying mission-critical applications by augmenting them in a

highly controlled way, adds Davis.

Cliff Saran (2016). How enterprise software development is changing. Retrieved October, 2016, from:

www.computerweekly.com/feature/How-enterprise-software-development-is-changing.

TEXT 6: These 7 Trends Will Shape Your Professional Future. Karie Willyerd,Barbara Mistick.

We have identified seven megatrends that will certainly have an impact on the types of jobs,
entrepreneurial opportunities, and skills needed for workers in the future. This big-picture review is
meant to help you see how they might affect you, and what you will need to do to prepare for the
workplace of tomorrow.

Globalization

A major shift in where business is conducted is occurring now. McKinsey estimates that half of the
world’s largest companies will be headquartered in what are now emerging markets, such as Brazil,
India, and eastern European countries. Pressure from global competition and other factors resulted in
over 40% of the companies that were in the Fortune 500 in 2000 falling off the list by 2010. These
were replaced largely by new global entrants and technology companies.
Demographics Shifts

In many economies around the world, advances in healthcare and declining birth rates have resulted in
a population that is graying and a workforce that is shrinking. People are living and working longer,
 

with the average retirement age for most people working now expected to be 66, up from 57 two
decades ago.
Millennials are now the largest generation in the workplace in most countries, and their voices,
connected through social media, will increasingly alter the workplace culture.

Explosion of Data

Experts estimate that from 2009 to 2020, data will grow 4300%. That data will be in the form of
content from the past that can be readily structured into a database, and will also increasingly include
unstructured data such as that found in social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Vine, and
so on.

Organizations that can mine this data to reveal customer trends will lead the markets of the future.

Emerging Technologies

One of the many emerging technologies worthy of mention is robotics. Japan is expecting one in three
of its population to be over the age of 65 by 2030, and one in five to be over 75, creating a major
requirement for the care of the elderly. Not surprisingly then, Japan is on the leading edge of using
robots in service roles. A hotel opened in Japan in 2015 with lifelike robots, called actroids, serving as
the check-in staff. Aid assistance in nursing facilities is on the horizon, meaning many of the entry-
level jobs in those areas will become obsolete.

Climate change

Climate change will have a strong economic impact in the future. The OECD anticipates that by 2050,
more than 40% of the world’s population will live under severe water stress, resulting in floods or
drought that, combined, can put the economic value of assets at risk at record highs.

Becoming efficient with resources is socially responsible and cost beneficial. Organizations need to
adapt to increasing regulations controlling energy efficiency, waste, water leakage, urban congestion,
transportation efficiency, land degradation, freight impact, and other factors. Allowing employees to
work virtually also reduces the need for facilities and helps organizations minimize their carbon
footprints.

Redefined Jobs

What is a job? Look over a few definitions on the web and it’s easy to see that few of us are still
limited to Google’s first meaning: “a paid position of regular employment.” Sure, we have paid work,
 

but from only one source and in a regular fashion?

Instead, the definition of a job looks more like the second meaning from Google: “a task or piece of
work, especially one that is paid.” Piecing together multiple gigs at the same time or freelancing in a
series of work-for-hire roles is a new normal. The nature of fluctuating workloads requires moving to
meet those needs, whether your skills and motivation match or not. Over 83% of executives told us
that they plan on increasing their use of contingent, part-time, or flexible workers in the next few
years. Those with in-demand skills will be hired to accomplish one specific project, rather than given a
full-time position.

The nature of how work gets done is rapidly shifting. Even the lines between workday and personal
time are blurring, since work and personal time blend and overlap. Work is no longer a place, but a
thing.

Complexity

Complexity is increasing for both organizations and individuals. At the organizational level,
complexity multiplies with layers upon layers of government regulations, in multiple countries,
combined with requirements from customers with their own unique specifications.

Organizations that can streamline and simplify structures, processes, systems, and cultures will have
the competitive advantage in the future.

At the individual level, the need to master this complexity and balance competing demands is also on
the increase. Stanford researchers identified a number of stressors that affect overall health and
wellness for employees, including long hours, job insecurity, work-family conflict, and others.

Studies agree resoundingly that these megatrends are forging the working landscape of the future.
Some trends may seem far removed from your everyday world; others you may already be
experiencing. All of them have the potential to change the way we work in substantial ways,
threatening to make many people and even experts in their fields obsolete.

Karie Willyerd,Barbara Mistick (2016). These 7 Trends Will Shape Your Professional Future.
Retrieved February 20th, 2016, from: fortune.com/2016/02/20/7-trends-will-shape-your-professional-
future/?iid=leftrail.

TEXT 7: Cut legacy IT costs to drive digital business initiatives, says Hackett Group study.
Cliff Saran, Managing Editor.
 

Hackett Group's research shows that CIOs must become more ruthless with culling legacy
systems if the business is to fully embrace digitisation

Research from strategic advisory service Hackett Group has found that IT organisations are at a

crossroads, with CIOs needing to ensure legacy applications and processes that are redundant

due to modernisation are retired at the end of the project to fulfil the business case.

IT is constrained by sunk investments and legacy technology and skillsets, while it must also embrace

the digital world of cloud, big data analytics, social media, the internet of things (IoT) and mobility.

Hackett Group found that some IT departments are overwhelmed by the challenge posed by the

avalanche of technology innovations and take a defensive stance, tweaking the established IT service

delivery model.

Others are energised by the opportunity to elevate the role of technology to a higher strategic level, as

senior management embraces digital as a cornerstone of the business strategy.

According to Hackett Group, world-class IT organisations are in the latter camp, and any IT

organisation failing to follow the lead of world-class businesses by fully embracing digital

transformation as the basis for the future state of IT service delivery will be marginalised.

The study also showed that the most efficiently run IT departments spend 21% less per user than

typical companies and rely on 8% fewer staff.

Its research found that in large enterprises, with a revenue of $10bn, world-class IT departments were

able to cut costs by as much as $41m on average.

Such cost savings can help CIOs struggling with budget constraints to fund digitisation initiatives.

Hackett Group found that the top IT departments spent just 53% of their budgets on running IT,

compared with 60% in typical companies.

 

A larger percentage of process costs were committed to new business-focused initiatives (43% versus

32%).

Given that IT budgets are growing modestly, IT departments have to self-fund their internal

transformation, including developing the competencies needed to support digital business

transformation.

But as Hackett Group’s findings have shown, many IT departments have significant resources tied up

in supporting “run-the-business” activities, which detracts from their ability to support the higher

value activities that drive business results.

Speaking to Computer Weekly about the challenges IT faces in the age of digitisation, Scott Holland,

practice leader of the IT executive advisory program at Hackett Group, said: “Legacy applications will

not go away unless there is a concerted effort to focus on them.”

While it is highly unlikely that a CIO will be able to switch off the legacy SAP system, as it is part of

the DNA of the business, Holland said a lot of legacy applications do not provide business value.

“Successful companies look at their application portfolio and develop technology roadmaps. You have

to learn to live with core investments, especially if there is legacy with a lot of users,” he said.

If there is a legacy system such as SAP, Holland recommended that CIOs assess whether it could be

used to support a new business idea, rather than buy in a totally different product.

“When you talk to the business about ideas and you run SAP environment, ask why SAP won’t work

in this environment,” said Holland.

Cull non-core legacy

However, beyond the core system, Holland urged CIOs to be ruthless with reducing legacy software.

“If you don’t build a business case to retire applications, you create problems,” he said.

He blamed weak governance for the growth of legacy software, saying there is a lack of discipline.
 

“Legacy will never go away. The question is how diligent you are at chipping away at the legacy

portfolio.”

He said CIOs must remain focused if the last step in closing the book on a project is to retire the

applications. “If the business case says we will free up three applications, part of the benefits to the

business is about no longer supporting the old applications.”

In Holland’s experience, the IT department must have a heart-to-heart conversation with the business

sponsors. “Their objective is not to create problems for IT, but they don’t have visibility of costs,” he

said.

A workable solution may be to agree with the business that IT should not bear the cost of support if

the legacy application cannot be retired.

A politically sensitive issue for CIOs occurs when a project has the potential to automate manual

business processes. “Finance people would be reluctant to free up 50 people if you say you can

automate the processes,” said Holland.

Instead, the CIO needs to speak in terms of operational expenses and discuss how to move people

from transaction processing to knowledge worker roles, he added.

Cliff Saran (2016). Cut legacy IT costs to drive digital business initiatives, says Hackett Group study.

Retrieved November, 15th, 2016, from: www.computerweekly.com/news/450402905/Cut-legacy-IT-

costs-to-drive-digital-business-initiatives-says-Hackett-Group-study.

TEXT 8: Hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs automated by 2030

Karl Flinders. Emea Content Editor, Computer Weekly

Repetitive roles in the UK public sector will be decimated as organisations replace people with
automation technology

Around 16% of total public sector jobs in the UK could be automated by 2030 as automation

technology evolves while public sector budgets recede.

 

Research from Deloitte predicts that while many public sector jobs, – such as those in education

and caring – are still at a lower risk of automation, there are many roles in administration and

operations that are easy to automate.

As a result, Deloitte predicts that more than 861,000 jobs in the public sector could be automated by

2030, with £17bn cut off the public sector wage bill.

In the UK public sector, 1.3 million (27%) of the total workforce are in administrative and operative

roles, which are the most repetitive and predictable. To address this, the London Borough of Enfield

uses a software robot to provide customer services so it can redirect resources.

The north London council is using the artificial intelligence platform from IPSoft, known as Amelia,

which was launched in 2014.

The platform has an understanding of the semantics of language and can learn to solve business

process queries like a human. It can read 300 pages in 30 seconds and learn through experience by

observing the interactions between human agents and customers.

The council said Amelia will free up staff from repetitive staff and enable them to offer more valuable

support to citizens.

UK local government administrative roles fell from 99,000 in 2001 to 87,000 in 2015, and are

projected to fall to 4,000 by 2030, said Deloitte.

Another 2.6 million public sector jobs are interactive roles requiring a high degree of personal

interaction, which are much less likely to be automated, while 20% require strategic thinking and

complex reasoning, which are at the lowest risk of automation.

All sectors of the UK economy will be affected by automation in the next 20 years, with 74% of jobs

in transportation and storage, 59% of jobs in wholesale and retail, and 56% of jobs in manufacturing

having a high chance of being automated, according to Deloitte.

 

Mike Turley, global head of public sector at Deloitte, said across all sectors of the economy,

technological advances mean that repetitive and predictable tasks are increasingly undertaken by

software and hardware robots.

With many jobs difficult to automate in the public sector, the need to reduce costs will put repetitive

jobs in the firing line.

“The public sector has a high number of public-facing roles, particularly those in areas such as

education and caring. These will be relatively safe from automation and could see the public sector

affected less than other sectors,” said Turley.

“However, automation still has significant potential to support cost reduction, meet citizens’

expectations of public services, free up real estate, save staff time and improve productivity.”

He said automation is already being used in local government for data entry, such driverless trains.

“Automation will not displace employees overnight, its impact is gradual and manageable and there

could well be social or political resistance to the full deployment of technology in place of people,”

said Turley.

“Our wider research on automation also shows that while jobs are displaced by automation, new,

higher-skilled and better paying jobs are created as a result.”

Karl Flinders (2016). Hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs automated by 2030. Retrieved

October, 25th, 2016, from: www.computerweekly.com/news/450401659/Hundreds-of-thousands-of-

public-sector-jobs-automated-by-2030.

TEXT 9: The savvy sysadmin's guide to surviving an ISO 27001 audit

What ISO 27001 auditors will be looking for from Unix sysadmins

If your Unix/Linux servers are to be involved in an ISO 27001 audit, there are a lot of things you
should be doing ahead of time to ensure that they won't end up generating findings. While there are
 

many things you can do to secure the systems you manage, the key to getting a Unix system to pass an
ISO 27001 audit is knowing what the auditors are likely to ask and what they will need to see.

What is ISO 27001?

If you're new to the ISO 27001 standard, it might help to know that the standard sets a level of quality
for information system security. That said, it's likely that many of the things you already do today to
keep the servers you manage secure and usable will play into the overall system security posture that
the auditors will be looking to confirm. If you're deficient in some way, there's a good chance that one
deficiency will be that you aren't documenting your activities as well as the auditors might believe
necessary. The standard incorporates many areas of focus, but maintaining records to prove that you've
followed all the proper procedures is one that is easily overlooked in the busy day-to-day life of
systems administrators.

The overall standard focuses on identifying and addressing risk in your organization -- risk as it relates
to information and related assets. Certification can be quite valuable with respect to gaining and
maintaining customer trust. In fact, an ever increasing number of organizations are looking for
companies that they do business with to be certified. Certification can also help to keep your
organization's big guys out of trouble as it helps to demonstrate that they're using due diligence in
protecting the company's information assets, even if you're the one actually managing the safeguards.

The focus of ISO 27001 is on managing information system security in its many forms, not just system
security, but also building security, printout security, staff security, etc. and staff awareness and
education are very important to being successful.

While the standard is referred to as "ISO 27001", it is actually defined in a series of 27xxx documents,
all related to information system security. The key documents, however, are 27001 (which discusses
information security management system requirements and techniques) and 27002 (which provides a
code of practice). Think of them as what you need to do and guidance on how to go about doing it.
Organizations that want to be ISO 27001 certified will first look at what's required and then determine
how they can best go about meeting those requirements. For keeping systems physically secure, for
example, they might decide that all servers must be situated in data centers with very limited access.
They'll write that requirement into one of their "controls". And if, when the auditors come, they see the
data center door propped open or unlocked, you'll likely get what's called a "finding" -- something that
counts against your chances of getting certified.

Sandra Henry-Stocker (2015). savvy sysadmin's guide to surviving an ISO 27001 audit. Retrieved
June, 29th, 2015, from: www.computerworld.com/article/2942172/linux/when-your-linux-servers-get-
audited.html.