For safety reasons this event is limited to 20 people and preference will be given to BCS members. Therefore, book early by emailing publicity06-at-bcs.org.im.

Those included in the visit should park their cars in the adjacent Isle of Man college car park and walk the short distance to the Water Treatment Works. For those unfamiliar with the area the following picture should assist.
High heels should not be worn as much of the visit will consist of walking over gratings. Those who suffer from vertigo should inform the IOMWA staff to facilitate a less vertiginous route round the works.

Island resident Steve Burrows, a Chartered Fellow of the BCS and member of the elite CW500 IT Directors club, until recently Group IT Director of a large UK B2B company, will recount his experience of deploying a sophisticated and complex high-end CRM system, with illustration of the capabilities it provides and the business benefits realised. Steve will explain how he used CRM to increase sales and profitability, how he was able to integrate the activities of the different customer-facing functions within the business, streamline the activities of office and field-based customer-facing staff, and facilitate significant organisational growth, leading to UK market dominance.

This talk is a “must attend” opportunity for business directors, senior managers and IT function heads to gain insights about the use of technology in business to provide real competitive edge.

All are welcome, attendance is free.

Venue: Claremont Hotel on Wednesday 24th February 2010. Doors open at 18:00 for an 18:30 start.

Please confirm attendance in advance by replying to: publicity06-at-bcs.org.im

The local BCS Committee felt that the importance of establishing the correct regime for communications regulation had such an effect on the ICT sector in the IOM that it warranted the opportunity for all of our local members to provide input to the BCS response. To achieve this we took the following steps:-

1. E-mail sent to all local members advising them of the consultation requesting their responses by the 22^nd of January. This e-mail also requested members to volunteer for a committee to collate and rationalise the responses.
2. An open event was held on the 28^th of January to enable members to voice their views.
3. Draft Response to be available to all members for comment by 1^st February.
4. Comments on Draft by 5^th February.
5. Submission on 9^th February.

We were gratified by the interest shown, and response of our members and our submission encapsulates their views.

You can also view the Response to Consultation Document

Gabriel Karawani has an extensive career in IT and software development for both enterprise and web systems. He has gained his professional experience in IT consulting, project management and network management both in Denmark and London. Gabriel holds a MSc in Engineering.

Gabriel has provided consulting services on SharePoint since 2005 with particular expertise in ECM and Document Management. He was instrumental in ClearPeople’s selection for Microsoft’s Partner Evidence Programme (PEP), for SharePoint 2010, and has spoken at a number of events including the Butler Group’s Strategy Briefing earlier this year

We look forward to your attendance at this event.

Venue: Claremont Hotel on Monday 30th November 2009. Doors open at 18:00 for an 18:30 start.

Please confirm attendance in advance by replying to: publicity06-at-bcs.org.im

• Slides and Feedback Form
• Isle of Man Sharepoint User Group

This year’s BCS Christmas Pub Quiz will be on Tuesday 8th December. With prizes for “General Knowledge” and for the “Geeky IT Questions”, this event has proven a great opportunity to practice “teambuilding”, test your knowledge, network with other BCS members and guests, and enjoy a few drinks. Complimentary light refreshments will be provided.

The Quiz will commence on Tuesday 8th December 2009 at 1900 at the Prospect Pub in Douglas (doors open and the light refreshments available from about 1815).

Please assemble your teams (maximum 4 persons per team) and kindly confirm attendance in advance by replying to publicity06-at-bcs.org.im

The first session will start at 5.30pm and is entitled Understanding and applying your relationship tendencies.  There will then be a short break for tea/coffee etc, and the second session will start at 6.45pm and is entitled Managing conflicts collaboratively.

Session 1: Understanding and applying your relationship tendencies
There is much talk about relationships and that all good customer service starts with a good relationship. However, all too often, these are just words and seldom turned into action.

What many people are not aware is that in psychology, relationships between people are a well-researched and understood field. Not only that, but there are many proven and practical assessment tools available. Some of these delve into one’s personality such as Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®). Others stick with the more visible and hence more manageable external behaviour such as FIRO-B®, which stands for Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation – Behaviour

At a time when business is increasingly competitive, fast-moving and challenging, there is a tendency to avoid building long-term relationships and go for quick-win transactions. This is a mistake. A short-term small gain may prove to be a long-term large loss.
Charles Chang will describe an extremely useful tool to help you understand the underlying behavioural issues behind how people have natural tendencies in their interpersonal behaviour. With this knowledge you will be better equipped to analyse a situation and determine how to handle it positively and productively.

Session 2: Managing conflicts collaboratively
At a time when the economy is in recession and many organisations are under great pressure, tension and conflict can become more frequent and intense within a team, leading to non-optimal decisions and impaired performance. Even in the absence of overt conflict, disagreements on how best to achieve shared objectives when external factors are changing rapidly and multiple options exist can undermine the best laid strategies.
Charles will describe a Method to help you understand the underlying behavioural issues behind conflicts and how to move to a win-win collaborative position. His talk is based on the Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI®) which is the leading instrument for conflict resolution. By measuring and modelling an individual’s behaviour in conflict situations, it helps to open discussions about personal and group dynamics.

Charles Chang FBCS CITP is a management consultant who works with CIOs and Heads of IT to improve the business leverage of their IT investment through supporting them on the ‘softer’ issues of IT management – achieved through highly interactive workshops, often using proven psychometric tools.
He also works with major IT vendors to further their understanding of business and management issues facing CIOs.

Charles developed his IT skills with IBM in the US and with ICL in the UK over 15 years – late 60s & 70s. His consulting and research skills were developed over 25 years at Butler Cox, Wentworth Research – which he co-founded – and Gartner, where he was a VP of EXP: Executive Programs for CIOs – early 80s to 2004.  Charles is the author of numerous reports and has addressed business and IT executives internationally.

Recently, Charles has become heavily engaged in voluntary activities for the BCS and is an Advisory Councillor as well as chair of the Management Forum. He also sits on several other BCS boards and committees.

Venue
Claremont Hotel on Monday 19th October 2009. Doors open at 17:15 for an 17:30 start.

Handouts from event
Understanding and applying your relationship tendencies
Managing conflicts collaboratively

Looking back from the pre-history of Linux, and the events that would lead up to the first public announcement of the Linux kernel in 1991, up until the present day – the events that shaped this operating system, and how it would develop. Linux is the first major and undoubtedly most prominent success of the “internet bazaar” style of collaboration and development. Many notable accidents of computing history have made Linux possible – from AT&T’s policies in the 1980s over Unix that resulted in the birth of the Free Software Foundation, as well as one of Britain’s least successful personal computers. Along the way, Linux has garnered criticism from academics and praise from corporations, to attempts at destruction from some corporations, and adoption by academics. Today, Linux is still an ongoing project – like many major efforts in software, development is a never ending task with new concepts being applied in areas thought to be mundane and settled, such as the filesystem and scheduler. To understand why Linux is where it is today, the talk will cover the history and events surrounding this operating system, from the pre-history of 1969 up to the present day.

We look forward to your attendance at this event. Please notify Events using our contact form if you are planning to attend so we can ensure seating for everyone.

Venue
Claremont Hotel on Thursday 27th August

Our next event centres around the evolution of Virtual Worlds with particular emphasis on Second Life, an immersive experience that has been making the headlines as more people and organisations become part of this global virtual experience. Here’s a synopsis of the event:

Second Life is a 3D multi-user role-playing online environment. Unlike other virtual worlds, created as games with set rules and stock characters, most of what goes on in Second Life is created by its users. This makes it an ideal playground for all sort of creative people. At any given time, there are no fewer than 20,000 people active in Second Life. Over a period of 60 days as many as one and a half million registered users log in. Building on over 10 years of experience with text-based virtual worlds on IRC, MUDs and MOOs, Dr Toni Sant has more recently been exploring Second Life as the next part of the evolution of virtual worlds on the Internet. His work on this subject has been published in the International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, and in the book Learning & Teaching in the Virtual World of Second Life (Trondheim – Norway: Tapir Academic Press, 2009).

About the speaker:

Dr Toni Sant is Lecturer in Performance and Creative Technologies at the University of Hull’s School of Arts & New Media in Scarborough, where he also serves as Subject Group Leader for Interdisciplinary Studies. He is currently writing a book called A History of the Future: Franklin Furnace & the Spirit of the Avant-Garde (Intellect, forthcoming 2010). He also podcasts and blogs regularly at http://www.tonisant.com

We look forward to your attendance at this event. Please notify Events using our contact form if you are planning to attend so we can ensure seating for everyone.

Venue
Claremont Hotel on Tuesday 21st July 2009. Doors open at 18:00 for an 18:30 start.

Continued Professional Development (CPD) Certificate
If required, please print the CPD Certificate and bring to the lecture for authorisation

Other dates for your calendar:
July 20th 2009 – Business Continuity – who needs it? organised by the CMI
August 27th 2009 – The Evolution of Linux by Mr. Dylan Smith

As software applications grow in complexity de-coupling your code becomes more important. Dependency injection is one of these de-coupling techniques. Explore dependency injection and inversion of control design principles and how they lead to loosely coupled code (a good thing), very testable code and more flexible applications. We will also look at the use of DI containers as an aid to Inversion of Control. See how you can start using these today

The talk is aimed at professionals involved in different aspects surrounding the development of software. The talk will be presented by Zakir Hoosen, from Fuzzelogic Solutions, who specialise in the provision of technology services over a range of different technologies and methodologies. You can read more about them on their profile.

Venue
Claremont Hotel on Tuesday 30th June 2009. Doors open at 18:00.

Continued Professional Development (CPD) Certificate
Please print the CPD Certificate and bring to the lecture for authorisation

Dates for your calendar:
July 21st – Virtual Worlds by Dr Toni Sant
August 19th – The Evolution of Linux

The Manx Executive Challenge, held every two years, is now widely accepted as the premier development opportunity for the future business leaders of the Isle of Man. Organised by the Isle of Man Branch of the CMI, the Challenge offers the opportunity to demonstrate senior management potential by working in a team, under the guidance of a business mentor, to address an issue which is topical, relevant and of strategic importance to the Isle of Man. It offers the very best combination of real, hands on experience together with support from experienced professionals.

Key Benefits to participants.

• Giving you an edge – this is a unique development opportunity for those seeking a career in senior management. By taking part in the Challenge you give yourself many advantages over those who do not;
• Proving your ability
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