Author: David

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Pond and birdlife

The goldfish appear to have (largely) survived the coldsnap – haven’t been able to do a census but early fears have been unfounded. What is obvious is that the “stream” leading into the pond needs some serious work doing on it in the spring. There’s a seapage from it on the way down to the waterfall and it would seem prudent to re-line it. The other possibility is that the pipe that goes from the pump to the “spring” is punctured in some way. Either way the work will have to wait until it gets a bit warmer. I also need to repair or replace the main pump as the secondary one is just not powerful enough to handle both the filter and the “stream”. So all in all that’s a weekend of work to look forward to.

The excitement of RSPB Garden Bird weekend is over, but in addition to what I spotted that weekend …

1 pair of bullfinch
2 pairs of greenfinch
2 pairs of goldfinch
2 pairs of chaffinch
1 pair of blackcap
1 pair of blue tit
1 pair of great tit
5 house sparrow
2 collared dove
1 robin
1 pair of blackbirds, plus another female

… it was pleasing to see a second robin, and an immature thrush this morning. Plus the population of goldfinches had risen to seven! News of the feast we’re providing for them must have spread.

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All change, move right down the bus (#bus28 or #bus85 of course)

My work life all of a sudden took a different direction yesterday, and I’m really excited about it. With the arrival of a new IT Director the opportunity had already presented itself for me to increase the amount of time I spent on strategy and engagement and reduce the amount of time I spent on front-line services.In my new role I will be charged with …

–   Further development and communication internally and externally of our strategy; doing this in ways that continue to facilitate the overall cohesion of the Directorate and the quality of our co-working with Schools and other Directorates.

– Fostering new ways of working in the University that exploit both MWE and the ‘web 2.0’ world more generally.

–  Communicating the value of the Directorate and the benefits of the Directorate’s work University-wide.

–  Further developing our external contacts with other institutions, benchmarking us against other HEI’s nationally and internationally, spotting good practice for us to draw on and building positive mutually beneficial alliances with other organisations across the world.

… now that’s exciting enough, but yesterday it got even better.

I’ve been asked to become the Senior Advisor to JISC on Access Management, details still to be worked out but it’s likely to be a partial secondment; It’s SO complementary to my new role in the University. What’s so important about Access and Identity Management is the role it should play in the transformational change agenda of Universities and elsewhere in the public sector. Identity Management should be at the heart of an institution’s e-Infrastructure. When coupled with access management and membership of the UK Federation, it forms the virtual glue that enables the physical network infrastructure to deliver services and resources seamlessly and transparently to users through portals and single sign-on. So to be associated with something as important as this, you can see why I’m so excited.