Just links this episode.

Some fantastic #gartnercore

Relative to your interests

• Thinking Strategically About Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs) - As with most things, the whole SBOM push is probably a lot simpler to solve than it seems. Also, a delightful “old man yells at secure software supply chain hype” vibe as only Jon could do well.

• Can Watsonx Rebuild IBM’s AI Relevance? - Analysis of IBM’s AI stuff. Also, a good side point: no one really knows anymore what IBM does.

• A framework for council technology planning – SensibleTech - “We don’t have much – if any – ‘legacy’ code running on old virtualised mainframes like bits of central government do. In fact, a lot of what is called legacy in local government is anything but – it’s regularly updated and kept working and in line with statutory requirements. So it’s not legacy software. It’s just bad software.” // Getting a common language of digital transformation, a shared model of all the capabilities a local government needs, and an understanding of how all the tech works so that non-technical people can manage it and set strategy.

• Touchpoints, coalescence and multi-platform engineering — thoughts from Kubecon 2023 - A sum up of the trends and state of the kubernetes/cloud native community, but an even better picture of the setting and tone.

• Gartner Forecasts Worldwide Government IT Spending to Grow 8% in 2023 - “Worldwide government IT spending is forecast to total $589.8 billion in 2023, an increase of 7.6% from 2022, according to Gartner, Inc.” And: “57% of government CIOs plan to increase funding for application modernization in 2023, up from 42% in 2022.”

• Retrospective of 10 years of digital in the UK government - Great overview of the past ten(?) years of digital transformation in the UK government. I must say: this exact analysis probably applies private sector companies worldwide.

• Manage process before people - File under “must be nice…”

• Majority of Americans have heard of ChatGPT, but few have tried it - “Just 14% of U.S. adults have tried ChatGPT” - until that gets up to 50%, a lot of the freaking (& hype) is like fearing necromancy. Once you use it a lot you’re like “oh, I see. Not a threat. That dumb-ass box can’t even tell me how to get my kids put their shoes on for school.”

• Extending the Pivotal Labs Way: How Tanzu Labs Helps Organizations Deliver Great Software - All about Tanzu Labs, the consulting group at VMware that helps your org get better at software. Their approach is very human centric, very pragmatic, and very effective.

• How Ecosystems Are Changing Insurance CX - An example of using digital stuff to improve insurance, here car insurance claims. Also, not the point of needing to integrate with all sorts of third parties and systems: “Vehicle claims are often complicated, involve several parties, and take a long time to resolve. Each participant in the claims process, including carriers, loss assessors, vehicle repairers, diagnostics technicians, and so on, has distinct needs and requirements. An emerging technology ecosystem, consisting of various linked and interdependent technologies, is developing to meet those needs. For example, emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and, more specifically, computer vision technologies (CVT) can meet the needs of carriers (assessing the circumstances of the accident and the extent of the damage) and vehicle repairers (diagnostics to repair the damaged car). There was plenty of evidence of such solutions during the conference, which might make the dream of zero-touch automobile promises a reality.”

• The Pessimism Problem Continues to Grow - It’s 60% now: ’Back in 2020, I wrote a post titled “The Pessimism Problem.” We had completed a survey where 54% of respondents agreed with the statement “We regret nearly every purchase we make after the subscription agreement is finalized.”’

• An Infinite Game: Interview with Laurel Schwulst - “when I use ChatGPT, I’ve noticed that I’m getting better at talking to a computer. To me, it underscores how amazing the ability to simply have conversations is. And if you’re someone who enjoys having conversations with yourself, I think it helps if you personify the different aspects of your personality.”

• The Forbidden Zone - ’Back then, you were a webmaster, doing it all.’

• SRE as She Is Spoke - Here’s the bit about “you build it, you run it” actually meaning you have a big platform to support most all of the ops stuff, as told by Andrew Clay Shafer.

• European HVAC - Air conditioners to be big in Europe?

• Why Don’t Rich People Use Phone Cases? - “It’s the whole idea of comfort. Minimal objects contribute to a comfortable life.”

Upcoming

Talks I’ll be giving, things I’ll be doing, places I’ll be going.

May 31st Fireside chat with the GM of my business unit at VMware, online. June 1st VMUG Belgium in Brussels, free. June 7th State of Kubernetes overview, online. June 8th to 9th PlatformCon, online. June 21st Cloud Foundry Day, Heidelberg, speaking. June 21st Making digital transformation stick in government agencies, online. June 22nd to 23rd DevOpsDays Amsterdam August 21st to 24th SpringOne & VMware Explore US, in Las Vegas. Sep 6th to 7th  DevOpsDays Des Moines, speaking. Sep 18th to 19th SHIFT in Zadar.

Are.na

I’m having fun with Are.na. It’s like Tumblr. But, when you put a tiny payment requirement up (it costs $7 a month to post more than 200 items) you get an amazing editorial effect. Here’s my profile.

Logoff

I’ve got a busy week ahead, sort of. Two speaking events and then working forward for a bunch of webinars.

Kim rented a boat this weekend. It was super fun to slowly putter around the canals in Amsterdam. Highly recommended!

See y’all next time.