\n Featuring; Interviews with the Ladies Hacking Society of\n Norwich. Articles on Train Wreck, Ramblings on Micro services,\n Tom's Top Tips for 2020, & What is design?\n
\n","path":"/posts/2020-04-10-cyber-security-the-rise-of-skywalker"},{"date":"2020-04-10T10:10:10Z","layout":"post","title":"Ramblings on how micro services are shaping the future of SQL","author":["Adrian Pickering"],"hero":"/static/images/pages/posts/2020-04-10-ramblings-on-how-micro-services-are-shaping-the-future-of-sql/hero.jpg","tags":["Article"],"excerpt":"Base Ten is hardly a convenient foundation for how we think about numbers. It is divisible only by 1, 2, 5 and itself. Base Twelve would give us 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12 for segmentation and who doesn't love a clock? A quarter past eleven. Try that with your metric 10-hour day. The r...","body":"\nBase Ten is hardly a convenient foundation for how we think about numbers. It is divisible only by 1, 2, 5 and itself. Base Twelve would give us 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12 for segmentation and who doesn't love a clock? A quarter past eleven. Try that with your metric 10-hour day. The revolting French gave it a bash in 1793[1] but it didn't withstand the test of time.\n\nBase Two, native to essentially all computers, allows any number to be represented using just two different characters, 0 and 1. What is more, Base Two lends itself to easier mental arithmetic, or at least it would if we spent half as much effort indoctrinating children in the joys of binary as we do in decimal. How about base 5? No more seven times table, that's got to be of benefit to the sanity of world order.\n\nYet we stick with Base Ten. Zero to nine, carry a one. Base ten served us well when our imaginations hadn't offered us a more sophisticated abacus than counting on our fingers, but even base two would have allowed us to hit 1023 before reaching down to our toes.\n\nOur broad preference for decimal[2] may or may not have impeded science on this planet, but I can confidently assert that, in hindsight, we probably wouldn't choose it again if we had all of human history to play with. In spite of this, human achievement that depends heavily on mathematics, in the form of scientific and technological advancement, is truly astonishing, and give or take a few morsels, all of that was performed on top of Base Ten thinking.\n\n**We may forever be condemned to build for new problems on top of solutions to old problems, long after those old problems have gone away.**\n\nSome technologies are burdened by others' legacies, their ancestors solving long-since obsolete problems. The relational database management systems (RDBMS) that power the world nostalgically cling to practices designed to solve a problem that doesn't really exist anymore: efficiently storing and retrieving data from platters of spinning disks of rust by moving tiny magnets as little as possible.\n\nStorage is now cheap and solid state drives reduce the founding purpose of RDMBS to extinction. However, the side effect of years of investment into database technologies - indexing, partitioning, query languages and much more - is a very efficient means of storing and retrieving highly-structured data. The practices and techniques for exercising these technologies are well understood and exploited to great effect.\n\nEnterprises will want RDMBS for decades to come, where the effort in shaping and structuring data more than pays for itself when the returns in processing efficiency are delivered. Smaller organisations, who may value time to market and low-cost staff, broadly have no good reason not to go NoSQL and abandon the RDBMS altogether. Micro services each demand exclusive storage.\n\nDocument stores (Couchbase), key value stores (Dynamo), graph databases (Neo4J) and column stores (Cassandra) are so easy for the application programmer to work with and they don't need to worry about n degrees of Normal Form. Concerns of referential integrity - which matter no less than they ever did - are pushed up the stack and become the responsibility of the hosting micro service. Data is replicated but it kind-of doesn't matter as the consumer of the data (the application programmer) makes the judgement on which source is most worthy.\n\n**The relationships valued in RDBMS are considered harmful across micro service boundaries**\n\nMicro services are a great way to deliver working software. Isolated, free of coupling at the point of testing and deployment, you can make highly robust solutions very quickly, prove them and deploy them. A problem comes with the plumbing: the concern over which data in a conflict \"wins\" is pushed back up to the application.\n\nA number of modern enterprises, particularly in the B2C space, may work towards \"customer-centric architecture\". That means there's a customer service and anything that needs to know about a customer consumes that service. You have a customer payment service that looks after the payments a customer has made. It consumes (only - does not extend) the customer service, and offers its own functionality too.\n\nThis is mostly a neat fit with SOLID, extensible architecture too - each service is a black box, like using Google or Facebook authentication on your own website - and in return that service promises to never change. By change, I mean it may be extended, but given the same request, the behaviour is consistent. This is in line with the open-closed principle and, logically if not literally, the Liskov substitution principle.\n\n**Transactional processing is hard nut to crack in micro services. Logical transactions essentially don't exist, at least they bring complications and the solutions are often not that robust. Each micro service needs to be instructed to reverse the consequence of an action and this is all orchestrated by the consuming application.**\n\nI have heard people say monolithic architecture is coming back, I'm not sure it went away, though I suspect micro services are a long way from peaking.\n\nMy pet theory - much of what we (as makers of software) do is pretty much boilerplate: the same stuff, more or less, over and over again. Bit by bit, much of the functionality will be replaced by micro services. Google, Microsoft and Facebook authentication are great examples. Why would I want to write my own Auth solution?\n\nTraditional RDMBS n-tier thinking, as opposed to micro service architecture, lends itself to efficiency of data more than it does to horizontal scalability. Micro services and NoSQL solutions are quick to build and cheap to maintain. Finding the balance is where science meets art.\n\nThe thing is, programming is fast becoming the new literacy. In Roman times, through and past the Middle Ages, those few who could read and write had a huge advantage over the plebeians and peasants. In the coming generation or so, everyone will be a programmer. It will be as normal a part of professional life as Excel, and, like Excel, 99% of users will get enough out of 1% of its functionality. Still, where there lies an advantage in efficiency of product over speed to market, the older database technologies will still be favoured. Big business will want Oracle until we retire and beyond; such jobs will likely become more scarce and, possibly, higher paid.\n\n**The legacy of Base Ten shall doubtless outlive me by some years or perhaps millennia, and although I do not expect the humble RDMBS to survive for quite that long, it will not be disappearing any time soon.**\n\n***\n\nTitle Picture By Peter Hamer - Ken Thompson (sitting) and Dennis Ritchie at PDP-11 Uploaded by Magnus Manske, CC BY-SA 2.0,\n Featuring; Interviews with the Ladies Hacking Society of\n Norwich. Articles on Train Wreck, Ramblings on Micro services,\n Tom's Top Tips for 2020, & What is design?\n
\n","path":"/posts/2020-04-10-ramblings-on-how-micro-services-are-shaping-the-future-of-sql"},{"date":"2020-04-10T10:10:10Z","layout":"post","title":"Tom’s Top Tips to get ready for the 2020s","author":["Tom Haczewski"],"tags":["Article"],"excerpt":"To some, it felt like 2019 was a rough, difficult-to-stomach year. After all, just some of the predictions of the cyborg-filled, nuclear-powered flying car future haven’t quite come true, - yet. And, the world seems on the brink of various disasters and crises. Having said that, ...","body":"\nTo some, it felt like 2019 was a rough, difficult-to-stomach year. After all, just some of the predictions of the cyborg-filled, nuclear-powered flying car future haven’t quite come true, - yet. And, the world seems on the brink of various disasters and crises. Having said that, we have plenty of new technology just around the corner promising to redefine the human experience, and seeing as I’m a movie buff, it turns out I might be more prepared than I thought.\n\nHere are my top tips for stuff to watch out for in the next decade, based on what I know from the Sci-fi movies of the 80s. Sorry.\n\n## Getting about\n\n_Transport:_ We’re about to ditch our old petrol-powered motors and call up a GoogleCab to take us wherever we want to go. It might be a welcome change given our recent disappointing rail service in Norfolk - see also, Dom Davis' article in this very issue of this magazine. Firstly, make sure you turn off the radio when you hop in. In just a few years, if Demolition Man is anything to go by, \"The Youth\" of the 20s will all be listening to radio jingles as entertainment and you really can’t listen to the Ocean Finance jingle every time you get into a cab without going insane. Turn that crap off. It’s also worth carrying with you some sort of heavy implement, like a cricket bat or block of wood, just in case… After all, when the GoogleCab tries to kidnap you on behalf of a nefarious government, when it starts driving you out into the Fens, you’ll want to knock off the head of the robot driver, just like in Total Recall.\n\n## Paper has its uses\n\n_UI design:_ Make sure you start carrying plenty of plain white paper and sticky tape. Let me explain why. Pretty much every sci-fi film ever made, where things are depicted as super high-tech, includes a whole bunch of transparent glass screens with UI on them. This is obviously, literally, the worst material to build computer screens on because not only is it awful to try and focus on your UI, and not get distracted at things below/behind said screen (like what? Your trousers? A table surface?), but it also means the privacy of what you’re working on is basically null. Stick the paper to the back of those screens and voila! Security up, usability improved, and no distractions.\n\n## Intelligence\n\n_AI:_ Since we’ve invited talking databases, robotic vacuums and internet-enabled heating and lighting into our homes, we’re ready for the next step - a fully integrated home AI network complete with robotic servants and personalised security. Remember that when setting up your home’s security system, it's wise to avoid over used passwords - such as ‘password’, ‘Joshua’, or ‘zero zero zero, destruct zero’. You don’t want any old starship captain being able to open and shut your curtains at will, do you? And if you’re adding new Alexa Skills in the next few years, remember that as AI gets more intelligent it’s also becoming more dangerous. Build the Three Laws into your next Teddy Bears’ Picnic app, you don’t want it getting all stabby and murdery on you.\n\n_Jobs:_ Seeing as we have all given our DNA away freely with 23and Me testing kits, people are going to know your background far more intimately than you ever thought. Or desired. It’s worth getting tested now to see what your genes say you're suitable for. There’s no point trying to be a C++ Developer, for example, if your poor genetic material determines you’re only suitable for a Javascript role.\n\nVincent went through a lot to become an astronaut in Gattaca, but to be honest, most of us just aren’t going to have those sorts of resources available. Or a disabled-but-genetically-superior pal willing to put their life on hold to help you. At any rate, having paid to give our DNA away, we’re likely to all have various clones running around by the end of the 20s anyway.\n\nPerhaps you can buy a couple for yourself and build your own company of duplicates to help you with your project management and QA. I’d also recommend learning some ‘soft-skills' that are often spoken about by management types. Think about putting some time into negotiation, team collaboration, and extreme conflict resolution. Sure, learning about HTTP2 and GraphQL are probably useful things to know about but they’re not going to be so useful when the inevitable war comes (whether that’s aliens from asteroid Apophis in 2029, or from Trump’s ‘Space Force’ going all murderdeathkill in 2024).\n\n## Welcome to Norfolk\n\nBrush up on those driving skills too. When the planet completely dries out from our relentless ambition to kill it through pollutants and emissions, Norfolk will be the first place for Mad-Max-esque car battles - just look at all that flat, endless countryside. You and your tattooed cannibal buddies will be the rulers of the Norfolk Dust Broads.\n\n**Good luck out there!**\n\n***\n\n### _This article was originally published in the nor(DEV): Magazine 2020, grab your copy below:_\n\nimport MagazineCard from \"../../../components/MagazineCard\";\n\n\n Featuring; Interviews with the Ladies Hacking Society of\n Norwich. Articles on Train Wreck, Ramblings on Micro services,\n Tom's Top Tips for 2020, & What is design?\n
\n","path":"/posts/2020-04-10-toms-top-tips-to-get-ready-for-2020s"},{"date":"2020-04-10T10:00:00Z","layout":"post","title":"Greater Train Wreck","author":["Dom Davis"],"tags":["Article"],"excerpt":"The UK has had a long relationship with rail transport. It started in 1829 with Stephenson’s Rocket, and quickly expanded into a rail network that was the envy of the world. 190 years later you’d think any problems with our trains would be solved.. They’re not. We live in a world...","body":"\nThe UK has had a long relationship with rail transport. It started in 1829 with Stephenson’s Rocket, and quickly expanded into a rail network that was the envy of the world. 190 years later you’d think any problems with our trains would be solved.. They’re not.\n\n> We live in a world where there are frequent failures on our rail network. This is, in part, due to the fast and huge, distributed electro-mechanical system that’s exposed to the elements, and, in part, due to chronic underfunding.\n\n## FLIRT\n\nThe FLIRT 755 introduced something new onto my commute: software failure. I’m no stranger to software messing up my plans. The aviation industry long ago proved that software can be used to effectively and efficiently destroy the plans of tens of thousands of people at a time. While aviation has gone big, the failures tend to be relatively short lived and infrequent. The rail networks have gone for smaller scale impact, but over an impressive timeframe of nearly a year at the time of writing.\n\nAt this point I need to stress that I’ve not yet managed to find any primary sources of data for the failures we’re seeing with the FLIRT 755. Getting to the truth of the matter is difficult. There is a lot of hearsay, conjecture, and speculation, meaning some of my assessment could be entirely wrong. I’ve already had to edit this article a few times as new information has come to light. If this sounds like how every bit of software ever has been designed then there may be some learning here for you.\n\n## When rolling stock doesn’t roll\n\nThe rolling stock on my network was, until recently, formed of units from last millennium. The oldest being the Mark 3 intercity carriages that form the route from Norwich to London. Manufacture of these units started when I was born,over 4 decades ago, and despite refurbishment and modernisation the underlying chassis limits what can be done in some areas. It’s why these units still have the old fashioned “lean out and open” manual doors.\n\nThe trains on my line were slightly newer than this, although some of them were still over 30 years old. Understandably they were showing signs of age. Being slightly more modern these units had some creature comforts, like automatic doors. Exactly how these doors worked is unknown to me, but given the age of the units I’m guessing they’re primarily electromechanical with little or no software involved.\n\n## Mind the gap\n\nOperation of the doors involved a large “key” which the guard would use to open a panel and then arm the door buttons. They could then make the passenger door buttons active, optionally locking out any doors behind them. This last feature was important for platforms that were shorter than the train. The guard would ensure only doors aligned with a platform would open.\n\n## Direction of travel\n\nThis old-school technology was due to be replaced in January 2019 with the rollout of state-of-the-art FLIRT units. This did not happen, and it wasn’t long until rumours of software failure began to surface. There were unsubstantiated claims of the units going the wrong way, which is impressive since you have a choice of two directions on a train, but the persistent issue that kept cropping up was the doors didn’t work properly. Regardless of the actual cause, we’ve now got a delayed deployment to production due to software issues. This is a story I know well; I’ve seen it many times.\n\nThe narrative actually begins well before this, with the decision by Greater Anglia to replace their entire ageing fleet with FLIRT units. This kicked off a project that had a number of moving parts, of which delivery of working software was only one. Given the amount of money involved, the pressure to deliver software on time will have been huge, and the desire to hear about problems non-existent. Deadlines had been set; delivery dates must be met.\n\nWhat this means is that any issues with the software will have been downplayed. Assurances would have been given that the deadlines were fine, despite the software developers knowing they’d be missed. Builds that the developers had little real confidence in will have been shipped. Obviously, I wasn’t there, so I can’t know this for a fact, but I’ve worked on large projects. To _not_ have this outcome would be atypical.\n\nMeanwhile the rest of the process will have gone ahead unabated. The first units were delivered on time, and since there was no indication of trouble, plans for divesting the old fleet continued apace. And then the trains didn’t work. Which meant there was nothing to replace the old rolling stock that was being offloaded. This actually made things worse than if the issue with the software had been brought to the fore earlier.\n\nInstead of months of simply continuing with the old rolling stock, which, while ageing, still actually mostly worked, we were faced with months of short formation trains as units were split to make up shortfalls. Trains were delayed. Trains were cancelled. Commuters were unhappy. All thanks to software that hadn’t even entered service yet.\n\nAnd when the new rolling stock finally did make it out, we got different units to the ones we were expecting. 4 carriages, not 3. This has made for nice empty trains, so we’re definitely not complaining, but it also provides an interesting hint towards at least one of the problems\n\n## The Crux of the Matter.\n\nFLIRT 755 carriages has a single door on each side (as opposed to the more usual arrangement of two per side on older rolling stock). These doors are not in the middle, so formations with an odd number of carriages are asymmetric. This means the first 3 doors on the 4 carriage trains are closer together than the 3 doors on a 3 carriage train.\n\nSo we have rumours of software problems, rumours the trains are too long, rumours the guards can’t lock out doors like they used to, and the eventual deployment of a new train type with a different door configuration. Perhaps the 4 carriage trains somehow fit with 3 of their doors, while the 3 carriage units don’t.\n\nExcept I’m writing this on a 3-carriage train, and all 3 doors opened when I got on it. OK, so the nose of the train had to overshoot the platform a bit, but then the 4 carriage units had been doing that by even more when we had those. So, the issue with the doors is something else. There’s information here we’re not privy to that is making the solution less trivial than it might otherwise sound. This complexity could be regulatory, environmental, poor design, or all three. That the trains have been nicknamed Basil’s (as in Basil Fawlty - faulty) points to the latter.\n\nFor example, there are rumours that one line can’t run its new units because they can’t make the trip on a single tank of fuel. This would seem like an oversight, until you learn that there may be issues with the software handling the pantographs so what was meant to be a bi-mode journey could now be entirely single mode, and that the trains have smaller fuel tanks than original design due to weight problems. Either one of those could mean a requirement that was originally met in the planning phase is no longer met in production.\n\nThankfully, that issue doesn’t affect me, and once we had our shiny new, 4 carriage units with air-conditioning, wifi, and the ability to make up delays simply by accelerating harder and going faster, I thought that would be it for my interest in the new units.\n\n> And then a train blew through a level crossing that was still open and came within a gnat’s whisker of taking out a car.\n\nA situation I think we can all agree we’d like to avoid. Trains have right of way at level crossings - and I don’t care what the law says, physics has my back here. Wikipedia has this on the incident:\n\n“On 24 November 2019, a unit of the class was approaching a level crossing at Thorpe End, Norfolk at 45 miles per hour (72 km/h) when the barriers lifted as the train was 220 yards (200 m) from the crossing and cars started crossing in front of the train. Despite emergency braking, the train was unable to stop before the crossing. A collision was avoided by a quarter of a second.”\n\nThe incident was blamed on contaminants on the wheels interfering with the track detection system. Which to my mind means that we’ve got a network wide problem with the entire replacement fleet.\n\n> Instead we had a problem on a single line which was solved by something straight out of the 19th century playbook: A person with a flag. At every crossing.\n\nThe train approaches at 20mph, checks the person is waving the green flag to indicate the crossing is safe, and continues over the crossing. This has a knock-on effect. Every journey now takes 20 minutes longer. Trains are cancelled because units and staff are in the wrong place. And because the monitoring stations are not getting updates on where the trains are, the software doesn’t know where the trains are either. So, we end up in the situation where trains are listed as running on time, when they’re not.\n\nNot only are these trains not running on time, there is no way the train can run at all. The software happily goes through a fallback mechanism that just adds a minutes worth of delay as every minute ticks by, and eventually, when some hidden threshold is reached, silently drops the train off the information list. Not a problem at larger stations, staff can make tannoy announcements and keep everyone up to date. At my rural station, however, we only discover it is cancelled when the train running in the opposite direction on the single-track line turns up. And then we find out there was never a train to form the expected service in the first place. To my mind this train was cancelled, but the software defaults to running on time.\n\nWe’ve also seen the train marked as cancelled, only to turn up at the station. Even the conductor of that service didn’t know it was running until he actually got on it, which doesn’t instil confidence. The latest in the saga appears to be having the train listed as on time in the app, but not listed at all on the information boards at the station. To go with our flag wielding people in place of signals, we’re also utilising a distinctly 19th century system of only knowing when and if the train is running by its presence in the station.\n\nBut why only my line? Turns out there’s more to the story. Apparently, the signalling system on my line is different to those on other lines. If rumours are to be believed it is “5 times more complex than it needs to be”, although that is likely just hyperbole for “it could be simpler”.\n\nGreat, but why wasn’t this picked up in testing? That may be as simple as leaves on the line. Testing of these units was done from early 2019 onwards when leaf fall wouldn’t have been an issue. The incident happened later in the year, where leaves, or the systems put in place to combat their effect, could have had an influence on the situation. Turns out production wasn’t the same as test, despite the tests running on the production hardware.\n\nAnd while this all may seem utterly bonkers, just consider that it’s a massively complex system cobbled together over 2 centuries and currently built and maintained by the lowest bidder. That it works at all is a miracle. Now consider what other important things in life are like this: air transport, the NHS, our nuclear deterrent. Sleep well…\n\n***\n\n### _This article was originally published in the nor(DEV): Magazine 2020, grab your copy below:_\n\nimport MagazineCard from \"../../../components/MagazineCard\";\n\n\n Featuring; Interviews with the Ladies Hacking Society of\n Norwich. Articles on Train Wreck, Ramblings on Micro services,\n Tom's Top Tips for 2020, & What is design?\n
\n","path":"/posts/2020-04-10-train-wreck"},{"date":"2020-04-10T10:00:00Z","layout":"post","title":"Transforming the meetup model – fumu","author":["Emily Delva"],"hero":"/static/images/pages/posts/2020-04-10-transforming-the-meetup-model-fumu/hero.jpg","tags":["Article","SyncTheCity"],"excerpt":"Going to start with a heavy assumption that a lot of people reading this have at some point… visited meetup.com or maybe Eventbrite? You may even have ventured into the world of Facebook Events (that’s unfortunate really, isn’t it?). Your visits to these sites reveal that at some...","body":"\nGoing to start with a heavy assumption that a lot of people reading this have at some point… visited meetup.com or maybe Eventbrite? You may even have ventured into the world of Facebook Events (that’s unfortunate really, isn’t it?). Your visits to these sites reveal that at some stage you’ve wanted to join in with your local community at a networking event.\n\n> Meetup alone is used by 25,0000 communities - the demand is there.\n\n## A change is afoot\n\nA couple of months ago, Meetup decided to take a huge step and lay out plans to leave the free market - quite literally. Meetup wanted to monetise these events. Attendees would have to pay even to RSVP. Now, I don’t really tend to follow companies’ business movements but with this one it was impossible not to. Twitter exploded, Slack channels imploded and the office water cooler started to boil . Nobody could understand why Meetup would want to do this, other than to get more money and to splinter the communities built on the site.\n\n## Revolution starts in Norwich\n\nSo in comes Alex Morris, with his 1-minute 2019 Sync The City pitch that hit the hearts (and brains) of pretty much everyone in that hall. An anti-meetup. A tool to build communities and put their needs first, not the needs of the business humans up in their fancy offices with hungry wallets.\n\nMax Elkins, Kev Sturman, Harry Muter, Ilona Utting, Oliver Vince and I joined Alex to try and get that idea built and ready for the Sync The City deadline (lots of coffee and lots of fresh air breaks got us through those days). Couldn’t mention the team and not thank Tom Haczewski for being our mentor, it was tough as a lot of teams wanted his expertise but we managed to get really useful and essential pointers from him throughout the exercise.\n\nFirstly, I’d just like to say how incredibly lucky we were to end up with our team - every single individual was so dedicated and ready to go all in with the idea. We all got on, and it was so much fun to spend 16 or so hours with them in the big hall at Open working away. Let's not talk about the really cold air con shall we?\n\n## A new business model\n\nfumu won’t ever charge attendees, it just doesn’t make sense to us. Why would you charge someone to click RSVP? Surely that’s not the best way to encourage attendance? We went down another route, - a non-charging of attendees route. Superior? We’d say so. We’d be charging other groups and during Sync The City we had confirmation from local businesses and local groups that they’d sign up to this with the prices that Ilona and Alex had built into our business plan. A great start!\n\nKev and Harry got to work on the backend dev. work, I was genuinely surprised at how much they managed to get done in the time - it blew my mind! So many amazing features have already been built, and our next focus is to define an MVP and then future roadmap so we can be efficient with our development time and make sure we’re building things that users actually want and need. We need to build the product to solve problems, not just to be feature rich. For example, fumu will provide insight into attendees attendance records, a regular headache for organisers. Fifty people have signed up to come along to an event, you’ve booked a hall on the strength of this - only five turn up. fumu will help you assess whether you can hit the bubbly or not.\n\nAfter Max, Oliver & I had done some ideation, Max (our design whizz) got to work digitising it and making sure it looked as smart as possible. Oliver then worked away on the front end dev work to stitch it all together.\n\n## Moving on\n\nWe want to take it forward, we know it’s necessary and, we’ve had so many people come up to us and say it’s gotta be done. A few of us have committed more hours than others which we are totally happy with because it then works for everyone. We still have support from the team. The main issue we have is time.\n\nWe’re all very busy humans, we’re all working (or studying) and the majority of us have hobbies outside of that too. For example, I work full time, train about 7/8 times a week for rowing and like to go to events arranged by groups such as UX Therapy, RollUp, Hot Source and Sync Norwich. My schedule is a bit messy, so trying to get that availability sorted is a bit of a struggle.\n\n## Looking to the future\n\nNow that the Christmas period has left us behind and we’re in cold, windy winter, we can try and get things pinned down. Thankfully, everyone in the Norwich tech community is incredibly helpful and I’ve spoken to so many who were willing to give great advice. We’re hoping to start some formative research in the next few months and I know for a fact that many people would happily volunteer for that (thanks!). Even during Sync The City we had some really useful research done and insights were gathered from so many people (thanks: Joe Glover, Paul Grenyer, Philip Watson, Rich Saunders, Mark Williams-Cook, Alex Scotton & Tom Haczewski who all gave their thoughts and opinions readily when asked!).\n\nWe may not have won the event, but I can tell you now that we all learnt a lot, had a great time and are determined to make it happen. Formative research can then fuel our design and development - we’re ready to get this done!\n\n***\n\n### _This article was originally published in the nor(DEV): Magazine 2020, grab your copy below:_\n\nimport MagazineCard from \"../../../components/MagazineCard\";\n\n\n Featuring; Interviews with the Ladies Hacking Society of\n Norwich. Articles on Train Wreck, Ramblings on Micro services,\n Tom's Top Tips for 2020, & What is design?\n
\n","path":"/posts/2020-04-10-transforming-the-meetup-model-fumu"},{"date":"2020-03-01T09:00:00Z","layout":"post","title":"Meet the community - James Russell","author":["Celina Bledowska"],"hero":"/static/images/pages/posts/2020-03-01-meet-the-community-james-russell/hero.jpg","tags":["Article","MeetTheCommunity"],"excerpt":"An interview with James Russell. James is the CEO and founder of Brisk, but has formerly run a small business and has the desire to modernise the way in which small businesses are protected. A fit-bit for business Having worked at Aviva for 10 years as Head of Claims and then Pro...","body":"\nAn interview with James Russell. James is the CEO and founder of Brisk, but has formerly run a small business and has the desire to modernise the way in which small businesses are protected.\n\n## A fit-bit for business\n\nHaving worked at Aviva for 10 years as Head of Claims and then Programme Director, James Russell understands the needs of SMEs. Established in 2018 Brisk is an innovative AI tool that is targeted at small businesses and start-ups, those that don’t necessarily have the same resources as big companies.\n\n> James realised that offering the combined assets of technology and data, would make the business owner more aware of the risks and opportunities that could affect their companies.\n\n## When were you founded?\n\nWe were part of an incubation project, in a start-up accelerator at Founders Factory. We only registered as a company in 2018.\n\n## What is Brisk?\n\nTo put it simply, Brisk is a “AI powered risk management screening for SMEs, bringing in data from numerous sources covering everything from compliance to reputation; security to financial information.” By providing a tailored tool SMEs will have greater access to tailored products, and not have to be satisfied with the one size fits all approach offered by the larger brokers and industry giants.\n\nAny business signed up to Brisk is getting a risk management tool. James explained that:\n\n> all you’ll have to enter is your company name, the app will harvest the rest of your information, including checking for data breaches, pulling in credit information, analysing social media reviews and building a 360 view of your business.\n> We look at six areas of your business, financials, your staff, your operations, your compliance, your security and your reputation. We’ll also monitor the health of your website and look out for any potential security breaches.”\n\nActions will be suggested through the app.\n\nThe AI takes all of the data and then predicts what risks a client is likely to have and what type of insurance policy should be put in place. “The AI piece is looking at big data sets and performs an analysis – a bit like a glorified propensity model.\n\n## What led you to establish Brisk?\n\n“During my time at Aviva I saw that a lot of resource and attention gets given to big business and they also have the capacity to seize risk management opportunities. Small business owners don’t have the same access to the same resources. We wanted to use the increasing availability of data and technology to help the busy business owner to become more aware of the risks and opportunities, stay safe, and be more resilient. We felt this would be a powerful service”\n\n“We believed people buy insurance because it’s essential, then the policy just sits in a filing cabinet somewhere and people don’t really think about it.” James saw a gap in the market. Brisk also insures SME’s against cyber-attack, which in turn helps small firms improve their credit worthiness. During Brisk’s research phase one business said that having this type of protection was almost like, “having a kite mark, a quality accreditation.” This improves a smaller company’s chances of securing a loan or getting a better quote on their insurance.\n\n## What inspired you to start Brisk\n\n“I felt that there was a real opportunity to provide a product that would protect people and assets.” As James explained, “we are working with core insurers and, all of them are interested in the concept of Brisk.”\n\n> The app is helping the large insurers understand that some smaller companies might be a better risk than they thought, this leads to discounts and incentives for the company.”\n\nAnother benefit of the Brisk app means that companies will be asked fewer questions and won’t be burdened by filling out lots of forms. Insurance actuaries were nervous with this until they understood that by using AI and data together the app will help them record more accurate and current details about the client, therefore offering a more competitive deal.\n\n## Do you have competitors?\n\n**The Brisk app is a new way of doing things.** James believes that, “most of our competitors are still asking the consumer to visit their website and click to buy the product they want. Of course, this model assumes that the customer is knowledgeable about the insurance market and not all are.” By recognising that many businesses still want the assurance of a broker, “our technology is available to the broker to help them service their clients more efficiently.”\n\nCurrently the app is a web-based application, but it can be viewed on a smartphone and it is responsive.\n\n## Where would you like Brisk to be in five years?\n\nAs for future plans, in a recent article in Insurance Post James explains Brisk has sought Financial Conduct Authority regulatory approval because the company has ambitions to offer insurance to those utilising Brisk technology.\n\n“If we were purely a data provider we would not need to get regulated but the ultimate goal is to offer insurance products direct to businesses, and as an introducer we need to be authorized,” James explained. Brisk is currently working with four insurers and they’re all interested in the concept.\n\n***\n\n### _This article was originally published in the nor(DEV): Magazine 2020, grab your copy below:_\n\nimport MagazineCard from \"../../../components/MagazineCard\";\n\n\n Featuring; Interviews with the Ladies Hacking Society of\n Norwich. Articles on Train Wreck, Ramblings on Micro services,\n Tom's Top Tips for 2020, & What is design?\n
\n","path":"/posts/2020-03-01-meet-the-community-james-russell"},{"date":"2020-03-01T09:00:00Z","layout":"post","title":"Stop Press: Norfolk news shorts.","author":["Celina Bledowska"],"tags":["Article","MeetTheCommunity"],"excerpt":"Here at nor(DEV): we’re always proud to celebrate achievements in the local tech community. Now’s the time to raise a cheer and congratulate many very worthy winners. East of England Tech 50 Out of an impressive list of tech firms from our region, Norwich based companies managed ...","body":"\nHere at nor(DEV): we’re always proud to celebrate achievements in the local tech community. Now’s the time to raise a cheer and congratulate many very worthy winners.\n\n## East of England Tech 50\n\nOut of an impressive list of tech firms from our region, Norwich based companies managed to secure 8 places in this annual review of the top 50 tech companies in the East, with Pickl coming an impressive sixth. The list of companies is judged by both the public and a more formal judging panel made up with Thea Goodluck from TechNation, Liz Clayburne, Director of the Norwich - Cambridge Tech Corridor, James Gotz, director of ventures, at business support company, Allia, John Gourd, CEO of Cambridge Network and, Jonathan Symcox, editor, of BusinessCloud.\n\n## Capturing a trend\n\nAs an increasing number of people are using Airbnb accomodation for business and leisure purposes. Pickl soon realised that many owners would have problems getting insurance for their properties as short term lets with constantly changing tenants were notoriously difficult to insure. By recognising this, the company set up as a specialist short term insurance broker and embraced the burgeoning sharing economy. By adding Just Park to their portfolio, Pickl was able to bridge a gap overlooked by many other companies in this field.\n\n> Companies like Pickl are breaking the mold through their innovative business.\n\n## Tech Nation Rising Stars\n\nThis prestigious competition is lucky enough to have had Norwich based, digital staffing platform, Pickr among it’s semi-finalists. Sadly, the company didn’t make it through to the finals, but to have achieved this status among some very strong national competition is impressive. But Pickr has been shortlisted for many other awards, including the National Technology Awards. Way to go.\n\n## Other news\n\nMore recently, developers from North Norfolk’s, Engage Health Systems, gave a presentation at Cardiff’s NHS Hack Day in late January. Rupe is the name of a boy suffering from epilepsy and the presentation was named for him. This easy to use and, cost effective system will provide a record of heart rate spikes and dips during the night. The team consisted of Adam Groom with Paul Peacock and Mark Edmunds.Constructed as an Apple watch app, it can provide real time data to assist carers and parents.\n\nBig alterations in the heart beat can indicate an epileptic seizure while someone is sleeping, or about to have a seizure during the day. By using a companion app on a smartphone, Rupe’s mother, teachers and carers would always be aware of the boy’s seizure record and will be able to respond quickly in an emergency.\n\nDevelopment is set to start “as soon as possible,” said Jon Witte, Engage Health System’s managing director.\n\n## New developments\n\nWith Tech Nation publishing stats showing that the east of England has a digital turnover of £8.33 billion, and Norwich being home to many innovative tech startups and companies, we are a region of tech status and connectivity. UKTechNews (UKTN) published figures in March 2019 that revealed that we are a vibrant region for technology.\n\nThe figures show that the East of England growth for start-ups rose by 5%.and, “science and technology firms based in East Anglia secured almost £300m of venture capital investment in quarter two of 2018.”\n\nIn 2020, Norwich’s Rainbird CTO, Ben Taylor, has predicted that. “machine intelligence can enable businesses to solve complex problems before they ever reach the customer.”\n\n**We are a region on the move.**\n\n***\n\n### _This article was originally published in the nor(DEV): Magazine 2020, grab your copy below:_\n\nimport MagazineCard from \"../../../components/MagazineCard\";\n\n\n Featuring; Interviews with the Ladies Hacking Society of\n Norwich. Articles on Train Wreck, Ramblings on Micro services,\n Tom's Top Tips for 2020, & What is design?\n
\n","path":"/posts/2020-03-01-meet-the-community-norfolk-news-shorts"}],"total":18,"tagSlug":"Article"},"__N_SSG":true}