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Keeping the end-user in mind is key to digitalising the public sector

2020-09-24 02:00:00| Total Telecom industry news

With the advent of the coronavirus pandemic, the world suddenly found digitalisation thrust upon it like never before. While there have been growing pains for many, overall this process has been a marked success. Part of the reason for this is that the pandemic has accelerated processes which were already in motion in the background of businesses natural evolution in this digital age. But the public sector is rarely at the cutting edge of this digital evolution &ndash…read more on TotalTele.com »

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Inside the Innovators Mind: A Conversation with Ather Beg

2020-09-14 21:08:51| The Webmail Blog

Inside the Innovators Mind: A Conversation with Ather Beg nellmarie.colman Mon, 09/14/2020 - 14:08 Editors note: For this segment of our Inside the Innovators Mind series, we interviewed Ather Beg, an enterprise solutions architect with Rackspace Technology in the UK. Read on to learn what inspires him to innovate and what he likes most about working with customers. Professional insight How do you find time to innovate? One has to proactively reserve and protect time for blue-sky thinking. Investing that time in yourself is extremely important for both your personal and professional lives. To make it happen, I have weekly early morning slots blocked in my calendar for such thoughts, with similar slots over the weekend for my personal goals. How do you keep up with new technologies? Twitter is my main tool to keep up with new technologies. I follow prominent members of the tech community for a particular topic of interest, as trends toward certain technologies start appearing in those channels first long before anywhere else. I also use RSS feeds extensively to follow main feeds for interesting technologies to keep up with new developments. That way, I choose my topics of interest and all the attention-worthy items get pushed toward me, rather than having to go and seek them myself. Who or what inspires you? Innovation of any type whether technological or in everyday life and the challenge to learn and discover are what inspire me. These are what keep me interested in my line of work after so many years and keep me learning about life in general. Anyone whos prominent in their field can be a major source of inspiration to me. Their excellence and authority on a topic shows me their commitment to their cause which is what I aspire to whenever I pick up something new. What is your approach to solving big problems? I sleep on it. More specifically, I go to bed early, get a good nights sleep and wake up early in the morning. Its amazing how complex problems can become orders-of-magnitude simpler just by following this routine. Of course, that doesnt mean the problem will solve itself. If necessary, I also unplug, removing all distractions and giving thought to that problem for a good hour or two at a time (but not more on a given day). Depending on the problem, this process might take a few days, but it generally produces the result I want. How do you manage failure? By planning for it right from the start. I always have a contingency plan or two for anything I undertake. Even then, if I fail, I definitely dont dwell on it for any length of time. I do identify the cause for the failure, make relevant notes/changes and try to prevent it from happening again. But then, I move forward. Getting to know you What did you want to be when you grew up? Due to my keen interest in making things right from the start, I wanted to become a hardware/software engineer. For that reason, I was pretty good at electronics and programming from a very young age. I participated in many science exhibitions while in college and won several prizes. From there, it seemed natural to earn my masters degree in applied physics, with a specialization in electronics, which involved a lot of low-level programming. What do you do now? I am currently an enterprise solutions architect, which involves talking to my customers to gain insight into their business challenges and architecting solutions that address them. Is it what you imagined? Not exactly, but there are many parallels that can be drawn with my initial aspirations. For example, my job requires that I listen to my customers requirements and, on the basis of those, take the solution pieces available to me and architect a solution that fits those requirements. Thats a creative process and its quite satisfying when a solution meets the requirements perfectly and works without issues the first time! In addition, a background of electronics and software development gives me a good understanding of how everything works. This can be an advantage whenever a new piece of technology comes along. A day in the life Do you have a morning routine at work? What is it? Typically, I know the night before what my first few hours of work will look like the next day. So unless Ive been told that something urgent is waiting in my mailbox to respond to, I dont open my mailbox. I focus on the first big task at hand while fresh in the morning, which I will have scheduled in my calendar already. That could be the time for blue-sky thinking (as mentioned earlier), or learning or resolving a problem. Following that, I open my mailbox to deal with the mail, prioritize and address the items accordingly. What types of demands do you encounter? Given my role, I am typically involved in designing solutions. So my time is spent either working on my own designs or reviewing designs from fellow solutions architects and/or providing feedback. I also serve as a subject matter expert for certain technologies, so I provide support to my colleagues wherever required. And I participate actively in our constant efforts to improve our solutions for our customers and provide relevant feedback where necessary. Which roles/people do you interact with the most? How important is this interaction? My interactions are heavily skewed toward my customers and my colleagues, both of which I enjoy immensely and are part of the satisfaction I find in this role. That works well with my personality and genuine interest in people. This joy of interaction also helps with solving problems and ensuring that I make things easier for everyone. What do you like about working with customers? The interaction, both professional and social. I love meeting people, having a good chat and solving problems which works well for our customers, too! Whats the highlight of your day? The highlight of my day is when Ive achieved all three joys for the day: Joy 1: First-focus task/goal for the day achieved Joy 2: All goals for the day achieved and on-time Joy 3: Ending the day with family and having dinner together Inside the Innovators Mind: A Conversation with Ather BegMeet Ather Beg, an enterprise solutions architect with Rackspace Technology in the UK, and hear what inspires him to keep learning and innovating. Let our innovators put their expertise to work for you./professional-servicesStart here

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Inside the Innovators Mind: A Conversation with Matt Barlow

2020-08-24 20:29:02| The Webmail Blog

Inside the Innovators Mind: A Conversation with Matt Barlow nellmarie.colman Mon, 08/24/2020 - 13:29 Editors note: For this segment of our "Inside the Innovators Mind" series, we interviewed Matt Barlow, a principal engineer with Rackspace Technology. Read on to learn his problem-solving process and what drives him to keep innovating. Professional insight How do you find time to innovate? The process of innovation is always happening. Even when my head is down, working on something I already know how to do, I'm constantly asking myself, "How could I automate or prevent the necessity of this work?" Also, any time I encounter an annoyance, no matter how small, I capture it so that I can come back to it later. When innovative ideas come to me, I often create a discussion post for the team, so that I can collect feedback before we prioritize and turn it into a series of tasks. How do you keep up with new technologies? As part of my day-to-day, any time I encounter something new, instead of glossing over it, I take a few minutes to understand it and repeat it back to myself in my own words to make sure my understanding is thorough. Who or what inspires you? The open source community is a big source of inspiration. I work a lot with Kubernetes, which has a fantastic, caring and helpful community. Everyone is encouraged to get involved, no matter their skill level, and it feels great to interact with people who have a shared purpose. What is your approach to solving big problems? There are two approaches I use, depending upon the problem. For problems that I have a lot of autonomy over, i.e. "big picture" problems, I think about them when I'm running. I run almost every morning before work, and it brings me a lot of clarity to situations going on inside and outside work. Complex engineering problems, however, often involve the rest of the team. For those, I create an RFC (Request For Comments) and give my peers time to provide feedback. After a week or so, I schedule time for us to discuss. How do you manage failure? I own up to it and do the work required to set things right. Getting to know you What did you want to be when you grew up? I never had a plan for what I wanted to be, and I didn't know until after I graduated college. In the late 90s, I responded to a job for a Computer Operator. I was given a tour of the data center, which sported black and white terminals, mainframes, patch panels and Sun Ultra Enterprise servers, and I remember telling myself, "This is where I belong." What do you do now? Rackspace Technology has a lot of expertise on how to architect and use the latest technology in order to assist customers on their digital transformation journey. I work with the latest technology automating, implementing and building tools around it that get used in-house and by customers in order to enable success. Is it what you imagined? It is all that I imagined, and more! I've always loved working with computers. As a child, I wrote programs and I was in awe that I could bring my imagination to life. This was before the internet, and all the advances that have come since then. Today, we have the resources to test and implement virtually any new idea. A day in the life Do you have a morning routine at work? What is it? Even though I work in product engineering, meaning I'm not directly customer facing, my highest priority is customer success. We have Slack channels for our Kubernetes support teams, and the first thing I do every day is check them to see if there were any issues that came in overnight. Even if the issues were not related to the product I'm working on, I still want to be aware of them. Next, I start working from our project board, and the rest of my day is spent handling any urgent issues, working from the project board, and collaborating with others. What types of demands do you encounter? One significant demand I encounter is keeping software up to date. A modern application depends upon hundreds of ancillary software projects, such as the platform, container runtimes, operating system libraries, database services, cloud provider APIs and more. Keeping everything subordinate to the application updated, and ensuring the changes are safe, requires careful consideration. Which roles/people do you interact with the most? How important is this interaction? I interact the most with people who work in our Support organization. I'm a strong advocate for DevOps culture, which is about breaking down silos between engineering and operations groups. What do you like about working with customers? The challenge! I love getting involved and learning how our customers are using the latest technologies. The technology is like the raw material. Rackspace helps the customer shape the material according to their vision. Every customer vision is unique, and I always learn something new when I assist a customer. Whats the highlight of your day? The highlight of my day is the beginning of each day, because of the endless possibilities ahead and the energy to pursue them. Inside the Innovators Mind: A Conversation with Matt BarlowMeet Matt Barlow, a principal engineer with Rackspace Technology, and hear about his problem-solving process and what drives him to keep innovating.Let our innovators put their expertise to work for you.https://admin.rackspace.com/professional-servicesStart here

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