Teblog

A sign of the times

My wife and I used to spend some of our spare time with people with cerebral palsy. Many of them were deaf and could only communicate using sign language. On a holiday weekend, one of these people was clearly distressed and I was the only person immediately to hand. But I didn't have a clue what she was trying to tell me. Fortunately it was a matter of moments before help arrived. But, I wondered, what if ithe situation had been more serious?

So I determined to learn sign language. My wife and I went to night school (me when I was in the country - I flew 52 times that particular year). The end result? My wife passed the exam and I failed. But I'd learned enough to be able to communicate at a fairly basic level.

As you might imagine, I was impressed to read about SiSi - Say it, Sign it - software which takes speech, converts it to text, then displays an avatar 'signing' in British Sign Language. In fact, it can be adapted to other sign languages as well.

The software was developed at IBM Hursley by a team which included four student interns: Benjamin Cox, Tom Klapiscak, Maria Vihljajeva and Josef Waldron. The signing avatars and the technology for animating sign language from a special gesture notation were developed by the University of East Anglia and the database of signs was developed by RNID (Royal National Institute for Deaf People).

Here's a movie. It would take some getting used to for a deaf person, but what a great stride forward.

Would it be too greedy of me to ask for lip movements on the avatar and another program to recognise BSL? Imagine how the lives of the 55,000 deaf people in Britain could be improved if more of us could chat with them.

Freeform Dynamics snares Tebbo

Well, it's in the open. I am teaming up with Freeform Dynamics. Here's what I wrote to my nearest and dearest:

After a lot of discussion and thought, I am joining the Freeform Dynamics team and this will be my primary role in life, although I shall continue with my writing and training commitments wherever they fit comfortably with my new role. (And, so far, that means everywhere.)

Why have I done it? Primarily because I like the team and I like the work they do and the way they operate. We are very harmonious in our values and our outlooks.

Freeform Dynamics is a research and analysis firm rooted in the hard reality of properly conducted research. And it is this solid, fact-based, approach that appeals so much.

I reproduce, below, the official blog post on the subject:

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David Tebbutt comes out

There has been an ongoing debate in analyst relations (AR) circles (i.e. among the people who manage industry analyst relations on behalf of IT vendors) about what exactly constitutes an analyst. The emergence of expert bloggers has particularly confused things – people who investigate like analysts, think like analysts, write like analysts, but don’t actually call themselves analysts.

This is something that SAP has caught onto with its ‘blogger relations’ programme, which AFAIK, was the first of its kind in the industry from a major vendor. AR thought leaders like Barbara French, Jonny Bentwood and David Rossiter have also acknowledged that boundaries are becoming a bit fuzzy, which has led to tentative talk of ideas such as ‘Influencer Relations’.

Those who know us at Freeform Dynamics will be aware that we actively challenge boundaries and ‘labels’ ourselves as part of what we do, which is one of the reasons for the ‘Freeform’ part of our name. All of our analysts maintain a broad perspective and indeed much of our work is at the points where traditional boundaries are looking less and less relevant over time.

And by the same token, if you want to call us analysts, market researchers, consultants, misfits or anything else, we don’t really care that much. We even do some stuff which on occasions looks a bit like journalism. The important thing from our perspective is driving understanding, objectivity and harmony into the dealings between IT professionals and business people, IT vendors and their customers, and generally people and technology, based on solid market intelligence and a down to earth approach to figuring out what it all means in practical terms. We’ll continue to use whatever means are most effective to achieve this.

Which brings me on to the latest addition to the Freeform family. Against the above background, we are really chuffed to have one of the most well respected commentators and forward thinkers on the IT industry come to join us – David Tebbutt.

Some may know David as a journalist, others as a trainer, yet more as software publisher or enterprise consultant. Those with an interest in the enterprise aspects of social computing might know him for his expertise in this area in particular, where he has been operating at the forefront of activity for a number of years now with a pragmatic approach that is very akin to the way we do things at Freeform. Beyond this, his behind-the-scenes work on sustainable development with a major public body, which predated the current hysteria on the subject, places him in a position of authority with respect to the important 'greening of IT' agenda.

Truth is, much of what David has been doing over his career, particularly in recent times, can best be described as industry analysis if you use the generally accepted view of what that means. And what’s really interesting is that when we sat down to work through what David would be doing with us, it was pretty clear that not much would change in terms of his approach to investigating the market, writing style, consulting style, and so on. In fact, we are looking forward to David helping us to change and develop ourselves in some areas, such as the delivery of training services (watch this space) and the increasing use of social media to improve the way we communicate even further.

So, after working as a ‘closet analyst’ for so long, David is coming out, and the whole team here, Jon, Helen, Martin, Joyce, Tony and myself, are looking forward to welcoming him into the fold.
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And, if you want the official bio, it's on the team page

This blog will continue, as will my others at Information World Review and SmallBizPod, but I'm not yet sure quite what the emphasis will be.

In case you cared... part 2

A few people have asked me what's been going on since my earlier posts about moving house etc.

Well, the short answer is that we're thrilled with the new (to us) property. It has been redecorated throughout including a complete gut and refit of the kitchen. We've had plumbers, electricians, curtain fitters and all sorts working for us and I've even done a fair amount of DIY. We moved back in last week and life has returned to relative normality.

Except that I had determined that September would be the month I would map out a new future for myself. I thought it would be partly by starting a new mentoring business (I even bought the messagementor.co.uk domain) and maybe teaming up with one of my ex-clients to do some strategic training/advisory work.

In fact, someone I'd been talking to for many months, decided to grasp the nettle and see if he could get me involved with his company. Proposals were batted back and forth. The fit was good and we're close to a result. I will continue to investigate, analyse, think and write. I will also continue to mentor and teach. I will make a formal announcement when the ink is dry...

BrainStorm will still trundle away in the background, although I have high hopes for a US colleague and his bright ideas for BrainStorm's future. He is way more visionary and commercial than Marck and I have ever been. We will, of course, support him in his endeavours. But BrainStorm will remain in the 'mad hobby' part of my life. Hopefully it will be a larger part of the American's life.

Another 'hobby' thing is some creativity work I've been doing with David Terrar and Toby Moores. This has blossomed, not into the expected book, but into the formation of the CreativeCoffee Club. The inaugural get-together is next Wednesday morning in Foyle's Café in London. See you there?

So thanks for the interest folks. One more announcement. Then I have to decide whether to keep Teblog. If I do, I will need to switch its focus. Or perhaps more accurately, defocus it. I have some ideas on that too.

So there we are. One of the small ironies of all this is that, just as I'm thinking of dropping my journalistic pretentions, I've moved into a road named after the famous diarist Samuel Pepys.