By Loren K. Baynes, Director, Global Marketing Communications, The Open Group
After an evening spent in the wonderful surroundings of the Victoria and Albert Museum, delegates returned to another London landmark building, Westminster Central Hall, for the final day of The Open Group London 2014.
Following on from Tuesday’s schedule, The Open Group event continued with tracks covering topics including Risk Management, TOGAF®, an Open Group standard, Security as well as The Open Group Open Platform 3.0™. To begin the Open Platform 3.0 track, Mark Skilton, Professor of Practice, Information Systems Management, Warwick Business School discussed the real world implications of Open Platform 3.0. To do this he looked at both the theory and practice behind technologies such as Big Data, social media and even gamification and their adoption by companies such as Coca Cola and Hilton.
Mark detailed how such companies are amending their business strategy to take into account these new technologies to drive business benefit. Mark went on to say that Open Platform 3.0 is serving to help “contextualize the moment”, essentially making it easier for individuals or businesses to interact with goods or services. This he concluded is being driven by people’s growing value of time – we want a more seamless experience in our day-to-day lives whether to buy a coffee or to check in to a hotel – and technology is making this possible. The talk provided a fascinating glimpse into the future of convergent technologies and the important role that contextualization is set to play in this.
Following this, Stuart Boardman from KPN Consulting led a session which looked in detail at the capability requirements of Open Platform 3.0. In what was a lively debate, contributors discussed the importance of smart data, semantic consistency, platform hierarchies and sustainability.
The final session of the morning in the Open Platform 3.0 track looked at the topic of open public sector data with Deirdre Lee, Principal at Derilinx and Chris Harding, Director for Interoperability at The Open Group. Discussing a topic that has risen up government agendas recently, Deirdre began by providing a thorough overview of the background to open data in the public sector and the supporting forces behind it. Deirdre provided detail on how various authorities across Europe had provided impetus to the Open Data movement, and what economic impact these initiatives had resulted in. Subsequently, Chris looked at how The Open Group can play a role in the emergence of open data as a subject area.
Following lunch, the tracks were split into two, with Jim Hietala, VP, Security & Healthcare, The Open Group, leading a workshop on the “Voice of the Security Customer”. This specifically looked at the impact of Security Automation on overall Enterprise Security, provoking much discussion among attendees. In the other session, the Open Platform 3.0 Forum focused on the topic of data integration with Ronald Schuldt, Senior Partner, UDEF and Dimitrios Kyritsis, Deputy Director, EPFL, leading a productive debate on the topic.
With The Open Group London 2014 coming to a close, we would like to thank all the speakers for providing such thoughtful content and the 300 attendees for making the event another great success. Also, many thanks go to our sponsors BiZZdesign, Corso, BOC Group, Good e-Learning, AEA and Scape, and media sponsors Van Haren and Computer Weekly,
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Loren K. Baynes, Director, Global Marketing Communications, joined The Open Group in 2013 and spearheads corporate marketing initiatives, primarily the website, blog and media relations. Loren has over 20 years experience in brand marketing and public relations and, prior to The Open Group, was with The Walt Disney Company for over 10 years. Loren holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Texas A&M University. She is based in the US.