On any given day, in any given week (which sounds like a pretty bad blockbuster film title), my in-box is filled with an assorted mix of emails. The relevance of the correspondence ranges across a broad spectrum from irrelevant to ludicrous.

Take yesterday for instance, where I was asked for my opinions on share investments, or the awful newsletter which I haven't asked to subscribe to, which I can't leave and which keeps creating a conflict between my email application and operating system.

Then there is the communication from colleagues that are either too lazy to come and talk directly, or use email as some sort of task-filing strategy. You know the sort of thing: "Oh, didn't you get the email? It was the point about blue sky thinking. It was in paragraph sixteen..."

Lost amongst the quagmire of email guff an fluff lies a small - and I mean minute - amount of useful chatter. Finding such nuggets is akin to panning for gold, with research suggesting electronic communication adds about two hours to the average working day.

Potential answers? Turn the swine off - and only look at email a few times a day. Insist colleagues talk to you face-to-face. Unsubscribe (if you can) from droney newsletters. And keep replies succinct.

Next problem issue? That bloody phone that keeps ringing - and that nutter that keeps contacting you through Facebook...

Given the increasingly mobile nature of business information, it will not come as a surprise to many of you to discover that slack technology leaders are not doing enough to create tight security policies for flexible workers.

More than a third (35 per cent) of employees say responsibility for IT security is left up to the individual worker when they are outside the office, according to research from YouGov and Dimension Data.

In addition, 5 per cent of respondents say no-one is responsible for IT security when they are away from the workplace. Personally, I find it surprising that just 5 per cent - or one in twenty employees - recognise that serious gaps in security policies exist outside the office context.

As the research confirms, an increasing amount of workers now engage in flexible working practices; just over half of respondents (51 per cent) access company information from home and 33 per cent do the same from public places.

Creating information security policies for such flexible workers is a nightmare - relying on some sort of client or portal, so staff can log-in to email and enterprise applications. And many of these workers operate on their own computing equipment, using their own security settings. Thinking of policing flexible working? Good luck.

UK IT's attempt at banging its own drum is taking shape nicely, with the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park still on course to open early next year.

Displays are already beginning to take shape with large systems including an ICL mainframe and an Elliott 803, and a host of home PCs from Sinclair, Acorn and Dragon. It'll be like a fantastic step back in time that showcases the achievements of UK developers.

Core to the launch will a major fundraising event, aimed at raising £7m that will take place in London on November 28th 2007 (see end of post for details).

Ron Holland, fund-raising lead adviser for the project, says he is quietly confident of reaching the £7m minimum target and that the group has already had a brilliant response from the general public.

My press release accidentally included an amendment, showing the board Museum will be welcoming [significant] potential donors. Important change of heart, I guess -  when you're looking for donations, beggars can't be choosers...

[Significant] or otherwise donors will be welcomed by the Museum board at: 4 More London Riverside, London SE1 2AU on November 28th 2007 from 6:30 pm

Siloed data, an ever-increasing compliance burden and poor integration - the information management problems are mounting up for technology leaders, says analyst Gartner. However, many companies still do not have formal information governance programmes, or coordinated management strategies. Gartner reports that:

• Organisations that do not approach information management in a coordinated, enterprise manner, will fail in the first or second year at a rate of more than 90 per cent
• A lack of information governance affects the bottom line - companies in North America have lost more than $600bn in revenue due to poor quality data
• But one UK telecoms provider instilled data-quality awareness by reducing revenue loss - due to inaccurate billing - from more than 15 per cent to less than 1 per cent
• Growing demand for consistent information management across the organisation will lead enterprise information management (EIM) to mature as a discipline in 60 per cent of blue-chip firms by 2009

Gartner defines EIM as an integrated discipline for structuring, describing and governing structured - and unstructured - information assets.

There is much to do be done, then - and many strategic transformations need to be undertaken. Computing recently exposed the challenges at-hand through a four-part special report, the Definitive Guide to Information Management.

During the report, Eden Project head of IT Jon Curry illustrated how his organisation is preparing for the challenge ahead, implementing crucial systems and employing key people.

“The technology is about making it easy and effective to capture people’s details and keep them in a secure environment, while on the content side we must focus on providing information that makes people engage with us,” he said.

“Our information management needs will grow over the next couple of years and we need a combination of new technology and a willingness from the business to adopt the technology.”

So, Microsoft has taken a 1.6 per cent slice of this week's most popular social networking phenomenon Facebook for $240m. Nice work - primarily because the stake creates an implied valuation for the total business of $15bn, which seems a lot to pay for a bunch of friendship links and photos of mates getting drunk.

But that's not what's really crucial about the deal, is it? As David Bradshaw at analyst Ovum recognises, Microsoft will be the exclusive advertising platform for Facebook worldwide.

"What really counts here is that Microsoft has tied-down the advertising partnership with Facebook. Since it is one of the most rapidly growing web properties, this is a landmark deal for Microsoft which was a late starter in the syndicated advertising business," he said, in an Ovum press statement.

I guess both parties - Microsoft and Facebook - now have to find ways to exploit the advertising partnership. And users can expect a stream of cleverly targeted content. Not just 'pokes' from former sixth form colleagues...

With UK companies now able to pick up IT services cheaper overseas, where does this leave graduates with a surfeit of technology skills? Should UK students stop studying computer science and concentrate on business?

That was the question posed to the expert panel in this month's Computing Business (see link below) - and opinions on the future of computer science is extremely divided. Ollie Ross, head of research at The Corporate IT Forum, thinks IT leaders now demand business people first and technology people second.

"UK students should understand the kind of organisation they are keen to work for and carefully consider whether opting for a pure computer science course will make them appealing to such an employer – or whether they are effectively restricting their future employment options and earning potential," she says.

On the other hand, Fahri Zihni, ICT director at Aston University, says graduates will ignore IT knowledge itself at their peril. "IT today is more sophisticated than ever before, especially in relation to communications - and someone somewhere needs to make sense of it. Sorry, the idea of IT directors with no knowledge of technology is as daft as finance directors with no understanding of accounting practice."

So where should UK graduates interested in technology concentrate their attention? Traditional computer science skills, business knowledge - or an uneasy middleground, somewhere between the two? One thing is certain: an answer is required for the future benefit of UK IT.

Computing Business - Issue 18, including the expert panel

Regular readers (hello Mum?) may remember my interest in the continuing technology development of the second largest country in Europe - Ukraine.

Back in the pre-Facebook days of December 2006, I wrote a piece about Ukraine being the next hot destination for outsourcing, with service provision turnover in the former Soviet republic growing at between 200 and 300 per cent annually.

Yesterday's research from TPI - discussed on this blog - pointed to the continuing desire from IT directors to search out tip-tip offshoring locations. And three factors seem to point towards Ukraine having an upper hand:

1. Ukraine is making major in-roads into the high-end scientific software niche
2. Being European, it's closer than China or India - which is always handy
3. Finally, the supporting technology infrastructure is expanding rapidly

New research suggests Ukraine is one of the fastest growing broadband markets in Europe with an annual growth rate of more than 180 per cent, according to analyst Point Topic.

The Ukrainian market is dominated by two major players - the incumbent and catchy-named Ukrtelecom, and cable operator Volia.

Volia offers none-too-shabby broadband speeds of up to 38 Mbps and is planning to set up an digital TV service in Kiev by the beginning of 2008.

While regional centres outside Kiev have a long way to catch up, Ukraine – birthplace of the Easter Egg and Chicken Kiev - is quickly establishing a solid infrastructural base.

Anyone doubting the impact of offshoring on the outsourcing market should check the latest figures from advisory specialist TPI. Across the globe, the percentage of contracts with an element of offshore delivery continues to increase. According to TPI:

• 59 per cent of outsourcing deals involve an element of offshoring, up from an average of 43 per cent over the previous four years
• So far this year, India-based service providers have won more than 24 per cent of all the deals on which TPI has advised, up from an average of 13 per cent during the previous four years
• Asia Pacific, meanwhile, represents 16 per cent of all major contracts in 2007, up from an average of almost 9 per cent across the previous two years. The region has also seen a 72 per cent rise in its share of the value of new contracts, compared with the first nine months of 2006

Multisourcing is certainly the way forward, with users selecting a broad selection of sourcing strategies - including offshoring - for particular IT and business process needs. And IT directors are selecting offshoring as a best-fit model, not just a way of reducing cost and hiving off intractable challenges.

Organisations now have a range of business and IT processes to call upon as they attempt to create seamless supply chain integration.

Rather than holding stock in expensive warehouse space, firms are looking to make the most of innovative technology to speed up logistics processes, source products direct from suppliers and push final goods quickly to customers.

Successful supply chain management is all about overseeing multiples: multiple shopping channels; multiple technologies, including radio frequency identification (RFID); and multiple sourcing locations, such as the Far East.

Maintaining consistency across multiple channels, technologies and locations is a considerable task.

Take retailer Argos, who has seen its product line increase from 7,700 to more than 18,000 during the past seven years.

As highlighted in this month’s Computing Business cover story, Argos’ supply chain director Steve Melton says providing the goods for a broad range of lines requires a firm hand.

“We have been working with key suppliers, particularly those in the Far East, to reduce order quantities and reduce lead times,” he says.

RFID technology can help IT leaders track and trace deliveries when errors occur, but it remains a pipe dream for most.

Too expensive to tag all but the big-ticket objects, RFID remains associated with the bulk movement of goods, rather than individual items.

With more external sourcing now taking place, anything that can improve item tracing might be sensible.

The EU-wide number of dangerous products reported on a week-by-week basis this year is up 43 per cent, with 48 per cent of them involving Chinese products.

However, strong supply chain management is not just about controlling external suppliers. You will also need to take charge of internal systems and ensure that staff are not scared by innovative IT.

Supply chain processes traditionally over-rely on acquired knowledge, a process that can leave a firm exposed when key individuals leave an organisation.

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is allowing organisations to re-use resources on-demand in a modularised fashion.

Some firms are already taking a lead here, illustrating how enterprise resource planning and electronic point of sales systems can form part of a holistic logistics system.

The innovative use of IT should mean the days when the supply chain was the most intractable leg of the product delivery journey are increasingly distant memories.

Good news - possibly. Analyst Gartner has unveiled what it believes will be the top 10 strategic technologies for 2008. It's good news, I guess, in that chief information officers should have a heads-up about the technologies that - to quote the analyst - will have a "significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years".

Which is always helpful, especially if you're planning on spending a big wedge of the finance chief's cash. Gartner suggests proactively planning in the following areas:

1. Green IT: Which is common sense, really - both from a strategic and public relations perspective.
2. Unified communications: Gartner suggests 80 per cent of companies are already involved in trials and refers to unified communications as the first major change in voice communications since the digital PBX.
3. Business process modelling: Service-oriented architecture is tough - BPM helps executives make the most of software resources.
4. Metadata management: Firms keep creating and pumping out increasing amounts of content. Metadata management helps chief information officers make the most of their information, creating consistency and integrity.
5. Virtualisation 2.0: Just when you getting used to the concept of storage emulation, along comes virtualisation 2.0 - stronger, fitter and altogether sleeker. Includes a whole lot more resiliency and real-time automation.
6. Mash up and composite apps: Gartner says mash up technologies will evolve significantly during the next five years - get wise and formulating an enterprise strategy.
7. Web platform and web-oriented architecture: Basically, the web is going to become the standard service delivery model. Prepare for that development, too.
8. Computing fabric: The future of servers - a move beyond blades to create a larger, single system that is the sum of its components.
9. Real world web: Informal term, referring to places where information from the web is applied to the particular location, activity or context in the real world. It is intended to augment the reality that a user faces, not to replace it as in virtual worlds. Gartner says businesses now need to seek out new applications and revenue streams from the web in a real-world situation.
10. Social software: Web 2.0 will experience considerable flux, with continued product innovation and new start-ups. Expect significant consolidation.

Gaining value from outsourcing contracts is one of the most intractable challenges for users. Organisations regularly farm out problematic areas of the technology department, with little awareness of where value is being delivered.

Which is why The Corporate IT Forum is launching a new benchmarking service to give technology leaders a more accurate understanding of supplier contracts.

Designed, developed and financed by the corporate organisations that make up The Forum, Continuous Performance Improvement for Outsourced IT Services (CPI OS) allows users to contrast the cost and service levels of contracts against other large businesses.

The full service will be officially launched to corporate IT executives on 1st November at an event featuring presentations by IT leaders from BAA, British Energy, Friends Provident and Hampshire County Council.

John Parker, director of improvement services for The Corporate IT Forum, says: "We expect CPI OS to revolutionise the procurement process, increase competition and mark a step change in the relationships between corporate IT users and suppliers."

Big aims, certainly - but you can expect the service to be a success. After all, The Corporate IT Forum has a long history of delivering similar platforms. CPI Benchmarking was established in 2001 by a group of Corporate IT Forum members that were unsatisfied with existing forms of benchmarking.

The current CPI service allows users to benchmark across a range of areas, such as desktops, infrastructure and staff costs, and has been significantly expanded to include network services, including LANs, WANs and e-commerce.

More information on CPI OS benchmarking service - Continuous Process Improvement

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has announced it prevented more than 36,000 illegal software products from being sold on a select number of online auction sites in the first six months of 2007. The BSA's figures also revealed that the value of the software being offered illegally via during the period totalled over $8m.

“And this is the tip of the iceberg”, said John Wolfe, the excitingly titled director of internet enforcement at the BSA, who warns that counterfeit copies can pose a significant data protection risk.

The BSA release quotes a study from researcher IDC that states the chances of buying legal software that hasn’t had viruses, trojans or spyware embedded into the code on an auction site is less than 1 in 2 (which was a mistake in the press release, by the way - it is actually meant to say 'illegal'). Now that would have been a story: 'Fifty per cent of commercial software is embedded with viruses, Trojans or spyware'...

Compliance remains a huge concern for technology leaders, with organisations forced to conform with an ever-increasing range of standards and regulations. Finance IT directors face the largest burden, including the forthcoming Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA) - which comes into effect in January.

SEPA will create a single zone for the Euro, in which all electronic payments are considered domestic and differences between national and international payments will not exist. But becoming compliant for the SEPA deadline will require a significant investment in technology - and is creating a significant range of challenges for financial organisations, according to research from transaction specialist VocaLink.

A survey of European and global banks reveals more than half of respondents believe the January 2008 deadline is unachievable. Worse still, 81 per cent of banks believe their customers will not migrate payments to SEPA schemes until 2010 or beyond.

So, what's the issue? When it comes to compliance, is SEPA a step too far?

Financial organisations are struggling with SEPA - VocaLink research