IDU NEWS

Am I an asset?

Jul 2, 2019
3 min

Am I an asset?

The accountants attending our annual user conference earlier this year paused for thought about how to navigate the rapidly changing workplace as we move into the fourth industrial revolution. And, they asked some insightful questions about what it means to be a valuable employee today. Sameer Rawjee, the founder of Google’s Life Design Lab, and currently working with companies and schools to tackle continuous learning and purpose at work, sparked a lively audience discussion

The 10X employee

Jun 6, 2019
4 min

The 10X employee

The myth of the 10X programmer has long done the rounds in the software world. Stories abound of unicorn software engineers that can churn out 10 times, or 100 times, as much code as the average programmer. The rockstar coders that accelerate startups with their ninja skills. For some people there is no doubt that the 10X programmer exists, and is essential to success. The argument goes that programming is not linear, so 10X programmers can compound experience, knowledge, an

Why cloud-first shouldn’t mean cloud-only

May 29, 2019
3 min

Why cloud-first shouldn’t mean cloud-only

It’s been ten years since Oracle’s Larry Ellison had his Thomas Watson moment, dismissing cloud computing as a fad, nonsense and absurd. Clearly, in the same way that the number of computers in use around the world didn’t cap out at five units, as IBM’s Watson predicted in 1943, cloud computing has gone from strength to strength, with worldwide spend on cloud infrastructure in 2018 estimated at in excess of $80 billion and still growing. Fast forward a short decade, and it’s

Am I an asset, or am I just OpEx?

Apr 30, 2019
4 min

Am I an asset, or am I just OpEx?

“Am I an asset to my company? Or am I ….” The audience of accountants collectively inhaled, wondering if the attendee asking the question was going to go there. “Or am I just OpEx?” he asked, neatly sidestepping saying the word “liability” . Only an accountant could have summed up the existential crisis that we are all probably experiencing around our role in the workplace, in this way. The question came up during our recent annual user conference in Cape Town, South Africa.

In Google we trust

Apr 19, 2018
2 min

In Google we trust

There is a Tesla Roadster broadcasting David Bowie on repeat while travelling through space. What a time to be alive! And, I’d argue, the perfect time to rethink what it means to be human. But, we need to do it very carefully. We’re welcoming robots into our homes, cars and workplaces. And they are enabling things that were impossible, or very hard, or very expensive to do. Doesn’t it blow your mind that every day you can use satellites orbiting the planet to find out if ther

Give the machines a leg up!

Dec 8, 2016
3 min

Give the machines a leg up!

The rise of the machines doesn’t sound like science fiction to me anymore. Many of us will remember a time in our career before cell phones and emails. Now we hear of semi-autonomous drones and self-driving cars — technology is advancing at an eye-watering rate. And with these advances come the naysayers and their apocalyptic predictions: if you don’t get run over by a self-driving car, or accidentally bombed by a drone, at the very least you are likely to lose your job to a