The Aurora Project's purpose is to redefine the BBC’s technology landscape and the supplier engagement model that supports it. This will include reviewing and re-procuring the services currently provided under the existing contract with Atos and will engage with all BBC divisions to ensure that the outcome will deliver the optimum service and value for money.
The Aurora Project is also the name of a Scottish prog rock ensemble, who released one lp in 1996 - The Balance of Risk. Spooky, huh ?
Perhaps you could revisit the history of the "Socrates" so-called 'tech refresh' project at BBC Monitoring, Caversham
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/feb/09/media-monkeys-diary?INTCMP=SRCH
A curious tale of dirty deeds in the gents' toilets has reached me from ex-colleagues at Caversham Park, the grand country house in Berkshire that is home to BBC Monitoring.
ReplyDeleteStaff were bemused to receive the following email on 8 August from Monitoring Director Chris Westcott:
(EXACT COPY OF EMAIL FOLLOWS):
============
Dear colleague
Can the person who has decided to block a gent’s (sic) WC with half a kilo of plums please confine their bizarre social life to their own home?
thanks
Chris
===========================
Wags commented that they would have expected Director Chris Westcott, rather than having time to weigh up wayward plums, to be more concerned with the organization's reportedly floundering multimillion pound "Technology Refresh" programme, already running over budget and behind schedule, and the possible negative financial consequences of this overspending for Monitoring in the 2013/14 financial year when it loses its government funding and moves to direct BBC licence fee funding.
Caversham veterans recalled that "dirty protests" are not unknown at the imposing mansion, where staff numbers have been dramatically cut in recent years, with entire editorial teams such as Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe and Latin America disbanded and jobs increasingly "outsourced" to Monitoring "hubs" overseas, where local staff are cheaper to employ but issues have arisen over the quality and selection of translations.
In the 1990s, the creative streak of some Caversham staff was expressed in a series of 3D art works, some featuring likenesses of senior managers, which mysteriously appeared on the ceilings of the gents' toilets - daubed in human excrement.
Then - as now - the management had nothing to go on.