The School of Lifelogging

Could lifelogging address the educational "achievement gap" while preparing children from all backgrounds to work with data? Securing personal data from unwelcome eyes will likely remain a challenge. Lifelogging is not just about quantitative analysis. Highly engaging, qualitative storytelling can also emerge from data gathered by learners. Stories of self-determination would involve the learner's own understanding of personal ambitions and dreams.

Lifelogging is part of a growing movement known as "the quantified self". Wearable sensors and cameras capture data about an individual's everyday experience to improve self-understanding. Ordinarily focused on health and wellbeing, lifelogging could disrupt education as we know it. Smartphones were only the beginning. Performance data from wearable devices could personalise learning in ever more intimate ways.

Manufacturing intelligent services

We highlight a trend toward value-added services as a means for medium-sized manufacturers to drive innovation.

When you're a manufacturer on a slim budget, it's not easy to muster up the courage to innovate. When product demand begins to decline, however, innovation becomes a necessity. In an effort to survive organisations are seeking ways to commercialise successful innovations quickly. In some cases, the challenge has led medium-sized manufacturers to pursue a strategy called 'servitisation'. It is no quick journey to success, but research insight lends credence to the idea.

To 'servitise' means to combine value-added services with products that deliver additional capabilities to customers on an ongoing, 'pay as you go' basis. If, like other manufacturing companies, you're eager to pump all your innovative forces into generating income and saving money, then you might want to take note of the term, 'servitisation'. Even if you're not interested in the jargon, it's worth considering its essence: the shift from a focus on product to service.

Saving Lives: Business Intelligence for Healthcare

The NHS needs to save lives and save money by innovating with business intelligence.

In the summer of 2012, Orlando Agrippa was recognised by TechWeekEurope for implementing a public sector business intelligence project at the Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust (CHUFT). Acting as the social director of Business Informatics, Agrippa, rebuilt ageing IT infrastructure and introduced analytics into the Trust’s everyday operations by introducing business intelligence solutions.

The project at CHUFT has saved the hospital over £30,000 in reporting costs, as well as contributed to the reduction of mortality rates. Reporting that used to take over 200 hours has been reduced by 70 per cent. He has seen the benefits of the platform's ‘associated model’, which allows users to "link data in a natural, logical way [so that if] you wanted to know what the length of stay within the organisation was, you can do that in 3-4 clicks.”