Steve Mason, Vice President & General Manager of Embelex, Avery Dennison, said: “Fan engagement opportunities are at the core of any professional sports team. Avery Dennison prides itself on our Digital Solutions which connect the physical Embelex product with our digital capabilities. In a competitive landscape such as professional sports we anticipate further adoption of these 1-to-1 fan engagements and new lines of communication to open. The possibilities are endless.” embelex.averydennison.com ... AI FEARS Less than half (44%) of IT professionals have a positive view of AI tools, according to new research from SolarWinds, with one in four believing they will eventually pose a threat to society and 48% advocating stricter regulations. Even so, 28% are currently using AI tools to help with their work, with a further 28% planning to invest in AI tools. Sascha Giese, Tech Evangelist at SolarWinds, said: “The buzz around AI, particularly generative AI, is grabbing the attention of business leaders. There are clear opportunities to reduce costs, create new product lines or enrich existing offerings. While this enthusiasm from the C-suite is great for increasing IT budgets, it’s understandable certain reservations persist among IT professionals — particularly when it comes to AI replacing their key daily tasks. “Properly regulated AI deployments will benefit employees, customers and the broader workforce. But it needs buy-in from the right people. Transparency over AI concerns and a collaborative, open discussion between business leaders and IT teams is key. Until then, we will continue to see a cautious, ‘wait and see’ approach from IT teams slowing the adoption of these revolutionary tools.” ... AI COURSE FOR BUSINESS LEADERS As AI technology evolves at a rapid rate, Scotland’s innovation centre for data and AI has launched a fourweek, 14-hour online course designed to provide business leaders with the practical skills needed to use AI responsibly within their organisations. Driving Value from AI from The Data Lab addresses the primary questions leaders have about AI in an entirely non-technical way, bringing together insights from practitioners across Scotland with expert guidance from Strategy Advisor and Coach Craig Paterson. The Data Lab is offering a 50% discount to anyone who registers for the course before December 22 using the code: EARLYBIRD50. https://learn.thedatalab.com/ courses/driving-value-from-ai Your AI guide: Craig Paterson, Executive Education Advisor 5 www.managedITmag.co.uk NEWS SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS TOO AFRAID TO SPEAK OUT Engprax, a provider of software audits, investigations and consultancy, has uncovered widespread failures in software development that it warns could have worrying implications for wider society. More than half (53%) of software engineers surveyed for an investigation led by Engprax CEO Dr Junade Ali CEng FIET say they’ve suspected wrongdoing at work. Of those who raised their concerns, 75% say they faced retaliation after reporting wrongdoing to their employers. In instances where software engineers stayed silent, the top two reasons for doing so were fear of potential retaliation from management (59%) and potential retaliation from colleagues (44%). In The Dark Side of Software Development, Engprax also claims some companies have sought to bypass public interest disclosure laws by getting employees to agree to warranty clauses during severance. These clauses stipulate the employee knows of no grounds to make protected disclosures covering matters related to criminality, failure to comply with legal obligations, miscarriages of justice, health and safety dangers or environmental damage. The report warns that ‘industry standard’ frameworks used to assess software teams are flawed, citing the prioritisation of speed and volume when measuring the performance of software teams, even though ‘getting the latest features as quickly as possible’ is seen as the least important dimension of computer use by a representative poll of British adults (cited by 22%). What matters to them much more are data security (62%), data accuracy (55%) and ensuring there are no serious bugs (55%). Of eight dimensions, software engineers were least likely to agree ‘to a great extent’ that ‘delivering work quickly’ was most important to their jobs (33%). Of more importance are being able to provide for their families (52%), delivering work that is highly reliable (51%) and ensuring their work kept data secure (47%). Dr Junade Ali said: “From software engineers facing mass retaliation for speaking up and banned gagging clauses still being used, to ‘industrystandard’ software development metrics not considering the public’s risk appetite, this investigation has highlighted systematic and profound issues with society-wide impact, given how integral computers are to all our lives. Our investigation has shown a tendency for problems to be swept below the rug until they reach boiling point rather than addressed, this is neither compassionate nor honest for those involved.” www.engprax.com Dr Junade Ali CEng FIET The Dark Side of Software Development Wrongdoing in Software Development and Retaliation Targeting Software Engineers 1 continued...
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