Goodbye 2023, hello 2024.
I’m not a fan of heralding in the New Year, nor committing to new resolutions! However, I do use the occasion as an opportunity to reflect on what we have delivered over the year and start planning key activities for …
How we work
Our cloud has many silver linings
As we move closer to wrapping up 2023, I find myself in a reflective mood! If you read last week’s blog you’ll have heard from my colleague Lee Burton that we have recently concluded the migration of 800GB of ECC …
Migration to the cloud: A painful journey to a better place.
In what feels like a long time ago now I wrote a blog around how excited I was about the planned migration of our on-premise data environment to the cloud. I was full of hope and dreams, and then we …
From a trickle to a flood
The exponential growth of data in the world, from a few spots of datum to a deep, expansive ocean of 1s and 0s, shows no sign of slowing and is expected to shape the world in ways we are still …
What am I missing through my straw?!
Until recently my understanding of separated migrant children was largely shaped by ongoing media coverage, which has powerfully portrayed the treacherous and traumatic journeys that many children experience to reach the UK. Having now worked alongside childrens services commissioners and …
Every day is a school day
What happens when the one person who has all the knowledge on a certain process leaves your team? Panic? That “this is fine” meme (you all know the one)? Or take a breath and look for any opportunities to review …
Eating Cake and Cracking the Code
Lured by the promise of learning and cake, three of ECC's newest Analysts and Junior Analysts attended this year's Summer School at IADS, University of Essex.
Council tax and the cost-of-living crisis
Council tax is inherently ‘unsexy’. It doesn’t hit the headlines all too often, let alone national news. In the media it’s an oft-neglected, much-maligned thing. In fact, you’re probably already thinking of closing this blog. Why on Earth would I …
Navigating good data ethics
In an era where data, AI and machine learning dominate headlines, local government teams face a critical responsibility: how do we tap into the power of data and analytics whilst ensuring ethics and integrity remain central? Key to achieving this …
Human vs Machine
The Turing Test stipulates that if a machine can convince a human that it is human, then it is human (intelligent).
Does that mean that if a human can convince a machine that it is machine, it is machine (artificially intelligent)?
I put that to the test…