Enhancing Housing Services through Innovation & Technology

I got a freebie ticket to a Govnet event, Enhancing Housing services through innovation and technology #EHS2016. Best speakers – Nick Atkins CE Halton Housing, – fast paced buzzy geezer, Duncan Farley with passion and stammer from Ancoris, Emily Ward from Richmond Housing Partnership – excellent delivery, passionate arms, Richard Marbrow at the Information Commissioner’s Office – understated dry wit (led me to google, ‘how do I encrypt?) and Matt Leach Chief executive of HACT who I could have listened to for hours.
It felt like a session about ideas https://hazeldurbridge.com/ideas-are-amazing/

The food was pretty hot too especially the gnocchi in cream sauce.

The venue was just, well, underground – very interesting sculptures in the lobby though Victoria Park Plaza.

What did I learn?

The future is mobile. Any contact any member of staff has with a resident, we need to check we have an accurate mobile phone number.
There is a huge business case for digital inclusion. If Mercedes and other luxury car brands are collecting data all the time from the cars they send out in to the market, why are housing associations not collecting data from £500k homes that they are handing over keys to? It was instructive to learn what sensors in the home could do – e.g. alert about energy usage. Matt was able to challenge his cleaning company because he could tell from sensors in his home that the cleaner was leaving one hour earlier than they were supposed to! You could tell if an elderly person was opening the fridge or turning on the cooker. This could result in proactive and timely interventions from housing staff.

The Internet of Things will heat and light homes, measure damp, measure noise, tell you if the boiler needs repair. It will also save LOTS of money and make people lose jobs. Read it as it is. Reinvent yourself.

The “Internet of Things” (IoT) is a term used to describe the increasing ubiquity of connected technologies embedded in everyday objects – from smart lightbulbs to intelligent central heating systems. It is a rapidly growing marketplace – estimated to triple in size between 2014 and 2020 – with much of that growth being driven by the emergence of technologies aimed at transforming the ways in which people use and experience their homes. HACT website

If your organisation can afford £3.5k you can become a member of The Connected homes Consortium and be in the loop.

The event reinforced the Pop Up business mantra , fail fast, fail cheap. Nick had tried a £2k drone instead of scaffolding to check tiles on a building roof. Drones are a no no (says Matt). Nick says he should have used a more expensive drone as it couldn’t hold still in the wind for photos.

QUOTES?
Every achievement begins with an audacious idea and a healthy disregard for the impossible.

IYADWYHADYWAGWYHAG?
If you always do what you have always done you will always get what you have always got.

Transformation is at the intersection of great people, process and technology.

Expect to have access to everything from everywhere from any device. This is not the future. The technology is here.

It made me think again about a ‘husband’ robot. https://hazeldurbridge.com/a-book-list-and-an -inspiring-robot/