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Monday 3 March 2014

Enterprise Mobility and Mobile Device Management Event

I'm speaking later this month at the Enterprise Mobility and Mobile Device Management Event organised by Whitehall Media http://www.whitehallmedia.co.uk/em-mdm/

My talk is entitled "User Experience: The Key to Successful Mobilisation".

I'm going to look at how Universities have delivered BYOD solutions for over a decade with mixed success. From experience, ease of integration with the wireless infrastructure, an identity management solution (to identify and register users) and establishing the correct security posture is key. Ultimately security should be the overriding factor - as any solution must not compromise an organisations security.

The user experience for academic and other university staff now can be a positive one with the ability to use a device of their choice and with true wireless "roaming" throughout the UK education sector and beyond using eduroam.

I will argue that BYOD is about developing an ecosystem which begins at the data centre and expands out from there. Protecting the organisational infrastructure is also critical however getting the balance here is crucial as stifling creativity and innovation is all to easy. Also by putting barriers in place to prevent specific actions or behaviours is a waste of time as people are creative enough to get around such barriers. For example, if you restrict access to certain categories of website many with either bring their own network (BYON!) or utilise free tools to tunnel traffic over http.

The other big change in moving and supporting a BYOD approach is to the support model. The traditional service desk approach is often no longer suitable in environments with high BYOD such as a University. You need to also cater for hardware repairs such as screen replacements, data restorations etc. The demand for accessible power is also a challenge. 

Making it clear what is and is not acceptable is also crucial and this should be embedded in easy to read guidance for all employees.

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