Issue 60: Nov 2013
MONITOR
the newsletter of the Information Technologists
MASTER’S LETTER
F
riday 11th October 2013 was a special day for me because it was the day I was installed as Master and when I effectively brought an end to my 45 year career as a
practising lawyer. The two, I felt, were mutually exclusive.
I had started as a company/commercial lawyer, having read Law at Bristol University. Ten
years after qualifying, I acquired my first software house client, MGE Associates, which
sought some help on a supply contract. At that time and probably for a further decade there
were few standards. We early practitioners evolved them as best we could, believing-as it
turned out correctly-that software was copyright.
When my firm heard that I had undertaken computer contract work, I was asked to negotiate a
supply contract on its behalf with a software house called AIM. I was subsequently invited to
act for AIM, whose then Chairman, Clive Telfer, a Liveryman of this Company, suggested I
became involved with the Computing Services Association (as it then was). The CSA’s
Director General, Douglas Eyeions, in turn recommended I became a member of this
Worshipful Company. This I did in 1993. Thus I became a lawyer to the IT industry.
In identifying a theme for my year as Master, an office which I am greatly honoured to have
been given a chance to fulfil, I pondered over how mankind’s communications had developed
over the centuries.
It started with sign and body language, metamorphosing into speech and then writing. Writing
was speeded up by printing, and the postal system increased the ubiquity of information. The
next century saw telephony, fax radio and television coming to the fore. These in turn were
(Photo: Gerald Sharp)
complemented by mainframe computers, PCs and microprocessors; developments which
themselves co-ordinated the Internet with the World Wide Web.
Michael Webster
Inside this issue:
Master’s Letter
1
A Lord Mayor’s visit 3
Balancing Risk and 5
Reward in the
Cyber-world
Thought
Leadership 2014
6
WWII Bunker visit
7
A Master’s Present
9
Installation Dinner
HAC
10-11
A Letter from the
Lord Mayor
12
Charity News
13-14
Cadets
15
Education News
16-17
Without understanding history, one cannot conceive of what lies ahead. Moore’s Law dictates that IT’s pace of
change will quicken. So should our ability to keep abreast and recognise the good and the not so good impacts of IT
upon society.
My brief history of information dissemination shows IT and computing (including telephony) as truly ubiquitous
today. They have become more than just an adjunct to our lives; they are an integral part of it.
You may by now have guessed the theme for my year of office is “UBIQUITY” - “ubique” meaning in Latin
everywhere. The word “Ubiquity” conjures up in our minds concepts of equity and fairness. It contains the familiar
acronym “IT” and the word “quit”; which is what I shall be
doing at the end of my year!
The ubiquity and immediacy of computing and the
impact of IT on society would be better appreciated
by society if it can have the benefit of some Thought
Leadership debate between interested persons. I
believe, as will be seen from a later article in this
edition of Monitor, that there is no more dispassionate
organisation to embark on this than The Worshipful
Company of Information Technologists.