Mark Leishman (00:00):
It's Tech Tuesday here and of course time to catch up with Daniel Watson. He's the owner and managing director of Vertech IT Services. And this week we're going to talk a bit about a couple of tech tools, which have been in the news of late Good day. Dan, welcome to the program. Nice to chat with you.
Daniel Watson (00:16):
That's a lovely cat. Have a chance to chat with you too. Good
Mark Leishman (00:19):
On you. So what are these topics that we'd like to discuss today? Tech
Daniel Watson (00:26):
Well, okay, so there is the Taranaki White High School, the principal there, ll War Burden announced that they have started using a tool called Yondr, Y-O-N-D-R, which basically is locking away the phones from the kids whilst they're at school, creating a phone free space, which is really interesting, right? Because I think there is a bit of an understanding that phones can be highly distractible. I mean, I've had teenagers growing up through the rise of mobile phones and social media. We've seen the effect of it. My wife is a clinical child and adolescent psychologist and she has some very strong views on this kind of stuff as well.
Mark Leishman (01:20):
I'd be interested to hear those. But I actually talked to Daryl yesterday on afternoons and he said it is been quite a remarkable transformation. The kids are right behind it. The teachers, the parents, they lock their phones away at the beginning of the day, nine o'clock, and they get them at sort of three 30 whenever the school bell rings. And there's lots more play on the Grounds playgrounds and it's just a different environment, which is really, really intriguing. It's fantastic.
Daniel Watson (01:52):
Yeah, quite, I mean, we probably wouldn't notice a difference. It would probably just look like how it was when we were at school. Yes, exactly. 30 odd years ago. 30, 40 years ago. But yes, I mean I think we're quite aware there's a certain amount of social media bullying, bullying, the apps that are set on smartphones have been designed to keep you engaged, such that you end up with those eyeballs being enslaved to the algorithm of exciting, interesting things. And that's not necessarily in line with enhancing learning. So I feel like it's an experiment that we've been experiencing over the last decade. And I know as an adult it's hard to maintain your attention on things, let alone the kids who haven't had a chance to develop that frontal cortex yet. Yeah, indeed.
Mark Leishman (02:45):
So yonder is, it is like a pouch, is that what you're saying?
Daniel Watson (02:50):
Yes. So when you go into farmers and you're taking stuff off the shelf and then they use a little magnetic tool to the anti-theft devices, same idea. Essentially you've got a pouch, it's got one of those little mag locks in closes up and you can't undo it until you go back to that device, which I think the posting on things like the school gates. So as you are leaving school or entering school, that's when it goes in. Now I've had a bit of a thing about this and there's some pros and cons. One of the things I really like about what he's done is he conducted a survey of the stakeholders. So that was the parents, the teachers obviously are involved and the students as well to find out what they thought about the idea. And then at the board level, they made a governance decision and wrote up a policy and then found a way to implement it practically.
(03:48):
And I think of those three things, the implementation is probably the least important because there's probably a dozen different ways you could skin that cat, because otherwise it's nothing particularly, I dunno, technically wizardry about the bag with a magnetic lock, you could probably think of a few different ways of doing it, but it does mean that you're not confiscating the phones. They're always in the child's possession when they come out of school and they need to contact mum or dad to, Hey, the buses are being canceled and I need to left home. You can still do that. So that kind of safety perspective is still there. I mean,
Mark Leishman (04:32):
So how the ways, there are ways to lock phones without having to use a bag device? Is that what you're suggesting?
Daniel Watson (04:41):
Well, I mean, yeah, you could have a Dropbox in the classroom that as they walk into the class, phones go into that, or you could have a rule that bans 'em from school. It is a practical way of making sure that the resistance to the idea doesn't end up in noncompliance. Right. But I'm sure a local manufacturer would probably skim one of these things up because the pricing on them is not cheap. I mean, estimate is 25 to 30 US dollars per child. So it remains school property and it's not a faraday cage. It's not like the thing is still going to get signals to it. If somebody leaves a ringer on, it's still going to ring or vibrate. So they should switch the phone off before they throw it in there, or else they could possibly still distract. But I
Mark Leishman (05:38):
Think each bag is designated to each child and they have a number or sort of a barcode on it and their name, et cetera. So there's no confusion about whose phone it is and that sort of stuff. But it's
Daniel Watson (05:49):
An interesting Yeah, that's right.
(05:51):
Yeah, I think the downsides of it is going to be, it's going to get all manky and smell like squash like everything else in a school bag, and they'll lose it. That's what kids do. But there's also a home at home. It's a good idea to create cell phone free spaces, like banning them from the dinner table or bedrooms and maybe having a box that you chuck them into where you put a lock and key on it so that the kids have got space for good family interaction around the dinner table and actually uninterrupted sleep.
Mark Leishman (06:29):
It's quite interesting. We've got a text following our chat yesterday with Daryl from College of White High, and they said, oh, we'd noticed the difference. This was the neighbors because there was lots of playground noise, which previously it was pretty quiet. So that's a nice, as we said, alluded back to the days or our days when we used to play ambush and all those sorts of things.
Daniel Watson (06:53):
Yeah, that's true.
Mark Leishman (06:54):
Wells Fargo in the US I see that. Have they been looking at some of the staff working from home and whether they were actually working
Daniel Watson (07:07):
Right. So employee monitoring now, this has been going on for a while. It's not just since Covid and there is lots of tools out there now. I guess the overall idea is some businesses are concerned that with more people working from home, are people actually working or are they taking the piss and they're not getting their money's worth? So now I've got some thoughts about this. Now, first of all, legal, it's completely legal in New Zealand Employment Relations Relations Act 2000 and the Privacy Act under these acts, lawyers can legally monitor the employees as long as the reason for the monitoring is important enough and within the bounds of the law, you need to let your people know you are monitoring them. That'd be good.
(08:00):
Now, the downside, if you know somebody's watching over your shoulder all the time, it's hardly conducive for trust, but there are some good reasons why you might want to actually do this kind of thing. Now, I personally feel in my role, if I need to be monitored for my keystrokes and mouse movements over the course of the day to figure out if I'm doing something that's productive and value for the business, then surely there's a better number that can be tracked with regards to the output I produce than the numbers, the net benefit to the company and what I do. So certain jobs, this probably doesn't work well for, but here are some ideas where it could work well. Now, if you're in a industry where there's actually a higher amount of risk, so the possibility of an insider threat now, and given that we know that of all the kind of security incidents that happen on a business cyber attacks, one in five of them is actually insider threat, not a bad guy wearing a hoodie in somebody's basement. Oh really? Yeah. So if you're in a business which is like there's quite a bit of money flying or there's very, very sensitive information that has been handled, then you're going to want to put some, well, quite a lot of controls in place to make sure that people don't get tempted or are unable to ghost the system as it were. Because some of the bad stuff that the worst stuff that happens on the internet is where people think they're completely anonymous and there's never going to be a replication.
Mark Leishman (09:55):
No one can trace
Daniel Watson (09:56):
It. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't do good stuff to the human psyche, I don't think. So I've got a few peers who do provide services like this to their customers, where by recording absolutely everything that goes on, the staff computers, whether it's remote work, onsite, mobile phone, whatever, is a hundred percent attribution for activities. So if they ever have to go back and figure out how did this happen, it is possible. It doesn't end up being like, oh, we have no idea. It's actually, we can track it right down. This is when you clicked on the link and that led to this happened and this happened, this happened.
(10:43):
That's useful and could be a good reason to do it. Another one is, if you're doing stuff, you're monitoring people literally for the old time and space workflow, if you're working in a warehouse, is it an inefficient type of method of working where the placement of devices in the area or the racking or the desks and how people drive around and move within the business environment is suboptimal? You can get good numbers from that, but yeah, I dunno dunno how the Kiwi psyche would respond to well to being monitored like that. I don't know if you've had an experience like
Mark Leishman (11:25):
That. No, I have not actually. I haven't really worked for him. My line of business is sort of, you've got to be in the studio pretty much, although even that is changing with remote units that you can virtually broadcast from anywhere much more efficiently. But yeah, thankfully no, and I kind of like being in the office and the company and the studios, et cetera. It's good fun. Hey
Daniel Watson (11:49):
Dan. Yeah, there's a lot to be said for that. Yeah.
Mark Leishman (11:52):
Thank you so much for sharing with us and we look forward to catching up with Tech Tuesday in the future.
Daniel Watson (11:59):
Great stuff.