In the latest blog in our series, we sat down and got to know Malcolm Cathcart, Inciper's Strategy and Advisory Practice Lead. We talk old Samsung phones, his love of Sci-fi books and the excitement that comes with new Microsoft product releases.
1.) Where do you call home?
I live in a place called Berkhamsted, just outside of London. When my first child was born, we decided to move out of London and drew up a list of 20 or so requirements for the place that we wanted to live – less than 20,000 people, less than 40 minutes to Euston or Kings Cross, that sort of thing. Unsurprisingly there were only 3 places in the country that met the requirement statement. It was a very logical and orderly way to make a life decision!
2.) What hobbies did you have growing up?
All sorts of things really – I’ve always been a massive fan of reading so I read voraciously anything I could get my hands on. My brother is quite a bit older and was very into Sci-Fi and Fantasy so I chewed through all of his books as well. I got very in to computing as soon as computers came out to the point of staying back to programme on the old BBC Micros after school. I suppose it's hard to fathom now but without internet back then, I spent time gaming with friends in person huddled around one computer. We'd also break out the board games and very occasionally we played sports outdoors!
3.) What are you currently watching?
I’ve just finished watching The Dectorists on Netflix – but don’t really watch a huge amount of TV. I love a podcast though, so I can highly recommend two that I love. Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur is great you are in to thinking about what the near term and far future might hold, everything from orbital rings to dismantling the solar system to travelling the stars using black hole drives. The other one is Hardcore History by Dan Carlin. I’ve really surprised myself with this one as I was never into history at school (sorry, Mr Middleton) but I really enjoy these deep dives into a real variety of topics from the Persian Kings to World War I. They are very long and detailed – 15 to 20 hours across four or five episodes is not uncommon, but each is fascinating and intensely researched.
4.) What was your first mobile phone?
My first one was some sort of cheap generic brick. The one I really remember though was a lovely little Samsung clamshell with a second screen on the outside that told you who was calling. That was such a cool little phone. Phones these days might be more useful, but they don’t have the different design languages that you used to get between the suppliers – there’s only so many ways you can make a rectangle of glass!
5.) What’s the coolest bit of tech you’ve ever seen?
It never really took off but probably Google glass. The potential for augmented reality is just huge if it could only get started – imagine walking through a hospital and there’s a line showing on the floor that tells you where to go to find the place you’re going, or walking round an art gallery and having a floating display to explain more about the painting you’re looking at. What’s interesting is that at the time, one of the main pushbacks was that the camera on the glass could record people all the time and that would be a loss of privacy. Since then, cameras on phones have become not just ubiquitous but the main selling point and the privacy concern has just gradually petered out.
6.) Describe what you do at Inciper in one sentence?
I lead the Strategy and Advisory practice where we bring business transformation focus to our clients’ engagements, helping them to create a strategic roadmap of change.
7.) What’s the best part of your job?
Encouraging everyone to raise their vision from just technology encounters to look at the bigger picture of how people, process, data and tools can all come together to solve business problems. When someone realises that a pain point in their day-to-day life doesn’t actually have to be an issue for them, you can almost see the load come off their shoulders!
8.) What’s so cool about Microsoft technology?
The way that the ecosystem is growing over time is amazing, especially as the new AI based features get introduced like robotic process automation and some of the advanced analytics in Paul’s area. Sometimes when you watch the new product updates at Inspire, you get an amazing feeling of your hair standing on end as they introduce some new feature that does something you never thought was going to be possible.
9.) Who’s your tech hero?
Probably Tim Berners-Lee who has changed the modern world so much by bringing together the technology that formed the world wide web. What was great about Tim is not just his vision – he made the protocols he invented open and royalty free which informed the spirit of the early internet – although that might be difficult to remember now! I see elements of that same philosophy in the nascent fediverse – movements like Mastodon and Lemmy which offer decentralised versions of popular media platforms that are outside of the control of a single corporation.
10.) What advice do you have for anyone looking to get into this industry?
Try out as much as you can – I have done support desk, development, business analysis and project management so nearly the whole software development lifecycle. It gave me a really good grounding in the whole project team and also let me try lots of different things to decide where I wanted to ‘settle’!
