The Backlog on the Tyne (is All Fine, All Fine)

HER Forum Summer Meeting 2019, Literary & Philosophical Society, Newcastle upon Tyne, 10th July 2019

(Post presentation questions and comments - in italicised type following each abstract - are based on notes taken at the meeting. Powerpoints for all of the presentations can be viewed on the HER Forum JiscMail file store).

Welcome from the Chair – Chris Webster (South West Heritage Trust)
HER Forum was held in Newcastle-upon-Tyne fulfilling a promise made two years ago, when we diverted to Hull following its award of City of Culture. Numbers (35 people) were slightly lower that when the meetings are held more centrally to England, but those who were unable to attend missed an excellent day in an excellent location.

The morning started with a presentation on Peter Ryder’s work on non-conformist chapels, once a prominent feature of the local land- and townscapes but increasingly under threat – as they are in many parts of the country. Keith Elliott then described the approach that he is taking to the polygonization of the Scottish Borders HER records and Jack Fuller gave an update on the project that 10 English HERs are undertaking to transfer the data in the National Record of the Historic Environment into the relevant HER. This led to considerable discussion, particularly relating to the capacity of some HERs to undertake the work and the time estimates for the project.

After lunch, Clare Howard and Matt Oakey described the different Heritage Action Zones being implemented in the region and explained the direction that this programme would be taking in future. Ian Scrivener-Lindley then described life in the huge area covered by the Highland HER and Crispin Flower gave a round-up of projects that Exegesis have been involved with.

The Ebenezer Project: The Nonconformist Chapels of Tyne and Wear… and their disappearance – Peter Ryder
The Ebenezer Project forms a component of a wider range of surveys relating to nonconformist chapels in the north east of England. Earlier studies include:

Teesdale and Weardale (within the AONB)
Lower Weardale (2003)
Darlington (2004)
Newcastle and North Tyneside (2011)
Sunderland (2012)
South Tyneside (2017)
Remainder of County Durham (2017)
A digest of the statistics from this earlier work reveals a total of 1431 buildings (although some have undoubtedly been missed) of which 401 survive physically, 221 as places of worship.

The study of Tyne and Wear was commissioned as an enhancement project for the HER by Newcastle City Council. The methodology used an established sequence of research:
1. Check trade directories.
2. Check old OS maps
3. Check for survival on Google Earth
4. Field visit (usually an external viewing taking some photos).

A ‘snapshot’ drawn from the Census evidence for 1851 shows that, in Newcastle there was one nonconformist chapel for every 1145 inhabitants, in Sunderland one for every 639. However, architectural accounts of recent years hint at a lack of regard for this element of the built heritage during the later years of the 20th century. West Newcastle in Growth and Decline, published in the 1980s, make no mention whatsoever of nonconformist chapels, whilst Pevsner entirely overlooks the Westgate Wesleyan Mission Hall (also in west Newcastle).   

The project meanwhile, in its researches recorded:
866 chapels and meeting houses in the area
235 of which survived physically
108 were still places of Christian worship

The heaviest losses were found in heavily redeveloped areas. For example in Elswick and Benwell 2 out of 31 survived; in the city of Sunderland 13 out of 101.

Scottish Borders Polygonisation: What’s the point in that? – A Keith Elliott (Scottish Borders Council)
This presentation will detail the Scottish Borders Council HER’s Polygonisation Project; a project still in progress for south-eastern Scotland. The project is one of three under the broad heading Mapping the Archaeology of Scotland and is, for the Borders, funded by Historic Environment Scotland (the combination of Historic Scotland and the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland) and Scottish Forestry (formerly Forestry Commission Scotland).

A project officer is employed specifically for this project, hosted by Scottish Borders Council, since July 2016. Initially grant funded between 2016 and 2018, the work has been commissioned by Historic Environment Scotland, with the same funding and hosting arrangements, since April 2018. It is expected that the project will run to the end of March next year with a view breaking the back of monuments-based completion. This talk will be in three parts;

i) an Introduction to the Scottish Borders; the area, the history and development of HER, as well as previous Scottish polygonisation work will be outlined. The HER is within a small archaeological and building conservation/design-based team, within a Scottish unitary authority. The way that both the local HER and national records have developed, together now as SURE (Specialist User Recording Environment) partners in a combined and shared arrangement with Historic Environment Scotland, have affected the Polygonisation Project. In the Scottish Borders the previous Defining Scotland’s Places methodology has been refined (previously presented to the HER Forum back in the 2008 Edinburgh meeting).

ii) the Scottish Borders Methodology will be detailed; in deciding what to polygonise (it is not possible to polygonise every record, but deciding what and how polygons are created is necessary), what previous mapping of entries has been carried out by the HER (across points, polygons and indeed previous polygons, with the choices made about their compliance to the Polygonisation standards), what trials were carried out of materials and resources for the project, as well as what lessons have been learned through the course of the project. The ‘automatic’ creation of polygons carried out in bulk for selected monument types, and the possible pitfalls to them, will be detailed.

iii) and Why we are doing polygonisation now; this project has proved a useful catalyst for other projects (some analogous to current English work) and some of the plans – both for archaeological use and in their application – using polygons are outlined. These too have also guided the progress of the Polygonisation Project so far and in the prioritisation of work yet to be completed for users of the HER.

Over 14256 polygons have been created for the Scottish Borders, with many more still to do. Whilst this is a specific Scottish Borders project, perhaps unique its combinations (given work also been carried out from afar for Stirling and Clackmannanshire as well), it is hoped this presentation will prove useful for others considering the polygonisation of their HERs. The whole project has at times been and remains challenging, but has had ramifications already beyond just the creation of polygons.

Question - Nick Davis (Historic England) – This is clearly exemplary work. Is the methodology set down in the HER’s recording manual?

Answer (AKE) – We don’t have a recording manual as such, but do have two versions recording fuller details as specific polygonisation instructions *and also history of the HER explaining why the process developed carried out* as well as a day-to-day version which without pictures is two sides or so. That is perhaps the top tip that I would recommend and have recommended (in the handout) that you include pictures in such, as well as keeping a picture gallery of ‘problems issues’. If you have that issue worth recording what you did to resolve that as quite likely to occur elsewhere in your project and help in consistency *through time and/or change of staff. There are variations in how people approach polygonisation, such as some would want findspots or whether a square or circle recognised for an imprecisely located site. Some like Norfolk do whole parish polygons as mentioned in talk proper for the likes of findspots*.

Question (Chris Webster) – Has anyone embarked on a project of this nature for an English HER?

Answer (HER Officer 1) – Durham has just started a comparable polygonisation project.

Answer (AKE) – Yes, Durham; some help and information has been given to Nick Boldrini [also Durham HER] previously and following the emails on HER Forum last week. Cornwall were also starting off (see the previous HER Forum post) polygonisation. “Other places are underway for polygonising their records. Information given to those in Cornwall (started 2017) and Peterborough following the summer 2017 HER Forum at Hull, and there are some changes since I started (for example more open access use of MasterMap from the OS seems to be emerging)*.

Question (HER Officer 2) – The process looks quite time-consuming. Possibly the need for this isn’t as great in England?

Answer (AKE) – Acknowledged time-consuming and it could be more so again. It really depends on what you want your polygons to do for you. As per the HER Forum discussions last week you could have the one polygon or many, such as from the various versions of old Ordnance Survey mapping showing the changes (e.g. increase/decrease) in size of a site or have a composite one of all sources together, but that would mangle their accuracies together. That is something for the instructions book. I’m creating one polygon from the earliest clear depiction, which is generally the Ordnance Survey first edition as that of most interest in development control/management work.

You should be able to do more ‘automatic polygons’ through the FME process (in the handout [Feature Manipulation Engine]) from more HER searches as a starting point – not possible in the Scottish Borders HER in 2016 – but all rates variable (as shown by the slide [number 7]) where some peaks [in polygon creation] ‘automatic polygons’ indicated from some monument types (e.g. findspots were easily extractable from the data, tip: have a pre-polygonisation audit of what database work you can/need to do beforehand. HERs might have entered find types straight off, so you would need to ‘tidy’ those to findspots or create an HER search for them).
Comment (HER Officer 1) – It is easy with Lidar data; we’ve been managing about 30 to 40 a day, such as for DMVs.

Response (AKE) – Yes, Lidar good; but only if you have it. In the Scottish Borders we don’t or haven’t had for the most part till recently. But also you need to think on what you wanting your polygon to do – are you wanting the one polygon, for example houses within the DMV (as different sites) or dealing with the non-LiDAR visible bits (by different evidence form) or different sources (with their different accuracies)?

Question (HER Officer 2) – Did planners ask for this?

Answer (Charina Jones, Historic England) – Having investigated this topic in Wales, planners were usually most interested in surviving features. Thus, when processing the data, different quantifiers (like extent for example) would be employed.

Answer (AKE) – We’ve not had much from planners apart from saying to ignore the kilometre and above recorded level sites [and the circles for Discovery Area unknown exact location sites]. There are other polygon types – my project has been doing the monuments polygons and on land only, so either Known Site Extents or Discovery Areas. So no buffering of those polygons [for the likes of IDOX-Uniform] and reliant upon the accuracy of the original grid references.

We do have other polygon types and polygonal standards in Scotland (see the HER Forum Scotland website pages, http://smrforum-scotland.org.uk/shed/data-standards/spatial-data-standards/) in my slide [indicated on the day, see number 25] for events again where known location of fieldwork or the whole scheme [such as planning application area] as Event Extent polygons as well as Event Discovery Area polygons for where we know an event took place, but cannot say where. There are the Areas of Archaeological Interest there as well which could be more buffered polygons.

NRHE to HER Update - Jack Fuller (South West Heritage Trust)
NRHE (National Record for Historic England) to HER represents a major strategic 5 year project to transfer NRHE information into local HERs, thereby creating a single dataset for accessing heritage information. After a consultation period and pilot project (2015-2017) the process of transfer began in April 2019. The 10 participating HERs in the first round are:  Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Bath and North East Somerset, Worcestershire, Worcester City, Bedford Borough, Cambridgeshire, York and Merseyside.

Records are manually accessioned into HERs from the NRHE via the project website. The AMIE data is already partitioned into the correct HER sets and each HER has its own unique access login.

At this point, of the 70085 NRHE records distributed in the first stage of the project, 9643 (14%) have already been accessioned by the relevant HERs. Positive outcomes of the initiative include the enhancement of records with new sources; helping to check existing records and some limited option for data cleaning; as well as the gradual building of a more complete dataset. Challenges for the project have also been identified; including the need to amend and reconcile some NRHE sources with limited information and mapping; and that accessioning records is appearing to take longer than estimated.

This first stage of the initiative has revealed a number of possible refinements to the systems used which have been fed back to Historic England. It is hoped that it will be possible to use these ideas to speed and improve the accessioning process. A call for HERs to participate in the next phase of the project (to start in November) will go out in September (closing date for proposals 27-09-19):

https://historicengland.org.uk/services-skills/grants/our-grant-schemes/hpc/proposals/  

Question (HER Officer 3) – Is work being undertaken by existing or new staff?

Answer (JF) – Some HERs have taken on extra part-time staff or used interns using the funding.

Answer (Sarah Poppy, Historic England) – Other HERs have used contractors.

Answer (Chris Webster) – In Somerset it’s been found that the project doesn’t provide an ideal fit for a specific dedicated post. JF has been taken on by the SWHT to deal with NRHE to HER in combination with other projects.

Question (HER Officer 4) – How are features that cross boundaries being dealt with?

Answer (JF) – In such cases features can be ascribed ‘part-accessioned’ status. Processing the record is then also completed by another HER or HERs.

Question (HER Officer 2) – Has any data been assembled as to how long the assimilation process is taking?

Answer (CW) – The simpler records can take about 4 minutes and the very simplest perhaps as little as 2 minutes. These, however, are in a very small minority. Precise measurement is difficult, since the process almost invariably involves an element of tidying and cleaning of the existing HER record(s).

Question (HER Officer 2) – Is the time spent on assimilation being recorded anywhere?

Answer (CW) – Only loosely as the processes involved can be quite complicated.

Comment (HER Officer 1) – A rough number per day would be useful.

Reply (CW) – 90 per day can be achieved (a rate of about 4 minutes per record).

Reply (JF) – Most of the participants spoken to, suggest that up to 40-60 records can be processed on a good day. This differs slightly between events and monuments.

Reply (SP) – The project as a whole is based on a pot of money that will be distributed across the whole of England. The estimate relating to the speed of processing is based on the findings of the initial pilots. It’s possible that it might be a little optimistic.

Comment (Crispin Flower, exeGesIS) – The website used in the pilots did have a simple time recording tool. The variations logged during that stage of the process were considerable. Currently use of the tool isn’t mandatory but, if used, it could potentially provide a picture for each HER.

Reply (SP) – Bedford Borough HER have noted variations even within their own dataset.

Reply (CW) – Assimilating the record for Cleeve Abbey alone took  about a day.

Comment (CF) – At a recent meeting of the HBSMR User Group the idea was raised that it might be possible to automate the input of data into selected fields. This could potentially make things much quicker. Being able to use a second concordance ID might also be a useful addition.

Reply (CW) – There would be benefits in, perhaps, being able to populate a spread-sheet with ‘without thought’ data which could then be uploaded automatically.

Comment (HER Officer 2) – To avoid the possibility of running out of money during the later stages of the programme it would be a good idea to compile a list of ‘catch-up tricks’ to help make the work possible within the available time.

Comment (HER Officer 5 - a participant in the project) – The process took longer than we anticipated and will not be completed within the time covered by the money allocated. A temporary member of staff was engaged to do the work. However, some guidance had to be written and the individual had to be trained. (Another point which should be taken into consideration in this respect is that a new member of staff won’t be able to pick up on things within the existing HER that do need cleaning). The temporary contract ends in October and it seems unlikely that the assimilation will be completed by the February deadline. We don’t, though, want a residual clean-up project at the end. Common problems are: GIS points in the wrong place and various features being clumped at a single NGR in the centre of a village.

Response (SP) – It has to be acknowledged that records of this type do exist. However, Kieran Byrne and Paul Adams at Historic England do go to great lengths to help in the case of problem sites.     

Response (CF) – It’s evident that some HERs aren’t using the Q&A function at the moment. This facility will put them in touch with Kieran and Paul.

Question (HER Officer 6) – What is the current procedure regarding applying for funding? Is it a question a submitting a project design over the course of the next 4 years? 

Answer (SP) – That’s correct. Further details can be found on the project website.

Question (HER Officer 3) – Are participant numbers per year limited?

Answer (SP) – Proposals will be processed according to a standard procedure. There can be a degree of flexibility, however.

Comment (CW) – The assimilation process can become surprisingly addictive.

Question (HER Officer 7) – At the end of the 4 year period, what will happen if there are residual HERs that haven’t been able to participate? As things stand we can’t hope to go forward with this in North Lincolnshire.

Answer (Nick Davis & Charina Jones, Historic England) – It’s important at this stage that we get as clear a picture of which HERs feel that they will experience problems as we can. That will allow forward strategies to be developed. This is something that we at Heritage Information Partnerships (HIPs) are now trying to piece together from intelligence gathered through the annual HER survey, regional HER meetings, audits and other contacts.

Question (HER Officer 2) – The reasons behind these perceived difficulties need to be identified at once. Are concerns entirely based on resourcing or are there those that envisage political sensitivities?

Answer (SP) – A range of potential resourcing and facilitating models are presently being examined.

Heritage Action Zones: Bishop Auckland and Beyond – Clare Howard & Matthew Oakey (Historic England)
Historic England’s Heritage Action Zone (HAZ) initiative was launched in 2017. Its aim is to direct resources into historic places that have the potential to become focal points for sustainable economic and community development. These are commonly areas with untapped potential which are rich in settlement, industrial, rural, cultural or faith heritage. They are also often undervalued and underused, or under significant pressure.

Within each HAZ Historic England works in partnership with a range of local bodies and organisations as well as offering a wide range of services including applied research, surveys, advice on conservation, repair and reuse and listing and planning advice.

Through Historic England’s direct input, and our help in enabling others, we aim to create places where businesses (particularly higher growth businesses) want to be. We also aim to help create places that attract tourists whilst encouraging local people to visit and stay longer. For those living there, a stronger sense of place and wider outcomes are also key.

Part of Historic England’s offer is research into the historic environment. This helps to assess the significance of individual heritage assets, groups of assets and/or areas and informs further studies, funding applications, conservation and repair, listing and development proposals. It also helps provide interpretation and encourages an appreciation of the places people work, live and visit.

Some of the northern HAZs the investigation teams have been involved in most recently include Appleby-in-Westmorland and Sunderland. Both of these involved the preparation of an Historic Area Assessment informed by work undertaken by the architectural, archaeological and aerial investigation teams. There have already been some positive outcomes as a result of the research undertaken including new and enhanced listings and the development of proposals to conserve, repair and reuse individual buildings and sites.

The preparation of the Historic Area Assessment for Bishop Auckland is currently underway and is again a combined approach to understand the history, development, character and significance of the town. The archaeological investigation has focussed on the castle parkland with a site walkover targeting the results from the aerial mapping work. The architectural investigation work involves an examination of the exterior of each building within the HAZ boundary noting building types, phasing, character and materials and significance. This information will be used to inform the revision of the conservation area appraisal as well as further studies and development proposals.

Historic England’s Aerial Investigation & Mapping team – part of the broader Archaeological Investigation team – has undertaken work in a variety of the HAZs. The methods applied have been adapted to suit the needs of the HAZ and reflect the nature of the area of study.

For Appleby-in-Westmorland the aerial investigation and mapping provided a broader landscape context for the HAZ while at Bishop Auckland it has primarily been used to investigate the parkland relating to the castle. Both of these projects used a similar scope and methodology to the large-area Aerial Investigation and Mapping projects that many HERs already use data from.

These methods have been adapted for the Stockton & Darlington Railway where conventional archaeological mapping was combined with some schematic use of line and point data.

Sunderland was the first deeply urban HAZ to be assessed using aerial photographs. In this case, the rich archives of historic photographs going back to the 1920s were used to write a narrative report and undertake limited mapping using a ‘characterisation’ approach. Two significant strands to the research were the impact of WWII and the development of post-war social housing in the East End.

The research undertaken by the HE investigation teams result in a range of products that can enhance HERs. Reports are published in the Historic England Research Report Series while spatial data and monument records are exchanged with HERs using established procedures.

Question (HER Officer 3) - It’s being suggested that future Heritage Action Zones may be based around high streets. Will this narrow their archaeological context?

Answer (CH) – Historic England has been given funding from government to champion and revive our historic high streets through the High Streets Heritage Action Zones scheme. In consequence the HAZ process is being reviewed and the current programme is being extended to focus on high streets. Some individual projects might include rural context but, given that there will be a greater emphasis on high streets, these will probably be fewer. However, Historic England is committed to delivering more rural projects through regional priorities and priority places

Raising a wee glass to the north: A Scottish HER dram with a Highland twist - Ian Scrivener-Lindley (Highland Council)

This presentation will give a brief overview of the HERs in Scotland and the relationship between them and the Scottish national agencies but will focus particularly on the Highland HER and the experiences of its curator, who had previously only worked in England. This talk will be in two parts.

An introduction and general overview.

The Scottish SMRs (now almost universally HERs) largely came into being slightly later than most of their English counterparts and the direction of the national agencies, now together as Historic Environment Scotland, has followed a different path to that of their counterparts in England especially. How the local authority services and the national body in Scotland interact and work together is also quite different to the rest of the UK. The HER Forum Scotland group which, although analogous to the various regional HER groupings, includes members from the local authority services, HES and other national heritage organisations, and has a broader and much more collaborative remit. This is most evident with participation in the national 10-year SHED (Scotland’s Historic Environment Data) strategy project where the HER group lead and progress those parts of the strategy contained within Workstream 2 specifically concerned with looking at improving data itself, access to it and overall data standards.

A case in point, the Highland HER itself, an overview and the challenges faced.

The Highland HER is based within the Development and Infrastructure service of the Highland Council. It is part of the historic environment component of EACT, the Environmental Advice and Consultancy Team, the other parts of which consist of Forestry and Ecological Survey. The Highland Council administrative area covers an area of some 9,906 square miles, which is about 20% larger than Wales and not much smaller than Belgium, and is approximately a third of the area of mainland Scotland. This huge area presents interesting challenges and not only because of its sheer scale with such diverse geographic and topographic variety, but also a different living language used for what appear to be unpronounceable place names. There are also the more personal challenges related to how an Englishman with all his previous professional archaeological experience based firmly in the southeast of England who had never even visited Scotland before, never mind the Highlands, and shockingly didn’t even like whisky, has been trying to cope with an epic backlog, the sheer volume of new data from large areas that have never seen systematic survey before and bring a level of accuracy and consistency to a database that until relatively recently hadn’t received the level of attention that it deserved. He hasn’t been able to do this alone and a wee dram is also raised to the hardy HER volunteers and student placements over the last 7 years who have helped, and continue to help, along the way.

Question (Marion Page, Historic England) – Is the user generated content moderated?

Answer (ISL) – There is a filter in place. However, up to now nothing malicious has been received. 

Question – What is the situation regarding your archive collections at Highland HER?

Answer (ISL) – All our documentary collections have been published online. Initially this was something that I was concerned about but everything marked up as ‘correspondence’ has been excluded and it works very well. We don’t get a huge number of enquiries (about 20 per year on average).

Comment (HER Officer 1) – In my experience CANMORE is a very easy system to use and this may well be why people don’t need to come to you directly.

Response (ISL) – The ‘Adopt a Monument’ facility is proving popular. It allows people to add photographs, which they like. 

HBSMR for the Local HERO: Recent work at exeGesIS SDM
Crispin Flower (exeGesIS SDM)
exeGeisIS SDM is a small company in the Brecon Beacons specialising in IT for conservation. It currently employs 40 staff including 14 coders and 6 archaeologists.

On the basis that failure is often more illuminating than triumph, we open with some rather more qualified ‘successes’:

In Kent an attempt was made to help 3 casework staff handle 2000 planning consultations per year. A system was envisaged which would allow automated data entry, pre-populating some fields from planning references. Problems however emerged:

• Horrible district council planning systems
• An acceptable alternative system - planit.org.uk – was found to be run by a single individual and was thus of uncertain durability
• Kent County Council lacked the necessary budget

Modest success was enjoyed with the RCAHMW Rhestr o Enwau Lleoedd Hanesyddol (List of Historic Place Names). A bi-lingual website was launched in May 2017 which is now the Welsh Royal Commission’s most used site. However:

• 14 local authorities still don’t use it.
• The dataset isn’t yet included on the Welsh Government data portal (Lle).
• Archwilio isn’t using the live web service after all.
• The list doesn’t actually contain the meanings of the names.

There are, however lots of proposals to make it more useful as a public resource, some of which will hopefully become realities.

A system was devised to accommodate the University of Nottingham Institute for Place Name Studies Place-Names of England database. Using Staffordshire as a pilot project, the resulting product allowed volunteers to enter data directly onto the website and, after being validated by a supervisor, made it instantly visible to public users. The architecture used also made it possible to extend the system to local groups all over the UK. The system incorporated a range of beneficial features and has proved fantastically useful to the Staffordshire group, but –

• There is no action at present to extend this system to other local groups.
• There are no open web services.
• Uncertainty exists over the relationship the Place-Names of England platform and other resources.

Looking at the Church Heritage Record(s) and Online Faculty System(s): The English record is accumulating useful content (18k edits in the last 12 months). Around 29k applications have been received by the English Online Faculty System over the last 4 years, whilst the Welsh system has dealt with a thousand applications over the last 18 months. A Welsh language version is awaiting go-ahead and an extension of the framework to record burial-grounds is being scoped with the Church of England. However:

• The system isn’t good for phones.
• It doesn’t fully capitalize on community knowledge and local will to help.
• The old platform technology requires a major rewrite.

A list of ‘successful successes’ can also be adduced:

Bats in Churches – which links the Church Heritage Record with exeGesIS work for the Bat Conservation Trust.

Find my Street – publishes the entire National Street Gazetteer (for the first time) and is supported by 174 Highways Authorities.

Heritage Gateway – Work with Historic England on the new API that will connect data providers to the new Heritage Gateway and also on a new data model.

HBSMR version 5 – This latest version has significant improvements including new dashboard components, better data-cleansing tools and improved modelling of chronologies.

And, looking further ahead -

The next version of HBSMR – The HBSMR user group is currently debating and voting on how it is to be developed on GitHub. The likely release date will be during the first quarter of 2020.

HBSMR API and Web – Their introduction will mean that all HERs using HBSMR can be made fully accessible with all websites and sources that have standardised capabilities. They will also have the ability to customise and extend as much as they like. 

Lessons Learned
• Interoperability is happening at last (but it’s still not easy).
• Lack of interoperability is becoming unacceptable (why are there no good web services for planning or the NHLE?).
• Web and mobile technologies are still changing incredibly fast (always think about lifespan and sustainability).
• Beware free lunches (there are endless ‘free’ platforms but real costs lie in human time and expertise).
• The real value in IT projects often comes in phases 2 and 3. (Phase 1 rarely gets everything right and requirements evolve).
•  Helping HERs and similar clients with their IT projects is really exciting and rewarding.