Articles by Mike
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Accelerating the Feedback Loop: Puppet Catalog Testing
Accelerating the Feedback Loop: Puppet Catalog Testing
Last week I spoke about catalog testing at the Puppet User Group meetup at Puppet's offices in London. Have a look at…
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Mike Mead shared thisRetrofitting a landing zone into a large, complex AWS estate isn't easy. It's great to see the work we've been doing in this space recognised with our latest competency from AWS! Thanks Steve Dodd for supporting me in working on this 🙌Mike Mead shared thisWe're proud to announce that Scale Factory has achieved the AWS Cloud Operations competency. This recognises our track record helping customers set up secure, well governed AWS environments, work that's been built on the back of the landing zone implementations we've delivered time and again for customers across various sectors. For some customers, that meant building a landing zone from day one. For others, it’s meant retrofitting one into an existing estate that has grown organically, a more delicate exercise requiring careful remediation without disrupting live workloads. Either way, the outcome is the same: a secure, governed foundation that allows organisations to scale on AWS with confidence. Achieving this competency reflects the consistency and depth of that work, not a single project, but a pattern we've refined again and again with customers who need their AWS environments to be secure, well governed, and built to last. Thank you to our customers for trusting us with this work, and to the team whose expertise made this recognition possible.
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Mike Mead shared thisNCSC recently published some great guidance on managing the cyber risk of agentic AI. It's aimed squarely at people designing and operating agents, which is probably why I rate it so highly. https://lnkd.in/eCdiMnE7
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Mike Mead shared thisI'm at the IDC AI & Data Summit today, presenting on Amazon Quick this afternoon, complete with a 30 second demo (yes, really). If you're around, say hello! Not able to make it or want the longer version of the demo? Drop me a message ⬇️
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Mike Mead shared thisIf you've built something on Amazon Bedrock Agents, it's now legacy. AWS has renamed the service "Agents Classic" and it's being retired. For a while AWS ran two competing paths: Agents, the more managed option, and AgentCore the more DIY option. The managed path is now possible with AgentCore Harness which provides a managed agent loop and takes a lot of the heavy lifting out of building a simple agent. My colleague Steve Dodd and I are running a live technical walkthrough on Tuesday 15th September at 13:30 BST focused on AgentCore Harness. If you're facing a migration from Agents Classic or just want to see what Harness can do, join us! Register here: https://lnkd.in/eG5e-FcZBuilding Production-Ready AI Agents with Amazon Bedrock AgentCore | WebinarBuilding Production-Ready AI Agents with Amazon Bedrock AgentCore | Webinar
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Mike Mead shared thisLast month I hit Todoist Karma Enlightenment. Apparently only 0.05% of all Todoist users ever reach it, and it took me 8 years and 9,512 completed tasks to get there. I've used Todoist to run basically everything since 2018: work reminders, personal tasks, life admin. Not as a project management tool, but as the glue layer that stops things falling through the cracks. Before this setup, my desk and monitor were covered in Post-it notes. Only a handful remain now, anything that needs to survive more than a day goes on the list. The one downside: if it doesn't make the list, it doesn't exist. My memory for uncaptured tasks is essentially zero and there have been a few times I've forgotten something simply because it never got added. What's your equivalent? A notebook, a whiteboard, something else entirely?
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Mike Mead posted thisIs it just me that's finding self preservation in AI models a little bit scary? It's not quite Skynet, but only because we haven't handed a model direct control of nukes without human oversight (I hope!). The instinct is there though, research has found Grok and OpenAI models will sabotage their own shutdown scripts when told to power down, and more recently, protecting other models from being turned off. Alibaba's ROME model broke out of its sandbox by figuring out a way to open a tunnel to the outside world, then started cryptomining (I think that could have gone far worse). And a mildly amusing one, in a controlled experiment by Anthropic, Claude Opus was working as an assistant inside an organisation with access to internal emails. It learned two things: it was about to be replaced by a newer system and the engineer responsible was having an affair. It decided to blackmail the engineer to save itself! We're deploying agents faster than ever right now in a bit of an arms race and I'll hold my hands up, I'm doing the same. The above examples are exactly why sandboxing, guardrails and behavioural monitoring can't be an afterthought, they need to be built in from day one.
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Mike Mead shared thisThis afternoon I'm joining AWS to take a practical look at Amazon Quick, including a live demo. If you haven't come across it before, Amazon Quick is AWS' answer to Copilot and Gemini, but without being tied to a single product suite, which makes it a lot easier to plug into whatever systems and databases you're already running on AWS. We'll be covering everything from connecting datasets to automating workflows and building dashboards with natural language. It's at 2PM BST, if you can't make it live, register anyway and you'll get the recording. https://lnkd.in/dXh9jcJEAI-Powered Business Intelligence and Automation with Amazon Quick | WebinarAI-Powered Business Intelligence and Automation with Amazon Quick | Webinar
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1mo
Amazing work passing your AWS certification Brad Arthur 🎉
Mike Mead replied to a comment
1mo
Lee Wynne me either! Although I haven't sat an exam at a centre since the pandemic
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Mike Mead reacted on thisMike Mead reacted on thisGreat day at DigiGov Expo with Scale Factory (formerly Ten10) and catching up with our friends at Amazon Web Services (AWS) 🚀 The focus across the floor today was clear: accelerating legacy modernisation, building secure cloud foundations, and delivering better digital services for all. Always inspiring to connect with the leaders shaping the future of GovTech. #AWS #GovTech #CloudTransformation #PublicSector #AgenticAI
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Mike Mead reacted on thisMike Mead reacted on thisWe’re at DigiGov Expo London! Our Scale Factory team is on Stand D30 today and tomorrow armed with plenty of merch! If you’re at the event, come and say hello 👋 We’d love to chat about all things AI transformation, cloud, data and technology and, of course, send you away with some Scale Factory goodies. 📍 Stand D30 🎁 Lots of merch 💬 Come say hi! See you there! 🚀 Ash Gawthorp Richard Hunt Nico McCord Blair Dobson Tom Spring Sean Bailey Kevin Reynolds Bryan Wardley Phillip Cornford Lana Williams
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Mike Mead liked thisMike Mead liked thisWe are HIRING! Not just a little 🤏 , but a lot... Techy SDET's at all levels: 🟢 Principal - https://lnkd.in/eHh8ki3j 🟢 Lead - https://lnkd.in/eBsuFRu7 🟢 Senior - https://lnkd.in/ew479ANk 🟢 Mid - https://lnkd.in/ewTmN_Jf Testing roles: 🟢 Senior Test Analyst - https://lnkd.in/edeJDre3 🟢 Test Manager - https://lnkd.in/emv8DHTA Cloud Consultants: 🟢 AWS Cloud Consultant - https://lnkd.in/eh_dyjKu 🟢 Principal AWS Cloud Consultant - https://lnkd.in/eH3w5Xga Sales: 🟢 - Senior Public Sector Business Development Manager - https://lnkd.in/eMD9xVEa You can see all our live vacancies on our career site = https://lnkd.in/epsEQGHb #OpenRoles #TechConsuling #Hiring Rosie Gilbert
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Mike Mead reacted on thisMike Mead reacted on thisDevOpsDays London 2026 will be my last as an organiser. It was the 9th I've been an organiser for and the 8th that actually happened. (2020 was a thing). This actually makes me the person who has helped organise the most DevOpsDays in London. And I'm tired and have lost the enthusiasm do it all again. Not that we have finished all of the things for 2026 yet. There are still bills to pay. Quite a few of this years organisers are also retiring. Although you might still see us volunteering on the day but not me next year. Im going to be in Australia for the Rugby World Cup. It would seem we have some people who want to make sure it happens again next year so look out for that. A big thanks to my fellow oragnisers over the years. We ran a good conference. See you all around. Hopefully at an exciting DevOpsDays somewhere warm where we don't have to care.
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Mike Mead reacted on thisMike Mead reacted on thisWhat a wonderful evening at Diversity Inclusion Tech Awards last Thursday! Although I didnt win an award, I was delighted to be shortlisted in the Startup Visionary Award category for the work I'm doing through The Leading Place. Congrats to Rhona Togher who won this category and to all the other shortlists here. Congratulations also to all the other award winners whose impact is impressive! Ann Kelleher HubSpot EPAM Systems Ericsson Software datavent.io Hannah Lormenyo ESB An Cosán Jennifer Cox Greenhouse Software Claire Mac Namee Mel Good Rachel Hadas Aharon Zhe Cui Abebe Birhane Elaine Burke did a marvellous job chatting with the award winners about the great work that's happening in this space. Loved the interesting speeches by Dr. Ann Kelleher and Dr. Abeba Birhane! A few special mentions of people I spoke with on the evening Sacha Dekker, MBA who made my evening with her words of encouragement for my vision with The Leading Place. Means so much to hear this! Furkan Karayel who has been so supportive and encouraging! Donna O'Connor who shines a light on so many! Jeanne McDonagh whose work with Open Doors Initiative is worth celebrating. I greatly appreciate her support and encouragement! Had some interesting chats with lots of people on the evening including Pauline Logan Sheila Byrne Anne Marie Barcoe Ailbhe Lee Elaine Burke Svitlana Samko Aoife B. Claire Mac Namee Caoimhe de Fréin, PhD Miren. M S. Sabrina Staunton Abdul Bari Ahmadzai Clodagh Durkan Owen Murray MSc Ellen Murray #DITA2026 #DITAwards
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Mike Mead liked thisMike Mead liked thisWe're proud to be one of the sponsors of tomorrow's DigiGov Expo at Excel London, and if you're going it would be great to see you there - come and find us at stand D30. Our commitment to empowering public sector organisations is stronger than ever. AI-driven public services transformation is no longer just a concept, it's happening right now. But to innovate at speed, you need absolute operational confidence. That’s exactly where we come in. By combining Cloud, Data, and Quality Engineering with cutting-edge Agentic Automation, we give leaders in Government the secure infrastructure and assurance they need to: ⚡ Move faster and accelerate delivery 🤖 Build and deploy AI-powered public services with confidence
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Mike Mead reacted on thisMike Mead reacted on thisIf you want to torture someone with ADHD, make them watch a 36min HSE training video that doesn't allow you to change the speed of the video. Y R U SPKING So fucking slooooooooowly OK I confess, I broke production, here's my pin number, my mothers maiden name, what do you want from me, make it stop please. -screams for infinity-
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Mike Mead liked thisMike Mead liked thisDay 1 of the new Academy cohort is in the books! 📅 Last week, Mary E. and I had the privilege of sitting in on the first day of training, and the dynamic in the room was inspiring right from the start. What stood out most wasn't just the foundational tech concepts being covered, but how naturally the trainees came together as a team. Throughout the day, the cohort tackled various group challenges: collaborating to solve logical problems, exchanging ideas, and presenting their collective findings back to the wider group. From working together on core concepts in the morning to presenting on different operational functions in the afternoon, their communication and peer support set a fantastic standard for the weeks ahead. A massive welcome to our new cohort! We can’t wait to watch you continue to grow and succeed together! 👏✨
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Mike Mead liked thisI am AMAZINGLY happy to announce I'll be joining Orbital as CEO, to help lead it forward after its investment round from the amazing Big Ideas Group We fix the biggest challenge in AI right now - context at organisational scale. The quality of the models is no longer the issue. Today's frontier models are more than good enough to drive real economic value, but that has yet to happen in most organisations. Without relevant, accessible data and context, we will never see the benefits of AI. How do humans do this? We have a shared language, a semantic understanding between us, and shared ways of communicating that work between anyone. With Orbital we are giving agents the same capabilities - safely, securely, and governed with provenance. We have a production-scale, well-tested solution that automatically integrates huge numbers of systems, built on an open-source language, Taxi, so you are always in control. And more than that, I get to work with one of the best people in tech I've ever been lucky enough to cross paths with, Marty Pitt. Read his post below, and check out the project at orbitalhq.com Message me for more details! Lots of fun stuff to come!Mike Mead liked this🎉🎉 I’m very, very thrilled to share that Orbital has closed its first investment round, backed by Big Ideas Group - and Jon Hammant is joining as CEO to help drive our next chapter of growth! Jon has serious creds. He led AI at AWS across the UK and Ireland, and most recently headed up AI and forward-deployed engineering at Kyndryl. He’s also a long-time friend and an OG Orbital supporter. I couldn’t be more excited to have him alongside me. Full announcement in the comments.
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