I read, watched and shook my head in utter shock and despair at the way the Britain “coped” with the recent and continued snow falls of yesterday and today. I think that looking at the way the current infrastructure is set up – no matter if its snow, rain, heat or UFOs – the United Kingdom is stuck in a legacy that in comparison to the recent Digital Britain – really is cause for concern.

Firstly lets look at what happened in the early morning of Monday when the snow was falling? Co-Ordination, communication and updates should have been a vital part of that process. I would have to assume that ALL councils were on high alert gritting, salting and clearing the roads throughout the night as the snow fell? However was there any new technology on board these gritters that were plotting their path via Google Maps for example – routes agreed and mapped out in advance based on historical data, alerting and commenting on where there were real black spots (or should that be white spots!!) Where roads were cleared and stayed clear – would have given the local authorities the knowledge that the A310 was cleared and the battle with snow on that road had been won – however the A3 up to junction 2 had been cleared and good for use - however there is deep snow and icy conditions that require more work – this would have alerted the “base” that John on Truck H1 would not be onto his next route – due to extra work being required…

All this data would be sent back to base where this could then be mapped, and then sent around to any one who needed it – from local radio stations, television etc.. again share and update the communication.

Then we move onto schools and other local services – where was the vital information there? Where was the direct access and update if schools were opened, buses were running etc.. nothing… What happened was the power of social networks and great communication. Twitter, Facebook etc.. all posted updates and routes to avoid as well as areas that were clear – without the communication from your fellow commuter, traveller or family – there would still be big gaps in what was happening!

Then we saw the effect of a very poor web infrastructure where the websites of nearly every train and bus company just crashed! Where was the live feed updates, pull the home page and replace with simple up to date information on trains running – instead they all just crashed! Leaving commuters and travellers in disarray as they didn’t know what was happening. Again where was their “event” plan if some kind of incident – whether elements or disaster that kicks in when the traffic to the site reaches a certain threshold that means that the site must move into "incident” mode that delivers key data – move the site off to another branch of servers – say in the cloud so that the main site is in reserve – or vice versa! Either way this just showed the lack of planning by these companies.

Then we move on to the workers themselves – in 2009 there is still this stigma around “home working” in that its just a skive or an easy day. Never mind that there are millions of people who in these eco-aware and financial astute times – realise that they have the same abilities and connectivity to carry out emails, online meetings, VPN to actually be more productive that suffer a 6 hr commute in wintry conditions – that could well have put themselves and others at risk as they attempt to show employers that old fashioned resolve – as well as fear factor that we are seeing just now. Current economic climate is giving way to longer hours and pushing themselves beyond acceptable behaviour in order to secure their job. When this comes to dangerous wintry conditions this is just crazy – and doesn't help that the media jump on this with scare headline as £1.2billion lost as 6 million take the day off! – So based on the number of trains running, how many people couldn't get into Central London for example – some bright spark worked out that number of people missing x average daily rate = Lost business!! Good God!! how pathetic and antiquated – I know hundreds of fellow workers that were snowed in – and within minutes had re-arranged meetings, connected to my VPN, did a video conference on some software with others from around the world – and all this before 90% of my fellow commuters even made it in to London stuck on a jam packed train that took 3hrs to travel a normal 1hr journey! So actually the people that attempted to get into London were probably the ones that lost their companies money – and not us that fired up our laptops from home – but according to the media of course we were all having a “day off”!!

So then after that – you have to consider that the Digital Britain initiative that the government launched last week – connecting people at home to the internet is easy – changing how companies embrace technology and use it to the benefit of everyone is much harder.

Final anger and frustration at the media – the scaremongering in recent months with the economy and then today with the blast at people not commuting into work – again this is their ignorance of what home working has become in 21st Century – however these are the same companies that are seeing the death of the traditional newspaper and working out ways to deliver their content online – shame then that no one is reading their RSS News feeds – because they all have the day off playing in the snow…