Sent From My Old Technology

There's a subtle status thing with email from mobile devices: it comes with a tag line "Sent from my (insert whiz bang device name here)." That's like someone walking in your door and saying "I got here in my (insert fancy expensive car name here)." Or like wearing your designer clothes with the label on the outside (oh, wait, they already do that).

Why should the recipient care what device an email comes from? But the tag line shows how with it the sender is, and the status comes not only from the device, but from the "always connected" impression.

I suggest that everyone alter their email signature to say something like "Sent from my TRASH-80," "Sent from my 1984 IBM PC," "Sent from my Apple Lisa," etc.

Harvesting Privacy

Email address harvesting programs are proliferating and getting ever more aggressive and intrusive. Many are adopting malware practices, grabbing addresses without you knowing it. Then they send emails to everyone.

Sadly, even some legitimate sites are doing this, including LinkedIn and Facebook applications.

We need a law. I know, I know, bad idea but what other protection do we have? To paraphrase Churchill - except for all the other forms that have been tried.

Update: YES - NO?

A wonderful article by Gail Collins, OpEd columnist for the NY Times, and a very funny person.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/29/opinion/29collins.html?th&emc=th

Google (YouTube) Still Doesn't Get It

Now I can understand why a site with millions of users would want to be cautious about customer support, but YouTube is as paranoid as the Bush administration.

They have a Catch-22 rule that you can't post anything longer than 10 minutes, but there are many university sites that post hour-long lectures, recently consolidated under YouTube EDU. So try and find out how you can create a "channel" under YouTube EDU. Their Help(less) claims that if you can't find what you need, you will be directed to a form that lets you contact (mythical) Customer Service. Well, good luck finding that form.

Seems to me that this company full of brilliant technologists has forgotten that all that wonderful technology is used by real people, who sometimes need help not from FAQs or the user community (who are quite generous but not "official").

Hello, anyone there?

Eyes On The Future

I just read an article in BusinessWeek (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_12/b4124044178284.htm?chan=magazine+channel_new+ideas+for+growth).

It discusses the new "Singularity U," based on ideas of scientist and futurist Ray Kurzweil. Created by Google, NASA, and XPrize creator Peter H. Diamandis, it will bring in senior executives to help them grasp the implications of fast-changing technology, and how it can kill your business and create new ones.

Everywhere I see this emphasis on the "new idea," the "new technology." Consultants, academics, the media, and executives are all watching the horizon.

Meantime, this obesssion with "what might be" can cause them to miss "what is" or "what should be."

Yes, new technologies will come. But reacting to new things simply requires a plan, not an obession.

Big Brother

I just read an article in the latest BusinessWeek (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_12/b4124046224092.htm?chan=magazine+channel_new+ideas+for+talent).

It talks about gathering and analyzing data about employees. This isn't the usual "time and motion" study stuff that has been around since Frederick Taylor. This is about discovering, supposedly objectively, which employees are "contributing" and which are "dead wood."

It isn't enough that globalization, abetted by technology that lets work be sent to the lowest bidder, has turned employees into tissues. Now companies want something akin to the sci-fi "Minority Report," where people were arrested for crimes they were going to commit. The numbers will be crunched and, based on the "metrics," the contributors will be rewarded (this time - you're only as good as what you're doing for me now) and the rest will be disposed of. The numbers will get so good that companies will hire only people "proven" to be contributors, and no one else.

It isn't enough that the number crunchers got us into the subprime mess because people surrendered their judgement to computers. Now we let computers do our thinking, and if they're so good at it, why do we need people anyway?

Thanks, Technology

There used to be a lot of argument whether IT affected productivity; in general, the answer is yes.

But as we are finding out yet again, there are no unmixed technological blessings.

IT has played a significant role in bringing down the US and the world economy.

The stock market crash of 1987 was in part brought about by automated exchanges and programmed trading.

The Internet bubble of 1998-2000 was brought about by fascination with shiny technology without any economic substance.

And, of course, there is the subprime mess of 2007-200?, brought to you by quants, computers, business obsession with "innovation," and a vast wave of greed.

Gosh, thanks technology.

Google Doesn't Get It

I have just discovered that Google, alas, is the typical technology-centered company. Despite their vaunted reputation and motto, their Video service is a literal "idiot box:" automated scans of videos and, when the computer rejects it, there is no human being to take issue with (I know because I called Google and, when connected to a human finally, was told there is "no one in Google Video.").

Think they ate a bit too much of their own dog food.

Frankenstein 2.0

In Mary Shelley's novel, misuse of technology produces a monster which destroys its creator.

The same thing has just happened with the subprime mortgage debacle, as it did earlier in the financial meltdowns covered by Michael Lewis in his "Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity."

Electronic trading automated stock exchanges, computer programs automated stock trading, sophisticated algorithms allowed investment specialists to believe they had conquered risk, databases allowed mortgages to be offered like a going out of business sale, and the creation of derivatives beyond the understanding of anyone.

Is it any surprise that the monsters of technology destroyed their creators? The sad thing is that they also destroyed so many innocent bystanders.

Price Performance Curve?

In the 9Nov NY Times Book Review an article about "FACTORY GIRLS: From Village to City in a Changing China, By Leslie T. Chang" caught my eye.

Seems Coach manufactures at least some of its bags in China. Now automation, technology, and global outsourcing (made possible by technology) were supposed to bring efficiency to the "market" and therefore lower prices. So how can a bag made by the lowest-cost provider in China be sold as a luxury item in the US?

Please note that I'm not singling out Coach; they just happened to be mentioned in the review. I'm sure other so-called "luxury" goods are also made in China.

Vista Sucks

I know, there's nothing new or even interesting about this subject, but it's my blog and I can rant if I want to.

Vista is so bad that Microsoft is running ads showing that people who don't know it is Vista like it (especially because there is a legion of Microserfs keeping it from barfing on their shoes during the "hidden camera" routine) - because, of course, if they knew it was Vista they'd hate it, like me.

After I got the laptop with Vista installed, the fun began. IE7, the "integrated" browser, slowed down gradually until it was unusable. Thanks, Mozilla, for Firefox, which even works fine on Vista.

After "SP1" gave me the "new, improved Vista," Windows update stopped working and my Internet connectivity became flaky - I need to power up and then restart to make a connection, and if Powersave mode comes on, restart again because the connection dropped (so sorry). And IE7 started working again, for a while, and now the only way it works if if I Run As Administrator (go figure).

But I'm ready - I bought a copy of Windows XP Professional, and soon I'm going to Orkin Vista.

I Hate Hyperlinks

I suppose Doug Engelbart or Ted Nelson or Vannevar Bush, the "fathers" (grandfather, father, uncle?) of hyperlinks thought they were a good idea. To me they are yet another example of a technology that seems, to tech types, to be "wicked cool," but is in reality a pain in the ass.

When I see an interesting article, and it isn't available in PDF, I create a Word file from it. Every hyperlink gets copied, and then I have to eliminate them by hand (thanks again for nothing, Microsoft). At least some companies, like Business Week, use parenthetical hyperlinks to stock symbols, which are easier to dump.

And worst of all, where there are hyperlinks, they are usually to generic terms ("PC," "cancer," "yes," "no").

Either there needs to be a way in HTML (XML, whatever), to turn hyperlinks off, or Word needs to be upgraded to find and eliminate hyperlinks, or both.

Anyone out there interested in creating a nice utility, maybe make some money?

Fad Rider

(Thanks to my wife Stephanie for this one)


All those cold-eyed technocrats out there doing deep analysis of trends and The Next Big Thing when in fact they're just riding fads. Sometimes, of course, fads can have a core of real value, like PCs and Green IT, for example. But sometimes they can just be fads.

I can't really point the finger, since I've had a very successful career as a fad rider. I bought an IBM PC in 1982 and never looked back.

But I've managed to maintain a bit of perspective by understanding the tendency to misunderstand the effect of technologies, even among those who should know better.

"In predicting the effect of technology changes, the two most common mistakes are to overestimate the short-term changes and to underestimate the long-term changes." Jakob Nielsen, Upside, Feb 2000

"A new century is at hand, and a fast-spreading technology promises to change society forever. It will let people live and work wherever they please, create dynamic new communities linked by electronics, improve the lot of the poor, and reinvent government..." Anon. late-19th century author speaking about the telephone

The Internet was the subject of irrational exuberance to the point where otherwise reasonable people lost their sense of proportion, predicting the end of business as we know it and expressing contempt for those who “just don’t get it.” Strong Words. Tasty, Too. BusinessWeek e.biz, 1Oct2001

Every Damn Cliche

There are innumerable Internet sites bemoaning and laughing at the endless cliches in every movie genre.

Human imagination may be limited, but the other reason is that people feel comfort with what they know.

When the hard-charging new CEO comes riding in on a white horse to save the failing company, his pearl-handled revolvers shoot cliches, the same "sure-fire" solutions used a million times before: reorganize, rethink, reemphasize, innovate.

Even in technology, when the specialists inevitably come up with a "solution" (the use of that term is a subject for another posting, with its connotation of mathematical certainty) that invokes the latest gee-whiz widget/platform/architecture, that is simply a cliche: to them, the best "solution" is the newest "solution."

Bet you thought I was going to come up with something new here...

Upgrading Means Downgrading

I owe my wife credit for this one: Our ISP was "upgrading" its servers, which meant we lost the ability to send outgoing emails, and she noted how "upgrading often means downgrading."

Technology has grown so complex that "upgrading" both personal and corporate devices often leads to unexpected problems and outages. Even installing a new piece of software can end up destroying your PC/server. And upgrades from vendors, including especially operating system upgrades, to "provide new and improved features," often act instead like malware.

Vendors who issue upgrades without planning for additional technical support are demonstrating contempt for their customers. This is as true in the corporate world (I have over 27 years experience there) as on your home PC/Mac.

I'm tired of being a beta site for things that should have been tested, and of waiting days for an email response from tech support, or hours on hold.

Time to hold vendors accountable.

Expertise and the Internet

In a 25Jul NY Times article by Adam Cohen, about the YouTube presidential debate, he mentions a book by Andrew Keen (I'm not going to include the title so the book doesn't get another link):

• Andrew Keen laments that by pushing amateurs of all kinds to the fore — including, presumably, amateur debate questioners — the Internet “is undermining truth, souring civic discourse, and belittling expertise, experience and talent.”

Why does that sound so defensive?

These are the same "experts" that research has shown are wrong 90% of the time in their area of "expertise." These are the same "experts" who get paid a lot of money for that (faulty) "expertise." These are the same "experts," in other words, who have a lot to lose if "amateurs" take the stage.

There are a few places where this might hold. I wouldn't ask an amateur for diagnosis of a medical condition, although there again research has shown that even the "experts" don't come to the same conclusion. I wouldn't ask an amateur to build a complex structure.

However, in so many other areas, the "experts" haven't proven their worth: financial advice, economic forecasts, politics, political analysis, intelligence, technology directions, etc.

I am not saying the amateurs have proved their worth. But the Internet has created an far-reaching market for "expertise." So, since in the US many believe in capitalism, why not let the "invisible hand" determine who the "experts" are who have valuable "expertise," rather than dismissing the "amateurs" and foisting card-carrying "experts" on us?

Your Printout Is Ready, Sir or Madam

Windows was built with many unspoken assumptions. One that is especially irritating: every person has a printer attached to their PC, or at least at their desk. And so, when you print, the printer queue in the control panel clears out. But most office workers have to walk to get their printouts. And since there is nothing to indicate that you sent something to the printer, everyone forgets.

This may seem like a minor annoyance, but it is a symptom of a big problem with technology - the people who design and build it don't have to use it.

Hope all you real people appreciate my striking a blow against the uncaring technocrats.

Because I Said So

Magazines and newspapers write articles with quotes from "the usual suspects," the same people who present at conferences so often I begin to wonder whether human cloning is already a reality.

These pundits and industry luminaries are featured in pithy soundbites the essence of which is "technology has changed everything because I just said so."

Just one example (honestly not meant to single out someone unfairly): in the 2Jul2007 Businessweek article, "Children of the Web," the co-founder of Ning, Marc Andreesen, is quoted: "A whole new generation grows up used to new technologies, and they're just different."

Well, gee.

Think about that for a moment (as I wish the author of the article had). Every new generation is different; technology has nothing to do with it, unless you believe in Technolgical Determinism (don't ask).

For example, the Romantics of the 19th century were a youth movement all across Europe, opposed to aristocratic, social, and political norms (sound familiar?). They didn't have blogs, or social networking software, but they knew one another, dressed alike, and lived in the same Bohemian (the term was coined then) way. They created new forms of art, music, and literature (sound familar?). They also helped stimulate the nationalist movements of the day, as a number of modern European nations came into being.

OK, just because I said this doesn't make it true. But it does make sense.

Deja Vu All Over Again

No offence meant to Mike Vizard, whose 11Jun opinion in Baseline (http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,1540,2140578,00.asp?kc=CIOMINEPNL061107) was subtitled: "New development tools are putting business users in charge..." That could well have been ripped from the headlines when I started in IT, in the early 1980s, when "fourth generation languages" were going to change application development as we know it forever, putting users in charge.

Users still aren't in charge for a simple reason: despite the fact that they are (and always have been) impatient and dissatisfied with IT's productivity and understanding of the business, they are still functional business people, not programmers.

Yes, there are "power users" who sling code, write macros, and have the neatest and latest gadgets. But they are the tail of the curve, always have been, always will. Those under the bell, the 95%, are doing their jobs and don't want to add another one, especially since they are working more hours and enjoying it less as companies have become leaner and meaner.

For IT there is good news and bad news: users don't want to program.

Rappin Web 2.0

Now don’t you know
Web 2.0 is the way to go
You gotta go fast
Or you become the past
Whatever IT you got
Forget it dude, it ain’t hot
Like Web 2.0
It’s better than blow
You’ll get high on Web 2.0
Be a media star
Your career will go far
Only do it now the gurus say
Gotta get it done or you’re yesterday
Don’t think about it any more
Cause you don’t wanna be an IT bore
Beside they must know more than you
They paid so much and you’re just screwed
So do it now, Web 2.0
That’s it, so long, gotta go
I hear it call, Web 2.0.

Speed Kills

We often assume "if some is good, more is better." Like most assumptions, this has no basis in the real world. And yet the gurus and the IT folks and the business folks keep pushing for the "real-time enterprise." Get me all that data and get it for me now!

But information is only the first step towards utility and business value. Data must be processed into information, information into knowledge (through analysis), and knowledge into wisdom (through exercising judgement). Information without analysis and judgement is often useless: "knowing" is not the same as "knowing how" or "knowing what."

• Information will not cure [problems], yet many people treat all problems as if lack of information was the primary obstacle. Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Neil Postman (Vintage Books, 1993)
• It is not enough to exchange information. The information has no value unless it is understood and properly integrated... and allows [businesses] to work better. Toshifumi Suzuki, Chairman, Severn-Eleven Japan, "The Right Mind-Set for Managing IT, M. Benasou and Michael Earl, HBR, Sep-Oct1998

Businesses often can't find the time or resources to turn data into information, much less knowledge or wisdom.

And despite the fact that so much data is in corporate computers, managers spedn a lot of time looking for data, often without any benefit.

Even when companies, or people, are able to turn data into information, it doesn't always aid decision-making.

Even worse, the ability of computers to spew out information has begun to overwhelm some business people, leading to "Information Fatigue Syndrome."

So stop and think, and not just for a moment, before saying you want it all and you want it now.

Information Overload - Myth and Reality

Is the computer responsible for information overload?

Forty years after the invention of the [printing] press, there were printing machines in 110 cities in six different countries; 50 years after, more than eight million books had been printed, almost all of them filled with information that had previously not been available to the average person.

In America, there are 260,000 billboards; 11,520 newspapers; 11,556 periodicals; 27,000 video outlets for renting tapes; 362 million TV sets; and over 400 million radios. There are 40,000 new book titles published every year (300,000 world-wide) and every day in America 41 million photographs are taken, and just for the record, over 60 billion pieces of advertising junk mail come into our mail boxes every year.

Informing Ourselves To Death, Neil Postman, 1990, http://world.std.com/~jimf/informing.html


Is there really information overload?

Simply because businesses can gather huge varieties and quantities of information doesn’t mean that it all has value to the business. Yet many people treat all problems as if a lack of information was the primary obstacle.
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Neil Postman (Vintage Books, 1993)

There is plenty of information.

The report, How Much Information? 2003, from UC- Berkeley's School of Information Management and Systems, estimates that in 2002 people stored about five exabytes of new information on paper, film, optical or magnetic media, a number that doubled in the past three years. An exabyte is a billion gigabytes.

A weekday edition of The New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to come across in a lifetime in 17th century England.
Information Anxiety, R.S. Wurman (Bantam, 1990) see also Information Anxiety2, R. S. Wurman, David Sume, Loring Leifer (Que, 2000)

So people spend their time gathering information and, sometimes, analyzing it, often without asking “what information do I need?,” and in many cases without knowing if it is aiding decisionmaking or providing value to the business.

Recent studies indicate that information workers spend as much as a quarter of their time just finding and gathering job-related information.
Coping With Infoglut, Tommy Peterson, Computerworld, 23Jun2003

Two multi-company studies confirmed that even though companies gather quite a lot of customer data, few summarize or synthesize it into a coherent picture of the customer.
Data to Knowledge to Results, T.H. Davenport, et.al., California Management Review, Winter 2001


And even if you were sure there was value in the huge volumes of information, people have problems thinking about it and finding the time to work with it.

People say they like to have options but are overwhelmed by the necessity of choosing from a vast and growing number of alternatives.
The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, Barry Schwartz (Ecco, 2004)

A growing body of research evidence that indicates multitasking actually erodes, rather than enhances, productivity.
Why More Is Less, Megan Santosus, CIO, 15Sep2003

The fog of information can drive out knowledge. Daniel J. Boorstin

Worst of all, some businesses are moving to create the “real-time” enterprise, where data is collected and disseminated instantly. Although some IT journalists, analysts, and consultants feel this is the wave of the future, it may simply lead to less ability to make decisions and more Information Fatigue Syndrome.

Gartner asked 540 companies in the United States and Europe in 2002 how current data needs to be for analysis, just 11% said data should be updated instantaneously and continuously.
Intelligence Or Info Overload?, InformationWeek, 10Nov2003

Note that no matter how fast you get “bits” it takes longer to move “atoms.” For example, knowing that a 7-11 is running out of Pepsi doesn’t let you get it restocked at the same speed because the physical items have to be procured and moved.

So, what do you do?

Increase the signal-to-noise ratio:

'Signal' refers to useful information conveyed by some communications medium, and `noise' to anything else on that medium. Hence a low ratio implies that it is not worth paying attention to the medium in question.
http://mm.iit.uni-miskolc.hu/Data/texts/hackers_jargon/signal-to-noiseratio.HTML

The term is often applied to Usenet newsgroups [where] it is quite common to have more noise (inappropriate postings which contribute nothing) than signal (relevant, useful or interesting postings). The signal gets lost in the noise when it becomes too much effort to try to find interesting articles among all the crud.
http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?signal-to-noise+ratio


When there is noise in the communication channel, filter it out. This requires you to distinguish between noise and the meaningful signal.

The challenge is… knowing what the right type of information is, what metrics to measure and what the right workflow is.
Tobin Gilman, PeopleSoft BusinessWeek Special Advertising Section, 10May2004

1. Examine what you are doing (business processes) in detail.
2. Make sure it is something you should be doing.
3. Redesign and/or optimize those processes you should be doing.
4. Find out what information is needed to make those processes work, including when you need it and how much you need.
   
   Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), an Italian economist, observed in 1906 that 20% of the Italian people owned 80% of their country’s accumulated wealth. Pareto’s Principle states that a small number of causes is responsible for a large percentage of the effect, in a ratio of about 20:80. The Pareto Principle, Matthew Linderman, 17Feb2004,
   http://www.37signals.com/svn/archives/000552.php
5. Gather only that information and use tools to do any analysis.

Typing Class

I went to high school a long time ago, in another galaxy far away, when the typewriter was still the height of communication technology. I had to take a typing class one year, but when I arrived in the business world I found that "keyboarding" was not for business professionals.

Then the PC came along and turned business professionals back into typists. But not the classic 10-finger typists , the way I was taught. However, many technology magazine reviewers seem to think we are still in the Typewriter Age. They talk of keyboards as if they were still typewriters: too small, virtual is bad, etc. (see, for example, David Pogue's review of the Apple i-Phone in the 11Jan issue of the NY times). All they have to do is look around them at the "thumb people" (as the Japanese call them), typing madly away on Blackberries and cell phones with tiny or virtual keyboards. The Typewriter Age is over, the Thumb Age is here.

PowerPointitis

Want to know why most blog entries are short (including this one)? Because most bloggers have been trained by PowerPoint.

• In a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message. The 'message' of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs. Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan (Gingko Press, 2003)

But short doesn’t mean informative.

• …many of Lowe's funding decisions were based on superficial factors such as a presenter's persistence or PowerPoint expertise. "The quality of the presentation drove whether the project was accepted or not. So someone could do a great job presenting an awful project and it would get approved," says Stone (Lowe’s CIO). How Lowe’s Grows, Cindy Waxer, CIO 1Dec2005
• PowerPoint templates (ready-made designs) usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis. The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, Edward Tufte, http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/powerpoint

PowerPoint has become so pervasive that it is a cultural artifact, rather than technology. It affects the way we think about information, about persuasion, about argument, about problem solving. It becomes an apparently rational instrument that we insert between us and the issue.

Sarah Wyndham, a defense-industry consultant living in Alexandria, Vir­ginia, recently began to feel that her two daughters weren’t listening when she asked them to clean their bedrooms and do their chores. So, one morning, she sat down at her computer, opened Micro­soft’s PowerPoint program, and typed:

FAMILY MATTERS
An approach for positive change to the
Wyndham family team

Instead of pleading for domestic harmony, Sarah Wyndham was pitching for it. Soon she had eighteen pages of large type, supplemented by a color photograph of a generic happy family riding bicycles, and, on the final page, a drawing of a key—the key to success. The briefing was given only once, last fall. The experience was so upsetting to her children that the threat of a second showing was enough to make one of the Wyndham girls burst into tears.
Absolute PowerPoint: Can a software package edit our thoughts?, Ian Parker, The New Yorker, 28May2001

Bits and Atoms

The Internet has transformed business, right? Not if your business is moving atoms rather than bits.

• "It turns out that Nicholas Negroponte was right, at least about one thing. The world is made up of bits and atoms. If you're selling bits, the Internet represents the greatest single transformation your business will ever see. If you're selling atoms, the Internet is only a catalog and an order form. It's really hard to ship atoms down fiber-optic lines." Richard L. Brandt, Three-Wheeled Business Plans, Upside, Jul2000

Consider Netflix. It transformed the video rental business right? Well, Netflix is one of the 10 largest users of old-fashioned USPS first-class mail in the US, moving atoms back and forth. And I bet Amazon is one of the biggest customers of UPS.

Who is trembling about the Internet? The media: newspapers, magazines, music, movies. All purveyors of bits desperately trying to hold onto their atom-based business.