Insight into the Fumbles from Management by Metrics
January 21, 2021
If you are into MBA speak, “management by metrics” makes perfect sense to you. You may even whisper the phrase to your significant other under certain circumstances. “How Management by Metrics Leads Us Astray” is a helpful explanation about the steady deterioration of product quality in much of US business and services.
The write up explains:
Google’s search results are dominated by ads and many users now use workarounds to find what they’re looking for (“Best headphone reddit”). LinkedIn looks like Minesweeper. Facebook was a fun place to meet friends. And if you search for an electronics product on Amazon, you immediately feel like you’re at a flea market in the middle of Shenzhen. This is the result of hundreds of decisions that were motivated by a short-term focus on specific metrics like revenue and click rates. And while these decisions most likely optimized the metrics, they made the user experience worse. The problem is that we don’t have the technology to measure the right thing. Or maybe the “right thing” is inherently immeasurable.
I would extend the notion of management to a more subjective notion. Those who think they understand metrics believe that “logical thought” facilitates other decisions. The result is that wrong headed assumptions and overbearing arrogance create some fascinating business decisions.
My term for this adolescent approach to making judgments is “high school science club management.” Science club — at least when I was in high school — consisted of bright youth who were darned sure of their brilliance. Interacting with science club members reinforced the perceptions of excellence, superiority, and intellectual invincibility. Thus, high school science club is a wondrous example of managing to ensure social and political disaster. The more money a technology centric company makes, the greater the social and political costs.
If you read it before dozing off at night, you could whisper the companies mentioned in your partner’s ear. Delightful.
Stephen E Arnold, January 21, 2021
Post SolarWinds: No Kidding! Cyber Threats in 2021
January 21, 2021
KnowBe4 is a cyber security company based in Clearwater, Florida. The company offers a wide range of cyber security services and information. Like other cyber security firms, its systems and analysts did not notice the SolarWinds’ misstep. From my vantage point in rural Kentucky, this could be a miscommunication, a misunderstanding on my part, or another example of the ineffectiveness of US cyber security solutions offered by “experts.”
I spotted an article written by a KnowBe4 professional called “Top IT Security Threats in 2021.” This “content strategy and evangelist” seems to operate from the KnowBe4 office in South Africa.
Yep, there are cyber security threats. The SolarWinds’ misstep and the failure of heavily promoted cyber security and threat intelligence vendors to “notice” the breach remains fresh in my mind. FireEye is thinking about the misstep as well. That company released a free cyber tool to help entities figure out if their systems are compromised. (Quick comprehension test #1: What if the tool does not locate a breach? Is the system actually secure? Take the time needed to answer this question. Hint: Think about false positives for Covid tests?)
What are the threats in 2021? KnowBe4’s “content strategy and evangelist points out:
- Phishing
- Ransomware
- Remote working
- Passwords
- Disinformation.
Comprehensive, but isn’t something missing? (Quick comprehension test #2: What’s missing?)
The SolarWinds’ misstep?
If KnowBe4-type solutions worked, wouldn’t SolarWinds be off the security radar?
I like companies which have crystal ball capabilities; that is, the outfits know before? Marketing is more important than performance maybe?
Stephen E Arnold, January 21, 2021
Enterprise Search: Flexible and Stretchy. Er, No.
January 21, 2021
Enterprise search, the utility service, thrills users and information technology professionals alike. There are quite a few search and retrieval vendors chasing revenue. Frankly I have given up trying to keep track of outfits like Luigi’s Box, Yext (yes, enterprise search!), and quite a few repackagers of Lucene; e.g., IBM, Attivio, Voyager Search, and more. There are some proprietary outfits as well.
Then there is the Compass Search sibling Elastic and its Elasticsearch. Open source search makes a great deal of sense to:
- Companies wanting a no cost or low cost way to provide search and retrieval-type functionality to an application
- Penny pinchers who want “the community” to fix bugs so that cash is freed up to lease fancy cars, receive bonuses, and focus on more important software features which can be offered for a fee and a license handcuff
- Competitors who want to provide a familiar environment to those with cash to spend and wave the magic wand of open source in front of young believers who think proprietary software is a crime against humanity.
The history of Elasticsearch and Amazon reaches back to the era when Lucid Works (né Lucid Imagination) lost some staff to Amazon’s Burlingame, California, office. That was the bell which sounded when the Bezos bulldozer decided A9 was not enough. Sure, A9 works but the folks from the Lucene/Solr outfit would map the route from A9 to a more open, folksy world of open source search.
The open source version of Lucene was the beating heart of Elastic, the now public company.
Then Amazon does what Amazon does: The company shifted the bulldozer into gear and went for open source search developers who could seamlessly (sort of) move into the newly blazed path to AWS. Once inside, the fruits of the thousand plus services, features, and functions were just a click away. Policeware vendors, start ups, and some big outfits followed the Bezos bulldozer. The updated IBM slogan reads, “Nobody gets fired for buying AWS.”
Elastic was upset.
“Amazon: NOT OK – Why We Had to Change Elastic Licensing” picks up this story and explains where Elastic fits into the world crafted by the Bezos bulldozer.
The write up explains:
Our license change is aimed at preventing companies from taking our Elasticsearch and Kibana products and providing them directly as a service without collaborating with us.
Elastic’s essay notes:
We think that Amazon’s behavior is inconsistent with the norms and values that are especially important in the open source ecosystem. Our hope is to take our presence in the market and use it to stand up to this now so others don’t face these same issues in the future.
The essay concludes:
I believe in the core values of the Open Source Community: transparency, collaboration, openness. Building great products to the benefit of users across the world. Amazing things have been built and will continue to be built using Elasticsearch and Kibana. And to be clear, this change most likely has zero effect on you, our users. And no effect on our customers that engage with us either in cloud or on premises.
Several observations:
- Commercial behemoths like Amazon use open source the way my neighbor burns firewood, old carpets, and newspapers. The goal is to optimize available cash.
- Amazon’s move into Elastic’s territory began more than five years ago. Amazon does kill off loser products like health and food delivery but it keeps others in tall cotton when it pays off.
- Those completing [a] Amazon certification, [b] partner indoctrination, or [c] inputs from free or low cost Amazon training arrive ready to do the search thing Amazon’s way.
Net net: Beyond Search understands Elastic’s anguish and actions. Perhaps the license shift and the assumptions about open source are unlikely to stand up to the Bezos bulldozer? Open source Elasticsearch is a bargain. It may be tough to compete with free plus discounts for AWS goodies and other Amazon benefits. Legal or illegal, fair or unfair, open source or closed source — the bulldozer grinds forward.
Stephen E Arnold, January 21, 2021
AWS Offers Multicloud Services Without Fanfare
January 21, 2021
One problem with cloud offerings is when a service does not sold for one operating system, but not another. AWS usually brags about its accomplishments, but Protocol said, “AWS Quietly Enters The Multicloud Era.”
AWS has two new versions of its managed containers and managed Kubernetes services, EKS Anywhere and ECS Anywhere, that can run on both Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. AWS confirmed that its new software will manage workloads running on other cloud providers. AWS does not like to play with other cloud services, however, its customers do, so they caved.
Google and Microsoft were late to the multicloud game too. When their customers demanded software management on multiple cloud infrastructures, they realized many used AWS. It was also a good way to make their customers happy and possibly more money.
AWS lacks support, though:
“It does not appear that ECS Anywhere and EKS Anywhere offer the same degree of support for multicloud deployments as Azure Arc or Google Anthos, which were designed to be user-friendly multicloud tools. And according to the ECS Anywhere launch blog post, ‘the supportability of ECS Anywhere scenarios at the time of general availability may be artificially limited due to other constraints.’”
That stinks for the moment, but give it awhile and the AWS team will offer more support as demand for service grows.
Whitney Grace, January 21, 2021
Technology and Exponential Costs: MBAs Confront a Painful Online Reality
January 20, 2021
The article “When Costs Are Nonlinear, Keep It Small” addresses exponential costs in terms of technology in general. A business uses software; costs can grow exponentially. I completely agree. The author, one Jessitron, states:
When costs increase nonlinearly with delay or batch size, larger batches are not more efficient…. The changes interact, and so batching them up increases the cost of the batch by more than the cost of the change you’re adding. Batching is less efficient.
I want to use this observation to explain why online information services find themselves in a cost swamp. The consequence of the exponential demand for resources are:
- Management needs cash and must put more pressure on sales professionals to close deals. Pressure leads to overstatement and clever workarounds. Once the deal is closed an an invoice sent, the sales professional moves on either to another company or to another customer.
- Marketing gets the message that sales are number one, so the art history majors and former hospitality workers crank out hyperbole-stuffed messages. (Post SolarWinds check out the tone deaf pitching of security systems which failed to notice the breach. Sales are needed, and marketing is the cheerful servant of the organization.)
- Fancy dancing with the books. The number of online companies booking business before cash arrives is probably infinitesimal, right? But there are other ways of producing money; for example, the public information about the activities of Fast Search & Transfer provide and example. Other examples are available.
- Go back to the funders. An enthusiastic group of clear eyed, good school, sincere individuals explain to an equally clear eyed, good school, sincere individuals why money should be invested. The recipients pray for a big sale or other financial home run because repaying the money is what might be called a long shot.
These activities are often a result of the truths that Jessitron explains and illustrates with annotated drawings.
In the online world, when something goes wrong, money must be spent. The amount required is unknown until the wrong is righted. How much is a new product? Same deal. The amount of cash required is unknown, yet cash must be spent.
Exponential costs are part of the deal. The article suggests that changes be kept small; that is, changing many things increases the likelihood of problems. Problems require cash. A cycle, just not so virtuous.
Online services live with exponential costs. Thus, the online vendors have zero choice but to do the type of thinking which has created some of the more fascinating ethical, financial, political, and technical tactical minefields dotting the datasphere.
Useful paper, Jessitron. Keep it small.
Stephen E Arnold, January 20, 2021
Secrets of Google Human Resources: You Too Can Capture World Headlines and Generate Opportunities to Apologize
January 20, 2021
I read “A Former Google People Manager’s Advice on Designing Teamwork in Silicon Valley.” The subtitle is a Googley wonder:
Distribute authority with design thinking
How will Timnit Gebru react to the article? What about those involved in the quasi unionization of the Google?
I don’t know. I do know that the essay is a good example of high school science club management in action. Let me explain.
First, forget the human resource moniker or the more plebian personnel manager. The Google way is to use the term people manager.
Second, the metaphor which snagged my attention was “autonomous slime mold.” Tasty, just the thing for a science club member’s essay on “How to Win Friends Like a Slime Mold.”
Third, engage in bias busting. Here’s an example of what I call Gebru empathy:
By incorporating experts from other fields, you might come to outcomesthat weren’t available using previous methods but could be utilizedin new ways based on what’s been done in other industries, otherexpertises, and different perspectives. This _bias busting_ can help your specialized teams uncover their blind spots and assumptions about the problem space with new insightsfrom other disciplines. A healthy dose of humbleness works wonderswhen problem solving.
Fourth, deal with disagreements by setting expectations. Yes, but are those expectations written down in an employee handbook? Is the handbook updated on a regular basis? Ho ho ho.
Fifth, define success. Do good work? But what at the Google is good work? Hooking on a team which has the backing of the big bosses? Generating lots of revenue via a clever hack to advantage the GOOG? Being a friend or high school chum of a Board member or another top dog? What about having expertise which sheds light on what an assumed rival is doing?
To sum up, the litigation, the chatter about employee discrimination, and the Gebru research dust up illustrate the fruits of high school science club management applied to humanoids.
Stephen E Arnold, January 20, 2021
A Vaccine Passport: Digital or Old Fashioned Rubber Stamp?
January 20, 2021
Vaccination papers, commonly a yellow immunization card, are required for entry into many foreign countries. The World Health Organization created the International Certificate of Inoculation and Vaccination (aka ICV, carte jaune, or yellow card) in 1935.
The COVID-19 may require all international travelers to carry a vaccination passport along with their usual paper, except it might be digital. IBM’s Watson is developing these passports says AFAR in the article, “How Vaccine Passports Will Actually Work.”
Currently, a COVID-19 consists of a piece of paper from the CDC with an individual’s personal information, date of first vaccine, who administrated it, and room for the next dose. Since the COVID-19 vaccination record is only a piece of paper it could be lost and it does not help when most paperwork is digital.
IBM is working on a platform called the IBM Digital Health Pass, where pharmacy and healthcare workers can upload vaccination information that the government will verify. It will take time to deploy the IBM platform, but individuals can be proactive by downloading an approved health app and uploading their information. There are problems with rolling out the platform, especially those who do not have access to smartphones:
“When it comes to digital health passes, ‘How do we make sure that we head in that direction in the most transparent way, and in a way that also provides the greatest amount of access that doesn’t shut people out?’ says Michele Goodwin, director for the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy at the University of California in Irvine, School of Law.
She adds,
‘Not everybody has access to sophisticated smartphones. These are very expensive phones. Or if they have a phone, they may not have the data plan. What you don’t want to do is to deny individuals things that are looking to become a societal privilege or right simply based on their socioeconomic status.’”
Fierce Biotech explains that IBM is working with Salesforce to rollout its IBM Digital Health Pass: “IBM Links With Salesforce To Offer Digital COVID-19 Vaccine Passports.”
The IBM Digital Health Pass is part of the IBM Watson Health endeavor. By teaming with Salesforce, IBM plans to help organizations expand the availability of COVID-19 vaccination verifications.
Salesforce will assist organizations by adding IBM’s technology to its Work.com platform:
“ ‘Our partnership with IBM will give organizations a single platform designed to provide safe and continuous operations, deepen trust with customers and employees and do everything possible to support their health and wellbeing,’ said Bill Patterson, executive vice president and general manager of customer relationship management applications at Salesforce.”
IBM is a technology company, so their resources are limited when it comes to distributing a health platform internationally. By combining its technology with Salesforce’s CRM platform, IBM can focus on perfecting its health system will Salesforce work on the distribution.
IBM and health. A match made in a synthetic biology lab located near Armonk.
Lucky Armonk.
Whitney Grace, January 20, 2021
A Thrill for STM Publishers
January 20, 2021
First, there were individual libraries. Then there were consortia. Now there is a country. And the fees? Hmmm.
Scientific journals remain inaccessible behind pay walls, unless you have a subscription. These journals contain useful information that could advance science and other fields, but without a subscription researchers are locked out. India, the second most populous country in the world, announced a solution to academic pay walls. The Indian Express shares the news in: “Govt Proposes To Buy Bulk Subscriptions Of All Scientific Journals, Provide Free Access To All.”
The Indian government announced an open data policy called the “One Nation, One Subscription” policy. All publicly funded research will be freely available and the government plans to buy bulk subscriptions to scientific journals to give every Indian free access. It is predicted the “One Nation, One Subscription” will have a huge impact:
“The ‘One Nation, One Subscription’ policy for scientific journals is a radical move that could prove to be a game changer for the scientific community and individual researchers. There are more than 3,000 to 4,000 high-impact scientific journals, and sources say the government might have to spend a few hundred crore rupees every year to get their bulk subscriptions. But its impact on the scientific research community could be huge, given that access to these journals are highly priced and even big institutions are selective in buying subscriptions.”
Despite being a developing country, India boasts a highly educated populace. India continues to progress forward and advance in technology and other industries. Open access to all scientific journals will help them achieve further achievements in education and technology.
And the fees? Hmmm.
Whitney Grace, January 20, 2020
KPMG: Ignoring the HR Block Case Example or That Will Not Happen at the Exceptional KPMG
January 19, 2021
Here’s a fact of life at allegedly blue chip consulting and service firms. Miss those billability goal, and you are invited to find your future elsewhere.
I read “KPMG’s Marisa Ferrara Boston embraces Auditing Disruption with Watson.” My immediate reaction was id the capable, dutiful Marisa Ferrara Boston overlook this article in Beyond Search: “Watson and Block: Tax Preparation and Watson.” Probably. Business analysis from rural Kentucky is not on the KPMG list of suggested readings.
The point of my write up was in early 2017:
The idea is that H&R Block paid cash money to IBM to integrate Watson into the H&R Block proprietary tax preparation system.
The problem, based on information available to me, the Block Watson service added complexity to the tax workflow.
Oh, oh.
Here’s what KPMG has in mind:
KPMG has partnered with IBM to integrate Watson Discovery and Watson Machine Learning into the auditing workflow. KPMG uses Watson as a backbone to a question-answering pipeline for auditors and risk analysts, enabling KPMG audit professionals to better review, classify, and search across documents to extract important attribute values.
Interesting idea. Replace billable humans with super smart, reliable, fast IBM software.
What could go wrong?
If the Block IBM deal went nowhere, the resistance came from the tax professionals the system was supposed to help. Block and IBM parted company.
At KPMG, the litmus test will be billability. Unless the smart software generates more billable hours (regardless of how the bean counters fiddle the calculations), the KPMG IBM deal is likely to be found wanting. Nothing creates more waves in a blue chip professional services firm than a partner responsible for a number who misses his/her bonus. Nothing.
This quote from the IBM blog misses the point for a big time consulting firm. IBM writes:
“I feel really lucky to be able to be in a position where I’m still in the fight to be able to help push these things along,” says Marisa. But deployment is only half the battle. When it comes to maintaining innovation in automation over time, “it’s never over,” she says. “These AIs are living. They need to be nurtured in an appropriate environment. They’re not just something that you create and consider the job to be done. If so, you have failed, and probably in a very expensive way.”
Notice that employee revenue is not mentioned. Cost control is not mentioned. The partner bonuses are not mentioned. The ire of an unhappy KPMG client who is “surprised” is not mentioned. What about the managing partner who learns that a baby Enron or Autonomy has been birthed by the energetic Watson? Exciting? Yep. Very.
Perhaps some KPMG wizards who will find themselves working at HR Block will be able to ask their new colleagues, “What did you think of that IBM Watson integration?”
Stephen E Arnold, January 19, 2021
Digital Content: Confused Yet? I Am
January 19, 2021
I read “CMS Vs. DMS: Understanding the Key Differences.” The write up did not unlock my understanding. From my vantage point, there is a trade association called ARMA. You can get information about this organization from its Web site. As I recall, there are individuals who receive certification to deal with certain types of “records”; for example, nuclear power plant information. Other groups get involved with the nuclear industry, and there are hoops through which one can jump to figure out how to keep track of engineering change orders, the entities touching specialized components, and figure out who has been trained on what.
I am not exactly sure how other entities got involved in some of these often complicated tracking and managing functions. An organization called the Association for Intelligent Information Management used to be called something else. Maybe “imaging” when that seemed to be a great way to get members and run conferences.
What’s this abbreviated history have to do with the CMS versus DMS thing?
Yep, that’s a very good question. For the life of me, it seems as if document management evolved from the records management effort. But the document management experts quickly figured out that lawyers and pharmaceutical companies had to keep track of their information and had some specialized needs which ARMA either couldn’t or didn’t want to upset its apple cart.
Then the Web happened and the content produced for Web pages was even crazier and more disorganized, volatile, and multi-media enhanced than anything the vendors of software and services for nuclear, pharma, and legal eagle sectors possessed.
Enter content management systems. Wow. These were often tricky beasts, whether it was the wonderful Broadvision or the more Volkswagenish Ektron, a new business was born. The customers for CMS were not nuclear types or the chemical structure folks inventing drugs to help people at very reasonable cost absolutely everywhere.
Now let’s get the straight scoop from the CMS versus the DMS write up. Ready? Here we go:
The differences between document and content management systems are nuanced and depend on the scale to which you are using them…
I interpret this to mean that there is no difference. Your mileage may vary.
And how about this:
Where a DMS excels is at the preservation and organization of company documents (records), a CMS is often focused at content presented at websites, which is not specifically locked in individual documents, according to Elmendorp [another expert]
But what about systems focused on company records. Maybe the type of records the ARMA professionals are trained to manipulate, archive, and retrieve?
But do these systems work? Ho, ho, ho.
But here’s the key to the “key” in the title:
Where BPM, EFSS and CCM Fit In
What? What are these acronyms? But even more stunning is the inclusion of “multi-repository search tools known as Enterprise Search.”
Whoa, Nellie! Enterprise search is a solution to the management of content within an organization. News flash! Enterprise search is a utility often embedded in crazy software wrappers to allow someone to have a shot at locating the information needed to answer a business question or an eDiscovery mandate. Chemical structures, linked engineering change orders? Ho, ho, ho.
Who can figure out the differences, whether “key” or not?
Gartner. A diffused group of experts who have to sell information about the vendors to the potential licensees of these systems.
Confusion is the fertilizer for growing consulting revenues. What’s the “key”? Hire consultants. There you go. Insight.
Stephen E Arnold, January 19, 2021
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