First God, Then History, and Now Prediction: All Dead Like Marley
January 3, 2017
I read a chunk of what looks to me like content marketing called “The Death of Prediction.” Prediction seems like a soft target. There were the polls which made clear that Donald J. Trump was a loser. Well, how did that work out? For some technology titans, the predictions omitted a grim pilgrimage to Trump Tower to meet the deal maker in person. Happy faces? Not so many, judging from the snaps of the Sillycon Valley crowd and one sycophant from Armonk.
The write up points out that predictive analytics are history. The future is “explanatory analytics.” An outfit called Quantifind has figured out that explaining is better than predicting. My hunch is that explaining is little less risky. Saying that the Donald would lose is tough to explain when the Donald allegedly “won.”
Explaining is like looser. The black-white, one-two, or yes-no thing is a bit less gelatinous.
So what’s the explainer explaining? The checklist is interesting:
- Alert me when it matters. The idea is that a system or smart software will proactively note when something important happens and send one of those mobile phone icon things to get a human to shift attention to the new thing. Nothing like distraction I say.
- Explore why on one’s own. Yep, this works really well for spelunkers who find themselves trapped. Exploration is okay, but it is helpful to [a] know where one is, [b] know where one is going, and [c] know the territory. Caves can be killers, not just dark and damp.
- Quantify impact in “real” dollars. The notion of quantifying strikes me as important. But doesn’t one quantify to determine if the prediction were on the money. I sniff a bit of flaming contradiction. The notion of knowing something in real time is good too. Now the problem becomes, “What’s real time?” I have tilled this field before and saying “real time” is different from delivering what one expects and what the system can do and what the outfit can afford.
It’s not even 2017, and I have learned that “prediction” is dead. I hope someone tells the folks at Recorded Future and Palantir Technologies. Will they listen?
Buzzwording with cacaphones is definitely alive and kicking.
Stephen E Arnold, January 3, 2017
Smarter Content for Contentier Intelligence
December 28, 2016
I spotted a tweet about making smart content smarter. It seems that if content is smarter, then intelligence becomes contentier. I loved my logic class in 1962.
Here’s the diagram from this tweet. Hey, if the link is wonky, just attend the conference and imbibe the intelligence directly, gentle reader.
The diagram carries the identifier Data Ninja, which echoes Palantir’s use of the word ninja for some of its Hobbits. Data Ninja’s diagram has three parts. I want to focus on the middle part:
What I found interesting is that instead of a single block labeled “content processing,” the content processing function is broken into several parts. These are:
A Data Ninja API
A Data Ninja “knowledgebase,” which I think is an iPhrase-type or TeraText type of method. Not familiar with iPhrase and TeraText, feel free to browse the descriptions at the links.
A third component in the top box is the statement “analyze unstructured text.” This may refer to indexing and such goodies as entity extraction.
The second box performs “text analysis.” Obviously this process is different from “the analyze unstructured text” step; otherwise, why run the same analyses again? The second box performs what may be clustering of content into specific domains. This is important because a “terminal” in transportation may be different from a “terminal” in a cloud hosting facility. Disambiguation is important because the terminal may be part of a diversified transportation company’s computing infrastructure. I assume Data Ninja’s methods handles this parsing of “concepts” without many errors.
Once the selection of a domain area has been performed, the system appears to perform four specific types of operations as the Data Ninja practice their katas. These are the smart components:
- Smart sentiment; that is, is the content object weighted “positive” or “negative”, “happy” or “sad”, or green light or red light, etc.
- Smart data; that is, I am not sure what this means
- Smart content; that is, maybe a misclassification because the end result should be smart content, but the diagram shows smart content as a subcomponent within the collection of procedures/assertions in the middle part of the diagram
- Smart learning; that is, the Data Ninja system is infused with artificial intelligence, smart software, or machine learning (perhaps the three buzzwords are combined in practice, not just in diagram labeling?)
- The end result is an iPhrase-type representation of data. (Note: that this approach infuses TeraText, MarkLogic, and other systems which transform unstructured data to metadata tagged structured information).
The diagram then shows a range of services “plugging” into the box performing the functions referenced in my description of the middle box.
If the system works as depicted, Data Ninjas may have the solution to the federation challenge which many organizations face. Smarter content should deliver contentier intelligence or something along that line.
Stephen E Arnold, November 28, 2016
The Google: A Real Newspaper Discovers Modern Research
December 4, 2016
I read “Google, Democracy and the Truth about Internet Search.” One more example of a person who thinks he or she is an excellent information hunter and gatherer. Let’s be candid. A hunter gatherer flailing away for 15 or so years using online research tools, libraries, and conversations with actual humans should be able to differentiate a bunny rabbit from a female wolf with baby wolves at her feet.
Natural selection works differently in the hunting and gathering world of online. The intrepid knowledge warrior can make basic mistakes, use assumptions without consequence, and accept whatever a FREE online service delivers. No natural selection operates.
A “real” journalist discovers the basics of online search’s power. Great insight, just 50 years from the time online search became available to this moment of insight in December 2017. Slow on the trigger or just clueless?
That’s scary. When the 21st century hunter gatherer seems to have an moment of inspiration and realizes that online services—particularly ad supported free services—crank out baloney, it’s frightening. The write up makes clear that a “real” journalist seems to have figured out that online outputs are not exactly the same as sitting at a table with several experts and discussing an issue. Online is not the same as going to a library and reading books and journal articles, thinking about what each source presents as actual factoids.
Here’s an example of the “understanding” one “real” journalist has about online information:
Google is knowledge. It’s where you go to find things out.
There you go. Reliance on one service to provide “knowledge.” From an ad supported. Free. Convenient. Ubiquitous. Online service.
Yep, that’s the way to keep track of “knowledge.”
Tips for DCGS Vendors Staff If RIFed
December 4, 2016
DCGS (pronounced dee-sigs by those inside the Beltway and dee-see-gee-ess by folks in Harrod’s Creek) may be heading to some changes. What is DCGS? Who are the DCGS vendors? What are the contracts worth? DCGS is a 15 year old project to provide one screen with federated intelligence, war fighting, and Web information. What are the contracts worth? Lots. Think hundreds of millions for some Beltway outfits. Some of the vendors appear in the list below:
Now to the meat of this write up. Here are the top 10 tips for DCGS incumbent vendors to have on hand if [a] their employer loses some DCGS deals, [b] employees and contractors working on DCGS projects get fired, RIFed, or terminated but without extreme prejudice, or [c] need some ideas to prepare for a future elsewhere (perhaps Palantir?).
Tip 10
Identify six different Starbuck’s and rotate your visits. You don’t want the “regulars” to know you are flipping rocks for work.
Tip 9
Hit Second Story Books or Capitol Hill Books for a copy of the classic job hunters’ manual What Color Is Your Parachute?
Tip 8
Convert your home office into an AirBnB rental to generate some extra dolares en efectivo.
Tip 7
Inform your significant other that he/she has to get a second job, possibly at Wendy’s or McDonald’s.
Tip 6
Add more content to your Microsoft LinkedIn résumé. (Note: Do not select need the “secret” job search option. You do not have an employer.)
Tip 5
Switch to Sunmark antacids with calcium instead of Whole Foods’ select mixed nuts.
Tip 4
Sign up to drive for Uber.
Tip 3
Tell your children they need more exposure to diversity and will switch to local public schools immediately.
Tip 2
Inform your family that holiday gifts will be purchased at the Montgomery County Thrift Shop in Bethesda or the Goodwill in Ashburn.
Tip 1
Cancel that cruise to the Norwegian fjords. Vacation this year is a trip to Wal-Mart Supercenter on Georgia Avenue NW.
Please, have a footless and fancy free 2017. Plus, remember to sign up for unemployment.
Stephen E Arnold, December 4, 2016
HonkinNews for 29 November 2016 Now Available
November 29, 2016
This week’s HonkinNews covers IBM Watson QAM (not a yam and not part of an internal combustion engine). We also report that Palantir Technologies has stereophonic input to the Trump Transition Team. You will also learn about EasyAsk’s amazing guarantee regarding eCommerce revenues. The show includes another dispatch from the front lines of the artificial intelligence wars. Google is on the offensive. Hitachi aims to become the first Japanese company to notch a perfect score in the enterprise search high diving content. If you thought Willie Shakespeare worked alone, we rain on your parade courtesy of text analytics researchers who identify Kit Marlowe’s digital fingerprints on Henry VI. Imagine. Theater types collaborating. We thought Hollywood types invented this approach to content. This program gives the dates for the three videos about Stephen E Arnold’s The Google Trilogy. You can access the video at this link.
Kenny Toth, November 29, 2016
Need Data Integration? Think of Cisco. Well, Okay
November 25, 2016
Data integration is more difficult than some of the text analytics’ wizards state. Software sucks in disparate data and “real time” analytics systems present actionable results to marketers, sales professionals, and chief strategy officers. Well, that’s not exactly accurate.
Industrial strength data integration demands a company which has bought a company which acquired a technology which performs data integration. Cisco offers a system that appears to combine the functions of Kapow with the capabilities of Palantir Technologies’ Gotham and tosses in the self service business information which Microsoft touts.
Cisco acquired Composite Information in 2013. Cisco now offers the Composite system as the Cisco Information Server. Here’s what the block diagram of the federating behemoth looks like. You can get a PDF version at this link.
The system is easy to use. “The graphical development and management environments are easy to learn and intuitive to use,” says the Cisco Teradata information sheet. For some tips about the easy to use system check out the Data Virtualization Cisco Information Server blog. A tutorial, although dated is, at this link. Note that the block diagram between 2011 and the one presented above has not significantly changed. I assume there is not much work required to ingest and make sense of the Twitter stream or other social media content.
The blog has one post and was last updated in 2011. But there is a YouTube video at this link.
The system includes a remarkable range of features; for example:
- Modeling which means import and transform what Cisco calls “introspect”, create a model and figure out how to make it run at an acceptable level of performance, and expose the data to other services. (Does this sound like iPhrase’s and Teratext’s method? It does to me.)
- Search
- Transformation
- Version control and governance
- Data quality control and assurance
- Outputs
- Security
- Administrative controls.
The time required to create this system is, according to Cisco Teradata, is “over 300 man years.”
The licensee can plug the system into an IBM DB2 running on a z/OS8 “handheld”. You will need a large hand by the way. No small hands need apply.
Stephen E Arnold, November 25, 2016
Pitching All Source Analysis: Just Do Dark Data. Really?
November 25, 2016
I read “Shedding Light on Dark Data: How to Get Started.” Okay, Dark Data. Like Big Data, the phrase is the fruit of the nomads at Garner Group. The person embracing this sort of old concept is an outfit OdinText. Spoiler: I thought the write up was going to identify outfits like BAE Systems, Centrifuge Systems, IBM Analyst’s Notebook, Palantir Technologies, and Recorded Future (an In-Q-Tel and Google backed outfit). Was I wrong? Yes.
The write up explains that a company has to tackle a range of information in order to be aware, informed, or insightful. Pick one. Here’s the list of Dark Data types, which the aforementioned companies have been working to capture, analyze, and make sense of for almost 20 years in the case of NetReveal (Detica) and Analyst’s Notebook. The other companies are comparative spring chickens with an average of seven years’ experience in this effort.
- Customer relationship management data
- Data warehouse information
- Enterprise resource planning information
- Log files
- Machine data
- Mainframe data
- Semi structured information
- Social media content
- Unstructured data
- Web content.
I think the company or non profit which tries to suck in these data types and process them may run into some cost and legal issues. Analyzing tweets and Facebook posts can be useful, but there are costs and license fees required. Frankly not even law enforcement and intelligence entities are able to do a Cracker Jack job with these content streams due to their volume, cryptic nature, and pesky quirks related to metadata tagging. But let’s move on. To this statement:
Phone transcripts, chat logs and email are often dark data that text analytics can help illuminate. Would it be helpful to understand how personnel deal with incoming customer questions? Which of your products are discussed with which of your other products or competitors’ products more often? What problems or opportunities are mentioned in conjunction with them? Are there any patterns over time?
Yep, that will work really well in many legal environments. Phone transcripts are particularly exciting.
How does one think about Dark Data? Easy. Here’s a visualization from the OdinText folks:
Notice that there are data types in this diagram NOT included in the listing above. I can’t figure out if this is just carelessness or an insight which escapes me.
How does one deal with Dark Data? OdinText, of course. Yep, of course. Easy.
Stephen E Arnold, November 25, 2016
Wake Up, DCGS: Peter Thiel Alert
November 11, 2016
I read a LinkedIn special write up titled “Peter Thiel to Join Trump Transition Team.” The main point of the write up was that Silicon Valley icon and founder of Palantir Technologies has allegedly just hopped on the Trump Transition Express. I learned:
Peter Thiel has agreed to join Donald Trump’s presidential transition team, according to multiple sources close to the situation.
I love those “multiple sources.” Verification is great especially when anonymized.
It strikes me that if the news is on the money, there are some interesting consequences of this decision. Let me pop several out of the microwave which is heating my Bob Evans sausage, egg, and cheese every day classic breakfast.
I start my day the health way: A Bob Evans microwave meal and news about the impact of a new technology voice in the new administration of the new president. Yummy.
First, based on my limited experience in the Washington presidential transition Beltway hoedowns, there may be an opportunity or two to chat up those involved in managing certain large defense and intelligence related projects. Now the conversations are informal, premature, fuzzy, and for sure non binding, but there just might be a few words exchanged about reducing billions in government waste with regard to certain high profile, contentious, over budget, and fractionalized projects. Maybe the Distributed Common Ground System will come up? Maybe providing Gotham to the entire transition team? Who knows? But a taste of Gotham’s manna may be just what the hard working commuters on the Transition Express need to perk up and open their eyes to what technology really can do.
Second, the hinges on the Alphabet Google special door to President Obama’s outfit may be wearing out. Palantir, which Mr. Thiel founded, has Google-type bright lads and lasses who can out Google the Google when it comes to heavy duty information analysis. War fighting “trumps” selling ads for Garcinia- Cambogia.
Some of Mr. Thiel’s inputs may rely on Palantir Gotham for data relevant to a decision taken by Transition Express fellow travelers. If Palantir’s approach shows answers, the Google results list looks — how can I phrase it? — dowdy, lame, old fashioned. Imagine the efficiency of the the new president’s advisors generating knock out visualizations for budgets, action items, and timelines with Gotham. Exciting, no? Yes?
Third, the established outfits like the Beltway outfits which have methods of communicating and influencing now have to rethink getting on the radar of the transition team. Those juicy, rock solid indefinite cost, open ended pipelines of money may have to make some navigational adjustments in real time. But what if Mr. Thiel just is involved in calculating the azimuth? How does a Beltway Top 100 firm make up for lost US government “to be” revenue? My answer, “With alacrity tinged with freneticism.”
If Mr. Thiel is on the transition team, there will be some capture teams worrying about [a] their bonus, [b] their new business plan, and [c] their résumés. The latter will be just super for LinkedIn’s secret job search service too. Who knows? Maybe some of these folks will post anonymous LinkedIn rumors which we enjoy here in Harrod’s Creek.
Stephen E Arnold, November 11, 2016
HonkinNews for November 8, 2016 Now Available
November 8, 2016
This week HonkinNews comments about Microsoft’s mobile phone adventure. You will learn about geo spatial analytics’ companies that may have an impact in certain secret applications. Palantir makes news again. There is more. You can view the seven minute video at this link https://youtu.be/UWCk4n_AC0Y.
Kenny Toth, November 8, 2016
Worried about Risk? Now Think about Fear
November 3, 2016
I clicked through a remarkable listicle offered by CSO Magazine from my contract savvy pals at IDG. I don’t know much about risk, but I have encountered fear before. I recall an MBA Wall Street person who did not have enough cash to pay for lunch. I picked up the tab. That fellow had fear in his eyes because his firm had just gone out of business. Paying for a car service, nannies, country clubs, and a big house triggered the person’s fright.
You can be captured and tortured in an off the grid prison. Be afraid. Embrace IDG and be safe. Sort of. Maybe.
Well, CIO Magazine wants to use technology to make you, gentle reader, fearful. In case you are not nervous about your job, the London tabloids reports about a nuclear war, and the exploding mobile phone in your pocket.
Here are the “fears” revealed in “Frightening Technology Trends to Worry About.” Here we go:
- Overlooked internal threats. (Yes, someone in your organization is going to destroy you and your livelihood.)
- Finding and retaining top talent. (Of course, Facebook or Palantir will hire the one person who can actually make your firm’s software and systems work.)
- Multiple generations in the workforce. (Yes, what’s an old person going to do when dealing with those under 25. You are doomed. Doomed, I say.)
- Shifts in compliance. (Yes, the regulatory authorities will find violations and prevent your organization from finding new sources of revenue.)
- Migrating to the cloud. (Yes, the data are in the cloud. When you lose a file, that cherished document may be gone forever. Plus, the IT wizard at your firm now works at Palantir and is not answering your texts.)
- Getting buy in on hyper convergence. (Yes, you are pushing the mantra “everything is digital” and your colleagues wonder if you have lost your mind. Do you see hyper pink elephants?)
- Phishing and email attacks. (Yes, your emails are public. Did you use the company system to organize a Cub Scout bake sale, buy interesting products, or set up an alias and create a bogus Twitter account?)
- Hacktivism. (Yes, you worry about hackers and activism. Both seem bad and both are terrifying to you. Quick click on the link from Google telling you your account has been compromised and you need to change your password. Do it. Do it now.)
- The next zero day attack. (Yes, yes. You click on a video on an interesting Web site and your computing device is compromised. A hacker has your data and control of your mobile phone. And your contacts. My heavens, your contacts. Gone.)
- The advanced persistent threat. (Yes, yes, yes. Persistent threats. No matter what you do, your identify will be stolen and your assets sucked into a bank in Bulgaria. It may be happening now. Now I tell you. Now.)
- Mobile exploits. (Oh, goodness. Your progeny are using your old mobile phones. Predators will seek them out and strike them down with digital weapons. Kidnapping is a distinct possibility. Ransom. The news at 6 pm. Oh, oh, oh.)
- State sponsored attacks. (Not Russia, not China, not a Middle Eastern country. You visited one of these places and enjoyed the people. The people are wonderful. But the countries’ governments will get you. You are toast.)
How do you feel, gentle reader. Terrified. Well, that’s what CSO from IDG has in mind. Now sign up for the consulting services and pay to learn how to be less fearful. Yes, peace of mind is there for the taking. No Zen retreat in Peru. Just IDG, the reassuring real journalistic outfit. Now about those contracts, Dave Schubmehl?
Stephen E Arnold, October 3, 2016
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