Microsoft Teams: Ho Ho Ho
September 30, 2022
That Microsoft Teams is something. I refuse to use it. Others have to use it. I am happy with Zoom. I am fortunate. I can dictate what video tool I use. You? No. Too bad. I try not to think about Teams. I admit to sending my son notices of new Teams’ features, and he has a great sense of humor and sends me smiley faces as a reply. I am not sure he is smiling inside, however.
I noted that Teams popped up in a link to a YCombinator discussion “Why Is Microsoft Teams Still So Bad?.” The comments are informative and interesting; for example:
- Roydivision says: Random crashing.
- Classified says: Once the bean counters discover that you can make money with a piece of software, the game is over.
- M4lvin says: In Germany (or maybe whenever the system language is German) Microsoft decided that everyone should have a Ferris wheel and a bezel in their task bar because now it is Oktoberfest in Munich. Seriously? I think we have reached spam-as-an-operating-system.
- Yawnxyz says: Microsoft product suites are like the Olive Garden of the product world.
- Cyberge99 says: I think Teams also offers more capabilities to Enterprise users. I’ve been on a few teams calls with people on the call that are not visible in the attendee list.
What’s interesting is that:
- People complain but organizations use Microsoft products due to pricing, compliance, institutional momentum, security assertions, familiarity, etc. (Does this mean “monopoly”?)
- Microsoft seems to be assembling a communications equivalent to Word; that is, many features, some of which do not work or cannot be located by a user not intimately familiar with the application. (Is this terminal featuritis?)
- Microsoft’s assertions to the media are not fact checked; otherwise, the comments in the cited thread might be less creditable. (Does science fiction count as a technology deliverable?)
I found the question interesting, but the comments speak more effectively than an equivalent number of TikToks. Viva Teams!
Stephen E Arnold, September 30, 2022
Will Simplicity Sprint Help Google Contend with iPhone Rise?
September 30, 2022
It appears Android users have just been relegated to the minority in the US, at least for the moment. Apple Insider reports, “There Are More iPhones in Use in the USA than Android Phones.” Writer William Gallagher tells us:
“Counterpoint Research has previously reported that on a quarterly basis, Apple’s sales of the iPhone are growing. New research from Counterpoint discusses the total installed pool of smartphones that are actually in active use — and iPhones now account for just slightly over 50% of actively used smartphones in the States. According to the Financial Times, Counterpoint analysts have said that this is Apple’s highest-ever share of active smartphone users since the original iPhone launch in 2007.”
So, what is Google’s next phone move? Perhaps it will be another “Simplicity Sprint” like the one CEO Sundar Pichai recently launched in the face of dismal productivity numbers: the company’s second-quarter revenue growth was a mere 13%, down from 62% a year before. The project is asking employees for ideas to boost efficiency. Historically, Google has been considered the most worker-centric big tech company (contrast to Amazon, for example). Some have said that culture is changing; perhaps employees will wax nostalgic on their feedback forms.
Whatever the results, writer and programmer Pen Magnet thinks Pichai would do better to consider some factors unique to programming. In “Why Google Employees Don’t Work,” published at Level Up Coding, they write:
“When it comes to productivity, quarterly and yearly figures don’t matter much for huge companies. They have decade-long product-rollout plans. If something is looking bad today, it’s more likely to be rooted in someone’s bad judgment 5 years ago, who is currently out of the blame-game horizon. … As a 2-decade veteran programmer, every time I think of productivity, all I can think of is excellence. In other words, the fastest way to do something is to do it right, no matter how long it takes.”
If that apparent contradiction piques your interest, see the write-up for more discussion. Will Google find a way to better compete with Apple, or will iOS capture more of the upscale US market for mobile phones?
Cynthia Murrell, September 30, 2022
Amazon Strategy: Just Prime the Pump with Low Grade Fuel
September 30, 2022
Have you pulled into a filling station in rural Missouri, filled your tank, and driven into the beauty of the state? Enjoyable, right. At least it was fun until the motor died because the fuel you purchased won’t run in your whale killing, dolphin destroying vehicle with a giant V8 and oversized wheels.
Bummer.
I think that’s how some Amazon employees feel after reading an email explaining that Amazons payroll department is not very good at math. You know. The hard math of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Strike that: Amazon has subtraction and division (maybe divisiveness) under control.
“Oops, Amazon Emails Staff with News It Miscalculated Their Compensation” reports what may be “real news”:
A one-time bonus that was part of their compensation package had been miscalculated due to a software error and would be lower than what they had been told … The bonuses had initially been calculated using older, higher stock prices and about 40% of promoted employees this quarter were affected by the error.
No biggie. Just 40 percent of the Amazon happy tribe of Bezos bulldozer drivers.
The lower pay tier workers at the joyful Amazon money factory heard some bad news earlier, according to the write up:
Earlier this month, CEO Andy Jassy said that a $25 minimum wage is unlikely.
Interesting. Perhaps this ineptitude explains why Amazon has been less than revealing in some of its financial reports. The term for this is either inepticity, duplicity, or innumeracy, but that’s just my personal opinion.
What happened to my next day delivery?
Stephen E Arnold, September 30, 2022
Board Games at Microsoft? Maybe Corner Cutting?
September 30, 2022
I noted a write up called “Anonymous Lays Waste to Russian Message Board, Releases Entire Database Online.” The article describes what a merrie band of anonymous, distributed bad actors can do in today’s decentralized, Web 3 world of online games like Cat and Mouse. The article explains that Mr. Putin’s bureaucracy is a big, fat, and easy target to attack. One statement in the article caught my attention; to wit:
For all their reputation on cyber security and hacking, the Russians were careless…. KiraSec has taken down hundreds of Russian websites, Russian banks like alfabank, bank.yandex.ru, pro-Russian terror-leaning websites, Russian pedophile websites, Russian government websites, Russian porn sites and a lot more. The cyber activists also “hacked various Russian SCADAs and ICS, nuking their systems and completely destroying their industrial machines.”
I immediately thought about Microsoft’s Brad Smith suggesting that more than 1,000 programmers worked to make SolarWinds a household word. My thought was that Microsoft itself may share the systems engineering approach used to protect some Russian information assets. The key word is “careless.” Arrogance, indifference, and probably quite terrible management facilitated the loss of Russian data and the SolarWinds’ misstep.
I then spotted in my news headline stream this article from the UK online outfit The Register: “Excel’s Comedy of Errors Needs a New Script, Not New Scripting.” This article points out that Microsoft has introduced a new feature for Excel. I am not an individual who writes everything in Excel, including holiday greetings and lists of government officials names and email addresses. Some are.
Here’s the passage I circled after I printed out the write up on a piece of paper:
Excel is already the single most dangerous tool to give to civilians. You can get things wrong in Word and PowerPoint all day long, and while they have their own security fun you’re not getting things wrong through a series of tiny letterboxes behind which can live the company’s most important numerical data. The Excel Blunder is its own genre of corporate terror: it brings down companies, it breaches data like a excited whale seeking sunlight, it can make a mockery of pandemic control. And because Excel is the only universal tool most users get for organizing any sort of data, the abuses and perversions it gets put to are endless.
What’s the connection between bad actors hacking Russia, Microsoft’s explanation of the SolarWinds’ misstep, and Excel’s new scripting method?
Insecurity appears to be part of the core business process.
No big deal. Some bad actors and a few cyber security vendors will be happy. Others will be “careless” and maybe clueless. That’s Clue the board game, not the motion picture.
Stephen E Arnold, September 30, 2022
Google and Its Smart Software: Marketing Fodder and Investment Compost
September 29, 2022
Alphabet Google YouTube DeepMind is “into” smart software. The idea is that synthetic data, off-the-shelf models, and Google’s secret sauce will work wonders. Now this series of words is catnip for AGYD’s marketing and sales professionals. Grrrreat, as Tony the Tiger used to say about a fascinating cereal decades ago. Grrreat!
However, there may be a slight disconnect between the AGYD smart software papers, demonstrations, and biology-shaking protein thing and the cold, hard reality of investment payback. Keep in mind that AGYD is about money, not the social shibboleths in the stream of content marketing.
“Google Ventures Shelves Its Algorithm” states:
Google Ventures has mothballed an algorithm that for years had served as a gatekeeper for new investments… GV [Google Ventures] still relies heavily on data. After all, this is the corporate venture arm of Google. But data has been relegated to its original role as aide, rather than arbiter.
I interpreted the report to mean: Yikes! It does not work and Googley humans have to make decisions about investments.
The spin is that the algos are helpful. But the decision is humanoid.
I wonder, “What other AGYD algos don’t deliver what users, advertisers, and Googlers expected?”
Google listens to those with lots of money at risk. Does Google listen to other constituencies? Did Google take the criticism of its smart software to heart?
My hunch is that the smart software is lingo perfect for marketing outputs. Some of the outputs of the smart software are compost, rarely shown to the public and not sniffed by too many people. Will Tony the Tiger inhale and growl, “Grrreat”? Sure, sure, Tony will.
Stephen E Arnold, September 29, 2022
Innovation at the Tweeter Thing: Going in Circles?
September 29, 2022
It looks like Twitter may be infected with feature-it is, an unfortunate condition that afflicts most social-media platforms sooner or later. Gizmodo reports, “Twitter Circles Have Arrived, and Here’s How To Use Them.” Seemingly channeling the ghost of Google Plus, the tool allows users to restrict a tweet to a certain set of users. Writer David Nield tells us:
“Unlike the edit option, Circles isn’t exclusive to Twitter Blue subscribers, and everyone should be able to access the feature now (or in the very near future). The idea is that maybe you don’t want all of the friends, family, colleagues, strangers, bots and brand accounts that follow you on Twitter to see everything you post. Perhaps you want some tweets—your opinions on obscure folk music of the early 2000s, for example—to only reach a limited audience. That’s where Twitter Circles comes in, and the feature isn’t difficult to use. Unlike the Google Plus implementation, Twitter is only giving users one circle, at least for now. No doubt the hope is that it will get people to tweet more: Something private that you might have previously hesitated to share can now be posted to the timelines of a private and select group of people.”
Of course, boosting traffic is in Twitter’s best interests. We learn users cannot opt out of a Circle they’d like to avoid, unless they are willing to mute, block, or unfollow the sender. Again, no real surprise there. Nield describes how to use Twitter Circle on both mobile and desktop, complete with screenshots, so interested readers can see the write-up for those details.
Cynthia Murrell, September 30, 2022
Microsoft Viva: Live to Work, Work to Live
September 29, 2022
I read about a weird Microsoft innovation. No, it’s not about security. No, it’s not about getting a printer to work in Windows 11. No, it’s not about the bloat in Microsoft Edge. And — at least not yet — it’s not about the wild and extremely wonderful world of Microsoft Teams.
The title of the article in Computerworld is “Microsoft Viva Enhancements Address Employee Disconnect in Hybrid Work Environments.” After explaining why humans invented an office or factory to which employees went to complete tasks, the author provides to illustrate why the work from home approach is not a productivity home run. Employees like to get paid and fiddle around. Work is often hard. (I did spot one Italian government employee sitting in a one room office in Sienna doing absolutely nothing. I checked on the fellow three times over three days. Nothing. No visitors. No phone buzzing. Not even a computer in site. Now that’s a reliable worker… doing nothing with style.)
Let’s get to the Microsoft inventions, shall we?
The product/service is Microsoft Viva and it has the usual Redmond touch. There is Viva Pulse and there is Viva Amplify.
What’s up?
According to the write up:
Viva Pulse is designed to enable managers and team leaders to seek regular and confidential feedback on their team’s experience, using smart templates and research-backed questions to help managers pinpoint what’s working well, where to focus, and what actions could be undertaken to address team needs.
And next up:
Viva Amplify is meant to improve communication between leaders and employees. The app centralizes communications campaigns, offers writing guidance to improve message resonance, enables publishing across multiple channels and distribution groups in Microsoft 365, and provides metrics for improvement.
Other extensions may be Viva Answers, Viva Leadership Corner, Viva Engage, and my personal favorite People in Viva.
These products include Microsoft smart software which will perform such managerial magic as answer employee questions. Also the systems will put “collective knowledge to work for all employees.” (I love categorical affirmatives, don’t you. So universal.) There will be a Leadership Corner where employees “can interact directly with leadership, share ideas and perspectives, participate in organization initiatives, and more.”
Okay, I can’t summarize any more.
My take on this is that Microsoft got a group of 20 somethings together, possibly in a coffee shop, and asked them to conjure up a way for employees working on a project in their jammies to communicate. The result is Viva, and it will be pitched by certified partners to big customers as a productivity enhancement tool. If I were trying to sell this to a government agency, I would say, “This is an umbrella under which Teams can operate. Synergy. Shazam! Oh, the first year is free when you renew your existing Microsoft licenses.”
My concern is that the:
- Viva construct will expand the attack service for bad actors
- The numerous moving parts will not move in the way users expect
- Managers will find learning the constantly updating Viva components time consuming and just go walk to phone calls and managing by walking around.
Great innovation? Hardly. To Microsoft, however, this is the equivalent to discovering a new thing to sell and distract people from some of Microsoft’s more interesting issues. Example: Security challenges.
Stephen E Arnold, September 29, 2022
Psycho AI: Seems Possible
September 29, 2022
As if we needed to be convinced, scientists at MIT conducted an experiment that highlights the importance of machine learning data quality. The U.S. Sun reports, “Rogue Robot: ‘Psychopath AI’ Created by Scientists who Fed It Content from ‘Darkest Corners of Web’.” Citing this article from the BBC, writer Jona Jaupi tells us the demented AI is aptly named Norman (as in Psycho’s Norman Bates). We also learn:
“The aim of this experiment was to see how training AI on data from ‘the dark corners of the net’ would alter its viewpoints. ‘Norman’ was pumped with continuous image captions from macabre Reddit groups that share death and gore content. And this resulted in the AI meeting traditional ‘psychopath‘ criteria, per psychiatrists. Researchers came to their diagnosis after showing ‘Norman’ the Rorschach test. The test comprises a series of inkblots and depending on how viewers interpret them, they can indicate mental disorders. AI with neutral training interprets the images as day-to-day objects like umbrellas. However, ‘Norman’ appeared to perceive the images as executions and car crashes.”
Lovely. This horror-in-horror-out result should be no surprise to anyone who follows developments in AI and machine learning. The researchers say this illustrates AI bias is not the fault of algorithms themselves but of the data they are fed. Perhaps, but that is a purely academic distinction as long as unbiased datasets remain figments of imagination. While some point to synthetic data as the solution, that approach has its own problems. Despite the dangers, the world is being increasingly run by algorithms. We are unlikely to reverse course, so each development team will just have to choose which flawed method to embrace.
Cynthia Murrell, September 29, 2022
Yo, Amazon, Hello, Facebook, Hey, Google, Sup, IBM: Any Moonlighting Wizards on Your Payroll?
September 28, 2022
A couple of years ago, I provided those in my LE and intel lectures with the names of some online recruiting services which say things like:
Hire Silicon Valley-caliber engineers at half the cost
The number of outfits offering programmers with in-demand skills is large. Do these “remote” employees have: [a] full time jobs at big tech firms, [b] work remotely with supervision from an indifferent 20 something or Microsoft Teams-type monitoring functions, or [c] have automated a full-time job so that an eight hour work day can be used to generate income from gig work or another full-time job?
I read “Wipro Chairman Rishad Premji Fires 300 Employees for Secretly for Moonlighting.” [Note: this item appeared in India and the provider of the content can be disappeared at any time or charge for access to the full text. There’s not much I can do to ameliorate this issue.] The article states:
Wipro has terminated 300 employees found to be moonlighting with its key rivals at the same time, its Chairman Rishad Premji said on Wednesday [September 21, 2022] . Speaking at the All India Management Association (AIMA) National Management Convention, Premji termed moonlighting is a complete violation of integrity “in its deepest form”. “The reality is that there are people today working for Wipro and working directly for one of our competitors and we have actually discovered 300 people in the last few months who are doing exactly that,” the Wipro Chairman said. The company has now terminated their employment for “act of integrity violation”.
I find the action of Mr. Premji instructive. I wonder why US-based high-tech firms do not take the same action.
The point I made in my lecture is that bad actors can pass themselves off as legitimate businesses just based in some interesting city like Athens, Greece. The technical skills required are advanced and not directly connected to anything other than helping a jewelry company or online egame service implement a resilient network. The person responding to this opportunity may have requisite experience working at a big US high tech company. The person does the work and forgets about the project. However, the entity doing the hiring is a bad actor. The task completed by the US high tech engineer snaps into a larger set of work.
Should the online recruitment outfit perform more due diligence on what looks like a legitimate company selling fountain pens or plumbing equipment in another country? The answer is, “Sure.” That’s not the case. Based on our research none of the recruiters or the gig workers did much if any investigation of the hiring outfit. If a company paid the matchmaker and the gig worker, that was the proof of appropriate activity.
The reality, which I described in my lecture, is that insiders are making it easy for bad actors to learn about certain companies. Furthermore, the simple and obvious coding task is just one component in what can be an illegal online operation. The example I provided to the LE and analysts in my lecture was an online streaming service with an illegal online gambling “feature.”
I can hear the senior managers’ excuses now:
- “Our employees are prohibited from doing outside work.” [Yeah, but does anyone validate this assertion?]
- “We have a personnel department which works closely with our security team to prevent this type of insider activity.” [Yeah, but telling me this is cheaper and easier than reporting on specific data compiled to reduce this type of activity, right?]
- “Our contractors are moderated and subject to the same security procedures as our work-from-home full time staff? [Yeah, but does anyone really know how that contractor located in another company actually operates?]k
Net net: Mr. Premji is on the right track. FYI: WiPro was founded in 1945 and the firm took action on this matter after 77 years. Speedy indeed.
Stephen E Arnold, September 28, 2022
Quite a Recipe: Zuck-ini with a Bulky Stuffed Sausage
September 28, 2022
Ah, the Zuckbook or the Meta-thing. I can never remember the nomenclature. I thought about the estimable company after I read “Meta Defends Safe Instagram Posts Seen by Molly Russell.” I suppose I should provide a bit of color about Ms. Russell. She was the British school girl who used the digital Zuck-ini’s Instagram recipe for happiness, success, and positive vibes.
However, in Ms. Russell’s case, her journey to community appears to have gone off the rails. Ms. Russell was 14 when she died by suicide. The Meta-thing’s spokesperson for the legal action sparked by Ms. Russell’s demise said:
Ms Lagone told the inquest at North London Coroner’s Court she thought it was “safe for people to be able to express themselves” – but conceded two of the posts shown to the court would have violated Instagram’s policies and offered an apology about some of the content. Responding to questioning, she said: “We are sorry that Molly viewed content that violated our policies and we don’t want that on the platform.”
Move fast and break things was I believe a phrase associated with the Zuck-ini’s garden of delights. In Ms. Russell’s case the broken thing was Ms. Russell’s family. That “sorry” strikes me as meaningful, maybe heart felt. On the other hand, it might be corporate blather.
Macworld does not address Ms. Russell’s death. However, the article “Despite Apple’s Best Efforts, Meta and Google Are Still Out of Control.” The write up explains that Apple is doing something to slow the stampeding stallions at the Meta-thing and Googzilla.
I noted this passage:
There is a great potential for this [data gathered by certain US high-technology companies] information to be misused and if we in the United States had any sort of functional government, it would have made these sales illegal by now.
My question: What about the combination of a young person’s absorbing content and the systems and methods to display “related” content to a susceptible individual. Might that one-two punch have downsides?
Yep. Is there a fix? Sure, after two decades of inattention, let’s just apply a quick fix or formulate a silver bullet.
But the ultimate is, of course, is to say, “Sorry.” I definitely want to see the Zuck-ini stuffed. Absent a hot iron poker, an Italian sausage will do.
Stephen E Arnold, September 28, 2022
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