The Flywheel Thing
August 21, 2020
About a year ago, a marketing person asked me, “Why don’t you talk about the Amazon flywheel?” I replied, “Flywheel. What flywheel?” Sure, I knew about the Bezos buzzword, but that does not mean I have to use it when I write about the world’s largest online bookstore. I prefer jazzier words and phrases; for example, cat’s pajamas, wizards, and high school science club manager, etc.
“Question Everything or the Strange Loop Principle” seems to come down on my side of word choice. The essay asserts:
First, let’s see how Collins himself describes what he calls the Flywheel Concept. For that, I’m going to borrow from Collins’ own Turning the Flywheel: a Monograph to Accompany Good to Great. But first, we have to discuss Collins’ word choice and the mechanics of an actual flywheel. He picks “Flywheel” for a reason: he believes flywheels accurately describe the sort of dynamics he identifies in some very successful companies that go from being average – “good” – to being leaders – “great” –.
Now the flywheel in business:
So whatever Collins wants us to understand about great businesses, he thinks a flywheel is a good shortcut to get there.
The there is growth, maybe exponential growth. One problem:
Therefore, flywheels are great at describing something that holds a lot of momentum, but not something that behaves exponentially, or that self-reinforces itself.
Now Amazon:
I think Amazon is a great example of something I can’t quite point at but that seems to reinforce itself (I have no evidence that it’s exponential in any way. Just that it seems to go on and on forever without the need for more energy). As it sells more, it’s able to sell cheaper, which leads it to sell more, which leads it to be able to sell cheaper, and on and on. Businesses that find such self-reinforcing “mechanics” have something strong going for them.
The bottom line:
Here’s this guy who’s arguably the new Peter Drucker, revered by entrepreneurs, world leaders and executives alike, not only basing a huge part of his knowledge production on a shaky concept that’s named and explained with a shaky mix of words and examples applying it all in a very shaky way to his own life.
Yep, imagine that. Management thinking which is shaky. Nope, no flywheels for me.
Stephen E Arnold, August 20, 2020
Thinking about Risk: No Clip On Bow Tie
August 15, 2020
I read “Risk Bow Tie Method.” I worked through the write up, which reminded me of a reading in one of those professor-assembled Kinko’s books students HAD to purchase. The focus is a management procedure for thinking about risk. Today, there are some interesting topics which MBA study groups can consider on a thrilling Zoom call. As I examined the increasingly detailed diagrams, the procedure seemed familiar. I ratted through my files and, yes, I had a paper (maybe I snagged it at a non-Zoom conference in England in the 1990s) called “Lessons Learned from Real World Application of Bow Tie Method.” There’s version of this document available at this link.
The idea is that something happens like Covid, serial financial crashes, social unrest, private enterprise controlling information flows, etc. None of these is too serious. The idea is to make a diagram that looks like this one from the 1990s Risktec person’s write up:
If you want to be a consultant, you need a diagram without explanations. The idea is to bring discipline to a group of people who would rather check out TikTok videos, browse Facebook, or fiddle with their Robinhood account. But a job is a job, whether in person or on a Zoom call.
The advisor systematically works through the “logic” of figuring out the issues related to the minor risk an organization faces; for example, an enterprise search vendor failing to meet its financial goal for the quarter as cash burns and employees “work” from home. Yep, fill in that logical diagram.
Exercises like this are a gold mine to a consulting firm. Blue chip outfits focus on these “big picture” methods. Mid tier consulting firms and sol practitioners with a Wix Web site and Instaprint plastic stick on sign for their automobile may have trouble landing enough work to pay for working through the Bow Tie Method.
So blue chip consulting firms embrace these types of fill-in-the-blank exercises. The consultant gets to “know” the participants and can set the stage for recruiting an insider to function as a cheerleader absent pom poms. The “report” allows the consulting team to identify which options are better for the company with the data presented created by the … wait for it … the employees who participated in the Bow Tie Method process. To be fair, the consulting team has to create a PowerPoint or similar presentation. Some consulting firms just write an “Executive Memo” and move to selling follow on work.
I must admit I thought of the popular song by Stevie Wonder with these lyrics. Note: I modified the last line to match my reaction to the attempted rejuvenation of the Bow Tie Method:
His father works some days for fourteen hours
And you can bet he barely makes a dollar
His mother goes to scrub the floor for many
And you’d best believe she hardly gets a penny
Living just enough, just enough for the consulting.
Several observations:
- Is the Bow Tie Method the correct one for our interesting times? Plug in Covid, fill in the boxes, discuss options, and what do you end up with?
- Is the Bow Tie Method and other thought frameworks matched to today’s management climate? Twitter, Facebook Google, Amazon, and other FAANG outfits create risks, and I am not convinced that objective consideration of the risks to these organizations are top of mind for the top managers at this time. It seems as if the consulting frameworks have to be designed for thumbtypers and consumers of Instagram and Snap apps, not old-school frameworks from who knows where.
- The time and cost to work through a full Bow Tie Methods may increase risk for the company. Here’s how that works. The leadership of a company or country changes direction. Mixer from Microsoft. Hey, kill that dog. A Google API? No reason to provide that any more. A tweet from the White House changes the social media influencer landscape. As these here-and-now events blaze on digital devices, the time for the Bow Tie and the time for dealing with here-and-now is out of joint.
Net net: Traditional consulting methods, regardless of the fancy graphics and with-it explanations seem to be like exhibits in the British Museum. Who knew the Elgin marbles were sitting in a dark room?
Stephen E Arnold, August 15, 2020
When Humor and Management Theory Collide: Craziness, Maybe Worse
July 29, 2020
Two write ups made it from our news system into my “must read” file.
The first is by the Big Dog Scott Galloway. An esteemed educator, Mr. Galloway provides punditry and overtalking on the New York Magazine Pivot show. His essay “Fire & Fawning” is fascinating. The charts, the data, and the wordsmithing are noteworthy.
From DarkCyber’s point of view, Mr. Galloway is providing advice to a group of high-technology movers and shakers who are awash in lawyers, advisers, and on-the-payroll wizards.
We noted this comment:
Big tech has won before the hearing starts. Agreeing to let all four testify concurrently inhibits the committee’s ability to go deep on any one issue, and will leave the American public with a sentiment instead of a viewpoint on big tech, much less any conclusions (such as, that the Obama DOJ was asleep at the switch, and Instagram and Whatsapp should be divested). The Covid-inspired remote format dramatically lessens the likelihood of an unscripted moment that reveals something the American public didn’t previously know. Fabric softener for tough questioning is the deep pockets that keep members in power.
If the hearings are “over,” why are an additional 2,200 words required? Answer: The write up is for the elected officials who will be conducting the session. However, elected officials have lawyers, advisers, and “interns” to prepare, review, and make sense of the million plus documents available to the group doing the asking.
The key difference is the billionaire status of those responding, and the billionaire access to wizards.
Granted, political hearings are unlikely to “win” or achieve very much. Maybe some of the interns will get jobs working for the billionaires and get a chance to earn the coveted “wizard” status.
And the data in the write up? Statistical information can be shaped, discredited, and shown to be orthogonal to other data. The art is nice, however.
Net net: The write up plays to a particular audience yet maintains the overtalking tone ill-suited for a podcast and for a “business” essay designed to tell people what to do.
The second essay is “Advice for Jeff Bezos on testifying before Congress from me, the totally real Bill Gates.” The focus is narrowed to Mr. Bezos by a Silicon Valley “real” news outfit. The tone is familiar; for example, “Jeff, buddy.” The intent shares some DNA with Mr. Galloway’s overtalking. Specifically, this Silicon Valley “real” news essay reminded me something called “satirical commentary.” One of the required classes I had to endure 50 plus years ago forced me to read mocking essays and figure out what some guy who lived in Twickenham did to earn the name “the wicked wasp.” This Silicon Valley “real” news outfit’s effort struck me as tone deaf and — I need a neologism I think — snotical. Snotical is a combination of snotty and cynical. The sting? Yes, where is thy sting?
Net net: The write is likely to be ignored by Mr. Bezos’ legions of lawyer, advisers, and quite bright worker bee drone humanoids.
Stepping back from the two essays, three observations I wish to offer are:
- Public advice is Monday morning quarterbacking and about as useful
- Those far from the fray demonstrate their lack of understanding of hearing processes
- New Age hippy dippy management analyses are little more than TikTok videos in prose.
Stephen E Arnold, July 29, 2020
You Know Times Are Hard When a Blue Chip Firm Stoops to SEO
July 27, 2020
Many years ago I worked at Booz, Allen & Hamilton. After I set up my own consulting firm, I did projects for other outfits which I thought operated in a blue-chip or high-quality mode.
If you read DarkCyber, you may have seen my articles making fun of some consulting firms’ analyses; for example, the outfits producing Gartner-type subjective comparisons enterprise vendors.
I have also been quite clear over the years about search engine optimization. The manipulation of a Web page feeds sales of online advertising and erodes what minimal objective relevance ranking methods remain in use. From my point of view, SEO is a scam. If you want traffic, buy advertising.
Why take time to write again about questionable consulting operations and SEO?
I received this email a day or two ago, and I have informed the sender that I would publish the email, his name, his contact information, and his employer before this item runs in my blog. Now the spam email. Please, note the chatty tone:
We noticed that you featured Boston Consulting Group in four of your articles (Gartner Magic Quadrant in the News: Netscout Matter, Radicati Group: Yet Another Quadrant, Search Engine Optimization: Chasing Semantic Search & Search Companies: Innovative or Not?) and wanted to say thanks so much for the mentions!
We were hoping you could add a link to our homepage [https://www.bcg.com/] in those articles so your readers can easily find the site. Please let me know if you have any questions or if I should direct this email to someone else. Thanks again for your help in advance.
Sincerely,
Connor Hayes
Connor Hayes Hayes.Connor@bcg.com
Global Search Senior Coordinator
T + 1 617 850 3941
Boston, USA
Allow me some observations, and I will offer some comments for Connor Hayes and other SEO “experts”:
1. Connor, and spare me your slathering of Dollar Store taco sauce. I am not into familiarity or hippy dippy “I want a link” pitches.
2. Boston Consulting Group, let’s be classy. SEO spam is something that I associate with outfits less well positioned to sell high-end professional services work.
I asked myself, “Was Connor Hayes influenced by Homer on “The Simpsons”?
I asked myself, “Has BCG lost its sense of professionalism?”
I do recall learning from my father who worked for an entrepreneur R. G. LeTourneau that General Eisenhower and later president of the United States was not impressed that Bruce Henderson, founder of BCG “borrowed” the four square matrix analytic tool. When I heard this anecdote, I suppose the state was set for today’s BCG to embrace search engine optimization. Both the four square star-dog thing and SEO illustrates a similar thought process: Do what needs to be done to become a modern day winner.
I segment the world of professional services consulting into some simple chunks. At the bottom are newly unemployed managers, unemployable college graduates with degrees in home economics, art history, or some similar expertise, and people who just cannot stick with a legitimate company. Many of these individuals become SEO experts.
Then there are mid-tier consulting firms. These firms capture government contracts, find a niche and generate information and knowledge products, and pontificate on LinkedIn about their organizations’ mastery of knowledge-value in today’s world.
The third group is the top of the professional services pyramid. My perception was that the big leagues attracted the best and the brightest. Examples of these top-tier operations included Arthur D. Little, Bain (formed by unhappy professionals at Boston Consulting Group), BCG itself and its four square star dog thing, Booz, Allen & Hamilton, McKinsey & Company, SRI, and a handful of others.
The names I assign each level are:
- Pigeons, the flocks of consultancies pecking for anything that will sustain them
- Azure-chip consultants, the myriad of good enough firms that pontificate on everything from Amazon AWS to Zulu refugee buying preferences in South Africa
- Blue-chip consultants, the Big Leagues of professional consulting and advisory services.
Some observations are warranted, at least to my way of thinking:
- Blue-chip consulting firms once marketed via word of mouth, repeat business, and sponsoring awards like the original McKinsey payoff for the “best” Harvard Business Review article. Sorry, BCG, McKinsey aced you out there. SEO is definitely a winner for some like Twitch or YouTube luminaries. (Why not retain Dr. Disrespect to build an audience for BCG’s services? He is available for promotional work at this time I believe?)
- The economic downturn appears to require scraping the dregs from the wine barrel for sales leads. Yes, SEO, the better way. Forget the white papers, the speeches, and the thought leadership. It is apparently short cut time.
- The larger issue is that desperation marketing seems to be okay for a once-prestigious firm’s management team. The use of Connor Hayes-type intellects to get me to point to a formerly respected consulting firm is either the sign of a Ted Kaczynski-type thought process or stupid.
Net Net: The fact that BCG appears to endorse and desire SEO backlinks is more evidence of a decline within the ranks of top-tier consulting firms’ marketing and PR methods.
PS.
Connor Hayes, as you progress in your SEO career, why not get ManyVids or TikTok influencers to promote BCG? Let me know when you become a partner, please.
Stephen E Arnold, July 27, 2020
A New Corporate Metric for the Rona Era: Cry for Happy
July 24, 2020
Businesses are all about numbers and how to make them higher or lower. These numbers determine whether or not a business succeeds or fails. Among these numbers, however, you will hardly find anything related to employee satisfaction. That could change says Livemint in the article, “Former Colors CEO Launches Happiness Quotient Tool For Corporates.”
The happiness quotient was developed by former CEO of Viacom18 Raj Nayak, who now heads House of Cheer. Nayak’s company recently released the proprietary tool Happyness.me designed to measure the happiness of corporations and their employees. The tool works using:
“Using behavioral psychology, neuroscience, and data-analytics, with inputs from experts in the field, the tool developed in partnership with human insights company The Happiness Index, will be used to measure the happiness quotient within an organization and to provide customized solutions that empower leaders and inspire teams, the company said in a statement.”
The Happiness Index is a two year program that measures employees’ emotional wellbeing and mental state. The data will show companies how happy their employees are and hopefully, based off the information, will prioritize their health. The Happiness Index will gather data from eighty countries in twenty-three languages, then it will be processed with AI and machine learning.
As the workplace changes in the coming century, tracking employees’ happiness will make or break a company. Usually companies are not that interested in keeping their workers happy, so maybe enhancing the program with brain implants and substances will be the Happiness Index’s next upgrade.
Whitney Grace, July 24, 2020
Bloomberg on Trump and Twitter: News or Advice from Left Field?
June 1, 2020
I read “Twitter-Trump Spat Signals New Chapter for Social Media.” News, Dear Abby, or a wanna be consultant CxO memo? The write up has a news hook: “Twitter Inc. added a fact-check warning label to two of president’s posts about mail-in voting. In response, Trump threatened in a set of tweets Wednesday to “strongly regulate or close” down social-media platforms.”
What’s interesting about the write up is that the “news” story shoots into an interesting direction: Consulting and legal advice combined in one “real news” story:
Now, with another presidential election just months away, they made a calculated gamble that it was time to take a stand. It will be hard to retreat from here. When the dust settles, Trump’s threats will likely be seen as political theater without any lasting ramifications for Twitter’s business. Technology companies will challenge the president’s executive order in court on the grounds he can’t unilaterally change precedent without Congressional approval.
Is this Bloomberg’s official position? Nah, that would imply accountability for using news as a platform for a well written blog type commentary. The “author” has an email address, but Bloomberg adds:
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Fascinating. “Real news” with advice, a slightly “annoyed parent” tone, and a disclaimer. Hey, we published this, but we are not really backing up the writer or the content. Are we on the “Verge” of a new type of “real news”?
There you go.
Stephen E Arnold, June 1, 2020
Booz Allen Wins Modest Contract
May 27, 2020
I used to labor in the Booz Allen & Hamilton vineyards. I noted “DOD lands major contract for war-fighting AI.” The headline is misleading. Booz Allen obtained from GSA a contract “to develop AI for warfighting operations.” The contract is in the $800 million range: Smaller than JEDI but bigger than many other contracts. Yo, the Booz does smart software. Wait for those scope changes, gentle reader.
Stephen E Arnold, May 27, 2020
Eliminalia: Reputation Management and Content Removal
March 12, 2020
One of our readers called our attention to a company called Eliminalia. This firm provides what DarkCyber considers reputation management services. The unique selling proposition for the firm is that it says that it can achieve results quickly. DarkCyber does not have a firm position on the value of reputation management firms. The organizations or individuals who want content removed may feel a compelling need to modify history or take content corrective actions. Because removing content rests in the hands of a third party, often a large indexing company, getting attention and action can be a challenging job. Europa Press asserts that 24 percent of people and businesses want to have data about them removed from “the Internet.” We took a quick look at our files and located some information. Here’s a summary of points we found interesting.
Plus, the firm asserts:
We are the first to guarantee the results or we will refund your money. We will give an answer to your doubts and needs. We will help you and advise you on a global level.
The firm adds:
We delete internet data and information and guarantee your right to be forgotten. Eliminalia is the leading company in the field which guarantees that the information that bothers and harms you is completely deleted from Internet search engines (Google, Bing, etc.), web portals, blogs..
The firm offers three videos on Vimeo. The most recent video is at https://vimeo.com/222670049 and includes this commentary:
Eliminalia is a renowned company with several world headquarters that protects online privacy and reputation of its customers, finding and removing negative contents from the Web.
There are several YouTube videos as well. These may be located at this link.
The company has offices in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Italy, Mexico, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
Eliminalia offers a mobile app for iPhones and Android devices.
The firm’s Web site asserts:
- 99% happy satisfied clients
- 8260+ success stories
- 3540 business clients.
The company states:
We delete your name from:
- Mass media
- State gazettes
- Social media
The president of Eliminalia is Dídac Sánchez. The company was founded in 2013. Crunchbase lists the date of the company’s founding as 2011.
There is an interesting, but difficult to verify, article about the Eliminalia process in “Why Is William Hill a Corporate Partner of Alzheimer’s Society?” The assertions about Eliminalia appear toward the end of the WordPress post. These can be located by searching for the term “Eliminalia.” One interesting item in the write up is that the Eliminalia business allegedly shares an address with World Intelligence Ltd. It is also not clear if Eliminalia is headquartered in Manchester at 53 Fountain Street. Note: the William Hill article includes other names allegedly associated with the company.
DarkCyber believes the company focuses on selling its services in countries with data protection regulations. The firm has a strong Spanish flavor.
If you are interested in having content removed from the Internet, consider speaking with Eliminalia. DarkCyber believes that some content can be difficult to remove. Requests for removal can be submitted. Some sites have a “removal request button” like www.accessify.com. However, there may be backlogs, bureaucracy, and indifference to requests which may be interpreted as trivial or nuisance. Some of our information revealed quite interesting information about the firm. DarkCyber can prepare a more robust summary of the company, including information about the methods used to remove content from the Internet.
Stephen E Arnold, March 12, 2020
An Uncanny Blind Alley
February 24, 2020
I subscribe to the dead tree edition of the New York Times. I spend less time with the expensive reminder of a bygone era than I did when I was an eager beaver working at a nuclear consulting company. One never knew when a hot event (no pun intended) would break like Three Mile Island.
Now to the New York Times Magazine, a pinnacle of content. Am I right? Clarity in titling, hard facts, and helpful analysis based on those facts. Am I right?
I read either “RE: Working the System. In an economy with few protections for employees, how do you gain power on the job? (Very Carefully)” or “the Young and the Restless. Generational consultants believe that Millennial and Gen Z professionals have different values—and that to recruit and keep them, companies need a whole new approach” or “Yaaass! We’re HIRING!”
Note: I think the the “them” in the second odd ball title refers to “employees”, not “values.” Well, maybe not? The notion of a title that makes sense is just sooo! OLD FASHIONED!
If you want to read the story which ran in the NYT Magazine, yep, Sunday”s graphically and bibliographically challenged NYT Magazine, hunt up the February 23, 2020 edition. The story appeared on February 19, 2020, at this paywalled link of which the NYT is quite proud. Note: To keep subscribers, why not put the story online after the dead tree customers receive the newspaper? Oh, right. It’s a generational thing.
Now to the write up.
As soon as I saw the graphics, which continue to baffle me because my mobile phone does not present information in the manner depicted, I thought of Amy Wiener’s best selling book Uncanny Valley, published either by Macmillan Publishers or Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Yep, another outfit which worries not about useless trivia like bibliographic references. You can buy a copy, which I recommend, at a Barnes & Noble if there’s one left in your neighborhood, Google Play, Kobo (what? who?) and the Bezos bulldozer’s book store and policeware company.
The NYT Magazine’s approach lacks three characteristics of Ms. Wiener’s book.
First, the humor in the NYT Magazine missed its mark with me. I was not sure if “phigital” was a joke or a real-live word used in the Big Apple. For me, the jury’s out or hung.
Second, the examples used to characterize the different “generations” identified in the article struck me as outliers. Ms. Wiener offered context. Consider the NYT example of a person who wanted a day off and lied about the death of a relative. When the boss found out, it was like you really sort of okay. (I would not advise trying this approach at Bain, BCG, Booz Allen, or McKinsey when a deadline is fast approaching.) Not funny, by the way, that death lie.
Third, the author who lets me know that he/she is a member of one of these generations learned how to do term papers, not write in a manner as compelling as Ms. Wiener’s. There are references to hot consulting firms like GenGuru and academic-sounding books like “The Remix: How to Lead and Succeed in the Multigenerational Workplace,” and presumably validated statistics. For instance, I did not know nor do I necessarily believe that Gen Zers live below the poverty line. I thought this members of this group live with their parents or used the old fogies as a meatware infused automatic teller machines. Source of the number? Nope. Sample size? Nope. Context of the survey? Nope. Oh, well, it is the New York Times. “Yaaass!”
Now don’t get me wrong. DarkCyber reads, filters, and pays attention to a wide range of content. This particular article struck the team as an attempt to ride the interest in Ms. Wiener’s book, who writes for the often highly regarded New Yorker Magazine. That outfit usually uses one title on an article and restrains absolutely too-hip graphics professionals from creating an article with three possible titles for librarians and the wizards at Google to index. And the colors? Don’t rev DarkCyber’s engines, please.
Several observations:
- Originality is a useful characteristic of some writing. Would this ingredient be useful at the NYT? Maybe less “Yaaass”?
- Quasi clever is okay on a blog or a TikTok video. Maybe not so much in the Gray Lady’s venerable magazine? Techno-viral fluency? Less “Yaaass”?
- The graphics consume more space than the article itself. Maybe three pages of content, data, and analysis. Maybe less “Yaaass”?
DarkCyber noted this statement in the article:
“Until, that is, these generations start to see the forest and not just the trees.”
Trees become wood pulp and some facilitate the dead tree NYT’s goals.
Stephen E Arnold, February 24, 2020
The Platform of the Future Is…
August 2, 2019
What’s the platform of the future? Here are your choices:
[a] Artificial intelligence
[b] Neuro linguistic services
[c] Silicon brain implants connected to the cloud
[d] Indexing
[e] Pay to play content.
Did you pick “d”: Indexing.
If you did, you are on the same wavelength as the rock and roll, up and down advisory and analyst firm IDC.
The pronouncement comes from Stewart Bond, research director at IDC Research Inc. (Note: DarkCyber has written reports for IDC. The firm sold these reports on Amazon without DarkCyber’s permission, and IDC did not pay for the use of the DarkCyber reports. How much were our reports? $3,200 for eight pages of goodness? Want to know more? Drop us an email: darkcyber333 at yandex dot com.)
This revelation appeared in Silicon Angle which presented a summary of an interview with IDC Research’s director. Other gems from the write up were:
Pre-existing silos and multicloud can give companies a lot of disparate spaces to scavenge through. The most sensible place to start may be with the available data about all that data — or metadata.
Yes, indexing, an art practiced for millennia.
We noted this statement:
Companies are realizing that poorly cleansed or inaccurately labeled data are resulting in inaccurate insights. And vendors are rushing to the rescue. The number of vendors offering cataloging solutions has increased about 240% in the last year and a half, according to Bond’s research.
Hmm. What’s the research methodology? Remember that IDC has generated some specious numbers in the past; for example, the amount of time a person in a company spends looking for information. DarkCyber is curious about this 18 month period, the sample, the methodology, and the reliability of the analytic process. A 2.4X increase is robust, particularly for indexing and the accompanying tasks embraced in the sweeping generalization.
And we put an exclamation mark next to this passage:
Multicloud has flung data all over the place. Effective software must have spider legs that can reach out and quickly gather intelligence about it. Data cataloging may do this with machine learning, human annotation, Google-like search features, etc. “I think that’s going to be the data platform of the future,” Bond stated. Informatica Corp. currently leads in this market, according to Bond.
Okay, flinging data all over the place. Colorful. We also noted that Informatica Corp. is the leader in “this market.” Exactly what market are we thinking about. Google, search, cloud—what, which?
Keep in mind that Informatica has been around since 1993, and it has grown to about $1 billion a year in revenue. Impressive when compared to the local tire store, but a bit behind the curve when it comes to data. Amazon in the last quarter generated about $8 billion. Annualized Amazon is about 32X bigger than Informatica. Who will win in the cloud cataloging game? Informatica? Sure it will.
But why the love for Informatica? One possibility is that Informatica is a client or prospect of IDC. That’s an idea worth considering.
And where did this “indexing” pronouncement appear? In Silicon Angle. Here’s the explanation which appeared with the IDC research director’s startling insight:
SiliconANGLE Media Inc.’s business model is based on the intrinsic value of the content, not advertising. Unlike many online publications, we don’t have a paywall or run banner advertising, because we want to keep our journalism open, without influence or the need to chase traffic.The journalism, reporting and commentary on SiliconANGLE — along with live, unscripted video from our Silicon Valley studio and globe-trotting video teams at theCUBE — take a lot of hard work, time and money. Keeping the quality high requires the support of sponsors who are aligned with our vision of ad-free journalism content. If you like the reporting, video interviews and other ad-free content here, please take a moment to check out a sample of the video content supported by our sponsors, tweet your support, and keep coming back to SiliconANGLE.
DarkCyber interprets this information as a way to make “sponsored” content less front and center.
“Indexing” is a sure fire way to generate buzz for a consulting company and maybe, just maybe, some revenue from sponsored video for Silicon Angle.
The video is here.
Stephen E Arnold, August 2, 2019
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