Thought Leaders Thought Lead: Better Late Than Never
September 8, 2020
I read “Scale Digital Technologies to Thrive in New Reality: KPMG.” This document is what I would characterize as a “thought leader piece.” The idea is that consulting firms have to give the impression that their sales pitches are in step with most business thought just a tiny bit ahead. Then the thought leader becomes an expert on the subject and can use that perception to sell consulting work. The method has worked since the efficiency studies of Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Gnostic message of the buggy whip case study.
This particular blue chip consulting firm output tackles the importance of being digital by Oscar Obvious Wilde, who wears upscale casual clothing, has a family confident in its wealth and connections, and a day time TV star smile. What’s not to like?
The write up states:
Improved decision-making is the top criteria for investments in emerging technologies…More than 90 per cent of companies are investing across emerging technologies as enterprises believe more in combined use of emerging technologies.
I think this means invest to make better decisions. Don’t worry about silver bullet technologies. Combine technologies.
Let’s go back to “what’s not to like”.
Sticking or combining technologies together is not magnetic. Two magnets will either snap together or push one another away. Now dump 12 magnets on the table and push them together. What happens? That’s tough to predict, so one has to be prepared to run tests, then fit the data to a pattern.
Does that sound like a sure fire way to spend a lot of time without having a result on which one can depend?
Yep, that’s the purpose of being a thought leader. Sell time and services. Does the approach create improved decision making. Sometimes. The client learns to be less accepting of some experts’ pronouncements.
Transformation can be hard and digital ones can be harder if we are not bold to question the status quo. It is a reboot/reset moment for all of us. We either ride the wave or get drowned.
There is an alternative, particularly for firms which embraced digital solutions years ago. Another option is to stay out of the water. Not everyone wants to be a surfer writing big checks.
Stephen E Arnold, September 8, 2020
Intel Code Names: Horse Feathers, Horse Collars, and Fancy Dancing
September 3, 2020
Intel loves code names. And what a knack for coinages? Pentium. What’s not to like. I noted this item last year (2019) I believe:
Intel, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy, Argonne National Laboratory, and Cray, is building the nations first Exascale supercomputer. By accelerating the convergence of high performance computing and artificial intelligence, Exascale supercomputing will advance scientific research and enable breakthroughs in neuroscience and cancer research, aerospace modeling and simulation, and theoretical research of our universe. The Aurora system will be based on the future generation of the Intel® Scalable Processor, the future Intel® Xeon® compute architecture, the next generation Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory, and supported by Intel’s One API software.
Note the word choice: Convergence, high performance, artificial intelligence, Exascale, super computing, modeling, simulation, theoretical research, scalable, Optane, and One API.
Do I have a problem with this English major with a minor in marketing writing? Nah. Makes zero difference to me. We switched to Ryzen 3950X silicon. Workin’ just fine.
However, the venerable New York Times published “Intel Slips, and a High Performance Supercomputer Is Delayed.” That write up stated:
Intel, the last big US company that both designs and makes microprocessors, signaled in July that it might for the first time use foundries owned by other companies to make some cutting edge chips.
Now it’s September, and how is Intel doing?
Not too well. The Argonne Aurora supercomputer is delayed. Chinese computer scientists rejoice.
Is this Intel stumble important?
Yes, buzzwords and MBA speak cannot disguise the fact that Intel cannot deliver on time and on target. But, wow, Intel can spin fancy phrases; for example, Optane as in “Argonne can Optane its supercomputer.”
Another Covid moment?
Stephen E Arnold, September 3, 2020
No Return of the JEDI for Amazon
August 31, 2020
i read “Conflict of Interest? We’ve Heard of It. AWS on Selection Panel to Choose UK.gov’s Chief Digi [sic] Officer.” The main point of the article, which I assume is accurate, is that AWS UK top dog Doug Gurr will sit on a committee responsible for choosing the UK’s next chief digital officer. The Register article provides links and contextual information. Helpful.
However, the write up does not address what DarkCyber’s research team is the reason for the SugarDaddy.com approach to providing input. Is it possible that Amazon’s top dogs remember the significant and somewhat humiliating defeat delivered right between the eyes of the tag team of Jeff Bezos and Teresa Carlson, world’s richest human and former head of Microsoft governmental sales respectively?
Losing that work has already had a negative impact on Amazon’s policeware business and dims its hoped for incursions into adjacent services; for example, processing IRS tax returns to identify possibly fraudulent claims. Microsoft has had the original idea of stepping up competitive pressure in Middle Eastern countries which AWS has worked hard to move to these nation states’ technological futures. Yikes.
Net net: Amazon is doing what it can to make sure there will be no return of the JEDI.
Stephen E Arnold, August 31, 2020
Xoogler Awakes to a Reality: How about That?
August 30, 2020
Navigate to “Eric Schmidt: China Could Be AI’s Superpower If We Don’t Act Now.” The point of the write up seems to be to overlook the obvious. Mr. Schmidt was the “adult” at Google. He is now the technical advisor to the board of Alphabet where he was formerly the executive chairman. As executive chairman, he was responsible for the external matters of all of the holding company’s businesses, including Google Inc., advising their CEOs and leadership on business and policy issues.
Based on the information in the article, he seems to be going into full pundit mode.
Google and China. Advisor to Alphabet’s Board. Yep, telling the US China could be a leader in artificial intelligence. Perfect for 2020, a year of novelties.
I want to point out that an AI hot spot in China is Tsinghua University. This means that if the information in “Tsinghua University Plans to Open AI Research Center in China, Names Google’s AI Chief as Advisor” is accurate, Mr. Schmidt may want to focus on sending his message directly to Google.
The interview is just about as 2020 as Palantir’s insistence that it is not a Silicon Valley type outfit.
Yes, 2020. A good year for insights and interesting information.
Oh, Jeff Dean? He’s one of the serious engineers at the Google. BigTable, Chubby, and more, particularly in the smart software realm. Perhaps he is advising Tsinghua University on recipes, once an interest of the person who may be the smartest Googler in the collection of wizards.
This AI thing. Is Google helping out China in its AI efforts? Good question. Maybe a Sillycon Valley journalist will do some investigative reporting? Nah, it’s 2020. Redefine reality.
Stephen E Arnold, August 30, 2020
Zero Search Results = Useful Information
August 26, 2020
I saw a notice for a conference called “Activate.” Zippy title. What caught my attention was the title of a talk; specifically, “Implementing a Deep Learning Search Engine.” The technology appears to be the open source Solr search system. As you know, dig into Solr and what do you find? Lucene. The hay day of enterprise search has gone. Perhaps another harvest will come? But after the implosion of the promises made by Fulcrum, Verity, Autonomy, Fast, Convera, and Entopia, I am not sure search has credibility.
Don’t get me wrong. Search is a major part of companies; for example, Salesforce bought Diffeo, which was an interesting search system. Elastic is, of course, the commercial firm selling support for the open source Elasticsearch system. There are unusual systems as well; for example, the quirky Qwant, which has some Pertimm inside.
But consider this description of the talk for the Activate conference delivered by two wizards (well, maybe apprentice wizards) from the Lucidworks outfit:
Recent advances in Deep Learning brings us the possibility to get improvements in almost any domain. Search Engines aren’t an exception. Semantic search, visual search, “zero results” queries, recommendations, chatbots etc. – this is just a shortlist of topics that can benefit from Deep Learning based algorithms. But more powerful methods are also more expensive, so they require addressing the variety of scalability challenges. In this talk, we will go through details of how we implement Deep Learning Search Engine at Lucidworks: what kind of techniques we use to train robust and efficient models as well as how we tackle scalability difficulties to get the best query time performance. We will also demo several use-cases of how we leverage semantic search capabilities to tackle such challenges as visual search and “zero results” queries in eCommerce.
Three points:
- Deep learning is one of those buzzwords that recyclers of open source technology slap on a utility function like search. What search vendor does not include smart software, semantics, and more Gartner-infused techno babble? Not many.
- Short cuts for training smart software for machine learning is indeed important. However, the approach which strikes me as interesting is the one taken by the ever-pragmatic AWS system pushed along by the Bezos bulldozer. AWS wants to make training a matter of buying commodity solutions of data off the shelf. Presumably the approach works like one of those consumer soap tablets I have seen in our local grocery store. Buy, rip, and wash. Bingo! Clean ML. Grubbing in data is time consuming, expensive, and oh-so-easy to get wrong.
- The goal of “zero results” in eCommerce or any other domain is not exactly a challenge. Zero results deliver data. I know that an objective system displays only the objects matching my query. Not any longer. Synonym expansion, predictive analytics, clustering, and other numerical processes are going to show me something. Too bad that the “something” is usually not what I want.
- For special cases like ecommerce, instead of a list of crazy options, why not ask the user, “Do you want to see what products other people purchased when searching for X?” Choice is sometimes helpful.
Is this important? To me, yes. To most others, no.
The problem with making information easy is everywhere today. From individuals who disbelieve verifiable information like the earth is spheroid to the wisdom of demanding no law enforcement. Yeah, that will work.
Some quick facts to put this Lucidworks’ assertion in perspective. The company has ingested more than $209 million since 2007. I did some advice giving to the first president of Lucidworks, then called Lucid Imagination. I did some advice giving for another semi-lucid president. None of that advice resonated because recycling jargon does not generate sustainable revenues.
The point is that jazzy words and crazy ideas like “zero results” are bad are part of the problem search vendors face. Today’s search systems have drifted from displaying results which match a user’s query to dumping baloney on the display.
It is easier to yip yap with buzzwords that deal with some of the painful realities of information retrieval. Deep learning? Yeah, that will help the person locate that PowerPoint… not.
Stephen E Arnold, August 26, 2020
Gartner Group: Planning Its Next Generation of Marketing Pitches
August 25, 2020
If you are a fan of Gartner, a mid-tier consulting firm, you will want to navigate to “Gartner Hype-Cycle Adds 20+ New Technologies.” Now the “new” part interests me. Examples include:
- AI-assisted design (maybe Eli Attia’s method or Google’s approach?)
- Biodegradable sensors
- Differential privacy (like having one work mobile and one personal mobile?)
- Composable enterprise (I have zero clue what this means)
- Health passports (like a receipt for passage to Poveglia (a Plague Island in 1793?)
- Social distancing technologies.
The write up reports:
Trust models based on responsible authorities are being replaced by algorithmic trust models to ensure privacy and security of data, source of assets and identity of individuals and things. Algorithmic trust helps to ensure that organizations will not be exposed to the risk and costs of losing the trust of their customers, employees and partners. Emerging technologies tied to algorithmic trust include secure access service edge (SASE), differential privacy, authenticated provenance, bring your own identity, responsible AI and explainable AI.
When will AI create the Gartner hype cycle? Will use of that technology generate “trust”? Gobble down a biodegradable sensor and social distance. The future of consulting is … no human consultants. That might be a step forward? Come to think of it. An AI generating a hype chart might actually use numbers and data, not opinions of those good enough to work at a mid tier consulting firm.
Stephen E Arnold, August 25, 2020
IBM: A New PR Direction without Recipes and TV Game Shows?
August 18, 2020
IBM appears to be shifting its marketing in an interesting way. IBM announced its Power10 chips. Representative of the coverage is Forbes’ Magazine’s “IBM POWER10 Mega Chip For Hybrid Cloud Is Revealed.” The write up is not written by Forbes’ staff. The article is from an outfit called Tirias Research, a member of a contributor group. I am not sure what a contributor group is. The article seems like marketing speak to me, but you judge for yourself. Here’s a snippet:
To handle the ever more complex cloud workloads, the POWER10 improves capacity (socket throughput) and efficiency by about 3x over the POWER9. The energy efficiency gains were critical because IBM increased CPU core count over the POWER9 but kept the socket power roughly the same. All in all, the POWER10 big step forward for the architecture.
Next, I noticed write ups about IBM’s mainframe business. Navigate to “COBOL Still Handles 70% of Global Business Transactions.” The content strikes me as a recycling of IBM-prepared visuals. Here’s an example of the “analysis” and “news” in the article about the next big future:
Several observations:
- It was not that long ago that IBM was touting IBM Watson as capable of matching pets with potential owners. Now IBM is focusing on semiconductors and “workhorse” mainframes
- There are chips using technology more advanced than IBM’s 7 and 14 nanometer chips. Like Intel, IBM makes no reference to manufacturing techniques which may offer more advantages. That’s understandable. But three nanometer fabs are approaching, and IBM appears to be following, not leading.
- The cheerleading for hybrid clouds is different from cheerleading for “the cloud.” Has IBM decided that its future pivots on getting companies to build data centers and hire IBM to maintain them.
The craziness of the state unemployment agencies with COBOL based systems is fresh in my mind. For me, emphasizing the dependence of organizations upon COBOL is interesting. This statement caught my attention:
COBOL still handle [sic] more than 70% of the business transactions that take place in the world today.
Is this a good thing? Are Amazon, Microsoft, and Google embracing mainframes? My hunch is that companies are unable to shift from legacy systems. Inertia, not innovation, may be creating what some people seeking unemployment benefits from COBOL-centric systems perceive as a dysfunctional approach.
Net net: At least IBM is not talking about recipes created by Watson.
Stephen E Arnold, August 18, 2020
Technology and New Normal Insights: What?
August 18, 2020
I read “10 Insights for the New Normal.” Remarkable. The essay was a product of IT Pro Portal and a marketing consulting firm doing business as BrandCap. What’s the connection between the new normal (which means the Rona Era) and technology? That’s is a very good question. Let’s look at three of these “insights”. I urge you to devour the remaining seven in the source document. Before I take a quick look at what I think are the the most interesting in the list of 10, I want to point out that I am not sure what “normal” means. The world is jagged, according to The End of Average. My hunch is that “normal” is a word selected because the people who read about socio-techno analysis in IT Pro Portal are “normal.” Is that a fair assumption? I will leave it to you, gentle reader, to answer this question.
Insights 1, 2, and 3 are essentially the same insight. Humans want to continue their lives in a pre-Rona manner. The new normal is the Rona Era. The third insight is that people want to get back to the pre-Rona normal. There you go. Hegel for Dummies.
Insight 6 is “Every day is like a Sunday afternoon.” I must admit this had me baffled. I then realized that I have continued to operate in the same way as I have for the last 52 years of my professional life. I don’t count years 1 to 22 when I was in college as “professional.” Moments were, maybe. But Sunday afternoon. Consider this explanation of the insight:
As lockdown stretched on and has now evolved, one of the most difficult aspects of life at home has been the sameness…Brands have an opportunity to surprise and delight through enabling the discovery of new products and experiences, both within the home and outside as people become more comfortable with the easing of restrictions.
Surprise and delight? I ordered an HDMI switch from Amazon. I was neither surprised nor delighted.
Insight 9 is a logical delight. Consider this trend: “Staying connected and disconnected.” I recall w somewhat quirky PhD in psychology whom I honestly believed was nuts telling me that schizophrenia is a mental disorder presenting itself in actions and speech that is disordered or hallucinatory. Some context may be helpful. This “wizard” and I were on numerous flights to work on a client engagement. Each flight this PhD would ask me, “Why do you wear maroon ties?” I explained that at 5 am I knew I could find a suitable tie to wear with my blue or gray suit in an efficient way. He then asked me on each flight for the next nine months, “Why do you wear maroon ties?” Which of us was crazier: Efficient me or the board certified whatever who asked the same question repeatedly?
I think I understand. One is working alone in a home office. The mobile phone only buzzes softly. The email notification is muted. Others — humanoids and allegedly domesticated animals — on the other side of a closed door. Alone yet connected. Disconnected yet reachable. The “trend” is explained this way:
The temptation for brands will be to tap into the national acceptance of on-screen comms, but brands should also be aware of the need to step away from screens and not attempt to interfere when people are disconnected.
This weekend I received three spam emails from a company which sold me three bars of an alleged French bar soap. Each email had no reference to my two previous emails sent to an entity known to me as LuckyVitamin.com. Three bars of soap and a dozen spam messages. Yep, that’s a trend. LuckyBrand.com obviously did not get the messages about the connected and disconnected paradox.
Net net: The outfit IT Pro Portal is running content marketing or search engine optimization content either intentionally (okay, I understand money) or unintentionally (yeah, that falls into the LuckyVitamin.com basket of mental behavior). A trend article might want to heed this definition:
the general course or prevailing tendency.
Self-referential statements, paradoxes, and brand awareness are not trends; these are examples of zeitgeist.
Stephen E Arnold, August 18, 2020
TikTok: Exploiting, Exploited, or Exploiter?
August 12, 2020
I read “TikTok Tracked Users’ Data with a Tactic Google Banned.” [Note: You will have to pay to view this article. Hey, The Murdoch outfit has to have a flow of money to offset its losses from some interesting properties, right?]
The write up reveals that TikTok, the baffler for those over 50, tricked users. Those lucky consumers of 30 second videos allegedly had one of their mobile devices ID numbers sucked into the happy outfit’s data maw. Those ID numbers — unlike the other codes in mobile devices — cannot be changed. (At least, that’s the theory.)
What can one do with a permanent ID number? Let us count some of the things:
- Track a user
- Track a user
- Track a user
- Obtain information to pressure a susceptible person into taking an action otherwise not considered by that person?
I think that covers the use cases.
The write up states with non-phone tap seriousness, a business practice of one of the Murdoch progeny:
The identifiers collected by TikTok, called MAC address, are most commonly used for advertising purposes.
Whoa, Nellie. This here is real journalism. A MAC address is shorthand for “media access control.” I think of the MAC address as a number tattooed on a person’s forehead. Sure, it can be removed… mostly. But once a user watches 30-second videos and chases around for “real” information on a network, that unique number can be used to hook together otherwise disparate items of information. The MAC is similar to one of those hash codes which allow fast access to data in a relational structure or maybe an interest graph. One can answer the question, “What are the sites with this MAC address in log files?” The answer can be helpful to some individuals.
There are some issues bubbling beneath the nice surface of the Murdoch article; for example:
- Why did Google prohibit access to a MAC address, yet leave a method to access the MAC address available to those in the know? (Those in the know include certain specialized services support US government agencies, ByteDance, and just maybe Google. You know Google. That is the outfit which wants to create a global seismic system using every Android device who owner gives permission to monitor earthquakes. Yep, is that permission really needed? Ho, ho, ho.)
- What vendors are providing MAC address correlations across mobile app content and advertising data? The WSJ is chasing some small fish who have visited these secret data chambers, but are there larger, more richly robust outfits in the game? (Yikes, that’s actually going to take more effort than calling a university professor who runs a company about advertising as a side gig. Effort? Yes, not too popular among some “real” Murdoch reporters.)
- What are the use cases for interest graphs based on MAC address data? In this week’s DarkCyber video available on Facebook at this link, you can learn about one interesting application: Targeting an individual who is susceptible to outside influence to take an action that individual otherwise would not take. Sounds impossible, no? Sorry, possible, yes.
To summarize, interesting superficial coverage but deeper research was needed to steer the writing into useful territory and away from the WSJ’s tendency to drift closer to News of the World-type information. Bad TikTok, okay. Bad Google? Hmmmm.
Stephen E Arnold, August 12, 2020
Cognitive Data What? More Off-the-Wall Research Report Marketing
August 10, 2020
Endlessly floundering, endlessly annoying is this report: “Cognitive Data Management Market Outlook and Deep Study of Top Key Players are Veritas, Wipro, Datum, Reltio, Talend, HPE, Oracle, Saksoft, Snaplogic, Strongbox Data Solutions, Immuta, Attivio, Sparkcognition, Expert System.” If you are looking to buy the info equivalent of the Brooklyn Bridge, contact Data Bridge Market Research at this link. What’s in this gem? For one thing, there is the line up of companies which are not exactly in the same businesses. I suppose one can make a case that Hewlett Packard Enterprise is in the Cognitive Data Management market, but I think HPE had a bit of trouble with the Autonomy acquisition. Since then, HPE has been in court, not in cognitive data management unrelated to the billion dollar misstep. Expert System? Doesn’t that outfit do Made-in-Italy semantic technology? And Attivio? That’s a search company which dabbles in other sectors in order to generate revenue. Not exactly an Oracle in DarkCyber’s opinion.
The report states:
Cognitive Data Management Market was valued at USD 524.8 million in and is expected to reach USD 1,643.2 million in, growing at a healthy CAGR of 30.1% for the forecast period of 2020 to 2025. Global Cognitive Data Management Market, By Component (Solutions and Service), Business Function (Operations, Sales & Marketing, Finance, Legal, Human Resource), Deployment Type (On-Premises, Cloud), Vertical (BFSI, Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals, Manufacturing, Telecom, IT, Media, Government & Legal Services, Others), Geography (North America, South America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa)– Industry Trends and Forecast to 2025.
In the world of SEO, this is a form of keyword stuffing. Maybe one will work, so this outfit stops the crazy marketing. One wishes and hopes, doesn’t one?
The most interesting facet of the write up is the list of companies with which the firms listed above compete:
- Cognizant
- IBM
- Informatica
- Infosys
- Microsoft
- Salesforce
- SAP SE
- SAS
If these are competitors, why aren’t these outfits analyzed in the report?
DarkCyber enjoyed this sentence:
An absolute way to forecast what future holds is to comprehend the trend today! Data Bridge set forth itself as an unconventional and neoteric Market research and consulting firm with unparalleled level of resilience and integrated approaches.
Sounds good, particularly “neoteric”, which if I remember my Latin means “new”, maybe “innovative.” Colloquially, I interpret the word to mean horse feathers, baloney, or crapola. But, hey, I live in rural Kentucky.
DarkCyber finds these “absolute way” market reports quite amusing. No, we are not purchasing a copy. I don’t know what a cognitive data management market is. But I do know loose nuts and bolts in a 1955 Oldsmobile Super 88.
Stephen E Arnold, August 8, 2020
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