Month: August 2019

A Tidy-up leads to ‘Privacy Rebellion’…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI & Robotics, Climate & Environment, Digital devices and the environment, Education, Internet of Things, Privacy and Surveillance, Uncategorized

The Badger’s performed a much overdue tidy-up of his home office and more mementoes, defunct gadgets, old books, reports, and papers were found than anticipated. It started as a quick tidy-up but morphed into an archeological dig that triggered fond memories and wonderment. It’s amazing what accumulates in nooks and crannies!

Three things of note found were a 1999 Company Annual Report, an associated 1999 slide set from the company Leadership Conference, and a Palm Pilot from the same era. Tidy-up progress slowed while the Badger read the Report and the slides because in 1999 the company was a market leader in SMS and data transmission to mobile phones, and part of the slide set covered the future of mobile phones. Today, 20 years later, the company doesn’t exist, and the Badger’s smartphone hugely exceeds the vision painted in the slides. It reminded the Badger that company’s come and go and just how much information and mobile technology has changed our lives. And the Palm Pilot? Well the dust was wiped off…and it still works! The Badger’s wife wants these items to be recycled, but they’ve just been moved from the office to a nook and cranny in the garage. She doesn’t know this yet!

During a short break in the tidy-up, the Badger’s wife sighed philosophically and commented that ‘Technology has driven lots of good in the last 100 years, but the negatives have always been down-played until they’re blindingly obvious and cause everyone to run around demanding change. In the next 20 years it’ll be the same in the digital world.’ She elaborated a little with ‘Oil, nuclear, cars, planes, antibiotics, plastic, and palm oil have advanced our lives, but it’s only recently that everyone’s realised their impacts are unsustainable. People are fickle, it’ll be no different with AI.’

A fair point perhaps? The Badger nodded playfully and added that ‘data’ was the future critical commodity, and that there could be a ‘privacy rebellion’ when the general public fully appreciate that the conveniences provided by the Internet of Things and AI could mean the current concept of a private life disappears. Impish speculation, of course, but items about voice recordings (here, here and here) and facial recognition (here and here) just illustrate the need to be wary of what goes on behind the tech in our homes or on the street.

So, there you have it – a tidy-up leads to the prospect of a ‘privacy rebellion’. Why not have an office or man-cave tidy-up of your own? It’s therapeutic, you’ll reminisce, you’ll find gadgets you didn’t know you had, and it could even spark a philosophical discussion with your partner about the future. But best of all…you might get brownie points from your partner for recycling, even if you’re really just moving things from one nook and cranny to another…

Quiz night, ‘What 3 Words’, and is tech solving problems that aren’t really problems?

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Digital devices and the environment, Education, Internet of Things, Privacy and Surveillance, social media, Uncategorized

The following questions were asked during a quiz night at the Badger’s local Public House:

Who said ‘If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions’?

What geolocation mechanism can locate you anywhere in the world to a 3mx3m square?

The Badger’s team got the answer to the first one right, Albert Einstein, but we got the second one wrong. Our answer was GPS, but the quiz master said the answer was ‘What 3 Words’ – which you can find out about here and here and a specific example of its use here. The Badger’s team complained loudly, but to no effect. Why? Because it transpired the quiz master is a fan of the ‘What 3 Words’ smartphone app. Although the Badger’s team were not quiz night winners, the Einstein and ‘What 3 Words’ answers triggered a subsequent lively debate over rather more post-quiz beverages than prudent!

The debate centred on ‘Is tech increasingly solving problems that aren’t really problems?’. One team member cited digital number plates on cars (see here and here) as an example of something motivated only by making money. They speculated the ‘solution’ had been invented in 5 minutes and that 55 minutes had then been spent trying to invent the problem it was trying to solve. A reversal of Einstein’s wise words! Another team member was adamant that ‘What 3 Words ‘ is unnecessary given GPS is routinely part of modern smartphones. The Badger’s contribution to the debate was simply this. Entrepreneurs will always have ideas for making money, marketeers will always try to persuade us we need their solution to solve a problem or inconvenience we didn’t know we had, and we should never take tech at face value and always understand what’s happening to our data if we want our private lives to be just that…private.

Oiled by the beverages, the debate boisterously descended into a game that invented amusing word combinations, aka ‘What 3 Words’, for the location of well-known landmarks. For example, orange.ballon.home and wooden.plank.palace were proposed for the entrances to the US White House and UK Houses of Parliament, respectively! Eventually seriousness returned, and we concluded that tech should focus on solving the real problems of life and the planet, and not things that make us lazy or mean we don’t need to learn for ourselves or take personal responsibility for our actions.

At the end of the night all the team got up to leave except for one individual who said they’d stay to be like Einstein and spend 55 minutes thinking about a problem – whether they could actually get up to leave – even though they’d already thought of a solution – to just stay at single.malt.whiskey and have another drink. Did we laugh…just a bit…

‘A flock of corporate seagulls arriving from abroad’…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Education, IT Project Management, Uncategorized

Periodically the Badger catches up with the BOFH column in The Register. It’s a longstanding, insightful and amusing column, and if you’ve worked in IT you’ll relate to the content no matter what your role. A piece from a year ago relating to the arrival and manipulation of auditors has triggered the Badger to start thinking about his own audit and review experiences. That thinking, however, as been interrupted by a call from an ex-colleague in a tizz because their project was to be reviewed by a ‘flock of corporate seagulls arriving from abroad’. The Badger simply recounted the following to establish some calm.

Many years ago, the Badger’s employer was a subcontractor to a US IT prime contractor running a £500m UK IT programme. Prime and subcontractor teams were largely co-located, but relationship, commercial and cultural tensions meant things were difficult. One day the prime’s Programme Director announced that three ‘experts’ from his US head office were flying in to conduct an ‘audit’ to help improve matters. The Badger was to be interviewed during the audit.

The one-hour interview happened 48 hours later. The visitor spent 20 minutes emphasising his seniority, experience, and that he had a direct line to the US CEO, the next 35 minutes asking questions from a standard checklist, and the last 5 minutes double checking he hadn’t missed any. The Badger was unimpressed, but pleased. Why? Because the auditor did 75% of the talking!

Three days later the audit team fed back to the prime’s Programme Director and subcontractor leads in a sparky meeting. Their message? Fix non-compliances with company policies and processes and all would be resolved. No one believed it! The Programme Director openly called them ‘valueless seagulls flying in to get the airmiles and to crap on my team’. The Badger might have been a smidgen more diplomatic, but not much. The auditors said they’d report him to the US CEO! They did. Nothing happened. Their final report was shelved.

The Badger took this from the experience. If you’re interviewed by a ‘corporate seagull’ you’ve never met, then assess if they’re any good in real-time during the interview itself. It’s easy to do. Don’t be in awe. Watch for an ego, the priority given to structure and process, listen closely, and stay silent as much as possible. Only answer the questions you’re asked – don’t embellish, elaborate or offer opinion. You’ll quickly see that a poor seagull will focus on the interview process or themselves and not you or your tactics. A good seagull, however, will quickly see you as a challenge, dynamically adjust their approach, and try to run off with your chips! Stay steadfast to your tactics in both cases.

The Badger’s ex-colleague called back this morning. They were disappointed. Why? They were expecting seagulls but what arrived were sparrows. Where’s the fun and value in that, they asked…