Author: The Information Badger

Untruth Social…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Conflict, Ethics & Regulation, Information Technology, Leadership, Opinion, social media

The Badger is not a journalist, a member of any political party, or a subscriber to any particular ideology. He’s just a member of the UK public whose blog normally avoids commenting on the pronouncements of the ‘global elites’ who recently gathered in Davos, Switzerland. Today is, however, an exception because President Trump’s recent utterances were an insulting word-salad where facts seemed irrelevant. Here are a few points from the Badger’s cogitation on the President’s various comments and positions.

The first point is that President Trump has been democratically elected and so we must assume that his policies and approach, whether domestic or foreign, have the support of the American people. The second is that he and this US administration are brutally ruffling feathers domestically in the US and internationally. The President has taken many positions to date that have validity, and many that don’t, but his bullying has changed how his country is viewed by the public beyond the USA’s shores forever.

The third point is that people in Europe feel that the USA is no longer a trusted ally. Trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair. President Trump’s utterances have broken that trust. No one trusts a Russian because of President Putin, and now no one trusts an American because of President Trump! The fourth point is that this elderly President’s utterances fully highlight a character with a need for personal attention, praise, admiration and that they are always right on everything. A President who publishes emails from the leaders of longstanding allies and asserts that the UK army was not ‘a frontline fighter’ in Afghanistan is, frankly, untrustworthy, and undeserving of anyone’s respect.

So, here’s the final point. The old adage ‘don’t get angry, get even’ seems apt. National governments recognise their relationship with the US has changed and that adapting to a new future will be challenging. Governments may be angry but getting even is much more difficult for them. Ordinary members of their public, however, have more power to get even than they realise. The US stock market is heavily dependent on the performance of tech stocks. If ordinary members of the public in Europe collectively stopped using social media and streaming services for just one week then the big US tech giants’ revenues would be hit. If everyone stopped using social media for one week every month then the hit would soon mount to a crisis. Investors avidly track engagement metrics, and so stock prices could drop sharply because if users aren’t scrolling, money-making ads aren’t being served. The market impact could be problematic for President Trump.

In a world dominated by social media, streaming, and online services, it’s worth remembering that ordinary people have more power in their hands to register displeasure than most realise. Perhaps it’s time to change our behaviour and wield that power…

Everyone has a story about their dealings with the NHS…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Consulting, Information Technology, Leadership, NHS, Processes and Practices, Technology

In 1948, UK households received a leaflet telling them they were entitled to free health care. The UK’s National Health Service (NHS), funded from general taxation, free at the point of delivery, and available to all based on clinical need rather than income, was born. The NHS still exists, but the way it is organised and care is delivered, has changed considerably. The government of the day sets its budget and spending has grown, on average, by 3.9% in real terms since the 1950s. The NHS is huge.  It prioritizes emergencies ahead of treatments which are not immediately necessary but are important for maintaining or improving a patient’s life. Waiting lists can thus be long and are something the NHS can use operationally to stay within financial constraints. They are currently high and only responding slowly to government initiatives, as this  3-minute video highlights. The public remains sceptical about whether improvements are real because they still encounter frustrations with their NHS interactions. The care received from NHS doctors and nurses is rated highly, but navigating ‘the system’ to get it can be irritatingly problematic.

Everyone has a story about dealing with the NHS. In May 2025, after more than a year waiting, an acquaintance had a day-surgery procedure with an overnight stay and discharge the following morning. They were told on discharge that they’d receive a follow-up clinic appointment by letter for 4 to 5 months’ time. This was also recorded on their formal discharge letter. Having heard nothing by the end of October, they phoned the relevant hospital department to enquire about the appointment. They were passed between different extensions and ultimately to an answerphone where they left an appropriate message and their contact details. Having heard nothing again by early December, they phoned again and were ultimately redirected to a different extension to leave a message on an answerphone! Again, nothing had happened by early January 2026, and so they sent an email to an address buried in their discharge notes. An email reply appeared within two hours saying that the appointments team had been asked to make an appointment. Since then, there’s been nothing!

Yesterday the acquaintance asked the Badger, ‘Given your service operations and IT experience, is this a symptom of a failing service?’ They added, ‘In the old days, I’d have been given a card with my clinic appointment on it on discharge before leaving the ward. Who’s to blame for replacing that for the woeful process of today?’  The Badger answered the first question with yes, and the second with ‘Blame rests with governments, NHS leaders, and the external management consultants whose advice rarely improves NHS efficiency.’  To the Badger’s surprise, his acquaintance, a retired management consultant, agreed fully and added ‘more technology won’t help unless these processes get sorted’. They have a point…

Have the lessons from the ‘Move fast and break things’ era really been learned?

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Change, Information Technology, Leadership, Risk, Technology, Transformation

The first quarter of the 21st century is complete, and so it seems appropriate to reflect on a period of continuously accelerating digital innovation that has transformed how people work, play, communicate, share information, and buy things. The technological change seen so far this century differs markedly to that experienced by previous generations. It’s been fast! Previous generations experienced the impact of technological change much more slowly. The technologies the Badger’s grandfather and great-grandfather were used to in their childhoods, for example, were still central to their lives in their old age. With subsequent generations, it’s become normal for the barely imaginable technologies of their youth to become commonplace in their later life. Just think, if your ancestors could spend a week with you today, most would be wide-eyed and speechless in awe at the digital technology you use!

Digital technology has driven significant changes in society in the last 25 years, and AI will be no different. In the last 25 years, the internet has become critical global infrastructure, and the advent of smartphones has blended communication, entertainment, photography, and productivity into a single, pocket-size, device. Personal and professional interactions have become dominated by email, instant messaging, and real-time video calls rather than paper, and the way we store, access and manage large amounts of data has moved from local, physical, items like high-capacity CDs, to ‘The Cloud’ where it can be accessed from anywhere at any time. Streaming for entertainment and the online purchasing of goods have become the norm, and cyber capabilities have become crucial for militaries and policing. And then, of course, there’s social media. Whether you love it or loathe it, it’s been an addictive disruptor of everything!

All this, and much more, has happened in barely 25 years. Our lives have become deeply entangled with digital technology and the world has become more unstable. While this instability can be attributed to economic, climate, pandemic, and geopolitical factors, the digital revolution has, in the Badger’s opinion, played a significant role in societal disruption. Why? Because the early Facebook philosophy of ‘Move fast and break things’ epitomised the ethos of the companies that are today’s tech giants, and ‘Silicon Valley’ as a whole. This ethos showed scant regard for the overall societal impact of what they produced. As we are now seeing, the societal, ethical, political, and human problems this ethos produces only really manifests itself many, many years later. With AI continuing the digital revolution in the second quarter of the 21st century, a good question to ask is this: have the lessons from the impact on society of the ‘Move fast and break things’ era been learned and applied in the AI world that will be transformational in the coming decades? AI gives enormous power to those who control it, and so the Badger thinks the answer to this question is obvious. You, however, may think differently…

AI – from ‘build, baby, build’ to ‘bust, baby, bust’?

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Business, Delivery, Information Technology, Leadership, Risk, Technology

Every Christmas/New Year period, the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme invites well known individuals to guest-edit the programme. Each guest focuses on a topic relevant to their interests, experience, and society. Two of the Christmas 2025 guests were inventor, engineer, and businessman Sir James Dyson and the AI pioneer and entrepreneur Mustafa Suleyman.  The Badger was driving to visit relatives on the days they were guest-editing. He had the Today programme on the radio as background noise on both occasions. He turned the volume up when each man was interviewed because they were intelligent, impressive, and articulate individuals conveying enormous common-sense and objectivity, characteristics which seem in short supply today.

Their words resonated with the Badger. Sir James Dyson, for example, likes ‘doers’ rather than ‘talkers’, and Mustafa Suleyman spoke eloquently about AI and that it must be ‘a tool in the hands of and under the control of humans if it’s to benefit all of humankind’. There’s plenty of ‘talkers’ in the world, but it’s ‘doers’ like these two with vision, objectivity, commonsense, and a passion for humankind, rather than politicians, which have the greatest influence on the lives of most people. The Badger agrees that AI is a tool. There are plenty of ‘talkers’ concerned that humans would become subservient to AI, but if we let that happen then we only have ourselves to blame. There’s currently a huge ‘build, baby, build’ rush to construct new, giant, energy-hungry, AI data centres and to amass and use the chips and devices they need to function. Enormous sums are being spent around the world, the technology continues to advance way ahead of any regulation, and AI company stock market valuations are stratospheric. Having worked in IT during the dot.com era, the words of these two men made the Badger ponder more about the current AI ‘build, baby, build’ surge.

Four conclusions emerged. The first was that such surges often produce over-capacity and ‘bust, baby, bust’ outcomes (c.f. China’s property crash) with the bigger the boom, the deeper and longer the bust! The second was that AI is here to stay, but some huge AI companies will not survive even though the AI market bubble is not like the dot.com era when many companies with high valuations had no revenues. Inevitably, when investor appetite for speculative risk tightens for any reason, and it will, a painful correction will happen. The third was that eyebrows should be raised when tech companies arrange for the restart of shuttered nuclear facilities to provide electricity for their new data centres.   

The Badger’s last conclusion was that we should question whether the world’s leaders, including those of hyperscale global tech corporations, are the right kind of ‘doers’. Do they have objectivity, common-sense, and mankind’s well-being at heart, or are they just examples of Lord Acton’s 1887 line ‘Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’? Whatever the answer, 2026 looks likely to be a troublesome year…

Social media: The same trajectory as tobacco?

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Information Technology, Public safety, social media, Technology

A New Year is fast approaching. For many it’s a time of joy and optimism, but for others it can be a daunting, sad, and worrying prospect. Christmas and the New Year period for the Badger’s family is about getting together whatever the circumstances. When we do, there’s always a discussion about the future of the tech world and so the Badger’s been musing on the subject in preparation. One of his conclusions has been that foreseeing a future event isn’t as outrageous as it might seem if you look at history and compare it with present-day dynamics.

The Badger’s concluded, for example, that ‘social media will follow the same trajectory as other industries that have touched health, cognition and social order’. That’s not an outrageous conclusion when there are striking structural parallels between social media and, for example, the tobacco industry. The latter thrived for decades in a regulatory vacuum with products that were known to damage users’ health. Similarly, social media operates in an under-regulated space with products that keep users engaged to maximise profits regardless of the toll on public health. Whereas tobacco’s harm is biochemical and physiological, social media’s is cognitive, social, behavioural, and physical in a way that’s harder to see or measure. It hides it’s harm behind its convenience, utility, and benefits. Worrying about harmful content, its encouragement of habitual screentime leading to lower physical activity, lowering attention spans, and eroding emotional adaptability, is not misplaced because these are all bad for long term physical and mental health.

The tobacco industry was built on the underlying motives of maximum user engagement, maximum revenue, product optimisation for addictive behaviour, and resistance to regulation. Social media seems the same. With tobacco, law makers eventually ‘woke up’ because – as history shows with industries that touch human health, cognition, and social order – once harms and their cost become undeniable in the public domain, society always pushes back! At some stage this seems likely to happen with social media resulting in its radical transformation. Gradual reform rarely works when business models are not aligned with societal well-being, companies are financially and politically powerful, and consumers have become accustomed to products and services. Any transformation of social media, given the slow speed of regulation, seems a long way off unless something radical happens.

What could that something be? Well, history shows that radical change tends to come from economic collapse rather than moral awakenings or gradual reform. If the social media giants were to start making huge financial losses that collapse their share price, then radical change would happen because such shocks always force restructuring, regulation, and cultural re-evaluation. Is this plausible? Well, never say never! The Badger will be adopting ‘never say never’ as his reference point for everything during 2026. In the current world and tech climate, it seems silly to do otherwise…

The world needs Australia to succeed with banning those under 16 from major social media platforms…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Ethics & Regulation, Information Technology, Public safety, social media

Australia’s legislation banning the access of those under the age of sixteen from major social media platforms came into force today, 10th December. Its purpose is to protect children from harmful content, cyberbullying, and online predators. The major social media platforms are required to take reasonable steps to enforce age restrictions or face fines of up to AU$50 million. A neat item from Australia’s ABC on the topic can be found here.  Some platforms began locking out existing under-sixteen accounts and blocking new ones a couple of weeks ago.

Australia is the first country in the world to impose such a ban, and their move could be the first domino in a global trend given that debates are underway in many other countries about following suit. Supporters of the ban see it as a necessary safeguard against online harms and a way to hold the giant tech companies accountable. Critics and the social media companies, however, argue that the ban is blunt, hard to enforce, risks isolating teenagers, and raises privacy/digital rights concerns. After absorbing a wide variety of views expressed in the media by affected teens, parents, and industry and government commentators, the Badger asked himself, ‘who’s side are you on?’ He found the answer surprisingly easy.

From his own use of social media, the Badger thinks that society’s general moral decline is plain to see when misinformation and disinformation abound, and a lot of content amplifies unethical behaviour, distorts decent judgement, and attempts to reshape cultural values. Viral fame seems to reward scandals, outrage, and bad conduct, and constant exposure to divisive content fuels fear and outrage undermining the traditional values that have held communities together for generations. Today’s under-sixteens are vulnerable because they often model their behaviour on what they see online rather than on traditional role models. The Badger thus admires and supports Australia’s action because the major platforms have been too powerful for far too long. They are fast to act to make more money from users’ content, but slow to act on anything dubious or perceived as limiting their power and interests. Will more countries eventually follow Australia’s lead? Probably.

The ban’s critics assert that under-sixteens will simply find alternative ways to access the major platforms. That’s a hollow argument because it’s always been true that teenagers find ways around legal barriers. For example, there are laws about underage consumption of alcohol and smoking cigarettes, and yet it happens! Similarly, in his youth the Badger and his friends found ways of watching movies rated as inappropriate for our age at the local cinema. As has always been the case, the law puts a firm stake in the ground for society, and long may that continue. The world thus needs Australia to succeed with its ban, so let’s hope it does…

‘Do what’s necessary to fix this fast’ – Would you be up for the challenge?

Posted on by The Information Badger in Delivery, Information Technology, IT Project Management, Leadership, Learning

Here’s a situation. A contractor has a large fixed-price contract to develop a major system (hardware and software) that’s crucial to the client’s business. The project is in serious difficulty. Contracted deliverables to date have been of poor quality and late. Lots of software has been developed but there are severe test and integration problems. Hardware from a subcontractor is also late, exacerbating the difficulties. The client has constructed a new building which has been sitting idle for six months waiting for the new system to be installed. They are threatening punitive litigation. The project is causing the contractor significant, company-level, financial damage and resolving the situation has become a business-critical issue. Client and contractor executives have agreed that the contractor has one last chance to deliver the system and avoid litigation, ostensibly because unrelated matters within the client’s wider enterprise have delayed for some months when the building must become operational.

If you, an employee of the contractor not associated with the project, were asked to ‘Do what’s necessary to fix this fast’, what would your reaction be? The Badger once pitched this scenario and question to a group of IT sector project managers. Their responses were interesting. Most of those with cost-plus project management experience said they wouldn’t take on the challenge because being associated with a problem project might damage their career prospects. Others said they’d accept the challenge but only if it were accepted that their need to review the project, establish committees, and rebuild stakeholder management meant it was unlikely the project could be ‘fixed fast’.

Only one person, someone who had run a couple of modest fixed-price contracts, said unequivocally that they’d take the challenge. When the Badger asked them why, their response was – ‘If you’ve successfully run software and hardware intensive fixed price projects then you’ve learned that you’re a highly focused, demanding, disciplined and decisive individual with limited patience. You’ve learned that you need to be respected by your team and your client but not necessarily liked. You’ve learned the importance of dynamism, belief, team spirit, and having a positive attitude, and the importance of looking forward and taking speedy action to head off emerging threats to success. You’ve also learned that decisions must be good ones but not necessarily popular, and that ‘No’ is an immensely powerful word. Having learned all this, taking on the turnaround of a seriously troubled project threatening the company seems like a great personal opportunity rather than a foolhardy thing to do’.

The Badger smiled. Here was a kindred spirit! Fixing troublesome projects is always a challenge and a great opportunity to expand one’s capabilities. The contrast in attitude between those with cost-plus and fixed-price contract PM backgrounds was stark. If you were asked to ‘Do what’s necessary to fix this fast’ today, would you be up for the challenge?

A musing about social media and ‘Black Friday’…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Education, Information Technology, Learning, Legal matters, Security, social media

It’s ‘Black Friday’ in the UK on Friday and High Street and online businesses are marketing their ‘epic deals’. This year the Badger’s received a plethora of email notifications from organisations warning to be wary of online shopping scams as ‘Black Friday’ approaches. One from a UK bank has the opening line ‘Did you know that 70% of online shopping scams start on social media?’  Yes, the Badger already knows this. It’s just one of many facts about social media that illustrates that diligent wariness is necessary when using these platforms.

Today the public feel uneasy about the world which is the most unsettling and unstable it’s been for decades. Global tensions abound. Politics is highly polarised. Economies are fragile. Conflict abounds. Shocks are more frequent. Power seems to rest with the handful of billionaires that dominate the digital world, and so on. Earlier this week, the Badger and a plumber friend chatted over a seasonal mince pie and coffee about factors that may have facilitated the instability the public observes. The internet is to blame, the Badger’s friend suggested. However, we dismissed that and decided instead that while social media can’t be blamed for all the world’s woes, it has certainly played a part.

We concluded this because social media platforms often say they are ‘free speech zones’ while simultaneously curating communication to protect their own business models. They are, after all, not democracies but huge, controlled, money-making ecosystems where the primary liability for what’s posted rests with the poster, not the platform. The persistent misinformation, disinformation, and offensive, inflammatory, and deceptive material that can often be encountered on them polarises opinions and facilitates scams from any part of the globe. The US President’s suing of the BBC, we decided, simply illustrates that there’s one rule for social media and another for everyone else. Why? Because the platforms often provide equally reprehensible edited videos that appear to go unpunished. Many will disagree, but we decided that social media has poisoned attitudes and thus contributed to fuelling an unsettled world.

The message here is not that social media is completely bad. It’s simply a reminder to understand their underlying business model and to think carefully about what you post or view. Think about whether your social media interactions are contributing to the very unsettled and disrupted world we are currently experiencing. Remember that these platforms are not the bastions of free speech that many would have you believe. Free speech, at least here in the UK, existed long before the advent of giant money-making social media platforms. Finally, take care when shopping online for ‘Black Friday’. Be wary of ‘limited time’ or ‘selling fast’ offers from organisations with social media profiles that don’t seem right. If something looks too good to be true, then it’s probably not what it seems…

AI and trust…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Information Technology, Psychology, social media

Misinformation, disinformation, scams, and questionable videos have been commonplace aspects of social media for years. The Badger, like many, has become distrustful of content pushed to him by algorithms because normally it is not what it appears or purports to be. Three typical examples of content that’s helped to fuel the Badger’s distrust are as follows. The first is spectacular, obviously fake, video of shipping and aircraft incidents that put Hollywood movies to shame. The second is content from activist or political groups that criticise or parody others and promise a better future. Activist and political groups are unreliable and frequently blinkered with short memories. The third is incessant clickbait. Life’s too short to waste time clicking such links. Putting it diplomatically, you can tell by now that the Badger’s trust in what’s pushed to his social media feeds is not high.

AI, of course, is increasingly helping the producers of this content that’s led to this erosion of trust. As this report from the University of Melbourne in Australia highlights, there’s a complex relationship between AI adoption and trust. It reports that while 66% of its survey respondents use AI regularly and believe in its benefits, less than a half (46%) trust the AI they use. The Badger aligns with this finding. He’s an occasional user of AI, but he doesn’t trust it. This ‘trust gap’ – as the report highlights – is a critical challenge for AI’s wider adoption.

Reflecting on this has led the Badger to two conclusions. The first was that since anyone can create content with AI tools, it’s inevitable that the volume and sophistication of misinformation, disinformation, scams, and questionable video content in social media feeds will increase further. Soon the question to really ask yourself about social media feeds will no longer be ‘what’s fake?’… but ‘what’s real?’  The second conclusion was that this, society’s huge energy bill for AI, and its unsustainably high stock market valuations, are widening rather than closing the Badger’s ‘trust gap.’

AI tools are here to stay, but as the report above points out, the biggest challenge for AI is trust. As the common adage highlights, trust is the easiest thing in the world to lose, and the hardest thing in the world to get back. At present, it doesn’t feel as if AI is winning the battle for our trust. The Badger’s current overall feeling about the question of trust is nicely summed up by this passage from J.K. Rowling’s book ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’. ‘Ginny!’ said Mr. Weasley, flabbergasted. ‘Haven’t I taught you anything? What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain?’  For the Badger, the last sentence of this passage, written over a decade ago, gets to the nub of the AI and trust issue…

A smartwatch for wellbeing and health?

Posted on by The Information Badger in Health & Social Care, Information Technology, Life, Online Services, Privacy and Surveillance, Smartwatches, Technology

Last week the Badger attended his uncle’s 90th birthday. He sat with a group of mostly millennial adults and found himself watching how often they checked their smartphone or smartwatch, and sometimes both. Before the Badger’s uncle blew out the candles on his birthday cake, conversation in the group was convivial and centred on catching up since the last time everyone was together. A smartwatch noisily tinkled and buzzed, and the person sitting opposite the Badger got up and announced to everyone that their watch had told them they’d been sitting for too long! They walked away and returned a few minutes later. When they took their seat, they began talking in a way that sounded like a commercial for smartwatches equipped with health and wellness tracking apps.

A discussion ensued. People in the group were asked if they had smartwatches and found their health apps useful. Most younger adults nodded. A few admitted to being addicted to the well-being and health metrics their smartwatches provided. A couple said they had a smartwatch but rarely used the health and well-being functions, and the remainder, including the Badger, did not have a smartwatch. The Badger was asked why he doesn’t have a smartwatch given his IT/tech background, especially when, as the questioner put it, the health apps ‘would be beneficial at your age.’  In reply, the Badger made two curt points. The first was that his solar powered but otherwise conventional watch and the smartphone in his pocket met all his needs to function while out and about in today’s world. The second was that smartwatches are not approved medical devices, and so their health metrics fundamentally provide the same health guidance that doctors have given for decades – walk more, don’t drink too much alcohol, and maintain a healthy weight. You don’t need an expensive device and constant checking of metrics to comply with that advice. The cutting of the birthday cake stopped further discussion.

While the well-being and health functions on smartwatches do, of course, encourage good health and lifestyle habits for those individuals that need such prompts, many who glance at their smartwatch dozens of times a day to check their metrics are doing so unnecessarily. Does this habitual attention to the likes of step count, heart rate, sleep quality, and sitting too long simply illustrate that people are becoming needlessly addicted to another digital device? Possibly. Smartwatch firms are profit-motivated businesses not health services, and concern about profiling, advertising, and losing control of sensitive personal data would be prudent. Remember, it’s cheaper and better for privacy to simply do what the doctor’s ordered for decades, namely walk more, drink less alcohol, and maintain a healthy weight. Concentrate on living life rather than being a slave to metrics provided by your smartwatch. After all, the Badgers sprightly uncle has reached 90 years of age by doing just that…