Author: The Information Badger

When your home broadband goes wrong…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Broadband, Online Services, Service, Technology

What conclusions would you draw from the following interaction with a home broadband provider:   

  • Your broadband degrades over 48 hours and becomes unusable. Your checks don’t find any fault and so you call your provider suspecting a fault on the physical line.
  • After 30 mins on the phone waiting, you speak to a person who says their systems show no fault on the line. They suggest waiting 24 hours to see if the situation improves.
  • It doesn’t, and after another 30 minutes on the phone, you speak to a person who says that there is, after all, a fault on the physical line. They arrange a time 3 days hence, the soonest slot available, for an engineer to visit. Progress, but it means being without home broadband for a week before it’s fixed.
  • With no advanced warning of any kind, the engineer simply doesn’t show up. After spending another 30 mins on the phone to the provider, you speak to a person who offers no explanation. They simply rebook the engineer for the earliest available slot a few days later.
  • Again, the engineer fails to show up. You spend another 30 minutes calling the provider, but when you speak to a person, they are sympathetic, arrange another date and time for the engineer’s visit, and insist that it will happen.
  • With no advance warning again, the engineer fails to show up. It’s now 3 weeks since first contacting the provider. You spend more time on the phone before getting to speak to a person who says the engineer couldn’t visit because ‘they only had a partial address for you’. You point out that the provider routinely uses your full address on their bills, and that the engineer could have called the  mobile phone number registered with them to check.
  • The person ignores the point and goes on to say that the fault is not with the physical line, but with the provider’s hub in the home. They say a new hub will be dispatched within 48 hours and that the fault will be resolved by simply unplugging the old one and connecting the new one.
  • You control your annoyance and calmly make a formal complaint.

The Badger concludes that the provider’s customer service is 20th century, their IT support systems are likely woeful and not joined up, that resourcing must be a problem, and that against such a backdrop the introduction of more AI-centred technology is unlikely to improve matters for customers. OFCOM’s recent report on complaints about providers  probably paints a rosier picture than reality when it comes to typical customer experiences. It’s thus perhaps hardly surprising that many, like the Badger, are making the jump to smaller, modern, local fibre broadband providers where both service and value for money is substantially better.

Tech for social good…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Digital devices and the environment, Education, Information Technology, Life, Tech for social good

Sitting at his desk over the weekend, the Badger enjoyed a coffee and a slice of cake  while reading about Charlie Mackesy, the Oscar-winning author and illustrator of The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse. The words ‘Every day I wake up wondering what I will draw today. I’m just another human trying to tell the truth. Love, kindness, and empathy are the answer. And cake…’ struck a chord. Not because the Badger was eating cake, but because they resonated with the circumstances of someone he knows and helps. After retiring from a low-wage, low-skilled, working life, they live alone with their cat and wonder what to do every day. They have no home broadband connection or digital devices. Although they are proud and fiercely independent, they allow the Badger to provide help, kindness, and empathy as they try to navigate a world that demands tech awareness, devices, and skills that they’ve never acquired.

This person illustrates that in the UK, a country with a high level of digital infrastructure, there are still many digitally disadvantaged people. This person cannot afford a broadband connection or connected devices, and even if they could, they are at a loss on how to use them. Their priority is simply to ‘keep the wolf from the door’ with their meagre budget. The Badger visits once a week with doughnuts, his tablet and smartphone, to chat over coffee. They often have worries that he manages to alleviate using his smartphone or tablet. A few weeks ago, the Badger gave them an old tablet found languishing at the back of one of his cupboards to help acquaint them with modern tech without the worry of cost. After some initial reticence, their confidence in using some of the rudimentary aspects of the device is rising. It’s small but rewarding progress!

After his visit last week, the Badger came across the ‘Circular electronics for social good: reusing IT equipment to bridge the digital divide’ research from the Good Things Foundation (a UK digital inclusion charity), the Circular Electronic Partnership (CEP) (the biggest names in tech, consumer goods and waste management), and Deloitte. It’s an enlightening insight into digital inequalities and how equipment reuse can not only help address these, but also assist in reducing a growing e-waste problem. The major businesses engaged in the CEP are clearly taking tech for social good seriously. But here’s the thing. Digital inequality, reuse and e-waste of course needs action from charities, businesses, and governments, but it also needs regular members of the public to reach out to the digitally disadvantaged in their community with kindness, empathy, compassion, and above all patience. Tech for social good needs people to engage with others at a human level with patience, which – sadly – seems a rarer commodity today  than it used to be…

Your face, your voice, AI, and human rights…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI & Robotics, Automation, Education, Ethics & Regulation, Information Technology, Legal matters, Online Safety, Privacy and Surveillance, social media

In the gap between completing his undergraduate degree and starting post-graduate study, the Badger took a temporary job as an assistant in a dockyard laboratory performing marine metallurgical failure investigations and associated corrosion research. It was a great few months which enabled the application of what he learned during his undergraduate degree to real world events. Those few months are the reason why, for example, the Badger has a particular interest today in the findings of the investigation into the Titan deep-sea submersible failure. The dockyard lab staff were experts with colourful personalities and diverse opinions on a wide range of topics. Engaging in wide-ranging discussions with them, especially at lunchtime in the canteen, was enlightening, thought-provoking, and has been the source of fond memories lasting for years.

One particular memory is of one senior expert, highly respected but always cantankerous and quarrelsome, refusing to be photographed sitting at their electron microscope for a newspaper feature about the laboratory. They didn’t want their image captured and used because, they claimed, it was part of ‘who they were as an individual’ and therefore it was part of their human rights to own and control its use. The lab boss saw things differently, and for days there was a lot of philosophical discussion amongst staff about the expert’s position. The newspaper feature ultimately used a photo of the electron microscope by itself.

The current strike by Hollywood actors, due in part to proposals relating to AI and the use of an actor’s image and voice, brought the memory of the lab expert’s stance regarding their image to the fore. In those days, the law was more straightforward because the internet, social media, personal computers, smart phones, and artificial intelligence didn’t exist. In today’s world, however, images of a person and their voice are routinely captured, shared, and manipulated, often for commercial gain without an individual’s real awareness. The law has, of course, developed – all be it slowly – since the expert’s days at the lab, but the surge in AI in its various guises over the last year seems to illustrate that the gap between legal/regulatory controls and the digital world continues to widen.    

Today, and with advancing AI, an image of you or snippet of your voice can be manipulated for any purpose, good or evil. Whilst there’s some teaching of online safety at school, is it enough? Does it sufficiently raise awareness about protecting ‘your image and your voice which are both key attributes that characterise who you are as a person’? Did the dockyard lab expert have a point, all those years ago, in asserting that it was part of their human rights to own and control their image? The Badger doesn’t have the answers, but he senses that AI and human-rights will inevitably be a fertile ground for campaigners, legislators, and regulators for many decades to come…

Change starts with the individual…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Change, Climate & Environment, Energy and Energy Markets, Learning

The amount of electricity and gas Kilowatt Hours the Badger uses has reduced by 12% and 21%, respectively, over the last year. He’s also used 10% less vehicle fuel. The reductions come from small behavioural adjustments, rather than wholesale lifestyle change. The Badger’s pleased because the savings are helping the planet, and because they illustrate the impact of taking personal responsibility for ‘change’ which is, after all, one of the perpetual rhythms of life which humans have coped with for millennia.

Feeling good about his energy reduction helping the planet, the Badger visited his community’s monthly street market where stalls of locally produced goods, food, and drink interleave with those of charities and campaign organisations. Good weather meant the market was busy. As the Badger nonchalantly browsed the stalls, he lingered a little too long at a climate campaign stall. He was cornered by the stall’s hosts, a mother and daughter who were vaguely known to the Badger as neighbours from further along the road where he lives. Not wishing to be rude, the Badger listened politely to their pitch about the need for more government action in climate issues and moving away from fossil fuels to save the planet.

They asked if the Badger agreed that reducing  the world’s dependency on fossil fuels was beneficial, and if he soon planned to drive an electric car. He answered Yes and No, respectively, and added that a) he wasn’t sure that the whole-life environmental impact of current electric cars was positive, b) that he expected to drive his trusty diesel SUV for the foreseeable future, and c) that he was already adjusting his behaviours to benefit the planet regardless of campaigns by environmentalists! They seemed a little stunned. The Badger asked if changes to their individual behaviours had reduced, for example, their own energy consumption over the past year, and, looking rather sheepish, they admitted they didn’t know. They disengaged when the stall became busier, and the Badger sidled away to continue browsing through the market.

Walking home afterwards, a car pulled up and asked if the Badger wanted a lift. It was the pair from the climate change stall. The Badger declined the offer on the basis that the exercise was good for both him and the planet. The mother grinned and said ‘You’re a proper ecowarrior! You made us realise that we really should be doing more adjustments to our own day to day behaviour to reinforce pressing our climate message to others’.

The Badger’s been called many things over the years, but never an ecowarrior! Just remember, change starts with the individual and is not the responsibility of others. You too are an ecowarrior if you make small behavioural adjustments that will ultimately benefit our planet. Life is, after all, a journey of continual change, and our inherent individual capacity to change is why our species has come to dominate the planet…

The freedom to access your money and use it as you wish is being diminished…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Banking, Online Safety, Online Services, Security

UK banks blocking individuals’ accounts without explanation has garnered media interest recently, see here for example. Your money is yours as long as you can access it and have the freedom to use it for your needs and desires, but a recent experience which caused the Badger inconvenience and frustration shows that this premise continues to erode.

A builder working on the Badger’s home took an hour out to visit their bank’s nearest branch to withdraw ~£1600 cash. They returned angry and without their cash. At the branch they were interrogated about what the cash withdrawal was to be used for. The builder explained it was to pay his friend for parts from a classic car being cannibalised for spares. The parts were to be used on his own classic car being restored as a hobby in his garage. The bank refused the withdrawal citing ‘security’ and the absence of any invoice. Sharp words were exchanged, with the builder asserting that it was his money, it was none of the bank’s business what he wanted it for, and that their interrogation amounted to an invasion of his privacy. The bank was unwavering, and the builder left without his cash.

The following day a self-employed groundworker laid and connected a new drain for the Badger. The agreed price (<£1000) for the work was based on payment of their invoice using online banking within two days of the work being completed to the Badger’s satisfaction. Payment was thus straightforward and quick, wasn’t it? No. It took two hours. Because the groundworker banked with Metro Bank, the Badger’s bank’s IT systems assumed they were potentially a scammer! A text message notified the Badger to call his bank’s Payment Fraud team if he wanted the payment to proceed.

On calling, the Badger was interrogated about the payee, the payment, the work the payee had done, and much more. It felt as if the Badger wasn’t being listened to, and that the call handler’s primary focus was capturing evidence that the bank fulfilled its money laundering and funding of terrorism obligations. The lengthy call ended when the Badger was told the payment would stay blocked until he called the Payment Fraud Team again after speaking to the groundworker to confirm they existed and were the payee! To put it mildly, the Badger was livid. Twenty minutes later the Badger called the Payment Fraud Team again, went through exactly the same lengthy questioning with a different call handler, but this time he managed to get the payment unblocked.

With local bank branches a rarity in the UK, online banking the norm, and society increasingly cashless, the freedom to access and use your money as you wish is, for most people, continually being diminished. But that’s not a surprise, because history shows the banks always seem to get away with whatever they want…

Seven small, fundamental, inventions without which the modern world would not be as it is…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Innovation, Learning, Life, Technology

After doing some repairs to a flight of garden steps in the blazing sun, the Badger settled down in the shade to finish reading a book he’d purchased a few days earlier. The book, a proper hardback from a local bookshop, is Nuts & Bolts, Seven Small Inventions That Changed the World (In a Big Way) written by Roma Agrawal. She worked on The Shard in London, and is a structural engineer, author, and broadcaster with a physics degree and an MBE. It’s an excellent book, an easy one to read, and one that makes you realise that a small number of fundamental inventions underpin the world as we know it today. These inventions, the Seven Small Inventions in the title, are the nail, wheel, spring, magnet, lens, string and pump. Without them, our modern world full of complex technology that ranges in scale from the tiny to the huge, would not be what it is.

While chilling out reading the book, the Badger’s nephew arrived to return a laptop he’d borrowed recently after his own broke. He’s in the middle of revising and taking exams that determine whether or not he goes to University in the autumn. With video and music from Glastonbury streaming on his smartphone, the youngster sat down and asked the Badger what the book was about. The Badger playfully answered that it was about the fundamental inventions, namely the nail, wheel, spring, magnet, lens, string and pump, without which the Glastonbury music festival and his smartphone wouldn’t exist! The disbelief on the youngster’s face was palpable, and a light-hearted discussion on the Badger’s assertion ensued.

The Badger took the initiative and mentioned that without the fundamental invention of a nail none of the festival’s structures would exist, without the magnet there’s no electric guitars or sound systems, and without the invention of a lens there would be no pictures to stream. At first his nephew was unpersuaded, but a glimmer of enlightenment soon emerged as he started to think more deeply. ‘So’, he said, ‘you’re really saying that the internet, social media, and the smartphone are not fundamental inventions because they could not have been produced without the prior engineering invention of the nail, wheel, spring, magnet, lens, string and pump?’ The Badger nodded, and said that it’s worth remembering that integrated circuits, first invented in the 1950s and now at the heart of today’s computerised world, could not have been produced without the prior existence of the Seven Small Inventions highlighted in Roma Agrawal’s book.

The youngster, a budding biological scientist, grinned. He said he now appreciated that what we see as routine in our complex tech-dominated modern world is derived from simple, fundamental, and often not very obvious engineering inventions. The Badger sensed that he may have awoken an inner latent engineer in his nephew, and that’s no bad thing…

UK Smart Meter rollout…a dog’s breakfast

Posted on by The Information Badger in Smart Meters

Way back in September 2017, an item in The Register quoted Professor Gordon Hughes, an economist at the University of Edinburgh, as saying:

‘The introduction of the smart meter is a dog’s breakfast. At best it is misconceived and an astonishingly expensive project. For those claiming it will bring major savings, I say they need to grow up’.

Well, here we are in June 2023 and the UK National Audit Office’s recent, highly readable, update summary on the rollout of smart meters points out that the likely annual savings for a typical dual-fuel household with a smart meter functioning in smart mode, will amount to around three or four cans of cheap dog food per month. This isn’t a fit return for long-suffering households, especially when, as the NAO summary points out, the Smart Meter programme is one of the largest in government by whole-life cost,  equivalent in scale to the Crossrail railway project. It appears that ’a dog’s breakfast’ is, indeed, still an apt description for the programme given the benefit to energy consumers of just a few cans of dog food a month.

The NAO highlights that the rollout timescale has been extended again, costs continue to rise, and that less than 50% of UK households have a Smart Meter actually operating in smart mode. They also point out that energy suppliers and the Department of Energy Security & Net Zero disagree on the best way to achieve the remainder of the rollout. Having read the NAO summary in its entirety, the Badger’s left with the impression that the new targets are unlikely to be delivered by 2025, and that consumers will never get any real benefit from this programme. Hold on, you might say, this programme was never really about consumers, it’s about the bigger strategic picture of creating an efficient, decarbonised, modernised, UK power system better aligned to a 21st century energy generation mix containing a high proportion of renewables. That’s a fair point, but it doesn’t change the fact that the whole thing looks like an expensive dog’s breakfast because the dynamics to date don’t support the premise that the  programme will meet any strategic objectives within the next decade.

The experience of many consumers with Smart Meters hasn’t been great, see here for example, and so mistrust of energy suppliers and ambivalence about the usefulness of the technology abounds. Regardless of ‘a big picture’, if a programme continually fails to deliver and breeds mistrust amongst consumers then it’s become a millstone. Notwithstanding this, there’s too much political, government, energy industry, and financial capital already invested for things to dramatically change. This means, of course, that tracking consumer benefits in terms of cans of dog food per month is here to stay for the foreseeable future!

Marmite, IT systems…and the NHS at 75

Posted on by The Information Badger in Health & Social Care, Information Technology, Leadership, Opinion, Public Institutions, Transformation

Two young mums and their toddlers were chatting in front of the shelves holding Marmite at the local supermarket. As the Badger politely reached between them for a jar, one mum grumbled ‘Yuk. You shouldn’t eat that stuff; it’s horrible’, and the other added tartly that ‘Supermarkets shouldn’t be allowed to sell it’. Supressing an urge to argue, the Badger saw the seriousness on their faces, took a jar, and moved on. If people think supermarkets should be barred from selling Marmite, then there’s no hope for society!

While cogitating on the way home, the Badger concluded that Marmite and the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) have something in common – the ability to divide and polarise opinions. How did the NHS come into this? Well, the seed was sown in the Badger’s brain by an early morning radio news programme during which an NHS interviewee highlighted how much time medics waste having to log on to different IT systems to treat their patients. Little seems to have changed since early 2020 when a Health Secretary said ‘It is frankly ridiculous how much time our doctors and nurses waste logging on to multiple systems. Too often outdated technology slows down and frustrates staff’. Other interviewees bemoaned NHS vacancies, waiting lists, delays to patients being discharged from hospital, and workforce strikes over pay. The seed was thus sown for the Badger to cogitate on the NHS, especially as it celebrates 75 years of existence on 5th July 2023.

Then this seed grew further when the Badger took a call from his cousin as he reached the supermarket. His cousin is recovering at home after an operation. Their NHS consultant advised that the waiting time for their operation could be six months, and so, instead of waiting in debilitating pain, they dipped into their savings and had their operation privately just two weeks later. The Badger’s brain was thus already cogitating on the NHS as he approached the Marmite shelves.

The Badger likes Marmite and the NHS, a huge, complex organisation employing over 1.3m people that has a special place in the public’s affection because we are all users and it’s free at the point of use. Unfortunately, perpetual transformations have long been strangling its vital signs and its service to patients, making it a political and ideological football and the centre of shrill media outcry. Current struggles as it approaches its 75th birthday imply that it is systemically crumbling in its current form, and something more fundamental must happen to make it fit for the rest of the 21st century. That, of course, is just the outcome of a cogitation on the way home from a supermarket with a jar of Marmite. One thing’s certain, however. Marmite and the NHS will divide opinions and generate highly charged debate for years to come…

Should ‘information’ be thought of as a poison?

Posted on by The Information Badger in Education, Information Technology, Learning, Life, Online Safety, Press & Media

A couple of weeks ago, BBC News unveiled BBC Verify, a new brand to counter disinformation and reinforce audience trust by showing how its journalists check the veracity of what’s reported. Inevitably, Verify has been frequently featured in the broadcaster’s radio and television news programmes since the announcement. Surveys (like the one here, for example) show there’s been a significant drop in trust in the UK news media over the last five years. With BBC News having suffered one of the biggest drops, it’ll be interesting to see if Verify helps to stem their downward trend.

The advent of BBC Verify, plus recent social media and online clamour surrounding a number of human tragedies, triggered childhood memories of the Badger’s father reading his newspaper at the breakfast table. He would regularly say ‘Don’t believe everything you read in newspapers, lad. Most of the information is just poison’. In today’s world we access and consume news and information in a very different way, primarily via our televisions and internet enabled laptops, tablets, and smartphones on a 24 by 7 basis. This fatherly advice, however, seems even more relevant than ever today. These days, being sceptical about the content  you consume and wondering if it contains something poisonous likely to harm you, is definitely no bad thing.

In biochemistry, a poison is a natural or synthetic substance that causes damage to living tissue and has a harmful or fatal effect on our body. The act of poisoning involves a cause (the poison), a subject (the entity being poisoned), an effect (symptoms), and a consequence (debilitation or death). Awareness that things like insect and snake bites, drugs, dodgy food, pesticides, radiation, and biological/chemical agents can poison us is good, but our awareness that ‘information’ can poison our minds and change behaviour is still too low, especially in youngsters whose lives are dominated by social media and the virtual world. It’s no surprise that evidence for harm to young people’s mental health through their use of social media continues to grow.

The Badger’s found himself wondering if there’s merit in thinking of ‘information’ as a poison giving the synergy with the act of poisoning noted above. Just like a medical drug, ‘information’ consumed in an appropriate context from a trusted source can do much good. But also like a drug, ‘information’ in high quantity glibly absorbed and accepted from anywhere can cause an individual great harm. Categorizing ‘information’ as a poison might, perhaps, simplify and embed greater understanding of its potential impact on wellbeing, especially in youngsters.

The Badger tested this musing with his teenage nephew, only to be told that age had clearly affected his mental faculties! If that’s true, then it’s down to the ‘information poison’ he’s consumed over the years and the fact that there’s no real antidote in sight…

Are optimists, pessimists, or realists the most successful leaders?

Posted on by The Information Badger in Information Technology, IT Project Management, Leadership, Leadership & Management, Project Management, Psychology, Risk

The Badger was asked many times during his career to engage with delivery and business leaders encountering serious problems delivering a contracted project to requirement, time, and budget. These requests were often initiated by the company’s Chief Executive who simply asked the Badger to ‘chat with those responsible and see if you can help’. They knew the Badger would interpret the request as ‘get stuck in and get the  problems on this contract resolved’. Being aware of the personal traits of the people you deal with, especially those in senior positions, is crucial to interpreting what they really mean when they ask you to do something!

One such ‘how can I help’ conversation with a business leader proved memorable because it spawned a hypothesis that the Badger feels has been validated over the years. Although we knew each other in passing, it was the first time we had met for any substantive conversation. After some initial chit-chat, the business leader quickly focused on describing the delivery, financial, and contractual difficulties of their project. They had, apparently, already spoken to a couple of experienced staff about helping to resolve the difficulties, but neither was, in their eyes, suited to the task. They described one as a cheery but superficial, glass-half-full optimist, and the other as a pedantic, too laid-back, glass-half-empty pessimist. The Badger remembers wondering how he would measure up!

After an hour’s discussion, the business leader asked the Badger to help resolve the project’s problems, adding that ‘you are a realist and you don’t care whether the glass is half full or half empty, only that the glass is a receptacle to be filled with as much liquid as possible’. Their comment spawned a hypothesis in the Badger’s mind, namely that the delivery and business leaders who have the most success, and also the longest careers, are realists. Engagements with many diverse business and delivery leaders over the years have tended to reinforce the hypothesis.

Being a realist means having a personality with a propensity to take measured risks and take measured decisions. It doesn’t mean never demonstrating optimism or pessimism. Those with an optimistic, glass-half-full, leaning tend to be less risk-conscious, while those with a pessimistic, glass-half-empty, leaning tend to have little appetite for risk at all! During COVID-19, for example, glass-half-full characters might have seen themselves as less at risk and taken less precautions, whereas those with a glass-half-empty outlook might never have left their house at all. Realists, on the other hand, would have taken measured risks based on knowing that the virus’s impact mainly depended on age and underlying health.

The Badger’s seen glass-half-full, and glass-half-empty leaders be successful, but it’s the realists who’ve been the most successful and had the longest careers. Is the Badger’s hypothesis sound scientifically? Don’t know, but he’ll stand by it until a proper people expert shoots it down in flames!