Category: Information Technology

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…

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!

This item contains nothing generated by Bing Chat…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI & Robotics, Automation, Business, Ethics & Regulation, Information Technology, Life, Risk, Technology

The Badger’s been experimenting for some time with Bing Chat, an integration of the GPT model developed by OpenAI with Microsoft’s search engine. It’s been both fun and thought-provoking. The capability is impressive, which is why there’s been massive interest in the technology in the 6 months since the public release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Many of the Badger’s interactions have made him chuckle, roll his eyes in annoyance, or better appreciate its use for good or evil, but every interaction has, in truth, reinforced why Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, calls on US lawmakers to regulate AI. This capability  has enormous scope to develop further. It’s already engaging the public and changing the way things are done, and it will continue to do so in the future. The Badger, like many, sees many pros and cons, but the primary outcome of his experimentation has been to crystalize the realisation that he must deal with how this impacts his content-producing activities like the writing of the blog you are reading now.

AI is destined to affect the activities and jobs of white-collar workers across a wide variety of industries (see here and here, for example). Indeed, the Badger can think of many functions and jobs that could be impacted by AI-centred automation in the IT industry alone. With perpetual improvement to make the profits stakeholders expect at the core of any business’s survivability, it’s inevitable that AI will speed up the drive for organisations to do more with less people, especially as employing people is expensive. Working in IT or tech industries doesn’t provide immunity from this impact, as BT’s recent announcement highlights. BT is cutting more than 10,000 jobs due to new technology and AI over the next 6 years. For employees in any organisation, therefore, this isn’t a time to stick your head in the sand; it’s a time to scan the horizon, think about how your livelihood might be impacted, and assess your options for countering the threat. All is not completely bleak, however, because AI seems unlikely to replace jobs requiring human skills such as creativity, judgement, physical dexterity and emotional intelligence. If these dominate your job, then the immediate threat is limited.

Experimenting with Bing Chat brings much of the media debate and commentary on AI to life. It’s made the Badger think seriously about intellectual property, ethics, and things like the transparency of content origination in a world where services like Bing Chat cannot be ignored. The Badger believes people deserve to know if any of the content they read online has been generated using a service like Bing Chat or Google Bard. Well, if you’ve read this far, then you can be confident that what you’ve read has been created entirely by a human being. It contains nothing generated by Bing Chat or any other similar capability.

An IT outsource in a pickle…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Information Technology, Outsource, Transformation, Transition

Bored with his smartphone’s ringtone, the Badger spent a few minutes exploring alternatives only to decide not to change for the time being! Scrolling through alternatives had thus simply been a waste of a precious commodity, namely time. Just as the Badger refocused on doing something useful, an acquaintance called. They wanted to chat informally with, as they put it, a veteran IT professional with wisdom and no axe to grind,about an IT outsourcing contract experiencing some difficulty. The Badger listened carefully to the pickle they described.

Problems started shortly after the contract was signed. Negotiations were apparently difficult due to the strong personalities and egos of the responsible business and commercial leads on both sides. Pressure to get to signature had been intense because both sides had been under enormous pressure from their executive levels. The service provider needed signature to underpin its quarterly results, and the client needed it to meet a much-publicised strategic priority. Now, some months after signature, the service provider and client business leads are perpetually arguing about what’s covered by Transition and what’s covered by Transformation, and payments. The terms and scope of Transition and Transformation are confused because they have been used interchangeably and inconsistently in the contract. The two parties are arguing about the contract wording they negotiated, and distrust and confusion reigns between client and provider staff at the delivery level. What a pickle!

The Badger simply said that if the parties at executive level want the outsource to succeed with a sustainable, long-term, mutually beneficial relationship then they needed to intervene and agree a course of action that deals with a) intransigent personalities on both sides, b) changes to contract wording, and c) the removal of any ambiguity about what constitutes Transition and Transformation. The caller sighed and simply said ‘Obvious isn’t it, but sometimes you need an outsider to tell you the obvious’.

Following the call, the Badger deliberated on the fact that he’d encountered similar scenarios more than 20 years ago when outsourcing, in one form or another, was on the rise across the IT industry. Has nothing been learnt since, especially with regard to the distinction between Transition and Transformation? Well, the process, practice, and professionalism of outsourcing has, of course, improved significantly over the last 20 years, but there’ll always be occasional problems because people are the weakest link. Egos, personal ambitions and motives, and pressure within organisations to achieve hard deadlines, can always adversely influence behaviours and lead to the erosion of professional rigour and discipline. Today there’s also another factor in play. A generation of highly experienced IT practitioners is retiring from the industry. There’s thus a heightened risk that the younger generation will make the same mistakes commonplace 20 years ago. But that’s just life…

The Uk cellular national emergency alert test…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Information Technology, Public safety, Risk, Security, Technology, Telecommunications

The Badger was untangling a tape strangling a vintage cassette player when last weekend’s first cellular UK national emergency alert test happened. When the alert sounded on his smartphone, it made him jump because he thought he’d broken something in the cassette player! Within a second or so, however, the Badger realised it was the alert test.

The merits or otherwise of the new emergency alert system has had extensive coverage in UK media and on social media, but the Badger thinks it’s a useful public safety facility, if used wisely, given the dynamics and tensions of today’s world. The Badger learned during his IT career that for systems like this to be truly successful, the discipline, processes, and motives of the people controlling its use are as important as the system’s capabilities, engineering, and robustness. Will those in charge use it wisely? Time will tell, but if there’s a false alarm event like that in Hawaii in 2018 then public distrust of systems and those who control them will reach levels that are off the scale!

The alert test was also a reminder that communication networks are the unseen plumbing of today’s digital world. As the Badger cogitated on this point, his landline phone warbled. He automatically picked up the handset without looking at the caller display showing a UK landline number that’s not in his address book. ‘Hello, are you the homeowner and responsible for the computer at your address?’, an Indian lady asked. Scam, the Badger thought before answering with ‘Who are you, who do you work for, and how did you get this number?’ The lady just repeated her question, and the Badger terminated the call. The phone immediately rang again, this time the caller display showed a UK mobile phone number that isn’t in his address book. It was the same lady who cheekily asked, ‘Why did you put the phone down?’ The Badger answered, ‘This call is being recorded’, and the lady terminated the call. Checking the two caller numbers using Who Called Me confirmed that the calls were not from a reputable telemarketing source.

So, here’s the thing. Public suspicion and distrust of emails, social media content, and telephone calls continues to grow. We are relentlessly bombarded with spurious contact and content, and so it’s unsurprising that many are rather dubious about a cellular National Emergency Alert System. Other countries already have similar systems, and the Badger feels the new system is ‘technology for good’ and has a role in the UK public safety landscape. If the first real National Alert to his smartphone, however, is to warn of a nuclear attack, then the Badger’s realistic enough to know that by the time he’s read the message and decided whether its real or the result of hacking by bad actors, it’ll be too late…

Being moved to a new system shouldn’t mean the services in a customer’s account go backwards…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Energy and Energy Markets, Information Technology, Online Services, Project Management, Transformation

Two emails from the Badger’s energy provider made him cogitate on his account being moved over a year ago to a new billing system. The move has resulted in less functionality in his online account than with the old one. If companies want customers to engage with them using online accounts and smartphone apps, then surely a transition to a system that provides customers less online functionality when logged into their accounts indicates that something’s awry behind the scenes?

The first email notified the Badger that his energy bill was available in his online account. The second, entitled ‘We need your help’, was a request to answer a few questions related to customer satisfaction and customer service. The Badger logged into his account to look at his bill. He sighed, just as he has on each login since February 2022 when his provider moved his account to their new system. The Badger’s been with this provider for some years, and it used to be easy to track energy usage and cost trends, payments, and to see local comparative information in a useful customer-friendly way. Given the climate crisis, the need to reduce fossil fuel usage, and the pandemic, these facilities were particularly useful. Sadly, being moved to the new billing system meant these facilities, which require access to historic data on the old system, were no longer available. Prior energy data was not migrated to the new system. The move effectively meant becoming a new customer on a new system providing only rudimentary online services for meter readings, bills and payments.

There’s been no change in the rudimentary facilities in the Badger’s online account since being moved to the new system. Instincts honed from decades in the IT industry have driven the Badger to think that the energy provider’s move to a new billing system has proved more problematic behind the scenes than expected. If this is the case, they will never admit it! Moving from older systems to new ones is always a challenge for any company. It’s always difficult to effect the transitions that a company needs to make for its own purposes without upsetting some customers, but if customer online account services go backwards and stay that way for a year or more, then either the change hasn’t gone as planned or the company is disdainful of its customers – or both.

After logging in this time, the Badger decided that his days as a customer with this provider are numbered. He answered their ‘We need your help’ email with some clear points, but it will make no difference. Why? Because as one of the big six energy suppliers to UK customers, their perpetually mediocre customer service scores imply that customers are not really a high priority. So, who’s the Badger’s provider? Look here and see if you can guess…

Computers, systems, satellites and…potholes!

Posted on by The Information Badger in Information Technology, Processes and Practices, Public Institutions, Satellites, Technology

A couple of weeks ago, the Badger’s saw OneWeb’s announcement that it was to launch the 36 satellites completing their first-generation Low Earth Orbit constellation on the 26th March 2023. Earlier this week the launch from a Space Centre in India took place successfully and the Badger mentally cheered all the engineers and computing professionals involved. This achievement has computers and  ‘systems’ at its heart, and this fact coloured the Badger’s thoughts as he left home to walk to the local shops. By the time he returned, however, positivity about computers and ‘systems’ relating to satellites had been replaced by gloom about ‘systems’ for fixing potholes on roads!

The route to the shops means navigating a T junction between a busy side road and a main thoroughfare. The approach to the junction is heavily potholed for about 30 metres. The surface, which has many of the different types of crater set out in the RAC’s Pothole Guide, is a danger to pedestrians, cyclists, motor cyclists, and car drivers alike. It’s been this way for a very long time, making it a wonderful  example of the pothole blight  infecting UK roads. Reports to the County Council have led to monthly visits by a repair crew who only patch a small number of holes every time.  

As the Badger walked by, a repair crew was patching a few holes again, and a lady was demanding to know why some holes were being patched but others, equally dangerous, were not. The workmen told her that ‘the central computer’ produces their worksheet and that they only fix, and get paid for, what’s on it. ‘Don’t blame us, blame the computer’, the workmen asserted bluntly. The Badger walked quickly by, thinking that the ‘system’ – the overall combination of process, people, IT, contracting, finance, quality, and compliance – was the problem, not the ‘the computer’.  

On returning from the shops, the repair crew and the lady had gone. A few potholes had been patched, but after three visits by a repair crew in the first three months of this year the road remains a danger to road users and pedestrians, especially at night. On reaching home, the Badger cogitated over a coffee and concluded two things. The first was that if motor vehicles are required to have annual MOT roadworthy tests, then road surfaces should also be required to have some kind of regular safety certification. The second was that for a country that has a computer and ‘systems’ pedigree that can put and operate satellites in space, it’s ‘systems’ for the repair of potholes on its roads are shameful. Although computers get conveniently blamed for many things in today’s world, it’s worth remembering that ‘systems’, which are much more than just computers, are more often the culprit.