Category: Information Technology

‘My way, or the highway’…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Information Technology, Leadership & Management, Software

Many years ago, the young Badger and some others were injected into a major, fixed-price, software development project to turn it around. It was seriously off the rails. Shambolic planning and poor processes meant deliverables were missed or late, some design aspects were problematic, and much of the code produced was poor quality. The large project team was demoralised and in need of effective leadership. The company was haemorrhaging money and the client was considering termination and litigation. In the face of potential reputational and financial disaster, the company decided it must sort the mess out rather than fight a costly battle in court.

Shortly after the Badger and others were injected, the company CEO called us to his office to introduce our new boss, the senior Project Director newly assigned to lead the recovery overall. The Project Director, recently back in the UK after two years in the company’s USA subsidiary, was burly in stature, had a voice that shook the ground when they spoke, and a stare that injected fear. They brimmed with self-confidence and were lyrical about how they had turned around other projects. The Badger thought that his new boss would be a challenge, and so it proved!

The following day the Project Director called the entire project team into a conference room to introduce themselves more widely, talk about their approach to the task in hand, and to answer questions. They spoke for half an hour, during which the atmosphere turned from one of quiet optimism, to one of abject gloom and disengagement. The room full of intelligent software professionals did not react well to the Project Director loudly proclaiming, in finger-jabbing mode, that a) they were a problem,  and b) being told repeatedly that it would be ‘my way, or the highway’ in the future. The Badger, who winced many times while his boss spoke, lost count of how many times this phrase was repeated. No one asked any questions, and as the team left the room afterwards, a software engineer told the Badger that ‘the highway’ seemed a good option, because they’d no idea what ‘my way’ was, and that even if they did, the Project Director wasn’t a person they’d go the extra mile for.

All leaders, of course, have a ‘my way, or the highway’ streak, but in this case the over-zealous public exposure of it turned what should have been a motivational call to arms into a disaster. The best leaders choose their words carefully when speaking to those whose support is needed in order to convert difficulties into successes. Preaching ‘my way, or the highway’  loudly and continuously comes with the danger that the good will needed from a team to overcome problems deteriorates rather than improves. Frequent articulation of ‘my way, or the highway’ is thus simply a marker that there’s danger ahead…and that ‘the highway’ might actually be a good option!

The human dimension, not tech, underpins crisis management…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Conflict, Information Technology, Leadership, Risk, Technology

Sixty-one years ago, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of global nuclear war. Much has changed since that time in 1962, but the scope for catastrophic miscalculation in the corridors of power remains as great today as it was then. Why? Because at the heart of any crisis are people with power, strong personalities, egos, opinions, and different motivations. Having had experience managing crises, the Badger’s interest was thus piqued recently when a friend recommended the film Thirteen Days about the Cuban crisis. It’s based on two books, one of which was written by the US Attorney General in 1962 (Robert F Kennedy), and it dramatizes the US political leadership’s perspective of events.

The Badger watched the film and was struck primarily by two things. The first was that the technology in use during the 1962 crisis was ‘medieval’ compared with what we take for granted today. The film conveys well the fact that the Cuban crisis happened long before the internet, social media, personal computers, smart phones, video calls, digital photography, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and satellite constellations. Landline telephones, switchboard operators, teletypes, paper letters, memos and instructions, and non-digital intelligence photographs from U2 planes provided the  White House drumbeat for managing the crisis in 1962. Today’s technology means the drumbeat is different, computers dominate, information flows and communications are faster, and intelligence comes more rapidly from  open sources as well as from military capabilities etc. (Intriguingly, satellites and UAVs have yet to replace U2 spy planes; these are still in use and not scheduled to retire until 2026.)

The second thing was the human dynamics, the interactions  between political and military leaders, the diversity of advice on dealing with the threat, and the enormous potential ramifications of the decisions that rested on the shoulders of those present. Having been involved in crises in the commercial world, these human dynamics struck a particular chord, even allowing for some dramatic licence. Today, this same human dimension will still be happening as world leaders grapple with various crises. It’s worth noting that the US President, Secretary for Defence, Attorney General, and others, were positively youthful (late thirties to mid-forties) at the time of the Cuban crisis. Today those holding such posts are beyond pension age.

Commenting on this potentially ageist observation, the Badger’s wife asserted that in a democratic society it’s voters who have the fundamental, innate, responsibility to elect leaders with the rationality, capability, character, and vigour needed to make good judgements under intense pressure. It’s a point worth remembering perhaps, because although digital technology has come to dominate every facet of life since the Cuban crisis, it can’t provide any insight into what’s going on in the minds of those who have to make the ultimate judgements and decisions that could affect us all. At least not yet…

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…