Category: Uncategorized

…you shouldn’t be, because it’s Christmas Day!

This post is published for two reasons. The first is to illustrate what we already know – just how addicted we all are to the instant connectivity provided by our smart phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, games consoles, and so on. That connectivity is a powerful and positive thing, but so is the personal discipline of being able to go a day or so without using it! Do you have that discipline? If you’re reading this today – Christmas Day – then challenge yourself with that simple question! (In case you’re wondering, the Badger has agreed with his family not to use a smart phone, tablet, laptop etc for the next 48 hours. Posting this item was, of course, the special dispensation that started that clock ticking).

The second reason is simple. It’s to wish you all a Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year. For the Badger Christmas is a time to cherish the thing that matters most – people. The Badger hopes you have a restive few days away from the hubbub of work, and time with loved ones to celebrate in whatever way is normal for you.

Happy Christmas. Peace and goodwill to all, wherever you are on our precious planet.

The other evening our 86-year old neighbour, who lives by herself, asked for help with her 18-month old washing machine. She’d pressed a button accidentally, panicked, and pressed other buttons randomly too. As a result, the clothes were in the drum with the door locked, and the machine was dormant with red symbols flashing on its display panel.

The Badger quickly diagnosed the problem from the flashing symbols. It was nothing serious; she’d accidently set a delay, so the machine was dormant waiting to start it’s cycle an hour and a half later. Resetting the timer triggered the washer into life, and the Badger was lauded as a hero!

Yesterday the Badger happened to be in a computing and electrical retailer’s showroom and came across the latest examples of ‘smart’ washing machines. Prices are high (£70-1500) but you can control the machine via the internet using an app on your smart phone. Prices will inevitably drop, but the Badger wondered if anyone really needs a washing machine more sophisticated than the much cheaper norm that his neighbour has. Marketers push the case for smart anything in a connected world, and – of course – the technology can provide smart capability, but do you really need a smart washing machine, and will it really make your clothes cleaning experience any easier?

The Badger’s dubious that the answer is yes! Perhaps the Badger’s just a dinosaur? No, just someone that believes smart technology should, first and foremost, address real life needs, and the need doesn’t look persuasive. Those under 25, of course, may really believe there’s a need for smart washing machines because they’ve grown up with the internet, personal computing devices, games consoles, and mobile phones as the norm. Obesity, however, is generally rising in this age group across the developed world, with sedentary lifestyles one of many causal factors. Perhaps our youngsters need to ask themselves if smart white goods will help them to more healthy lifestyles, or just encourage the opposite? A provocative thought perhaps…but just because technology can do things doesn’t mean it should.

This morning the Badger checked on his neighbour and her washing machine. She’s put bright stickers on some of the buttons to help her avoid a repeat of the same situation. She grumbled about the ‘unintelligible’ symbols displayed on her 18-month old machine, and the Badger mentioned, in passing, that smart washing machines were including more technology. A bad move. She looked at the Badger, grimaced, and just said ‘When will people realise that too much of a good thing is bad for you’. She has a point…

The Badger recently visited the Christmas Market and ice rink at the UK’s 1000 year old Winchester Cathedral. The crowds were shoulder to shoulder, and the atmosphere was great. It was immensely enjoyable, with only one thing marring the experience for the Badger and many others – people using their smart phones!

Here’s two examples that irritated many and got strangers grumbling to each other. The first was people in busy queues shuffling forwards very slowly because they were only concentrating on their smart phone, only to then stop suddenly to type into their phone before starting off again. The second was people blocking the front of stalls by taking pictures and then using their phones to search for alternative products and prices. The perpetrators were oblivious to their impact on others, even when polite but direct comments were made. On the drive home, the Badger cogitated on two questions. Is technology making people less considerate, and do people know how to function without their smart phone? The Badger decided to think further.

And then by coincidence a few days later, O2’s data network was out for a day in the UK and some other countries! The Badger’s an O2 customer and worked around any personal inconvenience. Twitter and social media, however, erupted with rants from people who seemed happy not to do anything to mitigate their inconvenience. A plumber apparently said he couldn’t get to his next job because his phone’s satnav wasn’t working. It’s a sad day when someone would rather just complain than find an old-fashioned paper map to use. One newspaper told people to ‘get a grip’, but it’s not clear if our permanently connected generations know what ‘get a grip’ means anymore!

The O2 glitch illustrates the critical importance of data networks in today’s global, anytime, anywhere world. The glitch also exposed that many people would rather rant about it than try to mitigate their own inconvenience. Glitches caused by software bugs, equipment failures, or human error will always happen, but it looks like society’s biggest vulnerability may not be the technology but the changed behaviour of people when the technology is unavailable. It feels like as our increasingly utopian reliance on technology rises, then so does selfishness, willingness to blame, inconsiderate behaviour, and personal inaction.

O2’s glitch won’t be the last we’ll see. Just imagine if a glitch knocked out driver-less cars and all people did was fold their arms and complain rather than try to mitigate their own inconvenience. That would not be healthy for society. Hmm. Has grey and rainy weather influenced the Badger’s mindset? Perhaps…but a large malt whiskey might have played an influential role.

The Badger recently received a renewal notice from a home service provider showing an annual price rise of >15%. Last year it rose similarly, but the Badger had been distracted with other priorities and didn’t notice. This year the Badger was having none of it, especially as new customers pay significantly less.

The Badger rang the phone number on the renewal letter and was met with automated selection options. There were six, with only one having a tenuous link with renewals. Selecting that led to more selection choices. The Badger scratched his head and guessed which was relevant. An automated voice then asked for some words to describe the nature of the enquiry. The Badger duly complied. Then there was silence until the ubiquitous message ‘Sorry for the wait. At present we are exceptionally busy. We’ll be with you as soon as we can’ repeated at regular intervals. After 10 minutes in the queue the Badger spoke to a real person. They didn’t know what the call was about… so what was  the point of being asked to say some words? Nevertheless, the person was helpful,  professional and able to negotiate a renewal that retained the Badger as a customer.

The Badger subsequently reflected on the experience. Two things stood out. First, the time taken from dialling to talking to a person greatly exceeded the time taken by the person to deal with matters. Second, the technology had provided no value to the Badger as a consumer. The value was all in the person to person interaction. Perhaps the Badger had just been unlucky. May be. But in these days of global immediacy, a consumer wants to speak to someone when calling a number designated by a company in a sensible number of seconds without having to navigate selection layers, provide valueless inputs or spending lengthy times in queues. Technology can surely make this happen better than it does today? It should help rather than detract from the overall experience.

Will robotics and AI really help? The jury’s out. It might just inject further delay before getting to speak with a real person when you need to. The challenge for relevant technology and product suppliers, those who configure and implement them, and the companies operating call centres is to ensure this doesn’t happen.

Finally, ‘you should have done this online’, I hear you say! The Badger tried, but the provider’s online facilities don’t allow existing customers to switch to offering given to new customers. Does this provider truly value its customers? Draw your own conclusions…

Last week’s UK National Audit Office report on the roll out of smart meters to every home in the UK showed there is delay, rising costs, technical problems, and that the business case is increasingly questionable. Rising costs will be passed to consumers through their electricity bills. The original objective to have a smart meter installed in all homes by the end of 2020has now morphed into all homes will have been ‘offered’ a smart meter by then. The forecast future annual savings for consumers in their bills is now paltry, and the whole thing feels like a ‘white elephant’ – just as many commentators  predicted it would be.

The Badger’s mused on smart meters before. What triggered today’s piece wasn’t the NAO report directly, but a conversation with the Badger’s 90-year old father who lives independently with support from his family. Like many elderly people, he’s overwhelmed by the ways of the modern world and its technology. He heard about the NAO report on the radio and asked the Badger why he needed a smart meter. By the way, he thinks he’s had many phone calls pushing their installation. However, we can’t be sure, because he always says ‘No Thanks’ and puts the phone down within 10 seconds for any call that’s not from a family member!

Anyway, the Badger addressed his question over our normal coffee and biscuit before taking him to his local day centre. He listened as the big picture was painted, and was reassured that he couldn’t be forced to have a smart meter. His face lit up as he made three comments. The first was ‘Great, I don’t need something I don’t understand, won’t use and only seems to benefit my electricity supplier’. The second was ‘It’ll go wrong and be a hassle to get fixed. Bills only ever go up regardless of what I do, so it won’t save me anything’. And the third was a real peach! He said ‘My doctor says I’ve to do as much for myself as I can and not to sit in the chair all day. When he says I need a smart thing because it’s good for me I might have one, but not before’.

So, there you have it. For smart meters to be a success with the UK’s elderly…mobilise health professionals! UK government statistics show there are > 2m over 75s living alone, and 1.6m over 85s. If they think like the Badger’s father, then it’s difficult to see how anyone will ever convince the elderly to have one. It feels like the ‘white elephant’ may be growing into a bigger ‘white elephant’ every day…

Jeff Bezos apparently said in an all-hands call that Amazon is not too big to fail. He predicted that one day it might do so because company lifespans tend to be 30-plus years, not 100-plus years. What he said isn’t surprising. It’s what history shows, and it’s what’s taught in business courses. To illustrate, of companies in the Fortune 500 in 1999, 50% had disappeared by 2009, and of companies in the UK’s FTSE 100 in 1999, less than 50% remain in the index in some form today. Company survival beyond ~30-45 years requires exceptional leadership, exceptional foresight to capitalise on new market opportunities, an exceptional ability to transform and change…and luck! Achieving that combination is rare.

Last weekend the Badger’s nephews, 12 and 14 years old, visited. As they connected to our home broadband to play an online game on their tablets, the Badger asked what social media platforms they used. None! WhatsApp is the only thing they and their peers use to interact with each other. They don’t use, and aren’t interested in using, the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter, and their views on these platforms were enlightening! When they departed, the Badger, with Bezos’s comments as a backdrop, reflected on the youngster’s views.

They were particularly scathing about Facebook, expressing distrust and describing it as being ‘for old people’. They were also scathing about Twitter, describing it as ‘not for normal people’ and describing tweets as essentially just random noise from wannabees. The Badger has no idea what shaped their opinions, but it was clear that opinions would not change any time soon! Facebook and Twitter started life in 2004 and 2006, so in terms of Bezos’s 30-year comment they are entering early middle age, struggling (see, for example, the recent item in TechMarketView), and will continue to do so if ‘nephew views’ reflect the sentiment of their generation.

The Badger reflected further and included thoughts about how his own use of social media had changed, ultimately reaching four conclusions. First, today’s tech-savvy youngsters are sharp and no fools in the ways of the world! Second, people behaviour is changing because of more security/privacy awareness and more awareness of how platforms use their data to make money. Third, the impact of social media overuse on mental health is more understood. Fourth, was that even with masses of global users, there’s a smell of decline in the air! Survival to the 30-year mark and beyond doesn’t feel like a sure bet!

As for ‘Facebook is only for old people’ comment, well the Badger asked what age was old? Twenty and above, apparently! My nephews pointed out that the Badger, therefore, was clearly a fossil. The Badger cheerily got his revenge…by changing the home Wifi password at a critical point in their game!

Commemorating the end of the 1914-18 Great War has, rightly, been one of the key themes in of the last week. The Badger found Remembrance Services and silence at the 11th Hour on the 11th day of the 11th month 100 years after the end of the war poignant, sobering and thought provoking. A relative of the Badger served in the army throughout. He won the Military Medal and survived, but it’s difficult to imagine the harrowing carnage he encountered during the war and his difficulties in civilian life afterwards. After all, the Great War was a real turning point for the world. Empires unravelled, the world order changed, and social, political and class structures changed forever, and economic hardship was commonplace.

In the run up to the Great War political, social, economic, military and technological factors drove widespread propaganda. Today’s internet-driven world has the potential for similar dynamics, and so the Badger was intrigued last week when Sir Tim Berners-Lee – father of the World Wide Web – launched a campaign to establish a kind of Magna-Carta to defend a free and open internet. The initiative appears to be driven by worries about the abuse of personal data, political manipulation, extremism and the power of a few major tech groups. Opinions seem to vary about Sir Tim’s campaign, and one published in the Register caused the Badger to wonder if Sir Tim’s campaign would it be a game changer and a defining moment in today’s tech-driven world, or just a distraction.

The Badger’s thoughts ranged from the idealistic with a Magna Carta seeding a turning point in the tech-driven world (like the Great War but without the human carnage), to replaying thoughts in a previous blog item, and to the revolutionary where big business’s internet domination and desire to grab, manipulate, and keep your attention for commercial gain is demolished. The Badger concluded simply that the genie has been out of the bottle for years and that Sir Tim’s initiative is unlikely to change the dominant power of big business. A Magna Carta of principles without real teeth and the full force of international law won’t put the genie back in the bottle even if big business smiles sweetly and supports it.

Sorry Sir Tim. Many in the general public will support your desire for something to be done, but not perhaps in the way you’re suggesting. The Badger feels that if, as predicted, 50% of the world population will be online by early 2019, then the internet is surely part of ‘the world’s critical infrastructure’. It will therefore need something stronger than your proposed ‘Magna Carta’ to protect everyone’s interests!

IT services companies quoted on stock exchanges publish their financial results quarterly and at the end of their financial year. Results are normally published with copious supporting notes and narratives, and are complemented by presentations, conference calls, and webcasts for stakeholders, analysts and anyone interested in the company’s performance. There are also normally internal presentations to the company’s staff to cascade the results and key messages across the organisation. There’s nothing unusual or sinister in any of this, but it’s often the case that positives are accentuated, and negatives get less air time.

Every employee is interested in their company’s performance, at least in the Badger’s experience. But employees are often suspicious of the results presented because they seem at odds with what they subjectively ‘feel and sense‘ on a day to day basis. Not every employee is a financial expert or has the time to understand and interpret the jargon, meaning and intricacies of published financial results, so is there a very simple way to get a quick, macro feel for how the company is doing?

Well, yes! Simply divide the reported orders, revenue and profit numbers by the company’s total number of employees. (Some companies publish headcount in their reported results, but for those that don’t it can often be found on their website, company overviews, press releases or marketing material). Simply track how these three ‘per employee’ numbers change quarter by quarter and year by year to get a broad sense of performance devoid of any propaganda. In simple terms, a material upward trend in the numbers suggests a healthy, efficient and growing company that will provide good career opportunities for employees. Flat or declining trends suggest stagnancy, little career development opportunity for employees, and the likelihood of a strategic overhaul at some stage to address these adverse trends. The latter often leads to workforce restructuring and loss of jobs.

Anyone can do the above. It’s simple, and whilst financial purists may assert otherwise, the Badger has found it a reliable way for anyone to keep grounded on how well an IT services company is doing. Why not have a go yourself? Comparing the trend of these three numbers for your company with those of your competitors can be a real eye opener!

Last Sunday the Badger bumped into neighbours out for a walk with their two young daughters. They are both teachers and their daughters are just 8 and 6 years old. The eldest was clutching a pink tablet, not quite the size of an iPad. We chatted for some minutes, and the 8-year old – obviously feeling a bit left out –  thrust her tablet into the Badger’s hands and said ‘look what I’ve got’.  The Badger asked what she used it for, and she said mainly for drawing pictures and playing games. Her mother teaches humanity subjects at school, so the Badger casually commented to her parents that their daughter  was already on track for a career in the arts rather than science and engineering. The conversation then took an unexpected turn.

The little girl asked the Badger what was best; arts or science and engineering? The Badger was momentarily surprised, but answered saying that he’d trained in science, technology, engineering and mathematical (STEM) subjects, and had used that training in the IT world to successfully do many varied technical and non-technical things. The Badger illustrated – in child-friendly terms – by mentioning satellites, navigation, space travel, mobile phones and iPads. She was also told that it was scientists and engineers that made the apps on her tablet and, indeed, made the modern world work! The Badger pointed out that scientists and engineers were very creative and often drew pictures on their tablets too!

The little girl absorbed this for a moment, looked quizzically at her mother and asked her if she should be an artist, or a scientist or engineer when she grew up. Her mother just grinned and turned the question back on her daughter. What did she want to be? None of us were prepared for the answer. With a serious expression she quickly said she wanted to be a scientist or an engineer. Her mother asked why? Her daughter looked sheepish, and giggled. She just said because that way she could learn to control Santa Clause’s delivery of presents around the world at Christmas, and divert all the presents to herself! Her mother was horrified.

After the neighbours resumed their walk, the Badger was left with just two thoughts. The first was that young children like hearing about the role of science and engineering in the modern world. The second was that this little girl will go far in life! Just imagine how she’ll be thinking when she’s 18 years old rather than 8…

Outsource contracts include service levels and key performance indicators (KPIs) together with how they are calculated and reported and what penalties arise for non-achievement. This means that when the service is running the client, supplier line management and the supplier service delivery team can all see what’s working and what isn’t. This focuses everyone’s attention on areas of underperformance and enables the success of corrective action to be tracked through the return of indicators to the required level. This neatly illustrates the well-known adage that ‘What gets measured gets done…’.

This saying has been around for a very long time, so the Badger was surprised to overhear a conversation recently where a smartly dressed lady was quizzing a man about the status of a software development project in a London Starbucks. The lady asked about the status of development and the man replied that it was ‘Amber’. The lady went on to ask exactly how much of the software was developed, how much had been tested, and whether progress was on track. The man shrugged and just restated it was Amber. The lady looked anxious and sensibly asked how he knew it was Amber. The man shrugged his shoulders again and said that it was the general sentiment of his team. The lady looked unhappy and just said, ‘You obviously don’t have any facts, so this sounds very Red to me’. They left shortly afterwards.

The Badger almost choked on his latte wondering why he was hearing this conversation in 2018. The Badger first heard conversations like this more than three decades ago when it was already known that quantitative metrics and measurement were crucial to control in any software or systems development lifecycle. Over the years the Badger has seen many software and systems integration projects that became major situations when quantitative management, engineering and test measurements were absent. Turning these situations around not only always entailed putting quantification, metrics and measurement in place, but also then aligning people to get things done based on analysis of the associated outputs.

Although the world today is very different to that of a couple of decades ago, the maxim which is the title of this post remains totally relevant and is imperative knowledge for anyone in a leadership or management role. Surely in 2018 we shouldn’t be having to re-learn the lessons of old on software-centric projects? Perhaps we do. At the very least it seems necessary to continually and better communicate and educate so that such basics are routinely cemented in individual learning. So, the Badger’s plea of the week is simply this; remember, if it isn’t being measured then it won’t get done – and that goes for software/systems projects just as well as service deliveries. Pass it on!