The DOBlog

Author: Daragh

  • Putting Teeth In the Tiger

    This post was originally published in August 2010 on the Irish Computer Society’s Data Protection Blog. I’ve copied it to here as it is my work and I want to put all my Data Protection musings in one place. Please feel free to go and look at it on the ICS site as well.

    The Information Commissioner’s office in the UK has recently flagged their lack of powers to the European Commission. This is slightly amusing for those of us working under the Irish data protection regime, who look at the powers that the UK ICO have to levy penalties for breaches of the UK Data Protection Act, compared to the relatively limited powers of the Irish Data Protection Commissioner to issue Enforcement or Prohibition Notices and only to take prosecutions for breaches of the e-privacy regulations.

    Of course, the Irish Commissioner does have the power since the 2003 Act to conduct audits and investigations on their own account (i.e. not on foot of an actual complaint). The UK ICO has limited powers by comparison. Likewise, they lack an equivalent Data Breach provisions that the Irish Data Protection  Commissioner introduced last month (but there are plans to do so in the UK soon).

    There is a new draft Data Protection Directive in the pipeline (albeit stalled at the request of the French to allow sufficient time for effective consultation). Just as Directive 95/46/EC (the root of Ireland’s 2003 Data Protection Amendment Act) was introduced to address divergences in the implementation of the previous Convention on Data Privacy (Convention 108), it is likely that this revised directive will seek to address some of the remaining areas of divergence in national laws which implement Directive 95/45/EC.  One area which is likely to be addressed will be the nature and type of penalties which will be applicable to various categories of breach.

    The drafting of the revised Directive has been delayed. Even when the Directive comes into being, the Irish Government’s track record in implementing Data Protection regulations in a timely manner has been less than impressive. So it may well be that, from point of view of EU mandated changes, we could be in for a long wait.

    However there is a significant elephant in the room. The State needs to balance the books. The two traditional levers which can be pulled by the State are either Taxation or reductions in spending. Both of these levers are politically difficult to pull. Increasing taxes creates resistance and revolution  (increases in taxation historically trigger revolutions – particularly taxes on property or on the middle classes). Cutting spending likewise creates resistance and exacerbates social disadvantage (in many cases undoing valuable work previously done using tax euros).

    Both of these are the items on the current agenda.

    Of course, there is a third lever which can be used to generate revenue for the State and which can (at least in the short to medium term) bring about a change in behaviour. That third lever is the levying of fines and penalties. While this lever may not contribute as quickly or substantially to balancing the books, it would be remiss of the government to overlook any potential source of revenue at this time. And as this revenue is being generated on foot of behaviour which is illegal, under legislation which has been in existence for a number of years, and (unlike a tax) it can be avoided by simply taking the necessary steps to comply with the legislation.

    The introduction of such penalties would require a minor amendment to the existing legislation.

    So, given that there are indications emerging which suggest upcoming changes to standardise the types of penalty which will apply to breaches of the Data Protection regulations across the EU27 States, and that the State has an increasingly urgent need to generate revenue, I would not be surprised if we were to see some changes in the Data Protection legislation in Ireland sooner rather than later which would introduce some penalties which will put some additional teeth in the Data Protection Commissioner’s enforcement powers.

    But this is only a worry for anyone who isn’t complying with the Data Protection Acts. The prudent course of action for anyone processing personal data would be to make sure that they get their house in order ahead of any potential changes, either emerging from Europe or from the Government’s need to claw in as much income as possible.

  • Profound Profiling

    Over the past few weeks at a number of events and speaking engagements I’ve found myself talking about the multifaceted benefits of Data Profiling from the perspectives of:

    • Complying with EU Data Protection regulations
    • Ensuring Data Migrations actually succeed
    • Enabling timely reporting of Regulatory risks

    My mantra in these contexts seems to be distilling down to two bald statements:

    • It’s the Information, Stupid.
    • Profile early, profile often.

    But what do I mean by “Data Profiling”? For the purposes of these conversations, I defined “Data Profiling” as being the analysis of the structure and content of  a data set against some pre-defined business rules and expectations. For example, we may want to know how many (or what percentage) of records in a data set are missing key data, or how many have inconsistencies in the data, or how many potential duplicates  there are in the data.

    Why is this of benefit? While a journey of a 1000 miles starts with a single step, that journey must start from somewhere and be headed somewhere. The destination is encapsulated in the expected business rule outcomes and expectations. These outcomes and expectations are often defined by external factors such as Regulatory requirements (e.g. the need to keep information up to date under EU Data Protection principles, or the need to track bank accounts of minors in AML processes) or the strategic objectives of the organisation. The starting point is, therefore, a snapshot of how close you are (or how far you are) from your destination.

    In my conversations, I advised people (none of whom were overly familiar with Information Quality principles or tools) that they should consider investing in a tool that allows them to build and edit and maintain Data Profiling rules and run them automatically. Regular Information Quality geeks will probably guess that the next thing I told them was about  how the profile snapshots could provide a very clear dashboard of how things are in the State of Data in their organisations.

    Just as, when we are embarking on our journey of 1000 miles, it makes sense for us to regularly check our map against the landmarks to make sure we are heading in the right direction. The alternative is to meander down cul de sacs and dead end trails. Which equates in Information Management terms to wasted investment and scrap and rework. So, profile early and profile often seems to be a good philosophy to live by.

    By applying  business rules that relate to your regulatory compliance, risk management, or data migration objectives, you can make Information Quality directly relevant to the goals of the organisation, increasing the likelihood of any changes you bring in becoming “part of the way things get done around here” rather than “yet another darned thing we have to do”.  Quality for the sake of quality was a luxury even in the pre-recession period. In today’s economy it is more important than ever to demonstrate clear value.

    And that is the real profoundity of profiling. Without it you can’t actually know the true value of your Information Asset or determine if your current course of action might turn your Asset into a Liability.

    It’s the Information, Stupid. So Profile Early and Profile Often.

  • “It’s the Information, Stupid”

    This post was first published in the Irish Computer Society Data Protection blog. I’m republishing it here as it is my original work and I am putting my Data Protection musings in one place.

    A recent news story in the Irish Times about the data protection compliance problems faced by the Irish Insurance industry serves as a timely reminder of one of the mantras for Data Protection compliance:

    Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

    In this instance, a perfectly legitimate process existed for sharing data in certain circumstances (when a claim was being made) to help flag instances of insurance fraud etc. All of that processing is legitimate and legal.

    The problem arose where the information was being shared when a claimmight be made, resulting in disclosures of personal data between insurance providers without any legal justification. It was these disclosures that the Commissioner has flagged as being in breach of the Data Protection Acts.

    Technology is great. It allows for the analysis of data quickly to find important nuggets of information. However, only if you have obtained that source data legally will you be able to legitimately act on the facts you uncover.

    Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

    This case also highlights another aspect of Data Protection Compliance – it is not all about technology or the IT department. In this case, business decisions were taken to share information. Without business rules to restrict or permit disclosure of information (e.g. “only disclose if a claim is in progress”), information was disclosed without due cause.  Business managers need to step up to the mark and be proactive about how they manage their core business asset (information) in a way that ensures and assures compliance, trust and, at the end of the day, their ability to keep using that information.

    To paraphrase Bill Clinton – “It’s the Information, Stupid”.

  • For the want of a nudie pen Tom Happens is exposed

    One of the most popular presenters on one of the most popular radio stations in Ireland recently launched a great idea – a loyalty card for his listeners. This card seems to be the replacement for his previous gimmick, a “Nudie Pen”.

    Visit the radio station website (NewsTalk.ie, tell them your name, your address, your email address, your 3 favourite bands and your favourite foods and a piece of plastic featuring a picture of the host will wend its way to your door.

    Simple.

    At least it is unless you step back and think about the process from the point of view of Data Protection principles.

    Personal data must be obtained and processed fairly for specific purposes. What are the purposes for which NewsTalk wants my personal data? If it is just to send me a card then we walk right into another issue – information gathered should not be excessive to that purpose.

    So, if you are just sending me a card, why do you need to know my music and food preferences?

    Sensitive personal data, such as data pertaining to medical conditions or political beliefs or ethnic origins is treated with more seriousness under the Data Protection Act. So, depending on the responses to those questions about music and favourite foods, sensitive personal data could be being processed.

    The explanation of the loyalty card scheme that is on the NewsTalk website is great and in keeping with the light hearted nature of Tom’s show. However it doesn’t go far enough in explaining or setting out the purposes for which the data is being captured.

    Other issues arise as a result of processing personal data via a website, such as the legal requirement to have a privacy policy displayed on the site and the data protection requirements of keeping the data safe and secure and only keeping it for as long as it is needed for the specified purpose. I’ll explore these in later posts.

    It is all too easy to fall foul of the simple rules that exist to ensure trust and transparency in how personal data can be processed. Prior planning can ensure that Compliance is an enabler of business and customer interaction rather than a nagging fear of being caught dragging at your actions.

    Taking out your Nudie Pen and mapping out what your information objectives, purposes, etc. are (see this tutorial on my company website for an example) is time well spent to make sure you aren’t creating a rod to beat yourself with. Using your Nudie pen to sign up for some Data Protection Training (such as that offered by the Irish Computer Society or my company) would also be a worthwhile step, particularly given the Data Protection Commissioner’s recent findings on the need for the management teams in businesses to be aware of the Data Protection implications of their actions.

  • Information Quality – Do we have an app for that?

    A few weeks back I got a new iphone. I’d resisted for years, enjoying the pleasures of Nokia and Symbian and the challenges of Palm and Windows Mobile 6.1.

    The fun part for me of any new mobile phone purchase is playing with the new toy  tool and seeing what it can do that my old one couldn’t. For example, back in the 1990s when I did my first upgrade from my first mobile phone (an ericsson model so old that I actually can’t find it referenced on the internet), I found that the new phone was so much smaller and lighter I was actually able to carry it around.

    The irritation I have is when it comes to moving my contacts and synchronising with my various other technologies that hold contact details (laptop, gmail, company address book). Inevitably I wind up with duplication and triplication of contacts. I thought I had the problem licked on the iphone though as there are a number of apps available for managing contact details and reducing duplicates.

    However, having spent a few days using them I am unimpressed as they seem to be making a the traditional rookie mistake in de-duping records – assuming that name matching is enough.

    My brother and father share a given name and a family name. They have different middle initials, different addresses, different phone numbers, different email addresses (all the stuff that you would have in a contact record on your phone). Each application I tried decided that they were a duplicate entry and merged the records. This was annoying.

    In other cases, I have duplicate entries with varying degrees of record completeness. For example, my friend Cathal exists at least 4 times, with one entry having most of his contact details,  with spurious email addresses or social networking nicknames in the others.  The “data quality tool” very kindly merged all the records into the entry that had the least amount of data, and deleting the other records.

    Right now I’m considering firing up talend, datanomic, or informatica tools to dedupe a dump from my iphone and reload it to the phone, and then hopefully that will cascade through the rest of my data stores when I synchronise.

    But I’ll need to draw a data flow map of all of that to make sure.

    Grrrrhhh.

    So. If the existing tools for data quality on the iphone are not up to the jobs, what is missing? The good news is that the data sets are fairly clearly structured (once they get into the iphone), so that is less of a concern than the actual processing of matching and consolidation of records.

    1. Probability scoring across multiple fields would be nice. If two people have the same name but significantly different contact details then it is very probable they are not the same person. A corollary – if there are two records with the same name and one has contact information and the other record has only a name, chances are they are duplicates.
    2. Presentation of matches for review. While the machine can make good guesses where the name and contact details are the same, where there is confusion, the matches should be flagged for a review by the phone user (the “Data Controller”). This way we can avoid having to unpick erroneous matches.
    3. Merging of records should be done on a more structured basis, with mapping of fields being user-customisable based on a standard template. I despair of important contact information being dumped into a notes field (it reminds me too much of when I had to try and migrate data out of a Siebel call centre system a few years ago).
    4. The matching should be able to cater for multi-lingual input (as phones don’t all live and work in english speaking lands).

    There may be other requirements that I am not thinking of here at the moment, but those 4 are a starting point. Perhaps an obliging Data Quality tool vendor will develop an iphone app to a web service for matching contact records.

    Personally, I think that having such a service available would help raise awareness of the value of quality non-duplicated contact information to individuals and to organisations.  However, the app on its own isn’t enough as the average smart-phone user may have personal information held in a variety of places and, just like in a large enterprise with lots of data stores, creating a “Single View of Contact” will require you to understand the flow of your contact information around your tools (i.e. does the phone update the laptop and does the laptop synch to google apps and does google apps synch to the phone?) to avoid the cleanup work being undone the next time you plug your phone into your PC.

    Information Quality Management poses challenges for the enterprise, but can also create friction for the individual trying to manage something as simple as a list of contacts across multiple information stores.

    Do we have an app for that?

  • Sometimes it is the simplest things…

    Yesterday I took some time out from work to help hang some new light fittings at home. Our local handyman/neighbour was doing the hard work as my wife has seen enough of my father’s DIY exploits to have put an embargo on me even looking sideways at power tools.

    The estimated duration of the job was to be about 45 minutes to an hour to hang three fittings. The first two fittings went up in about 20 minutes. The final one, that took us about 4 hours (and as of this morning still isn’t finished. We hadn’t factored on the “creativity” of the electricians who installed the original wiring.

    When we opened up the existing light fitting in the living room we were faced with a spaghetti junction of cables. When we wired them into the new light fitting, the light went on but the switch wasn’t controlling it. It seemed we’d wired the light into a loop going somewhere else. We were faced with 5 live wires which had been going into 4 connectors on a connector block. So we had to then test each of the possible live/neutral combinations in turn to find the ones that actually related to the switch (which necessitated our handyman/neighbour having to play with live 240 volt electricity, which is never a good idea).

    When we traced the correct cable pair I did a very simple thing. I dug out my label maker and put a label on the cables that related to the lighting circuit in that room. It struck me that that 30 seconds of effort was something that the electrician who wired the house could have easily done when they were installing the cables, making life simpler for him (or her) and for anyone who came after.

    We wired everything up and fitted it up for a quick test before finishing the job. I turned the power back on.

    Then there was a loud bang and the power went out.

    It turned out that there was a break in the live wire we’d just labelled (the important one for the task at hand) slightly further up the cable from where the label was which had pierced through the insulation and come into contact with the metal mounting plate for the light fitting.

    As a result, the magic smoke had escaped from the circuit breaker and the light switch.

    What had ensued for my neighbourhood handyman and I was instead frustration as  a task which should have taken a half hour stretching into nearly six hours (over 2 days) and additional expense (to the handyman) in replacing the blown components.

    To put it another way, for the want of €0.15 of labelling on the part of the original vendor to identify the attributes of the various wires we found (such as “this one runs the lights”), I expended a full half-day of work and the handyman was unavailable for other jobs which would have paid him a lot more than the rate we’d struck for fitting the lights – and that was before the additional cost and complication of having to go to the electrical wholesalers this morning to buy replacement parts and fit them as well.

    It struck me that this is a situation we encounter on a regular basis with the information assets of an organisation.

    Very often the important data for a given process in a given area is not clearly identified. Management say “give us everything and we’ll figure it out” and call centre screens and web-forms are cluttered with a variety of information capture points.

    A failure to understand (or label) the purpose of that information, where it comes from and where it goes to, and its critical path in the business can result in undesired outcomes as soon as anything starts to change in the business, business processes, or technology platform (such as replacing your front end systems with a new one, the nearest analogy I can think of for changing a light fitting).

    This results in expended effort on scrap and rework trying to get the blasted thing to work right with the desired outcomes (such as throwing illumination on a problem), and quite often can result in a critical information path way being blown and needing replacement or an internal control process in the business stopping a process.

    Of course, things can often be worse in the Information Quality space where the internal controls on quality may not function as efficiently as a circuit breaker and a light switch which have planned failure built in to them to isolate the end user from the dangers of domestic electricity supply. When controls like circuit breakers fail, the results can be… shocking.

    Sometimes it is the simplest things that are important, such as knowing what wires relate to the circuit you are fitting a light into, or what items of information are actually critical to the success or failure of a process (both the immediate process and down stream -remember  there were 4 other live wires relating to other circuits that had to be dealt with as well) is a key contributor to the success or failure of any change effort.

    What controls do you have to protect your business knowledge workers from the dangers of a high voltage low quality information? Are the mission critical data in your organisation clearly labelled?

  • St. Patrick’s Day Special

    image with bottled water being passed through a kettle and into a sink to give hot water

    I found this on http://www.motivatedphotos.com and it struck me that it is a wonderful metaphor for data integration, information quality, and data governance in many organisations where they are reacting to issues, sustaining silos, or viewing all of this as an IT issue rather than a business challenge, or trying to solve the challenge with series of fragmented department level initiatives.

    Thoughts?

  • Wrong Country Wrong Call

    I’m diverting briefly today from my regular information quality themes to pick up on a debate that has been triggered by Simon over on Tuppenceworth about the latest tsunami of magical thinking that is Your Country Your Call.

    For those of you in Ireland who reside under a rock or in a cave or readers from outside of Ireland, Your Country Your Call is a competition/website which has been set up on (apparently) a Charitable basis with backing of  number of organisations who have, until recently, been happy to be completely behind the scenes for what one must assume are laudable reasons grounded in humility, modesty and a sense of service.

    The goal of YCYC is to find the magic bullet idea that can trigger a renaissance in the Celtic Tiger. Two prizes are on offer for the people who comes up with two ideas and a fund has been established to help develop these mould breaking concepts into  real industries (not a business… an industry).

    Simon has made a number of cogent arguments on Tuppenceworth about the terms and conditions of entry which basically mean that the promoters of YCYC own the winning idea and control the purse strings for the development and direction of the idea. That’s bothersome enough.

    My issue with YCYC is that it is actually a wasted opportunity that has the hallmarks of  the level of thinking that got us into the current financial mess that the country is in.  If we hype it it will happen. If we generate a general sense of it being built at some point in the future they will come. The general gist of the response to criticism thus far has not been a million miles from the comments made about people who raised concerns about the Irish economy just before the wheels fell off. Apparently it is unpatriotic to question who is behind this and how they are being funded.

    Apparently if we all hold hands and think happy thoughts then, just like Peter Pan, we’ll be able to fly, never grow up, and pick pointless fights with our own shadows.

    But I digress. My problem with YCYC is that a large amount of money is being poured into it. It has been confirmed that €2 million is being poured into this, when you take prize funds, the development kitty and the general costs associated with a big media splash.  Even if we are as generous as people are seeming to be and assume that the media splash is being done pro bono, we still have a  figure of around €2 million attached to YCYC (see discussion around this comment on ValueIreland’s website)

    What other type of model might YCYC have pursued to more effectively make use of this pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, other than a competition model the terms and conditions of which read to me like the ones associated with a Battle of the Bands or a phone in competition to win a car?

    How about beefing up funding to EXISTING supports for entrepreneurship in Ireland such as the County Enterprise Boards, LEADER programmes, or the enterprise incubation programmes associated with the various Universities and Institutes of Technology?

    • The upper limit for a feasibility study grant from a CEB is around €5000. That €2million could support 400 studies into new business ideas, each of which would need to have a business model slightly better than “Underpants- Question mark – Profit” to get the funding.
    • Funding for graduate entreprenuers through the CORD scheme provides up to €30k in funding to participants on an enterprise incubation scheme through an Institute of Technology or University. The €2 million would fully fund 66 additional CORD places around the country, with enough over for a big bang press launch. Even if the money was only to partially fund these places, it would help support real innovation and entrepreneurship.

    I would have to ask why the promoter and financial backers of YCYC decided to by-pass the existing support structures that exist for new business ideas in this country. Is it that the organisers thought the existing structures to be inefficient or broken in some way?

    This question is all the more pressing to me given that it seems that a chunk of this money (15%) came from the Irish Government, specifically, it seems, the Dept of Enterprise Trade and Employment. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is the Irish Govt. Department which is responsible for County Enterprise Boards. So, rather than fund them more the Dept seems to have been happy to transfer taxpayer’s money to a private initiative.

    At least that is what seems to be suggested by Padraig McKeown’s Twitter reply to Tuppenceworth.ie about which department’s budget the €300k was coming from (warning, you’ll need to scroll down on this to see all the relevant comments). This is also an interesting question given recent comments and posts elsewhere speculating about the future of the County Enterprise Boards.

    • €300k from the Department equates to 60 Feasibility study grants or 10 CORD funded Incubation centre places.

    I’m sure that someone will row in about now with the argument that the Dept can’t just transfer €300k to the CEBs or to the Incubation Centres willy-nilly. But that is exactly what seems to have happened to facilitate a transfer of €300k to YCYC with no (at least as far as I can see) announcement or fanfare that this was being done.

    As for the remaining €1.7million that is in the kitty for YCYC? As each CEB operates as a seperate limited company, there would have been no impediment (that I can see) to these backers simply making the fund available as an Innovation Fund which the CEBs or Incubation Centres could draw on to fund grants and other supports for start-up businesses.

    So. I’m left with a sense that Your Country Your Call is:

    1. A poorly thought out muddle with a worrying lack of clarity about where issues such as Intellectual Property rights to any idea sit (the Terms & Conditions do seem to be clear that the IP vests to the promoters of #YCYC).
    2. An initiative that may be laudable in its intent, but perhaps has not been properly thought through – perhaps the use of existing supports that exist under the auspices of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and Enterprise Ireland.
    3. An initiative that the Government Dept (Enterprise Trade & Employment) responsible for promoting enterprise and employment thought worthwhile investing a significant sum of money into an initiative which keeps the IP to any idea, at what can only be the expense of existing programmes for Enterprise support that exist in the country or, at the very least, at the expense of beefing up those programmes in a structured and sustainable way.
    4. YCYC is a wonderful feat of PR puffery with little real potential to deliver the economic kickstart that is required in Ireland, but doesn’t the website look pretty.
    5. The priority of the government and the sponsors of this initiative is to promote a forum for fuzzy thinking and “end of the rainbow” speculation at the expense of the existing supports for business start-ups which have a track record of supporting local SME development around the country.

    At best it is a noisome distraction and puffery that might, by some sheer accident of chance, uncover a true gem of an idea (that the innovator of which cannot grasp the value of) which will restart the economic engines. At worst, it is a noisome distraction that has diverted funding from existing enterprise support frameworks that exist in the country, apparently with the blessing of the responsible government minister.

    Of course, I could be totally wrong.  Maybe the Department of Enterprise had €300k that was sitting around doing nothing and which the CEBs and University Campus incubators had said no to when it was offered to them. Maybe the €1.7 million war chest was touted around the Campus Incubators and the CEBs but was politely declined as well. Perhaps the President of DCU could shed some light on this as he is on the Steering board of YCYC?

    Maybe the terms and conditions of YCYC will not put off serious thinkers with real viable ideas to shake things up in the economy which they’ll be happy to part with for a hundred grand.

    Personally, I’ll continue with my strategy of knuckling down to graft on my business plan, keeping an eye on costs, and working to build a set of services and products that, while not changing the world, will change that part of it that I’ve spotted needs changing, with a view to creating value and generating employment for others over time.

    It’s my country. It’s my call.

  • Valentines Data Quality Post

    I’ve been inspired by Jim Harris’ excellent post about how companies need to love their data this Valentines Day, where he uses 1980s song lyrics to argue his case.  My personal view is that the 1980s, with a few exceptions, were a lost decade for music. So I trawled through my ipod and found this great song about a CEO’s tortured love for information.

    I give you “DATA” by Derek and the Dominoes.

    What will you do when you get data

    Loaded into your new BI?

    You’ve been running reports

    that don’t make sense for too long

    but you can’t blame your poor BI.

    Data, you’ve got me on my knees

    Data, I’m begging darlin’ please.

    Data, darlin’ won’t you ease my worried mind.

    I tried to get some information.

    But the data lets me down.

    Like a fool, I fell in love with you,

    But the duff  data turns my whole world upside down

    Data, you’ve got me on my knees

    Data, I’m begging darlin’ please.

    Data, darlin’ won’t you ease my worried mind.

    Let’s make the best of the information.

    Before I finally go insane

    please don’t say we’ll never find a way

    or tell me that all BI’s in vain

    Data, you’ve got me on my knees

    Data, I’m begging darlin’ please.

    Data, darlin’ won’t you ease my worried mind.

    Of course, if we look further into the archives we can find references to poor quality information dotted through the master works of the blues greats.

    • BB King’s under rated “The referential integrity’s gone”, later rereleased as “The Thrill is gone”
    • John Lee Hooker’s “I’d got my data workin’ (but it just don’t work on you)”, a song about a failed data migration later reworked and re-released as “I’ve got my Mojo workin’”.
    • Robert Johnson’s lost recording “I’ve got Data on my mind”.
    • The Blues Brothers “Everybody needs some data (to love)”.

    Even older than that, a 7 year old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote the timeless classic “Twinkle Twinkle little infomraiton record, how I wonder how complete and consistent you are“. Unfortunately his father made him rewrite it as a childish ditty about the stars. Astronomy’s gain was our loss.

    The list is endless, proving that the struggle with quality information to drive business value is as timeless as good music.

  • An open letter to Orna Mulcahy and Leaving Cert Class of 2010

    Today’s Irish Times has an article by Orna Mulcahy where she bemoans the fact that the points for college courses will be higher this autumn due to the increase in applications from mature students who have recently found themselves unemployed/between jobs/time advantaged (pick your own term).

    After more than a decade of falling points and expanding career options, all signs were that getting into a reasonably fulfilling college course would be just a matter of filling in the forms. But the great recession has put paid to that. Certain courses are no longer attractive at all, such as those leading towards a career in property or construction. The inevitable swing towards the sciences or any course that might feed into Brian Cowen’s beloved “smart economy” will increase competition for places. This year more people will sit the Leaving Cert than ever before. And now there’s talk of a wave of the newly unemployed going back to college.

    Oh. To put that another way:

    Over reliance on the benign nature of an economic model in which effectively turning up and having a pulse assured you of a foot on the entry level (at least) rungs of an asset acquisition ladder has resulted in a shock adjustment when the dynamics of that economic model change due to external factors and internal market forces.

    To me, this sounds a lot like what happened in the property bubble and crash in Ireland, when lots of people chased moderate amounts of property with apparently bottomless pots of mortgage money available from banks, resulting in prices rocketing. A lot of people over stretched themselves financially to buy a property and then found themselves in a state of shock when the arse dropped out of prices and they were left paying a gallon sized mortgage on a half-pint asset value. Which is interesting, given that she is the Property Editor of the Irish Times. (more…)