The DOBlog

Tag: Other Thoughts

  • On the great big Bertie Bye Bye

    From time to time the DoBlog allows honoured guests to write posts (well I would if anyone asked). When I’m stuck for honoured guests, sometimes I invite family, and I even let them get a byline on the piece. No cuttypasty-and-claim-as-my-own here thanky much.

    This post is penned by the brother. If he would actually get off his backside and do a proper blog hisself (he lives over at “Another Crying Shame“) I’m sure the O Brien clan would soon be festooned with Obsessive Blogger badges from Fergal Crehan.

    So… here’s the brother’s take on the Great Big Bertie Bye Bye:

    While it’s certainly good news in a visceral ‘Death to my Enemies’ kind of way I think it will in the long run mean very little or even be a bad thing for the Irish body politic
    (more…)

  • A memoir in 6 words

    Darren over at the Crabbling Otter has laid down a challenge to me, which was in turn given to him by GrannyMar. The challenge is to write my memoir in six words. It is harder then you think. I normally take 20 words to say hello and forty eight to say goodbye.

    Worked diligently, invested time, achieved joy.

    That’s my starter for 10. But if I was allowed 10 there’d be four more words to play with… bugger.

  • The script is in development…

    It seems that there is a deal imminent in the US Writers Strike.

    Lawyers are due to present the final draft to the writers and studios tomorrow. But already Joe Esterhaz has been lined up to ‘sex it up’ for the masses and Jerry Bruckheimer will produce the mammoth deal, with Paul Verhoven lined up to direct.

    “Esterhaz has a strong track record of taking limp material and making it something people would want to be a part of over and over again.”, says Bruckheimer, “so he was the natural choice to polish the lawyer’s draft. And Verhoven was the best choice to direct because of his gritty vision, strong production values and, with a Paul Verhoven movie, you know someone’s going to get screwed royally at some stage in the action”.

    Commenting on the choice of Bruckheimer to produce, William Shatner was quoted as saying

    ” Well. JerryBruckheimer. Is. thelogicalchoice. to. produce. something. on. the. scale. of. the. impendingend. of. worldasweknowit. Which this was. Yes.”

    Shatner has denied rumours that he is to release an a cappela album of the terms of the agreement put to the music of the Artic Monkeys.

    The Director General of RTE was quick to highlight the role of the Irish national broadcaster in resolving the dispute.

    “Given how much of our evening schedules are based around US syndicated dramas and comedies, we had a strong motivation to help resolve this long running dispute. For feck’s sake, we had been reduced to running documentaries produced by the BBC, which half our viewers had already avoided watching when they were on the BBC. To that end we dispatched our most experienced facilitator and chair person, John Bowman, to the States to help get people in a room and bash heads together until there was a deal. It was either that or go cap in hand to the History Channel for a few series of documentaries on the Nazis. And we all know that those things are like home movies to that shower of…”

    The Irish national broadcaster later retracted the above statement when it was revealed that the chair of the negotiations committee in the writers strike was actually a totally different John Bowman and it appeared that the Irish John Bowman might actually have liked the addition of documentary programming to the Irish national broadcaster’s schedules.

    While the successful completion of a draft script is a key milestone, there is still a risk that the developmental project will be held up by the studios until the money is right, the cast is right or the ground temperature in Hell falls below zero. One Hollywood insider has told us that:

    “If the studios don’t feel the market is ready for an epic cinematic journey through the intracies of intellectual property ownership in a post Web2.0 landscape then they may keep the whole production in development for years. Unless their sense of the market is that the money will be there to make the investment pay off they just won’t do it. Too many people were burned by Heaven’s Gate… big production values, lots of investment, but a very long road to payback.

    All of the above is a work of fiction and any similarity to real people living or dead is entirely co-incidental, if a little amusing.

  • Information Quality in 2008…

    So yet another year draws to a close. Usually around this time of year I try to take a few hours to review how things went, what worked and what still needs to be worked on in the coming year. In most cases that is very personal appraisal of whether I had a ‘quality’ year – did I meet or exceed my own expectations of myself (and I’m a bugger for trying to achieve too much too quickly).

    Vincent McBurney’s Blog Carnival of Data Quality has invited submissions on the theme “Happy New Year”, so I thought I’d take a look back over 2007 and see what emerging trends or movements might lead to a Happy New Year for Information Quality people in 2008.

    Hitting Mainstream
    In 2007 Information Quality issues began to hit the mainstream. It isn’t quite there yet but 2007 saw the introduction of taught Master’s degree programmes in Information Quality in the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and there have been similar developments mooted in at least one European University. If educators think they can run viable courses that will make money then we are moving out of the niche towards being seen asa a mainstream discipline of importance to business.

    The IAIDQ’s IDQ Conference in Las Vegas was a significant success, with numbers up on 2006 and a wider mix of attendees. I did an unofficial straw poll of people at that conference and the consensus from the delegates and other speakers was that there were more ‘Business’ people at the conference than previous Information Quality conferences they’d attended, a trend that has been growing in recent years. The same was true at the European Data Management and Information Quality Conference(s) in London in November. Numbers were up on previous years. There were more ‘Business’ people in the mix, up even on last year. – this of course is all based on my unofficial straw poll and could be wrong.

    The fact that news stories abounded in 2007 about poor quality information and the initial short sharp shock of Compliance and SOx etc. has started to give rise to questions of how to make Compliance a value-adding function (hint – It’s the INFORMATION people) may help, but the influence of bloggers such as Vincent, and the adoption of blogs as communications tools by vendors and by Professional Associations such as the IAIDQ is probably as big if not more of an influence IMHO.

    Also, and I’m not sure if this is a valid benchmark, I’ve started turning down offers to present at conferences and write articles for people on IQ issues. because a) I’m too busy with my day job and with the IAIDQ (oh yeah… and with my family) and b)there are more opportunities arising than I’d ever have time to take on.

    Unfortunately, much of the ‘mainstream’ coverage of Information Quality issues either views it either as a ‘technology issue’ (most of my articles in Irish trade magazines are stuck in the ‘Technology’ section) or fails to engage with the Information Quality aspects of the story fully. The objective of IQTrainwrecks.com is to try to highlight the Information Quality aspects of things that get into the media.

    What would make 2008 a Happy Year for me would be to have more people contributing to IQ Trainwrecks but also to have some happy path stories to tell and also for there to be better analysis of these issues in the media.

    Community Building
    There is a strong sense of ‘community’ building amongst many of the IQ practitioners I speak with. That has been one of the key goals of the IAIDQ in 2007 – to try and get that sense of Community triggered to link like-minded-people and help them learn from each other. This has started to come together. However it isn’t happening as quickly as I’d like, because I have a shopping list of things I want yesterday!

    What would make 2008 a happy new year for me would be for us to maintain the momentum we’ve developed in connecting the Community of Information/Data Quality professionals and researchers. Within the IAIDQ I’d like us to get better at building those connections (we’ve become good… we need to keep improving).

    I’d like to see more people making contact via blogs like Vincent’s or mine or through other social networking facilities so we can build the Community of Like Minded people all focussing on the importance of Information Quality and sharing skills, tips, tools, tricks and know how about how to make it better. I’d be really happy at the end of 2008 a few more people make the transition from thinking they are the ‘lonely voice’ in their organisation to realising they are part of a very large choir that is singing an important tune.

    Role Models for Success
    2007 saw a few role models for success in Information Quality execution emerging. All of these had similar stories and similar elements that made up their winning plan. It made a change from previous years when people seemed afraid to share – perhaps because it is so sensitive a subject (for example admitting you have an IQ problem could amount to self-incrimination in some industries)? In the absence of these sort of ‘role models’ it is difficult to sell the message of data quality as it can come across as theoretical.

    I’d be very happy at the end of 2008 if we had a few more role models of successful application of principles and tools – not presented by vendors (no offence to vendors) but emerging from within the organisations themselves. I’d be very happy if we had some of these success stories analysed to highlight the common Key Success Factors that they share.

    Break down barriers
    2007 saw a lot of bridges being built within the Information Quality Community. 2006 ended with a veritable bloodbath of mergers and acquisitions amongst software vendors. 2007 had a development of networks and mutual support between the IAIDQ (as the leading professional organisation for IQ/DQ professionals) and MIT’s IQ Programme. In many Businesses the barriers that have prevented the IQ agenda from being pursued are also being overcome for a variety of reasons.

    2008 should be the year to capitalise on this as we near a signicificant tipping point. I’d like to see 2008 being the year were organisations realise that they need to push past the politics of Information Quality to actually tackle the root causes. Tom Redman is right – the politics of this stuff can be brutal because to solve the problems you need to change thinking and remould governance all of which is a dangerous threat to traditional power bases. The traditional divide between “Business” and “IT” is increasingly anachronistic, particularly when we are dealing with information/data within systems. If we can make that conceptual leap in 2008 to the point were everyone is inside the same tent peeing out… that would be a good year.

    Respect
    For most of my professional life I’ve been the crazy man in the corner telling everyone there was an elephant in the room that no-one else seemed able to see. It was a challenge to get the issues taken seriously. Even now I have one or two managers I deal with who still don’t get it. However most others I deal with do get it. They just need to be told what they have. 2007 seems to be the year that the lights started to go on about the importance of the Information Asset. Up to now, people spoke about it but didn’t ‘feel’ it… but now I don’t have trouble getting my Dept Head to think in terms of root causes, information flows etc.

    2008 is the year of Respect for the IQ Practitioner…. A Happy New Year for me would be to finish 2008 with appropriate credibility and respect for the profession. Having role models to point to will help, but also having certification and accreditation so people can define their skillsets as ‘Information Quality’ skill sets (and so chancers and snake-oil peddlers can be weeded out).

    Conclusion
    2007 saw discussion of Information Quality start to hit the mainstream and the level of interest in the field is growing significantly. For 2008 to be a Happy New Year we need to build on this, develop our Community of practitioners and researchers and then work to break down barriers within our organisations that are preventing the resolution of problems with information quality. If, as a community of Information/Data Quality people we can achieve that (and the IAIDQ is dedicated to that mission) and in doing so raise our standards and achieve serious credibility as a key management function in organisations and as a professional discipline then 2008 will have been a very Happy New Year.

    2008 already has its first Information Quality problem though…. looks like we’ve got a bit of work to do to make it a Happy New Year.

  • Things that peeve me on the web (a revisit)

    Vodafone have launched a Christmas e-card site with a difference called Bosco is back. On this site you can put together a custom video e-card featuring Bosco, a perennial kids TV favourite in Ireland.

    Why does this site peeve me? Well, due to the way the video is put together (pre-recorded video clips that are assembled in real-time) a lot of the process is driven by drop down menus to select names etc. This is where the problem starts.

    As people who have come to my conference presentations know, a lot of my interest in Information Quality stems from the fact that my name (Daragh) has approx 12 alternate spellings and can be either male or female. These simple facts have motivated me over the years to be a bit pedantic about my name (1 ‘R’, a ‘GH’ at the end -silent, Male). So I was a bit dismayed when I flagged my gender as ‘Male’ on the “Bosco is Back” and looked for my name, only to find…

    bosco boobo 1

    That’s annoying. To cater for the alternate spellings (such as Daragh, Darach, Dara, Daire) it would have been easy enough just to link them to the same video insert. However, it is not as bad as if I was a woman. According to Vodafone “Darragh” (and apparently all the phonetic variants thereof) is only a guys name.

    Bosco booboo 2

    Also, some of the inserts give unexpected outcomes. I was going to send my wife an e-card describing her as a “Dreamer”. Thankfully there is a preview mode which showed me what she’d see. Given that the squeaky voiced puppet would have demanded that she “stop thinking about that girl” I decided it might require more explaining at home than I could possibly manage.

    Yes, the whole thing is a bit of fun and I’m probably being overly pedantic. However it does highlight the risk of having ‘non-quality’ outcomes when you rely on drop down menus and defined lists to operate a business process. What, if instead of producing a cheezee e-card I had been applying for phone service from vodafone?

    When I get a chance I’ll post up the slides I use about “why I got into Information Quality”… research this morning has identified another 3 variant spellings of my name at least….

  • Amazon-inania again…

    So, Christmas is coming, the Goose is getting fat. I thought I’d put some euros in Jeff Bezo’s hat..

    So I decided to try to order some Xbox games as part of my Christmas shopping. I fully expected to get big “DANGER WILL ROBINSON” warnings for all the purchases given Amazon’s decision NOT to sell software or electrical goods into the Irish market for no apparent reason (which I’ve written about before here and here and here and which featured on other blogs last year… here…. and which I brought to the attention of the relevant Government Minister here). I haven’t actually received a response on this yet, over a year later. Shame on me for not chasing it up.

    Imagine my fricking surprise when I got this…Amazon Inania

    Apparently the XBox game Ratatouille is not the same class of thing as the XBox games “Cars Mater-national” or “the Simpsons”. Now, this puts Amazon across two of my pet bugbears…

    1. Nonsensical and unexplained restrictions on shipping of goods within the EU (which, in the absence of a REALLY good explanation is probably a breach of EU law)
    2. Buggered up information quality

    If all of the game titles had been restricted I’d have simply shrugged my shoulders and moved on. But they weren’t. This suggests that either:

    • The information which Amazon use to classify their games and software is inaccurate or incomplete and allows exceptions through the net (boo hiss)
    • OR (worryingly) The restriction on shipping electrical goods, games and software has less to do with the WEEE regulations in Ireland (Amazon’s nonsense excuse) but have more to do with producers seeking to create and maintain artificial market segregation. In the context of a web site selling into Ireland, that could raise issues of EU law and, if it is the case that a number of different manufacturers have made similar requests to Amazon to restrict the Irish Market, then that could be viewed as a cartel-like operation, which is apparently a bad thing.

    Not that Amazon would pander to that kind of thing. Gosh no. This has to relate to the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment regulations because they define Electrical and Electronic Equipment as:

    “electrical and electronic equipment” means equipment which is dependent on electric currents or electromagnetic fields in order to work properly and equipment for the generation, transfer and measurement of such currents and fields falling under the categories set out in Annex IA of European Parliament and Council Directive 2002/96/EC on waste electrical and electronic equipment and designed for use with a voltage rating not exceeding 1,000 volt for alternating current and 1,500 volt for direct current;

    Yes. That definitely includes inert plastic with encrypted digital information on it (aka a dvd or cd with MS Office or Halo3 on it – take yer pick). Although, if you were particularly pedantic an Xbox game does rely on “electric currents or electromagnetic fields in order to work properly”. But only if you are being RIDICULOUSLY pedantic. I am pedantic. I’m renowned for it. Even I wouldn’t stretch things that far…

    Either way it is an avoidable and undesirable process outcome, and as it is happening inconsistently it is embarrasing. . It is particularly irksome given that Amazon are basing a Customer Service Call Centre in Cork and have a Service and Operations centre in Dublin and have been applauded by our Government for their investments.. Amazon’s relocation from Slough to Ireland was caught by the BEEB…

    I’ve posted on this previously and these posts can be found under the Amazon-Inania category on this blog.

  • Science week

    Hmmm… perhaps I should have wished for that time machine after all. I keep missing deadlines for the Science Week thing.

    Today’s question is “What invention has helpd you most with your working life”

    As my job centres on computing and computery things many people would expect me to say “the computer” or “d’Internet”. But Babbage’s calculating engine and its descendants are just fripperies when compared to other inventions that I might mention.

    Booze is another possiblity, given its ability to unlock creative thought processes so that complex problems fall away in a “moment of clarity”. But I suspect that , overall, it may have hindered me more than helped given the fuzzy headed hangovers and general making a tit of myself at Christmas Parties when I was a younger man (ie up to last Christmas).

    However, when I think about the nature of my job and my working life since mid-way through college, I realise that the majority (if not all) of my career has dealt with clearly defining and structuring problems in a way that results in clearly defined and structured solutions becoming possible. Take away my computer and I can still do that. Take away my booze and I can still do that, but I’ll have a much more muted celebration afterwards (“yippee, mine’s a tea please”). Ultimately my career has been about structure and communication.

    To that end I’d like to nominate a combination invention… the dry-wipe whiteboard and the non-permanent marker. With these I can

    • do complex analysis of problems
    • define project structures
    • prioritise work plans for my team
    • diagram for my Masters students the complex set of transactions that resulted in the collapse of enron
    • Map root causes of process failures
    • Draw funny faces
    • Write project acronyms or codenames that will never see the light of day, but which everyone in the meeting finds hilarious
    • and so many more…

    And then when I’m done or when I find we’ve gone down a dead end I can just wipe the whole lot off. When I have a notes worth doing something with they can then be transcribed to Word, MSProject or PowerPoint and a fully formed idea can then be communicated to others.

    Also, I must not forget the smell of the markers.

    A close second place would be flipcharts and post-it notes, for similar but less ecologically friendly reasons.

    Yes, there are lovely technologies out there that I could nominate. However most of them simply technologise the type of creative process that can be had with a humble whiteboard and marker.

    Just for the LOVE of GOD and ALL THAT IS FRICKIN’ HOLY please don’t use permanent markers on the whiteboard. People who do should be shot, treated with the best medical care until they are able to stand up again and then be shot a second time.

  • Science Week Ireland Competition

    Curses. I missed the deadline for yesterday’s competition over on Mulley.net to win a Wii in National Science week.

    I will not make the same mistake twice. Today’s question is “What invention would you like to see most in the future?“.

    Given I missed yesterday’s deadline I was tempted to go for a TARDIS or similar time travel machine (not a De Lorean as Simon would probably try to open the gull wing doors to make it fly, thus not breaking the “rules of the game”). However I dismissed this as that would open up the whole time travellers paradox… If I’d posted and been in with a chance to win the Wii would I have wished for a time machine to bring me back in time to post and win the Wii and if I hadn’t would I have won or would the original timeline have continued on.. (ohhh my brain hurts after that).

    I then thought about Giant Killer Robots (ideally made of gold). However Roosta beat me to it. Curses. Perhaps I should ask for my time machine?

    However a more mature pondering of the question made me consider my commuting and the implications for future family life (I live in Wexford, work in Dublin) and my carbon foot print (I tend to travel to the UK and US a few times a year to speak at conferences) and the fact that it took a colleague 2.5 hours to get from Swords to the city centre yesterday due to the buses – or specifically the lack thereof.

    So the invention I’d most like to see in the future is a transporter like wot they have on Star Trek. My commute to the office would be a lot shorter (speed of light vs speed of bus eireann), I could zip back to wexford for lunch with the family, work late for my wage-masters and be back home for tea and tucking in etc. And my colleague would be able to get from Swords to Dublin before he has to turn around again and retire.

    And I’d never have to deal with Ryanair’s baggage allowance or Baggage manglers handlers ever again.

    Yup. Transporters it is. And interestingly we are getting closer to this technology… extend the range and move from simple matter to slightly overweight bloggers.

  • Good kit that just works.

    I’ve been playing around with e-Touch meeting room from Onlinemeetingrooms.com for the past while. To put it bluntly… this product does exactly what it says on the tin.

    • It is a meeting room
    • It is online
    • It just works

    Recently an event I was involved in as a speaker had a problem. A speaker had a last minute problem travelling to the event. In conference land this is usually a crisis situation. The conference organiser called on me to see if I could do a second presentation at the conference, but was concerned as the speaker who was to travel had been ‘ticked’ as one they wanted to see by a lot of delegates. I would very much be a ‘surrogate band’ and people might not welcome the change in running order (particularly if they’d paid mainly to see that presentation).

    Being a cheeky bugger I dropped a quick email to Joe Garde in Onlinemeetingrooms.com to see if he might be able to help. A few additional facts are important here. I emailed him around 18:30 on the Friday of a Bank Holiday weekend. The conference started on Monday in the UK. Monday was a Bank Holiday in Ireland (where Joe is based) and the speaker was due to present on Tuesday afternoon.

    This left a window of Monday to sort something out that we could be confident would work.

    Joe phoned me on Saturday morning and we discussed options (while I furiously texted the conference organiser in the UK to let him know what was happening). With Joe’s help a clear plan formed… we’d use the OnlineMeetingRoom system to video link the speaker into London from Dublin. Ideally we’d need a wired broadband connection, but Joe and I were confident we could make it work.

    Over to London with me… Monday afternoon we did a test (24hrs before the presentation). Over the hotel’s wifi network. No wired broadband available…

    Worked perfectly. No fuss or hassle, no installing equipment (I had a webcam in my bag and the roadies… sorry AV professionals took care of figuring out the hook-up to the PA). The roadies liked it so much they wanted to get in contact with Joe as they do a lot of conferences and seminars that it could add value to… I do hope they buy it.

    Fast forward to the day of the presentation… room full of people, nervous conference organiser and conference chairperson… me very calm and confident because I knew we were using good kit that just works.

    …Presenter comes on from Dublin, audio good, video good, presentation content good. Slide timings a little off because I was running the powerpoint in London to keep as much bandwidth for video and audio as possible and got distracted by how well things were going.

    …everyone happy. Kudos for everyone all round.

    Looking back, I could have done one or two presentational things better but the kit worked. That was the main thing.

    I work in Telco and I’ve seen a fair share of ‘cutting edge’ tools that just don’t cut the mustard when the shit is hitting the fan. My experience with the e-touch Online Meeting room has always been excellent. When the chips were down the tool just worked. And Joe helped out co-ordinating on the Dublin end to make sure that the presentation went as smoothly as possible, which on a Bank Holiday was support above and beyond the call of duty.

    It is so straightforward even my pointy-haired boss could use it…

    Now that’s good kit that just works.

  • Let them eat cake…

    Economy on the slide. House prices falling. Talk of having to raise taxes to cover essential day to day costs of running the government. Rumblings of voluntary redundancies in the Health Services, grumblings of the need to ensure more productivity in public services before further benchmarking payments are made… and all this after an election season where we were assured it was only a matter of time before we were all walking on water and had free flying cars (well not quite, but you get the picture).

    But our noble Taoiseach (already one of the highest paid elected officials in Europe) is today awaiting the announcement of a pay rise to bring his €260,000 a year salary up to something that a fella can live on in today’s Ireland.

    Update: RTE now have the figures… The Taoiseach’s new salary is €310,000, a 14% pay rise.

    To put it another way, the CEO of a large corporation seemingly lied to shareholders at an AGM (the election) about the performance of the business, failing to disclose adequately (if at all) the level of material risk associated with future performance of the enterprise, or recognise the levels of chronic mismanagement within his executive team and now he is to be rewarded with a payrise (which also means a raise in his already generous pension as Taoiseach).

    George W. Bush has a total ‘package’ including expenses and allowances of around $470,000. At today’s exchange rate that comes to just over €330,000. Will Bertie get more than him in ‘raw’ cash? The salary component of GW’s package comes to just over €280,000 at today’s exchange rates – only €20,000 more than Bertie.

    Pretty soon POTUS will want a raise as well, just to keep up with el Berto.

    Irish Government ministers and other TDs (as well as judges) will also get a bump in the bank account as a result of this review.

    If the Taoiseach is serious about leading the country through a period of solemn fiscal tightening before his party claim saviour status in the next election then he should start with himself. Reject the payrise… Send a signal to his ministerial colleagues that it is entirely their own choice if they want to take the pay rise, if they do they’ll be on their own in the PR stakes.

    With one simple gesture he could rout the opposition and reclaim his ‘man-o-the-people’ image before buggering off to a content retirement.

    Yeah… right… like that will happen.

    Update: Quelle surprise. A pay rise of 14% for the Taoiseach, 15.5% for the Tanaiste (who is also our minister for Finance) and a raft of further increases for other roles and we find ourselves in a position where the management of the country cannot now really argue for ‘belt-tightening’ or wage restraint within social partnership, at least not without falling over giggling.

    Let them eat cake indeed.