Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Author: Paul Wallbank

  • Electrocuting elephants – the cost of competing standards

    Electrocuting elephants – the cost of competing standards

    A constant theme when new technologies appear is the inevitable war about standards that often sees bitter arguments over how the new methods should be used.

    Over the centuries we’ve seen fights over railway gauges, video tape formats and even the shape of lighting conductors.

    The struggle over lightning rods between the English and French camps in the eighteenth century was parodied by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver’s Travels where the two tribes fought over which end of a boiled egg should be broken.

    Probably the nastiest dispute in modern times was the battle over DC and AC electricity transmission between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse, a fight made worse by Edison’s former employee Nikola Tesla taking his patents over to Westinghouse.

    The fight became so fierce that Edison actually electrocuted an elephant to illustrate how dangerous AC electricity would be to householders.


    Tesla and Westinghouse eventually won the argument, but it came at a cost to Topsy the Elephant.

    While we may draw the line at electrocuting elephants in these enlightened days, we aren’t much better at settling standards. That’s why it’s fascinating watching how technologies like the smart car and the connected home will evolve.

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  • The limits of big data

    The limits of big data

    A story in the Atlantic – Why Poor Schools Can’t Win At Standardized testing – illustrates the limits of Big Data.

    When Meredith Broussard tried to computerise the text book inventory of her son’s school district she found the project limited by poor systems, fragmented record keeping and siloed management.

    Broussard found the records were manually collated, collected on Microsoft Word documents and emailed to an under resourced office that entered details into an Excel Spreadsheet.

    The Philadelphia schools don’t just have a textbook problem. They have a data problem—which is actually a people problem. We tend to think of data as immutable truth. But we forget that data and data-collection systems are created by people.

    The human factor is a key limitation with any technology; if people aren’t collecting or using data properly than the best computer system in the world is useless. Garbage In, Garbage Out is a long standing IT industry saying.

    Management systems are more than computer networks, they go to the very core of an organisation’s culture which in itself is probably a better indicator of how well a company or institution will survive the current period of change.

    Were the Philadelphia public school system a business it would be a very good example of a company on its way to being digital roadkill, that it’s an educational network should worry anybody concerned about the economy’s future. That’s a bigger issue than Big Data.

     

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  • Restructuring Microsoft

    Restructuring Microsoft

    After last week’s long memo from CEO Satya Nadilla, it was inevitable Microsoft would have to restructure around the company’s new direction.

    Bloomberg now reports Microsoft will be laying off thousands of employees – possibly more than the 5,800 laid off in the recessionary depths of 2009.

    With 127, 000 employees Microsoft could almost certainly do with a cull, to make the company as nimble as it needs to be may take more than 5,000 jobs.

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  • Respecting the user – Drummond Reed of the Respect Network

    Respecting the user – Drummond Reed of the Respect Network

    Drummond Reed, CEO of the Respect Network, is the latest guest on the Decoding the New Economy channel.

    The Respect Network offers ‘private clouds’ for individuals and companies where users can choose to trust others to share information.

    After over twenty years of working in the IT security industry, Drummond founded the Respect Network after becoming worried at the power social networks are having over individuals’ privacy.

    Drummond explains how a network designed to be private may be the future of online services.

    “The internet is only 18 years old,” says Drummond. “We want to bring it into adulthood.”

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  • Small business and big data defines the digital divide

    Small business and big data defines the digital divide

    One of the questions about the development of Big Data has been how small businesses can use all the information pouring into their operations.

    The New York Times this weekend has a feature illustrating some small business applications for big data.

    In one of the case studies Brian Janezic, a 27 year old owner of two car washes in Arizona, created his own application that automates his business and monitors consumable levels.

    The story further highlights how businesses like The Serbian Lion that haven’t done the simple basics like online listings are being left far behind more nimbler operations like Janezic’s.

    Contrasting the two operations illustrates the digital divide between businesses. The sad thing is that many of the baby boomer owned enterprises not embracing the new technologies are further compromising the assets their proprietors are depending upon for their retirement.

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