CICS Weblogs

Who Are You? Who-o, Who-o? A Big Clue About How to Re-do Identity

“Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

Identity. I have spent a large portion of this week dealing with what it actually means from a computing perspective. There are simultaneous tight and loose properties of identity, to borrow a phrase from In Search of Excellence. Those provide simultaneous difficult and confusing properties when it comes to understanding and managing users/entities in a computing environment.

There has to be, and I submit there is, a better way to do this important function. Here's what happened, and how it could have been different.

Edward Tufte and Samuel Morse Walk Into a Bar...the Information-Data Continuum

"The photographic image... is a message without a code." - Roland Barthes, available at www.brainyquote.com

Edward Tufte is famous for translating dry data into visual representations to help drive home understandings for the human eye. Samuel Morse is famous for devising code-based communication that takes data and communicates it via electronic signal. In short, Tufte is long on information, short on raw data display, while Morse code is long on data display, but extremely short on information, other than that directly given by the transmission. Why is this relevant for ECM?

In the old days, the golden days of the digital filing cabinet, the purpose of the ECM system was to be able to take the physical papers and cram them into digital representations. That was about it - the activities surrounding the function centered around scanning and OCR and other such things.

There. I said it. The phrase that grates. Electronic filing cabinet. That model isn't a particularly good one, and in no way indicates the true power that lies in content, but there you go. It appears to be the purpose of a lot of installations. It is safe, it is comfortable, it is wrong in the long run. Here's why...

A test entry

After years of being dormant, I have recovered my old CICS weblog. I hope to start utilizing this again soon. In the meantime, just a simple post to prove that everything still functions as expected...

Riverside California named Intelligent Community of the Year 2012

Riverside California named Intelligent Community of the Year 2012

Crossposted on 08 June 2012 on Center for Information & Communication Sciences community weblogs

By Jay E. Gillette, Center for Information & Communication Sciences

Intelligent Community Forum, the New York City-based international think tank today named Riverside, California as the Intelligent Community of the Year for 2012.

Riverside had a red-letter day, as their “Digital Learning Revolution” public school information platform was also voted “Coolest Broadband Community App” in a second competition among the Top Seven finalist communities.

The Awards Luncheon also featured an inspiring talk by Australian Senator Stephan Conroy, who also serves as the country’s Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. He was earlier named as the Intelligent Community Visionary of the Year for 2012.

These awards direct attention to some of the most advanced communities in the information renaissance, and highlight the leadership and commitment that make their progress possible.

Google privacy issues stem from project approach

by Jay Gillette

Here is a continuing story from the New York Times about Google handling global policy issues as a company, and the unintended consequences of project management decisions: Unanswered Questions in F.C.C.’s Google Case.

Below is a money quote for professionals, representing the concluding paragraphs of the story:

J. Trevor Hughes, president of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, said the Google case represented what happened when technical employees of technology companies made “innocent” decisions about collecting data that could infuriate consumers and in turn invite regulatory inquiry.

“This is one of the most significant risks we see in the information age today,” he said. “Project managers and software developers don’t understand the sensitivity associated with data.”

The days are over when engineers or middle managers can focus inwardly downward and deep on their internal issues, without seeing the bigger strategic concerns, by looking outward as well, that may affect their organizations and ultimately their work .

This need to move beyond seeing one's work from a narrow, self-centered perspective, to a broader, "information ecology" perspective, is a practical consequence that comes from the shift from industrial economy to an information economy. Specialization in the industrial world gives way to comprehensiveness in the information universe.

Effects of reputation and changing culture: Huawei encounters business setbacks with key partners

By Jay Gillette, Digital Policy Institute

[crossposted at CICS Weblogs, "new platform" for CICS community blogs]

In my teachings on professional life at the Center for Information Sciences at Ball State University, I paraphrase the famous truism about the three most important concepts in real estate ("Location. Location. Location."). I suggest that the three most important concepts about working as a professional are "Reputation. Reputation. Reputation."

This applies positively and negatively to companies as well. Think of Microsoft, Google, and IBM, and ask yourself, what is the company's reputation?

Huawei, the Chinese telecom equivalent of Alcatel-Lucent, Nortel, and the historic USA Western Electric telecommunications manufacturer, has suffered two business reverses on the basis of their country's reputation for porous attitudes toward security and global information copyright protection. In Network World I have previously reported on Huawei's growing international ambitions from the 2011 Global Forum in Brussels.

ECM - Is it Time for Deltas and Numbers?

"Brevity is a great charm of eloquence." - Marcus Tullius Cicero, as quoted on www.brainyquote.com

What forms the basis of a lot of the content that we manage? That's a simple question, isn't it? Think again.

You likely answered with something that makes perfect sense, either a textbook-type definition (unstructured data, which comprises 80-85% of our actionable business data), or with an example that sprang to mind (policy documents, medical records, etc.). You are right, yet in the context of this post, equally wrong.

What actually exists is an electronic construct of a physical system of arranging information artifacts. It is likely a system that tries its hardest to be an electronic filing cabinet with better search abilities. As a side note, I find that definition to be so limiting as to almost be an insult to the work, and that it points to the wrong way to do ECM, but I will admit it resonates more clearly with new users than does any explanation of what can be done.

In short, we build an electronic system that duplicates our physical system, functioning as closely as possible to the paper-based system it replaces. We import our processing, our order of business, and all the other hangers-on within our business. That isn't in and of itself a bad thing - even if you EXACTLY duplicated a paper system you'd be ahead if for no other reason than you had backups.

BUT...

ECM - Wordstar, 1-2-3 and Harvard Graphics, all on a 5.25" Floppy

"Age is a very high price to pay for maturity." - Tom Stoppard, as quoted on www.brainyquote.com

I don't look the part - though I do have a battered leather hat - but in a way, the longer I do ECM work, the more I have in common with Indiana Jones. We both encounter danger from time to time, we both quest for things, and we both wind up having to seek out artifacts which do not easily fit within the modern world.

I remember when the 5.25" diskette was a revolution in storage, and Harvard Graphics was THE presentation software. Today you can't purchase a new 5.25" drive, and you have to find some sort of translator to even stand a chance of opening a Harvard Graphics file, or a Wordstar file, or a LaTEX file, or, or, or...

So what happened? We decided that we would keep everything, because we could. This is where the Indiana Jones analogy comes into play, because if you store a file that can only be opened up with Harvard Graphics, and you want to use it in 10 years, you will bring me - or someone else who works in the ECM segment - in to search for the Ark of the Obsolete Softwares in the hopes of being able to re-use it. Even though the digital file itself is perfectly preserved, good luck getting it to actually display anywhere. Generally when things like this happen we wind up getting out the bullwhip of binary-level analysis and use whatever we can to change how the digital file is structured so that it can be used differently.

ECM - When PDF Might as Well Mean Platypus Document Format

"The power that created the poodle, the platypus and people has an integrated sense of both comedy and tragedy." -James Grover Thurber, as quoted on http://quotes.yourdictionary.com/platypus

One fine day some of the greatest minds decided that what was needed was a truly timeless document format, one that would not age like so many had, one that would cross the lines of companies and processes and could carry with it the historically important content being used. As the sun rose on the great idea, they coined it the PDF - the Portable Document Format.

That was the last time there was such a thing as a pure PDF, and it was also the last time that PDF's were not a potential problem for ECM. PDFs have grown in popularity and variety until they have come to resemble the platypus - something well-defined, yet mysteriously and contrary to what you'd consider to be well-constructed. How could something so well-intentioned become so difficult to deal with? Three factors: façade, foundation and formation.

Economists work to correct ethical conflicts in profession

Economics is the most political of the social sciences. It is replete with ethical temptations, conflicts, and pressures.

That's why this is an article of real interest in Chronicle of Higher Education, the leading trade journal for academia and the advanced research community. The economics profession is tackling its ethical issues through its professional organizations.

"Economists Adopt New Disclosure Rules for Authors of Published Research"

by Dan Berrett
January 6, 2012

Following heavy scrutiny of economists' conflicts of interest before the financial crash of 2008, the American Economic Association has adopted new guidelines at its annual meeting here that require scholars to divulge who supports the research they publish in the association's journals.

Liveblogging: Business School's Smart City Colloquium (5)

Extensive GIS applications;
see Fatih District's website

has many egovernment applications

See Beyoglu Municipality website
Seeks to be an "e-municipality"

here are Preliminary Findings from their study:

Liveblogging: Business School's Smart City Colloquium (4)

Dr. Sevinc Gulsecen
Dept of Informatics
Istanbul University

references this Instanbul Metropolitan GIS system

(Backup URL here):
http://sehirrehberi.ibb.gov.tr/Map.aspx?&scl=4&cx=89847&cy=96753&ap=harita&lng=en

used by 4 million users a month
can accommodate 100,000 users at once
has GSM support
used to find shortest way, for example

Liveblogging: Business School's Smart City Colloquium (3)

Using for pilot studies:

Beyoglu
and Fatih Districts

of 39 in the city.

Reason:

The most vibrant districts of Istanbul
Rich in cultural heritage and multicultural
Institutions: IMM, and University of Istanbul, the speaker's home institution

Liveblogging: Business School's Smart City Colloquium (2)

List of Smart cities:

Seoul-Media City
Arabianranta Finland
Smart City Malta
Neapolis Cyprus-Smart Eco City
Zaragoza Spain-Digital Mile
Thessaloniki, Greece
Stockholm-The Stokab model
Amsterdam Smart City
Taipei China-Multiple dispersed initiatives

MSC, Malaysia-Multimedia Supercorridor
http://www.mscmalaysia.my/topic/12066955968788

Liveblogging: Business School's Smart City Colloquium (1)

Liveblogging today at the Business School across the street from the Ball Communications Building, home of our Center for Information and Communication Sciences.

My Human Communication management seminar graduate students and I are attending as a group.

Here is the Abstract of the talk:

MILLER COLLEGE OF BUSINESS RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM

Istanbul as Smart City: A Conceptual Framework