In the UK around this time, small boys' thoughts turn to explosives. Guy Fawkes Night, or Bonfire Night, on November 5th, is a ritual of burning in effigy Guido Fawkes, the leader of a terrorist gang who were foiled in their attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1604. Fires are lit, potatoes roasted, and fireworks let off with abandon. Preceding this, boys sit by their effigies and ask for 'penny for the guy', to get the funds to buy the fireworks in the first place.
Or do they still? The American Halloween, or autumn confectionery begging festival, was making inroads when we left the UK 5 years ago.
Here, we carve pumpkins, we dress up for Jerry's annual Halloween party, and tonight we'll dress up again and walk the leafy lanes of Willow Glen with the boys collecting sweets and chocolate from strangers dressed as monsters, then hide it from them the next day so they don't spend the day riding blood sugar rushes and crashes.
It was a lot of fun walking the neighbourhood - top tips:
Go out between 6 and 8pm;
The rule is, if the porch light is on, they have sweets ready and welcome visitors, otherwise, move on;
Kerb crawling in an SUV alongside your children running up and down the driveways is gauche.
Thursday, 31 October 2002
Wednesday, 30 October 2002
AlienAid - Telephone Numbers - London, UK to Bay Area, CA, US
In the UK, telephone numbers were originally handed out by the Post Office. Local numbers of varying length will connect you to nearby people. For long distance, you dial an area code starting with zero. There were short codes to connect you to nearby exchanges without going long distance, and in the early days of computer BBS's people would dial these in sequence to connect across the country for the price of a local call, ending up with a ridiculously long number.
Historically, areas with lots of numbers got a shorter area code. London was 01,Edinburgh Birmingham 021,(thanks Simon)and so on down the pecking order (Sandown, Isle of Wight, was 09834, but the numbers were only 4 digits). When mobile phones and faxes came in, they needed more numbers, so they went through a convoluted transformation scheme. May parents' area code went from 01 to 081 to 0181 to 0208, changing every couple of years. Non-London area codes had a 1 inserted before them. Mobile phones now get distinct numbers starting with 07 or 09, and the cost of calling them is paid by the caller.
In the US, things are different. You have a seven-digit phone number, and a 3-digit area code. The pecking order here is the number of clicks for a rotary phone (and hence dialling time) - add up the digits of the area code, counting 0 as 10 to see how important your area was when they handed them out. Guess where has 212.
This scheme has its own logic, but it is not well-coupled with billing. Cellphones have numbers in the area code of the billing address, and calling them costs you more. Local calls are included in your monthly fee.
Long distance is by default charged at ridiculously inflated prices. Unless you buy a long distance service plan, you'll be billed a dollar a minute or more. There is no good way of telling what a call will cost you from the number you dial, and you won't find out for a month until you get the bill.
There is one particular trap for the unwary that I fell into recently. Because of the historic size of area codes, some calls to the same area code are not counted as local, but are 'local toll' calls. Unwittingly, I had entered just such a number from the list supplied by my ISP into my computer to dial them when I updated the OS. As any kind of broadband is unobtainable in our area of the 'Capital of Silicon Valley', and as the only people who call after 8 pm are tele-marketers (our family being in a different time zone), I tend to dial into the net and leave the computer connected until I go to bed hours later.
I got the next Phone bill and saw a charge for $77 for local toll calls, to a number in Gilroy. I realised what had happened, changed the number and used the online billing service to complain to AT&T about this bill. No response.
I got the next bill. This time there was a charge of $493 for local toll. I called AT&T, escalated my way through customer service for 3 hours, faxed the details to the Disputes department, and now, a few weeks later, they still want nearly $600.
Historically, areas with lots of numbers got a shorter area code. London was 01,
In the US, things are different. You have a seven-digit phone number, and a 3-digit area code. The pecking order here is the number of clicks for a rotary phone (and hence dialling time) - add up the digits of the area code, counting 0 as 10 to see how important your area was when they handed them out. Guess where has 212.
This scheme has its own logic, but it is not well-coupled with billing. Cellphones have numbers in the area code of the billing address, and calling them costs you more. Local calls are included in your monthly fee.
Long distance is by default charged at ridiculously inflated prices. Unless you buy a long distance service plan, you'll be billed a dollar a minute or more. There is no good way of telling what a call will cost you from the number you dial, and you won't find out for a month until you get the bill.
There is one particular trap for the unwary that I fell into recently. Because of the historic size of area codes, some calls to the same area code are not counted as local, but are 'local toll' calls. Unwittingly, I had entered just such a number from the list supplied by my ISP into my computer to dial them when I updated the OS. As any kind of broadband is unobtainable in our area of the 'Capital of Silicon Valley', and as the only people who call after 8 pm are tele-marketers (our family being in a different time zone), I tend to dial into the net and leave the computer connected until I go to bed hours later.
I got the next Phone bill and saw a charge for $77 for local toll calls, to a number in Gilroy. I realised what had happened, changed the number and used the online billing service to complain to AT&T about this bill. No response.
I got the next bill. This time there was a charge of $493 for local toll. I called AT&T, escalated my way through customer service for 3 hours, faxed the details to the Disputes department, and now, a few weeks later, they still want nearly $600.
Tuesday, 29 October 2002
Has Google stopped spidering?
With my new AlienAid meme champing at the bit, I've been searching Google for it every so often for the last few days, and seen nothing.
I then tried searching for other people's sites, and found Google has nothing cached newer then midnight on Saturday (search for CNN).
Normally it is only a few hours behind on frequently-updated sites like boingboing, Doc, slashdot, Scripting news or Instapundit, but today they're all frozen in the cache as of Friday.
Google News is still updating, but it is only a subset of mass media sites - the fresh blog news is just not there.
I then tried searching for other people's sites, and found Google has nothing cached newer then midnight on Saturday (search for CNN).
Normally it is only a few hours behind on frequently-updated sites like boingboing, Doc, slashdot, Scripting news or Instapundit, but today they're all frozen in the cache as of Friday.
Google News is still updating, but it is only a subset of mass media sites - the fresh blog news is just not there.
AlienAid - Bacon - London, UK to Bay Area, CA, US
In England, there are several kinds of bacon. broadly though, there are two - streaky bacon, and back bacon. Streaky is fatty and shrivels, Back has big crcles of meatiness in it. There are different ways of curing it which make a difference, and if you want great bacon in the UK, go to The Meat Like It Used To Be Co, 50 Cannon Lane, Pinner, HA5 1HW Tel: 020 88664611
In the US, they butcher the pigs differently, and you never get Back bacon, just very fatty streaky bacon that is halfway to being crackling. However, if you go to Cosentinos, you can sometimes find Irish Bacon (imported from Ireland, no less). Or you can buy it online by mail order, so you can make proper Bacon Butties (HP sauce is available in many supermarkets).
There is also something called 'Canadian Bacon' which seems to be a kind of circular ham, but is not a bad subsitute for back bacon.
But what happens to the missing meaty bits in the US?
They get sold as Pork Loin, which is a splendid thing to marinate and barbeque or roast, and usually good value.
In the US, they butcher the pigs differently, and you never get Back bacon, just very fatty streaky bacon that is halfway to being crackling. However, if you go to Cosentinos, you can sometimes find Irish Bacon (imported from Ireland, no less). Or you can buy it online by mail order, so you can make proper Bacon Butties (HP sauce is available in many supermarkets).
There is also something called 'Canadian Bacon' which seems to be a kind of circular ham, but is not a bad subsitute for back bacon.
But what happens to the missing meaty bits in the US?
They get sold as Pork Loin, which is a splendid thing to marinate and barbeque or roast, and usually good value.
Monday, 28 October 2002
AlienAid - Tea - London, UK to Bay Area, CA, US
Tea is a core part of British culture. It is almost impossible to visit a household in the UK without being offered a cup of tea, and very impolite to decline one. There are in fact two schools of tea-drinking - the strong cuppa brigade, and the tea aesthetes, or teasthetes. These are best delineated by a splendid vignette (which I am reconstructing from memory) in the otherwise forgettable film 'Mona Lisa', in which Bob Hoskins, playing a rough cockney, is seated in a plush West End hotel. A waiter approaches:
'Would sir care for something to drink?'
'I'll 'ave a cuppa tea'
'Earl Grey or Lapsang Souchong?'
'Nah mate, TEA!'
George Orwell explains the 'nice cuppa' better than anyone, while Douglas Adams explains the allure of Earl Grey (note that they differ on the crucial question of milk first or second - I'm with George on this one).
In America, if you are offered tea, what you will get is a cold, sweet drink made from teabags, cooled with ice and with sugar and lemon added. Getting an English-style cup of tea is quite difficult. Most restaurants will provide a teabag and lukewarm water on demand, which doesn't really work. In this part of California green tea is widely available, and this is generally supposed to be made with water that is off the boil. The ubiquity of coffee shops extends some hope, but Starbucks make poor tea, selling a range of teabags called 'Tazo' that trigger the 'Nah mate, TEA!' response in me, which is odd as I generally incline to the teasthete end of the spectrum. However, most supermarkets will sell you Twinings teabags, or even Tetley ones, for you to brew in the privacy of your own home. Trader Joes have a reasonably priced own-brand range.
The real answer for the teasthete is Peets Coffee and Tea who sell wonderful leaf tea at reasonable prices. There are several branches in the Bay area, and if you can't find one they'll deliver it.
Making your own is made more difficult by the problem of obtaining a decent electric kettle, as the US's 110 volt system means boiling water takes about twice as long as with the Uk's robust 240 volts, so boiling the kettle on the stove top may be quicker.
'Would sir care for something to drink?'
'I'll 'ave a cuppa tea'
'Earl Grey or Lapsang Souchong?'
'Nah mate, TEA!'
George Orwell explains the 'nice cuppa' better than anyone, while Douglas Adams explains the allure of Earl Grey (note that they differ on the crucial question of milk first or second - I'm with George on this one).
In America, if you are offered tea, what you will get is a cold, sweet drink made from teabags, cooled with ice and with sugar and lemon added. Getting an English-style cup of tea is quite difficult. Most restaurants will provide a teabag and lukewarm water on demand, which doesn't really work. In this part of California green tea is widely available, and this is generally supposed to be made with water that is off the boil. The ubiquity of coffee shops extends some hope, but Starbucks make poor tea, selling a range of teabags called 'Tazo' that trigger the 'Nah mate, TEA!' response in me, which is odd as I generally incline to the teasthete end of the spectrum. However, most supermarkets will sell you Twinings teabags, or even Tetley ones, for you to brew in the privacy of your own home. Trader Joes have a reasonably priced own-brand range.
The real answer for the teasthete is Peets Coffee and Tea who sell wonderful leaf tea at reasonable prices. There are several branches in the Bay area, and if you can't find one they'll deliver it.
Making your own is made more difficult by the problem of obtaining a decent electric kettle, as the US's 110 volt system means boiling water takes about twice as long as with the Uk's robust 240 volts, so boiling the kettle on the stove top may be quicker.
AlienAid
Reading Cory's English Standard Tribe and about Gary Turner's homesickness for Glasgow reminded me of an idea I had ages ago (pre-blog) but never got round to doing anything about. The idea is to provide helpful mappings between cultures for displaced aliens such as myself.
When you move to another country, timezone or even a different area within a country, a lot of your cultural referents are misplaced or disconnected. The obvious ones - your sudden lack of any sense of the geography of the place, or where to go to shop for anything, or what the currency is worth - are usually overcome quickly, but the more subtle ones can lurk for months or years before they bite and give that sudden moment of anomie, alienation or perhaps external prespective.
I am great believer in learning from others' experiences, and conversely sharing mine.
Here's the germ of the idea. I'm going to write about some of these cultural disconnects, and put the tag word 'alienaid' along with the topic, and the places I'm translating between in. See above for an example. As 'alienaid' is currently a null search on Google, if I do this and other people join in, searching for alienaid in additon to the terms or locations will give the cultural translation needed. If I get enough repsonses, I'll register alienaided.org and collect them there.
When you move to another country, timezone or even a different area within a country, a lot of your cultural referents are misplaced or disconnected. The obvious ones - your sudden lack of any sense of the geography of the place, or where to go to shop for anything, or what the currency is worth - are usually overcome quickly, but the more subtle ones can lurk for months or years before they bite and give that sudden moment of anomie, alienation or perhaps external prespective.
I am great believer in learning from others' experiences, and conversely sharing mine.
Here's the germ of the idea. I'm going to write about some of these cultural disconnects, and put the tag word 'alienaid' along with the topic, and the places I'm translating between in. See above for an example. As 'alienaid' is currently a null search on Google, if I do this and other people join in, searching for alienaid in additon to the terms or locations will give the cultural translation needed. If I get enough repsonses, I'll register alienaided.org and collect them there.
Sunday, 27 October 2002
Oops - Daylight saved
Just noticed it's an hour later than I thought it was. My mac automatically put the clock back, so it's really 3am, or rather it's 2am again. I should go to bed.
Sunday, 20 October 2002
Congestion control for RSS
Dave Winer, Joel Spolsky and Phil Ringnalda are discussing the problem of RSS aggregators that check for updates by polling becoming an effective Distributed Denial of Service attack.
As others have said, adopting HTTP's "If-modified-since" timestamp fetch can help here, by only doing a full-page fetch when the RSS has changed. In addition, adopting RFC 3299's way of only sending changes will help reduce the bandwidth of the RSS fetches (I mentioned this back in January when it first came out).
However, this doesn't reduce the number of HTTP setup/teardowns. To do this, the aggregators need to get smarter. They can do this by estimating an update frequency for each feed - something modelled on TCP's congestion control (exponential back-off, with 'no change' treated as congestion) would probably suit well.
If the aggregator polls the feed, and finds no changes, it doubles the polling interval. If it polls and finds changes, it decrements the polling interval by the number of changes found multiplied by the overall polling frequency. The lower bound is the maximum polling frequency set by the user (once an hour is common). You could set an upper bound, or let it establish itself which blogs are moribund.
As others have said, adopting HTTP's "If-modified-since" timestamp fetch can help here, by only doing a full-page fetch when the RSS has changed. In addition, adopting RFC 3299's way of only sending changes will help reduce the bandwidth of the RSS fetches (I mentioned this back in January when it first came out).
However, this doesn't reduce the number of HTTP setup/teardowns. To do this, the aggregators need to get smarter. They can do this by estimating an update frequency for each feed - something modelled on TCP's congestion control (exponential back-off, with 'no change' treated as congestion) would probably suit well.
If the aggregator polls the feed, and finds no changes, it doubles the polling interval. If it polls and finds changes, it decrements the polling interval by the number of changes found multiplied by the overall polling frequency. The lower bound is the maximum polling frequency set by the user (once an hour is common). You could set an upper bound, or let it establish itself which blogs are moribund.
Wednesday, 16 October 2002
The Fallacy of the Almost-General-Purpose Computer
Ed Felten reports:
I was at a conference in Washington, DC on Friday and Saturday. Participants included some people who are reasonably plugged in to the Washington political process. I was stunned to hear one of these folks sum up the Washington conventional wisdom like this:
"The political dialog today is that the general purpose computer is a threat, not only to copyright but to our entire future."
(It's worth noting that he was repeating the views of others rather than offering his own opinion -- and that he had a general-purpose computer open on the table in front of him as he said this!)
If I could take just one concept from computer science and magically implant it into the heads of everybody in Washington -- I mean really implant it, so that they understood the idea and its importance in the same way that computer scientists do -- it would be the role of the general-purpose computer. I would want them to understand, most of all, why there is no such thing as an almost-general-purpose computer.
This is downright scary. I know I talked about Hollings outlawing Turing machines, but to hear that this is received wisdom is chilling.
I was at a conference in Washington, DC on Friday and Saturday. Participants included some people who are reasonably plugged in to the Washington political process. I was stunned to hear one of these folks sum up the Washington conventional wisdom like this:
"The political dialog today is that the general purpose computer is a threat, not only to copyright but to our entire future."
(It's worth noting that he was repeating the views of others rather than offering his own opinion -- and that he had a general-purpose computer open on the table in front of him as he said this!)
If I could take just one concept from computer science and magically implant it into the heads of everybody in Washington -- I mean really implant it, so that they understood the idea and its importance in the same way that computer scientists do -- it would be the role of the general-purpose computer. I would want them to understand, most of all, why there is no such thing as an almost-general-purpose computer.
This is downright scary. I know I talked about Hollings outlawing Turing machines, but to hear that this is received wisdom is chilling.
Saturday, 12 October 2002
Neal Stephenson: Jipi and the Paranoid Chip
Neal Stephenson: Jipi and the Paranoid Chip
A nice coda to all that Digital identity stuff this week. The Turing test writ large, tkaing place in the Cryptonomicon universe.
A nice coda to all that Digital identity stuff this week. The Turing test writ large, tkaing place in the Cryptonomicon universe.
Wednesday, 9 October 2002
Sorry Eric!
I just added this blog to the DIDW feed so it would pick up my last comment, and it hoovered in all my entries for the last 2 weeks. Sorry about that. The stuff about Harrahs, Dan'l Lewin etc are from a completely different conference.
Digital Identity through tone of voice
The Digital ID World RSS feed doesn't contain any way of identifying who wrote each item. You have to identify them by context and tone of voice.
Surprisingly, this isn't that hard - I can certainly tell Denise from Akma and Doc from. Can you?
Surprisingly, this isn't that hard - I can certainly tell Denise from Akma and Doc from. Can you?
Tuesday, 8 October 2002
Trust people, not computers!
The Economist has an interesting backwards twist on the SPLJ thesis. With DigitalID World opening tomorrow, I wish I could be going. Still, I can read the blogs and heckle via email...
If you like surfing the web, it is probably because you believe people are basically good
WHEN economists try to explain why the Internet is more popular in one country than another, they usually point to factors such as the number of PCs, telephone lines or average years of schooling. But something less quantifiable may be more important: trust. This, at least, is the result of a recent study by Jonathan Leland and his colleagues at IBM, which compared 17 countries.
The Internet's anonymity and vastness encourage misrepresentation and fraud. Thus, people who are normally suspicious tend to shun the medium, while more trusting souls embrace it. To test this proposition, the team correlated OECD data on Internet adoption with results from the World Values Survey. One question the latter asks is: �Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted, or that you can't be too careful in dealing with people?�
The statistical link between trust and Internet adoption turns out to be surprisingly strong. The degree of trust in a society, as measured by the percentage of respondents who answered �yes� to the first part of the question above, explains almost two-thirds of national differences in the percentage of households that have Internet access. Even when controlled for other variables, such as the number of computers, trust remains an important factor.
If you like surfing the web, it is probably because you believe people are basically good
WHEN economists try to explain why the Internet is more popular in one country than another, they usually point to factors such as the number of PCs, telephone lines or average years of schooling. But something less quantifiable may be more important: trust. This, at least, is the result of a recent study by Jonathan Leland and his colleagues at IBM, which compared 17 countries.
The Internet's anonymity and vastness encourage misrepresentation and fraud. Thus, people who are normally suspicious tend to shun the medium, while more trusting souls embrace it. To test this proposition, the team correlated OECD data on Internet adoption with results from the World Values Survey. One question the latter asks is: �Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted, or that you can't be too careful in dealing with people?�
The statistical link between trust and Internet adoption turns out to be surprisingly strong. The degree of trust in a society, as measured by the percentage of respondents who answered �yes� to the first part of the question above, explains almost two-thirds of national differences in the percentage of households that have Internet access. Even when controlled for other variables, such as the number of computers, trust remains an important factor.
Thursday, 3 October 2002
Gary Loveman Harrahs COO
Growth and turbulence. Largest casino company in the world. Brought in becasue company was not growing - came up with a strategy based on retail.
Simplicity is the answer to turbulence.
In 1998 Harrahs had built casinos in newly legal states. No new states, so no growth; competitors moving in with newer stuff.
Harrahs had built a great transactional database of customers. Loyalty card rewards customers for spying on their bets, correlating with restaurants.
It had been collected, but not used.
They had casinos over the whole country, so they wanted to build a national retail brand.
Competitors strategy was 'build it and they'll come' - Bellagio $1.8bn - the casino God would build if he had the money.
They pursued a switching strategy instead of a buidl new one - grow what they had, as they couldn't afford to compete on flashness.
1. Create a national brand.
2. Envelop customers with reasons to be loyal - provide excellent service
3. Use decision science to optimise customer profitability
Turning customer promiscuity into customer monogamy.
They build Pavlovian systems - driving reactions they want from customers.
Made a Marketing manager COO to focus on marketing. Company, not business units, owned the customer.
The Casino Owns the customer. (Sound like hacker-speak to me).
They have rooms so gamblers can sleep, restaurants so gamblers can eat.
They had 36% of market, but if they could increase by 1% the share price would go up $1.10. By 2001 they moved yp to 42%
People go to casinos to take risks. Their ads show the insides of casinos, not resorts. Found very strong correlation between service quality and return visits, so made sure managers knew this and invested in service.
They really take good care of the chips - count them, track them watch them - tell staff thta the chips are the means, the customers are the ends. Incentive program pays bonus if measured service goes up by 3%, irrespective of financial performance. Staff watch each other, and businesses compete as scores are published.
Need to distinguish between potentially good customers and observed behaviour. They would do epxerimental demographic filtering, send offers to see if they can bring people in. Targetting offers - carefully matching the offers they send to the people based on interest.
Treat all customers differently - good customers get treated better. 3 lines at the buffet - short platinum line, long normal line.
26 million American adults in database.
They have patent protection on doing this because they have mixed up the marketing with technology, and don't expect the patent to stand, but are using it to disrupt competitors.
Seen no impact from internet gambling - doesn't match the experience.
80% of business is slot machines. Slot advantage is 6%; Blackjack is about 1% if you are good, and it is service intensive. Table bets of $25 or less lose money. Harder to collect table game information as not automated.
Simplicity is the answer to turbulence.
In 1998 Harrahs had built casinos in newly legal states. No new states, so no growth; competitors moving in with newer stuff.
Harrahs had built a great transactional database of customers. Loyalty card rewards customers for spying on their bets, correlating with restaurants.
It had been collected, but not used.
They had casinos over the whole country, so they wanted to build a national retail brand.
Competitors strategy was 'build it and they'll come' - Bellagio $1.8bn - the casino God would build if he had the money.
They pursued a switching strategy instead of a buidl new one - grow what they had, as they couldn't afford to compete on flashness.
1. Create a national brand.
2. Envelop customers with reasons to be loyal - provide excellent service
3. Use decision science to optimise customer profitability
Turning customer promiscuity into customer monogamy.
They build Pavlovian systems - driving reactions they want from customers.
Made a Marketing manager COO to focus on marketing. Company, not business units, owned the customer.
The Casino Owns the customer. (Sound like hacker-speak to me).
They have rooms so gamblers can sleep, restaurants so gamblers can eat.
They had 36% of market, but if they could increase by 1% the share price would go up $1.10. By 2001 they moved yp to 42%
People go to casinos to take risks. Their ads show the insides of casinos, not resorts. Found very strong correlation between service quality and return visits, so made sure managers knew this and invested in service.
They really take good care of the chips - count them, track them watch them - tell staff thta the chips are the means, the customers are the ends. Incentive program pays bonus if measured service goes up by 3%, irrespective of financial performance. Staff watch each other, and businesses compete as scores are published.
Need to distinguish between potentially good customers and observed behaviour. They would do epxerimental demographic filtering, send offers to see if they can bring people in. Targetting offers - carefully matching the offers they send to the people based on interest.
Treat all customers differently - good customers get treated better. 3 lines at the buffet - short platinum line, long normal line.
26 million American adults in database.
They have patent protection on doing this because they have mixed up the marketing with technology, and don't expect the patent to stand, but are using it to disrupt competitors.
Seen no impact from internet gambling - doesn't match the experience.
80% of business is slot machines. Slot advantage is 6%; Blackjack is about 1% if you are good, and it is service intensive. Table bets of $25 or less lose money. Harder to collect table game information as not automated.
The Strategy that Works - Larry Downes
Met an incubator - Build a company in 90 days, take it public in 180 days. IPOs made day traders into VCs
Moore's law was faster than companies could adopt - he wanted them to speed up; he found they had overshot technology and tried to keep up with market.
Business cycle does not match the technology cyle - never. Value shows up eventulaly, but not where expected. Moores law is still running. Information revolution is still going, and other ones are too. Next generation growth is happening now, and what you do now will be part of it.
Currently fuzzy subjects like marketing and CRM will become scientific as more data is available.
When the going gets tough, short the future - all speculative stuff gets cut first, whereas the opposite needs to happen.
3 crazy ideas:
1. Zero out your IT budget
Or rather, merge it with the R&D budget - no difference between them. As information flow gets richer will be enveloped in information. develop IT wiht the products and services.
2. Manage your business like a portfolio manager
Tie yourself to the mast like Ulysses so you can't cheat yourself out of the future in bad times. Weight your investments in short term, mid term and long term. Cut carefully. Buy low and sell high - at least buy low.
3. Invest in next generation of technology infrastructure especially if you are broke.
BP invested in a new IT platform, then bought their competitors and put them on the same more efficient system.
Make sure you have:
Open Standards - don't choose too soon, but make sure all choices are open.
Component based architecture - OO techniques are a key part.
Separation of process, interface and data. Dont slap everything into HTML.
Getting big ideas is the easy part. The hard part is execution.
The new ideas never get through.
Moore's law was faster than companies could adopt - he wanted them to speed up; he found they had overshot technology and tried to keep up with market.
Business cycle does not match the technology cyle - never. Value shows up eventulaly, but not where expected. Moores law is still running. Information revolution is still going, and other ones are too. Next generation growth is happening now, and what you do now will be part of it.
Currently fuzzy subjects like marketing and CRM will become scientific as more data is available.
When the going gets tough, short the future - all speculative stuff gets cut first, whereas the opposite needs to happen.
3 crazy ideas:
1. Zero out your IT budget
Or rather, merge it with the R&D budget - no difference between them. As information flow gets richer will be enveloped in information. develop IT wiht the products and services.
2. Manage your business like a portfolio manager
Tie yourself to the mast like Ulysses so you can't cheat yourself out of the future in bad times. Weight your investments in short term, mid term and long term. Cut carefully. Buy low and sell high - at least buy low.
3. Invest in next generation of technology infrastructure especially if you are broke.
BP invested in a new IT platform, then bought their competitors and put them on the same more efficient system.
Make sure you have:
Open Standards - don't choose too soon, but make sure all choices are open.
Component based architecture - OO techniques are a key part.
Separation of process, interface and data. Dont slap everything into HTML.
Getting big ideas is the easy part. The hard part is execution.
The new ideas never get through.
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