Knowledge is power, not wisdom

I’ve just been watching IBM’s smarter planet team’s Internet of Things video on what they think a smarter planet should be. In a Matrixy, Neuromancer kind of way they try to paint a rosy picture of a utopian future where everything is interconnected, which to their way of thinking makes the planet smarter. This is at odds with the dystopian future painted in The Matrix and Neuromancer and equally at odds with reality.

Even if the intelligent connection between systems painted in the video becomes reality that doesn’t make the planet smarter, it makes the systems devised by humans smarter, which is exactly the premise behind those systems taking over the planet as envisaged in science fiction works such as The Terminator and The Matrix.

When the internet first began a mantra was born that said “information wants to be free”. This is often misunderstood as meaning that information should be available to all at no cost. What it really means is that information was finally freeing itself from the tethers of books and libraries to become available to all via the internet. The mobile revolution, which is just beginning, is finally witnessing that becoming a reality as information frees itself from the tether of the desktop PC and becomes available to us where and when we need it.

All of this comes at a price of course, both in setting up the systems to store and deliver this information but even more importantly in our human capacity to digest and understand it. The IBM team proffer the DIKW paradigm as a truism; saying that Data becomes Information then Knowledge and this leads to Wisdom, by what magical osmosis they fail to specify.

Wisdom is borne out of experience and that comes at a cost. The development of understanding cannot happen magically, which is why the nightmare scenarios painted by the afore-mentioned science fiction stories is as much a piece of empty romanticism as IBM’s vision. The planet, or indeed the universe, isn’t talking to us through matrices of data and systems it speaks to our soul. The planet doesn’t need to get any smarter but human beings do.

Suits you sir!

Are companies being "tucked up" with ill-fitting software?

When I took a post-graduate diploma in Software Engineering in 1984 I was fascinated by the way the flows of information within a company were analysed to produce a model for software development. This was in the days when most enterprise software was bespoke, designed and built to fit the aforementioned analysis. I immediately questioned why this analysis couldn’t be used to highlight areas of duplication and wastage and thence to find ways to improve the company’s efficiency and reduce their cost base. Then, and only then, could you apply the judicious use of technology to achieve cost savings and productivity gains. This approach just met with blank looks from my tutors, they couldn’t conceive of their role as being to offer advice on how to run a business.

Fast forward to 1999 and I was offered a job as a consultant in a global IT company. At that time I was advising two of the world’s largest publishing companies on the use of internet technology within their companies. I was identified as a consultant working in an area the IT company wanted to get into and so I was approached. My perception of them as a hardware and software company led me to challenge them on how meaningful my contribution could be. To my concern that I did not want to be a proxy salesman for their hardware and software the response was, “You won’t be doing that. Your role will be to analyse a company’s process and information flows and advise them on the best use of technology to improve productivity and increase efficiency within that company. That technology doesn’t have to be ours, your role will be to identify the best tools for the job, which may or may not be our tools.”

Although I was sceptical about the latter half of this assurance I was heartened by the first half. Wasn’t this just what I had been trying to impress upon my tutors more than a decade ago? It would appear that, while I was busily engaged in helping companies take advantage of the dot com boom (a boom I could see was over), consulting had grown from a simple time and motion study to a process destined to take a far more proactive role in reshaping companies, just as I had identified it should all those years ago.

Another decade on and we have come full circle but not where we should be, helping companies to improve efficiency and productivity. The reason is that software has moved from a bespoke model to an off-the-peg model, where companies are asked to accept an-off-the shelf package as the answer to their needs. This is done by forcing the company to change to fit the software, a not-so-neat reversal of the paradigm my tutors were using two decades ago.

Analysis of the company’s information flows and requirements has degenerated into a simple measurement exercise, just like buying an off-the-peg suit. Sir measures 39 inches on the chest, 33 inches at the waist and has an inside leg measurement of 31.5 inches. This 40/34/32 suit will therefore be the one that fits you. Maybe a little shortening of the trousers and if you just let me stand behind you and hold in the jacket at the waist you can see how it suits you. Don’t worry, the sleeves will ride up with wear.

No real consultancy is taking place, the “consultancy” firms are merely implementing software packages, forcing the customer to fit the design of that package, nipping and tucking here and there to make the fit appear right. Sadly it never is right and the result is a costly exercise that fails to deliver the promised process and productivity improvements. Suits you sir? I don't think so.