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To watch: Firebase

Was tipped via this article. Firebase to be the next thing. Promising, in its a tempo development; seems to be one element of what the world needs right now in terms of moving forward, innovation. Though maybe it may remain out of sight for most consumers, businesses may build a whole new, upgraded set of tools for users on top of this data handling platform.
And be better at using your data than just flat invasive (sic) analysis. The battle field will be compliance with (new) EU privacy regulations. E.g., re transparency of the controllers and processors; that will be a tad more difficult to pull off than now.

Though entirely your opinion on this development now being in the hands of Big G.

Anyway, again from here:
Tarrega[How many tourists would see this ..? Tar’ga Catalunya]

Pulling, and pushing the compliance boundaries

A reblog again, delving into the breath of being the peers that pressure towards conformity or be the Maverisk that wants to prevent stale and mould. Read past the starting stuff, and find the value of nonconformity explained. If you don’t see that… You may be the one most in need …
And,
??????????[Accelerating, not so bad]

Wired / Tired / Expired, November 2014 edition

DSCN1324
[Weirdo’s – closing at 17:00h … doesn’t time melt for this artist, in this country (sic) …?]

Yes here’s the November edition of my Wired / Tired / Expired jargon watch overviews, a mixed bag again:

WIRED TIRED EXPIRED
Yik Yak, Ello, Tsu The other anons (?) Whatsapp et al
As in this, where as only the very old folks remember fubbuk started. And the other ones, here. Already not making it past the tipping point? I mean, where are Whisper / Kik / Telegram / WeChat / Line / Viber / Wicker / Threema / surespot ? And this, as elsewhere on this blog. Mehhh, as in the elsewhere mentioned on the left.
Poodle Beast Heartbleed
Because it’s “not much of an issue” as it affects end point consumers only … OUTRAGE! They are your customers, they are the huge numbers, they are the incapable to cure (also since a fraction of B2C’s doesn’t effing care). If only server-owning companies were the vulnerable, with their very few numbers, their resolution capacity, and their economic interests. Yeah, yeah, working on it. Really? Still?
Taking action Taking symbolic action Taking no action / denying any problems (tie)
E.g., by forking out another $250M, not just peanuts. Because pay the peanuts, get the monkeys. … Or is the previous still only window dressing ..? Maybe some, silent, action might’ve cost much less. Anyway, symbolic action will prove to be the infosec czar’s new clothes. Legally invalid. Demonstrating incapacity to function normally in today’s business world.
Docker Google Docs ‘Private cloud’
Just as in this, and this and this – since the latter two. Into the main stream. Dumb outsourced data center, virtual or not. With all the privacy ramifications, without scalability (!) or efficiencies.
IoT detailing ever further IoT! Mixed up with Wearables et al. Cloud, ROSI etc.etc.
This kind of details … And these. Pls learn to discriminate or you mess up the discussions. Which will be, at all levels of abstraction and everywhere, as under W. Totalitarian Bureaucrat talk.
Not caring
(to be seen)		 Faux 1% philantropy Posing
Hanging out at http://www.beriestain.com/ for example, just among like-minded self-sufficients (for peace of mind, not needing external recognition). Clearly, this. Uggg-gh!

OK, any suggestions for next month’s edition ..?

Flexing work vans

A thought just popped into my mind: If people are expected to be ever more flexible as for place of work, why would we still be tied up in concrete offices ..? Even if we move around, it is from concrete intensive-people-farm to the next, however flexible and nice it all may look. And all the flex space flex rent stuff is similar; tying people up to addresses.

Rather, wouldn’t it be of use if there were another variant suitably professionally organized, I mean not something like this:
resized_Hot_Dog_Van3_Front_Street_West_Toronto_Canada_3_October_2009[Hey, it’s someone’s office …]

But rather something a tiny bit more upmarket. Like:
leather-seat-covers-led-illumination-t5-multivan-vw-business-van-le[or just a little less conspicuous, with more actual desk space, filing possibilities (still, in this time and day), etc., for, probably, some quite a bit more affordable investment money and maybe a little more like above-linked ‘offices’ that this out-of-fashion posh]

So that the great many that aren’t at Queen Bee level that everyone flocks to – i.e., everyone, in the near future, in the flat(ter) network ‘organisations’ – can simply drive to the gathering places (previously known as parking lots) of choice and nearness to whatever client, and hook up the fully-equipped office to some power (charging the car battery and the equipment) and network to just do whatever work needs to be done. Could be downtown, could be at the park or beach front.

Oh well. It was just an idea….

Spam (out) of control

How is it that for decades, we had been used to managerial spans of control being in the 5-to-10, optimal (sic) 8 range, whereas what we had in the past couple of decades is spans of control in the 2-3 range mostly ..? [Duh, exceptions and successful organisations aside…]

Because I came across some post on a well-known business site where there’s an early simple statement that a span of control of 10 would not only be normal, but outdated as well, as the span could be at 30.
Well, I doubt the latter, as this would conflict with a lower ‘Dunbar’ number which indeed is about 8, with ramifications for informal control as outlined in this Bruce masterpiece. Oh yes now it springs to mind the 8 figure was taken by the military, the ultimate built-for-survival organization, to be the optimal span of control, and taken over to business for its apparently attractive all-business-is-war metaphor – where the attraction is there only for those not really exposed to the gore of war, I guess.

But whether it’s 8, 10 or 30, the optimal span of control clearly is larger than the common today’s practice.
Which has implications:

  • Too low a number will inevitably lead managers to seek to have something to do. Busywork, in their role leading to excessive micromanagement (yes pleonasm but on purpose) and/or excessive meeting behavior, in particular with their underlings and/or likewise trapped colleagues, like an AA group. Thus burdening the underlings with time taken away from actual content work and the need for Action item lists and reporting blub. Thus burdening colleagues with all sorts of time lost on, what actually is, whining.
  • Too low a number and the micromanagement leads to extreme (far overextended) controls burdens on the ones who’d actually produce anything of value instead of producing negative value with all their externalities like managers may commonly do. This burdening then leads to ‘process’, ‘procedures’ etc., to ‘standardise’ (otherwise, understanding of actual content would be required; the horror to managers!), hollowing out even further the value of any work done. As in the abovementioned / linked Forbes article; the Peter principle will reign.
  • Too low a number and the standardisation will drive out the creativity (in process and in product/service design/production/delivery) that is required ever more than before to counter the ever more changing environment. As I typed this, this article arrived…

So yes, we all need to focus on upping the number. To counter stalemates. To counter bureaucracy heavens. To regain flexibility.
But still, still, this could only work IF, very very big IF, ‘managers’ (not to address actual managers, that I value enormously!) can loosen their frantic, fear-of-death-like Totalitarian Control attitude.
Which I doubt. But then, organisations relying on these (whether already or after they will have crowded-out the actual managers via the Peter principle and acolyte behavior) will loose out to the upstarts that do keep the mold out.

And, finally, of course:
DSCN1138[Was safe, now the highway passes by somewhere down below, leaving the ‘secured’ stranded upon high; Carmona]

SPICE things up, maturely

Where just about everyone in my Spheres was busy ‘implementing’ (quod non) all sorts of quality ‘assurance’ or ‘control’ (2x quod non) models, in the background there was quite some development in another, related area that may boomerang back into the limelight, for good reason.
First, this:
DSCN8573[Zuid-A(rt)sifyed]

The subject of course regards SPICE, or rather the ISO 15504 that it has turned into. Of the Old School of software development quality improvement era. Now transformed into much more…
In particular, there’s Capabilities instead of ‘maturity levels’.

What more can I add ..? Systematic, rigorous, robust, resistant against commercial panhandling. The intricacies … let’s just point to the wiki page again; ’tis clear enough or you need other instruction…

Lemme just close off with asking you for your experiences with this Standard…?

A simple explanation of Bitcoin “Sidechains”

Noteworthy. In one sense, a dilution. In another, a move to widespread adoption and acceptance. From which, probably, some unforeseeable, maybe even weird, whole new societal developments may spring.
And, for the heck of it:
000013 (7)[Pre-1998 analog to digital, FLlW @ Bear Run obviously]

In that Case, No.

Is your organization still replying on ‘business’ ‘cases’ to fund projects? Then there’s a special place for you in Dorchester.
When building such business cases – apologies for not mocking that newspeak already –, have you ever come up with one that did not pass the hurdle rate ..? Or come across a case where no business case was needed because the case for investing was so obvious or it wasn’t most clearly but someone of the Board wanted it so whatever dreadful return was expected all still had to be done?

Which made business cases the spider web that catches the little flies when the big ones simply smash on through.

And the insects that game-change and disrupt your feeding/business model and/or market share, don’t even fly near your web or turned inedible.

How many start-ups go through formal business cases for every investment or pivot ..? And only just making the 10% rate ..? With all costs so exactly calculable as you present those (the 100%+ error rates you leave out ’cause band widths are too difficult to understand by the ones with the money bags. You presume that, they deny that vehemently because it would show them to be the emperors in their newest clothes (but with piggy-fat pay checks), but you are certain of not being able to mark the averages for the cost items so you take lowest estimates), and the benefits monetized [my italics, auth.] to fabulously inflated figures. With oh so many unethical rounds of ‘adjustments’. Newspeak for: cooking the books of your business case. By lack of the hardest of scientifically concrete counterevidence you maintain your weakest of kindergarten estimates still hold.
Again, not very much like the start-ups you envy. You envy for their success rate. Ah, you now say the failure rate of start-ups is dismal. How about the failure rate of your projects; if they had been single initiatives, wouldn’t they have gone bankrupt at an even higher rate? Aren’t your successes the panting hanging-in-by-the-thread shrill-shouts of objectives achievement? Where the start-ups are considered successful only after passing the … maybe 500% return rate; reflective of … business value through non-monetary returns you could only dream of.

Don’t feel like I’m just bullying you like all the rest, with the weapon of slight. I’m trying to provide ammo so you can be allowed to move away from the bleak common business case of ‘decks’ full of PPTs where the content would be much, much better presented in Word and the 6 words shoud be per sheet not per half inch; unreadable, not made to understand. [Why!?!? Why use PPT; why are you using a truck to get a dozen of eggs from the Walmart ..!?]

So, what pointer can you provide to beat the business case system; not to game it but to replace it with another that might actually be useful, functional, in (larger) organisations …?

Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord