controls – Page 28 – Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord

Tip: Morozov’s Click Here

Ah, maybe I’m the one not having paid attention, but I see so little response (which would be: digesting and repeat) of the ideas of the great Morozov in his To Save Everything, Click Here, as e.g., here (to be clicked).

Which is quite a contrast with his content, having a major discussion area in itself, about every other paragraph throughout. Yes, that makes it just a little bit harder to retain the main plot (?) line and the ‘details’ as well; it seems a bit like the asymmetry in information security where the defence will have to fight (? debate, rather) on all sides when attackers (the ones with the blindingly large blinds/blinkers on, headless chickens) can move their individual spearhead attacks forward anywhere – but in this Morozov case, one can count on the defense having the much more and more importantly, much better, arguments on its side. One should not count arguments, but weigh them (Cicero).

“Huh, no content of the book here …” Indeed not. Get it and read! I’m off now to finish reading, leaving you with:

[Ah, the one little part where The Hague is somewhat like a big Milanish / Parisian city; unedited hence the off light conditions]

Middle secretaries

Two points to make:
* Middle management will be.
* Secretaries should be.

The discussion regarding middle managers being superfluous or not had a slight uptick the past couple of months. With the latter voice having been a bit too quiet. Yes, middle management is under threat. It has always been; only the (history-)ignorant will have missed that. And Yes, all the Disruption things and similar empty barrel half-baked air by a lot of folks who have hands-on experience in the slim to none bin with (real) management altogether let alone this kind, have predicted over and over again that the disruption by Server-with-algorithm-app-that-schedules-day-laborers will make middle management redundant, as the believed task was only that.

Quod non. And as if just an algorithm will capture the full complexity (and incoherence, inconsistency, internally and externally contradictory ..!) of the requirements and work of the middle manager.
OK, we’re not discussing the drone administrative clerk that has Manager on his card (huh?) and sits in an office passing top-down orders and bottom-up reports back and forth. We’re talking the real, 24/7 problem firefighter here. The coordinator of chaos. The translator of lofty (other would say, ‘airhead’) ‘governance’ (quod non) mumbo jumbo into actual work structure and tasks, and translatereporting back. That survives and in doing so, shows great performance. The other ones, will be weeded out anyway, every time there’s an economic cycle downturn. [If the right ones would be kept, and the wrong ones ‘given growth opportunities elsewhere’. Seldomly the case; offing is by the fte numbers, and the wrong ones have being glued to their seats as their core competence, through sucking up or otherwise.]
So, the middle manager stays for a long time to come as (s)he does the kind of non-predictable work that will remain longest. If start-ups don’t have them, see them grow: They will.

Secretaries deserve a come-back. In similar vein as above, the vast majority of ~~managers~~ office clerks (from the shop floor (even if of knowledge workers…) all the way to near the top) these days have to do their own typing, scheduling, and setting up socializing things. Whereas before, economies of scale were many, and there were additional benefits because the good (sic, again) secretaries would e.g., know the best, unrenown restaurants all around and could get you a table even when they would be fully booked, and they would manage (massage away) some internal friction as well, often very discreetly and efficiently. Now, vastly more expensive (by hourly rate, productivity (think switching costs in the managers minds …, and utilisation), cost of ineffectiveness (sic again) and opportunity costs re their actual objectives (if these would be achieved; good/bad manager discussion again)) managers must manage their way around. An impoverished world it is indeed.

To bring back some joy:

[Some colour, but it’s down there… Zuid-As]

My Opia

Not being your topia anywhere or dys here topia or whatever.
Was struck by the surge in posts, columns, articles about security in IoT. Because it appears to indicate a need for a new index. Being on the level of myopia one needs, to understand the hype value (a la this). Or hyperopia (?). Or rather – what’s it called when one’s view is narrow, or broad ..? That was what I was after: With the above-linked Second-biggest G.’s Hype Cycle, one should have a perpendicular index of width/breadth of hype and/or potential impact. So that when one would consider oneself to somewhat suddenly be caught in relatively speaking the in-crowd of, purely e.g., IoT and IoT security/privacy issues that one has steered oneself into, it would come as no surprise that suddenly though with some lag, one sees the posts, columns, articles flying around on the same subject without any real news or rather more (for one!) Been There, Done That type of news reporting. For others, the news may be news…

A second aspect would be: How to position oneself. Doing hardcore research style environment scanning and reporting on that in traditional and SM media, would quickly become impossible as any field of study explodes in width and depth as it get off the ground, leaving the actual keeping up with all developments to be impossible. Even when your cutting edge development reporting wouldn’t catch on but with a few aficinados at the very most, and when you’d wait until aspects have crystallised to clarity far enough to be understood by your mainstream audience (if any), the subjects have a. watered down beyond being interesting to you, b. watered down beyond recognition still for your audience, c. still not yet reached interest-through-urgency / -news-value for them.

Whatever. Just an idea; any of your help in developing such a sight/scope index is very much appreciated…

In advance:

[Pretty close, no mirage; Segovia]

To study; unconscious compliance, conformity

A quite good analysis here, of this book.

Which throws a wrench in many discussion positions for or against privacy … also in the light of this book. Are we numb mindless drones in larger schemes, or are we individuals whose choices happened to coincide? Through availability of emergent too-selective alternatives or what?

Think about that. And revel at:

[Cheney interior, original. And B&B ..! Hey don’t complain, ‘t is from an analog one again, circa 1997.]

Start the Told You So now you still can (?)

Against the trend to dismiss any dystopian view as unduly unoptimistic and hence invalid, that I so dislike..: This here piece by In the Knows.

The Told You So Boys Cried Wolf (lopping two memes into one, in this case appropriately) may better have started now, since they will not be heard (fact about the (near) future) and may not get another opportunity when all the others, the drones, have been subdued by the 0,1%, the AI singularity beast. To put it mildly ;-|

Or, … maybe this time around, some exponential counter force may have come off the ground – not yet into full above-the-radar-floor visibility but still… If ever in history there was a chance to get it (technology) right, it would be now, now that more people are in the middle class (that always takes the beating, apart from the continuous light flogging the underclasses have always got and will always get) and have just the right minimum levels of insight and might care for their future. Unprecedented as an opportunity but hardly assured it’s seized…

Anyway…, this:
DSCN6368
[Strasbourg, astronomical clock – yes, science within a cathedral]

Ruled by the petty

When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary; when mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.

Durkheim, you recall. Only now. Only now that you’ve started the year all refreshed to this time around implement all the nitpicky petty rather childish, kindergarten-level rules to reign in all the misfits (i.e., about everyone except you) that don’t want to dance to your tunes (while you can’t dance, really; admit it. Not even to your own tune you don’t!). Which turns you into a petty fool, given the veracity of the above quote. If you don’t get it, just think it over once again. And again, until you do. Or quit, but then stay away. Like, at these nice locations just for you.

The big Question of 2015, or the decade, being: How to get the mores back

Part of the solution may be your admiration for:
[Some time ago, when photography was still allowed….]

Merely convicted by PPT

Hm, there was this meme about Death By Powerpoint. Now, the toned-down version, conviction (attempt) by PPT, has been found in the wild. As in this here article. Where the prosecutor was too dumb to not hide the culpose text behind the 24-images-per-second visibility screen. [Is that ‘stego’ ..?]

Incentives, incentives…
[Vic chic]

HTTP status 418 against unpersonation

Though we’re halfway towards granting legal person rights to animals (as this and this show), and you know a lot of co-workers for whom this presents a nice little bit of progress, I’d say we have also moved great strides in the opposite direction.
Which is far more dangerous.

It all started, throughout the ages over and over again, with the already-responsibility-deprived weasels (a.k.a. ‘mere employees’ and ‘leaders’) wiggling out from under the burden of guilt for, e.g. most recently, the Sony hack, the financial crisis; you name it. With excuses ranging all the way from “I wasn’t important enough to had been able to make any noticeable difference anyway” to “If I hadn’t done it, someone else would have and at least now it was me with still some consciousness that did it” – where one’s character speaks through one’s actions …
Which in sum total, through a particularly nefarious twist of aggregation and emergence (read back this little badly unnoticed gem and you’ll get it) leads to … dehumanization of these speakers, and corporations seeking personhood as well.
Which is far more dangerous.

All of you that behave this way: You’re not underestimating the dystopian version of the Singularity, but actively bringing it on … by degrading your own independence, freedom (of mind and action!), identity, humanity, and value. By suppressing any questioning of the Überbureaucracy, actively, by frowning of much worse on those that want to remain human and social (i.e., exchange ideas). Etc. To no end.
To the end of letting the force of nature, the beast within, to explode out through the most deviant, unthinkably inhumane, behavior in particularly with the ones that were most and first in line with ratio, bureaucratic petty rules, i.e., the ones holding sway over all others including you. With the explosion hitting you, too – and you have no answer either now or then…

Complexity, of the world, of societies, of your immediate environments (Sloterdijk’s spheres, yes), of yourself, is no excuse to shut down. It should be a wake-up call, a call to arms, a sacrifice … not to ritually celebrate past developments, but to progress out of the complexity …!
My fabourite option: a healthy dose of status code 418 for all, not always, but every now and then, here and there. Life is too important to always take seriously!

Well, I’m off to some very dense prose, where mere text lines are ever more narrow in their description of the richness of the ideas and constructs to be discussed. Hence will part ways, with:
DSCN1441
[Bam! Out explodes the force of nature]

Cultural maturity – of organisations

Adding to the Maslow-for-organisations idea of December 3rd’s post; would it be possible to gauge an organization its maturity level by trying to establish its ‘score’ on the various pyramid layers (to be) established? Though immediately, I see trouble for the method where e.g., companies may get into (financial / freshness/motivational) trouble and sink back some layers. But then again, we may then look up in DSM-5 what ails the company, and find avenues to restore good health.

Hmmm, how is it that when thinking of corporate culture, one so quickly ends up at the mental disorder metaphor? And I jump in with the option of (boardroom consulting) intervention; highly profitable, for the firm if it hires me for that, and for me anyway.

So it seems not to hinge on the Maslow pyramid. Nevertheless, as diagnostic tool, it may help.

To keep you sane till I’ve fully developed the method:
[Calatravalencia]

Maslow for companies

Some first sketches of an idea that sprang to mind during some musings about (the feasibility of) schemes that classify maturity levels for companies, or organisations. The idea being that the common Maslow pyramid that, despite some critique here and there that usually points at critics’ misunderstanding of modeling and this model in particular, is still very much valid for establishment of personal preferences and comfort zones.
* Yes I do know the cultural variance in ‘it’.

But the idea quickly stalled due to lack of progress in the bottom layers of the OrgPsyPyramid – what comes first for e.g., start-ups; is that different for established organisations that are under threat of extinction due to disruptors and/or self-inflicted financial troubles ..? Is it market share (these days, a.k.a. active users), growth for growth sake, immediate positive cash flow (or the opposite; burn rate as a plume à l’honneur), or ..?

Hm, it’s time for:
[Tok’about old (?) and new classics]

The other layers, … will follow in a couple of weeks. Think traditional growth, market share, capitalization (or valuation), profits, foundation for longevity. But as we move up higher, as to be expected we’re entering the harder-to-understand regions, being the harder to define, implement and achieve ones too. If you would have some pointers to science already having been done; yes please I’d be happy to incorporate that. So, looking forward to your comments… (as if anyone would comment…)