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Varhol’s Corollary to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle August 29, 2016

Posted by Peter Varhol in Technology and Culture.
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I’m back to reading Sherry Turkle’s wonderful Reclaiming Conversation, and quite a bit of it is thought-provoking.  I’m trying to apply some of the lessons here to technology teams, but in the meantime, I’m drawing some independent lessons from her excellent tome.

Turkle notes that youth go to parties, then immediately start texting others to make sure they are at the right party, the “best” one. The idea, presumably, is to find that one best party and grace it with one’s presence.

Now on to Heisenberg. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says that the very act of measure an activity out of necessity affects it in some way.  By attempting to measure something, we are making ourselves an actor in that activity.

Of course, Heisenberg was largely referring to the relative position of particles in quantum physics, but it’s reasonable to apply generalizations of this statement to other domains. My corollary applies to the realm of social behavior.  It says that one’s presence at a party affects the quality of that party, whether or not you are seeking alternatives.

While I will attempt to quantify this relationship for an upcoming academic paper, it is clear that if you go to a party and do nothing other than seek another party, you are worsening the experience for everyone at your current party. My corollary says that it’s not just the party; it is how you interact with the party.

If you interact well, you will believe you are at the best party. If you interact poorly, any party you end up at will be below your, um, expectations.  So by being there, and taking your own behavior into account, you directly influence the quality of the party by your own measurements.

In other words, your own presence and behavior has a direct and strong impact on your enjoyment.

Surprised? Neither am I.

Your CEO Needs to be Tech-Savvy August 24, 2016

Posted by Peter Varhol in Strategy.
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There was a time in the not-to-distant past when the usual business journals decried the insular nature of IT, and insisted that the CIO needed more business and less tech acumen. It was always accepted that the top tech person would never become CEO, because they lacked the business background and ability.

I would argue that today the shoe is on the other foot. IT, technology in general, and technology intelligently applied to business goals are prerequisites for top company leadership.

Any CEO that doesn’t understand the technology that is essential for the enterprise remaining in business, prospering, and beating the competition is woefully unqualified for the top post. That’s all there is to it.

This was succinctly demonstrated in the recent implosion of Delta’s reservation and operations systems.  A CEO that understood the vital importance of these systems would never have placed his or her enterprise in such a position.

Business academics, and business journals, you have it all wrong today. There is more than ample evidence that the CEO needs to understand what makes the business work, and that is technology.

And CEOs, take notice. You need to get up to speed on your vital technology fast.  Not doing so is a prescription for disaster.  And boards of directors, it is likely that the best candidate for your next CEO is your top technology person.

Is a Car Just a Car? August 12, 2016

Posted by Peter Varhol in Technology and Culture, Uncategorized.
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At this time of my life, yes. My transportation is an 18-year old Subaru that just starts every time.  But 25 years ago, I owned a classic Corvette.  L-82, large bore V-8.  If I could think it, that car could deliver on it.  As a teen, I had an old Chevy sedan that moved okay, and let me join the other teens in doing whatever we did with cars.

Uber entire business model is based on the assumption that a car is only transportation.  I can hail a whatever sedan Uber sends me to get from here to there.  I am pretty much in sync with that, because I need to get from here to there, reliably and more or less on time.  I certainly don’t do it in any fancy way.

But I am not everyone. Most news/magazine websites still have an automotive section, and paper magazines like Car and Driver and Automotive News still sell well.  Many people like cars, and have an emotional attachment to them.  There is a certain beauty in the lines of many cars, and car ownership still remains a reachable dream for youth and adults alike.

If Uber fails, here is where it will happen. For some, perhaps many, travel is not a commodity.  The journey is the reward, as Steve Jobs had once said.  To many, this is the literal truth.

Uber is selling a way to get from here to there. That’s not a bad thing.  But in the case of cars, it is nowhere near everything.  Chevy sells tens of thousands of Corvettes every year.  Other attractive, fast, and functional cars sell in the millions.  They do so not because people need them, in many cases, but because they want them.

Uber works when the alternative is hailing a cab, and its advantage there will be reduced once it starts charging full price, rather than providing a subsidy on its rates.

But some people (many people?) need more than that. I don’t happen to be one of them, at this point in my life (though given my location, I still don’t use Uber), but I can still appreciate the sentiment.  I don’t know that Uber will fail, because there is still a significant population that requires only occasional transport from one point to another.

But it is a crack in the business model. I don’t think any cultural shift that occurs will happen that fast or that completely to make cars simply transportation for many people.  How many people could decide whether Uber is a global force or merely a taxi company.

And Just Whose Bright Idea Was This? August 7, 2016

Posted by Peter Varhol in Software platforms, Technology and Culture.
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Brilliant! What more can be said here?  The Social Security Administration (they have their own exit ramp, off of Interstate 695 west of Baltimore) were under a mandate to improve security.

Okay, I get that, but their solution was to implement two-factor security using a challenge-response based on a phone text code.  This is the only way you can access your account online.

This is where this seriously goes off the rails. It requires a mobile phone capable of sending and receiving texts.  According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 92 percent of adult Americans have cell phones (whether or not they text is a different story), but only 78 percent of seniors, who might be most interested

The Social Security Administration recognizes that not everyone has a cell phone, but claimed not to be able to implement any other solution.

Um, no. My primary (maybe) bank, Bank of America, does a challenge-response access.  You type in your account name, it comes back with a glyph that you have chosen to represent you with the bank.  The purpose of the glyph is to assure you that you haven’t been redirected to a bogus site that wants to phish for your passwords and financial information.  Only after you have verified that the glyph is yours do you enter your password.  That approach is ultimately simpler than the text-based security system.

You may not have a cell phone for a variety of reasons, including no reception in your area (many rural areas of the US lack widespread cellular service). Probably those who grew up with landlines may feel less a need to carry a phone around with them, which also speaks of an older generation.

I don’t believe that the Social Security Administration was limited to a text-based security solution. On the surface, this seems to be yet another example of government not serving its constituents, because they don’t have to.

We Are Not All Victims August 5, 2016

Posted by Peter Varhol in Uncategorized.
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In a minor fit of annoyance, I recently wrote about how The Ladders’ Mark Cendella gave the middle finger to older workers in its newsletter.  In response, people have sent me links of just about every type of worker that is facing discrimination or difficult times, whether by age, race, education, or whatever.

Woe to be an older worker, since older workers are, well, old and not with the times, and no one wants to hire them.

Except, woe to be a Millennial, who has to work three menial part time jobs and live in your parents’ basement.

Or woe to be mid-career, where you are facing the prospect of temporary contractor jobs indefinitely.

Or to be blue-collar in the oil industry, which has recently shed 200,000 well-paying jobs.

Seriously, you can find anyone of any race, location, or age in any circumstance. And so-called experts who are willing to find fault with a society that lets each individual circumstance happen.  I’m starting to think that it is the media that is turning us all into victims, explaining how people just like us in some way are getting the shaft, presumably while everyone else is taking the elevator.

To be fair, I try not to judge the media too harshly. I was a tech journalist, and probably about the last of a breed that made a decent living off of it.  News journalism, except at the very top of the ladder, is poorly paid and unappreciated.  Further, the only way to derive revenue in news is to get a lot of people to read it.  So they present everyday people as, well, victims, usually of a society that they think has failed them.

But most of us have advantages and disadvantages in life, whether brought on by personal characteristics, demographics, life choices, education, and a host of other things. Most of the time they balance out so that we are able to live a decent if average life.  In some outlying cases, there is a cornucopia of riches; in others, a continuing chain of disillusionment.

I would like to see our media focus less on that chain of disillusionment. It does no one any good, including your readership and probably not your bottom line.  “There are eight million stories in the naked city”; I call upon the media to find some of the others.

Another Old Line Conglomerate Gets It Wrong August 4, 2016

Posted by Peter Varhol in Software development, Technology and Culture.
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I seem to be taking my curmudgeon role seriously. Today I read that Jeff Immelt, longtime CEO of industrial conglomerate GE, says that every new (young) person hired has to learn how to code.

So many things to say here. First, I have never been a proponent of the “everyone can code” school.  No, let me amend that; everyone can probably learn to code, but is that the best and most productive use of their time?  I would guess not.

Second, I’m sure that in saying that Immelt has put his money where his mouth is, and has gotten his own coding skills together. No?  Well, he’s the boss, so he should be setting the example.

This is just stupid, and I am willing to bet a dollar that GE won’t follow through on this idle boast. Not even the most Millennial-driven, Silicon Valley-based, we’re so full of ourselves startup tech company would demand that every employee know how to code.

And no company needs all of their employees to be spending time on a single shared skill that only a few will actually use. GE needs to focus on hiring the best people possible for hundreds of different types of professional jobs.  It may be an advantage for all of them to have some level of aptitude for understanding how software works, but not coding shouldn’t be a deal-breaker.

I have worked at larger companies where grandiose strategies have been announced and promoted, but rarely if ever followed through. This pronouncement is almost certainly for PR purposes only, and will quietly get shelved sooner rather than later.  And making such a statement does no credit whatsoever to Immelt, who should know better.

Being a Curmudgeon Has its Benefits August 1, 2016

Posted by Peter Varhol in Technology and Culture, Uncategorized.
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I occasionally wax personal in my blog, as I did a year ago when I was facing a serious cancer diagnosis (the diagnosis was ultimately incorrect, and I am healthier than ever). Occasionally I just have to say something about a particular moment, whether or not it relates to my target blog topics.

This morning I got a regular email newsletter from Marc Cendella of The Ladders, a job search service for salaries over $100K.  The title was “When the kid interviewing you says you’re too old…”  In it, Cendella says that age discrimination in hiring is prevalent, and offers the older job seeker a checklist of items to attempt to overcome that bias.

Here is where I call a foul. Certainly there are things that a job seeker can do in order to make him- or her self appear to be a better fit for a given job.  In general, those things range from the common-sensical (be engaged and current in your profession and energetic in your life pursuits) to the absurd (facelifts and hair coloring).

But it’s a two-way street. Why not also suggest to the hiring managers that they might have a bias that is not well serving their organization, and how they might recognize and correct that deficiency?

Oh, that’s right. Businesses like The Ladders make money from those companies doing the hiring, not from job seekers.  The Ladders would rather tell the job seeker to change, rather than the hiring manager.

I would imagine that in a lengthy career spanning a dozen or more jobs and dozens of interviews, I have experienced some types of bias and discrimination. Probably everyone has; we tend to form initial impressions of someone we just met in under a second, and those first impressions can be both unconscious and difficult to overcome.

Bias in hiring is particularly difficult to demonstrate, as there could be any reason or no reason to not be selected for a job. The prospective employer certainly isn’t telling (usually), so most of this left to speculation or inference, and not even worth considering, let alone actionable.

But I found this newsletter from The Ladders to be singularly offensive. I instinctively interpreted it as “It’s not my problem that I am biased, it’s yours in that you are too old.”  I deeply resent that Cendella says that it’s a problem for job-seekers, rather than a problem for hiring managers (or for both).  If hiring managers let such biases creep into their decision process, they are doing both themselves and their organization a serious disservice.

I have always been sanguine about bias in hiring. My attitude has been that if I am discounted because of a personal characteristic outside of my control, it’s a place I probably wouldn’t want to work at anyway.

The fact of the matter is that unless we die young, or hit the jackpot, we are all destined to become older workers. Everyone, deal with it.