The Case for Reasonable Hours: Fact or Fiction?
May 10, 2012
Inspired by Sheryl Sandberg, Inc.’s Geoffrey James calls for us to “Stop Working More Than 40 Hours a Week.” Though Facebook COO Sandberg has been leaving on time to get home to her kids for seven years, the powerful executive only recently felt she could admit the fact in a culture where long hours are now required for workers to be considered dedicated and, by extension, worthy of raises and advancement. James points out that the excruciating trend has gained the upper hand despite longstanding evidence that working over 40 hours per week actually decreases performance. He writes:
“In the early 1900s, Ford Motor ran dozens of tests to discover the optimum work hours for worker productivity. They discovered that the ‘sweet spot’ is 40 hours a week–and that, while adding another 20 hours provides a minor increase in productivity, that increase only lasts for three to four weeks, and then turns negative.
“Anyone who’s spent time in a corporate environment knows that what was true of factory workers a hundred years ago is true of office workers today. People who put in a solid 40 hours a week get more done than those who regularly work 60 or more hours.”
This logic has shades of Henri Poincaré to be sure, but the advocates of balance have a point. People who just keep on keeping on past their 40 hours are at risk for burnout, which makes them far less productive. Just because you’re at your desk typing or clicking away does not mean you are doing a good job. Anyone who has had to redo work they (or worse, their colleague) did the night before, when intellectually numb and aching to get home to loved ones, can attest to that.
We think that opinions about how long to work are okay. The reality is that hard work often contributes to success. In fact, for some, work is play so it continues around the clock. We prefer the work mode. It validates self concept, generates revenue, and seems more productive than watching random YouTube videos.
Cynthia Murrell, May 10, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
IBM Embraces Social
May 2, 2012
I wonder what happened to Watson. Surely that next-generation search technology has not been marginalized by Vivisimo’s “big data” antics or the “New IBM Business Integration Software [that] Helps Enterprises Accelerate Adoption of Social, Business, Cloud, and Mobile Technologies.” Wow, that’s like a digital Popeil pocket fisherman.
Now the secret sauce for this digital cornucopia is the new version of IBM’s WebSphere Application Server. According to the write up, WebSphere Application Server includes a business process manager, operational decision management, and the Cast Iron Live service.
What’s Cast Iron? It is an Application Programming Interface (API) which:
allows companies to extend their services to support the emerging community of developers who are building new social, mobile and cloud applications. This new purpose-built offering provides a comprehensive solution to deliver, socialize and manage business API assets.
Search, I presume, is baked in and based on Lucene, not the newly acquired Vivisimo “big data” system. How does this new server help me? Easy. The story reveals a use case:
One client – The Ottawa Hospital has already begun testing how these new software and services from IBM can dramatically change their business model. Working with IBM, they are building a new system that improves the quality of patient care and helps them to better manage the flow of patients throughout the hospital…the attending physician can send an electronic request to the patient’s physician for clarification on past diagnosis. The patient’s doctor receives the consultation request immediately on their most accessible device – a tablet, smart phone or a computer. They respond directly to the specific consult questions electronically, so the attending physician can correctly diagnose the patient.
Just the ticket for auditing data required for RAC, MIC, and ZPIC matters. I like the social touch too. Just what’s needed when walking the patient confidentiality tightrope.
Stephen E Arnold, May 2, 2012
Sponsored by Ikanow
Buried Alive by Data
May 1, 2012
This recent blog post on the Search Technologies’ Web site makes some amusing and thought provoking comparisons between the reality TV show “Hoarding, Buried Alive!”, and the state of unstructured data within some organizations.
This phrase—I am absolutely overwhelmed by this, I just don’t know where to start” — is attributed to both a hoarder on a TV show. The speaker is contemplating how to tackle a sink piled with dirty dishes. The phrase also applies to an enterprise search program manager contemplating how to begin a project.
The article, Buried Alive by Data is worth a read for the amusement value alone. However, it also makes some important points. Discipline and due process are key part of the success recipe. For enterprise search, the award-winning search assessment methodology is cited as a proven approach to project discipline. The comparison made between the lawlessness of a hoarder’s kitchen and the average corporate file share may seem somehow familiar to many readers.
Iain Fletcher, May 1, 2012
Sponsored by Search Technologies
More Googley Legal Action
April 17, 2012
We find more legal hassles for Google in “TQP Sues Another Round of Companies on Cryptography Patent.” TQP claims Google uses a patented method (patent ’730, filed in 1992) for transmitting data as a sequence of blocks in encrypted form over a communication link. According to the allegations, this patent is broken every time someone connects to one of Google’s Web sites. See the article for the technical details.
TQP is no stranger to patent lawsuits. In fact, the write up tells us:
“TQP has been very active since late 2008, suing hundreds major corporations in multiple lawsuits. TQP, a Texas company, has filed each case in the Eastern District of Texas, a popular venue for patent plaintiffs. While some of the defendants have settled with TQP, others are continuing to litigate the patent.”
Patent wizards are experts that we feed and nurture. Will common sense prevail, or will the patent wizards continue to grow more important? I suppose it is good for Acapulco condo brokers and Mercedes dealers. For innovation, well, maybe not so useful.
Cynthia Murrell, April 17, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Love Lost between Stochastic and Google AppEngine
March 30, 2012
Stochastic Technologies’ Stavros Korokithakis has some very harsh words for Google’s AppEngine in “Going from Loving AppEngine to Hating it in 9 Days.” Is the Google shifting its enterprise focus?
Stochastic’s service Dead Man’s Switch got a huge publicity boost from its recent Yahoo article, which drove thousands of new visitors to the site. Preparing for just such a surge, the company turned months ago to Google’s AppEngine to manage potential customers. At first, AppEngine worked just fine. The hassle-free deployments while rewriting and the free tier were just what the company needed at that stage.
Soon after the Yahoo piece, Stochastic knew they had to move from the free quota to a billable status. There was a huge penalty, though, for one small mistake: Korokithakis entered the wrong credit card number. No problem, just disable the billing and re-enable it with the correct information, right? Wrong. Billing could not be re-enabled for another week.
Things only got worse from there. Korokithakis attempted to change settings from Google Wallet, but all he could do was cancel the payment. He then found that, while he was trying to correct his credit card information, the AppEngine Mail API had reached its daily 100-recipient email limit. The limit would not be removed until the first charge cleared, which would take a week. The write up laments:
At this point, we had five thousand users waiting for their activation emails, and a lot of them were emailing us, asking what’s wrong and how they could log in. You can imagine our frustration when we couldn’t really help them, because there was no way to send email from the app! After trying for several days to contact Google, the AppEngine team, and the AppEngine support desk, we were at our wits’ end. Of all the tens of thousands of visitors that had come in with the Yahoo! article, only 100 managed to actually register and try out the site. The rest of the visitors were locked out, and there was nothing we could do.
Between sluggish payment processing and a bug in the Mail API, it actually took nine days before the Stochastic team could send emails and register users. The company undoubtedly lost many potential customers to the delay. In the meantime, to add charges to injury, the AppEngine task queue kept retrying to send the emails and ran up high instance fees.
It is no wonder that Stochastic is advising us all to stay away from Google’s AppEngine. Our experiences with Google have been positive. Perhaps this is an outlier’s experience?
Cynthia Murrell, March 30, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
The Perils of Googley Beta Testing
February 28, 2012
A recent, scary security flaw in Google Wallet has prompted Extreme Tech to explore “Google and the Death of Beta Testing.” Writer Ryan Whitwam laments Google’s rejection of real beta-testing in products from the embarrassingly buggy Google Wave, to the privacy faux pas that was the Google Buzz release, to this latest mishap that left users’ financial information vulnerable. He summarizes:
“There is just no such thing as a real beta at Google. A product is either tested internally by Googlers, or it’s blasted out to large numbers of users. This is great when you want to get immediate access to an awesome new service, but when that service leaks your email contacts, or allows crooks to get at your pre-paid credit cards, it’s a disaster.”
Agreed. Whitman suggests Google return to the best practice of beta testing products before they go out. Seems like common sense, but we wonder: since Google users are not the same thing as Google customers, does the company believe we don’t deserve such common courtesy?
Cynthia Murrell, February 28, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
MapMaking Used to Prevent Public Health Threats
February 10, 2012
Science Blogs recently reported on a new tool that blows Google Maps out of the water in the article, “New Mapping Tools Bring Public Health Surveillance to the Masses.”
According to the article, HealthMap is a team of researchers, epidemiologists and software developers at Children’s Hospital Boston who use online sources to track disease outbreaks and deliver real-time surveillance on emerging public health threats. They also utilize the help of local residents to help with research.
Blogger, Kim Krisberg writes:
“HealthMap, which debuted in 2006, scours the Internet for relevant information, aggregating data from online news services, eyewitness reports, professional discussion rooms and official sources. The result? The possibility to map disease trends in places where no public health or health care infrastructures even exist, Brownstein told me. And because HealthMap works non-stop, continually monitoring, sorting and visualizing online information, the system can also serve as an early warning system for disease outbreaks.”
Mapmaking and public health are hardly strangers. Public health practitioners use maps to guide interventions. Despite the complexity of most disease outbreaks, maps can still help health professionals raise public awareness about prevention and target interventions in ways that make the most of limited resources.
Jasmine Ashton, February 10, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Enough Already with the Books
January 29, 2012
The fire continues to burn. According to the IT World article “Google Wants Groups Removed From Books Lawsuits,” Google asked a federal court to dismiss copyright claims against its Google Books project by The Authors Guild and The American Society Of Media Photographers (ASMP). Google argues:
The associations are not proper parties to this copyright infringement case because they themselves do not claim to own any copyright at issue.
In 2005 The Authors Guild and The American Association of Publishers brought a lawsuit against Google in order to block them from scanning books and making the digital content available in libraries and online. They argue Google did not get permission to scan the books and by doing so they are violating copyright laws. ASMP filed their own lawsuit against Google in 2010 and the two lawsuits are being considered together. Interesting enough, Google did not file a dismissal motion against the Association of Publishers and it is believed that a settlement is in the works between the two.
Enough is enough, get on with it already. Hopefully an end is in sight because this fire fizzled ages go.
April Holmes, Janaury 29, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
File Extension List
January 28, 2012
Need a handy list of all known file extensions and types? Look no further. Nosa Lee at Seek The Sun Slowly has kindly provided such a list in “The Known File Extensions/ Types References – A” through “Z.” In a translation from the original Chinese, the listing explains:
Now, I collected all the known file extensions/types for your reference, I grouped them according to the first character due to there are too many file extensions/types.
Yes, there’s a page for each letter, and even “Number” and “Symbol.” To download them all in one fell swoop, click here.
I knew there were a lot of file types, but seeing them all in one place really puts the matter into perspective.
Cynthia Murrell, Janaury 28, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Gartner Predicts a Volatile Year for the IT Industry
January 21, 2012
Technological innovation and the creation of media tablets and advances in mobile is having a disruptive impact on many industries. Taume recently reported on a predictive Gartner study for the IT industry in the article “Gartner Identifies Top Vertical Industry Predictions for IT Organizations 2012 and Beyond”
According to the article, Gartner’s annual Predicts research on industry trends features 15 strategic planning assumptions that CIOs, senior business executives and IT leaders should factor into their enterprise planning and strategy-setting initiatives.
Kimberly Harris-Ferrante, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner said:
“Many industry business models will be challenged through 2015 as customers continue to adopt an always-connected digital lifestyle and market competitors exploit emerging technologies to achieve business growth and success. Cloud computing and social media will continue to provide industries with new avenues for effective customer communication and engagement, facilitating increased revenue and sustainable interaction with key customers.”
It looks like 2012 is going to be a volatile year unless IT companies use the Gartner study predictions to effectively align their business practices with the needs of customer base and partner organizations.
Jasmine Ashton, January 21, 2012
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