CSRankings’ Liao Shumin may want to fluff her or his calligraphy brush for the next go round; otherwise, an opportunity to do some holiday coal mining in Haerwusu may present itself. “Holiday greetings from Inner Mongolia” may next year’s follow up story.
Content Marketing: HBR and Adobe
December 26, 2019
I spotted an interesting write up in CIO Magazine, one of those editorial Gibralters branded IDG. Why was the story an attention grabber? It was an ad.
“How the Harvard Business Review Used Personalization and Automation to Enhance Success” explains that bulk email is a super business method. Not spam, enhancement of success. Yes.
I learned that the Harvard Business Review has energized its business by using Adobe marketing technology. The HBR brand, its magazine, its executive centric podcasts, and its pride of place in “business” were not enough. Energize, not spamming with email. Please, note that.
The write up explains that Adobe (once the beloved arts and crafts software outfit) has marketing technology that delivers. Here’s the proof:
Using Adobe Campaign, HBR sent out 4.5 million triggered emails that had an average open rate of 28% and a click-through rate of 5%. These are impressive results that surpassed previous efforts. Adobe Campaign also allows HBR to drive more targeted campaigns and expand volumes to reach a wider range of audiences.
Yep, email in the spirit of America Online’s free CDs. No physical disc, just email.
The other interesting facet of the write up is that the email blasts are presented as an objective story.
What’s that say about the underpinnings of a Harvard MBA and the business precepts outlined in those HBR podcasts and articles?
MBA schools and money raising programs need marketing too. Which company is the winner with this PR story in CIO? You will need to attend a Harvard Executive Program to formulate the “right” answer.
Stephen E Arnold, December 26, 2019
How to Be Numero Uno in AI Even Though the List Has a Math Error and Is Incomplete
December 24, 2019
DarkCyber spotted an interesting college ranking. Unlike some of the US college guides which rank institutions of higher learning, the league table published by Yicai Global takes a big data approach. (Please, keep in mind that US college rankings are not entirely objective. There are niceties like inclusions, researcher bias, and tradition which exert a tiny bit of magnetic pull on these scoreboards.)
According to “Six Chinese Colleges Place in CSRankings’ Top Ten AI List”, the US and other non-Chinese institutions are simply not competitive. Note that “six” in the headline.
How were these interesting findings determined? The researchers counted the number of journal articles published by faculty at the institutions in the sample. DarkCyber noted this statement about the method:
CSRankings is an authoritative global ranking of computer science higher educational institutions compiled by the AMiner team at Tsinghua. Its grading rests entirely on the number of scholarly articles faculty members publish.
The more papers—whether good, accurate, or science fiction—was the sole factor. There you go. Rock solid research.
But let’s look at the rankings:
- Top AI institution in the world: Tsinghua University.
- Not listed. Maybe Carnegie Mellon University
- Peking University
- University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Not listed. Maybe MIT?
- Nanyang Technological University
- Not listed. Maybe Stanford, the University of Washington, or UCal Berkeley?
- Shanghai Jiao Tong University
- Not listed. Maybe Cambridge University
- Not listed. DarkCyber would plug in École nationale supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne whose graduates generally stick together or maybe the University of Michigan located in the knowledge wonderland that is Ann Arbor?
Notice that there are five Chinese institutions in the Top 10 list. Yeah, I know the source document said “six.” But, hey, this is human intelligence, not artificial intelligence at work.
Who’s in the Top 10. Apparently Carnegie Mellon and MIT were in the list, but that’s fuzzy. The write up references another study which ranked “all area” schools. Does MIT teach literature or maybe ethics?
To sum up: Interesting source, wonky method, and incomplete listing. Plus, there that weird six but just five thing.
Stephen E Arnold, December 24, 2019
Do Four Peas Make a Useful Digital Pod?
December 24, 2019
The Four P’s of Information
This has the problem with data since at least the turn of this century—Forbes posts a “Reality Check: Still Spending More Time Gathering Instead of Analyzing.” Writer and Keeeb CTO Sid Probstein reminds us:
“Numerous studies of ‘knowledge worker’ productivity have shown that we spend too much time gathering information instead of analyzing it. In 2001, IDC published its venerable white paper, ‘The High Cost of Not Finding Information,’ noting that knowledge workers were spending two and a half hours a day searching for information. Since then, we have seen the rise of the cloud, ubiquitous computing, connectivity and everything else that was science fiction when we were kids becoming a reality — including the imminent emergence of AI. Yet in 2012, a decade after the IDC report, a study conducted by McKinsey found that knowledge workers still spend 19% of their time searching for and gathering information, and a 2018 IDC study found that ‘data professionals are losing 50% of their time every week’ — 30% searching for, governing and preparing data plus 20% duplicating work. Clearly, all the technology advances have not flipped the productivity paradigm; it seems like we still spend more time searching for information that exists rather than analyzing and creating new knowledge.”
Probstein believes much of the problem lies in data silos. There are four subsets of the data silo issue, we’re told, but most proposed solutions fail to address all of them. They are the “four P’s” of information: Public Data (info that is searchable across the World Wide Web), Private Data (information behind login pages or firewalls), Paid Data (like industry research, datasets, and professional information), and Personal Data (our own notes, bookmarks, and saved references). See the article for more about each of these areas. Bridging these silos remains a challenge for knowledge workers, but it seems businesses may be taking the issue more seriously. Will we soon be making better use of all that data? Do four peas make a pod? Not yet.
Cynthia Murrell, December 24, 2019
Retailers and Facebook Conspire to Target Advertising
December 22, 2019
Facebook’s purchase tracking has moved into brick-and-mortar stores, thanks to the cooperation of major retailers. CanIndia cites a report from Business Insider in its write-up, “Facebook Now Tracks In-Store Shopping, Targets Users with Ads. We learn:
“Facebook has joined hands with top retailers who are sending the social networking giant data on what the customers are buying in retail stores. Facebook, in turn, is targeting those customers with specified ads. Not just online shopping, Facebook is able to track what customers buy in stores and target those customers with ads, according to a Business Insider report. Retail companies are sending Facebook ‘names, phone numbers and email addresses attached to what products people have purchased, which are then used to target people with those businesses’ ads’.”
The article names Macy’s and Dick’s Sporting Goods as two major retailers already playing this game. Since Facebook makes nearly all its revenue through advertising, it is motivated to sell more ads by any means necessary. We are reminded that, earlier this year, researchers found Facebook was targeting ads using phone numbers and other personal data users did not explicitly provide to them. The company tried some damage control in July with a new set of steps that they say give consumers more control over how their information is used. We have seen, though, that the company can be slippery with language when it comes to user control over these things.
Cynthia Murrell, December 22, 2019
NSO Group: Getting Mostly Fact Free Content Marketing
December 19, 2019
NSO Group is a specialized software and services firm. For years, the company operated off the radar of journalists and other observers. Once again NSO Group is making headlines, and DarkCyber is not sure if this is a good or not so good thing.
“Israeli Spyware Allegedly Used to Target Pakistani Officials’ Phones” reports that “NSO Group malware may have been used to access WhatsApp messages for state on state espionage.” There’s nothing quite like the weasel word “allegedly” and the phrase “may have been used” to raise some questions about this write up in a UK newspaper.
The article focuses on WhatsApp, owned by Facebook. The controversial outfit provides encrypted messaging to millions of people. Facebook is not exactly the world’s most straightforward company because it fancy dances around a number of behaviors.
Is it surprising that specialized firms have developed systems and methods to shine some light on the encrypted messages flowing through a widely used messaging app? DarkCyber thinks that dozens of specialized firms are working on exactly this problem. Do bad actors use Facebook’s and other firms’ encrypted messaging solutions to plan, recruit, and raise money? Yep.
What are governments supposed to do? Ignore the bad actors’ and their low cost, secret communications mechanism?
DarkCyber thinks this is a reasonable question to consider. The write up states, reports, or asserts:
Representatives for NSO declined to comment on questions about whether the company’s software had been used for government espionage.
The company has previously said that it considered it a “misuse” of its product if the software was used for anything other than the prevention of “serious crime and terrorism”. While it is not clear who wanted to target Pakistani government officials, the details are likely to fuel speculation that India could have been using NSO technology for domestic and international surveillance. The government of the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, is facing questions from human rights activists about whether it has bought NSO technology after it emerged that 121 WhatsApp users in India were allegedly targeted earlier this year.
Yep, “not clear”, “speculation”, and another “allegedly.” Plus, NSO Group and others cited in the write up declined to comment.
Reason? The information presented is designed to generate clicks and not provide substantive, verifiable facts about what are ultimately decisions by governments of nation states.
Right? Governments. Nation states. Laws. Policies. Maybe nations should not be allowed to operate according to their precepts.
And NSO Group? Back in the spotlight about systems and methods tailored to governmental entities. Perhaps the newspaper should focus on some of the more interesting specialist firms operating in the UK. There are some, and a few might welcome fact based coverage.
Alleged and speculative writing is marketing from DarkCyber’s point of view. NSO Group has customers; the newspaper begs for money. Relevant? Yes, because sensationalism is not helpful for some important specialist products and services.
Stephen E Arnold, December 19, 2019
Omni Content: Big CMS Deal? Nope, SOP for OCCP
December 17, 2019
The struggles of content management continue. Like analytics platforms and enterprise search, vendors of certain types of enterprise software have struggled in the last five years.
The reasons are not far to seek:
- CMS, search, and analytics offer silver bullet solutions, but more frequently turn out to be blanks
- Zippier, more CxO grabbing technologies sweep up utility functions. There’s AI, quantum computing, the cloud, and umbrella solutions like Salesforce’s hybrid of sales management, marketing, and content
- Old wine in new bottles works until the corks are popped at a festive occasion. The stylish bottle and label cannot change vinegar back to Bordeaux.
“The Rise of Omni-Channel Content Platforms” is a rebottling effort. I urge you to read it and consider these questions:
- Why is CMS scrambling to be more than software originally designed to generate Web pages going back to the gym, signing up for yoga classes, and buying Pelotons? Answer: CMS does not work very well.
- What content is not included in the omni channel content platforms? Answer: Streaming data, engineering diagrams with attached data sets, and those lovely chemical structures which are much loved by the pharmaceutical industry, to name just three omissions.
- How are the New Age CMS systems dealing with specialized access controls required for some classified projects, legal eDiscovery data, and data regulated by various government entities? Answer: Not very well.
Can CMS vendors and consultants stage a revival? Will the jazz band attract paying customers to classics from the 2000s before Billie Eilish was making When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
The frightening, no, terrifying answer, may be, “Yes.” Like enterprise search, CMS stakeholders have more to lose to reinvent themselves. New labels, plastic corks, and high-style bottles are a much easier, cheaper, and simpler solution.
In short, CMS cheerleaders are buying new sweaters and sneakers. Game on.
Stephen E Arnold, December 17, 2019
Vertical Search Engine Milled for Marketing Emails
December 13, 2019
We are curious whether this vertical search engine will take the wind out of Google’s sails (or sales). Milled is a “search engine for email newsletters: Browse and search sales, deals, coupons, and discount codes from thousands of retailers and brands,” the home page declares in a banner that pops up on one’s first visit. That banner also presents a button for companies that wonder, “How do I get my brand on Milled?” The “For-Brands” page answers that question and more:
“Get new customers from your emails: Milled is a search engine for your email newsletters — unlocking them from inboxes and making them discoverable by new customers. Milled has 5,550,718 emails from 110,356 brands. Convert emails into an acquisition channel: Your emails are great for retaining existing customers, but now they can help you find new customers, as well. Milled helps customers who aren’t already on your mailing list find you. Add years of shelf life to your emails: Your team works hard to build emails that only live for 1-2 days. On Milled, they’ll last forever: attracting customers, generating leads, and driving traffic. Get started in 1 minute: 1. Register for an account on Milled, and be sure to confirm your email address 2. Connect your site to Milled by following the instructions 3. Add the unique email addresses that Milled generates to your mailing lists. Whenever you send an email, we’ll post it automatically.”
The front page reproduces emails companies have sent out the day one visits, generally announcing sales and special offers. One can select “All,” “Popular,” or browse by category. One can also choose companies to follow on the Brands page.
This is a smart idea for a specialized search engine, one that might just give Google a run for its ad money.
Cynthia Murrell, December 13, 2019
IBM Watson Dons An Indiana Jones Hat
December 13, 2019
Our knowledge on ancient civilizations is based on archeological evidence. Historians and scientists can only infer how ancient people lived, but often times the civilizations are shrouded more in mystery than answers. National Geographic España shares one mystery from Peru, “Descubiertos nuevos geoglifos en Nazca gracias a la Inteligencia Artificial.” If you do not speak Spanish, the article title translates as “New Geoglyphs Discovered in Nazca Thanks To Artificial Intelligence.”
One of Peru’s greatest treasures are the gigantic geoglyphs on the Nazca pampas. The geoglyphs are huge images of animals and humans drawn by the Nazcan people between 1 BC and eighth century AD. The geoglyphs are huge creations made from white sand set against large expanses of black rock. They were first discovered in 1927, then became UNESCO World Heritage sites in 1994.
There are many theories about why the Nazcan people drew the geoglyphs on the pampas encompassing an area of 75,000 hectares. Three hundred geoglyphs have been recorded, but Masato Sakai of Yamagata University, who specializes Andean culture and archaeology, used artificial intelligence to discover one hundred forty-three new geoglyphs. All of the new geoglyphs range between five to one hundred meters in size and are estimated to made between 100 BC and 300 AD. They are shared like animals and humans, similar to past discovered geoglyphs. Artificial intelligence built on an IBM Watson computer to find the geoglyphs:
“The new geoglyphs have been identified thanks to field work combined with artificial intelligence and high-resolution 3D data analysis, an investigation carried out between 2018 and 2019. In addition, the Japanese team discovered one of them when developing an artificial intelligence (AI) model on the IBM Power System AC922 artificial intelligence server, configured with the IBM Watson Machine Learning Community Edition deep learning platform. The study explored the feasibility of AI to discover new lines by introducing into the system the ability to process large volumes of data including high-resolution aerial photos at high speeds.”
Without AI these Nazcan geoglyphs might never have been discovered. New, more robust technology allows archeologists like Sakai to find, research, and preserve these wonders and learn more about an ancient society. The question still remains why the Nazcan people created such huge drawings only visible from the air. Watson will never be able to solve that mystery.
Whitney Grace, December 13, 2019
Googley Philanthropy
December 13, 2019
We are treated to more Google executive PR speak in the ABC News story, “Google’s Do-Good Arm Tries to Make Up for Everything Else.” AP Reporter Angela Charlton cites a Paris interview with Google VP Jacqueline Fuller, where she announced some grant awards. The winning projects aspire to teach digital literacy to the poor, the elderly, immigrants, and rural users. Other emphases of Fuller’s division include working to keep children safe online and using AI to increase access to health care, build better emergency services, and boost access to job opportunities. Charlton writes:
“The philanthropic arm she runs, Google.org, is like the company’s conscience, spending $100 million a year on non-profit groups that use technology to try to counteract problems the tech world is accused of creating, abetting or exacerbating. ‘Across the world we want to make sure we’re a responsible citizen,’ she said. But can Google’s do-good arm make up for everything else? At least it’s trying, she argues.”
So, they want an A for effort? That would take more than a measly $100 million per year. Fuller insists the company is having vigorous internal “conversations” around the topics of their controversies, for whatever that is worth. Issues like privacy and the misuse of user data, algorithmic bias, the perpetuation of hate speech, employee sexual misconduct allegations, weapons development (Project Maven, in cooperation with the Pentagon), and potential human rights violations are not so easily counteracted. There may be hope for change, however, due to external pressure. The article reminds us:
“Public outrage has grown over Google’s use of consumer data and domination of the online search market, with governments stepping up scrutiny of the company. … Former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris argues technology is shortening our attention spans and pushing people toward more extreme views. He couldn’t get Google to tackle these problems when he was there, so he quit and is pushing for change through his Center for Human Technologies. He says companies like Google won’t change voluntarily but that the tech world has undergone a ‘sea change’ in awareness of problems it’s caused, thanks in part to pressure from a frustrated public.”
We shall see where that awareness leads.
Cynthia Murrell, December 13, 2019
Vaporware? You Are Not Aware of Agile?
December 9, 2019
I spotted an item of Slashdot which referred to documents filed in a court. It is possible— maybe, perhaps, sort of — that these documents contain a suggestion of an anomalous situation. Slashdot’s post “Former Oracle Product Manager Claims He Was Forced Out For Refusing to Sell Vaporware” decribes what may be viewed by some as unifornication. Unlike a regular unicorn, the approach is presented in this way:
The problem, according to the complaint, is that Oracle was asking Daramola to sell vaporware — a charge the company denies. “Daramola gradually became aware that a large percentage of the major projects to which he was assigned were in ‘escalation’ status with customers because Oracle had sold his customers software products it could not deliver, and that were not functional,” the complaint says. Daramola realized that his job “was to ratify and promote Oracle’s repeated misrepresentations to customers” about the capabilities of its software, “under the premise of managing the customer’s expectations.” The ostensible purpose of stringing customers along in this manner was to buy time so Oracle could actually implement the capabilities it was selling, the court filing states.
Is the idea worthy of a new word, unifornication? DarkCyber is not sure. What may be hypothesized is that this rare and unusual tactic of selling illusory software is the physical interaction of a marketer and a customer who bought a solution. Hence, unifornication may capture the spirit of such interaction. One promises; another pays. The back and forth without a fully functioning system is one facet of unifornication.
There may be other techniques available. Those may be discussed in the mellow glow of the afterwords.
Stephen E Arnold, December 9, 2019
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