We can find a useful metaphor for data ethics in Tolkein's Lord of the Rings. Palantíri are indestructable stones or crystal balls that enable events to be seen from afar. They also allow communication between two stones. The word comes from Tolkein's invented language Quenya - palan means far, tir means to watch over. The stones are powerful but dangerously unreliable. Even in the hands of an evil wizard such as Sauron, the stones cannot present a completely false image, but they can conceal enough to mislead, and at one point in the story Sauron himself is deceived. This links to my oft-repe ..read more

As I pointed out back in 2006, the concept of Dynamic Pricing has been around for at least 25 years. I first encountered it in Kevin Kelly's 1998 book, New Rules for the New Economy. Five years ago, when I was working for a large UK supermarket, this concept was starting to be taken seriously. The old system of sending people around the store putting yellow stickers on items that were reaching their sell-by date was seen as labour-intensive and error-prone. There were also some trials with electronic shelf-edge labels to address the related challenge of managing special offers and discounts fo ..read more

A couple of questions came in on my phone, and I thought I'd share my answers here. When is a Business Requirements Document good enough?   Fit for purpose - What is the document going to be used for - planning, estimating, vendor selection, design or whatever? Does it contain just enough for this purpose, or does it dive (prematurely) into solution design or technical detail? SMART - are the requirements specific, measurable, and so on, or are they just handwaving? How will you know when (if) the requirements have been satisfied? Transparency and governance - is it clear whose requireme ..read more

Following my previous posts on Netflix, I have been reading a detailed analysis in Ed Finn's book, What Algorithms Want (2017). Finn's answer to my question Does Big Data Drive Netflix Content? is no, at least not directly. Although Netflix had used data to commission new content as well as recommend existing content (Finn's example was House of Cards) it had apparently left the content itself to the producers, and then used data and algorithmic data to promote it.  After making the initial decision to invest in House of Cards, Netflix was using algorithms to micromanage distribution, not ..read more

A long time ago, I did some work for a client that had an out-of-date and inflexible billing system. The software would send invoices and monthly statements to the customers, who were then expected to remit payment to clear the balance on their account. The business had recently introduced a new direct debit system. Customers who had signed a direct debit mandate no longer needed to send payments. But faced with the challenge of introducing this change into an old and inflexible software system, the accounts department came up with an ingenious and elaborate workaround. The address on the cust ..read more

A friend of mine shares an email thread from his organization discussing the definition of CUSTOMER, disagreeing as to which categories of stakeholder should be included and which should be excluded. Why is this important? Why does it matter how the CUSTOMER label is used? Well, if you are going to call yourself a customer-centric organization, improve customer experience and increase customer satisfaction, it would help to know whose experience, whose satisfaction matters. And how many customers are there actually? The organization provides services to A, which are experienced by B and paid f ..read more

In September 2005, we had reason to worry about the ability of a tightly coupled world to withstand shocks. At that time this included Hurricane Katrina and SARS. More recent crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have arguably outshocked these. In his analysis of the economic sanctions imposed against Russia following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Simon Jenkins comments that the interdependence of the world’s economies, so long seen as an instrument of peace, has been made a weapon of war. As the global economy becomes more tightly coupled, the chances of one event h ..read more

@Jon_Ayre questions whether an organization's being data-driven drives the right behaviours. He identifies a number of pitfalls. It's all too easy to interpret data through a biased viewpoint Data is used to justify a decision that has already been made Data only tells you what happens in the existing environment, so may have limited value in predicting the consequences of making changes to this environment In a comment below Jon's post, Matt Ballentine suggests that this is about evidence-based decision making, and notes the prevalence of confirmation bias. Which can generate a couple of ad ..read more

My attention has been drawn to a company called Stockpile Reports, which provides a data estimation service for piles of material. As I understand it, the calculations are based on visual images of a pile of material, possibly obtained using either a drone or a handmobile phone app, from which a detailed 3D model of the pile is produced, allowing the volume, weight or value of the material to be estimated. I don't have any information about how good these estimates are, but they must be a lot more accurate than simply gauging the height of the pile, and I guess they are probably good enough fo ..read more

In this post, I want to explore some important synergies between architectural thinking and risk management.  The first point is that if we want to have an enterprise-wide understanding of risk, then it helps to have an enterprise-wide view of how the business is configured to deliver against its strategy. Enterprise architecture should provide a unified set of answers to the following questions. What capabilities delivering what business outcomes? Delivering what services to what customers? What information, process and resources to support these? What organizations, systems, technologi ..read more