Category: Uncategorized

Data as Narrative. Post from Gary Murphy on advogato referreing to David Gelernter’s New York Times piece. Can’t see the original piece from here (need my NYT account details !), but it describes “scopeware“.

Basic point is organising (and persisting) data sets (files) accoring to things like mime-types or source technology types, is much less relevant than the “narrative” in which the information content is involved. The narrative sequence provides much better context for the “semantic intent” and purpose of the information. Too true.

Relevance vs Orthodoxy. A bit of a whinge by someone who didn’t get the job at Harvard Business School, [via Seb Paquet], but that same subject again ….

Orthodoxy – classical reasoning, logical positivism – just doesn’t cut the mustard in real human / social / organisational / business life. In fact it’s almost irrelevant unless you’re an accountant. Yes, irrelevant. Good spot Seb.

The article is worth a further read.

Nietzsche and Joyce. This seems to answer my earlier puzzlement about how Joyce had read and been influenced by Nietzsche before Ulysses. No doubt about it.

Saw The Cooper Temple Clause blow Black Rebel Motorcycle Club away, supporting them at the Cambridge Corn Exchange last night.

TCTC may be a bunch of poseurs, but they had variety and imagination on their side. Great bass performance, and slick changes and finishes showed them well rehearsed and experienced on the road. BRMC started promising, with a Dylanesque acoustic plus harmonica opening couple of numbers, building into their heavier vein by the third number, but after that … they were stuck in that groove from the second bar of every number with equally unimaginative staccato back-lighting throughout. Guitarist playing for the sympathy vote with his hand in a plaster-cast didn’t add to the quality either.

Attitude to Change. Paper by Allan Jacobsen [via s.norrie]. Very much the subject of my own dissertation. Interesting observations on pejorative linguistics used by those involved as agents or objects of change. Usual stormin’, normin’ curve, vicious / virtuous cycles. Kirkegaard and Machiavelli in the reference list.

Passive Orkut Watch. Sorry, I guess it’s obligatory for a blogger to have an opinion on Orkut. I’m just keeping a watching brief at the moment. [See Stuart Henshall if you need an opinion.]

Not That Easy [via Ton] In this [Steven Covey] interview he declared management of people superfluous. One manages money, stocks, portfolios, and the like, not people. Give people purpose and a course, and then stop interfering with them. The interview ended with this quote [emphasis Ton’s]:

In most organisations there is a lack of trust, and most employees are powerless. In this era of knowledge-workers we still use the industrial model of control, in which we treat people like objects. It is as if we are still practising bloodletting, although we know all about bacteria and how they work. [End]

Sorry, but that stuff needs prefacing with “in an ideal world”. My emphasis is the word “then” in the first paragraph. “Giving” people a purpose or cause ain’t that easy, and expecting any group to share the same goal and purpose as individuals is wishful thinking. In reality what this is saying is that managing “intent” is what really matters, and having to apply “control” is a sign that intent is not managed within business bounds. Of course, this idea of within bounds implies measurement and is the root of the destructive re-inforcement of the old command and control metaphor of management.

Manage what you can’t measure. Neat trick if you can do it.

Intent is part of Knowledge – Official. Hans Blix [via BBC] talking with David Frost about the government spin (both US and UK) in WMD intelligence saga says [Quote] “It was to do with information management. The intention was to dramatise it,” [Unquote]. Dramatise, sex-up ? Intent all the same.

Interestingly he is publicly stating the same allegation over which Hutton appeared to exonorate Blair et al. Is that contempt or just plain common sense ? [Quote] Baroness Amos ….. has rejected claims that the government “dramatised” intelligence on Iraq, saying Lord Hutton’s report had cleared the government on the issue. [Unquote]. Oh, well that’s OK then.