Author Archive

01: The kids are alright?

As a working mother, my ability to consume and process data and information is driven by a busy lifestyle that seems to be all too common these days. Whilst I rarely miss the opportunity to beat the ‘working Mum’ drum as the reason for my hectic life, it does seem like we are all working longer hours and trying to squeeze every last ounce of productivity we can: work-life integration rather than work-life balance. 

I often read or hear about the ‘information explosion’ – particularly in relation to so-called unstructured data; and how this is materially affecting our ability to function and make decisions, whether professional or personal.

It makes me wonder whether the hardware and software that is such a part of everyday life is struggling to keep up, just as we mere mortals are.

My eldest son is 14 years old, and as yet relatively unaware of the huge explosion going on around him. Or, so I thought.

My experience of spending long hours with him preparing for what will be  non-stop assessment and exams over the next  two years suggests that he simply doesn’t accept anything but excellence from the technology that is meant to support him during this intense period of work.

OK, he expects that the technology will work. But he also expects to find all the information he’s looking for – quickly and easily – no matter where that information sits. He expects the technology to deliver relevance, variance, and all in a standardised format.

To accommodate this information, he can access 32Gb on his iPod, 64Gb on his iPad; and several hundred on his desktop.  He also has access to the hard drive on our Sky+ box, capacity on two other computers and three other mobile devices in the house. That’s more storage capacity than the bank I worked for many years ago had in its climate-controlled server room.

As I work every day with users today, I see people having to make decisions based on incomplete data; who spend hours searching for information and then compiling and standardising their results.

It makes me wonder how things will change as a new generation of working professionals demand far greater precision, relevance and speed from the software that enables them to make complete sense of the information around them.

I believe our children will neither accept the continuation of this increasingly problematic and painful situation; nor (I hope) add to it. As they move into the workplace, they will find effective ways to better consume and utilise the information they need. It means that the software providers and those who run and manage the technology world will need to seriously raise their game.

The kids will demand it.

No Comments  |  Post a Comment

02: Early Warning Systems

As a mother of three, I read about the case of Angela Gordon recently and wondered how we could miss key warning signs in our social services work.  In my field, I see the obstacles companies face every day when it comes to leveraging their content, so I can understand, in part, the challenges of social services work.  But when information is this critical, I have to question why we appear to be banging our heads against the wall with half-solutions.

Since Sarah Payne’s abduction and murder (yet another high-profile failure), UK police forces have been trying to find ways to enable better access to all information that may be relevant, whether checking on someone applying for a job or investigating a crime.

The collection of various reported stories of neglect and abuse in children’s own homes has UK councils struggling to determine why social workers don’t have the information they need to pinpoint situations requiring intervention. 

To address the problem, some are building data warehouses with BI capability on the front end.  But this is a huge undertaking, expensive, lengthy and very difficult to get right.  What’s more, it doesn’t provide a short-term solution. 

Given our experience in working with police forces, we’ve seen search technology deliver immediate improvements in intelligence work, often serving as an early warning system for investigators.  In the very least, we should be looking as these capabilities in the interim to help stem the tide of costly missed warning signs.

No Comments  |  Post a Comment