Innovation in Software

Source: Wikipedia

Somaliland is an autonomous region that is probably very much like your pre-conceived notions. Its 3.5 million people have struggled through warfare (many suffer post-traumatic stress disorder), the economy is “in early stages of development” and it has suffered greatly to gain recognised independence.

Few people know of its existence, fewer still care about its future. But we should. The Horn of Africa has seen great misery and human suffering over recent decades, and whilst it is a country that has many faults including widespread corruption, it is at least a better attempt at democratic, peaceful governance than anywhere else nearby.

Alas, the entire country is now at risk, thanks to a technical “solution” to a problem that never really was.

The current edition of Private Eye has in its column “From Our Own Correspondent” a story from Hargeisa that should make all involved ashamed of themselves. Emphasis throughout is mine:

Somalialand is the only place in the Horn of Africa that is democratic, stable and tolerant. Yet because of misplaced fears of the mushrooming of micro-states, we remain unrecognised by the international community, 18 years after declaring our independence. As a result the world keeps us at arm’s length and has instead forced on us consultants so greedy and inept that the very peace we now enjoy is under threat.

Elections in an impoverished, nomadic society are never easy, but our record of closely contested polls compares pretty well with our neighbours [Somalia, Ethiopia, et al]. Our friends faraway nevertheless thought that what we really needed was a state of the art biometric finger printing and facial recognition system to compile a voter’s roll. But an operation of such complexity – not to mention the $10m funding – could not possibly be trusted to us natives.

[...]

Alas, this model [...] has somewhat underperformed. Presidential elections have been postponed four times now and are 18 months late, and now we have the prospect of civil war as our politicians cannot agree on a way forward.”

It’s a stable country that has a reasonable record on electoral fraud prevention. Who then thought that an advanced biometric system was what this country needed?

I’ve left out from the Private Eye piece the criticisms of how NGO Interpeace are (mis-?) handling this, how Britain and the US are washing their hands of it, and the details of who is blaming who, but the error was there at the start: they placed the country’s future in a technology system that wasn’t needed. No doubt it was profitable for somebody.

This is a country with a GDP per head of $226 – the vast majority of the population are living on less than $1 per day. $10 million could have helped address woeful statistics such as only 25% of Somaliland adults are literate, and just 17% of children go to school. The funding could have even helped the 72% of the population without access to clean water get some new wells.

But it gets worse.

The nomadic culture that dominates Somaliland (any two citizens can work out how they are related by sharing their names and clans), is culturally sensitive to finger-printing. That of course makes a biometric database a fatally flawed model. The problem they are attempting to address – that people from neighbouring countries could vote – has been “solved” with a system that introduces new problems, that means not even all of those entitled to vote want to necessarily register.

To cap it all off, the people who went about delivering the system didn’t just do a bad job at implementation, but a thoroughly awful one. According to some sources on the ground:

The current voter list is neither accurate nor can it form the basis of a fair and transparent election. The only alternative is to go ahead with the election without voter lists.
Interpeace stated in a controversial and a very contradictory press release dated July 25, 2009:

“The Voter Registration system was seriously abused during its implementation, with widespread corruption and systematic fraud, resulting in the failure to record the fingerprints of more than half of all registrants. In other cases, over 150 registrations were made with a single fingerprint at the same registration centre, or through photographs instead of in person.”

Say what? There are voters walking around with 150 polling cards, and others who got registered without ever actually turning up? That sounds like the kind of thing the project was meant to protect against. But the systems can spot all that and deal with duplicate registrations, right? Well, according to another source close to the action:

IT Professionals advised the hardware of the server should be upgraded and software to be reexamined to be fit to handle database of 4 million voters in Somaliland. The testing phase must include plan for next 20 years according to population growth rate.

They called for upgrade of both hardware and Software including the operation system, which should have latest security and performance tuning patches. The hardware upgrade should include Hard Disk, RAM and the Processor. They highlighted that majority of the data captured in the server are not in text [but in] binary format like picture and fingerprint, which needs massive storage area. RAM and Processor helps the server to boot and run quickly particularly during filtering the duplicates. [sic throughout]

Failures then, include:

1. The whole project has several fatally flawed assumptions under-pinning core choices
2. The money could have been put to more effective use elsewhere
3. The software was designed incorrectly and therefore its output is unreliable and can’t be trusted
4. The server infrastructure is under-equipped and under-managed so now they need to add more storage, more memory and increase processing power (and by the sounds of it, whack on a few service pack upgrades).

These are all failures we see in IT projects on a regular basis. If this were a new ERM or accounts platform we’d sit around the board room table, gravely shake our heads, talk about “lessons learned”, and put it all down as a bad job. We’d move on, avoiding the compulsion to try and “fix it” due to our own notions of “sunk cost”. This is in essence, like thousands of IT projects that have happened over the last few decades.

Except in this case, the consequences are more serious: the country now faces civil war.

As you go about your daily work rolling out technology to your clients and customers, you may not think that your potential failure to deliver will result in human fatality. However it will have consequences.

Iit’s important we think carefully as our industry takes a greater hold on the workings of civilisation and shapes ever more its potential, about what our lust for automation and control can do to lives if we fail to live up to expectations. Somaliland is an extreme – but sobering – example.

As an early supporter of NO2ID and long-term member of Liberty, Amnesty International, and others, I have heard enough stories about technology tampering with elections that even as an advocate of the power of software to improve society, I am perfectly happy that my native democracy requires nothing more than pieces of paper and some pencils to conduct an election. I sincerely hope that somebody decides it’s good enough for Somaliland too, before it’s too late.

If you ask the clichéd man in the street to describe his clichéd idea of Facebook user, he would remove his cliché kebab from his mouth, put down his cliché can of Carling Black Label, and through the use of awful diction and terrible grammar developed through his awfully clichéd state education he would paint a picture for you:

“Teenager, American or European, kind of person who likes to text a lot, probably quite immature, large group of friends, not much into going out getting sloshed, like wot I did when I woz a kid, innit?”

Well, remove yourself from this yob, and look at the actual figures.

North America and Europe contribute 65.8% of all Facebook users, and only around 10% of their users are teenagers. That means less than 7% of the actual Facebook user base is the cliché most of us – especially those of us in the industry – think of as their user base.

The majority are quite different. And I think once you understand the actual group using Facebook, you start to understand its popularity in some groups (and the derision it receives in others).

Obviously (given its history), people above graduation age are the norm. Most of us (myself included), use it as a platform to keep distant touch with people we ordinarily would not speak to year-to-year, never mind day-to-day or week-to-week. We are a generation of nomads, spreading out across the globe after school and University, keeping in touch with people via the light touch of the status update. Twitter is for people who are perhaps a little more frantic (and for me at least, it’s a great way to keep in touch with my peer group, people who I might not have met, but whose work I’m interested in).

It’s not, however, a tool for teenagers. Not really. They have a social group they see almost every day – they don’t want or need Facebook. Likewise, the people who don’t like Facebook are typically people who see their social groups regularly.

For those of us who are geeks, well our groups tend to be a little more dispersed. I can name friends and family in a dozen cities around the World I wouldn’t keep up with as much if FB wasn’t there. Those people who don’t have such far-flung friends, teenagers included, simply have no use for it: they can, you know, actually talk to them.

For some reason, until seeing that graph, that thought had never occurred to me.

I wasn’t really expecting many of you to take me up on my Geek Social Responsibility thing. It was a shot in the dark, and I suppose what I was trying to answer was:

1. Can we exert more resource than we do already without hurting ourselves financially?
2. Can we make better use of that resource, so it has a greater impact?

The response was quite interesting, and several ideas proposed are now being planned, investigated and discussed. Something is happening. One point that emerged from the discussion on the GeekUp mailing list was that all of this could be taken advantage of. Steve Richardson said:

I am less inclined to devote substantial time and energy to helping charities develop web sites etc… as there is a disproportionate level of, hmmm I want to use the word abuse but fear it may be a bit strong, from certain charities who expect something for nothing and have very little appreciation of the complexity of the work involved.

Let me put it this way, do you think the directors (and other employees) of charities are working for free? I know they don’t, they are salaried, often pretty well, and I fail to see the difference between charity directors and us techies (we are all real life human beings trying to get by). There are far too many inequalities in remuneration for different jobs as it is – I recently heard that managers of Lidl earn £40K a year; without wanting to belittle Lidl managers, I am certain that the required skills for managing a supermarket are at least comparable with the skills required to develop web sites well and am absolutely certain that many people undertaking this role are paid a lot less.

Perhaps if the charity directors salary was split between the director and the ‘volunteering’ techie I may be more inclined to contribute… until then I think I need to concentrate on keeping my own head above water.

This is a common complaint: I am trying to make a living, these people are expecting the moon on a stick, and I’m falling short for obvious reasons.

Part of the issue is that Steve – like the majority of developers, designers and others in our sector – is a freelancer. The life of a freelancer is defined by the constant chasing of invoices, and trying to make sure as many hours of the day as possible are billable. Asking them to engage in “Socially Responsible Activities” is a bit like asking them “Do you want to risk not making the rent next month?”

Most people engaged in CSR activities are doing so as part of a marketing effort, a strand to their corporate behemoth “image” that makes people feel warm and fuzzy inside when they see the logo. There is an implicit silent agreement between such efforts and the charities who benefit: the company doesn’t really mean it, but needs to show they’re doing something. The charity is grateful, but know they have to fight to wrench what they can out of the company before they change their minds.

But in the geek community, things are different. When we do things, we mean it. We really, really care about doing “the right thing” and doing it well. So when the charity starts complaining that they want more and more doing, it causes resentment – this isn’t a corporate behemoth pouring some marketing budget into a “feel good” brand. It’s an individual putting heart and soul into something. The charity needs to understand that they need to tread gently and co-operate in a different way.

So, time-limited sessions like Speak to a Geek are great because the boundaries are implicit. Providing consortia to help work as a team means if somebody needs to dive out and do something else for a few days, the charity isn’t left hanging. Boundaries and back-ups are the way forward.

I’m meeting with people over the coming weeks to see how we can progress everything on the forum that seems to have grabbed people’s attention (register and vote if you haven’t already – adding ideas is even better). I will report back when I can.

One of Vagueware’s more established clients has developed a product called CAESER to help organisations understand how their suppliers behave in terms Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

In order to try and raise CSR as a topic within the business community as a whole, the team have recently been blogging and twittering their thoughts, and an article this morning by Miana Capuano caught my eye:

Whilst unemployment in Britain rises as the nation struggles to deal with the current economic climate, it is no surprise that companies are cutting their corporate giving and charitable support. Research in the UK has shown that while donations to charities have dropped, demand for their services has grown. In such turbulent times the impetus for responsible business practice is now even greater than ever before. With a lack of funds, companies need to move away from philanthropy and explore more innovative ways of supporting their communities. By integrating CSR (corporate social responsibility) activities to core business objectives, engaging in partnerships with organisations such as other businesses, social enterprises and charities, adopting environmental strategies that save energy (and money!) and engaging in pro-bono work, it will help to ensure that responsible business practice is not swept aside in these difficult economic times.

Over the last few years I – through Vagueware – have attempted a few projects aimed at engaging with charities, social enterprises and community groups, including:

• Substantially discounted rates for charities and non-profit organisations for larger projects
• Discounted rates for local businesses, in order to increase take up of new technologies locally
• Support for community technology groups in general
• Training/Development of school kids who don’t have access to technology mentoring – a project that has stalled but “watch this space”
• Speak to a Geek. I loved doing this. I think all of us on the panel did
• Co-working groups, encouraging collaboration within the scene, etc.
• The occasional charitable contribution to community groups in need of some technology to keep going

And yet, what has it amounted to? What impact have I actually had on the local charity/non-profit sector? Offering to throw some money into a pot for a new motherboard for a community cybercafe is one thing, actually helping to run the cybercafe and turning up to do some training on technology is something quite different.

We could collectively as a community be doing a little bit more. “Software runs civilisation”, as they say, and most of you reading this blog post are in the higher priestly order of “alpha geeks”, armed with knowledge that could revolutionise a charity or non-profit for the better. We could help with social media, development of technology, general IT literacy and support, and more.

I’m not suggesting we start to wear hair shirts and abandon our business plans in favour of forming a socialist utopia, but we can start something interesting.

There are notable existing efforts, of course. We could all put some 20% time into Circuit Riding and get a warm glow every time we get on a bus to Hulme or Cheetham Hill, but isn’t there something more we could do?

I think there is. I think you have ideas too. So I’m going to bully you into sharing your ideas.

Whilst the services idea bank has stalled a little over the last few months, I think the concept of collating and voting on ideas is perfect for brain-storming and prioritising what we could do together as a community.

I’ve kicked off a Geek Social Responsibility forum to collect ideas and votes, and seeded it with a few simple ideas of my own. For the next few weeks my 20% time will be spent in part trying to drum up interest in these ideas and getting some of them rolling.

For me there are a couple of key areas we could address:

• Increased access to technology
• Increased access to knowledge about technology (including empowering groups and individuals with the ability to create new technologies)
• Better collaboration and co-working for community and charity groups (i.e. adopting working practices we’ve pioneered as a sector)
• Substantially discounted/free access to specialist skills and knowledge for charities and communities

P.S. – one of the next areas to be addressed by the CAESER team is Equality & Diversity. I’ve mentioned on more than one occasion, how broken we are as an industry in that regard, but the industry is currently so heavily dominated by misogynistic pricks, I don’t even know where to start on that one.

About 3 years ago a prospective client came to Vagueware and said he wanted to build an online dating site. Not a bad business decision given that the niche is now closing in on $1 billion in revenues per year, and with more than 20 million paying customers visiting a dating site every month.

However, where there’s money, there’s competition. My client asked me to go around all the sites I could find with different models and evaluate them. He paid for the accounts and some of my time, I gave him a report.

I actually got a girlfriend for a while out of that experience. If you’re ever offered a similar gig and you’re single, take it! I still don’t know if I was meant to declare her on my  taxes…

Anyway, a few conversations over the last few months have prompted me to re-think my analysis of the sector at the time. Not least, one of my ex-colleagues is behind the scenes at Smeet Me which allows for singles (or couples) who know each other in real life to flirt anonymously in order to see if there is chemistry there.

It’s a really interesting take on online dating. Typically if you like somebody in real life, you already know something about them but you just don’t know whether to risk asking them out – something smeetme could potentially help offset.

The games are quite simple tasks designed to promote the flirtatiousness of the situation: you set a series of challenges such as making a video or audio clip, providing an extract of a favourite poem or book, pointing to a video online that makes you laugh, take a quiz, etc. And as the recipient completes each stage they get a reward: a picture or video, an invitation to an event or even a gift.

The same underlying engine could be used by marketeers for viral ad campaigns where you want to promote interactivity, but I love the idea that they decided to try it with the dating scene first. The ability to print out unique codes onto business cards and hand them out in clubs could allow for it to go viral, quite quickly.

This all assumes of course, you’ve met somebody and have the ability to ask them to play your game. However, how do you go about meeting people in the first place if you’re a social pariah?

Traditionally online dating has had the flaw people may be lying about who they are or what they are. Sites that have basic profile information – in my analysis – were ultimately going to lead to a lot of resentment because they made it so easy for people to misrepresent themselves. These sites make up the bulk of online dating sites, including many of the branded sites that are almost certainly being driven by WhiteLabelDating.com or one of their competitors.

There are however a couple of sites that did things a little differently, and made it virtually impossible to pretend to be something you aren’t.

The first is OK Cupid, which is 100% free but does take some time to get into. To be frank, give yourself an hour or two to build up a profile in there. The wonderful thing is though, the simple mathematics of how it works means it becomes uncannily good at matching people up. I spent several months hanging out with a girl from “OKC” (as its fans like to call it), and within half an hour of our first meeting it was obvious that our sense of humour clicked, our values were similar, and that we were two people who liked each other.

For me, on finding OKC and evaluating it, it was game over.  I told my client to give up unless he was going to reinvent it. The only flaw in the model is that right now it’s way too US-centric.

Since then though, a few other models have sprung up, with perhaps the most interesting being eHarmony and their “personality profiling” system. It seems rather over-burdening to go through dozens of questions, but the result is relatively accurate from what I’ve seen. It suggested I, for example, normally take care of other people, am curious, “sometimes steady, sometimes responsive”, flexible and sometimes outgoing and reserved at other times. Quite vague stuff really, but it’s not how many people would perceive me unless they’d known me for a while.

One other notable site in the “traditional” market is My Single Friend which is heavily promoted as being owned by Sarah Beeney who has spent much of the last decade convincing people to risk their entire savings on property development. Hmmm.

The great thing about MSF is that because its friends who are providing the review, you know the person you’re seeing probably isn’t a stalker and slasher. Sure, they could have created a free webmail account and written their own review, but in 99% of cases you’ll spot that a mile off. The only downside is if you asked me to write up a review of you on there, would I really point out you seem to belch an awful lot, and quite frankly you get a bit over-whelming after a couple of drinks? Probably not. It’s all upside, but at least it’s honest and perceived upside there.

The rest of the sites out there, to be honest, should be given a bit of a wide berth. Yes, there are exceptions. I know people who have found somebody on other sites, but they seem few and far between given the number of people paying to use them. As we say in geek circles, YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary), but good luck with whoever you go with.

And seriously, if there is somebody you like out there in real life, think about setting up a game in Smeet Me and trying it out – there are a couple of games in there that aren’t too challenging, and right now it’s quirky and fresh enough that people will think you’re interesting and on the cutting edge of online stuff.

Simon Owens dropped me a line to point out that when Huffington post linked to him, his traffic rose dramatically

In other words, I was right the other day when I pointed out that links are currency.

This played on my subconscious a little more than normal, having read the story about Murdoch in this month’s Wired UK magazine. I am becoming increasingly certain of something that would have sounded ridiculous a year ago and might still sound insane. However, you may quote me on it:

News Corp will file for bankruptcy/bankruptcy protection within five years. Probably less.

Putting content behind a pay wall is an action designed to kill audience. Without audience, they will fail. And if News Corp can fail, so can anybody else who has a similar business model and cost structure.

All is not lost however. I think I’m starting to see how the next breed of media organisations will emerge and take over from the old guard has let down society. More on that later in the week.