Month: August 2013

I’m singing this note ’cause it fits in well
With the chords I’m playing
I can’t pretend there’s any meaning here
Or in the things I’m saying

But I’m in tune
Right in tune
I’m in tune
And I’m gonna tune
Right in on you

Getting In Tune, The Who, 1971

 

I admit it. I wrote this post just to have an excuse to refer to this song. Not really. I don’t need an excuse to refer to this song. Nobody needs an excuse to do that. Or to listen to it. Great song.

This is a post about collaboration, about people working together. Not just in your own team or department (although it can be that). Not just in your own company (although it can be that). Not just in your own country, or language, or timezone, or culture.

The problems of a new paradigm cannot be solved with the tools of the old. If we really want to make headway on issues ranging from climate change to availability of water; if we really want to deal with medical conditions that migrate at speed and mutate even faster; if we really want to resolve today’s versions of age-old problems to do with poverty and hunger; and if we want to do all this in a world heading serenely for 10 billion people and dwindling resources, we’re going to have to get better at doing at least one thing.

Collaborating.

Across culture, timezone, language, jurisdiction.

While having objectives that are not just not aligned, but often in conflict.

And while figuring out what went wrong the last time and plugging in those lessons learnt as quickly and as effectively as possible.

Iteratively.

And at scale, at a scale we have never known about before. Facebook scale.

This is a post about those things.

 

Collaboration requires many things, starting with the heart. You must want to collaborate, to work together. Even though there are many conflicts to be resolved.

Collaboration at scale requires many people to have a common understanding of the basics; in most cases, this common understanding will need codification so that the sharing can happen digitally. Otherwise we will not be able to work at the right speed. And what is that right speed? One that is faster than the pace of change in the environment, in the market, in the context.

I think this common understanding begins with labels and descriptors.

Like “when”. Synchronisation of watches wasn’t necessary until the locomotive arrived, it is a function of people in different locations treating time differently, looking at time in the context of their sunrises and sunsets. A perfectly reasonable thing to do. Unless you want people to work across timezones. So yes, there was a time when Manchester and London were in different timezones, and they had to sort that out before train timetables could mean anything.

Like “where”. Location labels are very important, as important as time labels. In many countries, the “ownership” of maps and mapping has been given away by some benighted government in the past to some agency or other, sometimes public, often private. In the process, monopolies were formed, and monopolies never get given up easily. Wailing and gnashing of teeth all the way to the grave. A shame, since it holds up progress; open data activists the world over are trying to resolve this. If the monopolists aren’t careful, they will watch stupefied as new commonses emerge, labelling every GPS location using collective intelligence and the latest digital tools. Too late, it’s already happening.

 

A monopoly on place names and information is like having a monopoly on the word Tuesday.

 

Like “who”. Identity is much more than a name, it’s about relationships. Relationships with people, with beliefs, with activities, with aspirations, with intentions. In singular or in plural, in pairs, in large groups. The name itself is commodity, a label.

Like “what”. Plant names, creature names. Part numbers and SKUs. Names for elements and compounds; generic, public. And not public.

If you have a product and I can’t refer to it in my “buying system” (whatever that is) then you won’t have me as a customer.

Taxonomies and ontologies can and should be open.

 

Taxonomies are the DNA of collaboration; open data catalyses collaboration.

We’re only just beginning to understand what true multistakeholder multicultural collaboration will need to look like. Right now we’re still in the Khrushchev phase. There are a lot of shoes flying around, and more to come. Good time to be a cobbler, perhaps.

]

One day the shoes will stop flying. And by that time we will know who will survive, who will thrive.

Because they’ll be the ones that have worked out how to share the labels and descriptors, who else is interested in such sharing, and how to speed up the transformation and innovation that will take place as a result. Across culture and timezone.

More later. Probably not for a couple of weeks.

[To my readers: This is unashamedly a post about cricket. If that’s not your thing, you’re probably going to get bored reading this. In which case you have my apology, that was not my intention].

 

When I was young, there were many sportsmen I admired; they ranged from Pele (whom I had the pleasure of meeting in 1996) and Gary Sobers (who played golf with my father, in my presence, in 1967) through to Tom Watson (whom I’ve seen play a few times) and Derek Randall.

Yes, Derek Randall. The Derek Randall who famously doffed his cap to Dennis Lillee just after he’d bowled a bouncer at him. And then said “No good hitting me there, mate, there’s nothing to damage.”

 

Randall epitomised the true sportsman to me. Incredibly talented, fanatic about his sport, but with a sense of proportion that showed in his humour, both on-field as well as off. Randall had already made his name well before the Melbourne Centenary Test at which the Lillee affaire (shown above) happened, and he nearly made that Test his own, with a brilliant 174. It was a match full of incident. Yet, when asked what really stood out for him, Randall is reputed to have said that it was when Rodney Marsh called him back to the wicket after the umpire (Tony Brooks) had given him out. He said “It’s how the Aussies play – hard, but fair. I honestly don’t think it would have made any difference if we were playing for the Ashes. It was Rodney’s way. He was such a competitor but above all he values cricket.”

[Incidentally, Mike Brearley, in The Art of Captaincy, reported that Randall asked Marsh, just as he was taking guard “How’s it going, Marshy?” Silence. After the next ball “What’s the matter, Marshy, not talking today?” To which Marsh replied “What do you think this is, a garden party?”]

That was in 1977. A full two decades later, I was reminded of the Randall-Marsh incident when Robbie Fowler, of Liverpool, went to the referee shaking his finger and mouthing “No, no”, just as the official was pointing to the penalty spot, having adjudged that David Seaman had brought Fowler down unfairly. And the headline at the time “Football hero in honesty shock“. The shock wasn’t about Fowler — Robbie was always that kind of person. The shock was about football, and about honesty in football. Seventeen years on, I cannot watch Premier League football, especially when a corner is given. Hands everywhere, shirts being pulled, goalkeepers bulldozed out of play, nudges and pushes, so much happening that the referee’s job becomes impossible.

The system is one that can be played, and so it gets played. In premier league football, winning has become more important than winning fairly; fairness has become a luxury. When that happens, travesty is round the corner, followed by tragedy.

Test cricket runs the risk of heading the same way. Which would be a real shame, since it was cricket that gave us the term “not cricket”, to describe something that was just not “done”. I was reminded of this when reading the Sunday Times last week, where, in an eminently forgettable article, there was an eminently memorable phrase:

 

…… behaved in a way which would not do if generally adopted. What a wonderful turn of phrase.

There was a time when batsmen walked when they were out, without waiting for the umpire’s signal. It wasn’t rare. Going back to Art of Captaincy, Brearley says “I admire the Australians’ straightforwardness with regard to “walking” — that is, not waiting for an umpire’s decision if you know that you are out. After the Second World War, “walking” gradually grew in English county cricket. By the early ’60s anyone who did not walk was considered a cheat.”

He then went on to explain how this could be abused: walking when it wasn’t important, and then not walking when you were near a fifty or a hundred, or when the match result hung in the balance. But that’s not the point.

The point is what happened since. Somehow, we have managed to convince ourselves that there are different forms of cheating, and that some forms are okay while others are not. So today we believe that when a fielder appeals while knowing he did not take the catch cleanly, that is wrong. That’s “active” cheating, when you do something to achieve the wrong outcome. This is what Denesh Ramdin was accused of doing a few months ago, and he was suspended for two matches for that transgression. And at the same time we condone “passive” cheating, as when a batsman who knows he was out stays at the crease to see if the umpire gives him out or not. The argument here is that the batsman doesn’t actually do something to achieve the wrong outcome, he just takes advantage of errors by the umpire as and when they happen. So it’s “passive”.

Poppycock. Balderdash.

If you’re out, you’re out. And if you know it, then walk.

Kevin Pietersen walked today, without waiting for the umpire’s signal. [Well done Kevin, I shall be shouting for you at the Oval in a few weeks.]. He was probably still stinging from the cheating accusation levelled at him a few days ago, and rightly so. He strikes me as one of those hugely-talented and incredibly obstinate people who are capable of doing many things, right things as well as wrong things, but cheating is not one of those things. Not in his make-up.

Stuart Broad stayed at the crease some weeks ago when he knew he was out. When his team-mates knew he was out. When the opposing team knew he was out. When everyone watching, and a few million others who watched it later, knew he was out. When even the umpire had figured it out.

Yet Stuart Broad stayed at the crease because the system, the rules in use, made it legal for him to do so.

A few years ago, Ian Bell was recalled by MS Dhoni when he was “legally” out. Decades earlier, Gundappa Viswanath recalled Bob Taylor when he was “legally” out.

Broad is not a cheat, but he “behaved in a way that would not do if generally adopted”.

These are all “spirit” versus “letter” issues.

And spirit matters. If we lose the spirit behind all this, we lose everything. The essence of sport, learning about competitiveness and teamwork in an environment of fairness and mutual respect. Winning is important, but not at all costs.

That’s why I am concerned about DRS, that’s why I dislike Duckworth-Lewis. Because the unintended consequences of these changes tear at the spirit of the game.

The more we allow “letter” to dominate “spirit”, the more we are signalling to the generations that follow that what you do doesn’t matter; what matters is whether you get caught or not.

Sporting heroes are no longer readily available. Sex, drugs and rock-n-roll have invaded every aspect of their lives; every day we hear of failed drugs tests, violent behaviour, drink problems, marital issues, the list goes on.

Spirit matters.

…..

I am no troglodyte, I am willing and happy to endure and absorb change, some have even accused me of fostering and fomenting it in different contexts. But when change is brought about, it is important to remember the core values of that which is being changed, so that they don’t change.

We must understand what’s cricket.

And what’s not cricket.

 

 

Have you ever heard of omum water? Once I was old enough to be given it, omum water was my salvation every time I had any kind of stomach ailment.

It goes by many names.

Some people call it aqua ptychotis. In Bengal, people tend to refer to it as ajwain arak. In Tamil Nadu, it is more likely to be called omum water.

The Bengalis claim it as theirs. The Tamils do the same. [And being a Bengali Tamil, I don’t particularly care].

In fact I really don’t care about who claims the origin; while I know the patent system is broken, and terribly broken at that, I have enough faith in humanity to believe that no one will try and patent aqua ptychotis.

What I do care about is that people get to know all about it: what it is, how it works, why it works, where to get it, what not to do with it. [If you’re wondering why I added that last phrase, then ponder on why it gets called ajwain arak. As a vehicle for alcohol, it’s pretty serious.

Why am I writing about this now? Simple. My daughter got married last Friday; I’d taken time off starting last Thursday, and, once the festivities were over, let down my guard and managed to acquire a chesty cough. These things happen. That in turn meant I had to make a visit to the chemist, and, waiting to be served, noticed there were bottles of gripe water visible near the counter.

That took me back years. To my childhood. To a time when life was simple when it came to medication.

When I was young, everything began with cod liver oil, in those days it seemed to be chicken soup for the under-fives. Thankfully, it seemed to disappear quickly, even before the last of my siblings was born. I can’t remember dealing with cod liver oil since about 1965.

Life after that was simple. Stomach ache? A spoonful of omum water. Sore throat? Gargle with warm salt water. Cough and cold? Vicks Vaporub, with or without head-under-covers steam session, depending on how chesty the cough was. Cough continues? Vasaka syrup. Really bad? Benadryl. Fever? Blankets and rest. Sweat it out. Burns? Burnol. Mouth ulcers or small cuts anywhere on the surface of the body? Dab mercurochrome. Serious cuts, proper wounds? Upgrade from mercurochrome to tincture of iodine. Cleaning cuts and wounds? Savlon when you want it out of a tube, Dettol if you want it to sting. If it stung it was considered good, that the liquid was doing its work. Tooth powder? Monkey Brand, which was some sort of black crystal with salt. Tooth paste? Colgate or Signal or Binaca. Headache? Saridon. Dry skin? Nivea. Sprain? Iodex or Tiger Balm.

Life was simple. We used a whole pantheon of medications, drawn from a variety of roots. Some were traditional and local. Some were global and generic. Yet others were tightly branded. We learnt what to use where and when; most prescriptions were dealing with the generic name for the drug or medication, and the pharmacist converted it into the brand if and when needed.

There’s the rub. We weren’t always aware what kind of term we were using. Which ones were generic terms, which ones were local brands, which ones were global brands. Which meant that as soon as I left India, I had a whole lot of learning to do in order to get the simple things out of a pharmacy. Which was a good thing, perhaps, because it meant I never went to a pharmacy for years. It took me four years to register with a GP. And even longer before I went to a proper pharmacy.

As everyone and everything gets connected, as we all become able to publish our status, views and opinions, surpluses and shortages, the role of nomenclature will increase. Not just in medicine. In everything. Terms need to travel across cultures, and this will happen in many different ways. Generic names. Translations into local brands. Occasionally, translation into global brands. An expectation that every generic name will lead to choice when it comes to brand, rather than monopoly.

Those expectations can only be met if the generic terms get opened up and shared, locally as well as globally. Some of these terms are already in the public domain; others can be, but aren’t as yet. Open data movements aren’t just about what the government or the public sector holds, it will involve corporations. Corporate open data will become more and more important; initially we will see industry bodies (such as standards bodies or market associations) weigh in with the corporate open data, but in years to come all industry will be affected.

Every exchange needs that nomenclature, the low-volatility reference data that allows people to share transactional information. As we move towards a time when we are all able to expose our inventories, our wants and needs, our surpluses and scarcities, the vehicles of exposure will become exchanges. That’s what my friend and erstwhile colleague Sean Park kept pushing over a decade ago, as he visualised how digital markets would operate at scale.

Many markets are now digital; each market went through its gestation period, when term standardisation and normalisation preceded the ability to express transactions digitally. In some ways there is no difference between the dematerialisation of trades on a stock exchange, the mapping of the human genome and, for that matter, the explosion in standardised infrastructure in computing.

Terms had to become standard. They had to represent analogue things that were themselves more and more standardised, be they stocks or servers or gene signatures.

The terms had to become fungible. Exchangeable. Transportable across geography and culture and jurisdiction. Sometimes as-is. Sometimes expressed in translation. But transportable and fungible nevertheless.

We’re a long way from there. But terms like big data will remain just that until and unless that happens. We can have lots of data. But to have insights we need to have common terms, or at the very least portable terms, even if the porting involves translation or substitution.

People vested in the quasi-monopolies of the analogue world sometimes don’t want this to happen; term portability creates its own response to lock-ins. If all I know is a brand name, I am locked into the brand rather than the generic.

So for now I shall continue to ponder about omum water and ajwain arak and aqua ptychotis.

And wonder whether Wikipedia, or some other wikipedia, will solve the problem for us.