Monday, January 16, 2006

System of record Wikipedia has this description: A system of record is an information storage system (likely to be a computer system) which is the data source, for a given data element or piece information. The need to identify the Systems of Record can become acute in large organisations, where Management Information (or MIS) systems have been built by taking copies of output data from multiple (source) systems, re-processing the data and then re-presenting it for their own business uses. Where the Integrity of the data (element) is vital, it must either be extracted directly from its System of Record or be linked directly to its System of Record. Where there is no direct link with the System of Record, the integrity, and hence validity, of the data is open to question. [System of Record, wikipedia] I'd argue that the term is really about how the age old records (births, deaths, deeds, citizenship) are parts of systems of recording. We rely on the paper document (the record) because we trust the system that created it and sustained it (the system of record). Now, in digital form, we think we have something new, something transient that we need to lock down. We do, but it's the system as much as the digital "record." The record - digital or paper or parchment - has little value unless we have a method to assure us and future participants that this record, created this day, about this event, by this person or persons is a reliable record through time. This need isn't new.   Even if the form is. 12:28:39 PM    comment []

btw, this is about.... I've been posting "news" items without much comment. I ponder why, resolve to comment more. Then don't. I can't really expect others to view this as a serious blog if all I do is re-headline what the prospective reader reads every where. So what do I add? The reality is that we, all of us, have a tendency to think about a problem in isolation. I'm trained to think about "systems" - but, still, systems in isolation. But we live in a world where no system is truly isolated. This winter's fresh fruit in the grocery store down the street comes from South America & the fresh shitake mushrooms from China. That's how global the economy has become. The health care system of the United States is not isolated from that of China, India or Europe. A decade ago I knew a German fellow who'd worked in the US nearly all of his adult life. He'd retired here. But once a year he went to Germany for a health checkup, even for a hip replacement. Now we expect Wal-Mart to be competitive but play by US rules, not by International economic reality. True, they helped create this economic reality, but to expect US companies to adhere to U.S.A. 20th century business models in a 21st century international market is to doom all of the USofA to 3rd class status in the coming decades. That's the comment for today. The Question: How do we adjust from being the "super power" to being a top tier competitor in an international market place? What do we do to adapt to the digital world - the world where market changes are instant and constant? What does environmentalism mean now? Does the term "organic" food mean anything? Does "universal" health care or "universal" social security have a place? As noted earlier today, we are now an Agent Nation, not an Owner Nation. So how do we have checks & balances on the agents for different systems? Not just those with narrow interests but with those that interact in complex ways to alter our life. It comes down to, I think, the intersections where we barely notice te interaction of systems. Or the resulting unintended consequences. 11:57:51 AM    comment []

more patent law Quietly Tying Down Gulliver - The SW Patent Fairy Tale ~ by Cristian Miceli Cristian Miceli is an IT lawyer in the UK. This article is a roundup look at software patent issues in 2005. It addresses the question of whether software patents are beneficial or counterproductive. Its intended audience is other IT lawyers, but the rest of us can enjoy it too. As an attorney, Miceli says he believes in intellectual property rights, and "as part of this, I see the benefits that patents can potentially bring in certain sectors. However, as one law professor recently commented, 'good policy does not just consist of "more rights"; it consists of maintaining a balance between the realm of property and the realm of the public domain'”. I've formatted it so that you can click on a footnote number and read the footnote, then click on the number and return to the main text. You can also download the paper, if you prefer to read it as a PDF, here. [GrokLaw] 11:41:51 AM    comment []

Systems of record Only work if there is a feedback loop. No record is bad. No feedback (correction) loop is worse. Most States Don't Keep Records on Foster Care Visits Lacking proof from most of the states, federal officials are concerned that many foster children are not being visited regularly by caseworkers. [washingtonpost.com - A Section] 11:27:19 AM    comment []

Choice, thoughtful choice So many choices: What to do? What to do? (USATODAY.com) USATODAY.com - Dozens of drug-prescription plans. More than 8,000 mutual funds. Fixed-rate, interest-only and option ARM mortgages. Regular 401(k) plans vs. Roth 401(k)s. Countless flavors of bank accounts. Choice is a hallmark of capitalism, and most of us would agree that having too many choices is far better than having no choices. A growing body of research, though, shows Americans have become so besieged by choices that many feel paralyzed and confused. [Yahoo! News: Business] Magazine Preview: 10,000 Channels "Startups Take on Google and Yahoo to Solve Video Search" Red Herring, January 23, 2006 print issue When computer science professor Avideh Zakhor and her graduate students set out to create a video search engine at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1999, their web crawling ultimately resulted in a stockpile of some 45,000 clips. Fast-forward six years, to a point where Yahoo alone boasts 15 million clips in its video repository.... [Red Herring] 11:21:57 AM    comment []

Law in the digital age One of my fav references. The state of cyberlaw, 2005 Legal Affairs has a fantastic collection of essays about various cyberspace related legal issues by some of my favorite writers about the subject. Zittrain's piece outlines the beginning of his soon to be completed book. It shall be called Z-theory. Goldsmith and Wu give a short precis of their soon to be released book, Who Controls the Internet. And Julian Dibbell has an extremely funny story about sleuthing the tax consequences from the virtual economy. Strongly recommended reading. [Lessig Blog] 11:17:48 AM    comment []

Lawrence Lessig's Experiments in presentation technology Experiments in distributing content Google Book Search: The Argument 10:54:23 AM    comment []

Unrelated bits of info A map of the world, charted by stereotypes. Blog: Do the French spoil their dogs? Do Mongolians have a wicked sense of humor? Is partying the national pastime of Brazil? ... [CNET News.com] Stanford, meet the lightnet. Apple, get a clue.. I'm continuing to enjoy the Stanford lectures I mentioned the other day, but the iTunes lock-in really bugs me. So today I liberated three of the feeds, in a modest effort to nudge Stanford in the direction of the lightnet. ... [Jon's Radio] 10:42:13 AM    comment []

Did I mention patents? Community? Did I mention patents? Community? Improving Patent Quality as a Community Initiatives that bring the spirit of collaborative innovation to the really difficult challenge of improving the quality of patents. Irving Wladawsky-Berger [IBM], Irving on Innovation, Always-On network ...Patents are intended to encourage the disclosure of inventions to the public by granting the inventor exclusive rights to benefit from his or her invention for a limited period. This helps promote innovation because an idea or invention can have many potential benefits beyond those originally imagined by its creator. In an increasingly collaborative, interconnected global economy, there is a compelling and growing societal interest in bringing new intellectual property to the marketplace as soon as possible and maximizing the overall amount and quality of innovation. However, if the quality of the invention covered in patents is lowâo[per thou]that is to say, neither significant nor newâo[per thou]then such patents actually undermine the common good, thwart the very innovation they were intended to foster and, collectively, may seriously erode trust in our IP laws and institutions. That is why significantly improving the quality of patents is such a high priority for us all, and why improving patent quality is the focus of the initiatives we are announcing this week.... 10:30:06 AM    comment []

Systems of Record - assorted issues Caveat investor Jan 12th 2006,The Economist print edition Individuals are taking on more financial responsibility, not least in providing for their old age. Maybe they should be better prepared Despite all the activity, experts caution against putting too much faith in financial education. "This is not the silver bullet that some people think it is," says Ms Smith. No campaign can hope to reach everyone. In addition, although those with more knowledge of finance tend to save more and make higher returns on their long-term investments, the strength of the effect is not clear. 100% Rotten by G. Pascal Zachary, Business 2.0 America's cotton subsidy program has morphed into a budget-busting mess so twisted it even sends taxpayer money to the French. Now it threatens to ignite a perilous trade war. Which leads us to a question for the U.S. Congress: Are you out of your cotton-pickin' minds? (more) Online Courses Not So Distant More and more, college courses offered over the web for distance learners are being snapped up by students who live close to campus. Some schools allow it only with a legit academic reason; others say fine, as long as it helps them graduate. [Wired News: Technology] Nursing Homes Confront New Drug Plan's Hurdles At nursing homes, the elderly get their medication but those running the homes struggle to make sense of the Medicare drug plan. [NYT > National] England health care agencies testing integration tools Two of eight regionally focused cancer registries in England are testing tools from InterSystems Corp. that integrate, validate and manage information from hundreds of data sources for a rules-based system called Entente. [Computerworld News] 7:47:54 AM    comment []

Accountability is not the same as accounting As we've made our economic system more liquid (a good thing) we have also made it a less accountable system (a bad thing). The "manager" or "agent for society" responsible for an socio-economic cog has a different incentive than the "owner" of a socio-economic cog (be it a business, a cooperative venture or a public service activity). Today's capitalism, however, has departed, not just in degree but in kind, from its proud traditional roots. Over the past century, a gradual move from owners' capitalism -- providing the lion's share of the rewards of investment to those who put up the money and risk their own capital -- has culminated in an extreme version of managers' capitalism -- providing vastly disproportionate rewards to those whom we have trusted to manage our enterprises in the interest of their owners. Managers' capitalism is a betrayal of owners' capitalism, a system that worked, albeit imperfectly, with remarkable effectiveness for the better part of the past two centuries, beginning with the Industrial Revolution as the eighteenth century turned to the nineteenth.  The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism by John C. Bogle From the Introduction: Capitalism and American Society Digital infrastructure is even more flexibile, creative, evolutionary but it is even more difficult to have "ownership," "stewartship" baked into the enterprise. In a local, small community, we hear about every significant event (or misadventure) but as we become large, national, we lose the immediacy. With international, digital infrastructure we have lost any clear, immediate feedback. And the "systems of record," the mechanisms to investigate events have become obscure. Transparent Systems of record have become key to workable communities. And then communities scale and stretch but with honest feedback mechanisms... accountability is in the transparent, reliable record of events. Accounting is about accountability. But there is more needed in this complex world. 7:13:50 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2006 Russ Savage. Last update: 1/28/06; 6:12:08 AM.