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I hate splash pages. I hate being held hostage. The topic came up recently on the “Information Systems Forum” listserv. It’s a listserv of diverse participants, gracefully managed by the indefatigable Deborah Elizabeth Finn.
The question was: “Are splash pages effective.” I thought about it for a few days and I posted a response. Michael Gilbert (who I think of as my own personal Perry White) suggested I repost my response here, on the Diner. (I think he’s worried that I haven’t posted much stuff in the last few months. Not to worry Michael, it was just a dry spell caused by excessive time travel.)
On this particular list, the recent conversations have drifted into the rights and wrongs of collecting (and using) personal information (like one’s birthday) for fundraising, and, more recently, the efficacy of “splash” pages — especially by nonprofits. While musing over the thread, I was reminded by an early example — a pre-internet example — of an attempt to hold an audience hostage.
You’ll find my original post below, (slightly edited and embellished to make me look more thoughtful):
Continue reading Get Thee Behind Me, Disco Duck!
The culprits struck in the dead of night, repeatedly. With each subsequent attack, we doubled-down, increased the bet. There was no choice. Such small acts of vandalism speak volumes. Such attacks are disheartening. I find it hard to fathom that whilst praising freedom, or liberty, or democracy, people would attempt to rob me of mine. Defiance is the only recourse. Defiance (minor as it was in this case) is the only acceptable response to totalitarianism, no matter what form it takes.
I have to admit, I had had a twinge of trepidation when the signs first went up. Truly, elections bring out the silly season. There was an edge of only slightly veiled intolerance this time around, fanned by the various candidates themselves. “Not good,” I thought to myself. “It’s not wise to fan the flames of wackiness. We’ve got too much of it.”
Relatively rural, there is little around me to temper such flames. I lack the protection of a crowd, wise or otherwise. And, I didn’t want to end up with a cross — or a ying-yang symbol for that matter — scorched into my front lawn. Shaking my head, I shrugged off the trepidation. If one can’t put up a campaign sign without fear of retribution, then it’s too late. Up went the signs. Continue reading Unintended Consequences
The failure statistic is often cited, usually with a moan and a wail. It goes like this: 30, 40, or 50 percent of all IT projects go bad. The rest — the ones that actually succeed — well, they go “slightly bad too.” At least some of them do. In the end, nobody’s happy. Jobs are lost, heads roll, teeth gnash. The statistics are real enough, by the way, although they are often cited incorrectly. I fault leadership and the incessant mixing up of means and ends.
Here are the facts. The original source of those numbers is a 1994 report by the Standish Group called the CHAOS REPORT. The report said this about IT projects (and I’m paraphrasing not plagiarizing):
- 31% of [IT] projects are cancelled before completion,
- 88% are over deadline or over budget or both,
- The costs of such overruns are usually (at least) double original estimates
If you think those numbers are sort of long in the tooth, how about these from 2004.
- 18 percent of all IT project out and out fail,
- 53 percent are “challenged” (in other words went awry in some way),
- Only 29 percent actually “succeed.”
These were updated in 2004. Unfortunately, the damn researchers rearranged the categories, so it’s actually impossible to compare the numbers. Continue reading A Means to an End
Naming an epoch using the superlative prefix of “post” — as in post-industrial, or post-modern, or the particularly unsatisfying post-millennial — is the one true indicator that we haven’t a clue. When I hear it, I tend to silently grumble the opening lines from A Tale of Two Cities:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way. — In short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Wisely or foolishly, I think of this particular moment as a “time in between” – we’re no longer where we were and not yet where we’re going — both an age of foolishness and an age of wisdom.
It’s a time of great shifts; the rules of the great game are changing and the players are all different. Hell, I’m not even sure it’s the same game. The world may be “flat,” as Tom Friedman says, but it’s also very very bumpy.
Ok, “ho-hum,” you say. It’s no news to you that the forces of globalization, instantaneous and ubiquitous communications, and unparalleled technological innovation are tearing markets apart, changing global dynamics, and redefining almost every aspect of our lives — but, what may be news is that we “ain’t seen nothing yet.” There’s a revolution brewing in this epoch of incredulity. Continue reading The Epoch of Incredulity
 I learned of the game the hard way. Sometimes it’s called “Follow the Lady” — you probably know it as “Three-card Monte.” It depends on the art of misdirection, distraction and illusion, and just a little sleight of hand. And now it seems, it’s played every night on the evening news. Even “The Daily Show” (or for now “A Daily Show”) seems to have been taken in by the artful dealer; fooled by the throw of the cards; fooled into casting the contests one by one, and ignoring the real story.
“What,” You say, “you don’t know the game?” Well, it’s easy… easy to play, easy to win. Step in a little closer…, trust me… Step right up, everyone’s a winner!
I learned the game when I worked a carnival one summer. Nope, I wasn’t “a carnie.” I was just a “greenie,” cheap summer labor. Being a carnie, well, that’s something you’re born too.
I was an innocent — called “a new” — maybe a half-step above the mooks and marks that meandered on the midway. Even now, I can sometimes catch a scent of that past, when the wind blows right. It’s scent that casts me back to those long days and thick summer nights, Kansas in late August. Continue reading Follow the Lady
It was many years later that I was to remember that day in Seattle. How I had ended up where I was, standing next to who I was, was beyond me. But, there I was — I was at the “top of the WAC” – the Washington Athletic Club — staring out the windows at what seemed to me at the time to be a giant abstract tableau. It was the end of November 1999 and I was looking at Seattle, laid out like a giant game of “Go.” The WTO was about to go into full swing — in what was to be known as the “battle for Seattle.”
From those windows high atop the WAC, I could see the various pieces on the board, see the planned movements and strategies as the police set up barricades and as people in the streets ebbed and flowed in response. It was easy to imagine reaching down and flipping a white stone to black, and thus changing the game. The game of “Go” is that way — the placement of single piece — a single move — can change the outcome of the game.
Seattle holds many fond memories for me, but that day bordered on the surreal. That day, beside me were some of the major pieces in the game, including James Wolfensohn. All in all, in the room were more than a dozen representatives of Globalization, with a capital Gee. I felt like Zelig. I kept thinking to myself that, properly, I should be down in the streets, relishing the scent of teargas in the morning. We were talking about the synergies of philanthropy, technology, and collaboration; I was imagining teargas. Continue reading Between Time and Timbuktu: Reflections on Globalization and the Electric Touareg
Her name was Jane. We met, quite unexpectedly, at Zaventem Airport in Brussels. At the Avis counter. It was such a random thing, but when I saw her I knew — no hesitation — whatever the cost, I just knew. Some things are just meant to be. With Jane, it was meant to be. Jane. I can still hear her voice.
We travelled together, she and I, bisecting France; from Brussels to Aix-en-Provence and back again. In hindsight, I couldn’t of done it without her. How I ever planned to survive, travelling those weeks without her is beyond me. I’d have been lost without her, lost. Continue reading My Secret Summer Romance
I was recently asked to dream up all the ways these new fangled information and communications technologies can save us from the carbon-based perils of flying. Flying dumps tons of carbon into the atmosphere. Not good, that. Technology, of course, that’s the answer, or so they say (who ever they are).
The litany goes something like this: “With video conferencing, broadband, and Second Life, well, we can all safely stay ensconced in our own virtual-reality-sensory-deprivation-tanks and just digitally dance the salsa at the next NTEN gathering.” In fact, I recall a posting on some blog, or some listserv, just before the last NTEN conference. It took NTEN to task for being so “20th century” as to hold a conference people actually attended. I grumbled at the time, muttering to myself that people that think technology is a replacement for face-to-face meetings and conferences are missing the point, and forgetting that tech is never a replacement. Continue reading The next best thing to being there…
There was a recent posting on the Information Systems Manager’s forum that has me dredging up the past. There, the question was posed as to the value of blogs – more specifically do they lead or follow, or are they relevant at all. Should one read ‘em or ignore ‘em?
The author of the note postulated that, aside from politics and technology, they tended to be reactions to either traditional media, to other web sites, or just so much tripe about relatively inconsequential things like the babies of hyphenated or concatenated movie stars.
At first blush, I kind of agreed – after all most are pretty much regurgitated thoughts about stuff and junk found elsewhere on the web, a few notable examples aside. This got me thinking about two things: first, the birth of so-called “citizen journalism” and second, how the media universe has changed over the last few years. Continue reading Dross, Gloss and Brilliance…
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