My new favorite term is "simulation." Simulation is the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) term for flopping or falling down to make it look as if you were illegally contacted by an opponent during a soccer match. If the referee buys the simulation, either you receive a free kick or your opponent receives a foul or -- even better -- expulsion from the game. I witnessed a lot of simulation in the recently completed 2010 World Cup. I'm far from being an aficionado of football -- the term that most of the world uses for soccer -- but I'm starting to appreciate the fine art of simulation. (I was rooting for one of the landlocked countries to win the cup, but their dry spell -- no pun intended -- will continue for at least another four years.)
I didn't realize that FIFA, international soccer's governing body, was a federal agency. Not that our country has a monopoly on Orwellian phrasing. Plenty of governments -- including those of landlocked countries -- have mastered the art of euphemistic terminology, as has the business world and the technology industry. I have a good friend whose husband is an IT guy, and she says when they are out for dinner, she half expects him to ask for the restaurant's documentation, rather than a menu. The combination of technology- and federal agency-speak is a perfect storm for language vagueness.
I have especially become appreciative of the terminology used in the world of "knowledge management" -- a term that is now being used for what used to be called social networking. (And still is for those, like me, who are woefully behind such linguistic developments. I still call Tampa Bay’s baseball team the Devil Rays, for instance.) It's as if the people in charge of these designations don't think "social networking" sounds serious enough. Knowledge management sounds much more grown up, although couldn’t I also say that’s what I’m doing while working on the Sunday Times crossword puzzle?
The goal of knowledge management -- summed up in a phrase that I found referenced in numerous locations -- is to get the right information to the right person at the right time. After reading numerous pieces on knowledge management, it also seems as if you have to include the word "knowledge" in that information.
A quick perusal of FCW.com found the following terms in the knowledge management world: knowledge services, knowledge-enabled, knowledge transfer, knowledge repository, knowledge portal, knowledge discovery, knowledge coordinators, knowledge audit, chief knowledge officer, knowledge networks, knowledge management integration, knowledge sharing and -- of course -- knowledge professionals.
Here are a couple thoughts or, in the spirit of the conversation, some "knowledge dissemination from a knowledge amateur":
* I worry about the term "knowledge discovery.” Is there someone out there who says "I work in knowledge discovery?" How about "I used to be in knowledge discovery, but I left it for the private sector?" "I need some time off from my work in knowledge discovery?" Let me put it this way: If I ever stop my work in knowledge discovery, please take my pulse.
* Is "knowledge audit” another term for the SAT exams?
* If there are "knowledge-enabled" workers, does that mean there are "knowledge disabled" workers?
I started thinking about this when I read of a discussion about the differences between "formal" and "informal" knowledge networks, which began with one writer's concerns that agency information should be dispensed through a "formal" knowledge network. If you look further into arguments for "formal" knowledge networks, you get the feeling that hoping to control knowledge sharing via formal knowledge networks is the knowledge management equivalent of shoveling against the tide (or, the oceanic knowledge legacy).
It makes me afraid to read about the intelligence community.
Posted on Jul 29, 2010 at 1:21 PM1 comments
People are using bad passwords. Actually, there are a lot of terms being bandied about to describe these passwords -- "bad," "simple," "lazy," etc. -- when the most accurate term is "easy-to-figure-out." A recent study found that a large number of people are using "123456," "password," etc.
I will defend the "bad" passwords on one account. Shouldn't this discussion be broken into "sensitive information that needs a password" as opposed to "if someone breaks into this and steals my third grade son's essay on the ankylosaurus, they deserve it" passwords? There are numerous sites, chat rooms and online forums that ask for registration or a password to enter that don't contain sensitive information. For these I personally use a simple password that I will always remember without having to go back to the false-bottomed desk drawer where I keep all my secret information. For the security-sensitive password situations, I do what everyone else -- except those cited in the above study -- does: I resort to my personal password recipe.
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The challenge here is two way: creating a password that is hard to discover, but yet can still be remembered. I find the real challenge lies in remembering the location where you keep the passwords. You can't keep them in the file labeled "passwords," can you? But then you have to keep a note (labeled "password locations") somewhere secret, requiring you to keep another note ("location of note reminding me where password locations are"), which you keep in a location with a lock, the combination of which you can keep in the same place as the passwords.
Without giving away my own password secrets, here are some unprofessional hints for creating passwords that a) others can't figure out, and b) you can easily remember. (For an interesting read on other peoples' tips, check out the comments section of this article.)
- Use the square root of pi to 56 digits. For those of you who still aren't comfortable, go to 57. Substitute the Gettysburg Address for every other "7." This won't guarantee preventing hacking, but it will keep the hackers too busy to do any damage to anyone else.
- Pick one of Ben Affleck's good movies -- nobody can remember those.
- Choose the maiden name you wish your mother had (unless you wish the square root of pi to 56 digits was your mother's maiden name.)
- Take the name and home phone number of the person who required you to set up this account. If you're really annoyed, add "call after midnight."
- Use the name of your favorite landlocked country. For the squeamish, add the capitol. For further security, put the year it became sovereign in between.
- Use your favorite Shakespeare quote, written as if it were spoken by Elmer Fudd.
- Use your favorite Arnold Schwartzenegger quote, as if spoken by Elmer Fudd.
- The square root of pi to 56 digits, as if spoken by Elmer Fudd.
- Two words: Pig Latin. (Oops, I'm giving away my own secrets.)
- Write all the information down on hard copy, delete the digital files, and forget having a password to begin with.
Posted on Jul 15, 2010 at 1:30 PM4 comments
I have flown into the Dominican Republic on numerous occasions. When landing in Santiago, the (mostly Dominican) passengers break out into applause. The first time my family and I experienced this it was surprising–and quite different from the scrum that takes place when we land in Boston. Being an American who lives in the Northeastern United States, I assumed the applause was cynical, a sarcastic statement that "we made it."
I have taken the trip enough times now to understand that there is nothing cynical about the Dominicans' cheer. Passengers applaud because they are sincerely grateful for safely returning to their or their ancestors' homeland, and for the anticipated experience they are about to have. I have found that letting go of my cynicism is a useful transition for visiting the country.
By contrast, when landing in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on a recent trip, I could feel all the passengers physically tighten up, as if to brace themselves for what lay ahead. My family and I were preparing to spend 10 days in Hispaniola visiting a friend and delivering relief supplies in Haiti, and then taking a bus across the island to visit friends in the small Dominican village we spent five months in several years ago. (Nobody on the bus applauded when we crossed the Haiti-Dominican border.)
Our friend Charles has lived in Port-au-Prince for a little more than five years. He grew up there, and told us of riding his bike around the city as a child, taking 20 minutes to cover a route that was now taking us two hours by car. Charles moved to the United States and stayed for 25 years, became a U.S. citizen and then moved back to Haiti in retirement, where he built a house in one of the neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince. His cement home has wooden details–cabinetry he hand-carved himself, trim and furniture–and a spacious yard with walls covered with bushes with bougainvilleas. (I have noted that, in any writing about tropical locales, there is always mention of the bougainvilleas.) Charles' house would not look out of place in Florida.
To get from the airport to Charles' house, we drove though the landscape that has become familiar since the Jan. 12 earthquake: piles of rubble, decimated buildings, tent cities, and people moving about everywhere. The memory that stays with me from my two visits to Haiti are of the movement that takes place in my peripheral vision: No one stands still in Haiti.
Driving us to his house, Charles stops before crossing a busy bridge. He tells me that since the earthquake, he waits for the line of traffic to clear before crossing; he is afraid of being stopped (a frequent happening in Port-au-Prince) on a bridge that might not be safe. Charles' street is a potholed dirt road in a central location in town that has piles of rubble spread around. Some of the houses on his street are standing, some have been reduced to rubble, some are in between. (Charles is very proud of the fact that the house he built himself suffered no damage from the earthquake.) A couple of lots have tents or makeshift shelters that, with their combination of fabric/tarp sidings and tin roofs look like some sort of art class voting booth project, sitting in several inches of water from the recent rains.
Security is real problem in Port-au-Prince, where almost every building was severely damaged by the earthquake.
When we pull up to the gate at Charles' driveway, he tells the young man who has come out to open the gate to leash the guard dog that patrols his yard when he is not home. The walls surrounding his property have broken glass set in the mortar atop them–a security measure we have found throughout Haiti and the Dominican. When we enter the house, he warns us not to go out when the dog is unleashed. He also does not want us to go for walks outside of his property without him. He has a rifle propped against the wall in one bedroom, and I found a handgun under a pillow on the mattress he sleeps on near the front door.
Despite this level of security, Charles had six solar-panel batteries stolen from his home–before the earthquake.
I describe all this not as an excuse to share recent travel experiences, but because I found myself thinking about security on my trip. More specifically, thinking about the various needs for security, and what a sisyphean task we all face. The security needs for a home in Port-au-Prince, obviously, are not the same security needs for a home in Maine. My first visit to Haiti was to a small town outside of Cap-Hatienne, in the north of the country, and the residents' security needs are different from those of Port-au-Prince. To get even more specific, the security needs of Charles' property are not the same as the needs of someone living in a voting booth-like shelter in four inches of water next door.
So why do people get so upset over security efforts–or a perceived lack of them–in the agency world? To quote a recent comment to an FCW article requesting better security standards for federal systems, is (cyber)intrusion detection/prevention even possible on such a diverse network as used by the federal government? This is not meant to be seen as a "what-can-you-do" angle, more a suggestion that simple security standards are just that, and not nearly enough to deal with the complex challenges agencies face. Security will require changes not in technologies but in user practices. I would venture that this is an education issue more than a technology issue. (I could have fun here and try to align specific agencies' security practices with world communities, but that wouldn't be doing a favor for either Port-au-Prince or the agency compared to it.)
On our ride to the bus station in the Petionville suburb, my daughter and I were riding in the back of Charles' pickup truck, watching Port-au-Prince recede into the distance. We heard a strange sound approaching us, a beautiful sound that felt out of place amid the devastation, like finding an orchid growing in a rockpile. It was a church that was overflowing with people in Sunday dress, with the crowd backed up out of all the entries. When we mentioned this to Charles at the bus station, he told us that it wasn't a full church; since the earthquake, many people stand near the doors or outside of buildings.
Posted on Jun 25, 2010 at 10:58 AM0 comments