POLICE have served an intervention order via social networking site Facebook banning an accused cyber-stalker from bullying, threatening and harassing another user.
Tip of the Hat to Philip Golan at LinkedIn
Journal: US Intelligence Wasting Billions of Dollars
03 Economy, 10 Security, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government, Officers CallU.S. intelligence agencies ‘wasted' billions: Senator faults mismanagement
By Shaun Waterman The Washington Times
8:07 p.m., Tuesday, October 12, 2010
U.S. intelligence agencies have wasted many billions of dollars by mismanaging secret, high-technology programs, the deputy chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence says.
“The American public would be outraged if they knew,” Sen. Christopher S. Bond, Missouri Republican, told The Washington Times. “Billions and billions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted.”
Mr. Bond said he was unable to provide details or exact figures because the programs are classified. “I wish I could, but I can't,” he said, adding that “many billions of dollars” were wasted on “just one program” that had been canceled recently.
Read complete article online….
Phi Beta Iota: It is actually tens of billions. If you take General Tony Zinni's estimate that secret intelligence provided him with, “at best” 4% of what he needed as commanding general of the US Central Command (USCENTCOM), then engaged in two wars and several “expeditions,” and you take $75 billion a year as the now public amount, what you end up with is a range: $72 billion wasted at the high end, or our personal estimate, $66 billion wasted at the low end. This is reprehensible. It is also misleading to suggest that the new reviews of over-spending on new initiatives will cut waste. The waste is in the “base” and it is the base that needs to be churned by cutting 20% a year for each of five years running (yes, that does add up to 100%). For a still valid detailed review that had inputs from the top two guys for national security and C4I at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) at the time, see 2000 ON INTELLIGENCE: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World.
Journal: Seth Godin on the Customer as a Celebrity
Commercial Intelligence, Cultural IntelligenceYou're famous
What makes a celebrity special? She was just an ordinary person a month or a year ago, but now, suddenly, your heart goes flitter-flutter when you meet her, or you want an autograph.
One way to consider fame is that it increases the options for the person at the same time the number of demands go up. In other words, celebrity makes the celebrity's attention more valuable.
It's exciting to shake hands or get an autograph from a famous person, then, because the celebrity has something others want, you're getting a slice of attention from someone who has other options. But she didn't exercise those options–she chose you.
By this definition, you're famous. Compared to just a few years ago, more people know you, you have more options and your attention is far more precious than it ever was.
Not just you, of course. Your customers too. They're famous now.
Time to start treating them that way.
Phi Beta Iota: This is a play on both diversity and co-creation as well as business ecologies. We are One.
Journal: Time to ShitCan the FCC and Go Open Spectrum
03 Economy, 04 Education, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government, Open Government, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Standards, Technologies, True Cost
November 30th, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could
potentially engage in one of the largest federal power grabs we have ever
seen.
At the FCC’s November meeting – note the coincidental date of choice,
AFTER the impending election – three unelected bureaucrats (of five) could
simply vote themselves rulers of 1/6th of our entire economy – the
information and technology sector.
Meaning the Internet that you currently enjoy – that has been a marvel of
economic and information innovation and success – will be subject to vast
new governmental regulations. You didn’t elect these people – but they
are on the verge of electing themselves Internet overlords.
November 30th Could Be the Day the Government Seizes Control of the Internet
by Seton Motley
November 30th, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could potentially engage in one of the largest federal power grabs we have ever seen.
After two years of this Presidential Administration and this Congress, that is saying an awful lot about an awful lot.
And what’s worse, the FCC would be doing it without Congress weighing in. At the FCC’s November meeting – note the coincidental date of choice, AFTER the impending election – three unelected bureaucrats (of five) could simply vote themselves rulers of 1/6th of our entire economy – the information and technology sector.
See Also:
Journal: Reich Whines Because Gore & Obama Took the Bribe, Now Democrats Realize They Were Theater
11 Society, Civil Society, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, IO Secrets, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth
Published on Friday, October 8, 2010 by Robert Reich's Blog
The Secret Big-Money Takeover of America
by Robert Reich
Not only is income and wealth in America more concentrated in fewer hands than it’s been in 80 years, but those hands are buying our democracy as never before – and they’re doing it behind closed doors.
Hundreds of millions of secret dollars are pouring into congressional and state races in this election cycle. The Koch brothers (whose personal fortunes grew by $5 billion last year) appear to be behind some of it, Karl Rove has rounded up other multi-millionaires to fund right-wing candidates, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is funneling corporate dollars from around the world into congressional races, and Rupert Murdoch is evidently spending heavily.
No one knows for sure where this flood of money is coming from because it’s all secret.
Phi Beta Iota: The FACTS are that Al Gore took the bribe offer delivered by Warren Christopher to roll over and play dead on the Florida high crimes and misdemeanors, and then Barack Obama took the bribe to receive $300 million still unaccounted for dollars in order to “play” President. What is happening right now is–we hope–the last act in the theater of democracy. It is time to flush both criminally irresponsible parties down the toilet, carry out Electoral Reform, and get back to being a Republic Of, By, and For We the People–respecting the Constitution and if necessary demanding the wholesale resignation of the Supreme Court Justices that confirmed corporate personality.
Review: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
Review: Grand Illusion–The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny
Review: Running on Empty–How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It (Paperback)
2008 ELECTION 2008: Lipstick on the Pig
Review: Threshold–The Crisis of Western Culture
Review: Shooting the Truth–The Rise of American Political Documentaries
Review DVD: The AMERICAN Ruling Class
Review: Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth
Journal: What to do with all this data?
Analysis, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), Methods & Process, Mobile, Real Time
October 15, 2010
Posted in Business strategy, News, indexing, metadata
October 15, 2010 – Large institutions have massive amounts of data in this modern age, the question is what to do with all of it. Extracting the right information can help avoid waste, delays, systems failures, even terrorist threats. A perfect example is Toyota’s customer support and repair data. If business intelligence had been applied and management had been looking, they would have noticed that something was going terribly wrong.
NewsBreak brought this to our attention in their article, “Search and Business Intelligence: The Humble Inverted Index Wins Again.” Business intelligence means mining through all that digital data—in legacy systems, databases, and even spreadsheets—and reporting what’s going on. Institutions with all that data know its value. When implemented well, business intelligence can be a huge success to all involved.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
Phi Beta Iota: The two graphics below, one from the 1990's the other very recent, sum up all that governments and businesses simply do not get, do not practice, and do not leverage. Dashboards, like Smart Phones, are fairly stupid. Existing “data mining” systems do not adapt, scale, or make sense in relation to externalities. It takes humans to do that, and not geek IT humans but rather all-source holistic analytics humans. We have a ways to go.
Journal: Microsoft Ad Trashes OpenOffice.org
Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Standards, Strategy, Technologies, ToolsA recent Microsoft video suggests the company considers OpenOffice.org a significant threat to its own Office suite.
Titled “A Few Perspectives on OpenOffice.org,” the video features a series of horror stories from customers who tried the open-source productivity suite and suffered from excess costs as well as IT resources, performance and compatibility issues.
A series of customer quotes flashes across the screen in the slickly animated video, read aloud by a series of unseen narrators. “If an open-source freeware solution breaks, who's going to fix it?” according to a statement ascribed to a school district official in the U.S.
“When we returned to Microsoft Office after our experience with OpenOffice, you could practically hear a collective sigh of relief across the entire district,” states another comment attributed to a U.S. school system official.
Comments are not enabled on the video's YouTube page.
Microsoft is facing competition from OpenOffice.org on multiple fronts, from the commercial version sold by project owner Oracle, as well as offshoots like the recently announced LibreOffice.
Phi Beta Iota: Google is in more trouble than Microsoft. Oracle will not scale, and IBM is not as imaginative as it likes to believe. Microsoft, however, has no strategy at all. Attacking OpenOffice in an era of Open Everything is a sure sign that Microsoft leadership is struggling–and this tracks with the decline of the company under Steve Balmer. We believe there will be a need for Bill Gates to take the helm again, or Microsoft is going to start falling apart and will fail to use the time it has right now–the next two years–to bury the competition by innovating itself into the future.
Guest Comment:
“Microsoft as a corporation is disgraceful. The classic case is when they bribed Nigerian Officials to replace Linux with Windows on school computers. http://www.facebook.com/l/8396a;www.geek.com/articles/news/mandriva-ceo-calls-out-microsoft-ceo-steve-ballmer-2007112/ I prefer to work with an operating system with a Social Contract http://www.facebook.com/l/8396a;www.debian.org/social_contract or code of conduct: http://www.facebook.com/l/8396a;www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct”
Tip of the Hat to Paul Harper at Facebook.
Robert Steele's response: Quite right. Not sure we can turn a pig into a cow, but miracles do happen. I predict Bill Gates will return to run Microsoft, the question is, has he learned to listen to others? Jury is still out on that one.
