e-Discovery Insights

I Need Jobs

I want to do something different.  The problem is, I'm not having much luck being hired.  I'm temperamental, moody, stubborn, and definitely march to the beat of my own drum.

I'm also euphemistic...

When I know I'm right, I stick to my guns - even at the risk of being wrong - which, I'm not embarrassed to say, I have been.  I wish people would just do what I say and stop questioning me so much!

I've pissed off so many people at work that - I like to joke - H.R. has a chair with my name embroidered on it!  It's gotten me fired, too.

People don't understand how my mind works - they just know that somehow, it works.  My spectacular failures are only bested by my even-more-spectacular successes.

My education's a little thin.  My mind was too restless to sit in a classroom, so I didn't finish college.  But I'm telling you, I've got some killer ideas and I can make them into reality; whoever I work with will make a lot of money.

I'm going to interview at this really cool tech company.  I think I can do great things for them.  It's on my calendar for Monday.  I'm just wondering one thing...

Do you think Apple Inc. will hire me?

Don't Lie to Our ATM, Comrade...

In a New York Times story, awakening fond memories of the Cold War, Russia's largest retail bank is experimenting with an ATM that incorporates a lie detector.  This would be a target-rich environment for jokes if the implications weren't so serious.  Nevertheless, I expect we'll see cartoons about this in our weekend newspapers.

Meanwhile, from the, "we just don't get it", department:

“We are not violating a client’s privacy,” he said. “We are not climbing into the client’s brain. We aren’t invading their personal lives. We are just trying to find out if they are telling the truth. I don’t see any reason to be alarmed.”

Yeah...what could possibly go wrong???

Asian Tiger, Paper Tiger

The World Economic Forum published their annual study this past week.  Two years in a row, the U.S. ranks 5th in its use of technology and communications.  Canada was in 8th place.  Not bad, right?

More troubling are the U.S, math and science educational rankings.  52nd place.  Dismal.

So we're using technology, but for what, exactly?

Japan Redux: You can lead a Board to Water, but you can't make them Drink

It's been roughly two weeks since the devastating events in Japan.  As I mentioned in my initial post regarding their disaster-recovery efforts, we weren't going to know all of the elements we needed to know at that time in order to make an assessment - and we don't know them now.  On the other hand, we know enough to put them under a magnifying glass.  If you're part of a disaster-preparedness team, a cursory examination of their nuclear mess is a true 'teachable moment'.

Why do I keep harping on this?  Because litigation may take on all of the elements of a disaster-recovery operation in that out of nowhere, you're tasked with finding, restoring and producing massive quantities of information - possibly from several sources and/or geographic locations.  And, somebody has to pay for it (Zubulake, Toshiba, et al).  Oh, and tic-toc - the clock is ticking...

Let me preface this by saying that armchair quarterbacking is easy - and this is not a 'bash Japan' post.  You don't kick someone when they're down (but you do try to learn from their mistakes).  Nor is it an "I told you so" post - at least, not by me.  Let's be honest, for a moment.  Sometimes, when a person says "I told you so", they really did tell you so.  So what?  The issue isn't what they told you, the issues are:

1. Did they tell you something of substance?
2. Did they provide facts & figures to support it?
3. Were they qualified to make the assessment? (i.e. on what basis should you rely on their opinion?)
4. Was it relevant to the concerns at hand?
5. If you answered 'yes' to one through four, did you give their information careful, deliberative and proper consideration?
6. Did you solicit, collect and examine supporting and/or dissenting viewpoints to confirm/contradict the opinion?
7. Was a 'Cost vs. Benefit' analysis performed?
8. Did you adopt all (or some) of their recommendations?
9. Why?
10. Did you dismiss all (or some) of their recommendations?
11. Why?
12. Have you properly assessed every possible risk?
13. Are you qualified to answer question #12, and if not, what other sources should you consult? ("Know what you don't know")
14. What is the timetable to re-convene in order to re-assess the situation and modify the plan, if necessary?

[Add your own questions here]

What are questions nine and eleven about?  You should always be prepared to justify and/or defend your position.  After all, you may have to persuade your bosses today, but you never know who you might have to persuade tomorrow (I'm thinking...a judge?  A jury?)

Last night I read this article from the Washington Post (and others over the past few days) regarding how the Japanese authorities considered risk when assessing how to protect their nuclear plants.  In my opinion, if you commit to the short amount of time necessary to read the entire story, you'll learn more about disaster-preparedness than you ever could in a classroom; unless, of course, they're studying this disaster.

In an island nation, surrounded by volcanic activity, "experts" didn't even consider a major tsunami as part of the plan for the Fukushima Daiichi power plant because it was considered "unlikely".  But, here's an even better question, raised at the conclusion of the story:

"To what degree must regulators design expensive safeguards against once-a-millennium disasters, particularly as researchers learn more about the world’s rarest ancient catastrophes?"

Which leads me to the obvious follow-up:

1. If a catastrophe occurs superior to our level of protection, what will be the likely result?
2. Was this factored into our 'Cost vs. Benefit' analysis?

Two weeks ago, the experts may have thought that the risks were worth it.  But now that radiation is showing up in drinking water as far away as Tokyo?  My guess is, they wish they'd have built the retaining walls a few feet higher.

"Nobody anticipated..."

True Disaster-Recovery: What Japan Teaches Us

What if?  Those two words form the initial basis of a disaster-recovery conversation.  Like you, I've seen the heartbreaking pictures from Japan and what gets me is, a country that is known for having the best earthquake-disaster-preparedness in the world has suffered tremendous losses in spite of that fact.

The best laid plans...

Japan's nuclear facilities prepared for a monstrous earthquake, but not an 8.9.  Is there any way to plan for an 8.9?  And if so, at what cost?  Obviously, when contrasted with the devastation we've seen - and may yet see - I wouldn't blame you if you said money is no object.  But in reality, we're rarely given a blank check.  We're required to work within parameters; sometimes very constrictive ones.

Lessons learned:  No matter how thoroughly you plan, it's impossible to prepare for absolutely every contingency that may befall you.  In the future - when memory of this disaster has faded and the passage of time blunts the impact - when envisioning a worst-case-scenario for your disaster-recovery program, if those around you are prone to cut corners, remember Japan.

Showering on Main Street

Have I been wasting my time blathering on and on about privacy?  Is it already a dead concept and I just didn't get the memo?  After all, I referred to it as a 'quaint notion' once upon a time...

This isn't light reading, but it's excellent - and, in my opinion, essential - reading.

So is this.

"You Go to e-Discovery Wars with the Army You have...

...not the e-Discovery Army you might want or wish to have."

- Perry Rumsfeld

I don't think I've seen a story re-blogged, re-tweeted and/or re-everything'ed - at least among those who I monitor - as much as the "Armies of Expensive Lawyers, Replaced by Cheaper Software" article that appeared recently in the New York Times.

First of all, we need to remember what headlines are; short statements designed to entice one to inquire further, also known as 'teases'.  Mission accomplished!  Nothing like combining the words, "Expensive Lawyers", "Replaced by" and (horrors!) "Cheaper" in a headline to achieve a visceral reaction.  And the tagline (ouch!), "Smarter Than You Think"?  Really, New York Times?  Without the guidance of humans?

Perhaps you should have looked behind the set to see how Watson was able to apply context to Jeopardy questions.  Coming from a programming background (and I mean, waaaaaaaay back), I was more fascinated by the fact that it got the 'simple' question wrong.  What I mean is, on a binary (0/1, pass/fail or right/wrong, if you prefer) issue, Watson 'thought' Toronto was in the United States - even when the question clearly stated that the correct answer was a city in the United States.

My 2nd-grade teacher, Mrs. Blythe, said, "Always read (or listen to) the entire question (or instruction) and make sure you understand it before proceeding (or buzzing in).  Ok, she never mentioned anything about buzzing in.  How did she illustrate this lesson?  When we walked into class one day, we saw that she had placed a long list of tasks on a chalkboard, all numbered.  Each task was below the other.  She said these were the tasks we were to perform and to simply begin.  Everyone did, except for one person, who remained in their chair.  Why?  Because the last task on the list said, "#10. Do not perform any of the previous nine tasks.", and only one student read them all as opposed to one-at-a-time (No, I'm not going to tell you if I'm the one who read #10.)

When I first saw the NYT article last week, I was going to jump all over it - then I decided to wait.  I was curious how my colleagues would react to it.  Some simply repeated it through Twitter or their blogs, others added a few comments one way or the other (of course I haven't seen them all) and - not surprisingly - Ralph Losey hit a home run, in my opinion, with his analysis.

By coincidence, the same day the NYT article appeared, the LA Times wrote, "Retail jobs are disappearing as shoppers adjust to self-service".  See any parallels?

The issue, as I see it, has nothing to do with jobs.  It has everything to do with efficiency.  I'd also note that while document review - which is what the NYT article is really talking about - is a component of e-Discovery, e-Discovery encompasses much more than document review.  Think strategy, for example.  Watson may be a genius, but 'he's' unable to reason when your opponent is hiding evidence.

Years ago, a headhunter offered me some document review work.  She was paying $25/hr.  At the time, a checker at my local Albertsons supermarket was earning approximately $30/hr and was about to go on strike to demand more.  Prior to that, at the nadir of the dot-com bubble, I'd watched as a plethora of good technology jobs were outsourced to India.  This is what free markets are all about.

I'm not a fan of the language of progress as expressed in corporate meetings.  Matrix, metrix, service-levels, deliverables...ugh...so robotic in nature.  Maybe that's why I migrated to consulting.  But I'll tell you one phrase I - and employers - do like.  Value add.

The focus seems to be, "The machines can now do what I can do!".  To me, the focus should be, "What can I do that the machines can't do?  How do I add value, the result of which is, I'm needed in addition to the machines?

When you ask yourselves that question, you'll always be one step ahead of technological advances, rather than chasing them.

A Passing of Note: Nobutoshi Kihara

You've likely never heard of Sony engineer Nobutoshi Kihara, but he developed much of the technology we use every day.

bit.ly, .lying & Libya?

An interesting exploration of how the unrest in Libya may - or may not, depending on who you believe - affect the .ly domain, which is quite familiar to users of Twitter, among others.

Exa! Exa! Read all about it!

Megabytes, gigabytes, exabytes.  This article places total global data capacity at 276 exabytes in 2007 (so we know it's already a stale statistic). 

Of course, it goes on to provide you an illustration of how much data this encompasses (e.g. "If I poured pancake syrup on top of Donald Trump's humongous ego, it would take four gazillion years for it to drip down to the plate."), but I prefer this example:

My dictionary gave me an error...it doesn't recognize the word 'exabyte'...which is also why predictive coding is the new, new thing.