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<title>The concinnitas services blog</title><link>http://concinnitas.co.uk/index.html</link><description>services science&#x2c; enginnering and delivery</description><dc:language>en</dc:language><dc:creator>richard.taylor@concinnitas.co.uk</dc:creator><dc:rights>Copyright 20011 concinnitas</dc:rights><dc:date>2009-09-18T11:22:09+01:00</dc:date><admin:generatorAgent rdf:resource="http://www.realmacsoftware.com/" />
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<lastBuildDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2009 11:35:50 +0000</lastBuildDate><item><title>Smoke &#x27;n Mirrors &#x27;n Consultancy</title><dc:creator>richard.taylor@concinnitas.co.uk</dc:creator><category>None</category><dc:date>2009-09-18T11:22:09+01:00</dc:date><link>http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/b596a56b2ef2fa76cbaf5d3e864ae9f0-21.php#unique-entry-id-21</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/b596a56b2ef2fa76cbaf5d3e864ae9f0-21.php#unique-entry-id-21</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Given the recent performance by Derren Brown (busting the UK National Lottery), the article on the behaviour of management consultants reminded me of the quote by Niels Bohr, prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future.


...In the case of the illusionist this is easy to spot, the beautiful assistant(s), the use of cameras, the fact that if they could make the prediction they'd keep quiet and just take the money etc etc etc. 

...It is hard to see that this publication will add anything to the commentary on the behaviour of management consultants that has not already been exposed in the excellent 'Rip-off!: The Scandalous Inside Story of the Management Consulting Money Machine' by David Craig.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Irritating Suppliers - on the cheap</title><dc:creator>richard.taylor@concinnitas.co.uk</dc:creator><category>Service Engineering</category><category>Procurement</category><dc:date>2009-08-30T07:48:00+01:00</dc:date><link>http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/cb772479ab51a0c653a404f23c280845-20.php#unique-entry-id-20</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/cb772479ab51a0c653a404f23c280845-20.php#unique-entry-id-20</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Don't bother with all that expensive data gathering and comparator idenfication, just get the benchmarker to give you a price for the service and start your negotiations from there. 


...This approach could save money and time in all  walks of life -  don't bother asking a builder or a plumber for a quote, just get your Independent Financial Adviser to give you one, alongside the latest investment advice.


...While the price of a phantom bid price might well be cheaper than a full benchmarking process, this is a fraction of the total cost of the full re-negotiation of a service delivery. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Services - so damn difficult to get the human-machine interface right</title><dc:creator>richard.taylor@concinnitas.co.uk</dc:creator><category>Service Engineering</category><dc:date>2009-08-07T12:04:02+01:00</dc:date><link>http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/895dde40b5ad41db06dc7148d4b38fe3-18.php#unique-entry-id-18</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/895dde40b5ad41db06dc7148d4b38fe3-18.php#unique-entry-id-18</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I had to replace a set of wheel covers on a small car - I'm not going to go into the family politics of what, why or who, suffice it to say my partner is spatially challenged when it comes to certain parking maneuvers. 

...As it happens, I had forgotten them - stupid, and dangerous, the next time a wheel cover came off, no matter what the cause, a lack of a restraining cable tie would banish me to the sofa. 

...In the spirit of co-production, this is an example of co-supression, leaving the store selling less than they could and the punter unsatisfied (especially when he is blamed for not fitting the cable ties in the first place).
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Mathematics - evidence or libel?</title><dc:creator>richard.taylor@concinnitas.co.uk</dc:creator><category>Service Engineering</category><category>Service Science</category><category>Mathematics</category><dc:date>2009-07-19T16:31:08+01:00</dc:date><link>http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/6014a275b5e1487e3818566e9784ff1f-14.php#unique-entry-id-14</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/6014a275b5e1487e3818566e9784ff1f-14.php#unique-entry-id-14</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Hot on the heels of this affair, Nick Cohen, a commentator in the Guardian, has written a piece suggesting that mathematicians are being frightened into silence about city shenanigans through the threat (implicit I assume - little if any evidence is provided) of legal action if they point out some of the obvious flaws in investment and trading policy - namely that few understood these complex instruments, in fact some of them  might well cost more to understand than they were worth.


...The high court judge, Justice Eady, whose educational background is not obviously scientific but who specialised in media law until being appointed a High Court Judge, does not seem to have applied any judgement of the evidence behind Singh&rsquo;s article, rather a narrow (and to the outside observer inexplicable) interpretation of the word bogus when applied to a group who seem to have little understanding of the treatments they endorse.


...In my experience (and I spent some time examining and criticising the role of coupled exotic derivatives in banking on the basis of stability and understandibility - in the words of Buffet &lsquo;I view derivatives as time bombs, both for the parties that deal in them and the economic system&rsquo; and &lsquo;Derivatives also create a daisy-chain risk that is akin to the risk run by insurers or reinsurers that lay off 
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>The digital divide - why should we worry</title><dc:creator>richard.taylor@concinnitas.co.uk</dc:creator><category>Public Services</category><dc:date>2009-07-17T15:54:28+01:00</dc:date><link>http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/5c3fb4c04aed7bf95a4e543f64025036-13.php#unique-entry-id-13</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/5c3fb4c04aed7bf95a4e543f64025036-13.php#unique-entry-id-13</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[This should not be surprising - apocryphally 75% of public services are consumed by 25% of the population - the very segment that is least likely to have access to services the UK government wants to shift to an electronic delivery systems. 

...Increased automation of service assessment, digital mediation, and a rapidly widening divide between those who can and those who can not, promises greater depravation, crime, civil unrest (love that term), openly racist behaviours - you name it , it&rsquo;s not good and we are walking into it with our eyes shut. 


Government is blinded by promises of technology and pays far too little attention to social delivery and the consequences of a radical change in the form that our well worn social contract is changing. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Who understands the service?</title><dc:creator>richard.taylor@concinnitas.co.uk</dc:creator><category>Service Engineering</category><category>Service Science</category><category>Public Services</category><dc:date>2009-07-12T15:14:00+01:00</dc:date><link>http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/1b6a8b27ac689bf8d64c93533efe9043-12.php#unique-entry-id-12</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/1b6a8b27ac689bf8d64c93533efe9043-12.php#unique-entry-id-12</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[IBM has announced that it will hand some work on the National Biometric Identity Service (NBIS) to two other suppliers, Atos and Sagem, respectively integration and operations support, biometric services and technology.


Clearly the three organisations are experienced and competent - but what are the long term consequences for the service that the government (and by extension the UK population) will experience?


...Unless the contractual consequences of the original agreement between the UK government and IBM have been carried across (possibly even strengthened), it is difficult to see how the composite service and consequent responsibilities can be understood.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Missed Savings on Government Contracts</title><dc:creator>richard.taylor@concinnitas.co.uk</dc:creator><category>Service Engineering</category><category>Service Science</category><category>Public Services</category><dc:date>2009-04-28T11:59:51+01:00</dc:date><link>http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/7d5ccf6dc7c15c15b1b2914e6a22ae75-10.php#unique-entry-id-10</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/7d5ccf6dc7c15c15b1b2914e6a22ae75-10.php#unique-entry-id-10</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Government and the overseers (in as much as select committees are capable of effective oversight) make much noise about &lsquo;value&rsquo; but seem incapable of distinguishing between value and cost where procurement is concerned.


...I have reviewed many public and private sector projects and the big difference between the two has been that in the public sector, value for money is regarded as &lsquo;lowest cost + whatever baubles we can get&rsquo;, in the private sector, perversely (in one sense &mdash; after all commercial organisations are meant to be short term investors) far more attention is payed to the consequences of investment or the lack of it. 


Why this is so is a matter of conjecture - measuring value is always difficult, but government has become too complacent about assuming, assigning and then measuring value, preferring simpler metrics bacause politicians can understand them and civil servants can measure them easily.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Public Services&#x2c; 150 Languages&#x2c; Lecturing to the US??</title><dc:creator>richard.taylor@concinnitas.co.uk</dc:creator><category>Public Services</category><dc:date>2009-04-26T10:30:36+01:00</dc:date><link>http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/8d3f0054d5df5f08c74626447667fa17-9.php#unique-entry-id-9</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/8d3f0054d5df5f08c74626447667fa17-9.php#unique-entry-id-9</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Reportedly the UK CIO, John Suffolk, has been lecturing our friends in the US on &lsquo;learnings&rsquo; from public sector service development -  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/24/john_suffolk/.   Reports can be misleading but on the basis of the available evidence, the only viable response is to invoke another mathematician:


...Often misquoted as the cause of his retirement http://www.avclub.com/articles/tom-lehrer,13660/
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Measurement and Public Sector Services Performance</title><dc:creator>richard.taylor@concinnitas.co.uk</dc:creator><category>Public Services</category><category>Service Science</category><dc:date>2009-03-11T13:06:43+00:00</dc:date><link>http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/d6e9e44a2d8be8117bbfe2097443f19e-7.php#unique-entry-id-7</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/d6e9e44a2d8be8117bbfe2097443f19e-7.php#unique-entry-id-7</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Add in to the mix the impact on ministers and civil servants of ever having to admit that a particular datum is not available and you have a heady cocktail which leaves government workers of all&nbsp; kinds firmly attached to their desks.


...This requires that organisations adopt a control theory rather than a controlling view of their measurement systems, however the entrenched belief that just one extra measurement will tell you more about the system is a nigh impossible one to shift.


...The essential improvements in our public services, which both our economic and demographic position demands, can only be achieved if the &lsquo;dead hand&rsquo; of pointless measurement and analysis is removed from all of our public services.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>The Dead Hand of the Third Way &#x2013; Filling the Government Coffers</title><dc:creator>richard.taylor@concinnitas.co.uk</dc:creator><category>Public Services</category><dc:date>2009-03-10T11:01:36+00:00</dc:date><link>http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/cd9c00ae93c705073b49646f418a3b9a-6.php#unique-entry-id-6</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/cd9c00ae93c705073b49646f418a3b9a-6.php#unique-entry-id-6</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[In fact the absence of shareholders trying to maximise their portion of the excess earnings of the organisation would imply a less stringent control on salaries within these organisations. 

...Most of the organisations revenue is paid out for supplies and salaries thus attracting either VAT or Income Tax and National Insurance. 

...So maybe the government&rsquo;s preference for third sector is not driven by an ideologically attractive view of charity, but by a pragmatic view of the major routes for tax reduction.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Greener Grass</title><dc:creator>richard.taylor@concinnitas.co.uk</dc:creator><category>Public Services</category><dc:date>2009-02-11T08:27:33+00:00</dc:date><link>http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/d87c6a587d63530376c9a5593a7723d4-3.php#unique-entry-id-3</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/d87c6a587d63530376c9a5593a7723d4-3.php#unique-entry-id-3</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[It is always very tempting to imagine the grass to be greener on the other side of the wall (or border or ocean or...) and the services world is not immune to this. ...  Ignoring the DeAnne Julius report which seems curiously partisan and very unimaginative for an independent study by smart people, it seems that other countries also take the view that the grass is greener - specifically British vegetation (Astroturf?).


Science Progress, a US think tank that concentrates on promoting the understanding of science amongst policy makers has been largely complimentary to innovations in British Innovation Policy of which services, supported by organisations such as NESTA and BERR play a major part. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>James Dyson and the myth of standalone engineer</title><dc:creator>richard.taylor@concinnitas.co.uk</dc:creator><category>Service Engineering</category><dc:date>2009-02-12T18:19:25+00:00</dc:date><link>http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/1833a0f193f87d297d6d1fcb8c7ca7f1-2.php#unique-entry-id-2</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/1833a0f193f87d297d6d1fcb8c7ca7f1-2.php#unique-entry-id-2</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[But, when I read his piece (a polite and well written diatribe) in the British Observer last week bemoaning the lack of recognition for design technology (popularly known as DT in the UK) and the status of the &lsquo;eginuurre&rsquo; in Britain I had to respond.


...What does concern me about Dyson&rsquo;s article however is his almost final throw away paragraph - &lsquo;We've built our modern economy on the service sector&rsquo; - targeting finance and the &lsquo;McJob (by implication) parts of our economy, but in effect damning services as a whole.


...Services are, like it or not, an integral part of any product (and Dyson themselves run a maintenance and repair programme that is very well thought of and must surely underpin even the most humble of vacuum cleaners).
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>National Health Service Woes - again</title><dc:creator>richard.taylor@concinnitas.co.uk</dc:creator><category>NHS</category><category>Public Services</category><category>Service Science</category><dc:date>2009-02-14T21:03:34+00:00</dc:date><link>http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/ead55ffd2274711c6bfcb5708cb8eaf5-1.php#unique-entry-id-1</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/ead55ffd2274711c6bfcb5708cb8eaf5-1.php#unique-entry-id-1</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The British Medical Association is suggesting that the data available through Spine might be provided (assumably via enabling legislation - a mechanism that allows the executive to extend their authority without specific recourse to parliament) to government and other organisations with interests in recruitment and benefit management (to name two areas of the executive that could have an interest in the health of specific people). 


...If the public (who are paying the bills) decide to opt out of the programme, not only will the massive investments we as a country have made already prove to have very much lower returns than had been anticipated, but in fact the entire programme might collapse if the very high participation rates assumed at the beginning of the procurement do not happen - exceptions are very very expensive in large service systems that seek economy of scale.


I don&rsquo;t want to criticise the NHS programme specifically (that might be for another argument), but this does illustrate the need to consider at inception and then continue to maintain a view of the impact of decisions, technical, economic, social and political on the complex services that they support.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Models models everywhere and not a drop of understanding</title><dc:creator>richard.taylor@concinnitas.co.uk</dc:creator><category>Service Science</category><category>Modelling</category><category>Public Services</category><dc:date>2009-02-10T14:47:05+00:00</dc:date><link>http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/ec67f9654f210dfcc9a7a70eb3ae1d94-0.php#unique-entry-id-0</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://concinnitas.co.uk/about/resources/The-Services-Blog/files/ec67f9654f210dfcc9a7a70eb3ae1d94-0.php#unique-entry-id-0</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[At one end, the model makers are interested in exploring the structure of the systems they wish to understand, comparing and contrasting observations with the predictions that their models make. 

...What they are (or should be interpreted as) is a set of windows into reality, each one of which allows the viewer to see and understand a very particular part of the landscape.


...This means that you can carry on your conversations with the many people who can not only help with the structure and the parameters, but you can also make use of different modelling technologies that are most appropriate to the questions being posed.
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