X : What's happening at #reInvent?
Me : I'm not there. I'll catch up later. No rush.
X : Anyone I should follow?
Me : Oodles of people. Generally @holgermu and @rwang0 ... keep a tab on their feeds.
X : Anything you're looking for?
Me : Off the top of my head ... carbon metrics on Lambda functions, hints of Lambda heading on chip, pointers towards conversational programming, open access to supply chain data and something on capital flow.
X : Will that happen?
Me : No idea.
Look, just sit back and enjoy the show ... there will be things that make us all go "ooooh".
Unless you're in one of those businesses being harvested in which case you'll be going "arrrggghhh".
X : And?
Me : And what?
X : What do you think of re:Invent?
Me : I've been busy. Anyway, the real substance doesn't usually arrive until @Werner keynote. That's the one you don't want to miss and that's Thursday.
X : Why that keynote?
Me : It's an engineering company and so that's where the focus will be. Eventually the McKinsey types will infect the place and engineering will become an afterthought but then we'll be talking about the death of AWS etc. Hopefully, not for a long time.
X : Is that your signal for the loomng death of a great company?
Me : Infection by McKinsey types ... oh, yes. You know it's the path of doom when they're lighting your direction. Lots of focus on extraction, cost cutting, maximising shareholder value etc ... doom, doom and doom.
X : Supply chains?
Me : Yep. Oh look - aws.amazon.com/aws-supply-cha… ... let us be blunt, without a decent understanding of supply chains (and most organisation are very poor at this) then all our carbon reduction efforts are just wishful thinking.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
X : Do you ever do strategy consultancy work?
Me : No
X : Why not?
Me : There's no such thing. Strategy cannot be separated from delivery and execution, no matter how much "strategy consultants" would like it to be. I don't write strategies that I'm not running.
X : But you have patterns of gameplay.
Me : I'll teach people generic patterns of play, how to think about scenario planning, how to map, how to organise etc. But that's a long way from strategy ... it's more akin to "how to use a hammer" and it doesn't make you an architect.
X : So, you won't write me a strategy on ...
Me : No more than I'll play a game of chess on your behalf. If you are playing the game, you have to learn to play. I'll teach you some basic moves but you are on your own when it comes to the game.
Watched @simon_schama "History of Now" episode 1 ... very enjoyable, nothing unique or different but lots of quaint touches. Covers the familiar ground of how art can alter values and behaviours in a collective.
One concern ...
... he talks of "great" art, I hope this is in the literal sense rather than genres. Througout history we've tended to dismiss new forms of art as "lesser" ... we did this with film, with radio etc. Today's "great" art of rebellion will probably emerge in interactive video games.
Anyway, enjoyable series so far ... well, episode one was enjoyable.
Competition is the act of seeking and striving towards some goal with others, it has many forms ... fighting with others (conflict), working with others (collaboration) and helping others (co-operation).
Often, these parts are mixed. For example ...
... in a game of football, each team is in conflict to win over the other but each team collaborates and co-operates within itself to achieve this goal but even so, the members of the team can still conflict with each others i.e. who is the best striker, the best defender ...
... this is all competition.
I mention this because, today is England vs USA and as much as I love my friends from the US, I hope your team sucks and we win :-)
X : Thoughts on China?
Me : It's a country?
X : Lockdowns ... "China's COVID infections hit record as economic outlook darkens" - reuters.com/world/china/ch…
Me : I suspect China is thinking about the future and whether the economic impact from long COVID is likely to be far worse.
X : How bad is long COVID?
Me : First you need to consider the number of people suffering with long covid, whether it increases with reinfection, cofactors, other long term complications with other diseases and how severe the impacts are. There is a lot to be cautious about.
X : How common is this?
Me : In the UK, we have around 2M people reporting that they are experiencing long COVID (ONS - ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…). About 3% of the population.
With the privatisation of energy, I have increased choice. Over the years I have invested in a solar array with batteries, invested in decent insulation, invested in energy saving. Today, my total power bill (on a cold day) will be around £1.50.
My agency has increased but ...
... most people in the UK do not have the capital (money, time, skill) to invest in such. Privatisation and disitribution have increased the agency of a few but reduced the agency of many. Distribution is not a panacea for exclusion, it will often make things worse ...
... this is why all such infrastructural services whether power, water, telecoms, education, healthcare, banking, housing or even social media should be nationalised or controlled by national companies. Markets bring choice to a few but exclusion to the many ...
X : How long do your research projects take?
Me : Normally a year.
X : Can you do it faster?
Me : Quality suffers. For example I can give you an answer now but it'll be something I made up.
X : What about six months?
Me : This is not a linear process.
X : Can't we use AI to do research?
Me : Sure, for document search, text analysis and links between things that have been codified.
X : That seems like a no?
Me : I'm not sure how we "AI" stuff that we don't even have the words to describe.
X : ?
Me : Look into the production of new scientific terms. For research then an AI system must be able to discover i.e. to codify a previously uncodified concept that describes some concrete observation. I'm not saying that's impossible, it obviously isn't ... we do it.