Articles

Fully developed articles focussed on a topic of interest.

The nature of ambiguity

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The following is an excerpt from my thesis, written in 2000. 

Ambiguity is an inherent property of all natural languages, including English (Jespersen 1922; Williamson 1994). Absolute precision of a language is pragmatically undesirable, because the language is unable to adapt to new concepts (Williamson 1994). The communication needed to ensure effective and efficient report production, however, requires complete clarity. Hence, a tension exists between the natural language’s need for flexibility in the long term and the need for precision in the short term. Natural language is at once both dysfunctional and poorly adapted to the functions language needs to perform, yet flexible and broad-based such that it is useable in practice (Chomsky 1990).

Interest in linguistic ambiguity has an extensive history, and has been recognised as a separate branch of study since at least Aristotle’s time (Kooij 1971). Aristotle noted that language must be ambiguous, as a language has limited words but an infinite number of things and concepts to which those words must apply (Kooij 1971).

Russell (1923) recognised that all natural languages are vague and ambiguous. Excluding the realm of mathematical symbolism, constructing completely unambiguous expressions is not possible with the syntax and vocabulary tools available within natural languages (Williamson 1994). To endure and survive, language requires the flexibility to communicate new concepts. Ambiguity necessarily derives from the flexibility of natural language.

Kooij (1971) states that ambiguity arises where a sentence can be interpreted in more than one way. Similarly, Walton (1996) considers a sentence or statement to be more ambiguous as the number of legitimate interpretations of the sentence (or paragraph) increase. Ambiguity implies multiplicity of meaning (Walton 1996).

In classical analysis, the multiplex (Latin for “multiple meaning”) categorisation of Alexander of Aphrodisius (Hamblin 1970) suggests a basis for the identification of categories of ambiguity. In classical literature, Alexander of Aphrodisius identified three categories of ambiguity: potential, actual, and imaginary. Walton (1996) adapts this classical multiplex categorisation to his identified types of ambiguity.

Walton (1996) identifies six classical types of ambiguity in natural language: lexical, syntactical, inflective, pragmatic, emphatic, and suggestive. In addition to Walton’s (1996) taxonomy, extraneous information and noise in the communication can also be a source of ambiguity. Extraneous ambiguity arises where the communication is not parsimonious, or the communication includes information that is not directly relevant to the message being communicated (Fowler and Aaron 1998). Extraneous ambiguity is an actual ambiguity within the Walton (1996) taxonomy.

Each ambiguity type can be independently present within the communication. Walton’s (1996) modified taxonomy and model of ambiguity is presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1
Types of Ambiguity (adapted from Walton 1996)

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Social security

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About this article

In about April I got a phone call asking me if I could write an article very quickly for the CFO Software guide of 2008.  This guide is produced in association with CPA Australia every year, and every so often the Information Technology & Management Centre of Excellence writes an editorial piece related to the topic of the moment (usually).  This time, though, because it was very short notice (I believe the phrase ’10am tomorrow?’ was used), I got to draw a fairly loose association with the topic.  I wanted to write something a little different to the normal business article – although a good and serious article is excellent, it doesn’t achieve much if it is never read, in my view. 

So as a result, I wrote an article on the topic of social networking, and called it ‘business socialism’ – it was subsequently retitled to ‘Social security’.  In an edition where the companion articles are fairly business-focused, my article probably has, as was described in unsolicited feedback, as a ‘tone’.  The Editor’s Letter for this edition notes that the theme of social software and tapping into the wisdom of crowds ‘is picked up enthusiastically by Micheal Axelsen, the chairman of the Information Technology and Management Centre of Excellence for CPA Australia, in his opinion piece’. 

I’m going to take that feedback as positive feedback.  I reproduce the article below as I submitted it, together with an attached scanned copy of the magazine.  If you think you may be the person who has their photograph in FaceBook giving a Nazi salute, perhaps drop me a line on my email. 

Oh, and thanks to Jenny for being very sporting about the fame of her cat, Stitch.

Social security

Once, ‘friends’ were people that you met regularly. Friends went to the movies together. Friends may occasionally have had one beer too many and woke up together on a park bench. Sometimes friends were workmates. Sometimes they were actually your significant other’s friends. You and your friends drifted apart when you changed jobs (or your significant other).

Today, the world is very, very different. The circle of friends expands and grows. Friends that move away can be ‘followed’ with social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace. Because of Facebook, I know that a former colleague has just received a kitten called Stitch. A cute cat, but I have not met that colleague in eight years.

Today, people are Facebooked, MySpaced, and LinkedIn. They Flickr and Twitter and Qik. People blog and they YouTube.

Today’s workforce talks over the internet in myriad ways, at all times and at all opportunities. The line between ‘work’ and ‘leisure’ has become very blurred. Social networking sites can have a real business impact.

Social networking is positive in several ways. For example, searching on a candidate’s name will provide more background than a resume ever will. A footprint on the internet will exist somewhere. Potential employers can be better informed about the candidate. The same approach can be used for prospective suppliers of products or services to the business.

Candidates or suppliers with personal photographs in the Facebook group ‘embarrassing party photos’ may not like this. However, it is not only the young that can have unsavoury photos appear online. At least one Facebook user has shown poor professional judgment by posting a photo of their employer’s grey-haired managing director giving a Nazi salute. The poor fellow probably doesn’t know it exists.

A scan of blogs and other online tools for qualified candidates expressing frustration about their current job may be helpful when recruiting. Head hunting to fill specialist roles can be much easier in this digital world.

On the other hand though, customers with bad experiences services will likely retell their story on the internet. Today’s mobile technologies allow this to occur before the customer has even left the store. Many prospective customers today will perform a search on the business. These customers tend to believe an anonymous internet posting in preference to any information contained in a marketing brochure.

Employees’ activities ‘out of hours’ can also have an impact. The legal liability is at best murky when an employee stalks another employee using social networking tools. When businesses request employees to put their details on MySpace or Facebook as part of a staff recruitment drive, a legal problem may arise very quickly if an employee is stalked, attacked or has their identity stolen using this information.

Likewise, LinkedIn is a popular social networking site for professionals. This website provides a ‘newsfeed’ of the events occurring in your network of contacts. Secrets can be inadvertently given away by staff members setting their LinkedIn status to (for example): ‘Micheal Axelsen is developing a proposal for Can-Do Technologies’. LinkedIn also allows a contact to see their contact’s contacts, which can give an interesting insight into that contact’s marketing activities.

Business should respond in some way. In 2008, the CPA Australia Information Technology & Management Centre of Excellence is writing a guide for business with appropriate policies to adopt for social networking. At the least, we encourage businesses to understand their ‘internet footprint’. A regular search upon the business name, the names of key products, and the senior management team is essential, with Google Alerts a good tool that can alert you to such new content.

Staff should also be aware of the risks and issues for the business and their career when posting information online. At least one Facebook user has been astonished to see photographs of her in an inebriated state. She is desperately trying to get these ‘friends of friends’ to delete the photographs.

The social networking phenomenon is here to stay and will continue to grow. Businesses should review the impact of social networking on their business. There is a need to communicate to all staff the types of appropriate behaviour and content when living out their digital life. Businesses should monitor their ‘internet footprint’ and plan a response when the business is mentioned online. ‘Banning’ social networking is unlikely to be helpful for a company. A sensible and informed approach is important, with an awareness of the potential risks and problems.

Social networking: sometimes, it’s about business. And we mean business.

 

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Business on the move

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The following is an article that was written for BDO Kendalls’ March business briefing on how to implement innovation in business using mobile technologies and how to turn your passion into a business and get something very successful.

Building your business while out and about

Introduction

Business is booming. Queensland has 4% unemployment. Finding new staff is almost impossible (a ‘chokepoint’ for many businesses); the key to success in business is now using the staff you have as effectively and efficiently as possible.

This article explores how to go about adopting some of the hot mobile technologies right now to small and medium-sized businesses, without exorbitant expenditure, to make staff more effective in their roles.
Build a bottom line

The first step in achieving this is to understand the ‘chokepoints’ for your mobile workers in your business and then seek a business solution to resolve it.

Circle of InnovationAs outlined in the diagram, this requires a review of the business, identifying chokepoints (e.g. the need to wait until returning to the office to submit orders), the areas with key impact on the business, and devising and implementing the business solution.

Once the business solution is implemented, review the solution for its effectiveness and look for the next chokepoint in the business.

If you’re selling stuff

Key Impact: Salespeople lose two hours each day through being in the office; orders are also submitted at the end of the day.

Devise Solution: It’s called salesforce automation, and it’s about being able to access real-time customer information, write orders and check inventory on the road and when you’re sitting across from your customer.

Key Impact: Filing and authorisations are inaccurate, out-of-date, and require manual re-processing.

Devise Solution: Electronic Mobile Workflow solutions can result in replacing clipboards and paper forms with electronic devices that immediately capture signatures and information. This removes the need for manual re-processing of the information.

If you’re doing stuff

Key Impact: Customer emergencies are not dealt with in a timely fashion.

Devise Solution: Location-based services allow the business to track their people ‘in-the-field’ so that if a customer emergency crops up, the nearest person can be dispatched to deal with the issue.

Key Impact: Orders are held up until the next available field agent can be on-site and look at the issue.

Devise Solution: Digital evidence-gathering can be used to submit photographs or video/audio recordings in the field to experts who can use that photograph to diagnose a problem before travelling onsite or ordering parts to fix it.

If you’re administering stuff

Key Impact: Telephony costs are increasing and staff miss calls because they are not in the office.

Devise Solution: Internet and Voice-Over-IP technologies mean that the phone line on your desk can be the phone you take with you when you’re out and about. This can improve your business’ ability to support growth as well as making a tidy saving on call costs and hardware costs. In the jargon, it’s called fixed-mobile convergence.

Key Impact: Staff are complaining of work/life balance and issues and requiring more flexibility in working hours.

Devise Solution: With the need for a flexible workforce, it may be possible to use teleworking technologies to allow some staff flexibility in their working hours – for example, working two days a week from home, or from home every second afternoon.

Conclusion

This article has set out only a few of the mobile technologies that are now available to the business to deliver innovation and practical benefits to the bottom line.

Your business has the opportunity to use staff more efficiently and effectively by eliminating the key chokepoints within the business.

These technologies are becoming more affordable every day, and deliver robust solutions that have the potential to transform your approach to business. You need to watch for these technologies and their benefits to your business, because you can be absolutely certain that that is what your competitors are doing.

Getting IT Right!

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This is an article that was written for the February issue of the Queensland Business Review.  It is partly promoting an upcoming ‘Getting IT Right!’ seminar to be held at BDO Kendalls on 21 February 2007.  More information is available on the BDO website www.bdo.com.au.

Introduction

Stories of failing information technology (IT) projects, IT teams that just ‘don’t understand’, lost spreadsheets that contain critical business data, and critical applications that seem to crash for no apparent reason are all too common scenarios. Information technology promises a great deal to all businesses, but often fails to live up to expectations.

These problems cause frustration for all concerned. Unfortunately ‘getting IT right’ cannot be achieved with a simple wave of a magic wand. The current skills shortage shows no signs of abating, and it is important for a business to use its staff effectively. Good business support from information technology is one of the keys to unlocking this effectiveness. Four essential business tactics exist that can assist:

  1. Understand the business strategy
  2. Have the right people
  3. Use standard processes
  4. Use the right technology

These tactics will have a positive impact on the success of your business in the context of the support received from information technology.

Understand the business strategy

An understanding of the business strategy, and the involvement of business in IT decisions, is necessary to avoid an IT team working on the unnecessary projects.

This common problem usually stems from a lack of understanding of the goals and vision of the business when it is tempting to implement technologies that seem to be the correct decisions at the time. Sometimes these decisions are right; frequently, they are not.

A business’s main strategy can be focussed upon product innovation, customer relationships, or operating excellence. Identifying the predominant strategy removes trivial distractions for the IT team. There is little point to significant investment in a customer relationship system where the main focus of the business is upon delivering the best products at the best price. Conversely, for a business focussed upon customer relationships, the priority will be to deliver and operate a customer relationship system.

The business strategy must be clearly communicated to the IT team. A written statement of the business IT strategy is useful (vision, mission, and objectives, together with supporting initiatives and milestones. Even more useful is a cultural emphasis on the importance of the role of IT in achieving the
business vision. Such a cultural emphasis can be achieved through concrete actions (e.g. declining projects that do not support the business strategy) and regular adherence to and acknowledgement of the IT strategic plan.

Aligning information technology to the business strategy will reduce distractions that arise through not having a clear direction of the role and purpose of IT in supporting business goals.

Have the right people

A common problem facing IT teams is that the staffing ratio is all wrong. The wrong staff are doing the wrong jobs for the wrong reasons. For example, a business that employs four network administrators and only one help desk person will likely have a network that works very well at a technical level. Unfortunately, there will be many frustrated end users not receiving the desktop support they require. The result can be business chaos.

IT roles that do not directly support the business strategy should be considered for removal or outsourcing. IT teams regularly have ‘legacy’ roles from the past that are no longer needed or appropriate. A regular review of the roles in the IT area and their alignment to business strategy is a potentially valuable approach.

In addition, end users need the training and skills to use the technology that is provided. Frequently no training is received by IT teams, or end users in the software on their computers, and – especially in the case of upgrades – continue to use the software as it has always been used, without using new features. Adopting a formalised and documented approach to training can be beneficial, but even recognition of the need for training through ad hoc opportunities will bring benefits to the business.

Use standard processes

Often IT teams have only one person who can resolve a problem. Or worse, each team member will resolve the problem in their own way. When the staff member leaves, no-one else can fix the piece of equipment. The end result is chaos and delays for the valuable staff member.

If the same task must be done more than once, the potential for developing a standard process exists. No IT team should be without good help desk software, and ensuring a discipline around managing problems and documenting resolutions will pay dividends. There are free help desk management tools available (e.g. open source solutions) and new social networking tools (e.g. ‘wikis’) for documenting and storing processes and procedures that are inexpensive, simple to use, and easily maintained.

Reviewing the use of help desk management software, and writing procedures for standard tasks (starting with the most common tasks) will repay the business handsomely.

Have the right technology

Technology that is simply wrong for the task at hand, or obsolete, costs businesses a great deal. Excel spreadsheets will frequently be used for tasks that really require a database. Or many technologies will be used where a single technology product would suffice. It is crucial that the right technologies are used for the task at hand. This does not mean that the ‘latest and greatest’ gadgets and gizmos should be adopted, but for a business that is reliant upon IT, it is necessary to have all technology covered by parts replacement warranties.

Technologies that are still supported by the original developers or manufacturers are fundamental to ensuring that the IT team is effective. Limiting the number of technologies to support will also help. Approaches to ensure that the right technologies are used include a statement of the preferred technologies to be used (e.g. identifying a single preferred database technology such as Oracle compared to SQL Server), maintaining warranties on all important business technology equipment, and limiting the use of customised and in-house developed software.

Conclusion

Effective information technology requires that the IT team be provided with the skills and equipment necessary to deliver upon the business strategy. Likewise, the business needs to provide strategic direction and input into decision-making for business information technology.

There are many more tactics that can be adopted by businesses to ensure that IT can deliver upon its promises. This article has highlighted those tactics that are common to most businesses and will have the most positive results. Nevertheless, there are many other tactics that can be adopted that are unique to individual businesses, and must be considered in light of the specific circumstances of the business.

Implementing your online collaboration strategy

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My speaker’s notes (not that they bear much resemblance to what was actually said) are to be found here as a downloadable pdf:  Implementing an online collaboration stategy.  This presentation was given at the Blogs, Wikis, and RSS conference in Sydney on August 29th 2006.

Implementing your online collaboration strategy

We work in a Web World for business outcomes

Introduction

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  My name is Micheal Axelsen, and this presentation focuses on providing a practical guide to the implementation of your online collaboration strategy, with some useful tips and thoughts on how to proceed with the implementation of collaboration technologies, including blogs and wikis, into the business.

This presentation is focussed upon:

  1. Business
  2. Collaboration technologies
  3. How to succeed with their implementation

At all times, though, this is intended to be a practical look at the application of these technologies, and addressing the practical concerns of business.

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