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    • Disaster? What Disaster?

    Friday, May 28th, 2010

    I’m afraid that Data Disasters don’t exist, because we don’t want to believe they exist. It seems that in the esoteric world of noughts and ones, belief matters far more than empirical truth, making a true Data Disaster literally inconceivable.

    Reason and Instinct

    Monday, October 26th, 2009

    I am a firm believer in the need to personalise issues such as education and health care. Unless we can see the effects of our decisions, unless we can put ourselves in a position where we share the burden of their costs and the value of their rewards, we are far too susceptible to error.

    There is, however, a tension between the moral weight of our decisions and their practical implementation. Simply stated, public medicine is costly, time-consuming and requires significant planning and coordination. Vanuatu as a nation has fared poorly in meeting any of these challenges. Money is limited, skilled professionals are thin on the ground and coordination even inside a single hospital is often the result of improvisation, not planning.

    A Tale of Two Telcos

    Friday, November 28th, 2008

    Last week I reported that, in spite of requests for information, neither TVL nor Digicel had responded in time for publication. I’m glad to say that in the days following, both of them contacted me. The way in which they did so was quite interesting to me, so this week I’ll share a few details, mixing them liberally with anecdote and observation of my own.

    The Thermocline of Truth

    Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

    I’m going to let someone else do the writing for this one. I like the metaphor a lot. It helps that it’s true, too.
    I’ll integrate this into an upcoming column sometime soon.

    Walk Like a Dinosaur

    Wednesday, March 26th, 2008

    Michael Krigsman’s most recent entry in the IT Project Failures blog is an interesting, colourfully-illustrated and upside-down look at the relationship between IT and traditional business.
    His question, based on numerous similar postulations, is whether IT is becoming extinct. His answer (you knew it was a rhetorical question, right?) goes like this:
    Since the days of punch [...]