Optimized Failure

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I saw an online conversation about the book How Infrastructure Works by Deb Chachra. In this book that I apparently have to buy, the author mentions that resilient systems are not optimized systems. To have a network, an organization, a team be resilient you need redundancy, slack time, backup, vacation time, whatever. Doing something perfectly doesn’t mean you’ll be able to keep doing it because being able to keep doing it isn’t part of actually doing it.

This is a very obvious statement that very obviously gets missed everywhere. If you’ve ever had to explain to someone that their network needs backup or that the fastest transport route isn’t necessarily reliable you get the idea. I know I’ve been there.

I also think it explains a lot about the brittleness in today’s world. We see collapsing ecosystems, housing prices going out of reach, and stagnant wages. We’re supposedly in this high-tech age with fast deliveries and electronic banking, an optimized age, but it’s fraying isn’t it?

A big part of this is that we figured businesses, hell even government, should all be optimized to one goal – profit. Make money really well, and that’s it! Of course, at that point all you get good at is making money – probably very fast of course. You have quarterly reports to make after all.

I think this means a lot of companies and other organizations are brittle as they’re optimized to just make money. They’re not resilient as they rely entirely on getting as much cash as possible. Sure they can spend that cash when things are painfully non-resilient, to get through bad markets and so on, but it’s not the same as actually enduring. Ask anyone who’s been through a third round of layoffs.

It also means that there’s damage to the resilience of society. Regulatory capture means there’s less resilience brought by laws and policies. Layoffs to protect the bottom line destroy lives. The environment takes a hit from our pollution and dumping and the like. Bought-off politicians avoid doing anything to help people, anything resilient.

Profit-focus is just another form of optimization. Like optimization, it backfires.

Today I hear talk about the kind of larger crisis our world is in. But I think a lot of it comes down to optimizations in profit-seeking. We got so good at turning things into money, we ignored resilience. Now we’re going to have to switch back or face some pretty severe consequences.

I know what order I expect, sadly.

Steven Savage

The Money In Cleanup

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I have an acquaintance that helps migrate businesses off of ancient and inappropriate databases onto more recent ones. If you wonder how ancient and inappropriate let me simply state “not meant for industry” and “first created when One Piece the anime started airing” and you can guess. Now and then he literally goes and cleans up questionable and persisting bad choices.

In the recent unending and omnipresent discussions of AI, I saw a similar proposal. A person rather cynical about AI mused someone might make a living in the next few years backing a company’s tech and processes OUT of AI. Such things might seem ridiculous, until you consider my aforementioned acquaintance and the fact he gets paid to help people back out past decisions. Think of it as “migration from a place you shouldn’t have migrated to.”

It’s weird to think in technology, which always seems (regrettably) to be about forward motion and moving forward that there’s money in reversing decisions. Maybe it was the latest thing and now it’s not, or maybe it seemed like a good idea at the time (it wasn’t), but now you need someone to help you get out of your choice. Fortunately there are people who have turned “I told you so” into a service.

I find these “back out businesses” to be a good and needed reminder that technology is really not about forward. Yeah, the marketing guys and investors may want it, but as anyone who’s spent time in the industry knows, it’s not the case. Technology is a tool, and if the tool doesn’t work or is a bad choice, you want out of it. The latest, newest, fasted is not always the best – and may not be the best years later. Technology is not always about forward, even if someone tells you it is (before they sell you yet another new gizmo).

Considering the many, many changes in the world of tech, from social media to search to privacy, I wonder how much more “back out businesses” might evolve. Will there be coaches to get you to move to federated social media? How can you help a company get out of a bad relationship with a service vendor with leaky security and questionable choices? For that matter can we maybe take a look at better hosting arrangements and websites that aren’t ten frameworks in a trenchcoat?

I don’t know, and the world is in a terribly unpredictable state. But I’m amused to think that somewhere in my lifetime the big tech boom might be “oops, sorry.” Maybe we can say “moving away is really moving forward,” get some TED talks, and make not making bad immediate choices cool.

Steven Savage

Let’s Talk About the Hype Cycle

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I saw someone post about the “AI Hype Cycle” on Mastodon. Against all odds, I’m not going to talk about AI – I’m going to talk about the “Hype Cycle” and the fact we are really too used to it.

You probably have seen this for years – the Hype Cycle for this, the Hype Cycle for that. It’s burned into our brains, probably in part because Gartner actually tried to build a model for it. But we’re now used to the idea that the next Hype Cycle is here, coming, or sneaking up on us.

The thing is a big part of the Hype Cycle is utter bullshit and terrible disappointment. The fact that the Hype Cycle is part of our vocabulary means that we have normalized the idea that we’re being lied to and everyone is going to be bitterly unhappy later, and some lawsuits are going to fly around. We just sort of accept this, it’s been worked into our worldview and our vocabulary.

Everyone even has their roles in this play. There’s the evangelists (who probably made money last Hype Cycle), the skeptics who jump ahead to disillusionment (either understandably or because that’s their role), and so on. Sure some people believe honestly and some disbelieve, but too much of this starts seeming a lot alike.

I’m sure a big part of the Hype Cycle’s existence – and prominence – is because people WILL make money in the latest round of Hype over the Latest Thing. Venture capital streams in, people rush in with the hope of making it this time, and of course the evangelists from last time are on top of it. I also noted the last Hype Cycle for Crypto and NFTs that political actors got on top of it as well, which just amplified things further.

Of course with Crypto it’s still going, but it also seems that every week some techbro half my age goes to jail forever or gets sued for the GDP of a medium-sized country.

But some people make money in the Cycle, a lot of people loose money, and here we go again. Recently in Hype Cycle discussions, I saw a person honestly and sincerely discuss how to prosper in a Hype Cycle bust as a “cleanup consultant” which is brilliantly depressing. I myself have been in IT 30 years and have navigated many a Hype Cycle and I’m kind of done with them.*

But sadly, I think we have to discuss the Hype Cycles to ask why we have to discuss the Hype Cycles. Maybe we need to ask if we can move beyond them into something focused on real results early, on actual caution at the right time, and getting things done.

Steven Savage

* Oh and my secret to Navigating Hype Cycles? Stay aware of trends, don’t get caught up, stick with useful skills that will carry over, and put yourself in a place with real deliverables.