Endless Knots

"So many drunk drivers"

Cartoon by Gary Varvel, editorial cartoonist for The Indianapolis Star

Back to my least favorite subject - phones and driving. Remember my incident in Newtonville a few weeks back when a woman wielding a very large white SUV screeched to a halt in lieu of running me over then screamed at me for pointing out that she was on the phone?

You can figure this one out, smart readers. Yesterday, and approximately two miles from the original crime scene, that very same woman almost drove into our car. Guess why?

She...was...on...her...#%@#one.

This time she was pulling out of a parking lot. Mindlessly and carelessly.

So today (no, she doesn't figure into the next part), another SUV driver, phone to ear, swerved around a car making a perfectly legal right turn on our street and of course did the near-wheelie thing to avoid us, causing the one driving my car to say, "So many drunk drivers."

There oughtta be a law.

Kamensky: "Using czars and commissions to govern"

Encouraging everyone to click right on over to John Kamensky's post, "Using czars and commissions to govern." John, who's a Senior Fellow at the IBM Center for the Business of Government, has been keeping tabs on new thinking in government for a long time.

We first met in 1993 when we were advising Vice President Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government, where John served as deputy director.

In the post I'm referencing here, John talks about the use of alternative appointments, such as czars, and organizations, like commissions, to cut through some of the government morass - and shines a little light on (disclosing self-interest) OrgScope and its use to track recovery funds, as per a couple of posts here over the past few days. Thanks, John!

Twitter in plain English

You know I'm a fan of the folks at Common Craft, who have the unique ability to translate the strange world of new media into words that just-plain-folks can understand. They have a whole series of "...in plain English" videos, some of which I've written about here.

While writing a description of an upcoming Twitter session that I'm moderating for the Enterprise 2.0 conference here in Boston June 22-25, I found this one, which I'm posting for everyone who's asked me about Twitter, Web 2.0, or anything else that wasn't a word, phrase, or idea, say, 20 minutes ago.

Be advised: this explanation focuses on the use of Twitter with friends. There are countless other uses - from emergency work to news to marketing to customer service to...you name it. Keep it short and it Twitters just fine.

A work of Taste

Cappuccino by Nik Krankl
Taste, March 20, 2009
Photo by Stuart Sadick

Mapping the recovery - "follow the money" - part 2

Lost in the firestorm over AIG bonuses yesterday was a quiet announcement by Attorney General Eric Holder that laid another solid plank in the government's structure of transparency and accountability. Michael J. Sniffen's AP story, "AG overturns strict Bush-era information disclosure rules," has a cutline summarizing the change underway in Washington: "Agencies urged to release records unless law forbids," i.e. there's an a priori bent toward openness. The AG was way ahead of schedule with this, acting earlier even than the May 21st deadline for policy directives implementing President Obama's Open Government initiative, established by the very first acts of his administration (see "Obama's Midnight Memos).

With the presumption of release of government information, transparency and trust take a big step forward. Which brings us to the second part of "Mapping the Recovery" (see part 1) in our NetAge Reports series. Here, we address the specifics of the data that will be used to provide transparency and accountability for the chunks (block grants) of spending, particularly of the $787 billion passed by Congress in February.

It is especially important that tracking the expenditures be done correctly and that it truly makes responsibility and accountability clear. Renewed public trust rides so heavily on how this money is spent. While AIG's shenanigans show how difficult it can be to engender trust at the recipient end of spending, particularly in the private sector, the government has an opportunity to increase trust in itself, in how it is handling this money, and making sure responsibilities are clear. Done properly, this builds social capital, quite literally, that will make other parts of the multiple critical agendas possible.

Geek (or wonk) warning: this part of the story, below the break, is more than a little geeky (and plenty wonky--a bit of each). We discuss the data that is required for reporting the recovery funds, then what's missing. Specifically, what's missing is the organizational chart of responsibilities--which is not so hard to fix.

We've created a prototype map of the network of relationships called for in OMB's recovery reporting requirements. We illustrate our example with a dummy grant at the end of a real recovery program, which we show in four views: the government agency responsible for the grant, the grant recipient (whom we're inventing in this example) who will be held accountable, the physical location of the grantee, and and the overall purpose of the grant program. You can see the recovery network model live in your browser (wait a moment for the Java to load), and trace the grant along four axis as described below.

-- Jeff Stamps

What’s in the Recovery Picture?

Accountability starts with transparency of details. What, exactly, will we know about each block of money? How will we find it, track it, and understand it?

In network lingo, the recovery data model laid out in the OMB memo specifies six nodes, including the grant node. Each node has a unique ID situated in a defined classification system, and it has a line of text that describes it, a memo field, if you will, providing a name or title. The six nodes are:

• Grant block, a chunk of money with its record ID;

• Responsible agency, with a Treasury Account Symbol (TAS) code;
• Program vehicle, identified by a code in the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) which provides a wealth of purpose-related categories to sort grants by;
• Agency account, the extension of Treasury’s TAS code;
• Recipient of the funds, identified by a Dun & Bradstreet number (DUNS), which, like the program’s CFDA code, provides entry to an array of associated details and purpose-related classification systems (e.g., sector, industry); and
• Place, the physical location of the recipient, completely defined in the data model by an address with a zip code and a city, county, and state Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) code, which enable easy association with political districts benefiting from the funds.

The grant block record laid out in the initial guidance (see Figure 2) means, for example, we can follow a grant to a zip code, which puts this chunk of money in the context of a nested set of legal and political jurisdictions capped by states. Simultaneously, the same record can be represented in a variety of other classification systems, such as one organized by purpose (CFDA, the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance) or by a chart of accounts (TAS).

Links between nodes are either contained in the data record for each grant block (e.g., all the levels of address are specified) or are implied by an external classification system (e.g., the program code is part of the CFDA and nestled in tree structures there).

The grant block record laid out in the initial guidance (see Figure 2) means, for example, we can follow a grant to a zip code, which puts this chunk of money in the context of a nested set of legal and political jurisdictions capped by states. Simultaneously, the same record can be represented in a variety of other classification systems, such as one organized by purpose (CFDA, the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance) or by a chart of accounts (TAS).

Links between nodes are either contained in the data record for each grant block (e.g., all the levels of address are specified) or are implied by an external classification system (e.g., the program code is part of the CFDA and nestled in tree structures there).

What’s Missing? Responsibility

The OMB model for “following the money” is missing the organization itself, the codes that place the grant within a chart of responsibilities.

There are two pieces of data missing.

• First is the position responsible for each grant; and

• Second, where appropriate, the name of the person serving in the authorizing position.

Thus, for completeness and transparency on the input side—not just the output side–two more fields (with both a unique ID and a name/title) need adding to the recovery data model (see Figure 3).

Making the Recovery Map

The network logic of responsibility-accountability—a directed link between two nodes—provides a simple way to connect the key elements associated with each chunk of money. To illustrate, we connected four trees into a prototype network map of the recovery spending, including the missing organizational hierarchy. Each chunk, each block grant, shows up in four ways: by granting organization, recipient of the grant, the program and purpose for which it is used, and the recipient location.

As recovery dollars flow, so will the data stream start, and the mapping will be easiest. We have created an OrgScope model to demonstrate what a cross-linked network model might look like using an actual grant program by the NIH for external research facilities and an illustrative grant to a hospital in our city of Newton, MA (see org chart strip in Figure 1 in part 1).

• For the organizational side, we used our network map of the top levels of the US Government (click to see this map live). To the existing org chart, which included NIH, we added the string of positions ending in a specific (dummy) grant block to Newton-Wellesley Hospital;

• Program category and type is modeled with a simplified outline of the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (see CFDA.gov);
• Recipient type is illustrated through general categories of sector and industry; and
• Place is represented by a location map of Massachusetts organized by county (Middlesex), city (Newton), and zip code (02462, Newton Lower Falls).

Relationship chains relating a grant to the four major spokes of the recovery-spending wheel can be seen in the Figure 4 overview and the strings of connection shown in Figure 5 (see the live OrgScope map of these relationships). Of these, three have well-established classification systems (zips, DUNS numbers, CFDA). For the fourth, the government chart of responsibility for the funds, our digital org chart is a start to locating the program within the government structure. However, the government’s map of itself could and should extend to reach at least the program, if not the program officer levels.

It would not be too difficult to create an open government network map. At the top of departments and agencies, a few thousand positions in total are detailed in org charts that can be easily connected together, as we have shown in our publicly available USGov OrgScope map of many of these positions. For the two million or so civil service jobs, much of the information needed to assemble them almost automatically into org charts is just sitting there in federal financial systems. OMB may have much of it. The rest is in the many government human resource and information technology systems. Hooking the whole thing together is mostly a one-time expense of time and IT resources, and a process can easily be set up to refresh the basic data.

Transparency of organizational structure enables people both inside and outside the government to understand better the bureaucratic whole. By connecting the many bits of information into a coherent, shareable picture of our common government, we develop trust, hold one another accountable, and think through solutions with many minds.

Figure 5: Illustrative Grant in Four Interrelated Contexts

 

Mapping the recovery - "follow the money" - part 1

AIG. Again. Let us add our voices to the outcry over the bonus scam. Outrageous. Worse than outrageous is the damage it does to the Obama agenda, particularly the still critical moves to come on the economic rescue plan, as Tom Friedman pointed out in a March 18 opinion column in the New York Times.

What to do? On the recipient side of bailout funds, it will always be difficult to get real transparency and build trust. However, on the input side, the government itself, there is a lot that can be done.

But there's something even more disturbing than the AIG bonuses themselves.

It has to do with an aspect of transparency that is getting a bit of short shrift, in our opinion. There's a lack of visibility into the clear responsibility within government for overseeing the use of so many billions, this oversight, so to speak, from no less an authority than President Obama. Jennifer Loven and Martin Crutsinger's AP story reported in today's Boston Globe quotes the president: "Nobody here was responsible for supervising AIG and allowing themselves to put the economy at risk by some of the outrageous behavior that they were engaged in. We are responsible, though. The buck stops with me. And my goal is to make sure that we never put ourselves in this kind of position again."

Responsibility is the flip side of accountability, two roles in one relationship. While AIG is accountable, the government is responsible. Clarifying--making transparent--the structure of responsibility, aka the org chart (see our dynamic map of the top levels of the US Government in your browser, which takes a moment to load), is one way the government can directly increase the public's trust and govern more effectively. This is a much more direct route to developing trust, and will apply much more broadly across the multiple complex agendas of this administration.

To this point, we've written "Mapping the Recovery," another NetAge Report, this one on transparency, accountability, and responsibility particularly as they apply to tracking the recovery spending as laid out by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). We are posting Part 1 today (after the break below). In this first part, we describe the network of accountability and responsibility, and how the accounting system IS NOT the organizational system, although it sort of looks like it. In the second part, which we'll post tomorrow, we  look specifically at how OMB has set up the data to track the recovery funds, how its multiple elements can be mapped, and, most important, what's missing (hint--responsibility).

-- Jeff Stamps

Five points and a birthday for Taste

These things don't really belong together but alas the joy of blogging.

Although we live mere moments from Boston (eight miles by the odometer), we're also blessed with many woods nearby--Hamlin in Wayland, Paine in Weston, Lincoln Conservation Land near the DeCordova Museum, Elm Bank Reservation in South Natick, and, of course, Cold Spring Park right here in Newton, just to name a few whose paths we tred on a regular basis.

Should you ever come across something like this in any of those woods, know that someone near and dear to me, one celebrating a birthday today, marks the woods in which he runs when many paths converge. On Sunday, we found that this one for five paths had survived yet another winter at Paine.

Belle, at 14, still can make the trek, with a bit of huffing and puffing, so here she is too, surveying the snow, even as we were just in our shirtsleeves.

And now on to Taste, which celebrated its first birthday this past week. Packed, as you can see, when we were there on Saturday, no less because there was a trio playing - percussion, voice, and keyboard. Very nice - and the cappuccino was great too. Congrats to Taste!

Shirky: "Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism."

Clay Shirky's Friday the 13th essay on his blog, "Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable," is being linked left and right because it is original and provocative. I call it an essay because it's way more than a post, extraordinarily thoughtful. It's got the whole package - the history of newspapers, never mind the printing press, and the central point that, regardless of how the information reaches us, we need journalism, even if we don't know precisely what vehicle will deliver it in the years to come. A very nice follow-on to my tearful post about the demise of The Rocky.

Audrey Niffenegger's singular moment

The literary publishing world possibly made history this week when Audrey Niffenegger, the author of The Time Traveler's Wife, scored a "close to" $5 million advance for her next book, "Her Fearful Symmetry." (Why is one title italicized, the other in quotes? According to the "rules," ital after publication, quotes before, yes?)

Before I get into the historic nature of the sale, this: The Time Traveler's Wife is an inventive novel whose "scenes" (the book's structural trope) have stayed with me years after consuming it, nearly in one sitting. A visual artist first, Niffenegger's pictorial skill translated so well into her writing that the novel's vignettes, strung together out of sequence (and thus causing the reader to really have to think) were so carefully "drawn" that many left me not only with pictures but with scents. Above all, the aroma of coffee, the emotional aphrodisiac that holds the two literally out-of-synch lovers together.

Audrey Niffenegger (there's more info at this Wikipedia link right now than at her site) teaches at Columbia College Chicago (not the one that's part of the famed New York university), which is its own miraculous story in education, having nearly died in the early 1960s, then revived, in part because of educating returning Vietnam War veterans, but that's not the point of this post...

...Which is that it's possible Niffenegger's advance is the largest ever paid to a woman for literary fiction.

There's no easy way to prove this. I've done my usual googling around and learned that Mary Higgins Clark, the mystery writer, received a $64 million advance for five books in 2001. And of course spy novelists like Tom Clancy get the multi-millions (same article).

But for a fine writer of literary fiction, which is where I'd place Niffenegger, I'm wagering that she's the first woman in that category to get such a capital commitment from a publisher, in this case Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster.

In the small world of writers and publishing aficionados that I frequent (where people care intensely about such things), I've seen mixed response--from jealousy (endearing because of its honesty) to anger (if she gets so much, the rest of us get less) to good business thinking (she sold 4 million copies of her last book so she's likely to earn out this advance).

Her own agent, Joe Regal, posted a comment on another agent's site where people were discussing whether news of the sale was deliberately leaked or not, explaining why he wanted to keep the auction under wraps. Publishing can be its own brutal world (not his words, just a little hard-won experience) and what's truly important, Regal does in fact say, is the quality of the work. He believes in the new novel, as he did in Niffenegger's first. Notably, she'd finished the manuscript before selling it--and foreign rights were already picked up in five markets, according to Publishers Weekly. The NY Times' Motoko Rich ran a short piece with the news hinting of the auction's results; countless other sites picked up on it.

Beyond the possible historic nature of the sale (someone prove me wrong), the transaction is noteworthy, of course, because of our precarious economic times. Publishers are retrenching; the death of the literary novel is a regular feature assigned out to the few remaining reporters on the book beat; Kindle; shrinking ad revenues; book stores closing like blooms in the night; the downers go on (or down).

Against all this, something miraculous has happened. A very good imaginative writer has sold what appears to be another excellent book. That she is given her reward in advance (writers don't have to pay back advances if they deliver completed manuscripts in accord with contract terms) is spectacular and for this I hereby deliver this virtual bouquet of admiration and congratulations, rendered, naturally, in words.

The life of the indie consultant - 2 (ouch, collections)

Another in the irregular series (if you can say two constitutes same...), this prompted by so many people finding themselves with the title "consultant" without necessarily having chosen the profession. No need to elaborate on why, do I?

This post is about one truly unglamorous aspect of consulting: billing.

Herewith, a few things I've learned.

1. Some companies are wonderful when it comes to paying. The magic words go something like this: "Just send me the invoice." Chief among them was the firm for which Jeff and I did a three-month project. We sent an invoice; they paid it. No discussion of fees, no whining about budgets. Maybe a week passed before they paid, sometimes several weeks. Heaven for small firms for whom cash flow is oxygen.

2. Having said that, I must also note: The same firm has a European branch that doesn't do business with American firms. Call it discrimination but alas...to do business there, we had to form a European firm. Not kidding. Expensive, time consuming, and all the other things you can imagine, including currency exchange, which, by the way, has swung back to the dollar's favor.

3. Every company has its own rules for paying. Some are more arcane than others, viz. Digital Equipment Corporation (and the only firm I'm mentioning by name since they're out of business, no connection, I'm certain :) to which we submitted, I'm guessing, dozens of invoices over an eight-year period. Being paid by DEC was its own specialty. After I mapped the 19-step flow chart of signatures, invoice rejections, and just-plain-stopped-in-the-water moments, I started to receive calls from other consultants seeking advice on how to be paid.

4. Some companies will negotiate their rules. It's always worth asking, even if you fear annoying the actual client. The trick here is to not mention it to the actual client. Go directly to the Accounts Payable department. And, if you're polite, you might get somewhere. Obvious hint: ask for the shortest terms possible. The bigger the company, the harder this may be to do but of course the bigger the company, the smaller your tiny invoice (comparatively speaking) is anyway. Even a multi-hundred-thousand name-your-currency invoice is not going to break a multi-billion dinero firm. What looks big to you is not what the big consulting firms charge anyway and probably not as big as the bill of the cleaning company. Terms you're looking for: "On Receipt" is the very best, and very difficult to get. Net 10 is more likely. Net 30 is more typical. Do everything you can to resist Net 45.

5. When a rule seems unfair even after negotiating, continue to discuss it. Case in point: I'm waiting on an expense reimbursement for something I did a couple of months ago. Expenses, got it? Agreed to do the gig for the publicity value (believe me, you'll do lots of these over the years). I've already described the bit about the company refusing to pay without my providing my home address. Still no check after that got sorted, so following perhaps eight volleys of emails, I wrote again. Brief reply: 45 days. Got it? Expense reimbursement. No contract, a just-send-me-the-receipts thing. And truly small change. So we're back to the email volley. The person relaying the rules is on my side. We'll see what happens.

6. Arrange for a deposit to be paid when the work begins, with regular payments along the way when milestones are met. Mind you, the deposit may not come until long after the "net" period earns out but it's better than waiting for the first milestone, then billing, which gives you Net 60 or more.

7. This is so obvious it shouldn't have to be said but here it is: issue your invoices in a timely manner. You can't hold your client responsible if you forget or are resistant to billing. Your fault. Grow up and send the bill.

8. Finally, issue invoices with interest penalties when payments are late. Most big companies won't pay them but the threat seems to help. We've had very large firms call and ask us to forgive the interest because there was some kind of problem in their "system."

Which reminds me...you'd be surprised at how many problems big companies have with their systems. Recently, and repeatedly, we've been told that companies are installing new systems and that, unfortunately, our payment will be made in the following month, or, they're terribly sorry, perhaps even the month after that. I know they're sorry but not as sorry as me.

I'm done. And I'm still waiting for the reimbursement.