OneWorld

The first of two rounds of the Louis Vuitton challenger series of the America's Cup is finally over. The standings are:

1. OneWorld Challenge (USA)
2. Alinghi (Switzerland)
3. Oracle BMW (USA)
4. GBR (England) and Team Dennis Conner (USA) tied
6. Prada (Italy)
7. Victory (Sweden)
8. Mascalzone Latino (Italy)
9. Le Defi (France)

Changing Times

As the current state administration winds down to a December 2nd change over, the departments are looking back at what reforms they've been able to implement and what has failed. As part of my classes, a group of us met last week with the administrators of the Hawai'i departments of Human Services (DHS) and Human Resource Development (DHRD).

While much has been done, it is interesting to see both indicate there was much more they wanted to do but just ran out of time. To a certain extent, this may be a rationalization about not setting priorities, not being effective, or even not being up to speed when they first came on board. But if you take it at face value, a case could be made for continuity in government.

Be clear I don't mean the politicians should be able to stay longer than eight years, but I think it would be helpful for incoming administrators to carefully review what has come before them and not throw everything out just because they were not the authors of the change (which is usually what happens).

I've been in government service for 18 years now and I've seen administrations come and go. What seems to be a constant is what appears to be an arrogant attitude that the previous administration was mistaken about what needed to be done.

I think the civil service employees, who are the ones that were there before the administrators came and will be there after they leave, need to take responsibility for a smooth transition, for at least the first year, by setting the agenda and getting the new people up to speed on the issues.

I know this in itself may sound arrogant, but it is not intended to be. It is meant to reflect the reality that just as experienced, smart working employees are not interchangeable parts of a machine, so too is it a bit much to expect inexperienced administrators can come in and be effective change agents right from the start.

Good administrators understand that organizations are very complex things and that it takes time to get the lay of the land, as it were. Unfortunately, the one thing that they don't have is time. External and internal forces will begin to occupy the administrators time from day one. Hence, it is the responsibility of the staff to draw a clear map of what has come before, what is happening now, and where the agency is currently headed (and why).

If they don't, we all lose.

This is the start of another busy week so I gotta go - Aloha!

PS Good luck to Ms. Gerlach as she begins her way towards her own weblog.

Silk Purse

Sorry for the late post but I was trying to convert a PowerPoint slide into an HTML 4.x compliant code (silly person - ed.) but gave up after about half-an-hour. So the table below is the quick and dirty information. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The state of Hawai'i is working on creating an intraweb site. Since the people who run the mainframes don't know anything about web sites nor web application development (nor want to learn), the state contracted out the project in September of last year.

Unfortunately, for many reasons here and in New York and Washington, D.C., funding for the project was with held. So what to do? The cost of going with a commercial, i.e., Microsoft solution, was prohibitive. So it was OpenSource to the rescue. The total cost, not including salaries was $350 for some books on installing and configuring the software and about $20,000 for the servers (which would have been required in either case).

See the complete story (in PowerPoint slides - 3.3MB) here from the O'Reilly OpenSource Conference held this past July in San Diego.

Commercial Choice	Cost	OpenSource	Cost
MS Windows 2000 Server	850	Mandrake & RedHat Linux	0
Commercial Web Server	0	Apache HTTP Server & ZServer	0
Relational Database	1,350	MySQL	0
Scripting Language	0	PHP, Python, & Zope	0
Commercial Portal Product	4,000	Zope + CMF + Plone	0
Office Productivity Applications	560	OpenOffice & Abiword	0
Database Integration Engine	1,200	PHP, Python, & Zope	0
Programming IDE	570	jEdit	0
Still Graphics App.	600	Pixia	0
Portal Client Access License	72	Client Access License	0
SQL Client Access License	72	SQL Client Access License	0
Single Server Config	7,650	Single Server Config	0
Cost per developer seat	1,730	Cost per developer seat	0
20,000 Client Licenses	2,880,000	10,000 Client Licenses	0

Mail Call

To: Dan Seto
From: Jan Swijsen
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2002 08:05:38 +0200
Subject: administrators

<quote> ...administrators to carefully review what has come before them and not throw everything out just because they were not the authors of the change ... </quote>

Sadly enough all that changing is almost baked in into the political structure. Well, in America anyway. I mean you don't stand much chance in an election if you say you are going to do basically the same thing as what the current gov(ernement) does because why would people vote for you. On the other hand getting elected (because you promise change) and then doing the simple continuation means you're unlikely to be elected again.

That is a problem for a two party system.

In Belgium we don't suffer that same thing (well in a much lesser degree anyway) because most govs are made up of more than one party. Usually after an election one of the parties stays in gov making sure not everything is changed while the other party (or parties) gets voted out and gets replaced by another one (or two). So we have change but usually there is a lot of continuity as well. The party that stays acts like a storm anchor.

BTW, advanced congrats to the new weblog-ster.

Regards,
Svenson.

Aloha!

Got I have Offer for You

Request for urgent business relationship.

First, I must solicit your strictest confidence in this transaction. This is by virtue of its nature as being utterly, totally, and inconsequentially confidential and 'TOP SECRET'. I am sure and have confidence of your ability and reliability to prosecute a transaction of this great magnitude involving a pending transaction requiring maximum supreme confidence.

We are top official of the Nigerian Pupule-Lingle government contract review panel who are interested in importation of fire wood into our state with funds which are presently trapped in Britney Spears low-rider pants. In order to commence this business we solicit your assistance to enable us transfer into you account the said trapped funds.

The source of this fun is as follows; during the last military coup free and open election here in Nigeria Pupule-Lingleville, the government officials set up companies owned by their spouses and awarded themselves contracts which were grossly over-priced in various ministries. The present civilian government set up a contract review panel and we have identified a lot of inflated contract funds which are presently floating in the central bank of Nigeria Pupule-Lingle ready for payment.

However, by virtue of our position as civil servants and members of this panel, we cannot acquire this money in our names. I have therefore, been delegated as a matter of trust by my colleagues of the panel to look for a idiot whose greed is surpassed only by their stupidity valued partner into whose account we would transfer the sum of US$21,320,419.12(TWENTY ONE MILLION,THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED NINETEEN U.S DOLLARS and TWELVE CENTS). Hence we are writing you this letter. We have agreed to share the money thus; 1. 20% for the account owner 2. 70% for us (the officials) 3. 10% to be use in settling taxation and all local and foreign expenses (accounting to be done by the RIAA and MPA). It is from the 70% that we wish to commence the buying of the electorate to vote our way importation business.

Please, note that this transaction is 100% safe and we hope to commence the transfer latest seven (7) banking days (or by November 5th, which ever is later) from the date of the receipt of the following information by tel/fax; 50-1-555-4190, your company's signed, and stamped letterhead paper, your bank account number, your credit card numbers, your Social Security Number, your birth date, the names of your children and your dog. The above information will enable us write letters of claim and job description respectively. This way we will use your company's name to apply for payment voter registration and re-award the election contract in your company's name.

We are looking forward to doing this business with you and solicit your confidentiality in this transaction. Please acknowledge the receipt of this letter using the above tel/fax numbers. I will send you detailed information of this pending project when I have heard from you.

Yours Faithfully,

Dr. Bu Laia
President for Life

Mike Hunt, Vice President

NOTE; Please quote this reference number (RU/S/TU/PID02) in all you responses.

The above is a parody. Do not send any money. Do not do any of the above. This is a joke. Get a life. The check is in the mail. Objects appear smaller than they are. The door is a jar. There are no differences between Democrats and Republicans. What did the Australians do to make the terrorists hate them?

Mail Call

To: Dan Seto
From: Gary M. Berg
Subject: PowerPoint and HTML
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2002 17:07:49 -0400

www.rdpslides.com (look at PPT2HTML) - I know the author. Saves the images as graphics. The only problem is he just left on vacation to Japan for 3 weeks. I know he set up some ability to get to his mail before he left, but I'm not sure if he can handle registrations while traveling or not.

Aloha!

Bubba Alert

Former President William Jefferson Clinton will be in the islands at the end of this month. He will be attending various Democratic Party rallies but I wonder how much help he will be. If the party was going to bring someone, why not Al Gore? Oh well, what do I know?

Mail Call

From:Don Armstrong
To: Dan Seto
Subject: What did the Australians do to make the terrorists hate them?
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2002 05:32:41 +1000 (EST)

"What did the Australians do to make the terrorists hate them?"

Well, the fact that we have troops in Afghanistan probably didn't help. Likewise the fact that we supported the last war against Iraq's invasion in the Gulf War, and are expected to do the same in the coming rerun.

However, I suspect the big points that made Australians the victims in this attack in the most populous Muslim nation in the world can be summed up in two points: availability (they were there), and East Timor.

A lot of Indonesians still haven't got over the fact that decades after they invaded East Timor, and despite vigorous attempts to suppress or deport the local inhabitants, and resettle Indonesians in the occupied territory, they still lost it. They haven't forgotten that Australians were particularly prominent in the United Nations forces either. And now the Indonesians are worried that they could lose what they choose to call Irian Jaya - otherwise known as the western end of New Guinea - another territory which they invaded.

Regards,
Don Armstrong

Open Government

There is a natural tension between being open and transparent in governmental actions (as opposed to private companies, which as the name implies, you have absolutely no right to know how/when/when/where/why they decide anything) and wishing to be as efficient as possible. But I would contend that, wherever possible and prudent, the balance should be tipped towards oneness and transparency.

But first, let's agree that there are three areas in which public agencies maintain information that should remain confidential under most circumstances. For example, personal information such as your Social Security number, your home address and phone number, and your medical records. Law enforcement, the military, and national security agencies also gather and maintain certain information which, if made public, would make their job impossible, if not deadly. The final area is a bit harder to define and this is where many problems occur. Namely, where the release of information would prohibit the legitimate operations of a governmental agency.

If government were based on the private economic business model, you would not be able to find out anything about its operations. If you wanted to know what the policy on Iraq was you would be told to do an anatomical impossibility. If you wanted to know what kind of benefits you may be eligible for, you would be told you aren't and you wouldn't have any way of confirming that, short of perhaps filing a law suit.

On the other hand, government would run very efficiently because there would not be any pesky interference from the public. Insider deals could be made without worrying about John Q. Public finding out about it. Mistakes could be made and no one would be held accountable for it. Graft and corruption would flourish with no one the wiser. Laws could be passed without debate. Rules could be swiftly promulgated without public input. All this would happen until, of course, the government collapsed. But by then, it would be too late.

Fortunately, government is not organized under the business model. Even to this day, with the corrosive effects of special interests, government must be responsive to the public. Meetings must be held in public. Decisions must be justified. The public must be heard.

Yet, nothing is absolute. Everyday, decisions must be made and the balance between oneness and efficiency must be found. So, in your own companies, do you come down on the side of openness that asks first what is the harm in releasing something or do you come from the side that asks why something should be made known and what negative things might the person receiving the information do with it?

As for me, I believe the public has the right to know how government operates. But I seem to be in a minority here. Much is marked confidential. Not because there would be harm in releasing the information, but because someone has made a unilateral decision that you don't need to have the information, and even if you had it, what possible use could you have for it?

To me, this comes from one of two places. Either these people are arrogant and feel the know what's best for everyone or they simply don't understand what their proper role is and how they rend the fabric of trust and confidence in government when they act that way.

In either case, the line between openness and efficiency is moving very much towards efficiency and I do not believe this is a Good Thing. Think about it, and then you decide.

Monopoly Madness

Lord willing, and the crick don't rise, we will be moving to the back house on the first of November. Before that occurs, we have to arrange for the utilities to be switched over. Most utilities are monopolies. And for the most part, that's probably the most efficient way of doing things. But there are costs associated with monopolies.

One of those costs is the lack of responsiveness to their customers. For example, our cable TV supplier. Their billing cycle runs from the 20th to the 20th. Since we are moving on the first, and since a move is considered a break in service, even if there isn't a break in service, they will issue a credit for the period of November 1st through the 19th. Then, they increase my first bill at the back house by including that same period, plus the first full month's charge. Why do all this accounting when, in the end, it will come out the same?

And then there's the telephone company. They charge $45 for the change over. It is done automatically by computer because the the house is already wired and there is no need for anyone to come out to the house to do anything. Why charge $45 for something that costs them pennies in computer time and electricity? Because they can. Oh, if you want someone to actually come out to the house? Well, they will gladly do that, at a cost of $75/hour with a one hour minimum.

The only company that we have to deal with that is responsive is the moving company. Of course, they are not a monopoly so they have to provide as efficient service as possible. If they don't, their competitors will. So they will be coming next week to do a free estimate. The estimate will be to the quarter hour. When the actual move occurs, we pay only for the actual time used. The only thing I don't like is their clock starts from the time they leave their base to the time they return. Although, I guess that's fair since there is an opportunity cost involved.

Oh well, once we are moved in, we can have the repairs to the front house completed and get it rented out.

Have a Great Weekend Everyone - Aloha!