I just got the confirmation that tomorrow, Saturday, December 3rd 2011, will be a good day to visit the TePee Rock Bar in Limassol, Cyprus. The Zilla Project – a heavy blues band will be performing live. The show starts at 23:00. I have no clue about the tickets, but most shows in TePee are free, minus the beers.
Although I have other plans for the weekend, there is a light chance that I might make it. Are you coming?
When Barack Obama got elected the President of the USA, there was a lot of hope around the world. Hope, I think was the single word you could use to describe all the noise around it. Sure, the first black president, the first presidential candidate to seriously use the Web and social networks, all the talks about change and “Yes, we can”. It gave hope. But since he actually became president, the realities of the real life kicked in. Things are not as simple as they seem. Even for the presidential candidates.
Regardless of how many promises he fulfilled or failed to fulfill, I still think that the election of Barack Obama as the President of the US was an important step forward. One particular area that I think he made an important contribution to is Open Government. And no, I am not a complete idiot, and I don’t think that the US government is now open and transparent, without any corruption. It is not. But it is much better than it was even a few years ago. And most importantly, the issue of government openness and transparency has been promoted by Barack Obama from a nice tea talk subject to one of the primary presidential candidates’ concerns. There is little choice left for all the future candidates – they WILL have to talk about it and, consequently, do something about it. Even if they try to avoid the issue altogether, I don’t think they can anymore. Not for a long term.
Slashdot reports today that Barack Obama pushed the game one more step. He ordered all federal agencies to digitize all their records.
President Obama this week issued a directive to all federal agencies to upgrade records management processes from paper-based systems that have been around since President Truman’s administration to electronic records systems with Web 2.0 capabilities. Agencies have four months to come up with plans to improve their records keeping.
Now that’s huge!
And it’s not a simple project at all. If you think it is or if you can’t imagine what it takes, here is an informative Slashdot comment that explains a tiny part of it, just enough for you to get the idea of the complexity involved.
There’s the first problem. It’s never simple.
First issue – if you’re going to put documents in, you’re going to want to get them out. How do you search for them? You’re going to want to define the metadata, and that’s a headache. Got lawyers? They’ll want client and matter. But those fields are just about meaningless to anyone else. How do you resolve the incompatibility? Do you use different forms for different groups of users? How will the engineering department find the subpoena papers that the lawyers filed?
What fields are globally useful? Are they so generic that any search will retrieve hundreds of documents? Conversely, are they so specific as to make your metadata field selections horribly long and therefore ambiguous? (Free text metadata? Let’s not go there.)
Remember that you’ve got to fill in that metadata any time you add a document. What’s the balance between useful and annoying? Too many fields and nobody will want to fill it in. Too few, and you won’t be able to find anything.
That’s for new documents. When you first implement a DMS, you have a truckload of documents to be imported. You’re not going to do it manually, you’re going to use an auto-import. But how do you define the metadata for all those millions of documents you’re importing? What if you have client/matter, for instance? Hopefully they’re all already sorted, and you can use something like Kofax Capture, a seriously powerful and fast scanner, and separator sheets on which you can do forms recognition to define the metadata fields. But there’s a lot of work involved up front to get that import working properly.
Don’t forget the OCR. Hopefully all your paper documents are clean and will OCR nicely, so you can do full text indexing.
Security. Better get that set up right. Profile level security? It’s more secure, but people will complain that they don’t know if a document is there and they just need to request access because profile level security means if you don’t have permissions to access a document it won’t even show up in your search results. Groups. And by the way, remember to define the permissions on all those millions of documents you’re importing.
Version control. How do you control check in and check out? Do you control check in and check out, or just audit it?
I’ve only just scratched the surface of a document management system. Then there’s records management. You’ll want to make sure your system is DoD 5015.2 compliant. Setting up the retention schedules…hopefully you’ve got a records retention policy already, otherwise that’s months worth of work to define those policies and ensure you comply with all regulatory requirements while still balancing your need to purge/archive old records.
How does something even become a record? Hopefully you’ve already got knowledgeable librarians (yes, that’s what they’re called), and you just need to train them on your new RM system.
Are all your boxes already barcoded? Your RM system should be able to register where a record is – building, shelf, box.
You’re probably getting the idea. The technology is easy. The processes are complicated, and they get exponentially more complicated as the size of your client base grows.
As I said, I don’t think that this is the final and ultimate solution. But it is an excellent step forward. Once again, this gives me hope that things will eventually become way better than they are now.
Cyprus Mail reports:
A SEX WORKER in Nicosia’s old town yesterday spoke out after a heated altercation with residents and police outside her place of work on Tuesday night. “I’ve been in the business on this street for six years, and now all of a sudden the neighbours remember to get annoyed” the 49-year-old told the Cyprus Mail.Â
I’ve heard this excuse so many times and even used it myself a few times. But if you think about it for a second, you’d realize that it’s plain silly. If something wrong is going on and it annoys you and you don’t do anything about it for a long period of time, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do anything about it forever. There is a breaking point for everything.
“I do not bother anyone and if they do not like my line of work, then they should help me get out of it, not persecute me.”
Obviously, you do bother someone. And even though they probably should help you to get out of this line of work, they don’t have to. After all each one of them makes an effort on his own not to get into it. And each one of them succeeds, so why shouldn’t you?
Not that I have anything against this line work.
Residents complained that clients of the sex worker would often wander on the street in their underwear or completely naked, while some drunken clients would even urinate outside their doors.
“Several cars pass by every night, blowing their horns and shouting at the sex worker” said another neighbour.
There we go against “I do not bother anyone”. Maybe not you, but your clients do.
Mavrou said that the authorities had encountered serious difficulties in proving the pimping charges due to the vagueness of the current legislation on prostitution.
According to police, the legislation is unclear as to whether brothels can operate in residential areas or anywhere else, while the circumstances by which a person engages in paid sex are also vague.
That, for some reason, is my favorite bit of the article, together with this:
Nicosia’s “red light district” has been predominantly confined to three streets in the old town since the 1950s on Soutsou, Pentadaktylou and Theseos streets. The woman in question was working out of a house on Theseos Street.
It’s so nice of them to specify exactly where the “red light district” is for those of us who don’t know Nicosia highlights that well.
With Maxim’s recently discovered interest in kang fo, I thought we should watch Kung Fu Panda 2 together. But these days it’s tough – you can’t trust anyone. Movie makers can’t be trusted with making a 2D movie. Local movie distributors can’t be trusted to avoid dubbing into Greek or Russian or something else. Local movie theaters can’t be trusted with the sound setup. Local DVD shops can’t be trusted with selling legal copies and keeping sane prices. So, as always, I distrusted everyone and turned to piracy. Pirates can’t be trusted with torrent downloads, but downloads are the easiest to fix.
So I downloaded Kung Fu Panda 2. Before I even started it, Maxim told me that he didn’t see the first one. And Olga confirmed. So I said OK and started the download of the first part. When it was 90% complete, I realized that I already have it on another disk.
Three minutes into the first part of Kung Fu Panda Maxim announces that now he remembers that he saw it. All of it. At which time I gave up. “It’s a quality animation and it’s been a while since you saw it”, – I say. So we watched the first one anyway. Kung Fu Panda 2 awaits tomorrow.
As you know, I spent most of the day in Nicosia yesterday, attending TEDxNicosia event together with Michael Stepanov. I’ve mentioned several times in this blog and on Twitter that I was overexcited about this event and my opportunity to actually go there.
Michael picked me up at 8am and drove me to Nicosia. With the new 3 lane section of the highway and a recently learnt shortcut through the Strovolos industrial area, it took us only about an hour to get to University of Nicosia, ex Intercollege campus. Lots of people, lots of cars, gladly huge parking space – everything as expected for a Wednesday morning. As soon as we came through the main entrance we spotted the TEDxNicosia mini-poster directing us downstairs to the Cine Studios.
Even though we weren’t the first ones to show up and with a little queue already waiting for registrations it took us only about 10 minutes to get processed. Name, ticket, badge, goodies baggy, brownie cookie, snapshot in front of the TEDxNicosia logo wall. There was still time before the start of the talks, so we had some of that coffee nicely provided by the even organizers. And a cookie. And some water. And I met someone. Chrys comments frequently on this blog, but we’ve never actually met. Until now. So there, before the talks even started I already got some value out of the event.
And it was time so we finished the coffee and went in to get inspired. The hall was packed. I was sitting in the second row so I could see too well behind me, but for what I could see – there were no spare seats. 150 people or so, video cameras, photo cameras, laptops, and the stage with the traditional red circle of a carpet, cut out 3D letters of the conference logo and a large screen for slides. Everyone was excited, I could feel it in the air.
Marina Theodotou, the founder and curator of the TEDxNicosia gave a brief introduction. She was worried, which is to be expected. I am a bit familiar with event organizations but even I was surprised to learn that the whole thing took around 10 months to organize and that everyone worked pro bono – the event rests on the shoulders of volunteers (and sponsors, of course) and it has no commercial goal in itself.
Then, finally, the talks started. There were a total of eleven of them plus two videos, separated into four sections, by the title of the conference: dream, risk, care, and live. Each of the sections wasn’t necessarily a topic in itself, but rather a focus point or a perspective to a talk. Each and every speaker was interesting and each and every talk was inspirational in its own way. There was something for everyone in every talk.
It is hard to rate the talks or to select the best ones – each one gave me something to think about or taught me something that I didn’t know before. But if you put a gun to my head and told me to choose, I’d have to pick two. Coincidentally, there were the first and the last talks of the event.
The first one was by Nicos Anastasiou. It actually worried me a couple of times. Let me give you some context. Since Cyprus is a multilingual country, I was a bit nervous going to the event, not being sure that everything would be in English. I don’t have anything against Greek – after all it’s one of the official languages – but I don’t really understand it that well. TEDxNicosia website is all English and there was no mentioning of Greek or of any other languages. That gave me hope but not confidence. My other worry was that given that this conference is not of any specific industry, interest, or subject, and that it usually receives plenty of international attention, I thought the issue of divided Cyprus would be raised more than necessary. Again, I don’t have a problem with that, but that wouldn’t be all I was expecting of the event. And here we are. The first talk and the first slide with the title clearly says that it is going to be about the Cyprus problem. That was the first time when I got a bit nervous.
But just a few minutes into it, I realized that there was nothing to worry about. Even though Nicos Anastasiou did indeed speak of the Cyprus problem and divided people, it was very different from anything I ever heard on this subject before. Nicos covered some of his personal experiences and how that brought him into work that he does now with Youth Encounters for Peace (YEP) and other groups of people. I’ve never heard of any of the organizations or projects that he was talking about. I thought that was because I am a foreigner and because I don’t get news in Greek. As I discovered later during the break, not many Cypriots heard of them either. Somehow it all goes on under the radar without much exposure from either politicians or the mass media. And that is sad.
Sad, because the work these people do is really amazing. And Nicos described it in the most excellent way. There were no big words or self promotion, greed or show off. It was quite the opposite. It was very modest, very personal, and very humane. To the point that my second reason for worry started to surface.
Nicos’ talk was very touching and emotional. Given that I cry in most of the drama movies (yeah, I can admit now that pretty much everyone knows it anyway), I started feeling that this was way more powerful and real than a movie. A sip of a water and a look around, and what do I see? There were a lot of eyes around with tears in them. No shame there. As it was the first one of the event and we had hours ahead of us, I was worried for a bit that I won’t be able to handle all of it. Fortunately or unfortunately, but it was the only talk that was that moving.
The last talk of the event was by Myrtani Pieri. She spoke very passionately about the complimentary value of science in understanding and enjoying the beauty of the world. Some of the thoughts I’ve heard before (for example in this interview with Richard Feynman), some I didn’t. But it was not only about the thoughts here. It was about the passion and inspiration with which she spoke. It was mesmerizing, hypnotizing. All I wanted just to hear more and more more.
I consider myself to be a rather passionate person. I have troubles controlling or directing my passion often. But I do not what it is and how it feels and how awesome it is. And when I meet people – on a daily basis – who either have never experienced it (I doubt it actually) or completely and totally forgot what it is (which is more likely), I wish I could give them some of my passion if only just for a moment. I think the world would have been a far better place if more people were more passionate about more things. Even though religious extremists are trying to prove me wrong.
The two talks were very different from each other. But what they had in common was that they were very human. They were about the really important things in our lives – not the jobs or money or social status or fashion or anything like that. They were about basic needs – the need to connect with other humans and the need to know how the world around us works. They were about things that people seek no matter how rich or poor they are or where they live or how old they are.
The other talks weren’t bad. As I said, I took something out of each and every one of them. Aude Marie Auphan spoke of her huge career change from “holding the top job in my profession for 10 years” to an entrepreneurial adventure and her need to integrate her job with her newly acquired parenting responsibilities and her own growth and development. Devrim Celal shared his story of how he became a marathon runner and ran 1,000 kilometers marathon through 4 toughest deserts on the planet. Alexandros Charalambides brought up an important issue of energy – how we use it, what the Mari explosion taught us, what we have to do, and what are the possible ways of doing it. Alexandra Eleptheriou explained how important it is to understand the circumstances when choosing actions. Antonis Petrou got me started on Cyprus marine biology, which I knew absolute nothing about until his talk yesterday. Maria Stylianou shared her rediscovery and redefinition of the world as a parent – something that I went and still going through as well. Viken Tavitian shared his more practical and entertaining approach to sciences than that of the boring textbooks – something that I’ve thought about a lot. From Orestis Tringides I’ve learned about yet another important initiative – Open Cyprus Project (www.accessinfocyprus.eu and www.access-info.org) which is an initiative that promotes access to information for increased government transparency and citizen activism. Angeliki Yiassemides talk had an interesting part on similarities between personal and group psychologies, involving both consciousness and subconsciousness.
Even with brief, 18 minutes in length, talks there was still plenty to learn and think about. Following the TED and TEDx tradition, all of these talks will be published online on the TEDxNicosia website as well as YouTube, as soon as next week. And while there is no way to pass the atmosphere of the event fully into a video, I think a good chunk of it will still be there.
There were also two videos. One I’ve seen a few times before – Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc]
The other one was new to me – a TED talk actually: Raghava KK: Shake up your story.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64fDIZiV-SM]
The rest of the event was organized as good as the talks were. The program was followed as timely as it is possible in Cyprus. The catering was very good – with snacks, fruits and refreshments, and even wine and whiskey at the end of the event. There was free and open WiFi network in the auditorium, which, unlike many other conferences, worked like a clockwork. There was excellent photo and video coverage – too early to see it online yet, but I’m sure it will follow next week or so. There were workshops and a “tree of dreams” for those who wanted to participate during the breaks. And plenty of space and opportunity to network and talk with fellow TED-ers. Despite this being the first such even in Cyprus, the organization was top notch – very smooth, very professional.
Even now, a day later, I am still under an impression and my head spins from all that I got at TEDxNicosia. I am very glad I attended and I will definitely do my best to attend all future events (hope there will be more of them). And judging by the looks on other people faces and conversations here and there – everybody really enjoyed it.
Huge thanks are due to the organizers who have worked their butts off month after month to bring us that. You guys have done an amazing job and a standing ovation at the end of the event is just one of the many things that proves it. Please make these events a tradition and I’m sure more and more people will come, get inspired and will change their lives and lives of people around them for the better.