Files from the dead and information in-memoriam

Somehow a funny caption seems inappropriate.

An excellent article here at gizmodo.co.uk stopped me in my tracks today. The author tells of a job reading, reviewing, summarising and then destroying files within a social security department of a local authority. For 18 months the author waded through a vast room of literally thousands of files, the files of children who had died in the care of that local authority. The dead room as it was known. Anyone who has worked in legal RM or for any hospital records unit or for any local authority will have a taste of what this is like, though not the distilled horror of reading bland summaries of dreadful circumstances. The mere thought of this job gave me a palpable feeling of dread and a cold sweat.

the dark side of marketing and analytics

too perfect for words..

“Data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding.” Neuromancer: William Gibson

As I’ve mentioned before, once you get enough data in one place you can throw processor cycles at and reach some interesting conclusions pretty fast. What’s stopped us from doing this in the past was two simple factors, not enough accessible data and the price of processor cycles.

Twit, tweet and edgy marketing

I’m enjoying the cautionary tale of the latest ham fisted twitter marketing campaign as reported by the Telegraph here: Twitter users angered by Rio Ferdinand's Snickers 'adverts'. I’ve always found it amusing how quickly common sense goes out of the window for marketers and celebrities when that locus of time and money gets tight enough.