Author: karljeffery

Stopping terrorism requires a tricky combination of expertise, processes and software. Many people imagine a future where all human movements can be continually tracked and recorded and it might be possible spot a terrorist just with a ‘big data’ analysis alone. That could be unlikely (without a big erosion in civil liberties) – but meanwhile…

We are still not hearing very much about the ‘low code’ software idea – is that because it is still confined to niche areas, or programmers feel threatened by it, or it doesn’t work too well? If it is really possible to automatically generate code by describing simply what you want to achieve, then we should…

There’s a role for the person who gathers stories about what people are doing, what works and what doesn’t, and aims to provide this story to the right person at the right time. This person is called a journalist. Is there a way we can use journalists – or people with journalism – as part…

How can cybersecurity be improved with better software? Let’s start with the experts who have the task of spotting something going on which shouldn’t be – running corporate or government systems. Setting a key performance indicator – known attacks per day, percent of attacks known to be succesful – is a start, but not very…

Let’s say we want to install a software system to help a company be better at helping experts to continually improve. Where would it start? Firstly define what specifically it wants to improve – for example more reliable water supply, less CO2 emissions, less accidents, less non productive time. Next come up with some key…

How many organisations – government and commercial – would basically like their experts to be able to learn faster – but with their knowledge captured in a computer system as they go? How many experts would like to be able to learn faster, with good tools to help them? That seems like a good starting…

There are 2 business models here. One is where the expert resides in a big organisation (for example an oil and gas engineer). The ‘Software for Domain Experts’ business model is to make software tools for these people to use. The other is where the expert works as a consultant or has his own small…

An expert could be described, in the simplest possible terms, as someone who receives information and makes decisions. The expert has enormous knowledge – experiences and facts – which help her understand what is going on from the data in front of them. So what the software needs to do, first and foremost, is deliver…

“Key Performance Indicators” are widely used in organisations as a measuring stick. Take some index which will show how well you’re doing, measure it, and use that to see how well you’re doing. As a simple example, for most business managers, the profitability of their division is a key performance indicator. For safety managers, it…

I heard a quote that ‘400,000 people die in America because of preventable medical error’. (The quote wasn’t attributed to anyone, so I don’t know how realistic it is. But let’s say its true). With a US population of 318m and life expectancy of 79 years (thankyou Wikipedia) about 4m people die in America every…