From the Washington Post, Days Before Scandal, Interior Got Ethics Award:

The inspector general said Wednesday that federal officials in the Mineral Management Service’s royalty-in-kind program allegedly were plied with alcohol and expensive gifts from industry representatives, and in some cases had sex and did drugs with them. The Denver-area office takes in roughly $4 billion each year in oil and natural gas reserves from companies drilling on federal and Indian land and offshore.

But, on Monday, the Interior Department was praised for “developing a dynamic laminated Ethics Guide for employees” that was a “polished, professional guide” with “colorful pictures and prints which demand employees’ attention.” The guide, the award noted, was small enough for employees to carry. Interior also was lauded for having held a four-day seminar for its ethics advisors nationwide.

Written policy, mandatory training and a whistle blowing mechanism simply insulate organizations from legal liability. They are the surface show of reform not reform itself.

What did the management of the Interior Department think it was accomplishing with a formal ethics guide and why did it matter to them that it was laminated and “small enough for employees to carry.”

I keep the best part of myself on small pages sheathed in plastic in my back pocket, like a condom, in the event I have cause to use it.

Short link: http://jkat.me/gFP5QY

Tag(s): Denver, Department of the Interior, ethics, ethics advisors, inspector general, natural gas reserves, oil, USD, Washington Post

Comments: none

The New York Times describes what happened to United Airlines stock value on September 8th, How a Series of Mistakes Hurt Shares of United

Investors wiped out $1 billion of the market value of UAL, United’s parent, within minutes of an erroneous news flash on Bloomberg screens about a United bankruptcy. Google and the Tribune Company, the owner of The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, whose Web site was the source of the article that led to the headline, soon blamed each other for causing the fiasco.

A chain of mistakes and vulnerabilities led to United Airlines six year old bankruptcy being reported as fresh news. Investors reacted, destroying value to the point that trading of UA stock had to be stopped until the situation could be cleared up.

Two features on a Tribune run website started the chain. One allowed an old article to appear in the most viewed box. The implementation apparently doesn’t prevent obscure articles from filtering to the top in off hours.

The second displayed the old article on the Sun-Sentinel site with today’s date but no original publish date.

Google crawled the article. It’s age and lack of original publish date confused the automated news search into interpreting the article as current.

Then a private analyst published it without independent verification. Then Bloomberg included that analyst’s report in their feed.

This led to the panic selling. Trading was resumed and the stock recovered much of its value but don’t mistake that many people lost alot of money.

The Times focuses on the relationship between newspapers and search engines. You can also focus on the pressure of news agencies to keep up with “breaking news” on various platforms. You can focus on a loss of discipline among editors.

I’d like to highlight how two casually implemented features on a website indirectly led to serious harm. I can’t imagine a print editor allowing an old article to appear without an original publish date. So how was it acceptable to allow online content to appear that way?

Given the relevancy algorithms Google is known to use, how much was the behavior of Tribune’s “most viewed” area intended to create exactly the behavior that backfired in this case, i.e. to create referential links back to Tribune for old content.

There’s plenty of blame to go around but how much sits with those who defined, accepted and implemented this behavior?

Short link: http://jkat.me/h54BkP

Tag(s): analyst, automated news search, Bloomberg, ethics, google, print editor, private analyst, relevancy algorithms, search engines, software development, Sun-Sentinel, The New York Times, The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the Sun-Sentinel, The times, the Tribune Company, United Airlines, USD, web

Comments: none

This week, I’m presenting a paper at the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. My goal is to engage academic ethicists in a conversation about agile software development.

Given the year in employment I’ve had in the last year and what’s going on at my current employer this week, it is a gift that I was able to attend and I’m grateful for it.

Short link: http://jkat.me/l9usst

Tag(s): agile, ethics, software development

Comments: 1

It’s my final day on the Big Island after HICCS-42.

Unfortunately, I was a ghost at the conference. I spent most of the week tightly tethered to my East Coast work day. Much sleep deprivation, anxiety and coffee consumption.

I did see the Agile/Lean presentations chaired by Jeff Sutherland and Gabrielle Benefield and participated in the Ethics sessions in which I presented my paper. These were the main reasons I took this very expensive non-vacation and so I’m grateful for how things worked out.

Sounds like there may be an Ethics minitrack again next year. Apparently, this is a relatively unique thing in IT conferences academic or professional and an indication of why HICSS is such an unusual event.

The conversation around my paper may have sparked research interest. My “ask” of the largely academic audience was:

• Learn more about agile
• Research dilemmas in an agile context
• Educate us about the larger concerns
• Create safe venues for discussing our dilemmas
• Write about things beyond business value and efficacy

We need all hands on deck. We need to learn from other, more established disciplines. We need better data gathered with greater rigor and without the coda of a sales pitch.

How can we build software with consideration for benefit and harm as well as business value in the interests of society and our users as well as our employers and stakeholders?

How do we evolve from head count to the engineers/craftspeople we need to become?

Short link: http://jkat.me/fqXtjS

Tag(s): agile, Big Island, East Coast, ethics, Gabrielle Benefield, hawaii, Jeff Sutherland, sleep deprivation

Comments: none

“Doc” and I submitted our proposal for an open space for Agile 2009, The mushy stuff of values & culture – an open space for workplace dilemmas.

Please check it out and respond with words of support.

Short link: http://jkat.me/iafJnG

Tag(s): agile, ethics

Comments: none