Friday, November 22, 2013 Hitchhiker's VUE

General Information and Analysis

 The objective of Zeb’s Blog has always been to educate the reader about the economy, with knowledge gleaned from following the major currencies.  On the other side, I gain knowledge when people follow and comment.  I much appreciate my one follower, and I’ve appreciated her input.

This is the last time to post something in Zeb’s blog, due to lack of interest in the market place.  Certainly, there is no lack of information available on the internet about the economy and investing, and possibly my comments are superfluous. 

Information Systems Development (Applied to ObamaCare)

I started developing application software when I was 17, and I’m nearing 70 now.  I never stopped developing systems, although I moved from business system development to complex technical computer science problems, and then back to large scale telecommunication systems (where telecommunication systems were a combination of business systems and very technical systems). 

Yesterday, one of my best friends posted a blog entry from Clay Shirky.  (Healtcare.gov and the Gulf Between Planning and Reality).  That was an interesting viewpoint.  http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2013/11/healthcare-gov-and-the-gulf-between-planning-and-reality/  I highly recommend reading it.

I have tried to refrain from criticizing anything about the development of IT systems for ObamaCare.  On a personal note, I learned long ago to stay away from new business systems that must be developed from scratch, unless I’m given the freedom to start small and grow from knowledge gained.  I would argue that cannot be accomplished in any government organization in the US or anywhere else.  When leaders are elected to serve such a short time frame, they have extreme pressures to implement.  (Getting up on my soap-box.)  The executives rarely every put their rear-end on the line like Mr. Obama did.  He learned and is learning a harsh lesson that only experience teaches.  Don’t promise what you cannot deliver, and do not create huge socialistic systems with the big-bang theory.

Mr. Obama was not done in by the Republicans.  He was not done in by the media (they are still pretty tolerant of him; except FOX and other conservative bent media). 

Mr. Obama has no one to blame but himself.  He made one misstep after another with the debut.  His pain is mostly self-inflicted. 

In system development, we have 3 strategic things that must be right or the project will be a disaster. 

1.   The business architecture has to be correct.  What does this mean?  It means someone has to understand the BUSINESS PROCESS, and how could anyone understand ObamaCare, when no one even yet understood what was passed by Congress, how the subsidies to Insurance companies were to be paid, how taxes were to be collected and assigned to the correct income slots, how information was to flow.

2.   Information Architecture (not just raw data), must be designed to meet that flow.  How can one predict the information required, when the Business Process is undefined. Logistical information (name, address, birth date for example) are easy static things to deal with.

3.   Technical Architecture – This is not only the hardware, but all the software that bridges all the different systems that must be interacted with.  It is security at every level.  It is performance (latency and so-on).  It is extensibility.  One of the main problems this kind of system has is trying to design technology that would be similar in scope to Amazon.com problem.  One can absolutely know that Amazon did not start with the big bang theory, and that Amazon has made considerable architectural changes since inception. Of course they have changed; even providing Cloud Based services to other businesses.  

Everyone who has ever worked in business (or government) should realize that the system is not IT.  The system is the whole system which means all the people employed by that business (in every single function), the paper and human part of the system, the knowledge base in the system, and whatever computer systems that make work more automated.  The system is the whole; not just the Computer Systems.  For those states where state-run health care exchanges were and are in operation, ObamaCare is operating relatively well (except for the outcry about cancellations).  The Federal Government site has to be better architected than Amazon, SalesFoce, or anything else one can imagine.  The number of people it has to server, would be envied by Amazon, and one wonders if Amazon had to serve 320million people every single day, if they had the technical and people infrastructure to do that. 

Ultimately, HealthCare.gov will work, and ObamaCare will be implemented.  Things will get better, and the war will move to where it should be – funding. 

For I do not forget, that what is going on for the last 60 years is the destruction of Capitalism via debt.  Does Debt ever have to be repaid?  My personal debt certainly does.  Collection and self-discipline is extremely difficult on my stress level if I’m in debt with no possibility of additional income (like when I was young). 

Good Bye, and Thanks for the Fish (Hitchiker's Guide to The Galaxy).