Here at Digital Reasoning, we have been dealing with the challenges of automated understanding of massive amounts of unstructured data for years. Knowing that Tim Estes, our CEO, might have a different view on this issue, I decided to interview him. Tim has worked within the realms of unstructured data analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning for the past decade.

The following is our interview:

Jason Beck – In the article, one researcher suggests that developers shouldn’t build analytics robots, but rather “exoskeletal systems”. Do you agree?

Tim Estes - I think that it’s a matter of degree. The range of judgments that a machine can make as a proxy for the human is constantly and necessarily expanding. Even R2D2 was most famous for taking orders from Luke Skywalker trying to accomplish tasks from fixing the X-wing in flight to cracking into computer networks.

Just to be a little more accurate – Iron Man wouldn’t work without an AI that is close to R2D2. Jarvis (the AI program that runs’ the Stark house and the Iron Man suit) is always chatting up Tony Stark about what’s going on with the suit and the risks that are present around him. The Iron Man analogy means we seed the full situational awareness (the sensory and data input space) to the machine with the human making key decisions on the filtered and prioritized information. I think that’s about right.

R2D2 is distinct in having a measure of its own intentionality (i.e. it is autonomous in more dramatic ways than Jarvis/Iron Man suit) but they are much more close than you might think. Should humans get out of the loop in making analytic judgements? No more than we should have pilots out of the loop in flying commercial airlines at this time. But show me a pilot that can fly a 747 without computer assistance and guidance? We are already in the hybrid space. And the complexity of our technology and the explosion of the information created by machines and man assisted by machines means we will need ever increasing automation in understanding.

JB – Doesn’t the exponential growth of data and decreasing levels of available talent necessitate automated systems?

TE - Exactly. The notion that “augmented intelligence” can solve the full data problem is wishful thinking. Something has to read everything and that can no longer be a human as a matter of scale. We have to make strides to catch up intelligent systems with the complexity and scale of the data we are being inundated with.

JB – Is this an Either-Or situation? Just because someone may prefer automated systems, does this assume that there won’t be any human in the loop?

TE - I think that’s the real issue – where is the dividing line right now and where is it going to be in 5 years? Right now – machines have to read and organize everything. The race is to see who can do it accurately, at scale, and focused on the entity-level vs. the document level. In five years, the information overload will be so substantial that autonomous proxies or agents will likely be the baseline for all of these systems. In both situations, humans are in the loop. Now – they have much greater heavy lifting because nearly all of our enterprise information systems don’t really understand their data that well so the burden is on the reader. That has to change. Even when it does, we will just be enabling the humans to make better decisions in less time and less interruption of their daily lives.

JB – Does the delineation between these two approaches represent a common split in the overall text analytics community?

TE - I think so. We can either be satisfied with augmenting the status quo or we can get to the root of the issue – that software doesn’t understand natural signals that make up unstructured data. We are in a place of diminishing returns with simple classifiers and ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) architecture. The more exciting alternative, however, is to go at the semantic and scale problems with the appropriate technologies and transform the enterprise to be entity-oriented.

JB – Can you think of any example where someone tried to completely automate text mining?

TE - Not off the top of my head. I’m sure there have been. But a lot of text mining is feeding either fancy search engines (such as faceted navigation and data enriched topic clustering) or Business Intelligence frameworks.

JB – What does the future look like regarding automation?

TE - Its going to go from being reactive (search, research, and investigation) to being proactive (push, warnings, summaries). Its going to go from two major silos inside the enterprise – the human curated/ structured data and the content management/unstructured data – to being one, unified entity-oriented data store. Once this is done, programs will constantly monitor this unified data store for areas of interest to users and start to screen most everything and prioritize it. Eventually, we’ll get some real next generation automation out of this because there will be a class of actions that will be autonomously executed without requiring human intervention (such as determining the defense policy in a detected cyber-attack).

JB – What other thoughts do you have about this?

TE - I think that as we weigh the risks or errors in additional automation, we need to be wary of irrational risk aversion. The poverty of attention that most people suffer from has very real consequences even if we don’t fully understand that right now. Solutions which give small, incremental gains are unlikely to get ahead of this increasingly detrimental phenomenon. Without something reading everything and getting smarter, we are simply rolling the dice on what we don’t have time to read or consider. That’s the other side of the coin of the incremental approach.

“For those who have not been to OSCON, it’s a great technical conference covering the whole spectrum of open source, including Linux, MySQL, the LAMP stack, Perl, Python, Ruby on Rails, middleware, applications, cloud computing, and more”, said Zack Urlocker from InfoWorld. “OSCON always has great keynotes, tutorials, and evening Birds-of-a-Feather sessions. As with many conferences, a lot of the meat takes place in hallway conversations and impromptu sessions”.

Matthew Russell, our VP of Engineering at Digital Reasoning, will be speaking at the conference again this year. Matt will be sharing his insights about Natural Language Processing, advanced analytics, and entity resolution on a massive scale. (See here for more details: http://www.oscon.com/oscon2010/public/schedule/detail/13988)

I recently sat down with Matthew, and asked him about open source, OSCON and his upcoming participation. The following is part of our discussion:

Jason Beck – So, how long have you been involved with OSCON?

Matthew Russell – I’ve attended and spoken at OSCON the last three years?

JB – You’ve worked within or supported the Intelligence Community the last several years. Have you seen a change in attitude towards open source?

MR – Absolutely. Whereas it was treated very skeptically years ago, it’s now practically a requirement for any project we do.

JB – Why is that? Aren’t there lingering issues or concerns for security?

MR – A few people still claim those issues. However, the reality is that open source is inherently more secure. Think about it, you have potentially thousands of eyes looking over code and quickly addressing issues. However, if you have a piece of proprietary software or code, you may look at that more infrequently, since fewer people would be looking at the code.

JB – Is there someone that inspired you within the open source community?

MR – Not really. The thing is, open source is by its nature more about the community than about any one person within that community. It is all about collaborating with others to make something useful.

JB – Why would someone want to attend OSCON?

MR – It has quickly become the preeminent conference on open source technologies, issues and ideas. Seriously, it is a place where you can meet other interesting people committed to doing interesting things.

For more information on OSCON, you can visit their website at www.oscon.com/oscon2010

While technology has provided several good paradigms for dealing with structured data (i.e. data that is structured in such a way to be easily decomposed into pre-defined fields), it has not kept pace with unstructured data, such as emails, blogs, web site content, etc. Thus, critical information is often kept “secret” through the obscurity of the sheer volume of data one must process, often manually, to reveal this information.

In response to this challenge, Digital Reasoning Systems, Inc has developed a comprehensive set of analytical tools packaged into product called Synthesys™ that essentially decomposes unstructured text into meaningful information easily understood and manipulated by a user.

This technology is based on the premise that there is order inherent in all languages that can be discovered and mathematically modeled. This has led to the development of our advanced data analytics and knowledge abstraction for unstructured data, based on a distinctive, patented mathematical approach to natural language processing.

For a better understanding of Synthesys™ and its capabilities, a down-loadable white paper (Synthesys – Technology Overview) providing a high-level overview can be found here.

Each of us in the room had been affected directly or indirectly by the floods in Middle Tennessee. We knew we had to do something, we just weren’t sure what. But, rather than form a committee we empowered our employees to do what they thought would make the biggest difference. For some, it meant giving money to various charities like the Red Cross or Hands on Nashville, for others it meant supporting our community by buying “I Love Nashville” flood t-shirts, but for me it meant a trip to the country.

So, on Wednesday, May 12th, my wife, two children, and I travelled to Centerville, Tenn., which is located in Hickman County, one of the counties placed on the federal disaster relief list. My wife and I pulled our son, Carter, out of school for the day. We did so, because we sincerely believe that, in addition to his classroom instruction, we must cultivate civic responsibility and give him opportunities to show compassion.

It wasn’t long before that we encountered to the first lesson of the day: rely on your Granny’s instructions (who actually lives in Hickman County) rather than TomTom’s GPS directions. Apparently, TomTom didn’t realize that many of the backroads had been washed out and away.

After about two and a half hours on the road, we arrived at Fairfield Baptist Church, which is a recognized relief center.

My wife, Jen, and I were immediately impressed with how well-organized all of the food items and other things were there. At some level, we were disappointed, which I know is a weird emotion – I think we were hoping that we could be more helpful. However, it wasn’t long before one of the volunteers told us about the “clothing store” that had been set up a few miles down the road in a vacated store. Apparently, the owner simply let the church use the store rent free.

Hoping that we could, in fact, help, we loaded up and headed down the road. When we arrived a few moments later, we weren’t immediately sure that we were in the right place. There appeared to be little or no indication of any activity. But, as we got closer to the front door, we saw what we hoped to see – an unmet need. At that moment, we knew we were in the right place and felt a surge of energy.

When we went inside we met the two ladies who were trying to make sense of it all. With over a hundred large bags and boxes of clothing and other items, a few tables, and no hangers, it was a challenge.

Over the course of the next four or five hours, we worked non-stop to unpack and organize all of the items there.

What follows are a few of my observations and thoughts about volunteering:

1. Lead with a broad smile: You can have a warehouse full of items from bleach to peanut butter, but you need to show concern and love to those hurting it . At the end of the day, people simply want to know that someone cares about them, is willing to listen, and meet a need. So, be sure to smile.

2. A little marketing goes a long way: You can have a warehouse full of items, but if no one knows where you are then it is useless. When we first arrived to the “clothing store”, we realized there were no signs. The first thing Carter and I did was to run across the road to Dollar General and buy poster board, markers and tape. Sometimes just a simple sign is enough. We also told a couple of other local churches and merchants. Word of mouth is king.

3. Dream Big and Think Small: At first, my family and I had really big hopes of making a huge difference. Sometimes I think we can be overwhelmed by the size of the need here in Tennessee but, we realized that we simply had to focus on helping people one person at a time. If anyone doubts that you can make a difference that way, ask the man that simply needed a pair of shoes or the woman that needed a bar of soap and a few bottles of water to wash her child.

4. When giving, consider your intentions: After sorting through thousands of shoes, clothes and other items I realize something: some people give to meet a need and others are cleaning out their attic – it is just not enough to check the box. We found a wide range of things. One person had taken the time to pack a new towel, washcloth, toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo and conditioner into individual 5-gallon ziplock bags. That is thoughtful. On the other end of the spectrum, here are some of the weirdest things that people donated yesterday:

a. A mink coat. At what point do you say to yourself “yeah, I think someone ravaged by a flood could use a mink jacket”?

b. A headless, armless, legless Power Ranger action figure. This was my son’s favorite. In fact, after a good laugh, he asked me “who would donate an amputated Power Ranger?”; I, of course, had no idea.

c. Three empty wine racks. Just to be clear, I am not making a moral judgment here, I’m simply asking…what do you do with wine racks when you may not even have a home?

d. An antique Victorian folding rocking chair with tapestry upholstery. It isn’t weird or gross, I just thought it was odd yet beautiful.

5. You don’t know what you have until you don’t have it anymore. Water and ice. You really don’t think about how important water is and what a luxury ice is until you don’t have it anymore. Even while deployed to the hinterlands of Iraq, I always had plenty of water. Yesterday, when Carter took a few moments to go to a nearby fast-food restaurant to get lunch, we couldn’t use the sinks, because of the lack of water, and they served us canned drinks. It wasn’t that it was a burden, it just made you realize how devastating it would be not to have regular, clean water. All I could think of was Samuel Coleridge’s poem in which it writes “water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink”. Fortunately, groups like the Red Cross brought in large supplies of water and Gatorade.

6. Tip O’Neill was right, all politics is local. I was pleasantly surprised when the Hickman County Mayor arrived with tables, hangers and clothes racks. There wasn’t a film crew, local reporter or the promise of recognition. He simply wanted to help his community get back on its feet. For once, I saw the brighter side of politics.

7. Uncle Earl is more likely to help than Uncle Sam. Immediately after the floods, Patten Fuqua wrote a blog that has both inspired us here in Tennessee and come to represent the spirit of Tennesseans. We help each other. Though I’m not completely trying to be inflammatory, the reality is you are far more likely to see your neighbors helping you than the federal government. I saw both young and old alike come together in the few hours I was there to simply show kindness, concern and give what they could. Many of the folks that brought items were themselves flood victims – that says everything.

8. Hand Sanitizer is Good Stuff. No explanation needed…

I suppose, to conclude in some clumsy way, I learned that it has less to do with what you give (although some things are clearly better than others) and more to do with how and why you give it. For me and my family, as it often happens, we received much more than we gave. In the end, I really think Carter learned more in those few hours of selfless service to others than he would have learned at school.

So, what are you going to do to help those in need?

For pictures from throughout our day in Hickman County, go to our Twitterpic page.

Johnson’s point is that the small digital footprint of text and nearly infinite computing power of the PC (and now the iPad), means that it’s now only the copyholders that prevent instant access to everything every written, and thus the end of an era.

I disagree.  I think we’re just getting started.

It’s true that computers and networks have dramatically amplified human capacity to generate, store and share text.  It’s also true hardware and software have converged to integrate vast stores of digital information in our every day lives.

However, we’re still remarkably distant from computers being able to understand what we mean when we write.  Sure, gmail can post adds for Coca-Cola when I’m writing to my friends about steps in the steel refinery process, but that remains far from true understanding.

As our devices get more sophisticated, what must happen next is an era of understanding.  While “understanding” requires interpreting myriad inputs, the cornerstone of understanding humans is the ability to comprehend the written word.

This isn’t a new problem, and intelligent people have been working on a solution for quite some time.  The building blocks are clear and solutions are beginning to emerge in the market.

First, you won’t be able to rely on dictionaries to sort out meaning, for the simple reason that words change based on who speaks and in what context.  “Park” is a noun symbolizing where I have a picnic, a verb for what I do with my car when I’m at the store, or, with slightly less frequency, a proper last name describing an individual from a certain family.

Second, you’d better bring a big computer (and have some very good shortcuts) because speed matters.  A human of average intelligence uses about 10,000 words and adjusts the meaning of those words based on tone, location, speaker, non-verbal cues, etc.  While the field of human psychology is rife with examples of our cognitive shortcuts and their corresponding failings, the human brain does a remarkable job with a very computationally intense process.

For a moment, consider a world where the computer will understand text with the same speed and depth of humans.  A new era will be upon us.   You’ll CC your digital assistant on an email and it will schedule a meeting with right people at the right time, book flights for all attendees and make sure you’re eating at a restaurant that can accommodate your co-workers’ special dietary needs.   If you are a lawyer, your computer will suggest arguments with the greatest chance of success for a specific judge, based on the judge’s published opinions, all while you are writing the initial brief.   For doctors and nurses, the computer will suggest and rule out possible diagnosis as you dictate a patient’s symptoms.  Or, even more commonly, as you and I are writing typing our thoughts on a topic of interest, your computer will find people with similar interests and cite relevant passages of everything ever written.

No, not the end of an era.  Far from it.

I’d say the more important era is just beginning.

(Strong project leadership and enlightened “people” management.)

I almost consider the term “project manager” a misnomer. Successful projects are “led”, not “managed”. Projects are too dynamic to lend themselves to just being managed. What are the hallmarks of a good project leader? I believe that a strong leader possesses a strong sense of purpose that instills confidence to the project team. A strong leader thoroughly understands the goals of a project, and the requirements to achieve those goals. They are also very decisive when faced with difficult decisions. A project team needs clear direction and quick conflict resolution. Lack of timely decisions or unresolved conflicts often lead to project objectives not being met on schedule, and can also lead to morale issues on the team.

An IT project should not be run as a democracy, but rather as a benevolent dictatorship. While it is good to obtain consensus when making major decisions, it should not be a requirement for the project leader to come to a timely decision. A project awash in indecision is ripe for failure. Also, once a decision is made, it should stay “made”, unless new compelling information comes to light that was not factored into the original decision. I have seen projects where the de facto project motto seemed to be that any good decision was worth making several times. This leads to confusion and wasted effort.

Part of being a strong leader is conveying a very concise message regarding the project goals and how those goals are going to be met. Just as important is a good understanding of the non-goals of the project (i.e. specific goals that the project will NOT address).  If you don’t paint a clear target, don’t be surprised if no one hits it. A strong leader creates this clear project focus by imparting an unambiguous understanding of the following to the project team:

1. The project goals – the team needs a crystal clear understanding of the project goals. These goals need to be simply stated and non-ambiguous. If you don’t know where you are going, how do you ever expect to get there. The team should also clearly understand what the non-goals are (i.e. the functions/ features/capabilities that are specifically NOT being provided by design). The level to which these goals are understood will directly impact the effectiveness and “correctness” of every major decision made in the project.
2. Each team member’s role in meeting the project goals – just as important to understanding the overall project goals is every team member’s understanding of their own individual roles in meeting these goals. Knowing where your tasks fit into the overall scheme of things provides the context necessary to disambiguate and prioritize the minor issues that always arise in the execution of individual tasks. In other words, it helps everyone in the boat to row in the same direction and not work against each other.
3. A conflict resolution process – the project team needs to know how conflicts will be resolved. A conflict can be a difference of opinion on some aspect of the project design, or any obstacle preventing someone from accomplishing their tasks. A strong leader resolves conflicts as quickly as possible to minimize their impact on the project (i.e. conflicts DO NOT improve with age).

Another hallmark of an effective leader is a good understanding of human nature. A project leader sets the tone of the project primarily through how they treat the project team. Team members need to be treated as individual people, each with their own personal aspirations, and NOT as project resource units. Everyone needs some level of affirmation for a sense of accomplishment. The project leader needs to know his or her team members well enough to provide the right level of affirmation to each person. Treating them with respect creates the type of atmosphere that successfully sustains the project team through the difficult times that often occur during the course of a project. Teams that are led through fear and intimidation often fail because this type of leadership divests team members from project ownership and discourages them from going that “extra mile” often required to get through the difficult times.

Finally, a strong leader NEVER takes credit for accomplishments rightfully belonging to individual team members or the project team as a whole.  A project leader’s success (or lack thereof) should just be a reflection of the project team’s success, and not measured by their own individual efforts.

Page(s) 26 in print issue

by Sixto Ortiz Jr.

Sidestep Project Management Landmines

Poor Communication, Lack Of Leadership & Other Problems Can Hamper A Project’s Success

Key Points

• Technical know-how, business acumen, and people management skills are all ingredients of successful IT project management.

• Capturing top management support greatly increases the odds for success.

• Risks cannot be eliminated, but they can be managed as long as they are identified in plenty of time.

IT project management can be precarious: Depending on which source is consulted, the failure rate for IT projects ranges anywhere from 30 to 60%. So, the odds are good that an IT project will fail to achieve its business case.

But, here’s a silver lining: There’s plenty of history documenting IT project mistakes. Administrators looking to steer a project to success should study the mistakes others have made in the past, especially within their own organizations. After all, those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Poor Definition Of Project Requirements

It would seem logical that an expensive IT project would have clearly defined objectives and a clear idea of the resources and outlays needed to get to the end zone. However, many organizations have suffered through poorly planned projects that ended up in the corporate scrap heap.

Unless everyone agrees on what is getting built, what the parameters are, and the rules for how things can change, the eventual outcome will be an unhappy ending, says Tony Navarrete, lead technical marketing in the IT Business Management unit of BMC Software (www.bmc.com).

“Early in the project definition stages, you need everyone to agree on the scope, high-level project budget, and key requirements,” says Navarrete. And, he adds, all of the stakeholders in the project must agree on these points so the project can move forward.

Harry Schultz, senior vice president of product development and solutions at Digital Reasoning Systems (www.digitalreasoning.com), says the true hallmark of a successful project is a customer that enthusiastically embraces the deployed system because it successfully addresses the specific needs that initiated the project in the first place.

But, says Schultz, the requirements-gathering process usually requires a significant commitment of time with the end customer to really understand their business and how the proposed system will be used. To accomplish this, Schultz recommends that a standing group of key customers (both technical end users and major decision makers) and key project members be formed to participate in the requirements definition process at the project outset.

Insufficient Communications

A complex IT project involves a substantial number of people working together toward one goal. A lack of clear communications can cause personnel to lose direction, focus, and ultimately the desire to see the project through.

One of the reasons projects often fail to align well with the desired value is because of inconsistent or inadequate interaction with the various sponsors and stakeholders, says Eric Willeke, lead architect for EMC Consulting (www.emc.com). To avoid this landmine, he adds, project leaders should focus a majority of their energy outside the project to ensure a clear understanding exists between the project team and the stakeholders. These communication channels, he says, allow potential impediments to be resolved promptly.

William Stuckert, vice president and general manager for Advanced Technology Services (www.advancedtech.com), says lack of communication about the business value of a project can have a negative impact on the people working on a project. Managers should clearly communicate the reasons a project is important to the business, Stuckert says, adding that this shows personnel the overall impact of their contributions.

Lack Of Leadership

Every undertaking must have direction from a leading individual. Without a strong hand to provide direction and leadership, a project may run aground very quickly, much like a ship steered by multiple captains who each wish to go in different directions.

Digital Reasoning Systems’ Schultz says successful projects require a project leader, not a project manager. An IT project should not be run as a democracy but rather as a benevolent dictatorship, he adds, because the project team requires clear direction and quick conflict resolution.

“A project awash in indecision is ripe for failure,” Schultz says. Strong leaders must convey a very concise message about project goals and how those goals are to be met.

Another dimension of leadership is ensuring that the person leading the project has the expertise needed to do so. But, says Jack Bergstrand, CEO of Brand Velocity (www.brandvelocity.com), the program director for a company is usually a respected business or technology executive who has never run a large IT project before. When that happens, this individual depends too much on the consulting systems integrator from the start, thus creating the expectation that the integrator will manage the project in a turnkey fashion.

Poor Risk Management

Projects are filled with unknowns at the outset, so determining what the potential obstacles are and the risks they pose to the effort is absolutely essential.

According to Alexander Magno, senior director of ADM North American Delivery at Keane (www.keane.com), a common mistake made by project managers is taking a “sit back and wait” approach to risk and attempting to solve problems once they occur. Magno says project managers should avoid falling into this passive approach.

The first step to avoiding this mistake, says Magno, is for team leaders to create a collaborative team atmosphere where openness helps identify and manage risks before they become issues. Second, he says, project leads should enable and coach teams so they consider the downstream impacts of delays, for example. Finally, mitigation strategies should be identified so the project team can work around risks and keep moving forward.

Lack Of Alignment With The Business

A project that lacks management support has a good chance to fail. After all, uncommitted top management is more likely to pull the plug on a project the first time things go awry.

For starters, lack of alignment with business objectives can cause project managers to “put blinders on” and neglect to account for market changes that cause a project’s business objectives to become invalidated, says Magno, who adds that it is important to keep business objectives for an IT project in mind throughout the process to avoid making this mistake. An executive steering committee should actively participate and review stated project objectives and business impacts throughout the course of the project, Magno says.

“Getting into the habit of recalibrating the project’s return on investment will help a manager remain ready and equipped to identify when to cut the cord,” he says.

Top Problem: Poor People Skills

People are the driving forces behind projects, so it stands to reason that project managers should be as good at managing people as they are at managing project logistics. Unfortunately, that’s usually not the case; Harry Schultz, senior vice president of product development and solutions at Digital Reasoning Systems (www.digitalreasoning.com), says many project managers have no trouble keeping up with technology but still don’t understand what motivates—and demotivates—people.

The solution? Management must treat people like human beings instead of resources and must value and respect their contributions. Also, he adds, respecting project members’ personal time, avoiding publicly berating personnel who make a mistake, and always showing appreciation will ensure people stay focused and contribute their best efforts.

There are many factors that differentiate a successful IT project from a mediocre one. Surprisingly, unsuccessful IT projects more often result from not following some simple “common sense” principles of leadership rather than not using the correct project management methodology or because the technology being implemented is too difficult. I don’t want to discount the benefit of all the new project management methodologies and processes available today, and their importance to a project. However, I believe that there are other intrinsic factors critical to the successful execution of a project that while being more subjective, are every bit as important as some of the more quantified aspects of project management.

My opinion is based on 34 years of working on a variety of technical projects, both as a participating team member and as the project manager. I admit that many of the important lessons that I have learned about project management stem from having done it wrong and learning from the experience. (i.e. good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment). I’ve worked on some extremely successful projects as well as participated in a few “death marches”. Through these experiences, I discovered some traits that were often present in the successful projects and absent from the unsuccessful ones. It is these successful traits that I want to explore further.

While there are many facets to these “success traits”, they all have at their core a basic understanding of human nature. Over the years, I have encountered some extremely smart people that while capable of keeping up with the ever increasing tempo of technological change, are clueless about what motivates and demotivates people. They appear to be unaware of the negative consequences of their leadership style and their impact on the project, and then wonder why their project is performing so poorly. It is like having a new car with a powerful engine and insisting on driving with the parking brake on, and then complaining that the car doesn’t perform as promised. I have actually had conversations with people that when I pointed out the “parking brake” in their situation, they were surprised that it would have an impact on their project.

I have never met a technology professional whose goal it was to do a bad job. Everyone wants to be successful and feel good about what they do. While sometimes people are miscast in their role on a project, too many times it is a culmination of these subjective factors that lead to poor project performance, not lack of talent on the individual’s part.

The following are four areas that have played a critical role in the successful projects that I have been part of over the years, and that I will be exploring in subsequent postings.

1. Enlightened “people” management and strong project leadership.

2. Adequate communications with BOTH the customer and the project team

3. Understanding the customer and how to determine their “real” requirements.

4. Risk analysis/avoidance (i.e. how to prepare for things going “bump” in the night”

FRANKLIN, Tennessee – Feb. 4, 2010 – Digital Reasoning® Systems Inc., the intelligence-software innovator, today announced that Gen. William “Tom” Hobbins has joined the company as a special advisor. Hobbins retired from the United States Air Force as Commander, US Air Forces in Europe. He previously served, among many other notable positions, as Deputy Chief of Staff for War Fighting Integration and as the US Air Force’s Chief Information Officer. As the Chief Information Officer, Gen. Hobbins developed and implemented the Air Force’s roadmap for networks enabling predictive battle-space awareness and targeting.

“As the former Chief Information Officer for the United States Air Force, one of my great passions became knowledge management. The future lies in tying disparate databases into fuzed, consumable and structured information that yields decision superiority. Given that we have created digital landfills, with all the data we indiscriminately placed in storage, it must be transformed and made discoverable in actionable terms for decision makers. Digital Reasoning goes beyond knowledge management into knowledge discovery – being able to extrapolate meaning from unstructured data”, said Hobbins.

In his role with Digital Reasoning, Hobbins will advise on applications for Digital Reasoning’s technology in the defense and intelligence community. When asked why he joined the Digital Reasoning team, Hobbins remarked, “After studying Digital Reasoning’s approach to unstructured data and their ability to consume extremely large amounts of data, I was impressed by the innovative style of their leadership and accepted the opportunity to be a special advisor to their board. I believe that they will continue to find innovative ways to process, exploit, and disseminate knowledge from unstructured data. Take for example the medical field, consider how humanity could be better served by understanding and sharing the immense amount of unstructured diagnostic data in the search for cures. Researchers would be able to see corollaries and discover facts, which may have previously gone unnoticed.”

“Tom has devoted much of his life to making our country safer. We are proud to have him on our team as a special advisor, and believe that this is a clear result of our credibility within the military and intelligence communities. He understands what our technology can do, and will be instrumental in carrying this message to others within those communities”, said Tim Estes, Digital Reasoning’s Chief Executive Officer.

About Digital Reasoning®

Founded in 2000, Digital Reasoning is a privately held company headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee.

Digital Reasoning solves the problem of information overload by providing the tools people need to understand vast amounts of unstructured data.

Digital Reasoning builds data analytic solutions based on a distinctive, patented mathematical approach to natural language processing. The value of Digital Reasoning is not only the ability to leverage the existing knowledge base, but also to reveal critical hidden information that may not have been apparent during manual or automated analytic efforts. Our products are presently used in connection with the largest deployed defense intelligence system in support of intelligence analysts in the Federal Government.

###