Blog Archives

Feature Bloat Epidemic Threatens Public Safety Systems

Based on this informal Linkedin poll, 70% of us agree with the proposition that we could live with half the features in our applications, and that performance and reliability are more important qualities.   This is not a surprising result.

Posted in Commentary, Politics and Government, Public Safety

What is the Cost of a Wrong Idea?

In a panel discussion at the 2012 International Association of Chiefs of Police conference, former San Jose Chief Rob Porter talked about a project: Our department made the decision that we were going to customize a report writing software program,

Posted in Commentary, Politics and Government, Public Safety

Public Safety CAD and RMS Data Conversion Strategies

Incorporating use of a read-only historical archive reduces the risk that conversion will be a stumbling block in CAD and RMS projects. Conversions are a costly and error-prone aspect of acquiring new CAD and RMS systems. Both CAD and RMS

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Posted in Commentary, Public Safety, Tech

The Tyranny of the Tiers in Public Safety Software

Everyone in the public safety software business knows The Tiers. Agencies are ranked by population served. Vendors are classified according to their customers’ tiers. Exact definitions of the tiers vary but the concept is the consistent.  Big cities are usually Tier

Posted in Commentary, Politics and Government, Public Safety

and then comes the bozo explosion

bozo explosion n. The large number of inept employees that a company ends up with when it hires an incompetent executive, who in turn hires incompetent managers, who then hire incompetent workers. — from wordspy The really scary part of

Posted in Commentary

The Mediocrity Revolution

It is the conventional wisdom that there is a productivity revolution afoot in the global economy, and that America is at its forefront. One imagines that, if everyone is more productive, goods and services should be less costly, and everyone

Posted in Commentary

Genetics and Politics

It occurs to me that perhaps leader-seeking is a hard wired human trait, favored by natural selection perhaps because beneficial cooperation works better with a leader than without (the committee problem). But perhaps it’s a promiscuous urge, and there is

Posted in Commentary