It's not uncommon to be fighting the clock in a figurative sense -- meeting tight deadlines, juggling multiple projects. Over the past couple of weeks, however, I and other consultants in my firm have been fighting the clock in a very literal sense -- battling with
Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) Outlook calendars that turned against us.
Due to a glitch we never fully diagnosed, some calendar items sent out via email would mysteriously display themselves in the recipient’s calendar as an hour later than the scheduled time. The organizer’s (his name is Joe) calendar would say "0900 meeting," but the recipient’s calendar (her name is Alyson) would say "1000 meeting."
What made this glitch particularly insidious was that it occurred in a seemingly random manner: Joe would send "0900 meeting" to other people, and they would have the right time. Alyson would get "0800 meeting" from someone else, and it would show up fine. But then Joe might get a "1200 meeting" request from Anuj and find our later that the meeting was actually scheduled at 11:00 -- after an angry call from Anuj.
The glitch may be related to the change in Daylight Saving Time being unevenly applied across computers, and it seems to have resolved itself after we passed the "old" DST on April 5. But the technical explanation of the glitch is less important than the impact that it caused.
Meetings were missed. Confusion spread ("There’s something wrong with Outlook!" "Are you sure? I haven’t had any problems!"). Emergency calls were held. Meetings were confirmed by phone and email, and then reconfirmed. Email was abuzz with proposed solutions, both complex and elegantly simple ("Just put the meeting time in the subject line"). I’m sure the "calendar card" got played as an excuse by a few people "Oops, missed the boring meeting... must have been the calendar thing."
But the greatest impact got summarized in an email I received, which ended with "I'm not sending anymore calendar cards. I don’t trust the calendar." We lost faith in our data.
This fairly minor incident made me think hard about just how important data integrity is in the Web 2.0 world. It also made me think about just how much we take data integrity for granted. When we conduct an online transaction, we’ve come to completely expect and trust that the data received is the data we sent, and that the data we receive is just as accurate.
But this recent calendar debacle made me realize just how easy it can be to undermine trust. While I haven’t been keeping anything resembling an accurate count, I’d estimate the number of actual calendar transactions impacted by the glitch was probably less than 20 percent. The real impact in terms of lost time and dollars was probably pretty negligible. But in a relatively short period of time and with a relatively small number of incidents, our trust in one of our most fundamental IT tools was significantly undermined.
We’re a small company; if this had happened in a much larger scale environment -- say the federal government -- the impact would have been, well, I won’t say catastrophic, but definitely significant. And what if the data impacted had been financial transactions (randomly shifting a decimal point impacting certain accounts, for instance) instead of calendar items?
An attack that undermines trust in our online systems and data, even if conducted on a fairly small scale, could be as -- or more -- catastrophic than a massive denial-of-service attack or wide-scale data theft. Are we thinking enough about data integrity or is this a potential online time bomb?
I would spend more time thinking about it here, but I’ve got several meetings this week and I’ve got to go reconfirm the times -- just to be sure.
— Bryan Pelley is a Principal with Toffler Associates.
I must say that i feel the same when i think about our dependency on the data we read/receive/send etc on internet. The situation you mentioned is no doubt a small bug that is needed to be corrected but in larger scope it points out the bigger issues of reliabilty on whatever we get. We both computer users and software programmers need to be more vigilant and aware of what is coming ahead and frankly sometime we rely so heavily on calenders to remember every meeting, deadline and task for us that even a small problem can make things go out of spiral. Thanks anyhow for sharing this as it will make reader a bit carfeul our plannings and dependencies on softwares.
I recently trashed my Twitter account, and while I love my iPhone, am considering letting the thing run through the contract and then go for a "dumb phone" - you know, it just makes and receives calls, and gets voice mail? My posture is improving just at the thought of it, and my once favorite Waterman pen is saying "Great, I am SO up for the challenge! Bring it on, all of it!"
Technology is but a TOOL to assist us in developing SOLUTIONS we need.
People need to stop thinking of any/every implementation of technology as a "solution" to anything... and I don't think most of the people here are guilty of that, most of us know better =) Most of us appreciate the fact that once you implement technology, the REAL WORK begins!
Unfortunately, most of this 'stuff' is marketed to the middle and higher level managers with a lack of time at the screen, and no background in functiional needs assessment, but a burning desire to have the latest and greatest in the most shiny box that someone in an airplane magazine told them would solve all of their problems.
In many cases they already HAD something that provided the functionality they needed, they just didn't know how to use it.
Two years ago when I asked to buy a new desk calendar (I use the"day at a glance" type) I was asked why I needed it, because we have an on-ine calendar app available. The online version is wiped out every 18 months. Of course, I have my paper calendars going back to when I started this job, and at the end of the year, I capture the most pertinent info (contacts, project dates, etc) and save a file, along with placing a printed copy folded inside the calendar. And yep, I have to refer back to them periodically.
This year when I asked, more grousing. I went and spent the $14 myself to avoid shouting at the rain.
Even something as simple as a few "beeps" when turning the thing on to let you know the battery is low would have been great! You know...an "Idiot Button"! Maybe the newer ones do have this. I had mine quite awhile back.
Actually, the reason I had gotten a Palm Pilot in the first place, was that I went to buy refill pages for my daily planner for the year. I wanted to write to the company to see if the pages were made with some kind of rare element. I couldn't believe the price. So, when I came across a Palm Pilot on ebay that had everything with it, only used a few times (and it really couldn't have been used more than a few months- even the box was like new) for a really good price, I figured that it would have paid for itself in a couple years. And it did work well. I even downloaded a few games for a plane trip. But, battery frustration got the best of me, I'm afraid.
If only it was as simple as human error failing to apply the patch. I lived through the same scenario last year and it is, we believed, somehow related to the Daylight Savings Time change. However - the issue occured, for us as in this story, on some PCs only. The PCs impacted all HAD all the correct Microsoft patches applied. The PCs had all critical Microsoft patches for Office, Outlook and Windows applied.
The challenge was that the bug or issue was deeper and never fully resolved. Was it the order the patches were installed in? Was it with reoccuring meetings? Was it due to the number of items in a person's calendar? We tried many avenues, heard MANY complaints and, in the end, just waited till the dreaded DSTs of March/April passed on.
I don't have a pilot palm either. Well, who knows, may be a good old notebook and a pen will be a new hit pretty soon, if suddenty people realize that they can't trust their electronic devices. Back to the stone age:))))
Is it bad if I admit that I never had a palm pilot? I seem to be in the minority these days. lol
I see how having options to do these things electronically is beneficial but I have also seen the other side and I'm not sure if I am willing to deal with the other side.
Yeah....I went back to a written calendar as well. I was using a Palm Pilot at one time, but changing the batteries every month (or less sometimes) got to be a pain in the, well, you know. About the 3rd time I lost everything because I forogt about the battery, I hung it up.
I have to admit, I did like the Palm sometimes. But the battery changing continually was just one more thing to remember.
That was a few years ago. Maybe battery time is better now, I don't know. I'm guessing I'll try again sometime.
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