DSS (Decision Support Systems) is something that most of us use on a daily basis. We need to buy a car, etc. we look at the supporting information. Specifications and costs. We weigh up the advantages and disadvantages and we call on experts and also we look through reports of others who have gone before us.
In business this is usually more formal. We are looking at getting the most for our spend. We get consultants in and build spreadsheets weighing up the pros and cons. We even write DSS systems to dynamically help us (That’s why it is decision SUPPORT systems. We make the decision.) and the program merely does the donkey work of the calculation.
Now if I asked one of my guys to work out the selling price of a product I would expect him to use all the tools we had developed to aid him in that, up to and including speaking to the customers and looking at competitors and historical data on similar products, before he came out with a price. If I then asked him how he came to that price I would expect a little bit of his expertise to be shown but if he had ignored everything else and just guessed I would sack him.
In the meantime we have someone in a much more important job. No expertise to call on at all. Lots of historical data, expert opinions and mathematical models to call on but he ignores them all to implement his own prejudices to the detriment of our country. When asked to explain himself he says “There was no science behind it. It was simply my judgment.”. It’s not the first time they have received advice and totally ignored it when it doesn’t fit in their narrow minded prejudices. They are supposed to do what is best for the country. They really are taking the mickey now and not even trying to hide their ignorance.
Now I’m not advocating that we use DSS systems to make the decisions because they just don’t cut it. They usually operate with a high margin of error unless in a tightly enclosed environment. Human input can cater for several unknowns before a decision is made and is still the best decision making tool available. Only when it is not corrupted by idealism or something else though and in the situation of these taxes our DSS system is going to be more accurate. A lot more accurate than one driven by ideology.
Interesting new research tool
Seems there is a new web based research tool on the way. It’s described as a graphical tool with a reference library and search engine built in. It does the calculations and displays the results instead in textual and graphical form if suitable instead of merely displaying links to sites with that data in.
It’s called ‘Wolfram Alpha‘. It’s due sometime this month. A tour is available hereif you want a pre-release look.
I see it bringing much needed competition into the search engine market as well as much needed advances on pre-processing and output and thus it looks very interesting for data gathering although I do see three main issues.
1) Because it doesn’t seem to offer alternatives data output could easily be taken as fact when it may be in error. At least with Google you look at the original sources.
2) Nowhere in the tour did it actually provide a link to a general web site. If it does then that’s great but why didn’t they show on the tour?
3) It won’t have Google’s knowledge of what is out there yet. Thus the data output may change over time as more accurate sites are identified. How will it know what are the more accurate sites?
I’m actually quite impressed with the tour but without the searches of web sites, that Google has built up over years, I see it being a first call tool to do the donkey work with a Google, or similar, search to validate the information. I can see many bloggers using this tool to gather data together for a post. Oh, and maybe even Mail journalists will find it eventually and then they can get some facts right. Of course this could simply be my misunderstanding of a simple tour and all my concerns could be answered. In which case Google will be relegated to searching for opinions, pictures and general news and this site would be first port of call for facts.
Can’t wait to ask it ‘What is the best way to get Gordo out?’
I suspect the system will give a nice little chart with various methods of assassination and the number of tries and successes of each method with links to details on how each works.
Isn’t technology grand.