Category Archives: rants

Bravo to CPO Agenda for Pointing Out That Charging Suppliers to Bid is a Really Bad Idea!

As I’ve told everyone who has ever asked, charging suppliers to bid is a really bad idea. Not only does it generate ill-will, but as this recent article over on the CPO Agenda that gave “tips for understanding why charging suppliers to tender is a bad idea” noted, it could even be illegal. But let’s take the tips one-by-one because it seems that this practice, which started rearing its ugly head at the start of the recession, is still trying to push through.

  • It is Counter-Productive
    It reduces the expressions of interest from time-wasters and quality suppliers alike. This is what goes through the head of a serious bidder with a quality product: “I know my product is quality, and so do my happy customers, so why should I pay $1,000 just for the opportunity to submit a bid? I’m not even guaranteed my product will be evaluated. I’m going to bid on these four other RFxs instead.” So, what you’ll end up with is a set of suppliers who are desparate for your business. But why are they desperate? Maybe their sales team can’t sell worth a damn, or, maybe (and the doctor leans this way) their products just aren’t as good as their competitors, or if they are, they are not able to produce them as cost effectively. Do you really want inferior products or unnecessary premiums for quality?
  • Suppliers with No-Pay-To-Play Policies are Out
    Not only will you likely knock out most of the quality suppliers in your potential supply base who, while quite willing to bear the costs of providing you with product samples, etc, are not willing to pay just to bid, but you will definitely knock out any supplier with a no-pay-to-play policy that prohibits them from bidding on any contract that requires a bid fee. These could be the best suppliers in the world.
  • There’s no Rationale for it
    The logic is that it takes time to collect, verify, and analyze a bid, and while this is true, with modern e-RFx / e-Auction software, you can collect, verify the completeness of, and compare a bid to a benchmark in less than a second. You will likely only need to analyze the Top 5, accoring to your weighted metric, in detail at the end of the day. And, since you can now buy unlimited use of these systems for less than what a single project used to cost, it doesn’t cost any more to collect fifteen bids than five bids.
  • It is Unethical
    There is way too much opportunity for corruption or the perception of favouritism. (In simple terms, you are sending this message: We value suppliers who bribe us for our business.) Plus, there is always a chance that this restriction could be illegal, in breach of fair competitive practices, or public procurement law. Oops! Can you say “class action lawsuit”?
  • It Says Your Company Is An Ass
    Okay, so the original article said it sends a strong message to the supply base you need to connect with that you are actually uncooperative and uninterested in building a relationship that will benefit both parties, but this sums it up nicely. Unless your organization has a monopoly, and can get away with being a self-centered smug corporate ass, just don’t do it.

Are the Traffic Ranking Websites The New SEO Scams?

As regular readers of this blog will know, back in 2009, SI briefly claimed the top spot on the traffic ranking engines during the summer (see this post). Before then, it was in the number two position for quite some time, and, according to these traffic ranking sites, remained strong in the number two position until about last summer. Then, about the same time that most of the major ranking engines starting introducing premium accounts and services, it started falling — rapidly — even though traffic has been holding steady, and often increasing 2% to 3% month over month, for the past year.

According to these respected traffic ranking sites, which used to at least be directionally accurate, it now gets between 1,000 and 6,000 visits per month. Are you fracking kidding me? On average, SI gets between 4,300 and 5,000 visits per day, which averages out to between 30,000 and 35,000 visits per week, and between 125,000 and 150,000 visits per month (which translates to somewhere between 1.5 and 1.8 Million visits per year). Not Perez Hilton traffic by any stretch of the imagination, but still quite respectable in this space!

Here’s a snapshot of traffic that I took a few days ago using the built in statistics tool in the GoDaddy QuickBlog hosting service. Between May 22, 2012 and May 29, 2012, SI received between 3,500 and 5,500 visits each day and over 36,000 visits in that week.

SI Traffic for May 22 to May 29, 2012

However, if I pay for premium membership, most of the traffic ranking sites will allow me to install (updated / more accurate) traffic monitoring capabilities (which translates into custom javascript / image loads) that will allow the sites to track my traffic more accurately (and do what GoDaddy and Google do for free). I don’t know about you, but if this isn’t an SEO scam legitimized, I don’t know what is. (Short story, I’m miffed, not giving them a dime and they can all go to heck!)

Has anyone had similar experiences with these sites over the past year?

Your Tax Dollars Hard At Work

While I’m all for preserving endangered foliage, six weeks after first reading about it, I still can’t believe it cost $205,000 to transplant a single shrub as part of a highway project in California.

Check out this article over on Left Lane News (“california spends 205000 to transplant single shrub for highway project”) on how San Francisco used funds from several state and federal sources to transplant a single Arctostaphylos franciscana shrub from the median of a strip of roadway adjacent to the Golden Gate Bridge to another location where it could thrive in the wild.

I’m sorry, but just like it doesn’t cost 100,000 to dig up a shrub, it doesn’t cost $205,075 to load, transport, and replant one either. This is yet another example of how Government Procurement gives Procurement a bad name.

The Three Things You Really Need to Know About Big Data Right Now!

A recent post over on the World Future Society on “The Three Things You Need to Know About Big Data, Right Now” annoyed me because the first thing I saw was that the data experts are organizing and they want a revolution. So what? First of all, we’re few and far between, and, more importantly:

  1. For Business, Big is, as it has always been, meaningless
    Like I said in my recent post on how There’s No Such Thing as BIG Data in Business, we’re not doing protein folding, climate modelling, nuclear simulations, supercollider data interpolation, cosmological computations, or even trying to beat Deep Blue at Chess. We’re looking for answers to everyday business problems, which comes from analyzing heterogeneous and related data, possibly through federation, and not from throwing everything into a number cruncher to see what comes out. Although you may have 100 Million transactions in your ERP, you don’t need to analyze them all at once. Analyzing all of your spend at once is akin to comparing your DVD Player to the kitchen sink to an apple. We don’t need a revolution. An evolution will do just fine.
  2. They Don’t Need Your Data
    Yes, every advertiser and his dog is going to want your data to better target you with advertisements you are more likely to look at, but you don’t have to give it. Remember, they only care about statistics anyway, and, depending on the data being collected, a sample as small as 30 can have some statistical relevance. And while economists, population researchers, and medical researchers may have a valid need for certain data items about you, you don’t have to share all your private details and can most likely keep most of your unique identifying details anonymous without impacting the accuracy of their study.
  3. The Correlations will be Uncanny but Many Won’t Matter Anyway
    While some stuff you can predict is amazing, some is not, and while it’s always frustrating to not be able to predict some behaviours and outcomes, we not only accept that as a fact of business and of life, but wouldn’t have it any other way. (There’d be no stock market if we could predict everything.) For example, it’s not unexpected that web-savvy people will be searching for “unemployment” information as soon as they get laid off. But it is unexpected that a subset of Indian Politicians and a subset of Drug Dealers would have much in common (as per this recent Freakonomics Blog Entry. And neither of these facts really helps us with anything.
    Plus, the predictions will never be perfect. Like weather and stock market models, when you try to model large-scale behaviour like consumer activity over the long term, every now and again the model will fall flat on its face.

To summarize, Big Data is like Big Cloud — full of too much hot air.

Where Are My Marbles?

This is the third post in the continuing saga of the doctor and the quest to get his marbles back from the Twitter Bird. Part I and Part II are still archived on the site.

I’ve looked way up high
on the top of the CN Tower
And I’ve looked way down low
in the depths of Sarma
I’ve looked into
a Raven’s maw
And in a hipster’s ‘fro
(what does that do for karma?)

I’ve looked near
just outside the door
I’ve looked far
in the Serengeti
I’ve even looked here
under the mounds of paper on my desk
And I still don’t know where the heck they are
(am I starting to sound petty?)

I’ve looked on land
where it’s nice and dry
I’ve looked in the sea
where it’s oh so very wet
I’ve even asked the band
(who only work 10-2-midnite)
Where they could be
(but have received no answer yet)

I’ve run to the hills
(on the advice of the Iron Maiden)
And rushed to the valley
(of the ancient kings)
I’ve checked all the mills
(and some still make paper, you know)
And even asked O’malley
(down in the alley, improving his swing)

No luck have I had
even though I have tried
No trace have I found
outside or inside
Of anything smooth
shiny, or clear
Or anything round
like my marbles, so dear.

Damn you TwitterBird!
Give Me Back My Marbles!

Epilogue

Quoth the TwitterBird, Never!