Category Archives: European IQ Trainwrecks

Media trainwrecks (one of two)

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Courtesy of Irish uber-blogger and technology journalist Damien Mulley come two excellent examples of poor quality information getting loose.

The first concerns an article published in the Irish Examiner Newspaper. They published a story this week which puported to show that Irish employers were losing millions of euro due to staff members using Social Networking sites like Bebo or Facebook. Mr Mulley found no fewer than five errors in the article, ranging from the fact that the survey they were referencing was a UK survey, and 50% of the respondents were interviewed in one location (which wasn’t in Ireland) to basic errors in mathematics in working out the cost to the Irish economy. As Damien helpfully points out (when he fixed his own factual errors due to miscalculations), that for the Irish Examiner’s figures to make any sense the average salary in Ireland would need to be over €120k a year.

 …take it from me… it’s not.

As Damien’s site is a blog there are some interesting comments which correct his calculations and provide alternate ways of calculating the costs to the Irish economy of Social Networking. None of them reach the same conclusions as the Irish Examiner.

 The second example will follow in the next post.

A process problem with the trains…

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Information can take many forms. Ultimately, it is the ‘message’ that is communicated between two people (or systems or processes).

This story from today’s Irish Examiner shows the importance of checking that the message being communicated is accurate and timely. It’s a trainwreck because it relates to trains, there was a problem and it will cost the Irish rail operator €10,000 to compensate people for a miscommunication and an error in the presentation of information.

The summary of the article is that

  1. Over 300 people were waiting for the train from one of Ireland’s flagship railway stations.
  2. A visually impaired passenger was helped by the Station Controller on to the train
  3. The signal for the train to depart was given, while 300+ people stood on the platform.
  4. The people at the station had to take a different train (leading no doubt to over crowding), which made an unscheduled stop to link up with a special shuttle train transfer that brought them to their final destination.

Inaccurate information was given to the train driver and guard (or perhaps they interpreted information incorrectly) who followed the procedure when that signal was given – they started the train up and left the platform (and the 300 people) behind it.
How might this have been avoided? As ever in these cases an investigation is underway.

Customer data boo-boos in Carphone Warehouse & Talk Talk

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For a change, we didn’t find this one on The Register (oh, hang on , here it is on el Reg as well…). However, it would seem that UK communications retail Carphone Warehouse and its telco subsidiary Talk Talk have been given a stern reprimand from the UK’s Information Commissioner for problems with the quality of their customer information which resulted in breaches of the Data Protection Act. In addition incorrect information was sent to credit referencing agencies and debt collection agencies.

The full details can be found here: http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2207387/carphone-warehouse-breaches

This echoes similar issues in the Irish Republic a few years back where Talk Talk’s Irish operation was reprimanded by both the Irish Data Protection Commissioner  for their information management practices. In that instance they were ordered to refrain from any direct marketing until they had sorted the problems out.

Trainwreck or Bus disaster?

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From the “This is london” website there is this story about the dangers of relying on satnav and the unexpected outcomes that arise from decisions taken on incomplete or inaccurate information.

Summary… 50 people take a shopping trip from Gloucester to Lille (France). Driver of coach relies on SatNav. He selects “Lille” from the menu. He neglects to check if it is the right Lille as there are two within 100 miles of each other – one in France and one in Belgium. Coach tour winds up miles off course in the wrong country.

The passengers notice this as they are travelling, particularly when they see signs for Eindhoven (not in France) and (possibly) “Welcome to Belgium”, but when they brought this to the driver’s attention they were ignored. The end result was they wound up in the wrong country and, by the time they got to the right Lille (France) there were only 2 hours of shopping time left.

The shoppers stayed overnight in Lille and the next day the driver turned off his SatNav so as not to make the same mistake again. Unfortunately that resulted in him getting stuck under a low bridge and having to go back and find an alternative route, adding an hour to the journey.

What is the moral of this story?

  1. When using technology in a process, pay attention to signposts along the way that could tell you you are going the wrong way.
  2. Listen to your customer… sometimes they see signs of error you don’t
  3. Don’t blame technology for errors originating with people or incomplete information. Rather than throw out technology, first look at the process end to end and see where the problem actually originated. It might mean you can use the existing technology more effectively and avoid future delays and problems.

Is it an IQ Trainwreck? 50 people affected, poor quality information involved, a double whammy of issues…. if not a trainwreck then perhaps a Bus Disaster?

I shot the Sheriff (but I didn’t update the warrants database)

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The headline doesn’t scan as well as the original Bob Marley lyric, but that jarring dischord is nothing compared to the problems with the PNC (Police National Computer) in the UK.

A review is underway of the processes used to update the PNC database across the UK covering the “national process and practice for withdrawing warrants, involving courts, the police, and the crown prosecution service”. The review is also extending into Magistrate Courts (lower level ‘district’ courts in England and Wales) due to “differing practices” which may require procedures to be clarified.

At the heart of the issue is the withdrawal of warrants for thousands of defendants who never turned up for their court dates and have escaped justice because no warrants were issued for their arrest, no police pursued them and their ‘failure to appear’ wasn’t logged on the PNC. The power to withdraw a warrant rests (or should rest) with judges only…

Regular visitors to this site will recall the IQ Trainwreck that emerged about the DNA database in the UK a while ago… oh dear.

ahem… Information Quality problem with the trains…

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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/13/eurostar_glitch/

Again culled from el Reg, here’s an example of an information quality problem that prevents a process (a very trivial process) from being completed.

It seems that the on-line booking system for the EuroStar train linking the UK with Europe doesn’t recognise the existence of the 29th of February 2008. As the leap year day is the day when women can traditionally propose to their partners (as opposed to dropping less and less subtle hints about the need for a big diamond on their finger which happens the other 3 years out of 4) this might pose a problem for some.

Why is this an IQ Trainwreck?…

  • Well, it involves trains so it is just too easy an association to make.
  • A process has been (apologies for this one) derailed by poor quality information (or master data or a poorly designed/implemented data quality check)
  • The comments from the readers of the post sum up the likely responses of people encountering the problem..
    • This is a trivial bug, if that’s how careless they are do I really want to travel by train?
    • They obviously don’t want my business, I’ll fly instead
    • Good grief…. how embarassing for them.

Apparently the Eurostar site isn’t the only one to have this issue… but it is the one that makes the best IQ Trainwreck.

oops Amazon did it again…

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Also from “The Register”, it appears that Amazon have again created ‘interesting’ relationships in their data that have had uncomfortable results for their customers.

We previously reported on the IQ trainwreck that occured when Amazon sent email recommendations for sex toys to people who’d never bought such items from Amazon. Today they seem to have gone one better with a search for “Spiderman Watch” on Amazon.co.uk returning a quite prominent sex toy.

The Register posted their story at 15:03 GMT+1 today, and at 16:14 this correspondent found the same item, this time TOP of the search results.

I’ve uploaded a screen grab of my search results and clicking here will bring you to my search string… rather than risk offending readers the screen grabs are linked to rather than displayed as thumbnails.

Spiderman Watch Search Result (Image not presented for fear of offending)

As Amazon uses linkages within its data to present recommendations, purely in the interests of research I followed a few links on the product page for the unexpected result to see what might have lead to the association being created.

Under the product detail for the sex toy Amazon proudly lists that customers who bought items like this also bought “Spiderman – The Animated Series” and a number of innocent children’s toys.

The sex toy and a number of others of similar kind (which revealed themselves when I clicked on the producer name) appear to be categorised “Toys and Games” in the Amazon database… which means that they may (indeed WILL) appear in other searches. For example, if you search for “Rabbit” under the “Toys and Games” category, look what appears in the “New Arrivals” section on the left hand side…

Link to Screenshot of Search results for ‘Rabbit’ in ‘Toys and Games on Amazon’.

Further investigation indicates that the root cause here is the nature of the classification and tagging of these particular ‘toys’ in the Amazon database… searching for “Rabbit” under “Toys & Games/Dolls & Accessories” produces an interesting result on the first page… Example of classification/metadata issue

Why is this an IQ Trainwreck?

  1. Reputational Damage – The fact that the item is returned in a search for a children’s product is damaging to Amazon’s reputation as a retailer. As the story has appeared on The Register, it is possible that a ‘slow news day’ will result in it appearing in local nor national press in the UK (and it has been mentioned here).
  2. Derived from information – Amazon search results are returned from Amazon’s database… somewhere in the database a relationship has been created between the term ‘spiderman watch’ and this particular sex toy. This may have happened by accident or through malicious intent on the part of an individual. However the fact that it can happen suggests a lack of control over the information (should it be ‘consistent’ for a search for a children’s watch to return a sex toy? What controls might Amazon consider to improve the quality of their searches and prevent possibly inappropriate content from being shown to children?)
  3. Information is of poor quality – it fails to meet or exceed expectations.

Personally, I wouldn’t want to have to explain to any kids what those particular toys were for.

I am reminded of a story I heard about a particular court case in Ireland a few years ago where a children’s party hire shop sued a classified directory enquiries provider for listing them in the Adult party hire section of the directory….

It’s not only Amazon who have pricing trainwrecks…

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Courtesy of the correspondents over at TheRegister.co.uk, we have the story of Woolworths.co.uk who advertised a childrens book for a somewhat astronomical price.. stg£99 million (and 99p) and then charged £2.74 delivery as well…

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/16/rather_expensive_book/

This is the counter-weight to Amazon’s underpriced TV issues mentioned here previously.

The error is now fixed on the Woolworths site…

A minor trainwreck… the importance of quality info on live TV

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From the blog section of the Irish Times…

http://www.ireland.com/blogs/presenttense/2007/10/08/youve-won-nothing/

 ‘Tubridy Tonight’ is a popular weekly TV show on Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE.  On Saturday last, the presenter was giving away a holiday to Chicago along with an amount of spending money. A caller to the show simply had to answer a question correctly… the question was “Which actress won an Oscar for her role in the movie Chicago?”.

The caller answered “Renée Zellwegger”, one of the female leads in the 2002 movie and was congratulated on giving the correct answer (and got a fanfare from the house band). A few seconds later the hapless presenter had to correct himself (and the caller) and inform her that she had given the wrong answer and hadn’t actually won the prize but had received a lesser consolation prize instead.

My guess is that the presenter, perhaps believing the question to be so trivally easy that no-one could get it wrong, went on auto-pilot and didn’t perform the much needed vital check of accuracy before opening his mouth and putting at least one foot firmly in….

The lesson… a control check on the quality  of information (such as accuracy or ‘correctness’) needs to not just exist but needs to be actually operated in order to prevent embarrassment, injury or loss.  Having the mechanisms of a control in place but not operating it is a recipe for a trainwreck.

For the record, both Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renée Zellwegger were nominated for Oscars for Chicago. Zeta-Jones won for Best Supporting Actress. Zellwegger missed out for Best Actress, but did win a Golden Globe.

Taking your eye off the ball

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Though not a football fan in any sense, an item of news about PSV Eindhoven caught my eye because it illustrates well the costs of poor data management.

PSV have been disqualified from the Dutch league cup competition because they had fielded a player who had been disqualified due to having received two yellow cards in the 2006 competition. Somehow, this information didn’t reach the team manager and nobody else seemed to notice.

This could be seen as a one off administrative error. It appears, however, that not only did the club receive a reminder of the disqualification beforehand, but that this is just one of a string of problems in recent years. Twice before the club “forgot” to register some of its best players for competitions and had to field weaker teams, which resulted in lost matches.

I have not found any figures given for how much the most recent error will cost PSV, but I would guess that the lost revenue with run into the millions of euros. The club don’t seem to know how this blunder happened, but it is a data quality problem which can very easily be resolved. Given the financial implications of these errors, a thorough check of their data and communication procedures seems to be in order!