Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Darwin and Procrastination



Procrastination must be a Darwinian survival trait – it has been so thoroughly inculcated into our makeup. There have to be more procrastinators than go-getters in our world. If it was just an unfortunate condition, it would have been bred out of us millennia ago.

So the caveman who said “You guys go ahead, I’ll stay sharpen my spear and go on the hunt tomorrow,” missed the saber-tooth attack, so he got to procreate while his more expeditious brothers went to dinner.  When Leonidas went to the Pass, there must have been some temporizing Spartan who volunteered to be number 301, and was delegated to stay behind to protect the city. SO his children were able to pass along that postponing gene.

Dawdling no doubt infused the gene pool when procrastinators arrived late to the party, and got the best girls (or guys) because they weren’t as drunk as the early revelers. The winners in social, business, and political conflicts must have been dominated by loiters who stood aside while more hurried compatriots rushed forward towards genetic disaster.

Got any examples of your own? Post them here and we’ll see who agrees.

No rush. Do it when you get a chance.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Reuse those abbreviations!



Earlier this week, the Department of Homeland Security released the “Executive Order 13636
Privacy and Civil Liberties Assessment Report.”

This report has some interesting attributes that distinguish it from most government reports. It has an interesting language, with much more equivocation than is typical in a government document. [More on that in a subsequent blog.] But the “PaCLAR” also continues the use of the term “SSA” – Sector Specific Agency – which was introduced last year by DHS in the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) 2013 to implement Presidential Policy Directive 21 (PPD-21).

Coining the abbreviation “SSA” (abbreviation – it is technically not an acronym unless it has its own pronunciation) is confirmation of the initial shortage that seems to emanate from the secret Government Alphabet Office (GAO) in DHS. Unofficial reports from DHS confirm the Policy of Alphabetic Conservation (PAC) being implemented to reduce funding to create new abbreviations and acronyms (AAA). The White House has an internal Directive on Directives (DoD) that mandates reuse of abbreviations rather than the creation of new abbreviations whenever possible. The General Specification for Abbreviations (GSA) has been called “a bold leadership policy.” The Administration is encouraging Congress to consider enacting an Abbreviation Control Act (ACA) to make the policy a legal mandate. A Federal Abbreviation Regulation (FAR) is being developed to Officially Monitor Brevity (OMB) as a part of a larger Energy Optimization Program (EOP). The Reuse Formula Initiative (RFI) is reported to be planned for public commentary (PC) under a larger Formula Organization Interim Authority (FOIA). Rumors abound that a Republican Congressman will be named by the White House to lead a bipartisan Dedicated Homonym Study (DHS). The reported objective of the study is to create a Unified Standard for Abbreviations (USA).

The overall effort is being termed by White House sources as the “April Initiative” (AI) to denote the Initial Optimization Abbreviation (IOA) on the first day of this month.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

QPL Analysis of GAO report on IRS Performance



Quantified Perception analysis of GAO report on IRS
On April 21, the GAO released a briefing on their study on the IRS:
“Absorbing Budget Cuts Has Resulted in Significant Staffing Declines and Uneven Performance”

GAO analyzed the impacts of reduced budgets and employees on IRS since FY2009, concluding that there has been significant impact. The report is publicly available on the GAO website.

Quantified Perception has performed a Text Analysis Profile on the web announcement, the transmittal letter to Congress, and the briefing paper. Together, they constitute slightly over 5000 words (excluding appendices.)

Inasmuch as all three data sources reflect the same study and the summary conclusions from the study, QPL combined the three sources for analysis. The emphasis of GAO is on performance and services provided by IRS. It is noteworthy that “FTE” and FTEs” rank in the top five most frequently used words in the text, indicating the emphasis that GAO ascribes to the personnel reductions as a factor in lower performance of the IRS mission. Budget matters rank first in two-word phrases, followed by a miscellany of performance terms. Three-word phrases are centered on cause-and-effect concepts, notably including “international and offshore” as the single most used meaningful phrase. Four and five-word phrases similarly center on problem areas and IRS response to the challenges.

Quantified Perception believes that the GAO report carries enough charged language ot produce a shift to a higher priority on IRS funding in FY 2015 and beyond. With significance in the language to staffing and IT infrastructure issues, integrators should re-examine the IRS as a potential market for services and products to reverse the trend of the past five years.


Frequency of meaningful words and phrases in web announcement, transmittal letter, and briefing charts:
Most often used words
Occurrences
service
& services
56
operations
34
data
28
performance
26
fte & ftes
26
information
25
taxpayer
24
enforcement
20
support
18
trends
18
resources
17
cuts
16
budgetary
14
plan
14
taxpayers
14




Two-word Phrases
Occurrences
budget request,
budgetary resources,
& budget cuts
41
operations support
17
performance trends
11
information technology
9
average wait
8
priority programs
8
call volume
7




Three-word Phrases
Occurrences
other budgetary resources
14
full time equivalents
6
international and offshore
6
across the board
5
business systems modernization
5
improvement of services
5
information technology infrastructure
5
more strategically manage
5
offshore compliance issues
5
required by sequestration
5
rescission and reductions
5
services to taxpayers
5
staffing and performance
5
strategically manage operations
5
support for information
5
taxpayers refund fraud
5
theft and international
5




Four-word Phrases
Occurrences
across the board rescission
5
board rescission and reductions
5
by sequestration in fiscal
5
compliance issues the operating
5
congressional justifications for irs
5
enforcement to operations support
5
fraud and identity theft
5
from enforcement to operations
5
funding staffing and performance
5
identity theft and international
5
international and offshore compliance
5




Five-Word Phrases
Occurrences
board rescission and reductions required
5
for the improvement of services
5
from enforcement to operations support
5
funding staffing and performance trends
5
identity theft and international and
5
irs has proposed to transfer
5
operations support for information technology
5
sequestration in fiscal year 2014
5
support for information technology infrastructure
5
taxpayers refund fraud and identity
5