And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Impressions Management 101
http://www.y2ktimebomb.com/DSA/VP/vp9911.htm
By Victor Porlier
March 17, 1999
On March 10, some two hundred journalists
assembled at a two-hour breakfast meeting in
Manhattan hosted by The Media Studies Center.
The reason? To hear John Koskinen, Chair of the
President's Council on the Year 2000 Conversion,
Edward Kelley, a member of the Board of
Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and a
panel of print and broadcast journalists address the
issue of "The Press and Preventing Panic."
If Lewis Carroll had been there, he would have reported being
asked to believe "six impossible things before breakfast" --
make
that during breakfast. Koskinen and Kelley were the two Y2K
point
men of the Wall Street/Beltway Nexus "helping" the press in
their
search for "the right voice on Y2K" as the Media Studies Center
Moderator, Kerry Brock, aptly phrased the purpose of the
meeting.
Governor Kelley began his remarks by saying that he has reached
the conclusion "now that the country is at last aggressively
addressing the problem, the most important single element in our
successfully navigating through the challenges presented by the
Millennium Bug is how the public responds to it. There are few
places in our national life where the statement 'attitude
can affect
outcomes' is so compellingly demonstrated as in the banking
sector,
particularly as we work to address Y2K." The reality is that the
remediated systems either work or they don't work and no amount
of attitude is going to change that.
John Koskinen said that a central Y2K problem is panic and
overreaction and that failure to report on facts of progress
can lead
to a self-fulfilling prophecy. He said, "As it becomes clear our
national infrastructures will hold, overreaction becomes one
of the
biggest remaining problems." The problem here is that we have no
proof that the national infrastructure will, in fact, hold.
And in the
absence of facts, we must prepare for problems, perhaps very
serious ones.
The underlying baseline assessment was similar to Peter de
Jager's
recent comments -- "Most, not all, companies are working on this
issue. They are fixing, or have fixed their systems. They have
examined, or are examining their embedded systems. We are, for
the most part, no longer ignoring Y2K." Though not there in
person, he was on the dais in spirit. In sum, "Doomsday
avoided, a
low to medium possible bump-in-the-road may be coming to your
locale." The Press should, in the words of Governor Kelley,
"suggest calm attentiveness to preparations" - presumably of the
two to three day variety suggested by FEMA.
John Koskinen also said that reports are snapshots that are
out of
date by the time they see print because the situation is too
dynamic
and that Y2K reports are often self reports and can be
misleading.
As one consultant told him, "The higher up you go in an
organization, the better they are doing." - to which one wag
in the
audience quipped, "Aren't you pretty high up in the White
House's
organization?" Smiles all around.
He also asserted, "the less you know, the more you assume the
worst," - a statement which I found to be seriously
misleading. A
large number of Y2K remediators and project leaders, "know more"
and are assuming something far worse than a bump-in-the-road.
Many top managers in corporations or government agencies and
investment analysts "know less" than the remediators and are
assuming the best. The general public "knows less" and is
all over
the spectrum of assessments and intentions to prepare or not to
prepare.
Somewhere in the back of my mind there surfaced the
memory of the S& L debacle when bank audits showed that all was
well until the banks began suddenly to implode. Perhaps it
was the
S&Ls that Governor Kelley had in mind when he added, "No one
can say there won't be glitches." He had no guarantee, but an
"educated confidence" that our financial system will not
seize up or
crash. He expressed hope that "the media will carefully
check out
these assertions, and if they prove to be reasonable, report
the story
that way."
It would have been more persuasive if he had suggested not so
much assessing the "reasonableness of his assertions," but
rather
how to get at the facts and inferences upon which those
assertions
are based. Bank depositors and Y2K analysts report widespread
stonewalling by banks across the country. No facts on
inventories
completed, numbers of systems - mission critical or otherwise
remediated, status of testing internal to the bank and
electronic data
interchanges among the bank's branches, project milestones -
past
and future. The only answers being given are that they are
ready,
compliant, or on schedule. Will Governor Kelley and the
authorities
in the other regulatory agencies be willing to require banks
to open
their books on Y2K project plans and progress to the Press? This
would go a long way towards helping the Press do as Governor
Kelley urged. He also said, "Let's not let 'experts' making
unproven
assertions, or offer personal opinions as facts, without
challenging
the basis for them." I assume that Governor Kelley would include
himself among such "experts."
After expressing heightened confidence in the domestic banking
system, Kelley went on to say, "We don't have as much
information about preparations internationally, and some
countries
are apparently only now beginning to seriously address the
issue.
We do not believe this will seriously affect worldwide financial
activity, but it could result in some disruptions abroad."
His statements about international finance struck me as
airbrushing
given the facts we do know. Every international survey --
Gartner
Group, World Bank, CIA, etc. - has forecast an overseas
disaster. I
pointed out that the organization which provides over 6000
institutions in 174 countries a secure network over which
financial
information is exchanged, S.W.I.F.T., is very concerned
about the
failure of global telecommunications. Banks in Thailand and
Russia
are cutting IT budgets and other countries including Japan and
Germany are way behind. He responded by saying something about
S.W.I.F.T.'s remediation being in good shape. Non sequitur. In
short, he offered no facts to support his unproven
assertions about
international finance.
One of the attendees, Charles Halpern of the Nathan Cummings
Foundation made a plea to the speakers and panelists to stop
using
demonizing terms such as "Chicken Little" and "Doomster," but to
little avail.
Within a few days, The Los Angeles Times headlined, "Y2K
Doomsters Tone Down Gloom: Panic Subsiding Due to Good
Repair Statistics." The LA Times apparently got the
Koskinen/Kelley message, not Mr. Halpern's. The journalist even
went so far as to falsely represent the current forecasts of
noted
economist, Dr. Ed Yardeni, to bolster her upbeat reassurances.
How many other journalists will megaphone the meeting's message
remains to be seen. As we watch the TV sound bites and read our
newspapers in coming months, we can assess the coverage to
determine if the reporters did, indeed, find "the right voice."
{Nothing is fixed...no voices rise to state we are ready with NO
qualms..all "plan" to be. Current government thinking emphasizes
strategies which leave funds in the bank, stocks on the rise - in short,
business as usual. Can you personally afford the probable government
"Oops..we were wrong..sorry about that." that you may not even be able to
hear should the structure supporting any news broadcast collapse?}
....................................................
How Grades were Assigned
http://www.freedom.gov/y2k/grades/how.asp
The primary determinant of grades is Mission-Critical Systems �
specifically, the estimated completion date based upon agency
self-reported current rate of progress.
Finishing before the OMB deadline of March 31, 1999 earns a base
grade of A. Finishing in the year 2000 or 2001 is a base grade of C.
2002 is a base grade of D. And, anything over 2002 is an F. If there
was such a thing as an F minus, AID clearly deserves it for its current
progress � hopefully, they will improve next quarter.
We considered failing every agency with an estimated end date after the
deadline, however, the estimated end dates are just that � estimates. We
hope that agencies will improve their rates of progress and move from
an estimated 2001 to successful completion before the deadline.
Obviously, those agencies estimated to finish in 2001 have further to go
than those estimated to finish in 2000.
There are four additional factors that lowered agency grades from their
base grade:
1. Contingency Plans � agencies should have at least basic contingency
plans in place already. Many agencies have made the fundamental error
of preparing contingency plans only for those systems they know will be
late. We and GAO insist that agencies prepare contingency plans that
assume systems failures and still maintain basic operations. These plans
are being called business continuity plans to distinguish them from
current weak agency contingency plans.
2. Telecommunications Systems � In-house PBXs, LAN/WAN, and
commercial switched networks are all vulnerable to Y2K problems. By
now all agencies should have completed a thorough inventory and
assessment of all telecommunications systems. We would expect a
reasonable percentage to now be compliant and a realistic plan in place
for the remainder.
3. Embedded Systems -- Microprocessor chips of various types are
often built in (embedded) to control devices. They may measure such
basic things as gallons per minute of water flowing through a pipe or
read magnetic strips in security badges. Many embedded chips that have
no overt date dependencies nonetheless use date related calculations.
Unfortunately, the only way to know whether or not most embedded
chips are compliant is to test them. Agencies should have a complete
inventory of all embedded chips, know the compliance of a reasonable
percentage thereof, and have a remediation plan in place.
4. External Data Exchange -- Like "no man is an island," so too, few
computer systems are self-contained. Most computer systems exchange
data with other computer systems. It is unfortunately easy for external
data that is not Y2K compliant to corrupt another computer system that
is Y2K compliant. All agencies should have a complete inventory of all
data exchanges, with emphasis on external data exchanges, know which
are compliant, and have a plan in place for the remainder.
Examples:
Social Security is projected to finish in 1999 with 100 percent of their
mission-critical systems compliant by March 1999. Further, they have
good business continuity contingency plans and a good knowledge of
the status of all their external data exchanges. Plus, they have been very
helpful to other agencies on governmentwide Y2K efforts.
HUD is projected to finish in 1999 but only 78 percent of their
mission-critical systems will be compliant by OMB's deadline of March
1999. Worse, their contingency plans, embedded systems, and external
data exchanges are very weak.
DOE is not projected to finish until 2004 and only 44 percent of their
mission-critical systems will be compliant by OMB's deadline of March
1999. To make bad worse, they also have poor contingency plans,
telecommunications systems, and embedded systems. If there was such
a thing as F minus, DOE has earned it.
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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