So this is part four of our analysis archeological dig into things we take for granted. As I like to say at the beginning of each of these videos, I recommend you view this set of videos in order. Because they do build on each other. However, they can be viewed independently. I'm going to go more into the business world without dig, and you may recognize some of what's to follow if you work at an organization. Otherwise, please look at the artifacts we uncover from a customer point of view.

Another artifacts I found was an accounting ledger. Now this psychological dig involves quite a bit of digging. I had been talking about this bits of history for years and then found a reference to a source and a small magazine. Obviously, humans can make addition and subtraction errors when doing accounting tasks. So double entry bookkeeping, as it's known, is used to catch them. It's a way of double checking to catch errors.

Back in the 1400s, there wasn't a Italian mathematician named Luca pacioli, who was also a Franciscan friar. He is notable for publishing the first description of the method of double entry bookkeeping that Venetian merchants used back then, and is still in general use today. It is said that he would write something like in God, I swear this ledger is true. The top of the ledger pages actually was no lightweight. He also is reputed to top mathematics to Leonardo da Vinci no less. Now we can all agree that humans may make accounting errors, but if computers do, then the modern world is in deep trouble.

However, I'm going to bet that I will find in most organizations computer software that does double entry bookkeeping. Why is that when computers can add and subtract quite well, when I used to teach computer programming seminars, I'd say not too seriously to my students. Calculate the balance of the ledger once printed twice in the debit and credit columns for the accountants in the early days of computers. First department in an organization to get computer systems which typically the accounting department, of course the head of accounts because sign company checks, I wrote a lot of accounts receivable, accounts payable and general ledger systems in my early programming years and never wrote a program for the cafeteria, or the general admin department. Do you remember the hundred and 32 character wide printers? Why 132 characters wide and not 80 or 100.

I remember one of the sales pitches of the computer hardware salesman to the account department manager. This computer printer will print a six column ledger faster than you can blink, which when measured on a line by line basis was only a small exaggeration. However, it was a good sales clincher. Here's a short comment I make in some of my keynote speeches. Unless you're in an accounting organization, you shouldn't have an accounting system any more than I should have a parts tracking system when I don't sell parts. toning that statement down.

I mean, an organization's system should not separate out all the accounting processes into one system any more than they should separate out all the Edit processes in the organization into another system. However, double bookkeeping is still perpetuated in computer systems. Of course, this is not a problem for a customer unless they need to sort out the billing problem that stems from a company's accounting computer system. No one listening to this video has had one of those problems, right? Yeah, right. Again, be careful what you perpetuate.

Let's keep digging in the business world. I found some human files. I watched a fascinating PBS television program that described the early ways of creating a file used by two merchants. About 4000 years ago Mesopotamian merchants file the clay contracts, the merchants would agree on a contract for goods and then create play models of the items in the contract, and then seal them up in a clay ball containing the agreement. For example, it might be an agreement meant to deliver three goats for 50 bunches of dates at the end of the season, the ball would be sealed and baked, and then at the end of the season, it would be broken open to ensure the original deal was adhered to. Over time, they found there would be disagreements throughout the season before the contract roll was open.

So they decided to impress icons on the outside of the label representing the contract contents. It didn't take too long before they realized they didn't need the contents of the ball. As the Contra icons were baked on the outside of the ball. So a clay tablet was used with the icons pressed into it instead of a ball. So we have the beginnings of a recorded flat file. It's interesting to ask why do we need files?

I'd like to start my Information Analysis seminar by asking you this question. I get many typical answers such as because of human memory limits. We forget things, especially a long list of things. There was a great article written in the 1950s by a guy called Joe George Miller, titled The magical number seven plus or minus two. It turns out that's the short term memory limit of the number of things we can remember. If I say to my wife, I'm just going to the store for a couple of items.

And she says, Oh, you should also get an proceeds to list off additional things I should buy. If it's over five items, I'll invariably end up writing down a list before I leave the house. If I don't write them down, I'm sure I'll forget something. There's the human short term memory limit kicking in. Notice in the USA, many companies asked for just the last four digits of your social security number, or a four digit Personal Identification Number, your pin, one can usually remember four digits easily. By the way, in the USA, a social security number is nine digit seven plus two.

A local phone number is seven digits. The passport number is nine digits. A vehicle license plates has up to seven characters. All these reflect the typical short term human memory limit and other people Take a Lancer, I get to my question of why do we need files is to retain historical information? Yes, that's the catch all answer. Also to satisfy business legal and audit regulations, obviously quite valid.

Also to hold for a time delay, a good general answer. We do hold data for such things as end of day and we can use summaries. All these reasons match with the need for a merchant contract in my previous example, by the way, there are many human filing systems for storage and retrieval of data, for example, sequential files, index files, and concatenated files, etc. Someone sent me an example of a concatenated file. I guess that's a valid example. Another answer I get for why we need human files, especially in organizations is to share data across divisions department and job boundaries.

These files are what I call design convenience files. This one is particularly important in my discussion of perpetuating all designs. It turns out Shared human files between divisions, departments and job boundaries are not essential files. And in many cases these files can be eliminated. They are typically left over from all human boundary design reasons. Let me show and prove that to you.

Suppose we had two people in an organization. I'll call them Fred and Sally has part of their job. They process orders. Now they work on Flexi time, Fred is a morning person likes to get to work early and leaves early. Sally doesn't do mornings and likes to arrive later and work later. Because they are part of a workflow for processing orders, there's going to have to be a file between them to store the partially processed orders from Fred waiting for the arrival of Sally.

Of course, both of them believe this file is essential to their work and hence the organization. Now suppose the volume of paperwork goes down and Sally leaves the department and moves on to bigger and better things. And Fred takes over Sally's job. Do you think Fred completes the first part of the order and puts In the partial order file, then slides to share over to Sally used to sit and pick back up the partial order and complete it. Of course not, he already has the order in his hands, so there's no need to store it in a file just to pick it back up again. The file was just a convenience file or more appropriately designed implementation file introduced because of the separation of two human jobs.

This design broke up the efficient flow of the order, the partial order file was not an essential file. In general files slow down the workflow through an organization so only essential business files should be kept when analyzing and implementing new systems in an organization. Now, the worst thing that can happen is some nice Information Systems person comes along and says to Fred, I can create a computer database of that file with Backup and Restore systems etc. This would just perpetuate an unnecessary file and consequently still slow down the flow of a customer order through the organization. Now please elevate this example to include files between departments, divisions, bureaus, and other human partitioning, you can see why all files get perpetuated. Of course, this becomes a problem for us as customers as it slows down a business response to us, not to mention the problem of duplicate redundant and non synchronized data for the organization, and the problems that those can have for us as customers.

So human files get perpetuated, sometimes into computer systems. Same lesson here, be careful what you perpetuate. Of course, I also found computer files on my day. computers use electronic digital storage, originally magnetic core memory, a person by the name of an Wang of Harvard University patented in 1949, the beginnings of cold memory. Another person Jay Forrester, MIT, conceived and patented the idea in 1951 of using magnetic cores for computer memory. Magnetic rings were used as a basis to store information.

Each ring would be magnetized or not magnetized, which is interpreted as 011 magnetic rings stored a bit, which is an abbreviation of the word binary digit. Binary is used as the basic system of stores for most computers, eight bits together form what's known as a byte, a byte being the basic addressable item in most computers. Because there are a bits and each bit has a base of two values zero or one, we have two to the power of eight possible combinations of bits in a byte, that would be tuned in 56 combinations that can be represented with one byte enough to represent the numbers zero through nine the letters A through Z, special characters or symbols etc. So the name Fred fr ad, would use four bytes to be represented in digital storage. Here's an actual early storage board. As you can see, the magnetic rings requires More.

In the very early days of computer hardware one byte costs $1. Not bad for eight magnetic rings with intersecting wires, especially as the early call memory was assembled on the microscopes by precision workers, initially garment workers, because storage was so costly. I remember in my early computer programming days, I had to fit a program into a 4k partition 4000 bytes. Otherwise the program would run inefficiently. Core memory was superseded by semiconductor memory in the 1970s. Now, even my laptop storage is measured in terabytes and million million buys.

And it's quite inexpensive. But notice we still measure computer storage in bytes and purchase storage in binary quantities. For example, 256 megabytes, 512 gigabytes, etc. We have the same problem with computer files that we do with human files. They get perpetuated and many of the old computer files are destroyed. and convenient files needed between all computer design boundaries.

So if you had to analyze an established organization systems, you would probably see a file sometimes a queue between each application system, subsystem and program. Just like human files, these convenience computer files slow down the flow of information through an organization. If these files are believed to be important, and are perpetuated in between new computer systems, this will slow down response to such things as a customer order through an organization. Now, this becomes a problem for us as customers to an organization as we wonder what is taking order so long to be process. Also, just as with human files, it becomes a bigger problem. We duplicate redundant and non synchronized data in an organization and the problems that those cause for its customers.

I say in my process, NASA seminars that we dislike and question the need for any existing files. But in my Information Analysis seminars, we like files, but only essential Business files that are not perpetuated from the old design, a little technical they're sorry. When old design files are removed and implemented as flows of information, the response is invariably quicker to such things as customer requests and orders, or for any continuous processing required by a system. So even old computer files get perpetuated. Same lesson here. Be careful what you perpetuate.

Follow me on to my next video in this series clarify. To continue archeological dig will look at old human and computer design systems and their structures and see how they've been perpetuated into today's systems. Or you can find out more about what I teach professionally by going to my website at www logical conclusions inc.com