La produzione contrattuale in azienda è molto variabile per una serie di motivi -tanto endogeni quanto esogeni- e non-standard quasi per definizione. Ciò significa che si esprimono concetti analoghi in tanti modi diversi, almeno tanti quanti sono i contratti prodotti. Questo avviene specialmente nei rapporti interaziendali o B2B.

L’assenza di standard è una conseguenza del fatto che ogni rapporto deve essere puntualmente affrontato e questo identifica il principale motivo endogeno. I motivi esogeni derivano invece dal contributo di terze parti quali studi legali, controparti o consulenti nella redazione delle clausole e dettagli del contratto.

Il risultato è un insieme non omogeneo di clausole redatte con altissima variabilità pur contenendo gli stessi scopi funzionali; la medesima clausola ad es., inserita in diversi contratti, sarà facilmente ubicata in sezioni diverse e conterrà testi diversi pur esprimendo lo stesso concetto. Questa situazione, oltre a non normalizzare il linguaggio, rende più complicato l’esercizio della revisione dei contratti, buona pratica da svolgere come minimo un paio di volte all’anno.

Apparentemente non ci sarebbero vie di uscita date le premesse ma, grazie alla metodologia #clm (Contract Lifecycle Management), il problema è ovviabile.
Il CLM considera i contratti non come “documenti” ma come “collezioni” di scopi funzionali (articoli o clausole) identificati molto puntualmente. La semantica del CLM non è in conflitto con la realtà dei fatti. Questo concetto è fondamentale per introdurre la pratica di #standardizzazione dei #contratti che consiste in un processo di ottimizzazione della gestione dei contenuti contrattuali attraverso due percorsi:

  • Per metodo: con l’adozione di accordi quadro (#msa), e contratti tipo ovvero modelli di contratti definiti dall’ufficio legale per ogni situazione puntualmente identificata. L’adozione di MSA lascia le parti più variabili dei rapporti fuori dall’ambito dell’accordo stesso, e standardizzando per definizione le situazioni e di conseguenza gran parte dei contenuti.
  • Per contenuto: con la normalizzazione delle clausole per identità e contenuto; passando attraverso l’identificazione puntuale dei contenuti e la conseguente “normalizzazione” del linguaggio con cui esprimerle all’interno dei contratti prodotti.

La combinazione di entrambe le nature porta ad una situazione di controllo completo dei contenuti contrattuali prodotti e gestiti.

A group of Google employees are yet again speaking out against Google’s defense contracts, this time asking the company to shelve its $1.2 billion Project Nimbus contract for the Israeli government and military. Google partnered with Amazon to bid for the project.

Under employee pressure, Google has previously dropped one US government defence contract (Project Maven), and shied away from another (JEDI).

In a video posted on Youtube, a group of Google employees including Palestinian, Jewish, Muslim, and Arab staff expressed their concerns over Project Nimbus, which they claim will provide surveillance and other forms of powerful AI technology to the Israeli government and military. They are also speaking out against “the anti-Palestinian bias” they have witnessed within the company. 

“By doing business with Israeli apartheid, Amazon and Google will make it easier for the Israeli government to surveil Palestinians and force them off their land,” said the group that calls itself Jewish Diaspora in tech.

While Google said Project Nimbus is a mere cloud computing contract for Israeli government, a report from The Intercept  pointed towards training documents and videos that showed Google is providing the Israeli government with a full suite of machine-learning and AI tools that would give Israel capability to surveil people and process vast stores of data on the Palestinian population.

Google employees’ protest against Project Nimbus has been led by a Jewish employee, Ariel Koren, who resigned from the company this week after protesting for over a year against the project and what she terms Google’s attempts to silence her.

“Instead of listening to employees who want Google to live up to its ethical principles, Google is aggressively pursuing military contracts and stripping away the voices of its employees through a pattern of silencing and retaliation towards me and many others,” Koren wrote in a letter to colleagues explaining her decision to resign.

Koren, who worked in Google’s marketing division, first spoke about the issue in an internal group for the Jewish Google employees, but said she was “put on moderation” by some group members, banning her from posting anything in the group.

She and other employees subsequently started the Jewish Diaspora in Tech group to continue their protest against the company.

As Koren resigned from Google, at least 15 other employees published audio testimonies against the company’s “anti-Palestinian” bias. Many among the activists are also holding press conferences in a multi-city protest across the US.

Tech giants face heat over political disagreements

Political disagreements among employees have been clashing with technology development and making talent shortages an even bigger issue among technology giants who are constantly trying to upend competition with new advancements in AI and other areas.

Four years ago, Google was forced to end its participation in a large US Department of Defense contract, Project Maven, which was supposed to use AI to interpret video information to target drone strikes. Four thousand Google employees signed a petition demanding the company and its contractors stay away from ever building warfare technology.

Seeing those protests, when it came to bidding for another DoD project called JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure), Google decided to stand down.

Similar calls have been made by employees of Microsoft and Amazon against projects that have political leanings or implications on wars. Technology workers across the industry have been participating in several protests as they stand up and speak out against injustice.

While Google has been on the back foot in earlier protests, this time Google doesn’t seem to be backing off as it slowed hiring and pushed employees to work harder.

In a clear sign that dissent would no longer be tolerated at the firm, Google spokeswoman Shannon Newberry spoke to The New York Times about Koren’s allegations, saying, “We prohibit retaliation in the workplace and publicly share our very clear policy. We thoroughly investigated this employee’s claim, as we do when any concerns are raised.”

Aerospace and Defense Industry, IT Management

A group of Google employees are yet again speaking out against Google’s defense contracts, this time asking the company to shelve its $1.2 billion Project Nimbus contract for the Israeli government and military. Google partnered with Amazon to bid for the project.

Under employee pressure, Google has previously dropped one US government defence contract (Project Maven), and shied away from another (JEDI).

In a video posted on Youtube, a group of Google employees including Palestinian, Jewish, Muslim, and Arab staff expressed their concerns over Project Nimbus, which they claim will provide surveillance and other forms of powerful AI technology to the Israeli government and military. They are also speaking out against “the anti-Palestinian bias” they have witnessed within the company. 

“By doing business with Israeli apartheid, Amazon and Google will make it easier for the Israeli government to surveil Palestinians and force them off their land,” said the group that calls itself Jewish Diaspora in tech.

While Google said Project Nimbus is a mere cloud computing contract for Israeli government, a report from The Intercept  pointed towards training documents and videos that showed Google is providing the Israeli government with a full suite of machine-learning and AI tools that would give Israel capability to surveil people and process vast stores of data on the Palestinian population.

Google employees’ protest against Project Nimbus has been led by a Jewish employee, Ariel Koren, who resigned from the company this week after protesting for over a year against the project and what she terms Google’s attempts to silence her.

“Instead of listening to employees who want Google to live up to its ethical principles, Google is aggressively pursuing military contracts and stripping away the voices of its employees through a pattern of silencing and retaliation towards me and many others,” Koren wrote in a letter to colleagues explaining her decision to resign.

Koren, who worked in Google’s marketing division, first spoke about the issue in an internal group for the Jewish Google employees, but said she was “put on moderation” by some group members, banning her from posting anything in the group.

She and other employees subsequently started the Jewish Diaspora in Tech group to continue their protest against the company.

As Koren resigned from Google, at least 15 other employees published audio testimonies against the company’s “anti-Palestinian” bias. Many among the activists are also holding press conferences in a multi-city protest across the US.

Tech giants face heat over political disagreements

Political disagreements among employees have been clashing with technology development and making talent shortages an even bigger issue among technology giants who are constantly trying to upend competition with new advancements in AI and other areas.

Four years ago, Google was forced to end its participation in a large US Department of Defense contract, Project Maven, which was supposed to use AI to interpret video information to target drone strikes. Four thousand Google employees signed a petition demanding the company and its contractors stay away from ever building warfare technology.

Seeing those protests, when it came to bidding for another DoD project called JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure), Google decided to stand down.

Similar calls have been made by employees of Microsoft and Amazon against projects that have political leanings or implications on wars. Technology workers across the industry have been participating in several protests as they stand up and speak out against injustice.

While Google has been on the back foot in earlier protests, this time Google doesn’t seem to be backing off as it slowed hiring and pushed employees to work harder.

In a clear sign that dissent would no longer be tolerated at the firm, Google spokeswoman Shannon Newberry spoke to The New York Times about Koren’s allegations, saying, “We prohibit retaliation in the workplace and publicly share our very clear policy. We thoroughly investigated this employee’s claim, as we do when any concerns are raised.”

Aerospace and Defense Industry, IT Management

Companies and organizations are experiencing the first stage of a new digital support: GDPR management tools. We analyzed some of them.

As for all previous cases of new business compliance processes there is today a growing number of tools in the market addressing the all new European privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation, which came into force on May 25, 2018. Our main conclusion: these privacy tools have design limitations.

Il problema

In alcuni casi l’approccio della soluzione è tecnologico -sistemi progettati come se fossero indipendenti o di natura statica- mentre in altri casi è funzionale, quindi tecnico in materia di compliance, ancora specifico.

Classifichiamo entrambi gli approcci come principalmente orientati al marketing; non per criticare la qualità di questi strumenti in quanto tali, ma il fatto che le soluzioni sono principalmente opportunità commerciali guidate dallo slancio per una domanda improvvisa, il cui mercato non è ancora esperto in materia. Questa pratica solleva problemi, anzi.

Parlando con gli esperti di GDPR emerge che alcuni imprenditori e dirigenti hanno adottato una visione che limita la conformità al GDPR a una gestione – burocratica – dei documenti o, peggio ancora, sembrano un’operazione one-shot che non richiede manutenzione. Il tutto nonostante i tanti e ripetuti avvertimenti e rischi di incorrere in enormi sanzioni amministrative.

Inoltre, ci è stato confidato che le aziende apparentemente preferiscono processi di business del mondo reale non corrispondenti rispetto alla presentazione di “processi ufficiali” e continuano con quelli abituali. Conclusione: il rischio e lo scopo dell’audit di conformità vengono dissipati nonostante si spenda tempo e denaro e allo stesso tempo con un costo di rischio elevato.

Ritorno al passato

Notiamo un notevole parallelo con gli anni ’90, quando la certificazione di qualità ISO era di moda. Non era raro trovare imprenditori che inseguivano in modo contingente una serie di certificati, senza tuttavia alcuna seria intenzione di cambiare la loro cultura aziendale.

Abbiamo lavorato con un bel po ‘di loro in quel momento e, purtroppo ma non a caso, nessuno di loro aveva illuminato il proprio futuro dopo tali scelte. (Nessuno di loro esiste più sul mercato, ma questo è solo un account personale.)

Tre decenni dopo, la qualità in generale, infine, sembra diffusa in molti ambienti aziendali e la mappatura e la reingegnerizzazione dei processi non sono più una novità. I vantaggi che ne derivano sono riconosciuti come parte della nostra cultura aziendale.

Un approccio innovativo: un’opportunità

Sottovalutare gli interventi necessari per soddisfare il GDPR o non sfruttare tutte le azioni necessarie durante questo processo, può portare le aziende a scegliere strumenti sbagliati che richiedono un serio impegno di conformità. Spesso questa strada porta anche all’impossibilità di collegarsi ad altre aree di competenza fondamentali come Legale e Operativo. Considerato tutto quanto sopra, solleviamo una domanda cruciale:

Perché le aziende e le organizzazioni dovrebbero mappare i propri processi solo ai fini del GDPR? Perché gli strumenti GDPR non partono dai processi gestiti?

Sono disponibili standard di scambio, come IDEFx, FFBD o BPMN 2.0 per la modellazione o standard universali come XML o Json, solo per fornire alcuni esempi. Allora, quanto è comune l’adozione di strumenti di mappatura dei processi?

Questa mancanza di integrazione delle migliori pratiche e degli investimenti precedenti porta a un costoso logoramento.