PET Analogy of BOT

Recently while going through some of the articles on investing and ownership of BOT, came through an interesting analysis of PET analogy of BOT done by Surdak.

To reinforce his pet analogy, he selected several of the types of BOTs he has seen companies deploy in the real world and came up with the analogous. The following BOT categories are typical of those found in the Automation industry today:

Turtle BOT’s or TOT’s: This is a BOT that allows an organization to claim that they are using BOT technology, but only just.  Nearly all Proofs of Concept (POCs) or Proofs of Value (POVs) are TOT’s.  They nearly always work because their functionality is so limited, your expectations of them are so small, and the situation in which they are used is almost never an adequate approximation of reality.

Crab BOT’s or CROT’s: A CROT is a TOT that sits in its own little house and doesn’t do much.  Hence a CROT is a TOT that runs on a laptop.  A Proof of Concept is likely a CROT.  So too is a macro in Excel.

Fish BOT’s or FOT’s: FOT’s are TOT’s that require expensive, dedicated environments in which to live.  FOT’s have low utility, low satisfaction, and much higher costs of acquisition, maintenance, and disposal. If you build an enterprise-class BOT infrastructure, yet only have a few dozen BOTs running in the environment you’re likely an owner of FOT’s.

Snake BOT’s or SNOT’s: These are turtle BOTs that one day, out of nowhere, bite you on the hand and nearly kill you. SNOT’s are low utility, low satisfaction and yet bring with them the probability of some very bad, unintended consequences at some future date. A BOT that moves data from one system to another, and one day mysteriously skips one character in a string and creates 5,000 errors is an example of a SNOT.

Spider BOT’s or SPOT’s: These are simple BOTs that are unobtrusive, low maintenance, and highly functional i.e. BOTs used to process expense reports.  They sit quietly, motionlessly, as thousands of expense line items whiz by.  They patiently pick out the transactions that meet some predefined characteristic, snatch them up, process them in some very specific way, and then return to lie in wait for their next victim.  SPOT’s can have low cost but high utility. SPOT’s can be both good and bad, depending on how well they’re programmed.

Rabbit BOT’s or ROT’s: ROT’s are BOTs that have medium utility because they’re cuddly and are somewhat interactive.  But they can also rapidly multiply and get out of control. A good example of a Rot is a rules engine, or a BOT added to things like email servers.  People will set up macros to organize and cleanse their email inbox, which brings them high utility.  However, once everyone is using such BOTs in a wide-spread manner, no one may be able to do any actual communication. 

Weasel (Ferret) BOT’s or WOT’s: Weasels seem cute and cuddly (high return on ownership) which offsets their higher maintenance than lesser BOTs, like ROT’s.  However, this expectedly higher maintenance does not take into consideration the weasel’s periodic psychotic episodes. i.e. When, one night, a poorly designed invoice processing BOT applies late fees and interest to 15,000 of your clients or adds three decimal places to 5,437 outbound invoices to your suppliers or customers, your BOT just became a Wot.

Chicken BOT’s or CHOT’s: These are small, simple, productive BOTs that don’t provide much in the way of companionship, but in the end, they are delicious and nutritious. There are large numbers of CHOT’s at work in organizations every day, in the form of macros, scripts, apps and so on.  Functionally, they are just like any other BOT, and in many ways, they are more useful, even if they aren’t particularly cuddly. A BOT that swivel-chairs data between your old-school mainframe and your out-of-support Lotus Notes databases would likely be a CHOT.

Parrot BOT’s or POT’s: These are pets that can be taught to mimic sounds, so much so that they often convince others that they are the object that they mimic. Basic Chat BOTs are POT’s; they seem human, but they merely follow a prescribed script that governs their responses.  Like parrots, POT’s are maybe a bit costly to acquire but their maintenance is relatively cheap, and they may even show affection and companionship with their owners.  i.e. If you’ve done online chat with a “service representative” there is an ever-growing chance that you’re talking to a POT, rather than a person. 

Mouse BOT’s or MOT’s: Small, interesting, inexpensive, inexpensive, Mots are a good choice for new BOT owners.  MOT’s do a small, simple task, without a lot of drama and not a lot of expense. A BOT that collects data from multiple systems and consolidates them in an excel file is an example of a Mot. Such a Mot is small, simple, reliable, and valuable, as long as it is only asked to do one small thing.

Cat BOT’s or COT’s: Cots are aloof, do their own thing, provide some owner satisfaction as long as it’s on their terms. A BOT that audits financial transactions, looking for instances of fraud, and notifying you when it finds one, is an example of a Cot.

Dog BOT’s or DOT’s: Loyal, hard-working, friendly to a fault, but more expensive than at first believed, DOT’s are the canine version of BOTs.  Dots have high perceived value, but they require a lot of time and attention. An invoice or contract review BOT is an example of a Dot.

Ox BOT’s or OOT’s: OOT’s are BOTs that are low maintenance, high throughput, beasts of burden, that just chug along delivering the same volume of work as a much larger number of humans.  At the beginning of the day you collect your oxen, harness them to a plow, and then they just work all day long with little outside input. A payment processing BOT is an example of an OOT except that the carcass is simply thrown out at the end of its useful life.

Sheep BOT’s or SHOT’s: Shots are valuable, relatively low maintenance and cute, but there’s not a lot of psychic rewards in their ownership. BOTs that process quarterly financial reports, end of year tax reports, or other broad, task-intensive, periodic processes are all Shots.

Horse BOT’s or HOT’s: A Hot is like an OOT, in that Hots are extremely productive and highly valuable, doing the work of many human workers.  However, there is a price to pay with HOT’s, because while they are beautiful and bring much joy to their owners, they also require much higher maintenance than OOT’s. For example, of a HOT would be a transaction processing BOT that must follow a complex set of conditional rules and must have human intervention at several points in the process.

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