Allen Analytical and Information Services, LLC (“Allen Analytical”) is an independent developer of applications for Mac OS X and iOS, and business process consultant for small to medium businesses located in Durham, NC.
I formed Allen Analytical, in part, to write the software I couldn't buy anywhere else.
Allen Analytical's premier product is Encryptor, a password generator and manager.
At Allen Analytical, we believe the why of things is the most important, and interesting, thing about them.
We help client companies identify the causes of their problems, and make specific recommendations to resolve them. We develop corrective and preventive action plans, which includes a plan of actions and milestones to ensure the corrective and preventive action plan effectively resolves the problems identified.
At Allen Analytical, we believe in effective action. It makes no sense to develop a corrective and preventive action plan which a client company cannot effectively implement. This means we customize our recommendations to the organization and culture of your company.
Allen Analytical embraces several principles, which guide our interaction with our clients and customers:
In developing applications or deploying technologies, one of Allen Analytical's goals is making knowledge accessible. Making knowledge accessible is the beginning of business wisdom.
Allen Analytical is committed to producing business wisdom through investigation, evaluation, and assessment.
Allen Analytical is committed to developing applications or deploying technologies which provide our clients and customers with unrestricted, lifelong access to their data.
Many service providers offer access to data on a subscription basis, even if the cost of the subscription is a hidden cost, e.g., increased bandwidth cost due to aggressive push advertising. Your ability to access your data may be encumbered by restrictive Terms of Service (TOS), subject to service availability, or terminated arbitrarily by the service provider if that access is restricted in any way.
Allen Analytical's perspective is that you, as a client or customer, are our client or customer, and not a third-party vendor's.
Although Allen Analytical cannot guarantee that a particular logical format will not be made obsolete by advances in the state-of-the-art, or that physical media will be available, and, if available, reliable, Allen Analytical provides detailed documentation for all exportable file formats which will make it possible for you to recover your data at any point in the future, provided a copy exists.
Allen Analytical will not disclose confidential client or customer data to third parties, with the exception of those disclosures required by law.
Although Allen Analytical is committed to Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and releases custom features developed on behalf of its clients or customers to the community of users of the applications or technologies in general, the business requirements or business data which compelled development of the features will not be disclosed, nor the identity of the client or customer on whose behalf the feature was developed, nor the nature of their business.
On references.
Many potential clients request contact information for previous clients, i.e., professional references, or personal references.
Allen neither provides this information nor considers the request appropriate. Providing this information motivates the wrong behavior and requires Allen to accept the risk that their contact information will be abused, or inadvertently disclosed or confirmed, on behalf of a previous client, which is inconsistent with Allen's commitment to client confidentiality.
Imagine I agree to act as a personal or professional reference for someone else. When you, as their prospective employer, contact me, I will tell you in no uncertain terms that I will not speak to you unless the person for whom I have agreed to act as a personal or professional reference first provides me with your name and contact information so that I am able to confirm you are who you say you are. To do otherwise motivates the wrong behavior and invites certain kinds of social engineering, such as pre-texting.
Now imagine that you are not their prospective employer, but have discovered that I have done contract work for a client and have privileged access to their systems, and have decided that it would be far easier to penetrate their network through the use of social engineering to convince me that you have a valid need for privileged access.
Imagine I apply for a job. I disclose certain information about myself, such as my employment history and educational background. I expect my prospective employer to take reasonable steps to maintain the confidentiality of that information and my privacy. I accept the risk that the information I disclose about myself may be abused, or inadvertently disclosed or confirmed.
However, my prospective employer has not agreed to take reasonable steps to maintain the privacy of the person or persons acting as a personal or professional reference on my behalf. They request that I submit a reference's name and telephone number or email address without agreement that the information I disclose will not be abused, or inadvertently disclosed or confirmed.
As a result, my prospective employer is placing the onus on me to assess, and accept, the risk of disclosure, even though I will not be paying the price if the employer abuses, or inadvertently discloses or confirms information provided in confidence, for example, by not properly securing their network or by leaving my resume, including a list of the names, and telephone numbers or email addresses, of my references in a trash can in the conference room. This is a risk I am unwilling to accept on their behalf.
Allen provides personal or professional references on request if Allen is able to give the person agreeing to act as a reference the name of the person checking references and contact information such as the telephone number from which the person checking references will be calling or the email address from which they will be sending mail. Allen then asks the reference to provide the telephone number or email address at which they would like to be contacted, and provides that information to the person checking references.
This is a professional practice developed over many years and is perfectly reasonable.
In general, companies actively seek employees with high standards of personal and professional integrity. However, some of the clients to which Allen has submitted a proposal will not even review the proposal because Allen provides no references. The proposal is not "complete" and is therefore discarded. Submitting a completed proposal to those clients would require Allen to violate Allen's standards of personal and professional integrity.
Now imagine that you are a previous client. Having worked with Allen in the past, would you gain a measure of confidence by being asked by Allen to provide a reference exactly as described above? Would you appreciate the fact that Allen does not disclose your information without your permission? If so, then you are a preferred client.