Category Archives: Technology

Privacy vs. technology, freedom vs. convenience: it’s only going to get worse

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3.21.2008

Item: Citizens are concerned about online privacy and security. According to a new report from USC’s Center for the Digital Future, “Sixty-one percent of adult Americans said they were very or extremely concerned about the privacy of personal information when buying online, an increase from 47 percent in 2006. Before last year, that figure had largely been dropping since 2001.” These fears are well-founded.

The study, to be released Thursday, comes as privacy and security groups report that an increasing number of personal records are being compromised because of data breaches at online retailers, banks, government agencies and corporations. Continue reading →

Zuck

Mark Zuckerberg: Is it time for Facebook’s boy genius to go?

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Zuck

Today’s LA Times asks a good question: Is Mark Zuckerberg in over his hoodie as Facebook CEO?

Business writers Walter Hamilton and Jessica Guynn dig into an issue that I suspect some of us have seen before, and it’s remarkable that the clamor over Zuck specifically hasn’t been louder for some time.

Should Mark Zuckerberg, the social media visionary but neophyte corporate manager, step aside as CEO to let a more seasoned executive run the multibillion-dollar company? Continue reading →

iCloud: Apple blows a huge opportunity

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I never imagined I’d be blogging on Apple issues, but here we go.

In anticipation of getting a new iPad2 I migrated my MobileMe over to iCloud. It’s hard to have a definitive idea of what a new service is going to do until you get your hands on it in earnest, but I had read about iCloud, asked some Apple types who knew more than I did about it, and felt like I had a fair idea that it was going to help me solve some problems I’ve been dealing with in the course of managing the logistics of my business.

I was wrong. Mostly, anyway. I knew I was in trouble when the guy at the Apple Store told me do not migrate, sweet gods, for the sake of all that’s sacred do not migrate!! Okay, that’s not exactly how he put it, and I won’t repeat the words he actually did use (which weren’t much much better), but suffice it to say that staff was finding iCloud to be “suboptimal.” Continue reading →

Upon reflection: was I too hard on The Blog Council?

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Last week I joined a legion of business bloggers in poleaxing the shizizzle out of a self-satisfied new project called The Blog Council. Josh Catone of Read/WriteWeb stomped them. Dave Taylor, who’s probably forgotten more about blogging than the entire council put together knows, took them to school. Robert Scoble – another guy who knows a thing or two about blogging – explains why he’s skeptical. Jordan McCollum goes door-to-door on some of the group’s players. Mike Moran prays that it’s all just a big mistake. And so on.

Then Jake McKee comes along and explains that all us “experts” don’t get it. In fact, our failure to get it proves that the Blog Council is right in doing things behind closed doors. Continue reading →

A great new how-not-to resource for business bloggers

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When a new innovation comes along, corporations typically follow a predictable arc. First there’s the “Ignore It” phase. Then, once it becomes clear that it’s actually important, they dive into the “Getting It All Wrong” phase. The first step in Getting It All Wrong is “pretend that the new thing works like all the old things.”

Eventually they get past these early “ballistic podiatry*” activities and begin to figure things out, although there’s often a step, which falls late in Getting It All Wrong, called “Hire a Consultant Who Was Successful at Other Things But Barely Knows More Than You Do About The New One.” Sometimes these outside hitters have read a book, but mainly they rely on the tendency of executives to overgeneralize about prior successes.

Which brings us to The Blog Council, Continue reading →

Electrolux Innovision Hub – interesting concept at work

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A quick-hitter here. I’ve done a little work on Electrolux’s behalf (this is actually me voicing this video) and I really like the philosophy behind their approach. I’m expecting more good work from them on the social media front in the future – so keep your eyes on them.

World War III under way; America hasn’t noticed?

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“Corporate America ought to be darned worried. If you are a major corporation with very sensitive technology, you have been targeted. Somebody is spying on you right now.” Todd Davis, FBI supervisor in Sacramento

There’s been a great deal of debate lately about spying – FISA and domestic spying issues, for example – and now the news that Blackwater is augmenting its army, navy and air force with its own CIA. While I’m routinely bemused by the conclusions we seem to reach (we’re about to approve a new Attorney General who doesn’t think waterboarding is torture, remember), I do welcome these kinds of discussions. The world of information and intelligence has been changing dramatically for years and our policy deliberations haven’t kept pace. It’s critical to think about what we know, how we know it, what we do with it, and the implications of not knowing it, because despite the fact that they’ve been awfully cavalier about the Constitution, our conservative friends are generally right in noting that there are bad guys in the world. In the end, the question really boils down to how can we best deal with the bogeys without becoming bad guys ourselves.

There’s one area that we aren’t talking about, though, and it’s a topic we ought to be very concerned with: corporate espionage. Continue reading →