Month: June 2007

Is a personal blog a corporate record?

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

Keep an eye on what is happening at Bear Stearns and the story on Richard Marin’s "Whim of Iron" blog here and here.  This was, as I understand it, a personal blog but he discussed the pace of activity at Bear as their hedge funds teetered on collapse in addition to more mundane/personal things like movies he had seen.  All good stuff and great blogs provide a personal view of the author in addition to commentary on their respective domain of knowledge. 

That said, a securities firm like Bear Stearns is heavily regulated and as the dust settles on this latest hedge fund debacle they will be under a serious microscope with the lawyers and discovery requests close behind.

This is another case study on personal blogging and the corporate world.  In my case, this is my personal blog, I pay for it, Typepad hosts it, and it is consistent with our company policy on blogs.  Something tells me that this was not sanctioned by Bear and, as this NY Times story points out, Mr. Marin has now password protected the site.

Does using your company email address as your preferred email contact (as Mr. Marin did) no longer make it personal?  Does talking about what you do at work cause it to become a formal business record?  Assuming a blog falls under he definition of "electronic communications", should it have been properly supervised according to NASD regs?  All great questions that need further research on my part.  Posting to a blog without access controls puts it out there for anyone in the world to see and *should* factor in to any post you make.

Regardless of the outcome for Mr. Marin (he has already been replaced), I am long Bear Stearns as they are one of the best run firms on Wall Street.

UPDATED: 

Looks like someone over at Google is learning this same lesson.  Lauren Turner decided to offer a bit of advice to healthcare companies to use Google ads opposite coverage of Sicko by "I keep trying to relive Roger & Me" director Michael Moore.  She did this on her Google blog and quickly had to offer up a clarification.  Here’s some good perspective on it from Robert Scoble.

NBA – Never Be Alone

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

This struck me last week while I was traveling and has been stuck in my head since.  Given all the hype around Apple’s new gadget (talk about a masterful job of PR around a product launch) and a short blurb in today’s Seattle Times Tech Tracks, I thought a post on it would be appropriate. 

The proliferation of mobile devices means that people never have to be alone be it walking through an airport, shopping, commuting, etc.  I see this everywhere (and maybe am a little guilty of it as well) where people are flipping their phones open, sending a text message, typing an email, or talking on the phone (or at least being connected to another human – talking optional).  It’s something BusinessWeek calls "iSolation."

Even more interesting is to watch what happens when someone in a group is on their phone or sending a message.  Just like Pavlov’s dog, the conditioned response makes the others fumble with their phones especially if there are only two people – the one not talking looks for connection via their device. 

Maybe I’m in the minority here but I think it’s important to be alone every once in while…

Email – the original (and ranking) social network

/ Robert Pease / 3 Comments

There are few phrases that are buzzing about more today than "social networking."  Getting past questions of who has the time or inclination to meet on-line, what is being discussed is a way to connect, share, and communicate on an individual or a group basis electronically (on-line).  So, this got me to thinking – isn’t this what email does already?  Yes, I know there are big differences between the popular site du jour (Facebook et al) and sending emails, but fundamentally aren’t we talking about the same thing? 

From our collective friends at Wikipedia, here is the definition of a social network:

"A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of relations…"

Sounds like email to me, but I have a bit of bias here.

Here’s a few quick points on my thinking:

1.  It is active, not passive

A network is only as valuable as your use of it.  Look at your Sent Items – this is your social network and it includes both personal relationships as well as business relationships.  The Inbox is also indicative of this, but there is no real barrier to someone sending you an email however, as the sender, you are pushing a connection to someone you have or aspire to have a relationship with.  Also, you probably have many more Contacts than you have active relationships as indicated by your Sent Items/Inbox.

2.  Used ubiquitously

No need for viral marketing campaigns or user adoption curves here.  Everyone knows what email is and how to use it.  More importanly, they already are.  Regardless of your interface (client or browser), you know how to compose, send, and read an email.  You can also share pictures, music, and other types of files with the click of a button.

3.  Growing

As Mark Twain stated "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."  The same can be said of email in that regardless of how antiquated/bad/inefficient it is, it is growing in usage both in terms of people and overall volume.  One of the recent stats I saw from Radicati Group put the number of email users at over a billion sending some 50 billion emails per day (this subtracts out the ~70% or so that are spam/virus). 

4.  Dependable

When you send it and it does not bounce back, you are confident the recipient got it.   Whether it has been read or not is another question, but you have confidence that the system delivered your message.

No doubt that there are not only new ways to interact on-line but new habits being brought to the workplace by the next generation of workers.  It is possible that these new approaches will take the personal out of email leaving it behind to focuses on business purposes (moving files, broadcast messages, formal customer/partner communication, etc.).  But rather than build entirely new ways for people to communicate and connect, why not leverage how they are already doing so?

An enterprise view of messaging technologies

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

This is the final post from MessageGate’s recent MarketInsight report:  Reshaping Information Security. I’ll do a follow-up post that lists all the links for those of you looking for a full on-line version.  This section deals more specifically with the messaging technologies being used in the enterprise.

Messaging

On the broader technical topic of messaging, there was a great deal of discussion around looking beyond email to multiple transmission protocols as data can be packaged in many ways.  Instant Messaging (IM) emergence is a concern as it is a conduit for sharing files, document, and other such things.  Although email is narrow in scope, it is the most pressing messaging issue at the moment.

Unified messaging is being looked at to some degree, but turning voice mails into emails appealed to no one.  Email systems have too many single points of failure based on how they have been developed and deployed over the years.  There is no way to get rid of email, but there needs to be a way to address issues like chain mails, forwards of forwards, replies to all, and remote workers.

Email is not going away, but messaging is constantly changing.  If you cut the wire (email), an alternative must be provided and there is currently no better alternative. 

Stop the madness

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

RestroomI don’t want to be branded a pessimist and am as open as I can be about new things and ideas, but the launch of Wizpee Mizpee is a sign.  Of course, maybe I just don’t "get it."  Oh, and thanks to TechCrunch for polluting my day with this silliness.

Forgetting for a minute that this is a service that tells you where the closest bathroom is and that you can access said information via a text message, are the little signs that are universally understood for restroom/WC really that inefficient?  Or, can someone explain a b-u-s-i-n-e-s-s model for this?

Maybe its hard to find the bathrooms at Columbia Business School where the Yojo Mobile (the holding company) President went to school.

This and the fact that private equity firms are doing their own IPOs should give us all pause and generate cries of "stop the madness!"  BTW Blackstone (BX) is down almost 2% today and below its initial offering price.  Did anybody else see the carnival atmosphere on CNBC the morning of where Tom Wolfe was stumbling around the floor of the NYSE?  Yes, that is another sign…


Understanding messaging use

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

Here’s another section from MessageGate’s recent MarketInsight report – Reshaping Information Security.  This section deals with the very real and pressing need for all companies to get a thorough understanding of how email and other types of messaging are currently being used. 

Understanding Current Usage

A key element in reshaping information security for enterprise messaging is to gain a clear and timely understanding of what is coming and going.  Many companies had some type of basic content filtering in place that was prone to false positives and/or of limited business value either due to staffing cuts or lack relevancy in the reported results.  Having the ability to act on something when it happens depends on being able to know it occurred.

Simple things like knowing how much “noise” is coming and going via email – status, alerts, newsletters, and out of office replies are essential first steps.  Tackling the expanding email volume as Blackberries and other mobile devices are placed in the hands of employees as well as trying to harness the knowledge management aspects of email requires measuring and understanding usage and how it changes over time.

In many cases, questions arising around the need or worth of doing something were directly answered in the affirmative after a thorough review and audit of messaging activity.  This is about much more than just monthly email volume and statistics, but a window into usage and how email is the de facto workflow tool in the organization.

iPhone hype – anybody remember the Newton?

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

NewtonOk, to be fair the Apple Newton was before Jobs returned but I think there are some interesting parallels on these two products.  The Newton was a bit early to market and had a few hiccups including ease of text entry.  The market for PDAs exploded and Apple was not in it.  Fast forward 15 years and here we are with the iPhone.  True, folks like their iPods, they like their cell phones, and mobile devices are being utilized more and more to connect to the internet albeit at slow speeds so it appears the market is demanding these capabilities. 

So, I go back to the text entry piece.  The absence of a Qwerty keyboard or any type of keypad may create some problems.  Here’s Fred Wilson’s observation on that very thing.

I did a bit of searching on this and came across this post by Phil Baker who managed development on the Newton.  Here’s his take:

"So what are we to make of the buildup for the iPhone? The hype is certainly similar and the stakes are just as high for Apple. Ironically, concerns voiced by analysts are the same: battery life, pricing, and especially the ease of entering text.

There are major differences.  There’s already a market for cool looking iPods and cellular phones. And there’s a need for better ways to connect to the Internet. The iPhone will likely perform these functions with aplomb. However, unless people can conveniently input text into the device, the iPhone could be the next big disappointment."

Navigating the legal & regulatory aspects of corporate messaging

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

The last section from our Reshaping Information Security MarketInsight report.  This section covers the myriad of regulatory and legal issues that come with taking a proactive stance around corporate messaging. 

Legal & Regulatory Climate

There was a significant amount off discussion about legal and regulatory requirements and constraints across all industries and geographies.  Rather than get confused or seek out interpretation of all current and future regulations, start with “Common Security 101.”  Doing the basics will cover most areas and, when complete, then look to see what additional things might be warranted based on known regulations with clear policies.  Focus on starting with good practices versus chasing statutes.

As for what to do about an incident or event once it is detected, there were two main points.  The first was that monitoring has huge legal and cultural implications and “if I know, I have to do something about it.”  Secondly, IT does not want to take the lead on this issue, rather the business needs to lead IT and identify the operational requirements that must be met.  There is even a definitional difference between what is an “event” versus an “incident” with the latter being more formal/serious.  Unfortunately, executives and legal personnel don’t understand the technology enough in terms of tools and capabilities to know what is realistic and IT needs guidance from legal on what system controls to implement.

Defining what is appropriate versus inappropriate has proven very difficult.  There are certainly black and white scenarios, but what about the gray area in between?  There is not a list of what is appropriate to balance details around what is inappropriate and when you try to define what is appropriate, you are trying to define the world.  It is easier to define what not to do than what to do leading several participants to ask – what is meant by “authorized?”

As for conflicting rules and regulations based on country, take the least risk policy globally and implement it organization-wide because different countries have different rules.  You can’t get 100% coverage, but you can get a good program of governance.

A good run for a good cause this morning

/ Robert Pease / 1 Comment

Marel and I ran the Shore Run/Walk today with the little one in the stroller.  We opted for the 6.7 mile event thinking we needed a bit of a workout this morning.

It is a great route along Lake Washington starting at Seward Park and finishing into Madison Park.  This was the 30th year of this event which is put on to raise money for cancer research in cooperation with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

It was pretty chilly and a bit wet this morning…funny to think that it is approaching the end of June.  Gotta love the Northwest…

“Don’t charge the email hill first”

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

One of the more memorable quotes from the Enterprise 2.0 conference.  I attended a couple of the speaking sessions and the one Wednesday moderated by Wikinomics author Don Tapscott was pretty good.  This conference spent its time focusing on ways to collaborate other than email. 

Although a really compelling business case for a new collaboration tool remains elusive (yes, I know, "productivity" but that is darn hard to build a direct ROI around and even harder to pry IT dollars for), there are lots of alternatives floating around out there.  One of the more compelling is the type of thing Socialtext is doing (and even Wetpaint locally in Seattle to a degree) – putting wikis in the hands of business users.  Long the domain of techies as that is how I first participated in one when one of the engineers graciously invited the "marketing guy" to the party (thanks Mitchell).  Putting a non-tech user front end on them and making them easier to use for average folks shows promise, but you are still trying to change people’s habits.  Daunting for sure.

It is always fun to think forward and there are no shortage of great ideas, compelling technologies, and really smart people coming at this problem/opportunity.  Here at MessageGate we are in the weeds of corporate email which is what people are using now for these interactions and will be for some time (end-user habits die hard…and with a fair share of bloodshed).

On the panel Wednesday was Joe Schueller from Procter & Gamble – they are doing some really innovative things around building a community to drive product innovation.  More on this session here, here, and here.

Joe is the one that said this and warned the audience to not fight this battle first because "people have a personal relationship with their email" and if you try to take it from them you will be viewed with disdain.  His advice is to start small with a pilot group (like IT) who can champion the benefits of a new way to interact and measure them (refer to point above about ROI & spend).

So, what to do about email?  How do you actively control/manage something people view personally?  Very carefully.  This is why we advocate a minimum threshold approach.  Forget about technology/software out of the gate, do an audit whether you use MessageGate or somebody else – you need to do one.  This will show you the places where you can think about applying some of these new technologies or show you where your investment in them is not paying off.

As a side note, all the sessions are available via video here.