Two runs today

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

Weather today has been pretty good contrary to the forecast so I headed out mid-morning for a run.  I have a choice to make each time I head out – whether to take Riley (our Labrador retriever) or not.  He is always interested in going although he is not really a distance runner.  It is hard to leave this face behind:

Rileyonthedeck













My solution – two runs.  The first Riley & Robert run is 1.5-2 miles down through Heritage Park and then second is me solo generally headed to Carrillon Point and back (4-5 miles).  For a dog that was rescued in the heat of rural Morgan County Georgia (we adopted him several years ago via the Golden Retriever Rescue of Atlanta – they help labs too), a little mild Seattle heat just about finishes him now.  He starts out pulling me on the leash and I end up pulling him home – it works out well for us.

NYSE/NASD issue “proposed” guidelines on electronic communications

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

I must say that after reading this document, I am pretty underwhelmed.  I spent several years working directly with many of the Wall Street firms on the issues related to electronic communication, supervision, and archiving in the wake of the landmark $1.4 billion conflict of interest settlement in the 2002-2004 timeframe and we still do a good bit of business there today.  During that time, I saw first-hand the costs, inefficiencies, and confusion about what to do/not do regarding adhering to the regulations that govern broker/dealer electronic communication.

So, after a couple years of work by the NYSE, NASD, lawyers, and the brokerage firms we have these broad "guidelines" published for comment. 

My favorite sentence has to be the last one in the document:

"…members are advised that this guidance does not serve to establish a safe harbor with respect to potential supervisory or compliance deficiencies."

Gee…thanks.

A key takeaway is that if a firm can’t supervise or review the messages (or if the sender can’t be identified), they should consider blocking them outright.  "Consider" now that is some strong language…even deciding how to define "electronic communications" took three hours according to this article on it in the New York Times.

It breaks down communications into external vs. internal with specific discussion of non-company email (personal), message boards, and e-faxes as well as the best approach to supervise them – lexicons, random review, or some combination thereof.

Wait…that’s what they have been doing all along.   Although now they have at least broadened the definition of what you have to monitor a bit further (personal email, personal phones, blogs, etc.) if they are used for business purposes.  Entertaining commentary on that via DealBreaker.

Regulation is important for sure especially in the securities industry where information flows alongside capital but I would have hoped for a little more clarity and forward thinking after this much effort.

How to talk to the press

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

I’m a big fan of Bull Durham and especially like this exchange between Crash (Kevin Costner) and Nuke (Tim Robbins) on doing press interviews.  Not too far from the truth…

CRASH:      It’s time you started working on your interviews.
NUKE:        What do I gotta do?
CRASH:      Learn your cliches.  Study them. Know them.  They’re your friends.

        [Crash hands Nuke a small pad and pen.]

CRASH:      Write this down.    "We gotta play ’em one day at a time."
NUKE:         Boring.
CRASH:      Of course.  That’s the point."I’m just happy to be here and hope I can help the ballclub."
NUKE:         Jesus.
CRASH:      Write, write–"I just wanta give It my best shot and, Good Lord willing, things’ll work out."

        [Nuke starts writing them down]

NUKE:        "…Good Lord willing, things’ll work out."

Sometimes saying something without saying anything is the best course if you are the one that has to say something (got that?). 

Delivering your message while providing something beyond one dimensional talking points to a journalist is a tough balance.  I always strive to understand what they are looking for (pressing story deadline, area of research, etc.) and help develop the story further with a reference or interesting data point rather than just spewing marketing messages.

What to do about email archiving – a universal question

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

Another post from our Reshaping Information Security MarketInsight study.  This section covers the topic of email archiving and retention – something all companies regardless of industry are struggling with both from a records management and compliance perspective.  This part of the discussion pointed to the need to separate high-value from low-value email correspondence prior to archival and do so in a way that was practical, auditable, and accurate. 

Archiving & Retention

One area that was consistently at the top of the list interest-wise was the topic of email archiving and retention.  There was a great deal of variance in both policy and clarity as it relates to what a company should be doing.  One participant’s company policy is to not get rid of email….ever.  They have records dating back to 1991 in various formats and locations.

There was general agreement that email is used as a document storage system and that any limitation on the size of an inbox or the amount of time an email record is stored creates angst and negative feedback from the user community.  In fact, one company was struggling with a mandated 7 day retention policy after which email was deleted as a way to mitigate litigation risk, but the company used it for order that normally ran 3-4 months in lead time and all subsequent purchasing negotiations.  In this case email stopped being “transitory” business communication and was a primary generator of business records – although the line between the two is very gray.  One recurring them was to have a defensible policy in place that is consistent and does not change as a result of or during a possible inquiry or investigation.  Also, you must go with the strongest/most restrictive rule that applies to you as a starting point for retention.

Several firms placed a 90 day delete policy on the Inbox so that if the user wanted to keep a copy or if it was a formal business record, they were responsible for moving it (a managed folders approach).  The downside to this is that the user must make the retention decisions.  Yet another company sponsored “spring cleaning” exercises as a way to clean out old emails and paper content that was no longer needed.

Attempts to utilize public folders have proven fruitless and overall email storage is out of control with volumes continually increasing.  Trying to implement a classification schema is difficult because without automation, the end-user is left to make the decision.  In fact, one participant compared any attempts to reduce folder sizes to squeezing a balloon on one end – all the air just goes to the other side.  So limiting mailbox sizes merely increases .pst file sizes and nothing gets deleted, just moved.

Even though storage is deemed to be “cheap”, the costs of maintaining and managing it are not so unlimited storage is not an alternative.  Even duplication can create serious headaches as the same emails are stored over and over again.  Categorization technology that promises to “auto-magically” organize email into the buckets you want is “just not there yet.” 

Email immunity from “The Tipping Point”

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

I often start reading books on planes and don’t quite finish leading to lots of books that I am in the process of reading.  Malcolm Gladwell’s "The Tipping Point" is one such book and think I even picked it up in an airport bookstore at some point.  I had heard some positive things and it was both small and paperback making it appealing to carry around.

I finally finished it on my last plane ride and several things jumped out at me including his discussion in the Afterword about "The Rise of Immunity" and how the newness or novelty of something can wear off as it becomes more mainstream.  He discusses the phone and how the rise of telemarketing led to caller ID and answering machines and how that is a sign of immunity.  Email, Gladwell contends, is following a similar path in that receiving email use to be novel but has evolved to be a hassle both in terms of who sends them to us and the sheer volume received.

"The fact that anyone can email us for free, if they have our address, means that people frequently and persistently e-mail us.  But that quickly creates immunity, and simply makes us value face-to-face communications – and the communications of those we know and trust – all the more"

Other interesting tidbits include how groups of 150 or less are more conducive to true social relationships and that individuals can’t maintain over 10 to 15 close relationships due to the investment of time and emotional energy needed to maintain them.

It’s a good read about how trends emerge and how things can quickly become mainstream due, in part, to small events.

Addictive painkillers part of your business plan? They should be

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

Good post by Stephen Fleming out of Atlanta.  He now heads up Georgia Tech’s commercialization program after stints as venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and executive at Nortel.  He talks about a framework for evaluating investments picked up from Kevin Fong at Mayfield Fund.

"We divide business plans into three categories: candy, vitamins, and
painkillers. We throw away the candy. We look at vitamins. We really
like painkillers. We especially like addictive painkillers!"

Here’s some good perspective from Stephen:

"Honestly, I think most of Web 2.0 is vitamins at best, candy at worst.
(Which is perhaps why most of the Web 2.0 services are free. Here’s a
tip: If no one wants to pay for what you’re providing, maybe that’s a
hint that it isn’t worth much.)"

Bottom line:  focus on the problem you are solving and why people would pay for it