Excellent advice on the need to overcome the sense of futility.
Persevere
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Category Archives: Business
Extraterritorial Jurisdiction
The 9th Circuit Court overturns a lower court ruling, via Computerworld.
Susan Crawford, a law professor who teaches a course on cyberlaw at Cardozo School of Law in New York, labeled the decision a “missed opportunity” to decide whether “it is appropriate for one country to assert extraterritorial jurisdiction over [Web] servers located in another country.”
Yesbut
Managing your own time but bounding your support
Principles Collide
Amazon.com provides readers with the ability to review books. What happens when the community reviewing a book despises the author? Where does freedom of speech end and harassment start?
Jack Thompson has made a name for himself pursuing what he sees as purveyors of smut. His new book Out of Harms Way is being absolutely roasted on Amazon. Is Jack a victim? If his book was worth the read I’m certain someone would step forward and write positive reviews. I’m seeing one positive review for every 10 negative ones.
He’s probably had his 15 minutes of fame. Unfortunately, Jack somehow is attempting to hold Amazon responsible for not enforcing their terms of service. My advice to Amazon would be to pull the listing and not sell Jack’s book. I doubt the company would miss much revenue.
As a side note, the Jack Thompson critics probably cross the line when they put del.icio.us tags on his book pointing to unsavory terms. It’s like buying advertising for the book on xxx sites.
Googlenet Redux
An earlier post referenced the rumor that Google was potentially entering the wireless market. The original story on Business 2.0 speculated that if Google could track the geographical location of a wireless user, they could target advertising more precisely.
Whether that’s true or not is still a matter of speculation. What is true is that this rumor has legs. Seven days after the fact the IT related web news sources are still reporting on it. What probably produced the original rumor is this page on Google’s web site. It is instructions to users in a test market in San Francisco. Is this intended for a broader audience? I don’t know – but it is fun (evidently) to speculate.
GoogleNet
An interesting article from Business 2.0 where they are speculating that Google is bent on providing wireless access for free to the masses. It’s an interesting article on a variety of levels:
- What if it’s true? Wouldn’t it be great if you could be wirelessly connected everywhere you went?
- That people are speculating about this stuff can’t be a good thing for internet service providers. Imagine a world in which your primary source of income is removed. Speculating about it is painful much less seeing the reality. Most of us are not faced with the hard reality that the world is changing so fast that entire markets can be created and eliminated inside of a three year period of time.
- What fun it must be to be Google. They are in the position now of being able to generate earth shaking rumors with trivial efforts. The ability of Google to generate buzz is pretty much unmatched.
- How anxious are you to have Google track your every movement across the globe? Big Brother where are you?
Outsourcing
I recently read Advice Line by Bob Lewis in which he provided some advice to the recently outsourced. It led me review my own experiences in that arena. I have never personally been outsourced – but I’ve lived through two separate efforts.
Although more then a decade separated both outsourcing initiatives, the experience was eerily similar. I’ve grown older, more introspective and don’t take things as personally as I used to. The first outsourcing event occured at the request of the CEO. It was done without the involvement of the IT management organization and we were all very upset. I was not in management at the time but I felt those who were – were wronged. In hindsight it’s clear IT management was not inspiring confidence. That’s business and a lesson to all of us.
If you can’t lead your function and instill confidence in your executive team, all of your objections amount to little more then waiving your arms. The outsourcing firm (names removed to protect the innocent – or not so) arranged it so that revenue opportunities were promised if the function was outsourced. At the end of the ordeal (and yes it was an ordeal) only a portion of the function was outsourced. The outsourcing firm’s promises of revenue were only that.
Those of us in the IT function were full of righteous indignation. Ignorant executives had sold a core competence of the function and received little in return. Service levels were a challenge to maintain as those outsourced were either let go or transitioned in to other roles.
A second more recent outsourcing effort has been handled much better. It is the result of the IT function’s objectives. Service levels have been impacted but for the most part everyone has tried hard to make it work. Our company is a fairly cynical one in some regards so it’s not surprising that some stories about the outsourcing take on a life of their own as they are retold by business managers.
As dissimilar as the outsourcing efforts were, the common thread in both was that if you were someone who looks for challenges and could accept change then outsourcing was a profitable experience. If you needed to stay with your current experiences and skills and spent your time resenting the decisions of others then the experience was a painful one.
The parable of “Who Moved My Cheese” applies to all of us and is almost universally good advice. If you are the IT associate outsourced it is carries the most important advice.
SOX Cynics
Companies, mine included, use Sarbanes-Oxley to provide political coverage to implement what would otherwise be very unpopular decisions. Ultimately, it is cynical for companies to attach decisions to the Sarbanes-Oxley act which are not driven by the act. It undermines the (albeit small number of) positive benefits associated with the act. Ironically, the intention of the act is to hold companies to a higher standard then was evident at Enron. If change is required then the decision should stand on its own merits. The responsibility of leadership is to lead in a principled manner. Contriving a relationship between unpopular decisions and the Sarbanes-Oxley act of 2002 diminishes the act’s strength.
Recently, Computerworld published a very short article entitled “Sarbanes-Oxley Trumps IM at Some Firms”. In that article, Thomas Hoffman discusses companies which have removed Instant Messaging due to Sarbanes-Oxley concerns. Section 302 of the act is referenced as the cause for this change.
Section 302 of Sarbanes-Oxley requires CEOs and chief financial officers to certify that their companies have established internal controls and are regularly evaluating the effectiveness of the control measures.
Mr. Hoffman’s perspective is evident in the article: this is an overreaction to the act. In large part I agree with the author. There are though some nuances which should be considered.
The argument that IM is equivalent to a phone conversation ignores how the legal system works.
“You can’t control a phone call, so I don’t see what the difference is between IM and a phone call,” said Diana McKenzie, chairwoman of the IT group at Chicago-based law firm Neal Gerber Eisenberg LLP. “To me, it’s not logical.”
The transcript of an IM session would have a great deal more relevance than an individual’s recollection of a phone conversation. Imagine yourself in a scenario where each of your phone conversations was transcribed real time. Now imagine that transcribed conversation is illicitly sent to the public. It’s not pretty.
My company only supports IM within the firewall. The tool is available for use between associates but not as a tool with customers. That’s a pity but probably not a show stopper for a B2B. I don’t know how much longer you can avoid it if you are serving consumers. Many consumers expect this form of customer support. This is clearly one case where government regulations are hampering company’s ability to provide customer service.