The Best Way To Keep A Secret

Facebook has been taken to task for playing fast and loose with our privacy. Big brother (the Federal Trade Commission) is looking out for us and has now forced the Z-Team to play by new rules. If they want to make changes to our accounts the FTC ruled they have to first tell us and then ask us to say it's okay before making the proposed change. In other words, they are being compelled to ask subscribers to opt-in to any new features, settings or new plans the boys on the Z-Team might have for using our information.

Now I am all for better protection, full disclosure and audits to ensure no one is pulling a fast one. But at the end of the day, if there is something you don't want anyone to know about you consider not posting it in the first place. No doubt Facebook will ask for permission as required, but they hold all the cards. If you want to use some new feature or application and the "price" of doing so is the right for them to collect your data then most people will still click okay, agree, include me, allow it or whatever button presented says.

This reminded me of another recent discussion chastising personal computer software purveyors for their lengthy and unintelligible end user license agreements (EULA.). No one takes the time to read them (except perhaps lawyers.). People just click accept, approve or agree and complete the install or begin using the service. We're all guilty of this. Some government officials are now trying to address this issue as well.

This is not really a technology issue. It has more to do with the people behind the products and services we use on-line. I have always maintained you cannot legislate ethics. People will exploit data for profit or justify breaking trust for truth, justice and the benefit of mankind.

Facebook can be made to ask politely and clearly for permission to peek at your data, and EULAs may be rewritten in clear and concise language and people will continue to go along with whatever the provisions may be. We are dealing with the "me generation" who expect easy and fast applications that behave the way they want them to and, by the way, they ought to be free. To expect to get this and give nothing in return is ludicrous.

I use Google Voice. I know Google "listens" and mines this data to learn about me and other people like me. Yahoo tracks your searches, Amazon tracks purchases and Expedia your travels all in an effort to gain a better understanding of you and consumer behavior. It has been said that we are not the subscriber but rather the product. We deliver value to these services in return for functionality they provide us. I'm okay with that and so are the vast majority of people. If you don't like this bargain you can always opt out. Don't use the service.

So change the rules and simplify the language. Make sure people understand who has the right to access their data. Make them click two or three times and my guess is the outcome will be the same. People will continue to use these services, the provider will continue to gain value in some way and life will go on.

In my view the better answer is education. People must be smart about what they post. Assume what you post will have a much broader audience than just your intended audience. Assume it will be out there for a long time and that it may still be found by search engines five or ten years from now. If pictures or comments may some day cause embarrassment or worse, why post it in the first place?

As my friend Barbara always says, the best way to keep something secret remains not to tell anyone.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

Rolling The Dice At The CTC IT Summit 2011

Today I am attending the Connecticut Technology Council **  IT Summit 2011 at the fabulous Mohegan Sun Convention Center. This is an annual  networking event conducted for the purpose of getting senior IT executives in mid to large size companies located in the state of Connecticut to meet. It is an opportunity to get to know one another, hear presentations and exchange knowledge and experience. It is designed to help make these professionals more successful.

I was invited to attend and moderate a panel on one of the hottest topics today. Senior IT management everywhere are grappling with the trend of employees wanting to bring their own devices to work. Once upon a time, you had the latest and best technology at the office. But today, with the consumerization of technology, the average man on the street has more fire power in his pocket than many office workers have on their desk.  Homes are equipped with faster and completely unfettered access to the internet, while in the office you have to run an electronic gauntlet to eventually squeeze out the relatively narrow, shared door to the web. New information arrives, is viewed and circulated across the plethora of social networks hundreds of times faster than the policy governing use can be distributed by the office email system.

All this has presented new and difficult challenges for the people responsible for technology in the workplace. My panelist are going to discuss what they see as the key issues, and their approaches to dealing with this phenomenon starting with the policies of each of their companies. I have prepared a number of questions about governance and regulatory compliance. We'll look at who now pays for the devices and associated services. What do they see as the greatest risks and how are they dealing with rogue users. I'll try to summarize their answers and any key takeaways I can from this session and report them back here.

I'm looking forward to the opening keynote speaker, Gene Alvarez, Vice President Gartner Research. His topic is CRM systems and his perspective on the need for a partnership between IT and the Business for success. I am anxious to hear how this differs from my view that IT and the Business are one and the same and how everyone across the organization must work in unison on all business systems and processes.

This is followed by three morning sessions that include presentations on Big Data, Social Media and Cloud computing, all major trends. After lunch and a networking break, the afternoon includes a session on leadership specifically for the CIO, a focus on the private variety of cloud and my panel discussion.

As always, I will try to Tweet (follow @JPuglisiLLC) snippets of wisdom I catch that can be conveyed in 140 characters or less, and I may reflect on one or more of these sessions in future columns. For now, I have to hit the blogger  Publish button, straighten my tie and get down to the ballroom so I can get a good seat down in front.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC


** The Connecticut Technology Council is a statewide association of technology oriented companies and institutions, providing leadership in areas of policy advocacy, community building and assistance for growing companies.

Black Friday VS Cyber Monday

I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. Black Friday is a day when shoppers camp out overnight to be first in line, to be awarded a special bracelet, ticket or coupon, and prepare to make a mad dash through the doors at midnight or whatever ridiculous hour of the morning the store may open for business. People push and shove each other, elbows fly and words are often exchanged over who saw something first. This year pepper spray was involved in a few of the more raucous incidents and there was a shooting. In past years, people have been trampled, seriously injured and even killed.

Now, I have no hard numbers to back this up, but my strong suspicion is relatively few people actually get the super fantastic bargain which drove them to plot, scheme and endure all this insanity in the first place. The stores know full well the limited number of items they can afford to sell at or below cost. They bank on these super  deals drawing people in and then up-selling, pushing more costly substitutes and encouraging additional purchases to drive revenues and increase profitability.

And we, the public, dutifully line up for the kill. The handful of successful bargain hunters are paraded in the media, while the vast majority mutter to themselves and drown their sorrows with a series of purchases of perfectly acceptable substitutes.

The technorati, on the other hand, will wait for Cyber-Monday. From the safety and comfort of their own living room, kitchen or bedroom (wherever they use their computers) they will relentlessly pound the keys until they have located and ordered exactly what they wanted. Oh, that particular item may be out of stock or the wrong color, but no matter. Bring on the search engines and they will find it somewhere else in a flash. Not sure if the alleged sale price is really a bargain? Let's do a quick look around at other sellers and compare, without ever leaving our chair

Maybe you needed those lace up boots with the fur lining but couldn't get to the department store that carried them. No worries. We'll order them on-line and, look, they are the same price and UPS will bring them right to your door at not extra cost.

There are entire web sites devoted to bargains the year round. Sites that help you find the best price or locate obscure or unusual items.

With the abundance of social networking sites, we can even stay in close touch with our shopping buddies, taking tips and comparing notes with one another. City, state and even country boundaries don't exist. Often we can cut out the middleman and buy direct from the source.

Now, wasn't that easier than participating in the madness of occupy mall street?

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

A CIO By Any Other Name

Caught another article on my Twitter stream today about an Aussie company eliminating their CIO as a member of the  senior management team. It seems they believe and the author agrees this position suffers from over-inflated importance and has consistently failed to deliver on the promise of better IT. So it has been renamed group services, relegated to the level of property, legal and HR services, and now reports to the COO.

Perhaps the recent financial crisis indicates a need to demote the CFO to the Head of Accounting and make him report to the COO, too. Far too many CFOs have failed in their fiduciary responsibilities and allowed investments in risky and even failed ventures.

I'm sure this will solve the problem. (sarcasm)

As I indicated in another column I wrote on the role of the CIO, the title is not the issue. It is how the person perceives their role and the relationship that the CIO has to other members of the C-suite that matters.  If the CEO expects the CIO to manage the computing systems and deliver system implementations on time, indeed, the role is Vice President or Director of Technology. Call it like it is.

The role of CIO should be much more broadly defined and empowered to change business process not just computer systems. Today's CIO is an enterprise architect and not just a systems architect. The CIO should be every bit a part of the senior management team, evaluating investments in all kinds of projects, leveraging technology where appropriate to achieve the goals of the company. Lower cost, higher value, better customer care, new products or services and the preservation of shareholder value should be among the top priorities and not the delivery of a new CRM or ERP system. The resources of the IT department should be brought to bear on these objectives by way of projects that involve hardware, software and business process.

I would love to have more insight into the operations and politics at this particular company to help me understand how eliminating an individual with the title CIO actually came about. It could truly be a failing on the part of the individual, focusing too much on technology trends and the latest "toys" or it may have been the result of an unhealthy environment where the CIO was expected to know how to fix a problem with Windows 7 or recommend the best cell phone for the CFO's daughter.

If you treat one of your race car drivers like a member of the pit crew and never allow him on the track, don't blame him for never winning a race.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC

A Matter Of Life And Death

A former coworker and good friend of mine and I were having a debate just the other day about Google and it's practice of simply discontinuing products. The question is whether this practice makes Google less appealing to the corporate world which values maturity and reliability in its suppliers.

Anyone who has led the evaluation of a solution will tell you the list of criteria usually includes a number of measures of the potential longevity of the vendor and products. How long have they been in business and how long has the product been around? What is the number of current installations? How large is the support organization? How large and stable is the company? No one wants to choose a product or service that may disappear before the implementation is complete.

So what happens when the product or service around which you have constructed some critical production system goes belly up? What if your approach to CRM was to leverage Buzz? What if you adopted Knol as your internal platform for a knowledge base? These tools are being removed from the marketplace leaving you holding the bag.

First, it is important to keep it all in perspective. Almost any product can suddenly become obsolete or be withdrawn from the market. We live in interesting times, as the old Chinese proverb suggests, when even the greatest of companies can suddenly crumble and disappear. There are no guarantees in life.

That said, one would nor should ever choose a foundation that cannot bear the weight of the structure it must support. By this I mean, if the system you are about to embrace will be the life blood of your company, you may want to stick to the more tried and true, proven solutions and not take that novel, innovative approach, no matter how appealing. Any solution that is free, by definition, will not have a guaranteed future.

There is a reason the Oracle and SAPs of the world can command the obscene amount of money they charge for their products and services. I'm reminded of the old axiom no one ever got fired for buying IBM. It may not have been the lowest cost or most flexible solution but you knew it would be there and fully supported for a very long time.

We're seeing this extra level of concern in the area of cloud computing as well. A key provision in any contract must be a sound exit strategy. What do I do when I can no longer trust, access or afford the cloud based service? How do I get my data out and adjust my business process so I can support it with alternative technologies?

None of this, however, diminishes the value of Google or other leading, innovative solutions. Some of them have stood the test of time and will be more than acceptable to corporations large and small. Witness the recent decision by giant General Motors to transition to GMail and the Google Apps suite.

Embryonic services like Google Plus are new social outlets for connecting with customers and supporting brands. Whether they mushroom like Facebook and Twitter, or wither and fade like Ping and Friendster, it is still appropriate and important to explore and experiment. There is no way of knowing what new vehicle might just be that breakaway technology that sets you apart from the competition and puts you on top of the world.

Captain Joe

Follow me on Twitter @JPuglisiLLC