Prodject part three - Managing product management

As I was getting ready to listen to Donald McNaughton's webinar, I happened to see this Val Workman tweet:

Posted comment on @ms5 blog post http://bit.ly/nAj0 about Integrated Product Management, Today's #PMV webinar also addresses #prodmgmt

The bit.ly link redirects to a post by Michael Shrivathsan entitled Product Management vs. Product Marketing - 2 Departments or 1? Two of Shrivathsan's four recommendations are as follows:

1. Have one department play both “Product Management” and “Product Marketing” roles. You can call the department either name - the specific choice doesn’t matter much.

2. We should stop believing the incorrect notion that one person cannot play both roles. In their popular book Built to Last Collins & Porras say the following: The “Tyranny of the OR” pushes people to believe that things must be either A or B, but not both. I believe the vast majority of our industry suffers from this flawed notion that one person cannot play both roles. Instead, we must embrace what Collins & Porras call “The Genius of the AND”.

When I'm not taking pictures of trash cans, or whatever it is that I do in the Empoprises blogs, I work as a product manager. I have worked in relatively small organizations (which were part of big organizations, but my groups themselves have been relatively small), and have been exposed to both the unified organization (in which product management and product marketing report to one person) and the separated organization (in which different department heads lead product management and product marketing). Specifically, I've been in two separated organizations. However, I can't tell you whether separated organizations work or don't work, because in both cases, there were external factors that affected departmental performance:

1. In the first case, we had one person heading product management and another person heading product marketing. The two groups worked well together, from my recollection. Then the product marketing director suddenly quit, and the product management director ended up heading both groups.


2. Subsequently, product management and product marketing were separated again, and the product marketing director...um...didn't exactly inspire the direct reports. Two of them found new opportunities, one of them quit, one of them was fired (wrongfully), and one of them was transferred to the product management organization. That product marketing director eventually left the company, but I never did officially hear the exact means of departure.

Under these turbulent circumstances, I can't say whether separating product marketing from product management really hurt us. I worked well with the senior product marketing expert...who eventually was drafted into a product management position for a critical new product.

But even when product management and product marketing were segregated, we still have to divvy up some of the product management work. I don't want to go into great detail on this, but one of our products has a number of components, so we have often thought it best to have one product manager look at the server side of the product (use of Oracle database, use of Linux, etc.) while another product manager concentrated on the workstation side (use of Windows, the entire user experience, etc.).

So if you don't perform a product management vs. product marketing split, you may have to do a product management vs. product management split. I noted that there may be issues with this. Let me illustrate one of those issues, while noting that the example described below did NOT happen. As far as I know.

WidgetCorp produced a product called the OmniWidget. Because WidgetCorp strongly believed that one person should perform both product management and product marketing, the tasks were not segregated. However, because OmniWidget was so...um...omni, two product managers/marketers were needed to do the job.

Robert was assigned to product manage/market the user experience. Because of the people that Robert talked to, he decided that his purpose in life was to make sure that everything was shiny, new, and information-rich. (Not data-rich; information-rich. There's a difference.)

Alex, on the other hand, was assigned to product manage/market the background functions that would make everything work. Because of the people that Alex talked to, he decided that his purpose in life was to provide superior hardware and software that would provide a stable, predictable experience.

Then WidgetCorp received a bid from a company that needed an internal information system.

Alex immediately went to work, reading the bid documents, questioning the stakeholders on present workload needs, looking at their estimates of future needs, and designing a server subsystem with the required reliability, using well-designed hardware and software components.

Robert also went to work, reading the bid documents, questioning the stakeholders on underlying needs, and also researching some of the offerings that were on the horizon, about to be released.

Robert had a lot of friends, and one of them told him about some 3-D goggles with voice recognition and community interaction. Robert immediately determined that this product would provide the customer with an excellent solution.

As the time came up put the bid response together, Robert ran into the war room, waving the v0.9 specs for Goggle, and proclaiming, "We've got it!"

Alex ignored him and continued his presentation: "During the timeframe of the bid, it may be too risky to introduce Oracle Database 11gR2, so my preliminary recommendation is to stick with Oracle Database 11gR1. If 11gR2 is released and appears stable, we can consider a database change during the stage 7 review."

"Who needs Oracle?" asked Robert. "Goggle has its own built-in database!"

"But can it support 200 inquiries per hour from 8 am to 5 pm, with a possible peak hour workload of 300 inquiries per hour?" asked Alex.

"Hey, once people try Goggle out, they'll be launching 1,000 inquiries per hour at midnight!"

"But how will they launch inquiries at midnight when they're outside the firewall?"

"Goggle has its own built-in VPN tunnel!"

In essence, there's no one way to divide up the work that's better than any other way. Dividing between product management and product marketing requires coordination. Dividing by any other method also requires coordination. And if you have a huge product line, it may not be possible to have all the parties report to a single manager.

The important thing is that IF product management and product marketing are in separate organizations, steps have to be taken to make sure that they work together. Then again, the same steps have to be taken between product management and product development, and between product management and product test, and so forth.

OK, that was a bit of a digression. Let's get back on track and see what Donald McNaughton had to say. Let's start with the question: what is product management?

More choo choo stories

Another mass transit post (see my previous one), but this one focuses on trains rather than buses - specifically, high-speed rail in the United States.

My back-of-envelope calculations suggest that a high speed rail system in the United States might have a tough time of it, compared to more densely populated areas such as Europe and Japan. Yonah Freemark disagrees:

...a well-designed high speed intercity rail project between the two largest cities in Lone Star State (Houston and Dallas) would likely produce a net economic benefit–not at all the white elephant Glaeser suggests. In this more comprehensive model that takes into account trivialities like regional population growth and a reality-based route, the annual benefits total $840 million compared with construction and maintenance costs of $810 million. Which is to say, our numbers show that HSR pays for itself rather handily.

True, but I wouldn't built that high speed rail line between Calexico and Baker just yet.

What are your "most obscure" Google Reader feeds?

There's a Google Reader discussion (how do you link to Google Reader discussions?) on an item originally shared by Jesse Baer regarding the Jason Kottke post on Power Reading with Google Reader. During the course of the discussion, one participant wondered about the more obscure feeds that these power readers read.

This moved me to wonder why my more obscure feeds are.

To find out, I went to Google Reader, clicked on "Trends," then went to Subscription trends and clicked on "Most obscure."

Now right off the bat, I discovered that many of my "most obscure" feeds were either ego feeds (e.g. the feeds to my blogs) or feeds that I use directly in my blogging (such as the SimplyHired feed of job openings at NTN Buzztime). But I did find some interesting feeds buried away in there.

http://fingerprintguy.blogspot.com/

This blog is intended to help shed some light on the fingerprinting process. The process can sometimes be confusing, especially when you have to figure out where to go and who can fingerprint you. Let me be your magical mystery tour guide through the world of fingerprinting!

http://pastorcedric.blogspot.com/

This blog is a place for members and friends of CentrePoint to discuss the messages heard at CentrePoint Christian Fellowship. Feel free to make comments. I would love to dialogue with you.

Pastor Cedric Reynolds
CentrePoint Christian Fellowship
6251 Schaefer Avenue
Chino, CA 91710
(909) 591-7555

http://www.pacificelectrictrail.org/

Friends of the Pacific Electric Trail is a 501c(3) non-profit community organization that supports the completion and enhancement of the Inland Empire Pacific Electric rail-trail conversion project. Federal non-profit ID #83-0415924.

Now I'll grant that these are not necessarily general-interest blogs, but they're interesting nonetheless.

So what are the obscure feeds in YOUR Google Reader account?

Prodject part two - Who is Donald McNaughton?

The Ryma webinar that I mentioned in the last post was given by Donald McNaughton. Here's what Ryma says about him:

About the Presenter: Donald is a principal with Oliver Wight. He consults with companies to help them take advantage of the Oliver Wight Sales & Operations Planning template, a high-level process for managing and integrating all of a company's resources and has a particular strength in engaging people from all levels of the organization. He has consulted with a number of multi-national companies including Flowserve, Caterpillar, CTS, Motorola, Nestle, GlaxoSmithKline, Lilly, Schering-Plough, and Artesyn Technologies. His experience spans multiple industries including foods, pharmaceuticals, consumer electronics, and heavy equipment engineering. Donald has worked in Africa, Europe, and the Americas giving him the ability to effectively communicate with a wide range of audiences.

As I noted via Twitter, information on McNaughton is also available via a PDF file at the Oliver Wight website.

But before we look at McNaughton's material, I want to spend a moment on Managing Product Management.

Learning business principles from Demi Moore's FriendFeed habits

I found a post from Dare Obasanjo in someone else's Google Reader shared items (Rob Diana's, I think). This wasn't the RSS post, but another post of his entitled Where FriendFeed Went Wrong. And Dare has access to data that no one else has access to - his wife:

For the past few years, I’ve been watching services I used that were once the domain of geeks like Robert Scoble’s inner circle have eventually been adopted by mainstream users like my wife. In general, the pattern has always seemed to boil down to some combination of network effects (i.e. who do I know that is using this service?) and value proposition to the typical end user. Where a lot of services fall down is that although their value is obvious and instantly apparent to the typical Web geek, that same value is hidden or even non-existent to non-geeks.

It turns out that some geeky services, such as Google Reader, offered enough of a value proposition to Dare's wife that she ended up adopting them. Heck, she even blogs (and don't forget, blogging's hot again this week). But FriendFeed offered no clear value proposition to her, apparently.

But we don't just have to rely on Dare's wife to judge the value of FriendFeed. We can also rely on someone else - Ashton Kutcher's wife. Yes, Demi Moore is a FriendFeed user. I talked about her in a comment at Obasanjo's post, which I'm reproducing in full here.

Perhaps Demi Moore's experience is illustrative here.

Demi, of course, is a prolific Twitter user. She signed up for a FriendFeed account and asked the question, "Ok trying out friendfeed....any suggestions?" She got over 400 comments (I think I buried a comment somewhere in there). As of August 26, however, a FriendFeed search that she never posted another item directly to FriendFeed; her FriendFeed account basically echoes her Twitter account. Similarly (again as of August 26) her profile indicates that she has never commented on an item, or liked an item.

Now FriendFeed lovers such as myself can rant and rave about this or whatever, but the fact remains that Demi has found no compelling reason to use FriendFeed. The same holds true for millions upon millions of others who love Facebook, Twitter, AOL, or whatever.

And that, my friends, is why FriendFeed sold itself to Facebook.

Prodject part one - Introduction

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephanridgway/ / CC BY 2.0

The following "Prodject" series of posts looks at ideas for managing a product project, and about managing a product in general. Although I will cite other sources, much of the discussion originated at a Ryma "Product Management View" (PMV) webinar (which I mentioned in a previous post).

To refresh your memory, here's the webinar description:

About the Webinar: Ryma's Aug 26th webinar will be presented by Donald McNaughton. Many have talked about Product Management being a Team Sport. Other's indicate it's a cross-functional effort including members of Marketing, Development, Strategy, Engineering, Services, Support, Operations, and so forth.

Few have attempted to integrate the various activities of these organizations into one corporate wide product initiative. Even fewer have succeeded.

Donald will articulate the business value of an Integrated Product Management effort, and identify common issues preventing success. He will share with us some of his approaches and explain why he recommends particular methods over others. At the end of the day, have you ever wondered if there was a better way? You know whole organizations aren't plotting against you, but maybe there are days when it seems like it? If so this is a webinar for you.

Next: who is Donald McNaughton?

Another #pmv Product Management View webinar will start shortly

I don't know if there's still time to pre-register, but the information is here.

Ryma's Aug 26th webinar will be presented by Donald McNaughton. Many have talked about Product Management being a Team Sport. Other's indicate it's a cross-functional effort including members of Marketing, Development, Strategy, Engineering, Services, Support, Operations, and so forth.

Few have attempted to integrate the various activities of these organizations into one corporate wide product initiative. Even fewer have succeeded.

Donald will articulate the business value of an Integrated Product Management effort, and identify common issues preventing success. He will share with us some of his approaches and explain why he recommends particular methods over others. At the end of the day, have you ever wondered if there was a better way? You know whole organizations aren't plotting against you, but maybe there are days when it seems like it? If so this is a webinar for you.

As I write this, the webinar hasn't started yet. However, based upon reading a Val Workman tweet, I have also read this blog post from Michael Shrivathsan entitled "Product Management vs. Product Marketing - 2 Departments or 1?"

Nokia may have the trendy netbook field all to itself - Apple may not play

Is it wishful thinking that Apple's new product will be a netbook?

We already know that Apple's Tim Cook has dissed netbooks in the past, so it would take a major turnaround for Apple to suddenly declare netbook love.

However, we continue to see speculation that Apple is planning a netbook. In a recent post on Nokia's netbook, I quoted the following from BusinessWeek:

This may be a move by Nokia to grab initiative from rival Apple. In the past several years, the iPhone maker has managed to grab significant share in the lucrative, fast-growing market for smartphones away from Nokia. Apple is also rumored to be developing a tablet netbook. With this announcement, Nokia may be trying to beat Apple to the punch.

Well, today I just read a Mashable post entitled "Steve Jobs Is Laser Focused on the Apple Tablet Netbook."

Actually, I just lied to you. The actual title of the post is "Steve Jobs Is Laser Focused on the Apple Tablet."

And certain rumors in the Mashable post, some taken from the Wall Street Journal, appear very non netbook-like:

Mr. Jobs killed the project twice in recent years, the first time because the battery life was too short, and the second time because there was insufficient memory.

and

There’s still no word on device specs, what operating system it will use, and when exactly it might launch.

The Wall street Journal article is not accessible, but someone at DailyTech read it. Here's some additional speculation that Mashable didn't quote:

According to the WSJ, Apple may be pressured to release its tablet at $499 or less, due to the plethora of Windows and Linux netbooks priced in the same range.

Apple's tremendous secrecy makes it hard to determine fact from fantasy....

In fact, DailyTech also notes the following:

In a brief email Mr. Jobs reportedly [told] the WSJ, "Much of your information is incorrect."

Netbook news and non-news from Nokia and others

Additional news has emerged on the netbook front, starting with Nokia's announcement (via the Inquisitr):

Nokia is to enter the netbook space with the Booklet
3G....

The netbook sports a 10-inch glass screen, an SD card reader, Bluetooth, GPS, 3G, HSDPA (3.5G), Wi-Fi, a HDMI port and a front facing camera. Nokia claims the Booklet offers 12 hours of battery life.

And, in a cue from the phone world, it also features the "Nokia Music Store." Inquisitr writer Duncan Riley speculates, however, that it's not locked like a phone is. Meanwhile, BusinessWeek looks at the competitive aspects:

This may be a move by Nokia to grab initiative from rival Apple. In the past several years, the iPhone maker has managed to grab significant share in the lucrative, fast-growing market for smartphones away from Nokia. Apple is also rumored to be developing a tablet netbook. With this announcement, Nokia may be trying to beat Apple to the punch.

But will netbooks get even more powerful? jkOnTheRun, relying on a Japanese account, initially reported that a dual-core netbook was about to appear, but the Japanese report was subsequently corrected.

And no, I have no idea whether my old employer Motorola is thinking about introducing something akin to a netbook. Remember that at Motorola, the mobile phone group is separate from the "radio" group that makes police equipment. Products such as ML910 come from the latter group. Disclosure: my division produces software that can run on the Motorola MC75.)

My...um...minority view on McDonalds' 365black site

So anyways, I found this FriendFeed thread from Zee.

It’s true. McDonalds has a website for black people.

The thread links to a TheNextWeb post that discusses 365black.com, a McDonalds site targeted to African-Americans. Here's part of what TheNextWeb.com said:

Look, I’m not black, so maybe I have no right to be offended. But this does offend me. It offends me because it shoots straight at the heart of cultural diversity, something which by now, we should all be celebrating because its part of every single country on this planet.

To create a site supposedly to celebrate African American culture and call it something like 365Black?? I’m lost for words.

Pardon my french, but lets not bullshit around, this is of course merely a way to target racial minorities. Companies do it the world over. But couldn’t the website have just been a diversity website saying they support all different kinds of cultures, races, charities and organizations?

If you turn to the FriendFeed thread, another reason for the outrage was expressed.

I suppose that's true, but I still dislike when communities are targeted for stuff that's unhealthy or unfair, like fast food, "payday" check cashing, and malt liquor. Call me old-fashioned. (edit: Actually, malt liquor probably doesn't qualify) - Richard Walker

I'm going to ignore the "supersize me" angle on this, and concentrate on the issue of targeting one specific racial group (actually, three, since they also have an Asian-targeting web site and another site called meencanta.com). So I introduced this comment into the FriendFeed thread:

...are we going to be enraged when companies target...teenagers?

Zee's response:

that is completely different John...and i'm hoping you know it

I then poked around on the 365black.com site and looked at the partners, which include the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, BET.com, and Vibe.

But as I continued to read, I found this article at Re:Generator that wasn't all that hot on the partners. Underneath a picture of Ronald McDonald in which Ronald just happens to have his right hand raised upward, and after another attack on the healthiness of the food, Re:Generator said the following about the sponsors:

Whatever the case may be, McDonald’s is safe so long as it stays partnered with All The Things Black People Love™: BET, Vibe, Coca-Cola, the CIAA and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. These august institutions would never partner with the likes of Ronald “i’m lovin’ it” McDonald unless they had the Community’s best interest at heart.

(Incidentally, the best part of that last sentence was the word "Community" in capital letters, which recalls the time a few decades ago when the media would question a sports figure, an educator, and an entertainer, and then announced that it had measured the pulse of the Black Community.)

Then I read a post in Black Gives Back, devoted to philanthropy in the Black Community (yes, that's capitalized) and featuring a quote from Bill Cosby. They're highly in favor of 365black.com, going so far as to document some awards sponsored by McDonalds:

This year McDonald's recognizes Black Enterprise publisher Earl G. Graves, Sr.; CNN journalist Soledad O'Brien; NBA legend and philanthropist Alonzo Mourning; House Majority Whip and Congressman James E. Clyburn (D-SC) and McDonald's Owner and Operator Frank E. Mason. These individuals join the ranks of previous 365Black honorees, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, ESSENCE Magazine president Michelle Ebanks and founder Susan Taylor, along with journalist Roland Martin and educator Johnnetta B. Cole.

Anyway, the conversation continued on FriendFeed...and then Steven Hodson weighed in with an Inquisitr post. It began as follows:

I gotta say right off the bat here that this has to be they ... dumbest idea I have heard of yet. It is one thing for an entertainment network like Black Entertainment Television to gear their site content towards black people but the epitome of lily white corporate culture McDonald’s having a specific site aimed that the African-American segment of society is just plain stupid.

Now Hodson is approaching the issue in a different way. While TheNextWeb implied that ANY targeted site is undesirable, Hodson is pretty much saying that you can target a race if you're of that race, but if you're not, you can't.

So Black Entertainment Television (which, for the record, is NOT black-owned, but owned by Viacom) can target blacks all they want to, but BET cannot sponsor another organization (in this case, the McDonald's sponsored 365black.com).

Why does Hodson think it's OK for Viacom to target blacks, but not McDonald's? Because McDonald's is more transparent than Viacom is. When you go to 365black.com, you immediately know who's sponsoring the site. But I challenge you to go to BET.com and see how many mentions of Viacom you can find. I searched and couldn't find a single one.

But I did find what the Urban Dictionary had to say about B.E.T. - and it feels about B.E.T. about the same as most of the FriendFeed commenters feel about McDonald's. From the Urban Dictionary:

B.E.T is a ministrel show. Thats all you need to know. It undermines the black community and continues to make us look like a bunch of idiots. BET also teaches more like brainwash blacks into thinking being a thug and a video whore is the way to be in life. In all honesty, BET should be changed into NET(Niggas Entertainment Television). Because B.E.T has nothing but niggas for the most part.

And to white people who cry racism, please do your research before you open your mouth. First of all the company(viacom) that oversees B.E.T is mostly white. Second if you think B.E.T represents black people, then you are a racist yourself, and have bought into the stereotype they have fed you. Not to mention you all have your own white television channel its called MTV and 90% of the other channels that are on your network. Do not be so ignorant sheesh.

So forget about those examples, and let's go to the original premise in TheNextWeb, that everything should be wonderful and diverse and that we don't mention those different races and genders and sexual orientations and deviated septa. And let's use the true meaning of diversity, and not assume, like Harvard University, that "diversity" is simply a synonym for "non-white."

Or, one size fits all.

For what it's worth, many of us identify ourselves by our racial and cultural backgrounds. Do we want a McDonald's website that is the same all over the world? More importantly, do McDonald's customers want a website that is the same all over the world? Or will they start complaining that "McDonald's doesn't speak to me?"

That's why they call it target marketing, folks. Now one could legitimately question whether 365black.com is a marketing ploy with no substance (posters in the FriendFeed thread took both sides on that issue), but I'm not going to fault McDonald's for targeting Blacks, or Asians, or Latinos, or Whites, any more than I'm going to fault Viacom for doing the same thing.

I welcome comments.

Sportsman, or sportswoman, in 1936

As I write this, the controversy regarding Caster Semenya continues to rage. The Times points out that a similar controversy erupted in the Berlin Olympics of 1936:

Controversy goes back at least as far as the Berlin Games in 1936, when Helen Stephens, an American, beat her great rival Stella Walsh to win the 100 metres. Stephens was promptly accused of being a man.

When German doctors inspected Stephens, they concluded she was a woman.

So Stephens was cleared of the accusations from Walsh. But the Times continues the story:

In 1980 Walsh...was killed by a stray bullet during an armed robbery in Cleveland, Ohio. An autopsy found that she had male genitalia and both male and female chromosomes.

This story details the issues regarding Stella Walsh (a/k/a Stanislawa Walasiewicz) and others.

Controversy over her gender remains unresolved, although official documents and history record her as female.

Associated Pressing

http://www.flickr.com/photos/purpleslog/ / CC BY 2.0

There's previously been talk about how the Associated Press doesn't want you to quote long extracts from their articles. In the AP's case, long is not long indeed.

I just wrote a post in Empoprise-IE that relied upon an AP article, so I very carefully quoted from said article:

...$65,000....$10,000...$2,000...

And even with that, I almost exceeded AP's quoting requirements...well, AP's quoting requirements for free use. While I was on vacation, Mashable spilled the gory details:

Part of the AP’s plan is to charge for use of its articles if you quote 5 words or more. They signed a deal with iCopyright in April last year to accomplish this goal. iCopyright is a widget that handles not only print and email, but republishing as well. Well the widget’s starting to get some attention, if only for the jaw-dropping starting price the AP is charging for quoting its stories: $2.50 per word.

The process goes like this: you copy and paste the excerpt or article you want to reprint. Next you pick your price, ranging from $12.50 for five words to $100 for 251 words or more.

Now because I run ads on Empoprise-IE, I assume that I would be considered a commercial entity. And I can say with authority that my revenue from any one blog post does not exceed $12.50.

So if you wonder why Associated Press articles are rarely featured on my blog, this is why. And I agree with Mashable that this may hurt the AP in the long term:

[T]he entire policy is a battle against the direction of progress, and the price point is way off. Social media helps spread information faster and to more people, which is the point of a wired service like the AP. The company’s complaint is that blogs and news aggregators (i.e. Google News) are taking its content and making all the advertising revenue. What they forget is that they provide a great deal of traffic and attention to content creators in the process.

Now I should give the Associated Press equal time. After the Mashable post ran, the AP issued the following statement:

The iCopyright form that

(Whew, that was close!)

Do pseudonyms make sense in Facebook?

OK, now we're getting to an issue that goes well beyond Facebook's acquisition of FriendFeed. We're about to question one of the main tenets of Facebookdom.

In part one of this post, I recounted three suggestions that I had previously advanced to make the Facebook experience more like the FriendFeed experience. But when I advanced those suggestions, I failed to think about whether or not they may sense.

In part two of this post, I discussed the pros and cons of my first suggestion for Facebook - bump active items to the top of the feed.

In part three of this post, I discussed the pros (I couldn't find any cons) of my second suggestion for Facebook - allow multiple RSS feeds on a Facebook page.

Now it's time for my third and final suggestion to re-create the FriendFeed experience within Facebook - allow pseudonyms in Facebook.

Yes, I suggested that. Why?

Let's start with an old story that I covered long ago, but Mathew Ingram covered it better so I'll turn to him:

As sociologist Danah Boyd has found in her research into how young people are using social networks such as MySpace , one of the freedoms that the Internet provides is the freedom to try on different personas, to pretend to be someone else, to role-play. By now, most people have probably gotten used to the idea that not everyone is who they claim to be on the Internet.

Facebook doesn’t see it that way, however. The popular social-networking site has a strict policy of not allowing users to register an account under a fake name. The site regularly deletes accounts and blocks users if they breach this rule. But those attempts to maintain a real-name-only policy are colliding ever more frequently with the natural human desire to experiment online.

A blogger calling himself Jon Swift -- after the famous English philosopher and writer -- was the most recent Facebook member to fall victim to the no-pseudonym policy, and he wrote on his blog about how his account was suddenly deleted without warning.

Facebook’s response was to cite the policy: “Fake accounts are a violation of our Terms of Use,” a spokesman said. “Facebook requires users to provide their real first and last names. Impersonating anyone or anything is prohibited. Unfortunately, we will not be able to reactivate this account for any reason. This decision is final.”

Not completely final, as it turned out. Swift’s protest was picked up by several leading bloggers, most of whom criticized Facebook for its approach, and eventually the site backed down and allowed Swift to retain his pseudonym.

The reasons for allowing Jon Swift to continue were semantic - in effect, the argument was made that Jon Swift wasn't impersonating anyone (such as the original Jon Swift) - in essence, the 21st century Jon Swift was a distinct persona (yeah, I guess "persona" is the cool kids term this month) that could be readily identified.

This raises the question - if a certain boxer from Louisville, Kentucky decided to join Facebook, would Facebook require him to register as Cassius Clay, or Muhammad Ali?

And would Facebook require that a particular personal page be registered under the name Benjamin Kubelsky, forcing the user to create a fan page called Jack Benny? (One thing for sure; he would certainly like Facebook's annual subscription fee, although he may object to entering his date of birth.)

A little over a month before Facebook's acquisition of FriendFeed, Sarah Perez looked at the issue of pseudonyms on FriendFeed, and on the entire Internet:

The pseudo-anonymity of the internet - or at the very least, the ability to write something cruel without having to face the person eye-to-eye - often leads people to express themselves in ways that are far from how they would behave in real life. In the past, this typically led people to hide behind pseudonyms and screen names so they could post whatever they wanted without fear of repercussions.

That's why I recently proposed that some communities put an end to online anonymity, thinking that if you removed the masks from people's identities, they would start behaving properly.

But as her idea continued to be discussed, Perez revised her proposal:

But as it turns out, there was a huge flaw in my reasoning in that post. I focused on whether or not someone should use their real name when posting, but that's not the issue at all. It's not really anonymity that's to blame for the troll-like behavior we're seeing in online communities, it's the lack of accountability.

That's why (some) people seem comfortable posting mean-spirited comments on sites like FriendFeed using their real name and their real identities to do so. You see, when you post on FriendFeed, your comment quickly disappears into the site's "real-time flow" of information. Someone watching the stream sees it only momentarily, before it's replaced with others. Even within the "angry mob" threads themselves, a single comment easily gets lost among hundreds of others.

However, the community sometimes ensures that a single angry comment is not lost. And while I joke about it today, there was a bit hubbub a few weeks ago over a single comment made in a FriendFeed thread when VerothicA's deviantART picture appeared on FriendFeed. The thread itself was deleted (and I can't find the image of the comments right now), but that single comment sparked a huge reaction (example here).

Perhaps Perez is right, and accountability is more important than identity. If Perez is correct, then is Facebook's semi-insistence on using real names a waste of time?

It depends upon the purpose of the network. And while I've argued that there are similarities between FriendFeed and Facebook, there are also clear differences.

The original intent of Facebook was to connect real people to people that they knew. So, for example, if Facebook had existed in 1980, I could have used Facebook to link to people that I knew at Reed College. While Facebook has gone far away from its college beginnings, it still insists on the real-life connection between your "friends" - and when Facebook refers to friends, they really mean it.

I just logged out of Facebook to take a look at the service's opening screen.



The question is - who are the people in my life?

Now I'm linked to my daughter on Facebook, and to my insurance agent, and to my pastor, and to several people in the Proposals department at work. These people are obviously in my life.

Now Eddie Awad is also a friend on Facebook. Eddie is someone that I initially met online, but I have since met him in person at Oracle OpenWorld, along with several other people, such as Jake Kuramoto, Laurent Schneider, and Marius Ciortea. These people are definitely "in my life" during the week of Oracle OpenWorld, but I don't necessarily wake up every morning and say to myself, "What is Laurent doing right now?" (Partially that is because many of the things that Laurent does are beyond my technical comprehension.)

But I have also befriended Louis Gray and Jesse Stay (among others) on Facebook. I've never met either of them. Other than the fact that I have a free SocialToo account, I have no business relationship with either of them. I don't go to the same conferences that they go to. Heck, I don't necessarily go to the same places that they do. One exception - Jesse went to Mt. Rushmore this summer, and I also paid a summer visit to Mt. Rushmore - in the summer of 2005.

But should I befriend Jon Swift on Facebook? I'll confess that I haven't read him lately, but I used to read him quite often. Or, more to the point, one of my FriendFeed friends goes by the name Cee Bee. Is Facebook going to allow Cee Bee onto FriendFeed?

Or how about a particular person who is on various social networks - including Facebook - under a pseudonym? This particular investment advisor - slash - photographer, who uses the last name of a bird, is registered on Facebook under his well-known pseudonym.

Of course, this gets into the whole question of different aspects of your persona. What do you reveal to your family? Your friends? Your co-workers? The people that you hang out with on FriendFeed? Technically I could write another post on this whole aspect myself, but instead I'm going to (for once) defer to someone who knows about the topic. I couldn't find any online writing by Jesse Stay on this topic, but I did find this post from Alison Driscoll and this one from Nick O'Neill.

So where are we?

Of the initial three recommendation that I provided, the only one that I'm still really sold on is for Facebook to allow you to add multiple feeds to a page. Regarding bumping active items, since there are arguments for preserving entries in reverse time order and arguments for showing the most active items up top, the best thing is to allow both. Regarding pseudonyms, I don't know what the best solution is yet, but requiring real names itself is no guarantee for a wonderful social media environment.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on all of these items. Feel free to post in the comments below, or comment elsewhere. Incidentally, all of these blog posts can also be found in my Empoprise-BI fan page on Facebook. It will be easy to find them, since the blog feed is the only feed on the fan page.

Precision at LinkedIn

I am a junkie for data. Not necessarily information, just data. So you can bet that I was pleased when I visited my LinkedIn account on Sunday afternoon:



Before, LinkedIn only told you the day in which a particular timeline event occurred. Now they're a little more precise.

So, for the record, I DID send a message to (blank) who recently became a consultant at (blank), and had only announced this fact to the world within the previous two hours.

I don't know that this data always serves a useful purpose, or if it ever serves a useful purpose, but it's easy enough to gather, and it doesn't take up a lot of room, so I'm glad that LinkedIn is providing it.

Comment fragmentation? How about comment molecularization? (Google Reader shared items)

Comment fragmentation has been discussed a lot. Consider a blog post that is echoed to FriendFeed, Twitter, and Facebook - the comments on the post could occur on any of those places, and more. Even within a single service, such as FriendFeed, you can have all sorts of comment fragmentation. For example, let's say that Steven Perez, Robert Scoble, Louis Gray, Rob Diana, and I choose to share an item via our FriendFeed accounts - that nearly guarantees that you'll get comment fragmentation in at least four locations (or, if I comment on my own item, five locations).

Well, now that FriendFeed has been sold to Facebook, a number of people - even people who DON'T believe that FriendFeed will be shut down any day now - are trying alternative services. One of those is Google Reader, which has included some social features for shared items for some time now, and has been adding to their functionality and ease of use. Specifically, you now have the capability to comment upon items and like them. (Sound familiar?)

Until recently, I hadn't linked to anyone on my "empoprises" Google Reader account (certainly not to the level that I had linked to people on my "mrontemp" Google Reader account). But recently, prompted by a FriendFeed thread with a bunch of Google Reader shared items URLs, I've linked to over a dozen people to whom I subscribe in FriendFeed.

Incidentally, if you want to subscribe to MY Google Reader shared items, go to http://www.google.com/reader/shared/empoprises, wait for the "Follow" button to appear, and click it.

And I've discovered that Google Reader comments, like FriendFeed comments, can be fragmented all over the place.



I am subscribed to both Louis Gray and Rob Diana via Google Reader. While Google Reader nicely concatenates an item that both people have shared, the comments themselves remain separate.

Is this solution (concatenated item, separate comments) the desirable solution?

Do multiple RSS feeds per page make sense in Facebook?

In part one of this post, I recounted three suggestions that I had previously advanced to make the Facebook experience more like the FriendFeed experience. But when I advanced those suggestions, I failed to think about whether or not they may sense.

In part two of this post, I discussed the pros and cons of my first suggestion for Facebook - bump active items to the top of the feed.

Now it's time to look at my second suggestion for Facebook, which is to allow multiple RSS feeds on a Facebook page.

I think that everyone knows that on a FriendFeed page, you can include all sorts of feeds in the stream. My Empoprises FriendFeed page includes four blog feeds (for the four Empoprises blogs); a custom RSS feed of my Twitter mentions; and feeds from Disqus, Facebook, Flickr, Google Reader, last.fm, LinkedIn (which doesn't work), Pandora, Twitter, Upcoming, and YouTube.

Even before Facebook acquired FriendFeed, I had decided that my blogs needed a presence on Facebook, primarily because you have 200+ million people on that service and the exposure wouldn't hurt. However, when I read Mark O'Neill's extremely helpful how-to guide for incorporating RSS feeds into Facebook pages, I discovered that there was a limitation on Facebook's capabilities:

Select “Import A Blog” in the Notes Setting section. You can only import from 1 RSS feed at a time. Simply “Stop Importing” if you want to change the RSS feed.

Yes, that's right. You can only import from one RSS feed at a time. This effectively meant that I couldn't create an "Empoprises" fan page, but that I would instead have to create separate pages for each of my Empoprises blogs. As I write this, I haven't even gotten around to creating the Empoprise-NTN fan page yet. The other three Facebook fan pages, in case you're curious, are:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Empoprise-BI/98783891478
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Empoprise-IE/141421807518
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Empoprise-MU/213885425013

Now in my particular case, it makes sense to have separate fan pages for each of the blogs - they are, after all, blogs targeted for specific vertical markets. But what if you're, for example, WidgetCorp, and you want to create a fan page and include your blog feed, your Twitter feed, and your YouTube channel in it? Technically, Facebook doesn't allow you to do that. Now there are workarounds - I can't find the link, but someone suggested that you feed multiple feeds into an appropriately-tagged Google Reader feed, and then direct THAT feed into Facebook - but that's work.

And you also have to remember that I, in my non-critical way, was trying to recreate the FriendFeed experience in Facebook. So if FriendFeed lets you automatically feed umpteen separate feeds into your page, why doesn't Facebook?

I can't really come up with a good response to that. As far as I can tell, there is no real reason for Facebook to prevent you from adding multiple feeds of outside content. As long as Facebook is letting you add one outside feed, why not allow 10? 50? 1000?

Actually, that would make sense for Facebook. Let's say that Facebook decided to allow multiple feeds per page, and I therefore chose to put all of my FriendFeed feeds into my Facebook page. This makes my Facebook page a possible destination for those who (for whatever bizarre reason) want to see my lifestream - and ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE WILL BE EXPOSED TO FACEBOOK ADS.

Or perhaps I'm still boneheadedly wrong, and there are good reasons for Facebook to restrict users to one RSS feed per page. In the comments below, please tell me what those good reasons are.

And sign your real name...or don't. We'll get to that little issue.

Did I waste five years? Probably not

Years and years ago, when I was only three years removed from my undergraduate degree, I enrolled in the MBA program at Cal State Fullerton. I only attended at night, and I took a course that allowed me to specialize in one area, so it took me five years to get my MBA. (In an incredible stroke of luck, I graduated just a few days before my daughter was born; MBA studies would have been difficult with a baby in the house.)

Well, BusinessWeek is now touting something developed by David Buckner called the Mini-MBA. Buckner talks about it here:



As you can see from the video, Buckner's program can be completed in about a week. While you can obviously learn from this and similar programs, when BusinessWeek chose to write a separate article about mini MBAs, they chose to emphasize a different aspect at the beginning of the article:

With the downturn in the economy, people like McKinley are increasingly looking for fast and inexpensive ways to bolster their credentials and brush up on their business skills. Many are turning to quick-hit business education programs, commonly referred to as "mini-MBA" programs, which have proliferated at business schools across the country in recent years. The classes, which typically range in price from $2,000 to $4,000, are designed for middle managers who often don't have a business background or MBA, but want to get a better grasp on business essentials to help them progress in their careers.

And this credential-building apparently has results:

The class has given [job seeker Tom McKinley] a boost in the job market, says McKinley, who has since added the credential to his LinkedIn profile and other job networking sites.

"I'm already getting more interest in my résumé since taking the class and I'm certainly promoting it as I go forward," says McKinley. "People are going to ask me, 'What have you been doing since you've been unemployed for six months?' This is one of the things I can point to."

But while a mini MBA is certainly an alternative to a full MBA, it isn't necessarily a replacement for an MBA. A full MBA includes more in-depth coursework, and also demonstrates a higher level of commitment.

Then again, I'm forced to admit that there are those who question whether a full MBA has any value in the first place.

Empoprise-BI News - 23 August 2009

Empoprise-BI News

The news letter for Empoprise-BI - An Empoprises vertical information service for business news.

Welcome to Empoprise-BI News

Business as unusual here this week. Here's the scoop:

Behind the Scenes

Or, more accurately, in front of the scenes. I normally don't talk about biometrics in this blog, but last week I dug into the topic with two posts. However, these are very much posts from the outside, as it were. All of the biometric activity this past week was taking place in Tampa, at the International Association of Identification conference. I was unable to attend this year, unfortunately. While the press coverage that I saw didn't touch upon IAI reaction to the NAS report or the DNA fabrication study, I was able to find a couple of mentions of the big concerns at the conference. Ironically, both of them quoted a man whom I highly respect, Bill Schade. Here's the local Fox station coverage. And here's how Bay News 9 covered it.

Special Features

You remember my post from last week, A Course in Miracles just dashed all hope of sales in Iran. This talked about the press release that quoted Jesus Christ; in the post, I observed:

Now, I am a religious person. I believe that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. But I'm not about to put him on the interview circuit.

However, the Course in Miracles people only managed to get one endorsement. The Unification Church did much better in their August 2002 full page ad, which endorsed Sun Myung Moon's Messiahship. Ethics Daily reproduced some of the many endorsements that Moon received. Here are some of them:

Jesus: "Reverend Sun Myung Moon! You are the Second Coming who inaugurated the Completed Testament Age."

John Calvin: "God is the parent of humankind and Reverend Sun Myung Moon is the Messiah, Savior and Second Coming."

Muhammad: "Since I, Muhammad, encountered the Unification Principle and met the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, my worldview has changed … I cry out: Victory for God! Victory for Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the True Parent, Messiah and Savior! All Muslims follow the will of Muhammad."

Joseph Stalin: "Friends in Communist countries, I am Stalin. You have had wrong thinking … Please receive the will of Reverend Moon completely."

Karl Marx is reported to have renounced atheism: "I, Marx, affirm God's existence and that He is the parent of all humankind."

But yet most of us still wonder what religion Paris Hilton follows. Oh well.

Upcoming

Back on Friday, I began to write a series of posts in which I critically examined three suggestions for Facebook to provide a more FriendFeed-like experience. I had made these suggestions back during the week that the Facebook acquisition of FriendFeed was announced. But do these suggestions make sense for Facebook? I started the series midday on Friday, with my post A tool is not a way of life, and a tool's features are not a way of life either. I continued it late Friday afternoon by looking at the first of my three suggestions, in the post Do feedbumps make sense in Facebook?

Well, I still have two more suggestions to look at, and I plan to look at them early in the week.

I also plan to discuss a minor enhancement that LinkedIn added to its interface, and why I like it.

And I'll do some more stuff also.

Internet everywhere

I didn't realize that Blu-Ray players advertised Internet connectivity. This model (at Costco in Montclair, California) talks about connecting to Pandora.

Obviously this model isn't sold in Canada.

College students not buying Apple computers - A blip on the radar, or something more significant?

The Los Angeles Times ran this story:

Now students may be taking a page out of the business traveler's handbook, according to a survey of 300 Americans released this morning by Retrevo, a technology review website based in Sunnyvale, Calif. A third of those polled said they planned to buy a netbook for school. About half said they would buy a desktop. A majority of students said they would not be buying a Mac.

“While Apple has done well historically in the education market, 2009 marks the dawn of the netbook,” says Vipin Jain, Retrevo's chief executive. “Students told us they wanted longer battery life, smaller size and a lighter laptop."

More than half of those polled, 58%, said they planned to spend less than $750 on their computer, while 18% had a budget over $1,000. Apple laptops start at $949.

Now perhaps this is a non-story, which may especially be true since surveys from prior years weren't cited. But I see two potentially significant things here.

First, this indicates that Apple does not have the education mindshare. Apple's strategy used to be to get their products into the schools, and then into the colleges, so that when students graduated, they'd naturally gravitate toward something with which they were already familiar. But if students are truly price-sensitive, and if their university hasn't swung a discount deal with Apple, then the majority of students aren't even considering Apple in their equations.

The second issue relates to the students' potential acceptance of netbooks. This is significant because Apple, to date, has officially pooh-poohed the whole netbook idea. Tim Cook in April:

“For us, it’s about doing great products. When I look at netbooks, I see cracked keyboards, terrible software, junky hardware, very small screens. It’s just not a good consumer experience and not something we would put the Mac brand on. It’s a segment we would not choose to play in.”

Now speculation is running rampant that Apple actually WILL release some type of lower-priced computer later this year. But would Apple be able to release something at a low enough price point to entice those $750 college students to buy it? Or will Apple instead declare that an iPod Touch is better than a netbook?

Do feedbumps make sense in Facebook?

In part one of this post, I recounted three suggestions that I had previously advanced to make the Facebook experience more like the FriendFeed experience. But when I advanced those suggestions, I failed to think about whether or not they may sense.

My first suggestion for Facebook was to bump active items to the top of the feed.

If you're not familiar with the way that FriendFeed works, let me provide an illustration. Basically, things on your FriendFeed appear in reverse chronological order, like in a blog, but with one exception.

Let's say that at 6:00 am I share a highly advanced thought with the people on my feed.

---

Looks like the sun is rising in the east again today.
1 minute ago

---

A little while later, I share another highly advanced thought.

---

I need coffee.
1 minute ago

---

Looks like the sun is rising in the east again today.
3 minutes ago

---

Someone on FriendFeed sees my earlier comment and likes it. This moves the older comment to the top of my feed, because it has the most recent activity.

---

Looks like the sun is rising in the east again today.
3 minutes ago
:) edythe liked this.

---

I need coffee.
1 minute ago

---

Now if another person were to like this, the thread wouldn't be bumped any higher. However, new comments added to the post will (to a certain point) bump the comment higher.

---

Looks like the sun is rising in the east again today.
2 hours ago
:) edythe and Louis Gray liked this.
John, thank you for illuminating the obvious. - Shevonne
I try. - John E. Bredehoft

---

Miley Cyrus and Lindsay Lohan in the same club?
40 minutes ago from Google Reader
:) Derrick liked this

---

I'd be willing to bet that the sun will set in the west.
1 hour ago
:) Caroline liked this

---

I need coffee.
2 hours ago

---

Compare this to Facebook, in which the items, like the items in a blog, remain in reverse chronological order. Therefore, if you want to find an item in my Facebook feed with a lot of activity, you will have to hunt for it.

Now, if you drink the FriendFeed Kool Aid, you immediately decide (like I did) that the FriendFeed way of doing things is better, and recently-discussed items should always be at the top of the feed.

Or should they?

Ben Parr of Mashable is in favor of FriendFeed's way of doing things, and notes that this did not originate with FriendFeed:

In some ways, FriendFeed is like a message board – any time someone likes or comments on an item, it gets bumped up to the top of your feed. This allows you to continue a back-and-forth conversation on a key item. As you do more and more of this, more and more people will notice and subscribe to you for the most important reason of them all: because you’re interesting.

On the other hand, one disadvantage of feed bumping is that you lose the contextual nature of the items that are added to a feed. In Facebook, if I post three items in order, that order will be retained even if people only take a fancy to the second item. In FriendFeed, the second item could be bumped to the top of my feed, but the context provided by the first and third items would be lost.

Another disadvantage of feed bumping is that people can misuse it (or use it in excess, depending upon how you look at it). Let's say that I put a truly outstanding item in my FriendFeed feed a week ago, but nobody paid attention to it. If I add a comment to it a few days later, it will get bumped to the top of my feed again - and to the top of everyone's feeds who has subscribed to me. Now there may be a valid reason for doing this:

---

Boy, I'm glad that Facebook and FriendFeed are completely separate corporate entities. I'd hate to see what happened if Bret worked for Facebook.
Wednesday
So then a few days later Facebook acquires FriendFeed; looks like there's egg on my face! - John E. Bredehoft

---

On the other hand, you could bump something just to bump it.

---

Make money fast!!! http://bigfatscam.com/
Wednesday
You should really try this!!! - John E. Bredehoft
You should really try this!!! - John E. Bredehoft
You should really try this!!! - John E. Bredehoft
You should relly try this!!! - John E. Bredehoft
Shut up!!! - Steven Hodson
You should really really really try this!!! - John E. Bredehoft

---

Of course, these things have a way of regulating themselves. If I were to pull something like this, hundreds of subscribers would reach for the hide control - or perhaps the unsubscribe control.

Perhaps the best way to handle the "chronological order" vs. "most active" question is to do both. There are several ways to do this, but it all boils down to giving the user the control over how he or she wants to view the feed. Claiming that one way or another way to view the feed is the best way possible for all people in all circumstances is NOT the best solution.

But what about multiple feeds? Stay tuned for part three.

A tool is not a way of life, and a tool's features are not a way of life either

I enjoy it when I catch myself spouting a boneheaded idea. If Sarah Perez or Jesse Stay says something that's wrong, while I can certainly counter their ideas, it isn't appropriate for me to denigrate them personally. But when I go the zero IQ route, I can engage in the pleasure of calling myself every name in the book...and knowing that much of my readership will cheer me on. Of course, there's always the danger that I'll get in a flame war with myself, but that's a personal problem.

One non-boneheaded thing that I've said is that a tool is not a way of life. Perhaps you've heard me say this before. An important corollary to this truism, however, is that a tool's features are not a way of life either.

Back when people were mourning the loss of FriendFeed, one of the things that was conveyed to me (by Alex Scoble and Mark Krynsky, among others) is that many of these people didn't miss FriendFeed itself, but the relationships that FriendFeed allowed them to establish.

However, during at least one point during Facefeed week, I seemed to have misplaced that truth, as I began to personally analyze what it would take to recreate the FriendFeed experience on Facebook.

Now there are those who argue that FriendFeed and Facebook are two entirely different beasts, but I would argue (wisely, I think) that they do share some commonalities. Based upon these perceived commonalities, I advanced the idea that three changes to the Facebook UI would provide FriendFeed refugees with the rich FriendFeed experience that they were craving.

• Bump active items to the top of the feed. One of the nice features of FriendFeed is the fact that active conversations - i.e., those with likes and/or recent comments - get bumped to the top of the feed. Facebook doesn't do this.


• Allow multiple RSS feeds on a Facebook page. For those who don't remember, FriendFeed started as a feed aggregator, and thus naturally supports a way to show your entire lifestream in one place. Facebook limits you to a single RSS feed per page.


• Allow pseudonyms in Facebook. FriendFeed users can adopt any pseudonym that they like (well, except for "Bret"). Facebook is much more insistent on people using their real identity.

Upon further reflection, however, I have decided that any attempt to re-create FriendFeed in Facebook should be re-examined critically, and that anyone who would suggest a "move FriendFeed features to Facebook" development effort without critically analyzing whether such features make sense in the Facebook interface...well, that person is a moronic idiot of the highest order and shouldn't be entrusted with a pencil, let alone a computer keyboard and a blog.

(Hey, I enjoyed that.)

So, let's take the time to critically analyze my earlier suggestions and see if they make sense for Facebook. Stay tuned for part two.

How about invisible velvet rope social networks?

This morning, I wrote a post that discussed velvet rope social networks. Within the post, I stated:

These smaller networks - well, smaller compared to Facebook or Twitter - normally make you jump through at least one hoop, and sometimes many, before you can get in to the network - provided that you can get in at all. By definition, this trend cannot be measured, because I'm sure that Al-Qaeda, the CIA, and IBM have various secret unpublicized online communities that Forrester Research et al aren't going to learn about. Some velvet rope social networks are more well known, but it still takes a bit of effort to join them - you don't just turn on Facebook Connect and you're in.

When I wrote this, I was not familiar with the concept of the darknet.

A darknet is a covert, private computer network that's used for secure communications and, often, file sharing.

Darknets can be created using a variety of desktop software applications. Such programs, however, typically require a certain level of technical knowledge for proper configuration and use.

That quote is from an InformationWeek article which explains how Hewlett-Packard researchers are pursuing things that may span both the business and home markets - and other markets besides.

Now, thanks to the power of the new generation of JavaScript engines -- Chrome's V8 and Firefox's TraceMonkey -- the encryption necessary to make a darknet work can be handled in the browser, on either a computer or a mobile phone.

Billy Hoffman, manager of HP's Web security group, and Matt Wood, senior security researcher at HP, have developed a prototype browser-based darknet called Veiled as a proof-of-concept project.

They plan to demonstrate this at next week's Black Hat Conference, but HP has no plans to release this as a product. Or if they do, they're...um...keeping it under wraps.

Now this tool, or others like it, can certainly create one of the velvet rope social networks that Loren Feldman and Chris Brogan were talking about. In fact, you could call it an invisible velvet rope social network.

[Billy Hoffman] says it would be irresponsible to suggest, for example, that Veiled could be used by political dissidents in Iran. "However, I do think that this is something that can aid where people are wanting to create communities quickly and take them down quickly," he said.

He describes Veiled as a tool for creating instant, online communities to serve a flash mob.

"You'd go to URL and that joins you to the darknet," said Wood. "When you close your browser, it's gone. There's no trace you're participating in this."

Now technology itself is neutral, and such a technology could be used for good, or for evil. (In fact, people could disagree on whether a particular use is good or evil.) But the presence of these technologies shows that, while there is pressure to keep everything open, there is just as much, if not more, pressure to make sure that some things remain closed.

Can Hewlett Packard be a floor wax AND a dessert topping?

InformationWeek's Bob Evans asked an interesting question in his open letter to Hewlett-Packard's Mark Hurd:

Much or perhaps even most of your company's revenue comes from business customers whose needs are increasingly sophisticated and urgent, but a Bloomberg News story two days ago about your earnings report begins with this description of your company: "Hewlett-Packard Co., the world's largest personal-computer company . . . " Is that the image you want for HP?

Now Bob Evans and InformationWeek are certainly looking at this from the perspective of a business customer, and as such could conceivably be offended by HP appearing to pander to the unwashed consumer market.

However, I'm not offended, and I doubt that most CIOs are offended either. You see, I'd be willing to bet that 99.999% of all CIOs go home at some point. And at least some of those CIOs have husbands and wives and kids and moms and dads. So perhaps these CIOs are aware that there are people outside of business who are looking for (gasp) personal computers.

What would happen if Hewlett Packard repositioned their marketing and de-emphasized the consumer market? Well, for one, my personal mailbox would be less full, because HP wouldn't be sending me inkjet printer tips and tricks every month.

Of course, that isn't what Bob Evans is suggesting. Evans is instead suggesting that HP let someone else own the #1 personal computer title.

Not a darned thing wrong with having become #1 in this wicked, cut-throat, low-margin, fickle, and highly exposed business. Rather, the problem is whether you want to hold on to that top spot in this wicked, cut-throat, low-margin, fickle, and highly vulnerable business. IBM (NYSE: IBM) shipped its PC headaches off to Lenovo, which can handle and even enjoy the brutal and commodity-driven dynamics of that business because that's what Lenovo does as its core business.

Then there's the inevitable Rise Of The Little Machines, as businesses are beginning to turn away from today's incredibly powerful and capable notebooks and toward smartphones and netbooks. Your PC revenue fell 18%---how much of that was due to the rotten economy and how much was due to a shift toward lighter, simpler platforms?

While a financial argument can be made that perhaps it's a good idea to de-emphasize, or even exit, the personal computer market to concentrate on the business market, you have to remember that there are companies that concentrate on providing hardware to the business market. One of them is called Sun. And just yesterday Oracle received approval from the Department of Justice to acquire Sun. (This isn't a done deal yet; more approvals are needed.) If you're going to play in one market rather than two, you'd better have a really compelling story.

Loren Feldman, Chris Brogan, Eddie Awad, and velvet rope social networks

Loren Feldman of 1938media recently posted a video discussion between Chris Brogan and himself. After the two of them discussed goings-on at the Affiliate Summit, they then traded thoughts on the state of social media. Four minutes into the video, Chris Brogan raised the concept of "velvet rope social networks," which he explained as "sorry, this is exclusive...you're not invited, my friend."

These smaller networks - well, smaller compared to Facebook or Twitter - normally make you jump through at least one hoop, and sometimes many, before you can get in to the network - provided that you can get in at all. By definition, this trend cannot be measured, because I'm sure that Al-Qaeda, the CIA, and IBM have various secret unpublicized online communities that Forrester Research et al aren't going to learn about. Some velvet rope social networks are more well known, but it still takes a bit of effort to join them - you don't just turn on Facebook Connect and you're in.

Which prompts me to shift from Feldman/Brogan to Eddie Awad. I've blogged about Awad on occasion (here's an example), but many within the Oracle community recognize Awad as a blogger about Oracle-related topics, and he has been recognized by Oracle as an Oracle ACE.

Eddie has always been unfailingly kind to me, so I was pleased to learn that his Ning community, OracleCommunity.net, had merited a mention in a Wall Street Journal article. Here's part of what the WSJ had to say about communities in general:

Social Web sites that focus on products and brands have taken off in recent years. In these "brand communities," customers or would-be customers can learn more about the products, discuss problems and potential solutions—or simply communicate with others about their shared passion.

The Wall Street Journal stated that a good brand community has certain characteristics:

[V]isitors like to hang out, exchanging ideas and information, chatting freely about the product or company—or about the weather, if they prefer. These Web sites have rich potential for marketing insights and for strengthening bonds between the product makers and their customers.

The Wall Street Journal goes on to state that many of the successful communities are NOT run by the brands themselves, but by third parties (such as Awad). Now I'm forced to note that Oracle Mix and the Oracle wiki, both managed by Oracle, are not exactly slouches in the community arena, but there are people within Oracle who are dedicated to championing the idea of community - an idea that still may be viewed as unusual in certain sectors of corporate-land.

Or maybe not. What are your experiences with corporate-managed communities?

Well, at least the name's spelled right over there (Greyhounds of London)

Over the last five years, I have completed two cross-country trips from the Los Angeles area to the Chicago area. For the first trip, back in 2005, we went by car (although I interrupted my vacation in the middle of the trip, flew to Texas for that year's IAI conference, then rejoined my family in the midwest). For the second trip, earlier this summer, we went by train.

I've never traveled cross-country by bus. I almost took a short bus trip in 2005, because by the time I returned to Chicago from Texas, the rest of my family had already moved on to northern Wisconsin. I contemplated taking the bus from Chicago up to Wisconsin, but because of my business travel I had my laptop with me, and I didn't relish the fact of having a laptop on a Greyhound bus. So I ended up booking a one-way car rental from Chicago to Minneapolis, turning the car in, and then rejoining my family. (That was the trip in which I experienced an authentic Wisconsin dinner in Madison...at the Holiday Inn.)

I think that the last time that I took a bus was in the early 1980s, when I was at Reed College and wanted to visit family in the San Francisco Bay area. I forget whether I took the Gray Rabbit or the Green Tortoise, but it doesn't matter today, since the tortoise bought out the hare. If you're unfamiliar with these modes of transportation, here's a description:

Back in the early 1970s, numerous one-bus operators in the San Francisco area would fill their vehicles from local "ride boards" for different destinations. Most of these operators traveled as quickly as possible to their destinations - like the "Gray Rabbit," which journeyed across the country in three and a half days, stopping briefly to allow passengers to hunt for cafeteria food.

Entrepreneur Gardner Kent devised a different route for his "Green Tortoise," a weary green school bus which took five and a half days, stopping to camp out in national parks, relaxing in hot springs, and cooperatively cooking fresh food at their campsites.

After years of competition, just as in Aesop's fable, the "Tortoise" beat out the "Rabbit" by taking its time and considering not only the destination, but the sights and activities along the way. Gardner bought out the Gray Rabbit and cornered what was then called the "hippie bus" market.

The Portland to San Francisco route was a little more straightforward - we just shot down Interstate 5 - but it was certainly different from your Greyhound trip. And, by the way, I wasn't worried about taking my laptop on the bus - laptops didn't exist then! (My computer of choice at the time was a DEC PDP-11/70, which didn't come in a laptop model.)

The Green Tortoise never was a real threat to Greyhound, which itself acquired a competitor along the way. And Greyhound certainly continues to exist today as a slice of North Americana, along with baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie. (Dave Winer recently asked, "do they still make Chevrolets?")

Well, hold yer horses, pardner, because the Greyhound has swum across the Atlantic:

FirstGroup, the large British bus and train company that bought Greyhound’s parent company in 2007, said Wednesday that Greyhound buses would start service between London and two coastal towns beginning Sept. 14. The company plans to add more routes next year.

“Greyhound has been an icon of American life, carrying millions of people across the U.S.A. and Canada,” the chief executive of FirstGroup, Moir Lockhead, said in a statement. Since 2007, “we have hoped to bring this famous brand across the Atlantic.”

If nothing else, this British presence settles a nit-picky issue with the bus service. You see, I am an American (although some people have misunderstood my old "Ontario Emperor" pseudonym and thought I was Canadian). And Americans know how to spell words. None of these extra u's in words like "color." (The link goes to a blog written by a Canadian who is employed by an Australian.) And it bugs me that our true-blue American bus line has a name that includes a King George-like spelling. I thought that we fought two wars over this!

But if Greyhound is now owned by a British firm, and is starting to establish routes in Britain, then the "ey" spelling is understandable.

More kewl stuff, like explosions and things

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuart_spivack/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Dudes (and dudettes), I like kewl stuff, especially when explosions are involved. In the past I've found various sources for neat stories, but my latest one comes from the New York Times.

The European Commission said Tuesday that it was examining the safety of Apple iPhones and iPods, after news reports said that several of the devices had exploded.

Now bear in mind the the EC is dealing with a grand total of three reports. And, to my knowledge, there's no video, which is a bummer.

But tech explosions happen - Carmi Levy was documenting exploding laptops a couple of year back Although the cause of the latest Apple explosions is uncertain, the laptop issues...um...boiled down to the batteries.

The one thing about our increasing reliance on powered devices is that the power has to be stored somewhere...and if the power storage is faulty, bad things can happen.

One more forensic share - all about the Crime Lab Project

After my Tuesday post about fabricating DNA, I figured I'd share one more forensic item.

Jan Burke is "a critically acclaimed and national bestselling author of novels and short stories, and winner of the Edgar® Award for Best Novel. Her mystery series, featuring Southern California newspaper reporter Irene Kelly, includes Goodnight, Irene; Sweet Dreams, Irene; Dear Irene,; Remember Me, Irene; Hocus; Liar; Bones; Bloodlines; and Kidnapped. She is also the author of Flight, featuring Irene's husband, homicide detective Frank Harriman; Nine, a standalone thriller; and a collection of her short stories, entitled Eighteen."

As a writer, Jan has to do a bit of research here and there. There are times when I've said that I'll blog about something to understand it better. Well, Jan exceeds me by far, because she helps to keep informed about research issues via The Crime Lab Project. What is it?

The Crime Lab Project is a group of crime writers and their friends and readers who are concerned about the gap between the public's beliefs about the current state of forensic science and the reality faced by the many underfunded, understaffed labs and coroners' offices throughout the country. We see the lack of support given to labs as a matter that has a growing negative impact on law enforcement, justice, and national security.

They maintain the CLPNews Yahoo Group, which allows you to receive a weekly newsletter via email with the latest forensic news. Also check out their Twitter account, @crimelabproject.

Now here's the part where you come in. Even if you don't want to subscribe to the newsletter or the tweets, I strongly encourage you to take this test. It's called "The Death Quiz," and this is what it's about:

We begin our first Forensic Friday with the end — a look at places where any of us might end up: Medical Examiners and Coroners Offices (ME/C).

Death investigation in the United States definitely needs a closer look. Here are 25 questions that will test your knowledge.

So take our quiz and find out if your ideas about death investigation are based on fiction or fact.

(Fiction or fact? Geddit?)

Here's a sample question from the quiz:

14. How many ME/C offices meet the standards required to be accredited by the National Association of Medical Examiners?
a) fewer than 55
b) fewer than 550
c) fewer than 1500
d) fewer than 2500

To see the answer, as well as the other questions and answers, go here.

A Course in Miracles just dashed all hope of sales in Iran

Not too long ago, Duncan Riley urged Inquisitr readers to visit the site where ex-Inquisitr writer JR Raphael is now working, eSarcasm.

Now most posts at eSarcasm, such as this one (80 Percent of Twitter Studies ‘Pointless Babble,’ Researchers Find), include a disclaimer:

The story you're about to read is not (entirely) true. It is, however, more accurate than most things on network television.

Now this story, however, had no such disclaimer. Its title? "PR Tip #27: Don’t Quote Christ In Your Press Release."

The post then purported to include excerpts from a so-called press release entitled "A Rare Interview with Jesus Christ Himself In ‘A Course In Miracles’."

Yeah, right, I thought. But then I followed the supplied link...and ended up at PRWeb.

Yup, it's a real press release. Here it is:

A Rare Interview with Jesus Christ Himself In A Course In Miracles

Jesus Christ personally instructs his followers and answers questions about healing.

(Vocus/PRWEB ) August 17, 2009 -- In a private miracle healing session held today in Wisconsin Dells, WI, illuminate Course In Miracles teacher, Clare Lamanna opened the meeting by entering into a silent dialogue with Jesus Christ.

Jesus reiterated his admonition to miracle workers to remain completely unconcerned about their abilities, and maintain a consistent trust in his. He recommended a re-reading by every Christian, of his answer in the Manual for Teachers of A Course In Miracles, to the question, "Does Jesus have a special place in healing?"

Jesus Christ answers as follows: "God's gifts can rarely be received directly. Even the most advanced of God's teachers will give way to temptation in this world. Would it be fair if their pupils were denied healing because of this? The Bible says, "Ask in the Name of Jesus Christ." Is this merely an appeal to magic? A name does not heal, nor does an invocation call forth any special power. What does it mean to call on Jesus Christ? What does calling on his Name confer? Why is the appeal to him part of healing?"

"We have repeatedly said that one who has perfectly accepted the Atonement for himself can heal the world. Indeed, he has already done so. Temptation may recur to others, but never to this One. He has become the risen Son of God. He has overcome death because he has accepted Life. He has recognized himself as God created him, and in so doing he has recognized all living things as part of him. There is now no limit on his power, because it is the Power of God. So has his name become the Name of God, for he no longer sees himself as separate from Him."

"What does this mean for you? It means that in remembering Jesus you are remembering God. The whole relationship of the Son to the Father lies in him. His part in the Sonship is also yours, and his completed learning guarantees your own success. Is he still available for help? What did he say about this? Remember his promises, and ask yourself honestly whether it is likely that he will fail to keep them. Can God fail His Son? And can one who is one with God be unlike Him? Who transcends the body has transcended limitation. Would the greatest teacher be unavailable to those who follow him?"

"The Name of Jesus Christ as such is but a symbol. But it stands for love that is not of this world. It is a symbol that is safely used as a replacement for the many names of all the gods to which you pray. It becomes the shining symbol for the Word of God, so close to what it stands for that the little space between the two is lost, the moment that the Name is called to mind. Remembering the Name of Jesus Christ is to give thanks for all the gifts that God has given you. And gratitude to God becomes the way in which He is remembered, for love cannot be far behind a grateful heart and thankful mind. God enters easily, for these are the true conditions for your homecoming."

"Jesus has led the way. Why would you not be grateful to him? He has asked for love, but only that he might give it to you. You do not love yourself. But in his eyes your loveliness is so complete and flawless that he sees in it an image of his Father. You become the symbol of his Father here on earth. To you he looks for hope, because in you he sees no limit and no stain to mar your beautiful perfection. In his eyes Christ's vision shines in perfect constancy. He has remained with you. Would you not learn the lesson of salvation through his learning? Why would you choose to start again, when he has made the journey for you?"

"No one on earth can grasp what Heaven is, or what its one Creator really means. Yet we have witnesses. It is to them that wisdom should appeal. There have been those whose learning far exceeds what we can learn. Nor would we teach the limitations we have laid on us. No one who has become a true and dedicated teacher of God forgets his brothers. Yet what he can offer them is limited by what he learns himself. Then turn to one who laid all limits by, and went beyond the farthest reach of learning. He will take you with him, for he did not go alone. And you were with him then, as you are now."

"This course has come from him because his words have reached you in a language you can love and understand. Are other teachers possible, to lead the way to those who speak in different tongues and appeal to different symbols? Certainly there are. Would God leave anyone without a very present help in time of trouble; a savior who can symbolize Himself? Yet do we need a many-faceted curriculum, not because of content differences, but because symbols must shift and change to suit the need. Jesus has come to answer yours. In him you find God's Answer. Do you, then, teach with him, for he is with you; he is always here."

For more information download the free eBook, Miracle Healers Handbook at:
http://www.acourseinmiraclesonline.com/miracle_healers_ebook.php

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Now, I am a religious person. I believe that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. But I'm not about to put him on the interview circuit.