Puzzling comment grammar in the HOA management industry

In August 2010, I wrote a post in my Empoprise-MU music blog entitled Real estate agent from the stars. The reason that this post appeared in my music blog (rather than my business blog) was because it talked about real estate agent Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford. Note the name "Wilson," which is connected with two prominent musical groups.

Anyway, I received an email notification today that someone had commented on the post. A year after I wrote it.

The email included a portion of the comment - enough to ring warning bells in my head.

As one of the arch absolute acreage professionals on the Westside, she artlessly never compromises if it comes to allowance her audience accomplish their goals.

Whenever I see a comment with such poor grammar/usage, my first thought is that the comment includes a link to...um...inappropriate content. So I immediately went to the comment itself to see if there was a link.

And there was a link - for a property management information website, HOA Management.com. In the context of the post, this comment is entirely APPROPRIATE content. Wilson-Rutherford is a real estate agent, and HOA Management deals in that arena.

However, I did visit the site, just to make sure that it was what it claimed to be. I went to the About Us page:

HOA MANAGEMENT .COM is easy to find, easy to navigate, and an astounding leap forward for anyone involved in the COA (Condominium Owner Association), POA (Property Owners Association), or HOA (Homeowner Association) industry. This large group of individuals includes: Board Members, Committee Members, Management Companies, Service Providers, and Contractors - all of whom work directly with the over 300,000 planned communities in the United States. Planned communities will spend approximately $38.2 Billion dollars a year in the US on everything from management services to siding replacement. The list of industries and trades that are associated with COA/POA/HOA's is countless.

It's important to keep in mind that while many communities are professionally managed, 70% of communities are in fact self managed and vastly contribute to the $41 Billion operating revenue that is typically spent on local and regional goods and services. HOA MANAGEMENT .COM was carefully chosen and designed by some of the most competent and qualified professionals in the field.

Read the rest here.

Do you notice a difference in the quality of the writing on the website, vs. the quality of the writing in the comment on the Empoprise-MU blog?

Obviously people pay more attention (and probably pay more money) to the people who write the text for a website vs. the people who write text for promotional comments posted on blogs.

But at the end of the day, do poorly written comments reflect negatively on your corporate image, and decrease your business?

Probably not. After all, I just wrote an entire blog post about HOA Management.

But just to be fair, I'll also slip in mentions of http://hoa-management.com/, http://www.hoamanagement.net/, http://hoa-management-inc.com/, and http://hoamanagement.org/.

Moonlighting on the job? With an illegal second job?

Most employees are required during their work shifts to devote themselves to their job, and to no other job. Employers frown on someone working a second job during their shift. And if the second job is illegal...well...

Not that Melissa Redmond, a currently-suspended employee of the Dunkin Donuts in Rockaway Borough, claims that she was doing anything illegal:

"I have a lot of friends, and sometimes people I know give me money because they know I need it," she said. "I build friendships with people and sometimes those people could use a little company."

The local police have a different view. After receiving a tip, an undercover officer went to the donut shop.

Officer Scott Haigh pulled up to the drive-thru window and pretended he was new in town, looking for some fun.

"He hit on me," Redmond said. "He told me he was a softball player."

There is a dispute over what took place next. Schwarzmann said Redmond told Haigh that she was a fun girl, met him outside the store and told him what sexual services she provided at what cost.

Redmond said it was Haigh who made the first offer.

"He asked if we could hang out some time," Redmond said. She was flattered.

Haigh returned a few days later.

"He said, ‘can you take care of me real quick,’" according to Redmond.

She went outside and money changed hands. She was arrested, served a complaint and released.

"I thought he wanted to be my friend," she said. "He seemed nice."

Dunkin Donuts was asked to comment, and their comment was worded very carefully, probably after extensive legal review.

"We are aware of the situation," said Jessica Gioglio, a spokeswoman. "Dunkin’ Donuts restaurants are owned and operated by individual franchise owners who are responsible for all hiring and other employment related decisions. Upon learning of this situation, the franchise owner placed the crew member on unpaid administrative leave pending the outcome of the police investigation."

So, what are the chances that a lawyer representing Redmond will attempt to file a wrongful termination suit in a year or two?

Paperwork, paperwork - or why Skylar Capo may become a process improvement professional someday

Those who preach simplicity say that complexity can lead to errors. And an error certainly happened in a particular case, noted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:

On June 13, a special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service observed a woman carrying a cage that contained a woodpecker at a home improvement store in Fredericksburg, Virginia. As possession of a bird may potentially violate the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the agent initiated an inquiry to determine whether a potential violation had occurred.

Upon speaking with Ms. Capo, on June 27, the agent determined that no further action was warranted. A citation that had been previously drafted by the agent was cancelled on June 28.

Or, as WUSA 9 told the story:

Eleven-year-old aspiring veterinarian, Skylar Capo, sprang into action the second she learned that a baby woodpecker in her Dad's backyard was about to be eaten by the family cat....

But on the drive home, the Capo family stopped at a Lowes in Fredericksburg and they brought the bird inside because of the heat. That's when they were confronted by a fellow shopper who said she worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service....

The problem was that the woodpecker is a protected species under the Federal Migratory Bird Act. Therefore, it is illegal to take or transport a baby woodpecker. The Capo family says they had no idea....

So as soon as the Capo family returned home, they say they opened the cage, the bird flew away, and they reported it to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

"They said that's great, that's exactly what we want to see," said Capo.

And, as mentioned above, the Fish & Wildlife Service cancelled the citation that was drafted. Only one problem - for some reason, the cancellation didn't go through. WUSA 9 describes what happened next:

But roughly two weeks later, that same woman from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service showed up at Capo's front door. This time, Capo says the woman was accompanied by a state trooper. Capo refused to accept a citation, but was later mailed a notice to appear in U.S. District Court for unlawfully taking a migratory bird. She's also been slapped with a $535 fine.

The media got a hold of the story, prominently mentioning the 11 year old girl, which put the Virginia State Police in an uncomfortable situation.

"We have confirmed that the US Fish and Wildlife agent requested our presence when they served their federal summons. The trooper stood on the porch and said nothing. We had nothing to do with the charge."

In its statement, the Fish & Wildlife Service explained what happened:

Unfortunately, the citation was processed unintentionally through an automated system despite our office’s request to cancel the ticket. The Service has contacted Ms. Capo to express our regret. The Service is also sending Ms. Capo a formal letter explaining the clerical error and confirming that ticket should never have been issued. The ticket is null and void.

But how did all of this affect Skylar Capo? Perhaps her enthusiasm about becoming a veterinarian has waned (maybe she's discovered the word "malpractice"). But at least she's been exposed to the world of process improvement, and maybe she'll find a rewarding career in that arena.

AOL - the truth is somewhere in the middle

AOL released its second quarter results this morning. And the consensus of the Street was that the results were not that good.

But you aren't going to find that in the first paragraph of AOL's press release. Invariably, an earnings release is written with as positive of a tone as possible, and the negative news is buried deeper within the release. So here's how the first paragraph of AOL's release read:

"AOL's return to global advertising growth for the first time since 2008 reflects the hard work of our team and another meaningful step forward in the comeback of the AOL brand," said Tim Armstrong, Chairman and CEO. "AOL is singularly focused on becoming the next great media company for the digital age and we have positioned the Company's best people, technology and assets in front of some of the largest opportunities on the internet."

However, as this Bloomberg article shows, investors were not necessarily looking for global advertising growth. Here's the first paragraph of the Bloomberg release:

AOL Inc. (AOL) had a record decline in New York trading after reducing its annual earnings forecast, raising concerns that the company may not be able to turn itself around following the 2009 spinoff from Time Warner Inc. (TWX)

Ah, yes, a reduction in an earnings forecast. In the AOL press release, this bit of news wasn't even mentioned. It came up in the subsequent conference call.

Oh, and AOL lost money. In the three months ending June 30, 2011, AOL lost $11.8 million. As is typical, this number is compared to the three months ending June 30, 2010, in which AOL lost $1.055 billion.

Yes, that's billion.

So in one respect, AOL is doing a lot better than it was a year ago.

But not good enough for the Street.

P.S. In case you're wondering how AOL's new properties reported the story, here's the TechCrunch post. Excerpt:

In a statement, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong says the company’s return to global advertising growth for the first time since 2008 is another ‘meaningful step forward’ in the comeback of the AOL brand.

That may well be the case, but the road to sustainable profitability is still long.

And here's how the Huffington Post covered the news.

Symantec's response to Popureb.E, or Alworo, or whatever you want to call it

Back in June, I wrote a post entitled Popureb.E does not sound fun. Sourced from Microsoft, my post on the Master Boot Record (MBR) infection concluded as follows:

However, Microsoft offers protection against this trojan. I'm not sure if other security companies are offering anything.

To set the record straight, Symantec does have a response to Popureb.E. This was written back in June:

We've done our own analysis, and as Microsoft indicates, it certainly is a nasty piece of work. Popureb.E (as dubbed by Microsoft) is very similar to other MBR-infecting threats we’ve seen in the past, which leads us to believe it’s either an evolution of an existing threat from the person who wrote the initial MBR-infecting code, or it’s been sold in the underground economy and someone is using the code....

As it turns out, it isn't actually necessary to reimage a machine in order to repair it. Symantec detects this threat and will block it from infecting a computer. If the computer is already infected, the Norton Bootable Recovery Tool (NBRT) can be used to boot up the computer and NBRT will remove the threat. The NBRT helps to fix computers that are infected with threats that embed themselves deep into the operating system, restoring the computer to normal working order. Note that customers running enterprise versions of Symantec products will have different options available to them.

To be fair to Microsoft, their article (as it stood when I read it earlier today) didn't actually advocate reinstalling the OS. Using the Windows Recovery Console to repair the MBR does not necessitate wiping the boot drive clean of applications and data. System Restore will of course roll your system back to a previous state, and although you may lose some recent data, that doesn't wipe your boot drive....

Oh, and for anyone who was wondering how Symantec detects this threat, there are two main components involved with this particular piece of malware. The initial dropper of the threat is detected as Trojan.Alworo and the MBR infector is detected as Boot.Alworo. Be sure to keep your definitions up to date, install product and OS updates as soon as they are released, and most importantly, back your data up. It’s too late to insure your house once it’s burned to the ground.

It's interesting to note that Symantec and Microsoft refer to this by different names. Microsoft's "Popureb.E" is Symantec's "Alworo." I still don't know what McAfee calls it.

For more on Symantec's response to what they call Alworo, see the post Are MBR Infections Back in Fashion? Excerpt:

As with any malware infections, the key is to not get infected in the first place. Symantec has been quick to add detection for such malware whenever they are discovered (so keep your detections up-to-date) and we also offer various tools that can help to remove them. For MBR infecting threats, a simple way to disable the malware is to boot up with a bootable CD and then run “fixmbr” which will restore the MBR to a default setting. This will stop the MBR based malware from executing. For other more tricky threats you can try tools such as the Norton Boot Recovery Tool.

Be sure to read the rest of Symantec's post, which points out that there is nothing new under the sun.

Is horse neglect due to the economy, or a ban on horse slaughter?

A local paper in my area, the Riverside Press-Enterprise, recently ran a story entitled Slaughter ban leads to more abandoned horses. The article cites the following statistic:

In the four years since Congress enacted a ban on the slaughter of horses in the United States, cases of horse abandonment, neglect and abuse have increased markedly, according to a report issued by the federal Government Accountability Office.

At the same time, the report found that the ban has not stopped people from transporting horses to Mexico and Canada for slaughter....

The unintended consequences of a law meant to protect animals are evident across Riverside County. The number of stray horses picked up by the county's Animal Services Department has risen steadily, from 20 in 2006 -- the last year before horse slaughters were banned -- to 74 last year.

At the same time, the Press Enterprise notes that there are other potential causes:

The problem is compounded locally by the economic downturn. While the value of most horses has fallen, the cost of disposing of them legally is often prohibitively expensive.

Drusys said it costs several hundred dollars to have a horse euthanized and taken away.

Not surprisingly, change.org (in a January 2010 post) isn't quite convinced of the implied cause-and-effect above:

Horse rescuers don't think the slaughterhouse ban is the cause for the recent increase in neglect. The average number of horses being slaughtered has held steady since 2007, it's just not happening in the U.S. More likely, the rise in neglect and abandonment of horses is related to the same problems dogs and cats are facing. People are hit hard by the economy and can no longer afford their homes or animals. Horses are being sold for very little money when people can no longer afford them, but for the buyers, caring for the animals doesn't come cheap.

So what is the debate about? According to a February 2009 CBS article, Federal actions applied to the slaughtering of horses for meat. (Previous efforts in 2008 removed Federal funding for inspectors; the Bush administration simply charged the slaughterhouses for it instead.) And this wasn't necessarily a case of the crazy liberals imposing their wills on the true Americans. This was a bipartisan effort.

"It is one of the most inhumane, brutal, shady practices going on in the U.S. today," said Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., a sponsor of the ban.

Sweeney argued that the slaughter of horses is different from the slaughter of cattle and chickens because horses are American icons.

"They're as close to human as any animal you can get," said Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C.

Added Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn.: "The way a society treats its animals, particularly horses, speaks to the core values and morals of its citizens."

Note how Sweeney and Spratt state that horses are different than, say, cattle. Sound familiar?

The Obama Administration opposed the measure.

"We have serious concerns that the welfare of these horses would be negatively impacted by a ban on slaughter," Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said in a letter released Thursday.

This is the spirit in which the GAO report was prepared. The recommendations were primarily designed to ensure that Federal oversight was extended to horses destined to other nations for slaughter.

Meanwhile, the Toronto Star is looking at what is happening in Canada
After the U.S. banned horse slaughter for human consumption in 2007 under mounting pressure from animal welfare groups, Canada and Mexico picked up the reins.

Since then, Canada has quietly become a major international horse meat supplier, exporting close to 20,000 tonnes each year to Europe and Asia. Canadians consume another 300 tonnes of horse each year, mostly in Quebec.

A year before the last U.S. horse plant shut down in 2007, Canada slaughtered about 50,000 horses. Since then, the number of horses killed annually has nearly doubled to between 90,000 and 113,000 over the past three years.

Along with that economic windfall have come concerns about the lengthy transportation of horses across the U.S. to Canada and insufficient monitoring of drug residues in meat that could threaten public health.

And now the Europeans are leaning on Canada:

European Union officials have told Canada to tighten its drug residue surveillance on export meat — including horse — by 2013. And it’s sending inspectors here on an audit mission to examine the issue in September.

“We are confident that we will be able to meet the European Union’s requirements within the identified timelines,” said Alice d'Anjou, a spokesperson for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, in a written response to the Star.

“While Canada acknowledges these legislative and systemic differences, we maintain that the Canadian system is safe. The EU demonstrates its confidence in the Canadian system by continuing to import Canadian meat products.”

The situation in Mexico is slightly different:

Unlike Canada, where horse meat is only consumed in few places and is considered a healthy alternative to other meats, horse meat in Mexico is consumed as a poorer substitute for other meats. Some slaughter plants are licensed by the EU to ship horse meat to Europe. More provincial slaughter houses have no such licensing and need for licensing as their market is local.

We are influenced by our friends. Sometimes this is not good.

For better or worse, our views and our knowledge are influenced by our friends. For example, when someone asks me what operating system they should use, my usual response is to "use the operating system that your friends use." Why? Because if you need help with said operating system, where are you going to turn?

When you get to influencing behavior, one praise carried from friend to friend via word of mouth is worth an incredible number of online advertisements.

Of course, as the example above shows, this can sometimes backfire. My friend got this warning about Jason Allen and Amy Allen from a friend, who presumably got it from another friend, and so on. These messages often appeal to some authority - in this case, Facebook and Snopes. (Ironically, Snopes itself has said that the message is usually bogus.) At the end of the day, the only "virus" that appears is the huge number of messages passed along by well-meaning people who follow the exhortation to warn everyone about the issue.

This particular hoax is a mutation of an earlier hoax, and I'm sure that if I dig long enough I'll find a Usenet message from 2002 loudly proclaiming "Don't read Paddy O'Furniture jokes or your Unix login will be sent to a VAX at Berkeley manned by Russian spies!!!!"

(empo-tuulwey) Another reminder that technology is neutral #londonriot

If you listen to the starry-eyed among us, social media is Revolutionizing Human Existence. In the same way that the profound song "Understand This Groove" permanently affected relations between sentient beings, the existence of social media has quite profoundly changed the world...and all for the better. For those of us who thought that the Twitter reaction to the San Diego fires was a big deal, think of what has happened since. Social media has toppled repressive governments! Social media has helped looters terrorize people!

Wait a minute...

"The police are ahead of the curve in information technology and would have experience of the use of social networking sites by troublemakers," Steve O'Connell, a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority that oversees London's Metropolitan Police Service, told Bloomberg Businessweek magazine. "The bad guys were using these sites to target areas quickly. Small bands of ne'er-do-wells were descending on high-quality stores to loot."...

Paul Lewis, a reporter for The Guardian in England, wrote in a blog post that he and his collegues have found that Research In Motion's BlackBerry Messenger, a text message service that only works between BlackBerry smartphones, is being used as a tool to organize the London riots.

To be fair, social media is absurdly vilified as much as it is absurdly praised. Take the title of this post: Facebook blamed for 1 in 5 divorces in the US. Was divorce something that suddenly started a few years ago? Or was AOL (as it was then called) causing divorces in the 1990s?

But this all reminds us that the technology, in and of itself, is neutral. It is how we apply it that can be good...or bad.

Who is the leader in social search? The dead service, obviously.

This is not a comprehensive sample, so I'd like to hear your additions (or corrections) in the comments.

One common complaint about most social services is that they are heavily oriented toward people, but are not heavily oriented toward topics. For example, I may subscribe to my co-worker James H. because I respect his views on biometrics. But when I look at James' feed, he might be talking about Angry Birds. And heaven help anyone who looks at MY feeds to find out about a particular topic.

As I write this, the riots in London continue, and sadly have reached the point where they have their own hashtag.

So let's say that I want to see what my Google+ friends are saying about the London riots. After all, Google is the acknowledged prominent name in search, so Google+ should have some sort of built-in facility, right?

Not yet. Perhaps they're re-tooling Realtime to handle this, but it's not there yet.

So let's go to Facebook. Again, the leading social media outlet has no way to search through posts of friends, or your own posts.

Twitter, of course, does have search. After all, they bought Summize to get it. So I can type in https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23londonriot...and see what everyone is saying about #londonriot. If there's some way to see just what my friends are saying about the topic, it's not intuitive. One other drawback that (thankfully) doesn't apply to the riots - if you want to search tweets from a few months ago, you can't.

So what is my favorite social search capability? Now I'll be the first to admit that this search capability has been flaky in the past, but it has worked well lately. And you can even search the entries for your friends only, or your own entries only, or someone else's entries only. Here's the search that I used to see what my friends are saying about #londonriot:

http://friendfeed.com/search?q=%23londonriot&friends=empoprises

Yes, that's a FriendFeed search. You know, that service that died a couple of years ago. Yet this so-called dead service has better topic search than FriendFeed's former employers, and better topic search than it's new employers.

Question: is there any other social service who does a halfway decent job of search? If so, please mention them in the comments.

SAM - more than a guy in Arkansas

Now that I'm out of product management, I can take amore leisurely look at things that affect products - and I have more time to look at them from the customer perspective. One of those things is software licensing. When you're selling software to organizations rather than individuals, you have to pay attention to licensing - it literally affects your bottom line.

Enter software asset management, or SAM. One of the pioneers in this area was Sassafras Software:

Sassafras Software has a long tradition as innovator and market leader in providing tools for Software Asset Management (SAM). The pioneering KeyServer® product from Sassafras has evolved over the more than 20 years since its initial release into K2 : an elegant, award winning, unified tool set for both Hardware and Software Asset Management designed for today's complex physical, virtual, and cross-platform computing environments.

Of course, Sassafras Software isn't the only player in the field. Ever heard of a company called Microsoft?

Software Asset Management (SAM) is an industry best practice that helps you control costs and optimize software investments across your organization and throughout all stages of their life cycles. Administered through an ongoing plan, SAM makes it easier to identify what you have, where it's running, and whether redundancy may exist. A fully implemented SAM plan can help you cut costs, improve security and compliance, and also anticipate future software needs. SAM also helps organizations accurately capture the costs and benefits associated with IT projects that enable a competitive advantage.

Of course, for SAM to provide benefits to an organization, it needs to be deployed and enforced across the entire organization. If one division resists the organizational imperative, for whatever reason, then savings from SAM will be reduced.

CTOEdge has suggested some questions to ask during a SAM analysis:

•Is there a written software asset management policy?
•Do we have a senior executive sponsor with the organization?
•Is there a policy for authorized software?
•Do we purchase software centrally?
•Is there a central license repository?
•Do we collect an accurate inventory of hardware and software assets?
•Are unused licenses re-harvested?
•Are staff allowed to install their own software onto PCs?
•Do we have a tool for managing and optimizing software licenses?
•Do we have an authorized vendor/supplier list?
•When a computer is retired, are the associated licenses re-harvested?

In the title to this post, I made a reference to Wal-Mart. While a web search for "wal-mart asset management" yields results with an entirely different meaning, Wal-Mart obviously pays attention to cost control in its IT area. Even as early as the early 1990s, my then-employer was talking to Wal-Mart about Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), a then-novel computerized method for exchange purchase orders with vendors. This 1992 case study discusses this, as well as other Wal-Mart techniques such as the use of bar codes. I'd be willing to bet that Wal-Mart imposes similar controls on its internal software use.

Or, knowing Wal-Mart, they probably negotiated site licenses at extremely low rates.

Dog meat - a European delicacy

I'm presumably getting a lot of dog lovers visiting the Empoprise-BI business blog today. Perhaps they saw my early morning post on Johnny Carson pretending to eat Alpo. (Well, I assume he was pretending.) Then they saw my post on Camp Bow Wow Wow. Then my tips on getting into the dog-walking business. Finally, they saw my examination of the psychology of animal hoarding.

Well, now that all of the dog owners are all happy and pleased about what I've been writing, it's obviously time for me to put a stop to that.

You see, I'm going to talk about people who eat dogs.

Yes, there are people who eat cows, and there are people who eat pigs, and there are people who eat grapes (I'm sure that offends someone). And in the same way, there are people who eat dogs.

Most of us who don't follow this custom dismiss it and think to ourselves, "Well, that's what those weirdo people in Asia do, and they're not civilized like us American folk."

But the eating of dog meat is not confined to Asia. What if I told you that dog meat is a delicacy in...Switzerland? Robert Koehler translated an article on that practice. Excerpts:

Take a freshly slaughtered dog (mostly puppies), and cure it in salt or herbs for about two weeks. After this, smoke-dry the meat and hang it on the wall. Enjoy as jerky, or if you dislike that, you can also preserve it for a long time by making it into sausages.

This is not some newly created dish from some back-ally dog-meat soup restaurant in Seoul. It is a handed-down recipe for dog meat cuisine from the Swiss mountain town of Appenzell. On the slopes of the Swiss Alps, there exists a long tradition of taking dogs and turning them into preserved foods such as jerky and sausages.

Read the rest of the translation, and Koehler's comments, here. Koehler also chronicled the reaction of other Europeans to this practice:

Some time ago the German RTL TV team reported about the dog eating tradition in St. Gallen and Appenzell, two rural Cantons of Eastern Switzerland. The reactions were shocking. Letters of protest were written from different countries to the regional and federal governments. A petition was signed by 7000 people and handed to the commission of the Cantons. It was rejected and not passed on to the Federal Council. The reason? It would not be the duty of the state to watch over the eating habits of its citizens.

Although I'm sure that if the citizens were eating inferior cheese, the Swiss government would step in immediately.

This originally hit the news in 1996, and by 2011 some were convinced that it was a hoax:

Yep, it's a delicacy only found in Appenzell on April 1st

Regardless of where dogs are eaten, they are clearly eaten in parts of the world, and a Snopes writer questions our abhorrence of the topic:

Would America react with anything but scorn if Hindus around the world presented the U.S. with a petition demanding that we stop the "abhorrent practice" of eating cows and exporting beef?

If one dog is good, are twenty dogs better? (The psychology behind animal hoarding)

Animal rights organizations champion "pro-animal" causes, ranging from opposition to puppy mills to promotion of vegetarianism. (Not that the "nuke the whales, save the plankton" crowd thinks much of the latter efforts.)

But one organization, the ASPCA, also promotes awareness of something they call "animal hoarding."

And no, they're not talking about businesspeople trying to corner the market on cute poodles. They're talking about individuals who have multiple pets - eventually so many pets that they can't care for them all, and the animals suffer.

New York City, 2008- ASPCA'S Humane Law Enforcement agents arrived on the scene to find over 20 Pomeranian dogs in a couple's one-bedroom apartment. The canines were severely matted and the apartment was covered with filth and debris. The couple insisted that the animals were well cared for, despite physical evidence to the contrary, and refused to surrender them.

People wonder why people do this. I once lived near someone who liked to feed all of the stray cats in the neighborhood - until another neighbor...um...ratted her out to the local humane society.

The ASPCA looked into the "why" issue:

It is not clearly understood why people become animal hoarders. Early research pointed toward a variant of obsessive-compulsive disorders, but new studies and theories are leading toward attachment disorders in conjunction with personality disorders, paranoia, delusional thinking, depression and other mental illnesses. Some animal hoarders began collecting after a traumatic event or loss, while others see themselves as “rescuers” who save animals from lives on the street.

“Historically, a person who collected animals was viewed as an animal lover who got in over his or her head, but the truth is that people who hoard are experiencing a total loss of insight,” says Dr. Randall Lockwood, ASPCA Senior Vice President, Forensic Sciences and Anti-cruelty Projects. “They have no real perception of the harm they're doing to the animals."

In the majority of cases, animal hoarders appear intelligent and clearly believe they are helping their animals. They often claim that any home is better than letting that animal die. In addition, many hoarders possess the ability to garner sympathy and to deceive others into thinking their situation is under control. They often are blind to the fact that they are not caring for the animals and to the extreme suffering they are inflicting.

Sandra Kiume cites an article behind a firewall that looks at the reasons for animal hoarding:

There are several theoretical psychological models comparing to delusional disorder, early-onset dementia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). OCD symptoms of hoarding possessions does parallel hoarding animals in key areas.

And one person looks to the childhood of the animal hoarder:

It is quite common for animal hoarders to report very dysfunctional childhoods, characterized by inconsistent and unstable parenting if not outright abuse, during which animals were the only stable fixtures.

A dysfunctional childhood is correlated with a disordered attachment style. This can result in a controlling pattern of relationships, such as compulsive caregiving, as an adult. In this behavior pattern, a person selects someone with a sad or difficult life, and provides care obsessively, irrespective of whether the care is wanted or needed. This kind of behavior often characterizes the caregiving style of animal hoarders.

Time for another lobbying group

Continuing on the dog theme.

Let's say that you want to go into some type of dog business, but don't have sufficient capital to buy facilities and webcams and the like.

What about dog-walking or dog-sitting? Or, if you're so inclined, poop-scooping?

WikiHow lists the things that you may need for a dog-walking business.

Leashes
Dog treats/cookies
Good communication skills
Pooper Scooper or a plastic bag to pick up poops
Toys, a tennis ball is usually good
Water Bowl
Water
Notebook with all clients emergency numbers
Map
Dogs to walk
An extra notebook to record what they are doing.

OK, there may be one additional expense that you haven't considered - the membership costs to join the Professional United Pet Sitters LLC. Yes, that's "PUPS."

However, the fee isn't that great - less than US$40. And you get a number of benefits, including a NAME@petsits.com email alias that you can use for business purposes, a variety of marketing and financial materials and forms for your business, and even "pet bakery items" that you can market. The Professional United Pet Sitters LLC also advises on insurance, and also advises on common scams. As is noted, "many new pet sitters don't realize how common it is for scammers to target specific industries with their online scams."

Here's an example:

The scam starts with a scammer inquiring about pet sitter services, often specifically dog walking services. Or the scammer may offer to give away an animal (often a dog), or may claim to be wanting to buy an animal (mistaking pet sitters for dog breeders).

When a pet sitter responds, an offer is made by the scammer to send payment for services or goods by Money Order, often from some time of "business" the scammer claims to work for, or a government "embassy".

The amount of the Money Order will be written for more than the amount needed, and the recipient is to send the extra on to a 3rd party.

The Money Orders are fraudulent. However, many banks will still cash the Money Order and place the funds into the pet sitters account within a few days. However, usually within a month, the Money Order is returned as fraudulent, and the bank will withdraw the money from the pet sitter's account. The bank may also charge extra fees, and may pursue the sitter with criminal charges for cashing a fake check.

By that time, the pet sitter has often thought that since the bank cashed the check, it was good - and they've already sent legitimate funds back to the scammer, often using western union. Usually the scammer is long gone with the money by this time.

The scammer also separately requests "errand" services from other pet sitters. The fraudulent checks are sent first to these pet sitters, who repackage them and forward them on to you. This gives the mail a local (U.S.) envelop and stamp instead of the original Nigeria labels - making the check look more legit.

This sitter is usually paid with a fraudulent check also. And since mail fraud is a federal offense, this sitter can be in serious legal trouble for mailing a fraudulent check - even though they didn't know it was all a scam.

Yes, this blog is going to the dogs

Good morning! I am taking a couple of well-deserved vacation days (let's just say that I worked from 7:30 to 6:30 one day - that's from 7:30 AM to 6:30 AM the next morning). So rather than writing proposal content, I'm writing a blog post right now.

Following up on the dog theme, I recently learned about Camp Bow Wow Wow, a franchised collection of "doggy day and overnight camps." There are locations in Temecula, Anaheim, and elsewhere in my area.

One of the features that Camp Bow Wow Wow offers is "CamperCams," which allow you to view the various play areas during the day. But this service isn't just available at Camp Bow Wow Wow. The Camp's cam provider is Online Doggy, who provides "kennel cam" services for dog boarding houses and veterinarians. Apparently they'll have a smartphone version soon.

It's interesting to note that technology is neutral, but people judge whether technology is good or bad. Think of the privacy outcry that would arise if such cameras were placed in an elementary school lunchroom or a dementia care facility. Yet you and I can go to these webcams (which are not password protected) and look at any dog we please.

(empo-tymshft) Johnny Carson knew who NBC's customers were

In a previous post, I made a point of noting that most Google and Facebook users are NOT customers of Google and Facebook. In reality, the true customers of those services are the advertisers who pay money to Google and Facebook. Most of us are just data points who provide value to the advertisers, and thus to the services who sell ads to them.

Of course, this model is nothing new - television and radio have used it for decades. OK, the English pay a tax to fund the BBC, but in most countries over-the-air networks broadcast at no charge.

Which brings us to an incident in 1973. "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" was provided, like Google, to people at no cost (other than the cost of buying a device to receive the free transmissions). Funding for the show was provided by advertisers who chose to place their ads on Carson's page - I mean show.

One of those advertisers was Alpo, and Ed McMahon regularly presented Alpo ads on the show. One night, however, things weren't going well:

"Real beef could be the reason," he announced, "Fernandez here - you heard him cry - come here, dear" - whereupon the dog ran away. "Come on, come on," McMahon beseeched. "He's a little frightened. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Nice Fernandez..."

Though McMahon moved the food toward Fernandez and continued to beg, the stubborn dog refused to obey.

At this point the host of the show, Johnny Carson, pretended to be a dog and crawled on all fours to the Alpo dish, pretending to eat it and licking McMahon in gratitude.

You can see the commercial on this non-embeddable video.

Carson obviously understood the importance of NBC's true customers.

Let's have one true identity. Or several.

It's been discussed ad nauseum, but something just occurred to me. (Warning: there will be an FCC disclosure before the end of this post. Yes, it's that bad.)

As you may have heard, Google would prefer that you use your true identity on Google+ and selected other Google services.

And as you probably know, Facebook would also prefer that you use your true identity on its service.

But what if the two identities are different?

There are numerous ways in which this could happen. One example - I may go to a California court and legally change my name from John Bredehoft to Ebenezer Hodson. I then go to Facebook, producing volumes of documentation to prove that I am now truly Ebenezer Hodson, but it ends up being so much of a hassle that I don't bother to do the same with Google.

In addition, since Google and Facebook are separate private entities, each could set up its own procedure for verifying identity. And different governments could do the same thing. (I'd be willing to bet that certain government jurisdictions would be reluctant to allow me to change my name to "Osama," while other government jurisdictions would be all for it.)

Note that biometrics (the dreaded disclosure: I am an employee of a biometrics system manufacturer) doesn't necessarily solve this particular issue. Even if biometrics identifies exactly who you are, it does not dictate what you are to be called.

We get assigned identities all the time, by thousands upon thousands of public and private agencies. Our employers alone have several different identities for us - one for payroll, one for information system access, one for medical benefits, etc. Now add every state, county, and city in which you have resided; every Federal government agency who deals with you; and all of the libraries, grocery stores, and other entities who keep files on you.

Which of those hundreds of identities is the real you? And if some of these records (presumably not all of them) are linked by a Social Security Number provided by the U.S. Government, then how do we know that SSN is legit?

And what about the multiplicity of true identities? You can be John Jacob Jones on Google, John J Jones on Facebook, John J. Jones (note the difference?) on MySpace, J. J. Jones on one MasterCard, J. Jacob Jones on another MasterCard, and therefore multiply your true identities to your heart's content.

And don't forget misspellings. Decades ago, one retailer rendered my last name as Bredechopt. Some websites still list me as a Motorola employee. At least one website has an incorrect city of residence for me.

And don't forget people with similar names. I've lived in Virginia, but never in Norfolk. Or Vienna. Or Colorado.

So if Google ends up establishing "true" identities for users of Google+ ... exactly what does that mean? And will Google's customers (its advertisers) care?

On mentors, trees, and progeny

I have a great interest in how individuals can influence the world. While I grant that macro conditions can also influence the world, it's more interesting to me to hear how particular people - Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Steve Jobs, John Lennon, whoever - can change the world around them.

But what happens when that factor is multiplied? What if a person not only changes the world him/herself, but also inspires others to change the world?

Let me give you an example. The late Bill Walsh certainly influenced the history of the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League, as well as the history of Stanford University. But as this infographic shows, his influence didn't stop there:

Of the NFL's 32 current [as of July 2007] head coaches, 22 can easily trace their lineage to Bill Walsh. He spawned seven NFL head coaches from his 49ers staffs, plus Paul Hackett, a longtime NFL assistant and one of many current or former NCAA Division I-A head coaches tied to Walsh.

The names that appear in the list, either first-level or subsequent-level connections, include famous coaches such as Dennis Green, Sam Wyche, Mike Holmgren, George Seifert, John Fox, Mike Shanahan, Pete Carroll, Andy Reid, Jon Gruden, Tony Dungy, and many others.

Why do the resumes of these people matter? Because part of what was passed on to these people is a technique commonly known as "the West Coast Offense" (technically, the West Coast Offense v2.0, or the West Coast Offense that doesn't have to do with Don Coryell). According to Wikipedia:

Walsh's 49ers won three Super Bowls during this period, behind the passing abilities of legendary quarterback Joe Montana. As a result, Walsh's version has come to be known as the "West Coast Offense". Montana thrived for many years as the starting QB for the 49ers. He captured 4 Super Bowl titles, 3 Super Bowl MVP awards, and 2 AP NFL MVP titles while in San Francisco in the 1980s.

Several of Walsh's coordinators went on to successfully implement this system at other teams. George Seifert won two Super Bowls with the 49ers; once with Joe Montana at quarterback in 1989, and later with Steve Young in 1994. Mike Shanahan won two Super Bowls with the Denver Broncos in 1997 & 1998, utilising the leadership and passing skills of quarterback John Elway. Shanahan's run-heavy variation of the offense is also known for finding unheralded running backs, inclunding former NFL MVP Terrell Davis, and then turning them into league-leading rushers behind small yet powerful offensive lines. Mike Holmgren won a Super Bowl with the Green Bay Packers in 1996 behind the quarterbacking of 3-time NFL MVP Brett Favre. Holmgren also coached in two others; first with the Packers in the 1997 season, and then with the Seattle Seahawks in the 2005 season. One of Holmgren's assistants, Jon Gruden, went on to win a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 2002 season.

So the relationships (immediate or tangential) between Walsh and these other coaches had important effects on the entire industry, and not just on Walsh's own employers.

Obviously the power of these relationships can be found outside of the sports world. Michael Koploy alerted me to a Software Advice post that traced Larry Ellison's influence throughout the tech industry. Names in this infographic included Charles Phillips, Marc Benioff, Sebastian Marotte, and a host of others.

And what did these people learn from Ellison?

Much of what we recognize in the software market today – hard-nosed determination, aggressive sales and marketing, personal rivalries – can be tied back to Larry Ellison’s personality and the experience many executives got at Oracle. Over the past four decades, Ellison’s personality and influence at Oracle has undoubtedly had an impact.

Not that mentors and pupils always agree:

Ellison, Oracle’s chief executive, used part of his opening keynote at his company’s annual conference Sunday to argue that that Salesforce’s Web-based business applications don’t meet Oracle’s definition of the trend. He defined the cloud as a platform for building software and a pool of virtual computing resources where customers only pay for what they use. Ellison made the comments while introducing Exalogic, Oracle’s new “cloud-in-a-box” system for setting up and managing such clouds.

Salesforce.com CEO Benioff, in his own presentation Wednesday to attendees of Oracle’s OpenWorld conference, took the software tycoon’s gibes in stride. He called Ellison’s remarks “very cute,” thanking him for the free publicity.

But in a subsequent luncheon with journalists and customers, Benioff questioned Ellison’s own grasp of cloud computing, which he defined as low-cost, user-friendly Web services that don’t require upgrades.

Oracle’s machine “is not lower cost,” and not easy to use, Mr. Benioff said. “It’s not cloud computing,” he added. “Clouds don’t go in boxes.”

Later in the day, Mr. Ellison shot back: “What does he think Salesforce runs on, if not on a box?”

Ellison added: “Actually, Salesforce runs on 1,500 Dell servers, which are boxes.” Benioff was really offended that the Exalogic box “was taller than he was,” Ellison said, responding to earlier comments from Benioff on the size of the machines.

But what if the pupil actually eclipses the mentor? Back in 1998, it was easy for this to happen:

The most talented go-getters often find older, wiser mentors to guide them early in the careers. But as more young managers ascend to the executive suite while still in their 20s and 30s, they are finding that they surpass their mentors in terms of pay or chain of command—and might even become their mentor’s boss.

If you rise fast enough, then you can accomplish more than your mentor ever dreamed for himself. That creates a delicate situation in which a mentor’s envy and jealousy can overtake his fond feelings for all your success. And you never want a mentor to turn against you.

Note that while Benioff has not eclipsed Ellison, he was still careful to acknowledge Ellison's importance to him, and to the beginnings of Salesforce.com.

And the relationship of Jon Gruden to Bill Walsh has had its ups and downs, primarily related to Gruden's success (or lack thereof) over the years.

In Gruden's first year, the Bucs destroyed San Francisco in their opening round of the playoffs and were well on their way to a Super Bowl trophy. Walsh made a point that day of visiting Tampa Bay's locker room and proudly congratulating his up-and-coming protege.

"He actually offered me a job," a smiling Walsh said of Gruden back then.

Several years later, Gruden's fortunes in Tampa Bay had declined, and his offense was called the "Worst Coast Offense."

But even the great Bill Walsh had losing seasons with the 49ers in 1979, 1980, and 1982 (one year after a Super Bowl victory), and also had losing seasons in two out of three years after his return to Stanford.

But the influence of Walsh, like the influence of Ellison, is unmistakable.

When a well-respected chef tried to buy a Helocar (apologies to @realchriswebber)

It had been a tough week for Executive Chef Luc Rochedy. Sunday night was the toughest, when some uneducated cretin tried to order steak sauce for the steak that Chef Rochedy had expertly prepared.

But the chef's work week was done, and he had a couple of brief days of relaxation. The pay as an executive chef was superb, and he was going to indulge himself by buying a Helocar.

Can I help you?" asked a smiling, fresh-faced saleswoman - I mean, automotive advisor.

"Yes," replied Luc. "I want your top-of-the-line HeloCar, with a place to put my fresh-squeezed mango juice and an superbly great CD player.

The automotive advisor smiled again. "I can sell you a HeloCar with food service and music service. Step right this way."

Luc carefully examined the well-designed HeloCar that the automotive advisor showed him. The workmanship was superb, and every element had its place. But when he looked inside, he noticed that there was something missing.

"Where's the cupholder and the CD player?" he asked.

"The HeloCar is an advanced device," replied the smiling automotive advisor. "It does not have a mere cupholder or CD player. Instead, we offer our own food service, HeloFood, and our own music service, HeloTunes."

"But what if I want to play my own CDs?" asked Jobs.

"HeloTunes is a comprehensive music service," replied the automotive advisor, still smiling. "We can provide you with a variety of music styles that are compatible with the design of the HeloCar, all for a price as low at 99 cents per song."

"So can I buy Edith Piaf for my HeloCar?" asked Luc.

The automotive advisor paused. "Edith Piaf is not appropriate for the HeloCar," she replied, slightly tersely. The smile was beginning to fade.

"Edith Piaf not appropriate?" asked Luc.

The smile had definitely left the automotive advisor's face. "HeloTunes offers a number of songs that are compatible with the HeloCar."

"But I'm your customer!" Rochedy was visibly angry. "I'd like to put my music on my CD player in my car! After all, I am paying for the car! I own the car, don't I?"

"Subject to the terms of the automotive license agreement," replied the automotive advisor.

Rochedy rolled his eyes, and his neck muscles were visibly tightening under his cravat. "Just give me a car which lets me play any music that I want!"

The automotive associate looked at Rochedy with an icy stare. "Then perhaps you should go visit the BKCar dealer down the street. They let you have it your way."

(Yes, much of this post is recycled, but the point is still the same.)

Mutual of Seattle's Geek Kingdom

When you go to a meetup to see people that you have only known online, it can be challenging to find the real-life versions of these virtual people.

Such was the challenge that Brian "Bex" Huff faced when he decided to go to a Hops-and-Chops happy hour:

Hrm... I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I arrived: how will I know it's them??? Luckily there was one big table with skinny 20-somethings, and I overheard the words "Ruby" and "Rails", so I introduced myself.

Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler couldn't have done it any better.

Stretching the meaning of the term "early adopter"

Writers tend to repeat phrases, and I am no exception. I have a few pet phrases that I like to use, including "a tool is not a way of life" and "this is what he said. this is what ________ said." (The latter was stolen from Aaron Copland.)

Another phrase that I like to use is "I am not trendy." And it's true. I run in online circles with some people who do tend to be on the trendy side, and I do not count myself in their number.

However, some services like to classify me as trendy, probably to make me feel good. In a July 15 post, I mentioned how Foursquare is classifying me as trendy:

You were one of the first hundred thousand members of our community (to be exact, you're member #46,304)! You can tell your grandkids that you were a 21st century trendsetter!

Actually, I HAVE exhibited early adopter behavior with Foursquare - I've already quit using it.

I recently got an email from another service praising me for my early adopter credentials:

Hi John,

Thank you for being one of BranchOut's first users. As an early adopter, you recognized the power of leveraging Facebook for professional networking before others did. When you signed up for BranchOut, we sent you an early adopter badge that only our first million users received. Now that BranchOut has millions of users, we want to acknowledge you for being an early adopter.
You are BranchOut user 87,565. Congrats!

Based on feedback from users like you, we've added new features focused on connecting you to better professional opportunities, job openings, and the people who can accelerate your career.

The odd thing is, I probably am considered an early adopter in some respects. Foursquare now has millions of users, so I'm an early adopter there. I was on Google+ within days of its public availability, and now there are millions of users there also. I don't know how BranchOut will pan out, but if it takes off, I can be classified as one of the early ones.

But while the services classify me as an early adopter (sort of - I once asked Foursquare a question and never received a reply), I don't think of myself as one.

And I realize, as I noted above, that the services may be liberal in their use of the "early adopter" designation so that people will feel good. But I wonder if this ends up devaluing the term.

And how will people who pride themselves on being early adopters feel when everyone is called an early adopter? "Robert Scoble, John Bredehoft - what's the difference?"

Yes, Airbnb serves its customers - but EJ wasn't a customer

This weekend's tempest in a teapot started over a month ago, when a blogger known as EJ wrote a post entitled Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned. The lesson?

Three difficult days ago, I returned home from an exhausting week of business travel to an apartment that I no longer recognized. To an apartment that had been ransacked.

With heart pounding and stomach churning, I slowly swung the door open as both a pungent odor and the full realization of what had occurred washed over me: this wasn't just a random break-in. My home had been burglarized, vandalized and thoroughly trashed by a "traveler" I connected with via the online rental agency, airbnb.com.

When the story eventually went viral, Airbnb's Brian Chesky responded on TechCrunch. Here's part of that response.

On June 22nd, we learned that the home of one of our San Francisco hosts was vandalized by an Airbnb guest. We were devastated when we received this news. With a single booking, one person’s malicious actions victimized our host and undermined what had been – for 2 million nights – a case study demonstrating that people are fundamentally good.

As soon as we learned what had taken place, our first concern was to make sure our host was safe. We have been in close contact with her ever since, and have worked with the authorities to help find a resolution. Because Airbnb facilitates the reservation details and payment information, we were in a unique position to assist with the investigation. While we are not at liberty to discuss the details during the investigation, we understand that with our help, a suspect is now in custody, and our information will now become important evidence.

A quick response to be sure. Only one problem - the woman in question subsequently disputed some of the claims in the TechCrunch post.

As of today, July 28, I have received no confirmation from either the San Francisco Police Department or the District Attorney that any culprit is in custody for my case. One month ago an individual was apprehended, however as far as I know, this person was transferred to a neighboring jurisdiction for prosecution of previous crimes, and no charges or arrest warrant has been issued for my case within San Francisco County. If this has changed and Chesky’s statement is in fact true, I have not been made aware by city officials....

During the first week of my nightmare, the customer service team at Airbnb was - as I stated in my June 29 blog post – helpful, caring and supportive. In particular, one customer service manager - and the company’s freelance photographer - were wonderfully kind to me, and both should know how grateful I am.

On June 29 I posted my story, and June 30 thus marks the last day I heard from the customer service team regarding my situation. In fact, my appointed “liaison” from Airbnb stopped contacting me altogether just three days after I reported the crime, on June 25, for reasons that are unknown to me. I have heard nothing from her since.

I blogged my story, and all these kind and supportive people just ... disappeared.

And since June 30? On this same day, I received a personal call from one of the co-founders of Airbnb. We had a lengthy conversation, in which he indicated having knowledge of the (previously mentioned) person who had been apprehended by the police, but that he could not discuss the details or these previous cases with me, as the investigation was ongoing.

The next statement from the victim is significant:

He then addressed his concerns about my blog post, and the potentially negative impact it could have on his company’s growth and current round of funding. During this call and in messages thereafter, he requested that I shut down the blog altogether or limit its access, and a few weeks later, suggested that I update the blog with a “twist" of good news so as to “complete[s] the story”.

We'll get back to this statement at the end of this post.

As this story has spread across the web, there have been some widely different reactions. Here are some quotes from Robert Scoble in a Saturday thread on Google+:

Most people will believe a batshit crazy customer over a nice businessman. I'm sure at AirBnb they think this lady is batshit. But if you are working at a company, remember this, that batshit crazy customer is far more believeable than anything I've seen come out of AirBnb all week....

Gil: I have no idea whether what she's saying is true or not, but I do have to say she is being quite the drama queen. Personally I would never have left valuables in a home I was renting out. She, at minimum, bears some responsibility in this. At maximum she is squeezing this company for a big payout and trying to gain as much attention as absolutely possible.

Saying someone is batshit crazy is NOT libel. But, nice try. If that were, then I could sue at least 10,000 people who've said the same about me over the years....

Curtis: personally she sounds crazy to me. I would never have let strangers into my house and left my jewelry and stuff there, even if in a safe. That just sounds crazy to me and her statements on her blog don't sound like something anyone I'm friends with would say or do, either....

Fred: I had a car stereo stolen in a hotel parking lot once. I never blamed it on the business. Friends of mine have had laptops and other things stolen from hotel rooms. That can be blamed on the hotel, but sometimes it's not preventable....

Jeremy: anyone who would rent out their HOME and invite total strangers in without expecting that some of them could be criminals is DEFACTO insane!...

Ken: if you invited strangers into your home I would call you batshit crazy.

Scoble's tone did not win him any brownie points from Loren Feldman, who chose to address the issue, and Scoble's response to it, in video form:



This is part of what Feldman said:

I thought social media was supposed to have a voice. It was supposed to be about having a voice. This poor person was violated beyond belief. The company lied and did nothing. And now one of the ... top tech pundits is vilifying her? We're really gonna blame the victim here, guys?

On the surface, it seems like Airbnb is doing terrible things to its customers. But in all actuality, Airbnb is defending its customers, just like Facebook and Google defend their customers.

Now perhaps you might doubt that Airbnb, Facebook, and Google defend their customers. Airbnb is alleged to have told a burglarized blogger to shut up. Facebook allegedly tries to make its privacy settings so confusing that everything becomes public. Google is kicking people off of Google+, and other services, without warning and without recourse, merely for doing things that they did on other Google services.

But I still assert that Airbnb, Facebook, and Google defend their customers. Let's take another look at the conversation between the blogger EJ and the executive from Airbnb:

He then addressed his concerns about my blog post, and the potentially negative impact it could have on his company’s growth and current round of funding.

This illustrates a critical truth about any startup. Let's say that I receive an announcement next week about a new service called HoogiePoogieDipsyDoodle, and the announcement urges me to join the super secret beta test and become an early adopter (more on that later) of HoogiePoogieDipsyDoodle.

I sign up for the super secret beta test, and HoogiePoogieDipsyDoodle praises me for my early adopter status, and then goes away and meets with its customers.

And it doesn't meet with me.

Because I am not HoogiePoogieDipsyDoodle's customer.

The venture capitalists are HoogiePoogieDipsyDoodle's customers. Why? Because they'll provide more money to the company than I ever will.

The established companies Facebook and Google are in a similar situation. I don't pay either company a dime. Facebook's and Google's true customers are the advertisers who pay money to display their ads to me. And if you doubt me, read this quote from Google's Investor Relations page:

Who are our customers?

Our customers are over one million of advertisers, from small businesses targeting local customers to many of the world's largest global enterprises, who use Google AdWords to reach millions of users around the world.

So for all of us who recently joined Google+, remember - most of us are not Google customers. And a similar situation exists at Facebook, as Doug Wolfgram notes.

And yes, Airbnb is in this same boat. Yes, they get some money from people who advertise, but the REAL money is going to come from the people who fund the company to the tune of millions, or tens of millions, of dollars. And when EJ's blog post interfered with Airbnb's ability to market to its true customers, they allegedly tried to shut EJ down.

This is a big disadvantage of the web 2.0 business model. When I buy a house, or a car, or a sandwich, or a copy of Microsoft Word, I pay for something and get something in return. Supposedly the web 2.0 business model is better than this, because we all get something for free. But you always have to remember that you get what you pay for, and your interests are not necessarily the most important thing. Whoever is paying the bills gets to call the shots.

Now that's an odd coincidence

While trying to figure out why a lot of FriendFeeders were turning 40, I uncovered an interesting little fact about September 1970. It turns out that September, 1970 was the month that the Ford Pinto was introduced.

Even odder is that the Pinto, which is popularly regarded as a disaster, was introduced on a particular day in September - September 11.

Of course, that day would acquire deep significance decades later because of the terrorist attacks in the eastern United States.

My first thought was that it was an odd coincidence that the Ford Pinto was introduced on September 11. But upon further reflection, I realized that there was a very good chance of a car introduction taking place on that day, especially since new cars are usually introduced during the fall.

But if you're interested, a number of other events occurred on September 11. You can read your own meaning into these items:

Saturday 11, 2004:
Petros VII, the (Greek Orthodox) Patriarch of Alexandria and his company are killed in an unexplained helicopter crash outside Mount Athos, Greece.

Thursday 11, 2003:
Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh dies after being fatally wounded on September 10.

Friday 11, 1998:
Independent counsel Kenneth Starr sends a report to the U.S. Congress accusing President Bill Clinton of 11 possible impeachable offenses.

Friday 11, 1992:
Hurricane Iniki, one of the most damaging hurricane in United States history during its time, devastates the State of Hawai'i, especially the islands of Kaua'i and Oahu.

Friday 11, 1987:
Reggae musician Peter Tosh is murdered in his own home in Kingston.

Tuesday 11, 1973:
A military coup in Chile headed by General Augusto Pinochet topples the democratically elected President Salvador Allende.

Now some people would conclude that September 11 is extremely unlucky, and perhaps postpone an event from the 11th to the 12th. Before you do that:

Monday 12, 1994:
Frank Eugene Corder crashes a Cessna 150 into the White House's south lawn, striking the West wing and killing himself.

Probably an al-Qaeda operative.

So just bear in mind that every day has good things and bad things happen. For example:

Friday 30, 1965:
US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid.

But:

Friday 30, 2004:
A gas explosion kills 16 people in Belgium.

And you thought it was hard to knock off an Apple product

On July 20, BirdAbroad posted a story about a visit to a local Apple Store that had recently appeared in Kunming, China.

Well, except for one thing:

[T]his was a total Apple store ripoff. A beautiful ripoff – a brilliant one – the best ripoff store we had ever seen (and we see them every day). But some things were just not right: the stairs were poorly made. The walls hadn’t been painted properly.

Apple never writes “Apple Store” on it’s signs – it just puts up the glowing, iconic fruit.

And the visitors weren't the only ones who were fooled:

Being the curious types that we are, we struck up some conversation with these salespeople who, hand to God, all genuinely think they work for Apple. I tried to imagine the training that they went to when they were hired, in which they were pitched some big speech about how they were working for this innovative, global company – when really they’re just filling the pockets of some shyster living in a prefab mansion outside the city by standing around a fake store disinterestedly selling what may or may not be actual Apple products that fell off the back of a truck somewhere.

The "Apple" employees were so zealous about defending their brand that they initially prevented the BirdAbroad people from taking pictures...until the BirdAbroad people said that THEY were Apple employees from America. (I appreciate the irony.)

BirdAbroad found two other Apple Stores in the vicinity. Well, one of them was technically an "Apple Stoer," but that's close enough if you're not paying supreme attention to detail.

H/T Los Angeles Times. I think.

Why things are complex

Do you want to get things done quickly, or do you want to get things done right?

And what is "right"?

Louis Gray shared this story of one of his early jobs:

[A]s I clicked through to the product page, something caught my eye. The page loaded as it should, but the URL structure was not what I'd expected. I anticipated that clicking on Products would lead to a clean URL like www.phonecube.com/products or at worst, www.phonecube.com/products/index.html. Instead, the URL had an additional directory which looked like www.phonecube.com/phonecube_site/products/index.html. What was this "phonecube_site" deal?

Gray, who was a Web Marketing Manager at the time, was told by engineering that some of the site code was hard-coded, and any effort to make prettier URLs would delay the project. In stepped the Vice President of Marketing:

In response, my boss (the VP of Marketing) said that many popular Web sites on the Internet, with Amazon being the clearest example, had ugly URLs, and yet they were successful.

Gray lost that particular battle...and the war:

Since that time, URLs have clearly gotten uglier, and most folks have survived.

Don't believe me? When I initially went to Gray's website to read his post, I used the following URL:

http://blog.louisgray.com/2011/07/real-valley-stories-nearly-quitting.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LouisgraycomLive+%28louisgray.com%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

And now I'm wondering why utm_medium is a lower-case "feed," which utm_campaign includes a "Feed" with an initial cap.

Presumably something was hard-coded and they couldn't change it.

Even Facebook is not universal

If you read my blog, you'll see that more often than not I take the attitude that "everyone" is on Facebook. Of course we know that 90% of the world is not on Facebook, but does that really affect us?

It certainly affected Lorenzo Ferrigno when he went to China.

While Skyping with friends back at home, they brought up a rat that had been evading capture in my best friend’s apartment. When I asked what they were talking about, they innocently replied, “Wait—you didn’t see it on Facebook?”

Not in China (although there are ways around every firewall). But perhaps there is a benefit to a Facebook-less world:

Going out in Beijing is different than New York. American students flock to similar nightlife venues, making the city seem much smaller. And it’s refreshing to know a girl I meet hasn’t had an opportunity to scan through my profile pictures, or recently stalk my wall. Gives me an idea of what the social life of my grandparents must have been like.

OK, maybe it was cheesy

I'm sure that some people think of biometrics companies as serious places in which scientists analyze data, and everyone else concentrates on the serious task of identification.

But biometrics companies can have fun - or at least hire marketing people who have fun.

Earlier in July, Digital Persona issued a press release with the title:

Pizza Hut Franchisee Uses Digital Persona Fingerprint Biometrics to Save Dough by Slicing Payroll Fraud and Leavening Store Revenue

I'm just glad that there isn't a market for biometrically-enabled portable toilets yet.

If you want to advertise on Google to reach techie types, think again

If you saw my earlier post, you caught the fact that Google's new real name policies have angered a few people. Granted only a very small percentage of people feel this way, but there are people who are thinking along the same lines as Christopher Welle:

With the open invitations to Google Plus, people flocked to you so that they could try the newest thing. People like L0gex, Spidra Webster, and others like Thomas Monopoly have been suspended without clear reason. This isn’t just the Google Plus, but other services they used like +1, and Picasa that Google has decided to tie into the Google Plus policies....

With the new Powers That Be that have decided using a nick name on the internet is not OK, I think its time I start to look at moving my services away from Google. It’s a shame really, but after Facebook’s shenanigans I just find it hard to be able to trust any company that starts down this path.

I honestly can’t say I will shutdown my account with all Google Services, but probably I will just seriously curb my usage of all Google services and apps and be more mindful of what I use on pretty much all services with any corporation on the internet.

Read all of Welles' thoughts here, especially the part at the end where he begins to look at using competitor services.

Why have a Bill of Rights when you're not a duck? (Identities in the government and private sectors)

There is a common misconception about the U.S. Bill of Rights, or the first ten amendments to our Constitution. People often think that the Bill of Rights lists a bunch of things that can't be done to you. Actually, the Bill of Rights lists a bunch of things that THE GOVERNMENTS (Federal, State, local, etc.) can't do to you.

Take this example. If I stand on a street corner and say that the Los Angeles Dodgers have a terrible owner and should be sold, the governments can't do anything about it. But if Steve Garvey, a Los Angeles Dodgers employee, says that the Los Angeles Dodgers have a terrible owner and should be sold, the owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers has the right to fire him. Garvey cannot claim that his "freedom of speech" was violated, because that is a government issue, not a private issue.

OK, now take this example. If I write something under the name "Ontario Emperor," and as long as the item that I write doesn't violate any law, the governments cannot prevent its publication. But private companies, such as Google and Facebook, could prevent me from using their services to publish it.

Over the last couple of weeks, some people who have joined Google+ have suddenly not only lost access to Google+, but also to other Google services. Why? Because they used names like "Logical Extremes" or "Spidra Webster" or "Lady Ada" or "Doctor Popular" on Google+. There's been a ton of coverage about this issue, from people such as Violet Blue:

A striking number of Google+ accounts have been deleted ... as the new social network struggles with its community standards policy around real names - alienating and frightening the people it aims to serve.

Violet Blue links to a number of stories of people who have lost access to Google+, and sometimes other Google services.

Emlyn has written about two types of people:

•Integrated Identity: These are people who live online and offline with the same personality (including the Technorati because in fact their unified identity is their bread and butter), and

•Separate Identities: people who keep their online and offline worlds quite separate, not for duplicitous reasons but because they are in many ways two people; the online person and the offline person.

At one point, separate identities used to be a requirement to be online. I signed up for a BBS under my real name, and was told that I should adopt some type of pseudonym. So I became Wasp the Houseboy on those BBS services, and several years later I became Ontario Emperor on Yahoo, Google, and other services. I (mostly) dropped use of Ontario Emperor a couple of years ago, and just in time too - if I had used my Ontario Emperor Google account to get onto Google+, I'd probably be banned by now.

Many people discussing the Google+ identity issue have appealed to this statement from Google's Alma Whitten, written back in February:

Using a pseudonym has been one of the great benefits of the Internet, because it has enabled people to express themselves freely—they may be in physical danger, looking for help, or have a condition they don’t want people to know about. People in these circumstances may need a consistent identity, but one that is not linked to their offline self.

However, this statement is being taken out of context, since it is only part of what Whitten is saying. Whitten actually describes three levels of use - unidentified (using Google without a Google account, which still allows you to search for stuff), pseudonymous (from which the aforementioned quote was taken, and which is currently supported by Blogger and YouTube), and identified (Google Checkout is the example cited here).

Clearly Google has the right to put Google+ in the "identified" category, and Google has the right to yank Google+ accounts that it deems as not "identified," without recourse. And Google has the right to do other things that are outside of the scope of this post.

And while Google's actions have the potential for alienating customers of its business services, I suspect that for Google, the costs of alienating a few verbose bloggers are outweighed by the benefits of letting Google's real customers - the advertisers - know exactly who is using Google's services.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I'd wonder about the fact that Google waited about yanking the pseudonym Google+ accounts until a few weeks after the early adopters had talked up Google+ as the Facebook-killer. But now that Google+ has over 10 million users, the conspiracy theorist would claim, Google can now satisfy the needs of its advertisers and not worry about the early adopters any more.

Frankly, I don't think Google is that smart. I've been around enough bureaucracies to know that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, and that the left hand probably wants to disable the right hand. Alma Whitten, for example, is talking to researchers, not advertisers.

If nothing else, the whole episode reminds us that any company - Google, Facebook, Twitter, or your local message board - has the right to yank its free (or even paid) services from you at any time. While Twitter suddenly looks more attractive to the pseudonym-loving crowd, the day may come when Twitter also insists on real identities. Perhaps I'll ban comments on this blog from Canadians. Or perhaps this blog might disappear tomorrow after Google sees the stuff that I've written in this post and shared elsewhere.

However, the City of Gould can't touch me for what I write.

How will Google+ affect Yammer?

When Google+ came out, there were some people who immediately proclaimed that Facebook was dead, or that LinkedIn was dead, or whatever.

But I think I have found one firm that will be adversely affected by Google+.

I forget when I first tried Yammer out, but it must have been a year or two ago. When you want to join Yammer, you create an account with your work email (not a Hotmail or Gmail account). Once your work email is verified, Yammer knows which company you work for, and you are then allowed to network with others in your company and do all of the wonderful things that Yammer presumably lets you do. So I joined Yammer with my then-current email address...and found that I was the only one in my company who had joined Yammer. Some time later I checked again, and was still the only person in my company who had joined Yammer.

Note to the wise: a one-person network is not all that strong.

So where were my co-workers? I found a bunch of them on Facebook, although our Facebook conversations tend to revolve around Facebook games and leisure activities (not that my co-worker Jim would carry a virtual Cafe World cake while riding his Harley).

But after a few days of using Google+, I found a few of my co-workers on there. I eventually created two circles - an "internal" circle for Google+ people who worked for my company, and an "external" circle for Google+ people who used to work for my company, or who for some reason or another was interested in my company's business.

To be truthful, both Facebook and Google+ have this feature. Whether you call them groups or circles, these both allow you to (a) share items with a select group of people, and (b) read items from a select group of people (although the latter capability cannot be filtered to show only items of interest).

So if everyone is on services like Facebook and Google+, why bother to join Yammer? Well, if the company is behind Yammer use, and encourages it, Yammer can yield significant benefits, according to a Forrester Consulting study commissioned by Yammer:

[F]or a 21,000 employee organization with a network of 7,000 Yammer users on a three-year license at list pricing, the study concluded that Yammer yielded a risk-adjusted return on investment (ROI) of 365 percent with a payback period of 4.3 months and $5.7 million in net present value.

According to Forrester, the next big opportunities for enterprise are: innovation, collective decision-making and better access to information and expertise across organizational and geographic boundaries.

But, you may ask, can't the company provide Office Communicator and other tools for that? Perhaps, but the advantage of Yammer, Facebook, and Google+ is that they are accessible from any computer, anywhere. If you want to collaborate with a co-worker at 3am on Saturday while you're in a hotel room in Cabo, Yammer will let you do that.

And oddly enough, Yammer spends the bulk of its time in the Forrester discussion by talking about non-quantifiable benefits. Well, heck, I can spend a lot of time talking about non-quantifiable benefits of providing coffee bar energy to Kim in Cafe World. It benefits our work relationship and allows us easier collaboration on proposals. (And no, I haven't written to Kim, "If you provide me those screen shots of the new product, I'll give you 100 servings of the Vegas Buffet.")

But while Yammer provides you with a well-defined solution, you have to expend some effort to get employees on Yammer in the first place. You don't have to expend a lot of effort to get employees on Facebook, and as time passes you won't have to spend a lot of effort to get employees on Google+.

So which collaboration tool has the longer life?

Tablet, Pad, or Car - Is it more economical to have two rather than one?

Psst - the print and online versions of various publications are not the same. The July 11 print copy of InformationWeek includes an Art Wittman column entitled "The Ultimate 'Businss' Tablet Defined." But it is based upon an online post from June entitled "The Ultimate 'Business' Pad Defined." Either a marketer or a lawyer got a hold of the title before it went to print.

But regardless of whether you're talking about tablets, specific Apple devices, or anything supplied by a business (cars, for example), Wittman's point still holds. Businesses supply items to their workers to allow them to do business, and Wittman listed a number of his ideal requirements for such an item. He concluded with this one:

Here's the potentially unreasonable part, at least from IT's point of view: I don't want my employer owning this thing. I want to own it, and I want to carve out a virtualized portion of my space for the company, not the other way around.

Wittman goes on to say:

It probably benefits the company if I do have just one device (or set of devices); I'm much more likely to always be reachable and have the right information available at all times. For some businesses and employees, security requirements won't permit such an arrangement, I get that, but I bet that number is relatively small.

Even assuming that security is not a concern for your business (it is for mine), there are potential costs for a company pursuing this arrangement. IT has spent decades creating a suite of hardware and software that it can support, and has hired personnel who are knowledgeable in these things. Whether we like it or not, it it less costly for an organization to support ten configurations than it is to support 100 configurations, or 1000 configurations.

Let's say that I was suddenly able to take my personal netbook and plug it directly into the work network. Now I happen to run Windows 7 on my netbook, so there aren't issues there. But my anti-virus software is not what the company uses, my word processor/spreadsheet/etc. application is not what the company uses, I have at least one web browser that the company doesn't use, and I have some applications (such as the last.fm scrobbler) that can consume gargantuan resources for non-business purposes).

Now the company can certainly take some steps to mitigate the problems that my netbook could cause. The company could block the last.fm scrobbler from working. Perhaps it could support some type of quick scan of my computer before it allows connection to the network. Or perhaps there's some way (better minds than I know how) to literally have a carved-off space of my netbook reserved for business purposes; maybe my netbook could just be a terminal into some virtual computer in an internal cloud.

But let's face it - any type of solution would be new, and would require change, and would result in significant expenses. And in the end, the solution that is perceived as cheaper often wins, which means that companies often stay with the status quo.

When analyzing these options, you always have to keep the company's perspective in mind. From my perspective, I have paid for my netbook, and my company has paid for my work computer, and certainly that's expensive, isn't it? Not to the company, which doesn't care whether I have a netbook or not. And even if the alternative solution meant that my company wouldn't have to buy me a computer at all - in other words, I buy a computer and the company lets me use it at work - some of the unknown costs and planning may make the alternative appear to be more expensive.

So a lot of us, at least in larger businesses, will continue to have one set of gadgets for work, and another set of gadgets for play. Oh well, at least Dell, HP, Apple, et al will sell twice as many computers.