Stumbleupon doesn't want to stumble

I received a "Dear John" letter this morning.

However, since my name is John, I actually get a lot of these letters.

This one was from StumbleUpon:

Dear John,
You've been a valuable member of our community for a long time, so we wanted to tell you in advance about some upcoming changes to StumbleUpon that may affect you.

Our primary goal at StumbleUpon is to help you discover great things. Our focus is on delivering you faster, better and more personalized recommendations, so that each time you click the "Stumble!" button you see more amazing content from every corner of the web!
In order to focus on improving the discovery experience for you, and after careful consideration, we have decided to remove Groups, discontinue the ability to select Themes, and simplify Blogging capabilities. We know some of you have enjoyed having these features, but we believe that these changes will allow us to better focus on making stumbling amazing for you.

Here's how these changes will take place:

Groups: Groups will be visible until October 24th, then will be removed permanently from the site. You can manually copy anything you'd like to keep, or will be able to export group information. We are working on an export option and will send more specific details in a few weeks.

Themes: Your current theme will remain up until October 24th. At that time all themes will be changed to a default theme that is a white background with black type. To see how your profile will look with the default theme, change your settings here.

Blog Posts/HTML Reviews: After October 24th we will no longer offer HTML/Blogging functionality, but you'll still be able to access blog posts and reviews created before October 24th which will exist in plain text format. We are working on an export option and will send more specific details about this in a few weeks.

Your feedback and questions continue to be important to us as we make changes. You should expect to hear from us again in about a month, when we'll have more details around export options. In the meantime, feel free to reach out to us directly if you have questions, or go to our Help Center to learn more about these changes.

Thank you for your understanding and support as we work on making StumbleUpon better for you!

- The StumbleUpon Team

Now the StumbleUpon people are obviously trying to be careful - they saw how the whole Netflix thingie blew up in Netflix's face (or is it Qwikster's face?). But you still get a funny feeling when you read something that says "we're taking away functionality...and we're doing it to benefit you."

In my case, it doesn't look like the changes will impact me one bit. For example, my default FriendFeed layout is a white background with black type. I don't think I'll die if the StumbleUpon look is similar.

However, the major reason that the changes won't impact me is because I've only visited the StumbleUpon site a few times in the past few months. For various reasons that I won't get into here, I haven't accessed StumbleUpon that much lately.

I'm sure, however, that there are die-hard StumbleUpon users who are completely dependent upon sharing their blog posts with their groups while using a purple background with green lettering. Those people will be outraged.

And others will use the opportunity to loudly declare that StumbleUpon is dead.

We'll see how this plays out.

P.S. Speaking of Netflix (or Qwikster), Al Lewis is not impressed:

The Netflix Inc. /quotes/zigman/87598/quotes/nls/nflx NFLX +0.53% CEO sent me and millions of other video customers an email on Sunday, saying he’s sorry “many members felt we lacked respect and humility.”

I know this trick. I’ve used it myself: “I am sorry that YOU were offended.” It is a non-apology. And whenever I use it, I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

More on the false scarcity of qualified magazine subscriptions

This is a follow-up to my June 16 post, which read in part:

I paid rapt attention to the notice that appeared on one of the magazines that I received this afternoon. I won't reveal the name of the magazine, but I will say that it talks about Information and it's published every Week.

The notice said that if I didn't renew by July 1, I "will be replaced by another IT professional."

Well, a couple of months later, that magazine called and asked to qualify my renewal information. The call was surprisingly short; I told them that I had changed jobs and no longer qualified, and the person thanked me.

But I'm still on the magazine's mailing list - or, technically, on the list of one of the entities associated with the magazine. I just got an email about 21st century mainframe costs.

And I know that as of a couple of weeks ago (well after July 1, by the way) I was still getting the magazine itself.

Maybe I should buy a one year subscription to Muscle Car.

Some things just can't be predicted

Companies and individuals like to name things. Sometimes they're named with no research whatsoever, and problems ensue. Sometimes the company or individual do a lot of research before naming something, and then something happens later that causes problems for the name.

How much later can a problem crop up?

Well, let's look at a Canadian band that came up with its name way back in 1990. Naming themselves after a euphemism used by Beat poets, the band developed a style that was called "Moroccan roll." The band issued eight albums, toured the world a few times, and at some point set up a website to publicize the band's efforts. Even after the band broke up fifteen years later, the website remained, pretty much dormant.

But the website is now so popular that the band could sell it for a million dollars (Canadian or American, take your pick; the exchange rate is about 1:1 these days).

Not because of the band, but because of other stuff that's intervened in the last couple of decades.

If you want to see the website, go to http://www.teaparty.com/.

Who could have predicted THAT name would be so popular a couple of decades later?

Lost in translation (the Rapunzel security system)

[DISCLOSURE: THE COMPANY THAT EMPLOYS MY CO-WORKER AND MYSELF SELLS FINGERPRINT ACCESS CONTROL DEVICES.]

A co-worker happened across an article that puzzled her. The article, by Craig Padilla, is entitled "How Biometric Technology is Used in Video Surveillance." The article ended with this puzzling biography of the author:

Were a first class designer of Fingerprint door head of hair, keyless door locks, plus biometric access control techniques.

Both of us were trying to figure out what a "Fingerprint door head of hair" was supposed to be.

Finally, I figured it out after reading a second article. This one, by Trenton Palmer, is entitled "Advantages and Disadvantages of New Bump Resistant Door Locks." It closes with a similar biography:

About the Author

I am a first class company of Fingerprint door head of hair, keyless door locks, as well as biometric access control systems.

But once I read the third paragraph of Palmer's article, everything made sense.

However, consumers still ought to be very careful of deceptive locksmith companies employing this as an excuse to help you drill every lock they see as a way to price gauge consumers. Locks by using this new technology can conveniently be identified. There are just two vendors with easily obtainable product: Kwikset and Schlage. The Kwikset brand boasts a pin hole next into the main key hole. The Schlage brand is known for a plus sign directly above the important hole. If your hair don't have these identifiers, they have no reason to be drilled. Don't allow anyone to drill locks without all of these identifiers. You will be paying for work that doesn't need to be accomplished and new locks that you don't need.

Did you notice the sentence that began "If you hair don't have these identifiers"?

Have you ever referred to a "lock of hair"?

Apparently Palmer wanted to use the word "lock" but used the word "hair" instead.

For a more blatant example of this confusion, read the article entitled "Fingerprint Entry Tresses and just how Biometric Entrance Hair Function."

It reminds me of the story of Rapunzel. As you recall, Rapunzel's predicament is as follows:

Rapunzel grows up to be the most beautiful child in the world with long golden hair. When Rapunzel reaches her twelfth year, the enchantress shuts her away in a tower in the middle of the woods, with neither stairs nor door, and only one room and one window.

But the enchantress' secret method of entry is discovered by a prince, who repeats the passcode:

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, so that I may climb the golden stair.

It is uncertain whether Rapunzel's hair was manufactured by Kwikset or Schlage. Or Hair Club. (And no, I don't know the rules of Hair Club.)

Are buildings necessary? (with a little Minnesota Lutheran parody)

Everyone tells us that we live in a virtual world, and that location really doesn't matter. Then in the next breath we hear that some company or person doesn't matter because the company/person isn't located in the right place.

Take, for example, former TechCrunch writer Paul Carr. Carr's former employer talks about all sorts of startups who promote a virtual presence via social media, but Carr himself appears to be a Luddite when he rants about Michael Arrington's replacement, Erick Schonfeld:

Mike felt that current Senior Editor Sarah Lacy might be a better choice: she has the right personality — and sources — for the job and she actually lives in Silicon Valley (Erick is based in New York). Unfortunately she’s also away for four months, on maternity leave....

Putting aside my professional feelings towards Erick — and I’ve been writing about those for a long time — the notion that a Silicon Valley blog should be run by a guy in New York is just ludicrous. As such, Huffington’s short-term victory is likely to prove a medium and long term disaster.

Oddly enough, Carr didn't appear to mind that Schonfeld's predecessor didn't live in Silicon Valley either. But I digress.

At the end of the day, location is important. Even if you have the best videoconferencing equipment - and most of us don't - a virtual presence cannot substitute for a physical one.

One of the benefits of a physical presence is that you have, in the words of George Carlin, a place for your stuff. While some argue that acquisition of buildings and land can distract a person or organization from its true mission, it can be argued that business acquisition, when done correctly, can enhance the mission.

But to humor those who think that building ownership is a waste of money, I've prepared a resolution just for you (note the date, which was chosen with care):

A RESOLUTION TO SELL THE LUTHERAN CHURCH MISSOURI SYNOD MINNESOTA SOUTH DISTRICT PROPERTY LOCATED IN BURNSVILLE, MINNESOTA

September 31, 2011

Resolved, that the Treasurer of the District effectuate the sale of the District's headquarters property at 14301 Grand Avenue South, Burnsville, MN 55306 under the following conditions:

1) The district retain a broker for the purpose of selling the District's headquarters property for the highest market price available.
2) The Treasurer is authorized to negotiate terms of the listing agreement on behalf of the board without further ratification.

Most of you won't realize this, but this is a parody of the District's unanimously-passed September 13 resolution (PDF) to sell the University Lutheran Chapel and some property in Mankato. The resolutionis obviously of concern to the members of the University Lutheran Chapel itself, and they have mounted a campaign to "save our chapel."

It stands to reason that if it is a net good for the Minnesota South District to sell the campus properties to enhance their campus outreach, wouldn't sale of their own headquarters enhance their overall outreach?

All fun aside, there are obviously times when a physical location provides a benefit. Now I'll admit that Empoprises does not have a plush suite of corporate offices (no, we do not have offices at 1 Empire Way Suite 2525, Guasti, California 91743). But rest assured that if Empoprises ever needs offices to complete its mission, I will acquire them.

Much larger enterprises DO devote some time to thinking about their physical presence. Apple is developing its second campus, and is starting to think about its third. According to accounts, Wal-Mart's headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas is not quite as inspirational. But at least they have a place to put their stuff.

One advantage of touch computing

I knew that I was a Luddite, but I didn't know that Jake Kuramoto has Luddite tendencies also. But then I read his post regarding efforts to promote touch computing in the newest Microsoft and Apple operating systems. Kuramoto believes that the result is not good.

Here's how he begins his post:

There’s an excellent chance I’m being a complete fuddy-duddy, waving my arms and yelling at those damn kids to get off my lawn. That said, it’s a horrible idea to force everyone into touch-based computing.

The unveiling of Windows 8, coupled with Apple’s nudging of OS X closer to iOS with Lion, has me shaking my head.

Why monkey around with happy users by combining their experiences? Some people love iOS. Some people love OS X. I don’t think this is a peanut butter and chocolate moment though. Using Lion as an example, out-of-the-box it enables an option called “Move content in the direction of finger movement when scrolling or navigating” which creates backward scrolling for wheel mouses.

Disabling this option was one of the first things I had to do after my upgrade because every single window scrolled the wrong way.

Kuramoto then goes on to mention the drawbacks for keyboard/mouse users, the need to redesign the applications that run on these operating systems, and the ergonomic issues.

But in the process of replying to his post, I was forced to admit a couple of things.

I was forced to admit that the usability comparison between touch and keyboard/mouse is unfair. In a computing context, I have very little experience with touch computing (where I define touch computing as MOVING your fingers across a screen to perform a particular action). I have over a quarter century of experience in using a mouse (dating back to the Macintosh Plus), and I have over 35 years of experience in using a keyboard (dating back to Miss Jack's typing class). So I'm naturally going to find keyboards and mice easier to use than a touch screen. Give me a couple of years of experience with a touch screen, though, and I'll probably have a different view.

Why will I have a different view? Because I was also forced to admit that a touch screen is more intuitive than a mouse or a keyboard.

Think about how these older devices work.

Let's start with the keyboard, because it's been around longer. Whether you're using a typewriter or a computer or my beloved LG env3 phone, the way in which you use a keyboard is to set your hands on a table (or another flat object), then move your fingers around. When you move your fingers around on the table, things change in another location. As I type these words right now, the movement of my fingers is causing letters to appear on a screen that is several inches away from my fingers. If I were on a typewriter, something similar would be happening; my keystrokes would cause letters to appear on a piece of paper. While the actions and reactions are perfectly understandable in the realm of physics, the fact remains that there is a type of separation between what my fingers do on a keyboard, and the results of those actions.

If anything, a mouse - the vaunted mouse, part of the long-standing effort to make things easier - is even more of a problem than the keyboard. Take the classic example of using a mouse to drag a file to a trash can. Now if I were in the real world, I would walk to the piece of paper, pick it up with my hand, walk to the trash can, and throw the paper into the trash can. But that's not how it happens in the so-called "intuitive" world of computing. Let's go through the steps:

• First, you take your right hand and rest it on a horizontal table. This table is several inches away from the item that you want to modify - namely, an icon on a computer screen.
• Next, you "move your mouse" to the file. This involves sliding your hand horizontally across the table. This causes a movement on the screen above you that is not identical to what your hand is doing. If I move my hand away from me, the pointer on the screen moves up. If I move my hand toward me, the pointer on the screen goes down. Your brain is going through all sorts of mental calculations to move things on the screen. You don't think about all this, because you have 5 years or 10 years or 25 years of experience moving a mouse. But if you end up with a native on a desert island who has never seen a computer before, how are you going to explain a mouse to the native?
• But now it gets better. To get the file to the trash can, you have to perform something called "click and drag." In the real world, I would do this by using my hand to grab the paper, then tightly hold the piece of paper as I walk to the trash can. But that's the real world. In the fake world, you hold one finger down and then move your entire hand - and again, moving your hand away from you moves the item up on the screen. Take a moment and find a piece of paper near you. Tap your finger on the piece of paper. Now move your hand. Unless you press really hard, chances are that the paper is going to stay right where it is. And this is intuitive?
• OK, let's assume that you have your paper near the trash can. In the real world, it's conceivable that you could place your hand (the hand grabbing the paper) right over the trash can, then unclench your hand. When you do this, the paper surrenders to gravity and drops down into the trash can. (Well, unless the wind starts blowing.) In the fake world of computing, you have to move your hand in such a way that the trash can changes (in the old days, a white trash can would become black), and then you would lift up the finger that you pressed down earlier. While this action is admittedly more intuitive than the other actions, you still are depending upon the trash can to change - something that doesn't happen in real life - and you're still moving your hand in a horizontal fashion to make changes on a vertical plane.

And this, my friends, is the wonderful "intuitive" way in which we've been working for the last quarter century.
Now imagine doing that same thing with a touch screen. There's still an air of unreality to the entire affair, but all of the mental calculations and gyrations have been removed. When I want to "click" on a file, I don't move my hand in one location to make a change several inches away. I touch the screen, and I make a change to an object that is underneath my finger. When I move my finger up, the icon for the file moves up. I don't have to move my hand away from me to make the file move up. When I position the file over the trash can, the trash can is right underneath my finger. I'm not doing something in one place to make a change in another place; my hand is directly interacting with the thing that I want to change.

Sounds more intuitive to me.

For the record, here's the original comment that I left at Jake Kuramoto's post:

First off, I hate Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

Second off, I have a belief (completely unsubstantiated on my part) that keyboard/mouse hardware is simpler than touch screen hardware, and therefore is less prone to breaking. When certainly family members bought the LG env Touch phone, I stubbornly stuck to the LG env3 (no touchscreen) for that reason.

Third off, I agree that using touch on some applications might not be all that efficient. Perhaps it's because of years of practice, but I can be very precise when I use a keyboard or use a mouse. Stick my fingers on a touchscreen, and I know that I'll have less precision. In my mind (again, probably due to lack of practice), a mouse allows me to specify a particular pixel, while a finger occupies a great blob of space on the screen with no precision whatsoever. I shudder to think of the users of my company's software using their fingers to precisely identify fingerprint ridge endings and bifurcations.

But if I'm honest with myself, I'll admit that given a few years of practice, we will be just as adept at using touchscreens as we are in using mice. After all, the touchscreen is more intuitive, since you are directly interacting with the item that you want to modify (rather than interacting with an item on the side of your computer, and having that cause changes several inches away on the screen of your computer). I can't remember how long it took me to learn how to use a mouse when I encountered my first Macintosh Plus in the mid 1980s, but I'm pretty sure that I didn't master the mouse on day one. After some practice, I could probably be just as good on touchscreens as I am with a mouse.

But I'm still worried about the touchscreen breaking.

Compliance with request of copyright holder

On June 20, 2011, I posted an item that relied extensively on quotes from the phrenology.org website. The site includes the following copyright notice and disclaimer:

© 1998: LHOON
Disclaimer:
No one but the author of these pages
accounts
for their contents.

On September 13, 2011, my post received four comments, the third of which is significant:

BAloon 13 hours ago

Why does Anyone think that phrenology can POSSIBLY be a science???

BAloon 13 hours ago

This page is violating a copyright

Auctionhead 13 hours ago

this page is violating a copyright LHoon

Auctionhead 13 hours ago

This page is violating a copyright

I have no idea whether the third comment, which was posted from IP address: 173.18.48.3 and has a listed email address in the hotmail.com domain, was truly written by L Hoon.

However, in the event that it was, I have removed all copyrighted material from the post in qustion.

About that bubbly Beverly from Italy

If you've been to Las Vegas, perhaps you've done this. Near the MGM Grand is an Everything Coca-Cola that has...well, everything Coca-Cola. Now Coca-Cola is a worldwide firm, and one of the things that you can do is sample soft drinks from all over the world. You pay a few bucks, and you get a couple of trays with 16 cups and a quick guide with the name of the soft drink and the country of origin.

I first did this a few years ago, and was unpleasantly surprised when I tried one of the drinks and nearly gagged.

I was back in Las Vegas recently, and found myself at Everything Coca-Cola again. I remembered the bad drink, but couldn't remember its name; all that I remember was that it was European. So I was somewhat prepared when I sampled the drink called Beverly from Italy. In fact, I was so prepared that I took a second sip. I didn't get much farther than that.

I'm not the only person who had this reaction. A writer at the Daily Ping called it the worst drink ever.when he/she tried it in Las Vegas.

But there are other reactions. Jennifer tried it at Club Cool at Epcot Center and liked it, although she was forced to point out that she was not pregnant.

Have you noticed something interesting yet? All of these mentions of the Italian soft drink Beverly are based upon tastings in the United States. In fact, Jennifer went on to say:

[I] went shopping in Boston’s North End, a strong Italian neighborhood with many stores specializing in groceries imported from Italy. Beverly was nowhere to be found.

I work with a woman whose family is from Italy, and who maintains close ties there. She’d never heard of Beverly, and neither had anyone she talked to. We both searched the interwebs, she in Italian and me in English, and found nothing to indicate that Beverly’s actually distributed in Italy.

And there's a whole thread on micechat.com (a Disney-themed site) that addresses the drink:

A couple of my relatives just went on a trip to Italy. It was one of those multi city tour group excursions.

I told them to try some Beverly when they got there.

They said they checked in every store and restaurant and asked everyone they met about it.

They told me NO ONE had any idea what Beverly was.

So is Beverly, as Jennifer claims, a big practical joke by Coca-Cola?

I figured that I'd find Coca-Cola's Italian website, and I ended up at Coca-Cola HBC Italia, a franchised bottler. Among their sparking beverages I found this:

Kinley is the ideal range of sparkling drinks for preparing long drinks and cocktails. In the Italian market it is available in two versions: Tonic Water and Bitter Lemon.

Kinley Tonic Water is a tonic water with a distinctive bitter flavour.
Kinley Bitter Lemon is a non-alcoholic lemon juice beverage that adds a pleasant lemon twist to your cocktails.

But no mention of Beverly. Although after searching, I found this:

Nogara plant

The plant is located in Nogara (Verona) and it was opened in 1975. Coca-Cola HBC Italia operates in Nogara since 1995.

Nogara is the biggest production plant in Italia (covered area of 62.000 sqm including 35.000 mq of the new warehouses). In this plant we produce: Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite, Nestea, Powerade, Beverly. Kinley and Aquarius, in : PET, glass, cans and Bag in Box.
Awards won by the plant:

2007 - Best Factory award for the management of logistics and production activities – International Best Factory Award

And there is only one other mention of Beverly on the entire site:

Coca-Cola, the new dynamic ribbon device, the Contour bottle, Coca-Cola Light, Sprite, Fanta, Fruit Cooler, Kinley, Beverly, Burn, Powerade and Aquarius are all registered trademarks of The Coca-Cola Company.

So it sounds like Coca-Cola has registered the trademark for Beverly, and that they have a place where they bottle it, but they don't SELL it in Italy - just in Nevada, Georgia, and Florida.

But what of Kinley? It appears that the brand is used for a variety of drinks in many different countries. Not only is there a carbonated beverage in various flavors, but there's even a bottled water.

Many of the carbonated beverage's flavors include the b-word:

Kinley is a carbonated water that comes in wide array of variants such as tonic, bitter lemon, club soda and a myriad of fruit flavors.

Available in the following flavors: Apple Peach, Bitter Grapefruit, Bitter Herbal, Bitter Lemon, Bitter Water, Blueberry Pomegranate, Club Soda, Ginger Ale, Lemon and Raspberry.

Available in the following locations: Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, United States, West Bank-Gaza and Zambia.

So, other than the fact that you can buy one of them throughout the world but can only buy the other in this country, what is the difference between Kinley "bitter water" and Beverly?

Explaining the "warning" in yesterday's post

I goofed. Not a bad goof, but it will take this post to correct the goof that I made in another post. Not a goof as in an error, but a goof as in an omission.

When I was preparing yesterday's post on bloggers and ethics, I was merrily writing away and added a line to the post. As I wrote it, I was thinking to myself, "I'll go back and add the link."

And yes, I forgot to add the link.

The line in question occurs in the third paragraph of my post Another story about bloggers and ethics - but there's a surprise!

Let me cut to the chase and quote the relevant piece of the New York Times article (warning: this is a New York Times article):

No, I didn't forget to link to the New York Times article.

What I forgot to do is to add a link explaining my warning.

You see, my warning was based upon a post by Dave Winer, which I'll belatedly link to now. Here's how his post begins:

First a few recitals:

1. I read a lot of NYT stories.

2. I link to a lot of NYT stories. My qualification for pushing a link is "Would an informed person want to be aware of the information, ideas or opinions in this piece?" If I read it, the answer is likely yes.

3. If the person who clicks on the link is not a "digital subscriber" it counts against their quota of free articles for the current month.

And this matters, because of the paywall that the New York Times has implemented. Rather than putting the whole site behind a paywall, they hit on an alternative solution. Their system allows readers to look at a few articles per month without paying, but (at least in theory) prevents you from reading the whole danged paper online every day.

Winer's post (which I'll link to again) describes this issue, and requests from his readers to put some type of warning before a New York Times link so that the user doesn't inadvertently use up their free articles. Winer answers this, noting that it's a bigger issue than the New York Times.

Heck, one could argue that I should post a warning before linking within my own blog. After all, people could argue that I'm misleading them by claiming to provide new information but instead providing that same old junk that I always write.

Perhaps Louis Gray (warning: Louis Gray works for Google) could come up with some graphics for link disclosures to supplement Gray's and Jeannine Schafer's graphics for FTC disclosures.

(And no, I don't have a warning for Jeannine Schafer. But maybe I'll think of one later.)

Another story about bloggers and ethics - but there's a surprise!

Yes, bloggers and ethics have been discussed ad nauseum over the last few days. I recently blogged about Frédéric Filloux's "soft corruption" post which demanded that bloggers (but no one else) institute a code of ethics. Steven Hodson has also written about it at Medacity. And both of us have been involved in a Google+ discussion of the topic.

And I just ran across a story (h/t The Future Buzz) in which bloggers and ethics figure prominently.

Let me cut to the chase and quote the relevant piece of the New York Times article (warning: this is a New York Times article):

The promotion was “unfortunate” and “struck me as being not quite where they should be in terms of honesty,” said Deborah A. Silverman, who heads the Board of Ethics and Professional Standards at the Public Relations Society of America.

Now some of you are probably wondering what outrage we in the blogging community have committed now. And I'm sure that a few of you are wondering if Izea (you remember them?) were involved.

Well, I hate to disappoint you, but the ethical violation that occurred was committed AGAINST bloggers, not BY.

You see, some food bloggers and mommy bloggers were invited to an oh-so-exclusive restaurant, advertised as being run by George Duran of TLC fame, to talk about healthy foods, and were served a dinner during their visit. Then - surprise! - it was revealed that the bloggers and their guests had been served frozen Marie Callender's dinners.

What the Ketchum public relations group thought would happen, and what they probably told the Marie Callender's frozen dinner maker, a company with the delightfully friendly name of ConAgra Foods, was that if we do this neat fun thing with the bloggers, we'll get all sorts of positive press. (And heck, these bloggers love freebies anyway, so we'll buy their love.)

Well, the bloggers weren't the only ones who were surprised. Let's look at some of what Mom Confessionals wrote after the experience:

The other evening I was invited to attend an intimate dinner at an exclusive underground restaurant called Sotto Terra hosted by Food Network chef George Duran and Supermarket Guru Phillip Lempert. We were promised a delicious Italian 4-course meal and scintillating conversation on the latest food trends with other foodies. I was salivating at the thought of this meal and it was long due for a date night with my husband. He doesn’t often partake in my Blogger perks but he was definitely interested in this one.

Even more exciting was that I was allowed to offer this same amazing experience to one of my readers and their guest. My excitement was palpable. I was tweeting away, getting my friends to share and spread the news. When it was time to draw the winner, I was pleasantly surprised to see the entrant and winner (out of 119 entries) was none other than my children’s pediatrician and his wife (who is a loyal Mom Confessionals reader)!

And after the surprise was revealed?

Our entire meal was a SHAM! We were unwilling participants in a bait-and-switch for Marie Callender’s new frozen three cheese lasagna and there were cameras watching our reactions. I’ve got a sense of humor so I was okay with it and I had been enjoying myself up until that point, but I could tell that the rest of the participants were not. Everyone feigned weak shock and faked approval of the frozen meal. My guests were eager to leave all of a sudden and refused to sign the release. I felt awful! The conversation had fallen to an awkward silence as our hosts tried to fill in the empty air. When suggested we move the conversation back upstairs, everyone took themselves upstairs and out the door, include myself, my husband and our guests. I must have been still somewhat hopeful when my guest asked me so is Sotto Terra real or not? I said I thought it still might be a project that chef George and Phil were working on. I realize how stupid and gullible I must have sounded later.

The first thing out of my husband’s mouth was waste of time and I was reduced to tears. Not only had I been duped but now my husband was mad at me and my guests/pediatrician must of thought of me terribly. Its even crossed my mind that I may need to find a new pediatrician, I was that embarrassed. My only comfort was as we left, his wife said to me, Thank God he at least cooked the rest of the meal. But that also hinted at the major disappointment.

By the way, be sure to take a look at the comments such as this one. The blogger in question is transparent and ethical - and is STILL criticized as a whiner.

However, the commenter in question didn't realize that Mom Confessional's reaction would be the lead reaction in a New York Times article. In the middle of the article, it was revealed that ConAgra had made a decision:

As negative comments on blogs, Twitter and Facebook grew, ConAgra canceled the fifth evening and vowed not to use the hidden-camera footage for promotional purposes.

That's so noble of ConAgra to voluntarily abstain from using the hidden-camera footage. Frankly, I suspect a lot of people would like to see it - especially the part where the Mom Confessional guests refuse to sign the release.

In closing this post, however, I want to shift gears and ask a question - is this story validated because Mom Confessional blogged about it, or is this story validated because the New York Times reported it? (This same question arose during the 1960s and 1970s, but in that case it was the upstart television that dared to report things that hadn't been on the front page of the New York Times yet. And television got no respect, even though it had a code at the time.)

Why Wikipedia will never graduate from Reed College

Any sub-culture has its rules, and Wikipedia certainly has its share of rules.

For example, it is well known that Wikipedia discourages original research. Let's say, for example, that Robert Scoble chose to edit the Wikipedia article on Robert Scoble. Should he do so, he would get slapped with nastygrams from tons of Wikipedia editors, claiming that he did not identify a written source for his edits. Never mind the fact that Robert Scoble should presumably know stuff about Robert Scoble; if it's not documented somehwere, it doesn't meet Wikipedia's standards.

In a sense this is understandable, since Wikipedia should ideally lead you to original sources where you can learn more about the topic in question.

But one of Wikipedia's rules borders on the ridiculous.

I was reading a Wikipedia article on Schools of Chinese Tea Ceremony, and I ran across this nastygram at the top of the article.

This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications. Please add more appropriate citations from reliable sources.

Horror of horrors!

As an example of the extremely offensive material in this Wikipedia article, it refers to Tenfu Tea College, and includes a link to ... Tenfu Tea College.

The worry of the Wikipedia editors is that Tenfu Tea College will have a positive outlook on Tenfu Tea College. And that obviously won't do. (That's as bad as Microsoft expressing its views about Microsoft.)

What Wikipedia wants is a separate account of Tenfu Tea College - a non-biased view.

So rather than linking to the college itself, presumably Wikipedia would prefer a link to someone who visited the area once:

I also visited the local aquarium and did a day trip to the TenFu Tea Museum in Zhan'Pu (sp?). I had an amazing time at the museum. Since it was in the middle of the week, I pretty much had the place to myself. According to them, it's the largest tea museum in the world. We (myself and 5 chinese business men who were the only other guests there) watched a presentation on traditional Chinese tea ceremony and one on Japanese tea ceremony. The Chinese one was simple and very nice. The Chinese one was put on by about 8 girls with very new looking period costumes who did the whole thing coriographed (sp?) to a rather nice classical Chinese folk sound track. They served us 3 types of tea, all of wich were delicious (well at least two out of three were delicous and one was really interesting, if not quite delicious - it was bitter tea.) My guide who spent the whole time with me at no extra cost was very helpfull and informative. She showed me the cave where they age their Pu Ehr teas and we walked around their lovely lake that is fed by a local mountain spring.

You will note that this 2003 post does not mention the college at all. That's because the college didn't open until four years after the visit chronicled above.

But whatever keeps Wikipedia happy. Oh, we know what keeps Wikipedia happy.

Needless to say, if I want to know about item X, I definitely want to ask item X itself/himself/herself. I'll grant that I'll want to contact other sources also, but I wouldn't ignore item X entirely.

Whatever happened to the Television Code? And what can bloggers learn from its disappearance?

Frédéric Filloux's post on the "soft corruption" of bloggers has certainly elicited some comment. Not only did I respond to the post, but Steven Hodson did also.

As I was reading Hodson's post, I recalled another code - not necessarily a code of ethics, but a code of practices - that had existed in my childhood, but which had subsequently disappeared. I began to wonder why.

Now to be fair, the Television Code that I referred to is not directly comparable to some type of ethics code for bloggers, primarily because over-the-air television is a finite commodity due to the limited extent of the airwaves. Therefore, over-the-air television (and over-the-air radio before it) are subject to more intense scrutiny than you can find for blogs, or for that matter newspapers.

But other than that major difference, there were some similarities between the Television Code and Filloux's proposed blogger code. First off, the Television Code was originated by the broadcasters themselves, in the guise of their trade organization, the National Association of Broadcasters. The thought was that if the broadcasters policed themselves, the government wouldn't come in and police them. (You can see a similar intent in Tipper Gore's warning labels on recorded music.) The Museum of Broadcast Communications describes the Code:

More than 67% of all television stations subscribed to the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) Code adopted in 1950 (a similar radio code had been in operation since 1935). In addition to provisions which addressed historic concerns respecting the "advancement of education and culture," responsibility toward children, community responsibility, and general program standards, the NAB Code also included advertising standards and time limits for non-program material defined as "billboards, commercials, promotional announcements and all credits in excess of 30 seconds per program."

But little by little, the Code went away.

The Code program standards had been suspended in 1976 after a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that the Family Hour violated the First Amendment.

The Family Hour was the idea that in the early evening hours, before they went to bed, kids would not be assaulted with the view of Farrah Fawcett-Majors in a swimsuit. Today, with the advent of cable and satellite television, the effectiveness of any Family Hour is diminished. I live in the western United States, and at 8:00 pm my time (the old "Family Hour" time) I can pick up feeds from the eastern United States, where it's 11:00 pm. And Conan (which often has a TV-14 rating) airs at 8:00 pm out here.

But the First Amendment wasn't the only thing that doomed the Television Code.

In 1982, in settlement of an anti-trust suit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, the NAB and the federal government entered into a consent decree abolishing the time standards and the industry-wide limitations on the number and length of commercials they provided.

And with that, the Television Code went away, and the television networks policed themselves. With the result that for the last thirty years, society has completely fallen apart.

Well, I'm sure that some people believe that, but I don't think that Filloux is one of them.

I still maintain that there are ethical and unethical bloggers, and that the existence or non-existence of a blogger code of ethics is not going to change that - any more than codes of ethics are going to change the industries I mentioned in my previous post, such as sports talk radio.

If Michael Arrington ran Izea

Over the weekend, Loren Feldman shared a link to a Monday Note post by Frédéric Filloux. The note started by talking about the ethical implications of the Arrington/CrunchFund dustup:

Even the most twisted ethicist would have detected a looming conflict of interest. Not Arrington. Because he is one of most arrogant pricks in this business.

But then he went on:

And because he lives elsewhere. He resides in the blogosphere, where the simplest ethical issues are distorted like space-time at the edge of the universe.

Later, Filloux again implies that Arrington's view is universal in the blogosphere:

Anyway: I do find the revolving door is a good thing. As long as the previous door has been properly locked.
Enter the blogosphere and its tolerance for conflicts of interest and — let’s use the word – soft corruption.

There is a caveat toward the end of the post, but the damage had been done:

I’m not going to denigrate the blogosphere as a whole or TechCrunch itself, which harbors good reporters. Blogs are part of my daily media routine and, for the record, I’ll say many bloggers do a better job than presumed professional writers. Still, by construction, bloggers are more prone to serve third party agendas: many are penniless, young, untrained, unsupervised and their writing is unedited. A target of choice for manipulation.

Since it was Feldman who shared the post, I immediately thought of Feldman's (and Julia Roy's) participate in an Izea campaign in 2008. As I noted, both Feldman and Roy fully disclosed that they were compensated for their posts. I subsequently noted that Stowe Boyd still objected to the practice, but I replied as follows:

In my view, there's no difference between a blogger talking about K Mart and Lucy & Desi talking about cigarettes.

Subsequently, I provided an example of how "pay per post" practices are tolerated, and even encouraged, in other media such as talk radio. I concluded my example by citing a particular company several years before it had Arrington or Huffington as employees.

Listen, buster, let me do my commercial, and why don't you just relax? Go watch a movie or something. I hear "You've Got Mail" is playing.

So whatever happened to Izea, the company that was controversial a few years back? They're still around - here's their CrunchBase profile - but CNET has not bothered to run an article on Izea in over two years. In fact, the big news about Izea lately is that it is now a publicly traded company.

So Izea is now associated with Wall Street. Talk about ethics...

Why did Google (temporarily) let me block microsoft.com from search results?

In the course of researching my posts on Michael Silver, I noticed something interesting in Google.

In my search, I only noticed the "Block all microsoft.com results." I didn't see any similar capability to block results from, say, YouTube. Or Laplink, or ZDNet, or Gartner, or anyone else.

My first suspicion was that a Wikipedia editor was controlling Google, and since my search was on Windows 7, the editor was allowing me to skip Windows 7 items that were obviously written with a biased viewpoint. (I have more thoughts on this.)

My second suspicion was that this was part of the Google-Microsoft (Bing) search war.

Neither suspicion panned out. A few minutes later, I tried the same search again, and was not asked if I wanted to block results from microsoft.com.

So what did I see? I don't know. Do you?

Before migration fatigue, migration necessity

After writing my post Michael Silver, Gartner, Windows 8, and time travel, I began wondering what Silver talked about BEFORE he talked about migration fatigue. You'll recall that Michael Silver is the Gartner analyst who has been talking about "migration fatigue" since October 2010, stating that corporate America will not upgrade to Windows 8 because corporate America just upgraded to Windows 7.

So I found this April 2008 ComputerWorld article - again written by Gregg Keizer - which included Silver's then-current views.

Calling the situation "untenable" and describing Windows as "collapsing," a pair of Gartner analysts yesterday said Microsoft Corp. must make radical changes to its operating system or risk becoming a has-been.

In a presentation at a Gartner-sponsored conference in Las Vegas, analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald said Microsoft has not responded to the market, is overburdened by nearly two decades of legacy code and decisions, and faces serious competition on a whole host of fronts that will make Windows moot unless the software developer acts.

"For Microsoft, its ecosystem and its customers, the situation is untenable," said Silver and MacDonald in their prepared presentation, titled "Windows Is Collapsing: How What Comes Next Will Improve."

Now to put this in context, Silver and MacDonald were speaking over a year before Windows 7 was released, so their comments applied to Windows Vista.

In April 2008, Silver's tune wasn't "migration fatigue." It was "migration necessity."

Apparently after Windows 7 came out, the necessity for migration diminished...

Michael Silver, Gartner, Windows 8, and time travel

John Brandon has a blog, but he's more famous for his writing in other places. On Friday, his blog referenced an article that he wrote for foxnews.com. And the article included an exclusive:

Michael Silver, a vice president at research firm Gartner who studies personal computers, exclusively told FoxNews.com that many companies have what he calls “migration fatigue” and will skip Windows 8 entirely.
"We ... expect most companies to skip it," Silver told FoxNews.com. "To the extent that the market expects companies to adopt Windows 8 in large numbers, it may be disappointed."

But Ed Bott noticed a teeny tiny issue with that "exclusive" claim:

Exclusively? Really, Fox News? Perhaps your reporters and editors need to take a class in how to use a search engine.

Let’s dial the Wayback Machine for 90 days ago, shall we?

It turns out that back on June 8, Computerworld's Gregg Keizer reported something that sounds eerily identical to the "exclusive" that FoxNews.com reported.

"Yeah, there's a gamble here," said Michael Silver of Gartner. "This will be more likely to be taken up by consumers than businesses."...

Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. "Organizations will have a hard time with Windows 8, but then they're tired from their Windows 7 deployments," Silver said.

Silver argued that enterprises will skip Windows 8, just as most did with Windows Vista, and instead stick to Windows 7, a tactic that Microsoft itself endorsed when it recommended that businesses now deploying Windows 7 stick with their plans.

However, it turns out that this is not the first time that Silver's "skip Windows 8" views have ben expressed. Keizer himself quoted Silver back on October 25, 2010, saying pretty much the same thing.

Enterprises now in the midst of migrating to Windows 7 are unlikely to repeat that same work in just two years with Windows 8, an analyst said today.

"They would certainly like to upgrade only to every other edition," said Michael Silver of Gartner, referring to businesses. "If Windows 8 comes out in two years, I think that's likely to happen, that many [enterprises] will be very suspect about migrating to the next release."

So while Ed Bott has an issue with John Brandon, it may be that Michael Silver just spouts off the same "exclusive" to anyone who passes by. "Arianna! Hey, Arianna! Wait! Let me tell you about migration fatigue! Don't go away!"

Incidentally, even if Silver made his statement as late as September 2011, Onuora Amobi has a problem with it:

I don’t care what kind of research firm Gartner is but it’s the height of irresponsibility to speculate about an Operating System you haven’t seen. Period.

An Operating System you haven’t touched and used. An OS which hasn’t had a list price announced. An OS which may have value to the enterprise that you have no idea about.

But there are others who say that the problem isn't John Brandon, or Fox News, or Michael Silver and the Gartner Group. For Patrick Richardson, the problem is Microsoft:

Microsoft still hasn’t figured out that people don’t want the user interface to change every time they turn around. One of the smartest things Apple ever did was make sure that UI standards had to be uniform across every application that runs on their computers. Every open dialog box looks like every other open dialog box on MacOS. If Microsoft would spend as much time and effort on quality control and usability as they do trying to make things look pretty people wouldn’t be constantly grousing about their products.

In my view, Microsoft IS making sure that the UI standards are uniform, at least for their own applications - it's just that it's a slow rollout. The ribbon has been around at least since Office 2007, and now it's headed toward the OS.

And as for making sure that the UI is "uniform across every application that runs on their computers" - Microsoft doesn't exercise dictatorial control over third parties who want to sell software on its computers. Can you imagine how Fox News, ComputerWorld, and Pajamas Media would howl if it did?

About the only thing that all of the analysts can agree upon is that Fox News is evil. Exclusive? Hah! You never see any controversy about MSNBC exclusives, do you?

(OK, let me be fair and balanced about that.)

Our realization of 9/11 didn't occur all at once

When you look back at things that happened ten years ago, the memories get kind of cloudy.

Many of us remember the moment that things changed for us on September 11, 2011.

However, when we look back at our reaction at the time, it becomes clear that there was not just a single moment when all of this happened. For a half hour to an hour, we were trying to figure out exactly what happened.

I've taken the opportunity to listen to old broadcasts from Bill Handel, the Today Show's Katie Couric & Matt Lauer, Howard Stern, and CNN. Handel was broadcasting from southern California, while the others that I mentioned were broadcasting from New York. Handel's radio show is a news/talk show, the Today show is a mixture of news and entertainment, CNN is (usually) news-oriented, and Howard Stern's radio show is - well, it's Howard Stern.

In all three cases, it took some time for them - and us - to realize just what was going on.

Using Stern as an example, he was going about his usual show topics - in this case, a story about kissing Pamela Anderson - when Stern interrupted the proceedings to read a brief news report about a plane crashing into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. Stern, with decades of broadcasting experience, realized that this was a serious story, but no one knew exactly how serious at the time. Some of the initial reports didn't even realize that it was a plane that had crashed into the tower. (The Today Show, which had the benefit of cameras, was interviewing an eyewitness, and had to tell the eyewitness that it was a plane.) Some of the initial reports were uncertain about whether it was a passenger plane. In the cases of Stern and Handel, they read the report and then resumed their usual show topics - not out of any sense of heartlessness, but because in those initial moments it didn't seem like an earth-shattering story.

Even the moment in which the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center - the moment which was supposedly the crystallizing moment for a lot of us - wasn't necessarily that dramatic a moment. In the case of Stern, the show had stopped talking about Pamela Anderson and was monitoring television coverage of the World Trade Center. The broadcasters were debating among themselves, because it appeared that there was some type of damage on the other tower; one thought that perhaps it was just a reflection of the damage from the initial tower. Gradually the broadcasters realized that a second plane had crashed into the other tower.

In short, the "defining moment" that changed the world actually stretched over the course of many minutes.

This is true of many events. In the aftermath of the event, we think that we learned about the event, and then reacted to it. But in most cases, it actually takes a while to "learn about the event." Initial reports are sketchy and sometimes inaccurate. (Of course, the truthers argue that the subsequent reports are also inaccurate.) This initial uncertainty is especially true when something out of the ordinary occurs; some people don't realize what they are seeing, and even those who realize what they are seeing don't believe that they saw it. Let's face it, planes don't usually crash into tall buildings, and people don't normally take other people's clothes off during a Super Bowl halftime performance.

Our usual reaction is to take the time to figure out what happened, publish the official account afterwards, and forget about the initial reports. After all, the initial reports are untidy, not well organized, and drag on for too long before getting to the point. In addition, the initial reports can be misconstrued - "Howard Stern Talks About Pamela Anderson While Thousands Die" or something like that. As a result, the initial reports are often not preserved, or are hard to find.

I argue that we need to preserve the original sources also. Part of this is my Reed College bias to go to the original sources, but part of it is our need to better understand what really happened. When you listen to those broadcasts, and you hear the broadcasters slowly realizing what just happened to them, then you truly realize the change that happened to us on that day.

Job hunt oddities

There's been a lot of job talk lately. It seems that everyone except Michael Arrington agrees that Michael Arrington lost his job as editor of TechCrunch. But everyone agrees that Carol Bartz lost her job at Yahoo (although Bartz pointedly says that she's still on the board of directors). So who will the next CEO of Yahoo be? One candidate has tweeted his interest:

Im takn over as tha CEO of Yahoo. Need sum of tha Snoop Dogg content ya digg. Nuff Said.

But a word of caution should be exercised when considering the entire job market. This man thought that he had lined up a cushy job, but all he got was government housing:

When Raymond Charles White answered a phone call just before noon ... telling him to report for a fiberglass fabricating job he’d supposedly applied for a year earlier, he reportedly told the men he met, “Better late than never.”

What White didn’t realize until he came to the vacant building on Lakeside Drive in Mobile is that the “employers” were Prichard police detectives there to arrest him in connection with a woman’s slaying over a year ago.

H/T to the newsletter from the @crimelabproject.

When the left hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing

There's something that I've mentioned in the past, but I really need to delve into it.

I previously wrote a post that discussed, among other things, the bureaucratic competition between organizations:

My belief is that there are bureaucratic barriers to this type of cooperation between two companies. While some might like to imagine that the FBI is secretly plotting with the CIA to send our information to a secret site in Brussels, the truth of the matter is that the FBI isn't necessarily willing to give something to the CIA and let them get all the credit; they'd rather keep it for themselves. (If you want to see this inter-agency competition in action, ask a soldier what he thinks about marines, and vice versa.)

So yes, I heartily believe that there are barriers to communication and cooperation between various organizations.

But what about communication and cooperation within the SAME organization?

I recently re-read something that reminded me of just how much I sometimes don't know about my own organization. There's a particular message board (I'm not going to identify it) that has been around for years, and at one point some of my (then) co-workers were posting on this message board. Since I'm still in touch with some of these people, I'm not going to identify the people who wrote this.

It all began when one person (I'll call the person George) wrote a vague comment about something wonderful happening at work that day.

At this point, some of the other people on the message board tried to guess what George was talking about. Abraham asked whether George had received a raise. Theodore asked whether George had received a promotion.

But then Franklin weighed in, stating that he knew what George was happy about.

I know what it is, someone left!

And that's the point that I learned something about my own organization, because as it turned out, that day happened to be someone's (I'll call him Lyndon) last day at the company. And I knew that George and Lyndon worked in the same department.

What I didn't know was that George apparently did not have a high regard for Lyndon.

This was all a surprise to me, because at the time I had worked a little bit with George, and I had worked a lot with Lyndon, and I had no idea that anything was amiss.

And I'd be willing to bet that my own ability to detect these rumblings within my own organization has not appreciably improved since that time.

There's a lesson to be learned from this. When we think of organizations other than our own, we often think of them as monolithic entities. If you're working at Google, you might be wondering "what Apple will do." If you're working at Oracle, you might be wondering "what SAP will do."

But the reality is that these entities are made up of a bunch of different divisions and departments and groups that don't necessarily work together 100% of the time. Which is why it's fruitless for me to ask the Google+ people (including the one that joined Google recently) to help me find out why my YouTube account is permanently disabled. The Google+ people and the YouTube people are in different parts of Google's bureaucracy, and probably don't have regular ways to communicate with each other.

And the bigger reality is that even when you dig into the organization, and into the division, and into the department, and into the individual group, there are still personal conflicts even at that level. I'm sure that you've all run into situations in which you realize that it's dangerous to put two particular people from the same group together on any given project.

Any organization, of any size, consists of a number of different people. And it takes great effort to get all of them to move in the same direction.

Why processes cost money

You've probably run into this before. You work in a large organization and you have to buy something - a stapler, a hotel reservation, whatever. You find a low cost item, but then find out that the organization's processes, in an attempt to save money, dictate that you buy a higher cost item.

Sometimes there's a true rationale behind this. Perhaps you are required to use a particular hotel chain, and that hotel chain offers free wi-fi, which provides a net savings to the organization.

Sometimes there's something behind the scenes. I'm not sure if I've shared this story in this blog, but I once knew of an organization who purchased from a particular computer hardware company because it would provide free loaner equipment for trade shows. Eventually the company stopped providing free loaner equipment (for reasons that I won't get into here), and you can guess what happened next.

And sometimes there's no rationale whatsoever. Some decision was made at the top levels to do something that some study said would reduce costs. However, at the end of the day, the process didn't take all of the variables into account, and the new process actually resulted in increases in costs.

(Well, at least until the people measuring the process changed the variables being measured in order to show that there was a cost savings. Call me cynical.)

Now many people reading this post are nodding in agreement and saying, "Yes, that's what's wrong with the government/Fortune 500 whatever. All of these big organizations have too many people running around, unlike my favorite lean/mean organization."

If you're saying this, I hate to burst your bubble, but processes get in the way at small companies also.

Recently I went out to lunch. I normally bring my lunch to work, but didn't on this particular day. I won't name the place where I went for lunch, because I really like the place and don't want to embarrass them. But I went there and ordered a meal to go - hamburger, fries, and drink. They prepared my order and put it in a bag, and I left.

When I opened the bag, I discovered my hamburger, my fries, almost a dozen ketchup packages, and no napkins.

Unfortunately, I had no interest in ketchup, but I did have an interest in napkins.

My restaurant isn't the only place that does this. If you don't happen to eat at such fine establishments, I should advise you that a lot of these places just throw a bunch of ketchup packages into your bag, whether you ask for them or not.

Why? Because they are called "fast food" restaurants, which means that they have to get your order to you as quickly as possible. In their view, it's better to waste the money on giving ketchup packages to people who don't want them, than it is to waste the seconds asking people if they want ketchup or not. After all, they could be serving other customers while they're wasting time asking about ketchup. In their view, their "give everyone ketchup" process results in enhanced company revenues.

Presumably similar calculations are being made at larger companies, and when all factors are considered, there is a net benefit.

Or maybe not. Perhaps some companies end up setting up processes because some executive read a book, or because they heard about some company that saved $10 million seven years ago.

Or maybe customers are demanding ISO certification, because one of the customer's executives read a book, or because the customer's consultants heard about some company that saved $10 million seven years ago.

At the end of the day, however, all I have are a bunch of packages of ketchup. Actually, I trashed them - I would have saved them, but I've already saved a few dozen ketchup packages from other lunch trips.

If there's a bad tomato harvest, I'll be able to retire a millionaire.

What will happen to Lokomotiv Yaroslavl now?

I have many pet peeves, but one of them is when I hear something like this:

We have just heard of a tragedy in which over 100 people died, including 3 Americans. We remember those 3 Americans...

Something like that is going on right now here, in which United States news outlets are reporting that "former NHL players" have died in a plane crash in Russia, along with other people.

Basically what happened is that a team plane for the Russian hockey team Lokomotiv Yaroslavl has crashed. As I write this, reports are that 43 of the 45 people on board died.

So while people are wondering about this or that former NHL star, I began wondering - what will happen to the league in which Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plays?

Not just the team - the league. I know nothing of Russian hockey, so I turned to Wikipedia for more information. (Needless to say, the Wikipedia page will probably undergo constant updates over the next few days.) According to the Wikipedia writers, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl was founded in 1949 and currently plays in the Kontinental Hockey League. They have won three championships recently (1997, 2002, and 2003), and this team, along with the 23 other teams in the Kontinental Hockey League, were all getting ready to start the 2011-2012 season.

The league has postponed the beginning of the season, including halting a game that was already in progress, but as I write this I don't know what's going to happen next. At this point, one of its teams is unable to field a roster of players. Presumably they could quickly sign some people to contracts, but the quality wouldn't be good. This could harm the league as a whole, since no one would go to see away games from a hopeless team.

Will the league hold a supplemental draft to allow Lokomotiv Yaroslavl to draft players from other teams? This may be the best solution for league viability - and, of course, the viability of the team itself.

More on dialogue

Here's something a little more focused on business dialogue, written by Punch! Media.

There are many businesses who are using Social Media effectively. Two of my favourite examples of big businesses who “get it” are IBM and Home Depot US.

They ask questions, they actively search blogs and Twitter using keywords, and they provide value first. They understand that LISTENING is the first step.

They listen to what their customers want, or what they are disgruntled about so they can effectively solve their problems. Isn’t that what businesses should be doing? Solving problems?

More here.

And even those who concentrate more on the monologue than the dialogue realize that you have to at least pretend to listen.

Keep your followers in the loop as your pool of followers grow. You don’t have to engage with your followers all the time, but every so often. This will remind your followers that you are aware of their voice and you value it.

Now this particular writer didn't think interaction was all that important - it was only 7th in the list of 8 items, and the method of engagement apparently isn't all that important. I guess you could just say "Comcast cares" and call that engagement.

Thoughts?

What is "dialogue"?

Rome’s nationally syndicated radio program, The Jim Rome Show, a.k.a. The Jungle, airs on more than 200 radio stations each weekday and boasts more than two million listeners. But these are no ordinary listeners; they are a legion of fans known as the clones who live and breathe for Jim Rome’s “take” on the day’s larger issues of sport. It is his departure from conventional sports commentary that has resulted in Rome’s unique dialogue with his listeners.

About - The Jim Rome Show

Dialogue?

I normally do not hear Rome's show, since it airs while I am at work, but on those occasions when I do hear it, I would not describe the clones' actions as "dialogue." Here's what happens:

• Rome announces that he's received a phone call.
• The clone gives an exaggerated speech - the more exaggerated the better - and hangs up.
• Rome starts talking again.

Two monologues do not a dialogue make.

This is not just an issue in sports talk radio, or in talk radio in general. When you start thinking about so-called social media, sometimes you have to look to find examples that are truly social.

Now Loren Feldman would probably be the last person to tell you that "this is how you are supposed to use Google Plus," but Feldman shows you...well, he shows you how to use Google Plus. Check how Feldman begins this public thread:

Seriously, at what point do people realize Scoble is off a bit? This is a grown man talking about a suggested users list on a website. It's crossed stupid with me when it comes to these guys. It's just weird, all of them. Scoble, Arrington, Gillmor. Just a bunch of really weird guys concerned with this imaginary online world they all live in. No one cares about this stuff, and it certainly doesn't matter. Just bored strange guys.

Now you could picture Feldman saying something like this in one of his videos. I don't know if he has specifically done a video on Google+'s suggested users list, but he's certainly spent some time talking about the unreality of social media. Of course, in a video you can't talk back. On Google+, you can - unless the poster turns off comments. Feldman didn't. He received comments, including this one from Esteban Contreras.

Are you sure you're not on that imaginary list Loren? You never know. You never know.

Now what I'm about to say shouldn't be all that awe-inspiring; it should be expected. But for some reason, it doesn't happen. After Contreras posted this, Feldman replied.

Im not on any list. Certainly not those guys. They are all imbeciles. I've met them, I know.

And then Contreras responded, and then Feldman responded to him. Now THAT'S a dialogue.

Now I realize that this is a case in which the two people engaging in the dialogue are in agreement. But trust me, if you disagree with Feldman's thesis, he will respond.

While some disagree with me, I believe that on his television show, Bill O'Reilly engages in dialogue with those who disagree with him. I don't have a transcript of his conversation with Megyn Kelly, but Mediaite covered the substance of their discussion about the legal rights of Westboro Baptist Church.

Kelly took the unpopular side that legally, Westboro may have not done anything illegal. When O’Reilly disagreed and started pointing to the “pinhead” judges that overturned the initial ruling in favor of Mr. Snyder, Kelly practically spit back, “They don’t do the heart-strings thing at the appeal court level.”



AnonymousFinch (in a dialogue with shootfromthehip) offered his/her thoughts on O'Reilly:

I have never once seen Olbermann have a guest on who did not agree with him. I don't watch him every night, so maybe I've missed it, but never once. This is exactly the reason why Fox beats everybody and O'Reilly has been on top for so long. He always has credible, articulate people who disagree with him, and he always gives them the last word.

Note, however, that if you want to go toe-to-toe with Bill O'Reilly - or with Loren Feldman - you need to have your act together, and you need to be prepared to go decibel-to-decibel. I would not fare well in a debate with Bill O'Reilly. Megyn Kelly does. That's why she's on the show and I'm not. Yes, Kelly is "TV friendly," but O'Reilly's not going to risk his ratings by engaging in a debate with Heidi Pratt.

And, for the record, shootfromthehip subsequently said:

Finch: did I say Olbermann? NO.

I said MSNBC.

And you will find these kinds of informed yet entertaining debates between cons and dems ALL DAY LONG on MSNBC, especially on shows such as Hardball.

Take Elizabeth Edwards vs. Ann Coulter, for example.

And you'll also find dialogue on Comedy Central. Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly have been known to have dialogue with each other.

Now there are drawbacks to the "here's a liberal, here's a conservative, let's pretend that these are the only two views in the world and let them thrash it out" style of commentary. The world is too complex to pretend that there are only two points of view. But the two-person boxing matches that have garnered ratings since "Crossfire" premiered are far preferable to the one-person "I'm right and we won't listen to anyone else" style of commentary that often happens on cable news...and on various forms of talk radio...and on your business blogs.

Now I'm not saying that Apple's official blog should have to insert praise for the wonderful world of Google. But if you're claiming to be an independent publication, then you do a disservice to your readers if you neglect or stifle competing points of view.

Now this is the part where I contradict everything that I just said and turn off comments for this post....nah.

Five additional unexpected places you can be tracked with facial recognition technology

The normal disclosure applies - I'm employed in the biometrics industry.

Alternet recently ran a post entitled 5 Unexpected Places You Can Be Tracked With Facial Recognition Technology. For example, place number 2 is the DMV. As Alternet notes:

Slightly fewer than half of the DMVs in the US have the capacity to run your picture through biometric databases. Ostensibly, these searches are intended to catch people trying to collect multiple IDs from different states. Fair enough. But as EFF's Lee Tien told AlterNet, the DMV can also log into and run a person's face against any government database, including ones that hold criminal records.

Alternet makes the point that even if a government agency or private enterprise states that they do not intend to do such a thing, a bad apple employed by the agency/company is technically capable of doing such a thing, and it's possible that an entire organization may do something that they publicly say that they won't do.

My belief is that there are bureaucratic barriers to this type of cooperation between two companies. While some might like to imagine that the FBI is secretly plotting with the CIA to send our information to a secret site in Brussels, the truth of the matter is that the FBI isn't necessarily willing to give something to the CIA and let them get all the credit; they'd rather keep it for themselves. (If you want to see this inter-agency competition in action, ask a soldier what he thinks about marines, and vice versa.)

But a bigger issue is revealed when you realize what facial recognition is. At the end of the day, facial recognition is a computerized method of doing what human beings do all the time - recognize faces. Granted that the power of the computer offers some significant horsepower to the activity, but facial recognition is not some brand new science. When I go home tonight and a woman greets me at the door, I use (drumroll) facial recognition to identify the woman as my wife.

When you consider this, Alternet should REALLY get worried.

So, as a public service to the general public, I am going to offer five additional places, in addition to the five identified by Alternet, in which you can be tracked via facial recognition.

1. Your yearbook. It seemed so innocent at the time. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and into the 1980s, I attended educational institutions that took my picture every year. Throughout my elementary, junior high, high school, and college years, pictures of me were disseminated to thousands of people. What did they do with them? Did that kid who didn't like me in second grade save my picture and sell it to terrorists?

2. Your driver's license. Yes, I know that the DMV appeared in Alternet's list. But even if the state agency doesn't buy a facial recognition system, there are others who might use your driver's license. Perhaps you're applying for a job or for health insurance or something, and the representative asks for a photocopy of your driver's license. Remember that this photocopy also includes your picture - and if a color photocopier is used, the picture may be of pretty good quality. What happens to that photocopy after it is made? Who has access to it?

3. Your passport. See number 2.

4. That caricature artist on the street. I know that they have them at Disneyland, and I'm sure that they have them at other places also. It seems like an innocent idea at the time - someone offers to draw a caricature of you, and you pay some money and get a caricature of yourself. Now normally the features on your face are exaggerated in different ways, but what if you run into a caricature artist who creates an accurate picture of you? Before you state that sketches can't be used in facial recognition systems, look at Michigan State University's newest area of research.

5. People who perform facial recognition without seeing your face. As Alternet notes, Japan is concentrating on some technologies that don't provide the identity of a person, but provide information about the group in which a person finds him/herself. Two examples:

a) Vending machines: Japanese vending machines suggest soft drinks based on stereotypes based on your gender and age (and the weather).

b) Billboards: Japanese billboards contain technology that figures out a person's sex and age to within 10 years, and presents them with the appropriate advertising.

Well, as advertisers, Klan leaders, and others know, you don't always need a face - or any biometric - to roughly identify the group in which a person belongs. Here are a few examples:

If your name is Mohammed, you might not be the best target audience for a liquor advertisement.

If you are a man who wears size 14 shoes, you are probably not interested in horse jockey clothing.

If you read the Empoprise-BI blog, you are obviously a person of above-average intelligence who is interested in products of the finest quality.

At the end of the day, if you are considering things that are possible, then there are a lot of things that are possible that even EFF and the Alternet haven't truly considered. But I do agree with the conclusion of the Alternet post:

While there's nothing inherently wrong with advances in biometrics, there are also no inherent limits for its use and abuse, as EFF's Tien points out. So it's important to always ask who's controlling the cameras and the databases, and for what purpose.

Just remember that you don't need a camera or a database to conduct abuse. Now where's my yearbook?

Revisiting deadlines

Follow-up to my Tuesday post.

I was clearing out old emails at work, and I found this gem. I had just submitted a proposal to a customer that was due on the 15th of the month. On the 16th, one of our company's executives got an email that started as follows:

You may have seen the recent RFP issued by [CUSTOMER]...

The email then went on to state the vendor's ability to subcontract to us.

I replied:

Inasmuch as [CUSTOMER] has an aggressive schedule, I don't think that we'd want to use a supplier who doesn't make his offer until the day AFTER the proposals were due.

Are you buying the founder, or are you not? (AOL vs. Arrington)

I've been involved in a few company acquisitions, and I've seen a bunch of other company acquisitions. Whenever you have a company acquisition, you have to decide what to do with the head of the acquired company. Sometimes (Motorola's acquisition of Printrak), the head of the acquired company is out of the picture the moment the deal is closed. At other times (Facebook's acquisition of FriendFeed), the head of the acquired company is more important than the company itself.

And there are still other times when you acquire both the company and the company head, with the belief that the company head is integral to the success of the acquired company.

Loren Feldman shared a link to a New York Times item that concerns an acquired company, TechCrunch, and its head, Michael Arrington.

On Thursday, Mr. Arrington, the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, and AOL, which owns TechCrunch, announced that Mr. Arrington would start a venture capital fund to invest in start-ups like the ones that TechCrunch covers, but that he would remain involved with the blog....

Mr. Arrington said on Thursday that his new title would be founding editor and writer. “I am TechCrunch and TechCrunch is me,” he said. “There’s no way around it.”

Enter Arianna Huffington, another AOL acquisition, and Arrington's boss - make that former boss.

[B]y Thursday night, Ms. Huffington told David Carr at The New York Times that Mr. Arrington was no longer on AOL’s editorial payroll and would have no editorial role. And Friday morning, AOL’s press machine changed its tune.

“Michael’s role has changed,” said Maureen Sullivan, an AOL spokeswoman. “He now works within AOL Ventures. He’s becoming a professional investor. He is no longer involved in editorial.”

Arrington didn't exactly echo Sullivan's words.

Mr. Arrington said that he was confused by the back-and-forth.

“I have no idea what AOL’s final position on this will be,” he said. “I look forward to hearing it. I’ll respond once Arianna has made her last statement.”

Adding to the confusion was the fact that the Wall Street Journal reported that Arrington had resigned from TechCrunch, based upon a statement from AOL spokesman Mario Ruiz...but with no corresponding statement from Arrington.

Now some will argue that when Arrington's company, or anyone's company, is acquired by a larger firm, then the acquired head becomes a mere employee of the larger firm, free to be reassigned to whatever. Perhaps next week Arianna Huffington may similarly be reassigned, and the Huffington Post will have no Huffington content.

Unfortunately for AOL, there's a kernel of truth to Arrington's Louis XIV-like "I am TechCrunch and TechCrunch is me" statement. Yes, it is certainly possible for TechCrunch to continue without Arrington. The Inquisitr has continued with Duncan Riley, the Howard Jarvis lobby has continued with Howard Jarvis, and the Beatles still sell millions of albums despite the fact that half of them are pining for the fjords.

But AOL and Arrington should have anticipated that something like this could happen, and should have prepared for it. If Arrington wanted guaranteed employment at TechCrunch, he should have negotiated that as part of the sale. If AOL wanted to oust Arrington at some point, it should have considered the ramifications of such a move.

Transitioning from hardware to software

In the same way that there are dog and cat people, there are hardware and software people. I'm clearly a dog person, and I'm clearly a software person.

Yet it's possible to transition from one category to the other, at least on the hardware/software end. (Not sure if a cat person can suddenly love dogs, or vice versa.)

Take Chumby. It originally gained fame because of its hardware device - the device used its own software, but the main focus point was that they sold an integrated hardware/software device.

But then the Chumby software began showing up in other places. My family owns a Sony Dash, for example. But I didn't realize just how far the Chumby software had migrated:

[N]ow the company is calling itself a content platform that serves flash-based apps across “hundreds of thousands” of Chumby-powered devices, including the Best Buy Connected Insignia TV.

“We’ve found ourselves in an interesting situation of going from a three-inch screen to a 50 inch screen,” says CEO Derrick Oien. Chumby alarm clocks have 3.5″ LCD touchscreens, 350 MHz ARM processors, 64 MB of memory and 64 MB of flash ROM. Now the company’s software enables large-screen TV’s to access apps such as Twitter, Facebook, Photobucket, Accuweather and Reuters News.

If Chumby can pull this off, it will be a profitable direction for the company. Hardware can have notoriously poor margins, but if you can just supply the software piece, then you can make out like a bandit.

And, despite Steve Jobs' lobbying, it's interesting to note that Chumby is pursuing Flash applications. And the landscape hasn't appreciably changed since I wrote about Flash in June 2010.

New Apple employment application questions

Do you drink alcohol?
Do you tend to lose important things?

Yep, deja vu all over again.

In a bizarre repeat of a high-profile incident last year, an Apple employee once again appears to have lost an unreleased iPhone in a bar, CNET has learned.

The errant iPhone, which went missing in San Francisco's Mission district in late July, sparked a scramble by Apple security to recover the device over the next few days, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

For the record, I knew a Motorola employee who worked on phones in the pre-Google days. This employee had been known to enjoy alcohol on occasion. But this employee never lost a Motorola phone prototype.

Maybe Apple should have hired HER. There are apparently some issues with their current employees (or at least two of them).