Ross Mayfield's Weblog

Thunderbirds and Memories

Air Force Thunderbirds

Had a wonderful time taking the kids to the Moffett/NASA Airshow this weekend. Was a shame I had to miss Marc's BBQ.

The noise of being front row for a screaming Thunderbird may have tramatized the two year old. Now he says "watch out" everytime there is a plane overhead, but something to temper his fascination with large machinery is probably good.

My dad pointed out that the least terrifying of the stunt planes was a P-51 Mustang, which his dad flew in WWII. That is, until he was shot down over Germany. A good thing as it earned him a ticket to California to sit in a tank pointed at the sea. So there we were, three generations, remembering the fourth from the greatest generation, a memorial day moment.

Socialtext in BusinessWeek

BusinessWeek highlights wikis and Socialtext as something that could transform Corporate America.

Sudan Neglected

Back in January, I thought there was good news to celebrate for Sudan. Over 700,000 refugees have been displaced and 350,000 deaths are expected from the genocide. We just passed through the 10th anniversary of the Rawanda genocide, but never say never again.

Now there is an ebola outbreak, which I learned from a homepage link to Wikipedia's Sudan coverage.

Passion of the Present has become my source of blog coverage the Sudan Genocide. Its what blogs as journalism are best at: consistent coverage of a topic undercovered by the mass media.

At a time where we are questioning our actions abroad its important to note the side effects of overextension of empire go beyond our shores. Neglect is the worst form of abuse.

There's a Mountain Lion in My Park

Following on the heels of a Mountain Lion in My Neighborhood in downtown Palo Alto, I have a little news to break. My sister and her boyfriend were hiking in Foothills Park they rounded a corner to encounter a Mountain Lion. This is just five miles from the previous ruckus, quite close to Sand Hill Road. They are having vigils for the previous slaying, but for some reason their interviews with authorities isn't in the news.

Our Reality

I was interviewed by Bambi Francisco on Reality TV for her Net Sense collumn, which leaves me a little explaining to do. In Bambi's other life she is hosting a Reality show on personal finance, which is admirable because the topic really should be taught in high school. Its a far cry from the Extreme Makeover meets Miss USA atrocity I was subjected to last night. Allow me to subject you to a little network theory on Reality without getting into the metaphysical...

The Web-based reality shows

On another note, here's something else to think about: There is already some form of reality-styled programming on the Web.

"Blogging is the biggest reality show on the Web," said Ross Mayfield, a prolific blogger, and founder of Socialtext, an open-source software company. There are 2.3 million Weblogs watched, according to Technorati. This has grown exponentially, said Mayfield.

Mayfield pointed out that mobile blogging is just a foretaste of a virtual-blog reality-like TV show. Because of the popularity of camera phones, and the ability to publish a photo on an Internet page directly from your phone, a person can practically create his or her own reality show frame by frame. Check out: Joi Ito's mobile blog.

Pretty soon, we'll have video blogs as well. "If video phones gain greater popularity, you may have the possibility of video blogging," said Mayfield. "The cost of generating content and distribution has fallen so much that anyone can create a movie, or a journal about their lives."

This quote points to how the cost of production has fallen, but not how production value is created.

Low Cost High Ratings

Reality TV is the ultimate combination of Low Cost and High Ratings for the broadcast industry. Sarnoffs law makes the the value of a broadcast network equal to the number of subscribers. The problem with this structure is the single point of failure, the one in the one to many. Often its a victim of its own success. When talent becomes fameous because of a broadcast, demand for rebroadcast grows and with each iteraction the price of talent inflates. Reality TV avoids this cycle both by hiring expedible amateurs.

There is still production value (and cost) for Reality TV. A family friend was contestant on Average Joe. One thing she pointed out was, in reality, the girls got along great, which was upsetting to the producers and they framed the story as one of contention and cat fights.

Reality is very boring except for extreme moments. Watch a Big Brother webcam (supposedly the archtypal blend of TV and the Internet for this genre, recently eclipsed by American Idol's augmentation, including SMS) and you will spend most of your time waiting for someting to happen. Its similar to how our memories are more interesting than what occured, we recall moments of emotion. Production uses episodic framing and timeshifting to edit chunks of reality into narrative, similar to how broadcast news media adds value through the editorial process. Doc views the editorial process as one of reductive choices:

So much of the mainstream news world is stuck in OR mentality, or what Deborah Tannen called The Argument Culture. Clash of ideas. Extremes yelling at each other. Binary choices, or worse, reductive choices (which is what American Idol, Survivor and the rest of Reality TV seems to be about).

The contest model of Reality TV which American Idol idealizes selectively involves the audience in determining what is of value at carefully screened points in the production process. Before a vote is cast, the talent has gone pro.

Low Cost High Value

Similar to Reality broadcast, networked Reality benefits from a low cost structure. Talent is a cheap as it comes. Blogs and media production tools like iLife come at the cheap. Part of the mass ametuerization of everything, intially publishing, is that low production and distribution costs increase the number of producers, which changes everything.

For the networked industry, a different model is required for attention as high ratings only hold as a proxy for value when there is little choice. The value of the network can be measured by Metcalfe's law where the value is the number of nodes or Reed's Law where its the value of groups. Unlike broadcast, amateur producers are motivated by more than ratings/ad dollars. They can monetize, if they so seek, in a multitude of ways. But not at scale, yet, nor do they need to in most cases. Incentives lie for production for niche and transitive audiences instead of mass audiences. Networked Reality's incentives for production are in what is high value for both producer and user.

The problem is this low cost means high volume and the need for filters to sift through what is largely crap by traditional standards. This is where models of emergent social filtering are showing promise.

First of all, attention management is driven by Pull models instead of Push. Which means that if something is produced and distributed and nobody knows its available it doesn't consume anyones attention. This is not to say it doesn't exist, in fact, its adding value by not taxing others. The most valuable feature of a news aggregator is the ability to unsubscribe.

Second, attention drives attention. Like the pheremone trails of ants, remixing, cross-posting and linking pass memes along. Something that doesn't work with the broadcast IP regimes and network structures. You don't have to subscribe to everything to assure you will receive the best content, just sources that are akin to your editorial taste, to let them do the filtering for you. Half the production value in this model is as simple as pointing to something with good judgement.

Third, attention is shared. This isn't a broadcast and consume model, its conversational. See Cluetrain, et. al.

Fourth, media organizations can play a role in this model. The role is as a cultivator and indexer. MoveOn's Bush in 30 seconds allowed amateurs to contribute and let an emergent voting process determine the top candidates (the organization had final say on what would bleed into the broadcast world, but then again, the broadcast world had the final final say). Note this differs from the American Idol variety because instead of being reductive, its additive and combinatorial, as in when something merits attention according to attention its added to an index.

I want my Networked TV. However, current manifestations of video blogs suck. The problem is how to aggregate, link deep into the time stream, contribute proxies for attention, and most importantly -- reaggregate into a viewing experience shaped by ants crawling all over your remote control.

Our Reality is differrent from Their Reality because we own it, produce it and distribute it. A value more social than ratings.

Disrupting IT and Wikis

Great article by Jim Louderback in eWeek on how social software, social networking and wifi are disruptive technologies for IT like PCs were. Makes specific Wiki IT recommendations.

Plaxo Business Model

Plaxo is out trying to explain they have a business model and are addressing privacy concerns. A premium service at $20/month that includes support and, well, what else they are not saying or don't know yet. Techdirt:

They're basically saying their new business model is that they'll annoy me less if I pay? No thanks...

Blogging & Social Networking: Who Cares?

I'm speaking at the Churchill Club on blogging and social networking, June 3rdJune 17th in Palo Alto. Should be lively event, moderated by Dan Gillmor and Tony Perkins. Other panelists include Jason Calacanis, Charlene Li, Mark Pincus and Ben Smith.

These things usually sell out, go get a ticket.

Backchannel Journalism

Journalists have their sources, but usually have to find new sources for new stories that don't reveal themselves while on the investigative trail. One tool they use is Profnet, an expert system for journalists. I have been on the expert side of Profnet connections, have an understanding of how it works and met Profnet's founder at the Innovation Journalism conference. Now someone is trying to change the rules of the game for their own agenda. Dan Gillmor comments:

Now a columnist for a Pittsburgh newspaper (owned by one of the right wing's major financiers) has begun posting reporters' queries, with the apparent aim of showing left-wing bias in the first example. He doesn't begin to make his case, but that's not the issue I'm considering here.

What's interesting is the question of journalistic transparency. We're a black box, but its workings just got revealed, in a small way.

Journalists will go nuts over this, but I think we'd better get used it. Turning the tables on our interviewing is not a new phenomenon, though it's disconcerting for a reporter to discover that the topic of his or her unwritten story is now public information.

The Profnet query by Fox News' Elisa Cho was I'm looking for academic "experts" who can speak about the "liberal bias" at college campuses and/or the dominance of liberal professors at colleges. I prefer someone who has written a book about this topic. Dave Copeland comments:

I'm not sure why Elisa saw the need to put "experts" and "liberal bias" in quotes. To me, it suggests she has doubt not only in the experts she's looking for, but the premise of the story. And, as noted by someone else who has seen this query, it's rather telling that when she says that she wants someone who has written a book on the topic, it means she's looking for someone with a conservative bent. Who would bother to write a book saying universities and colleges DO NOT have a liberal bias?

It's wrong for Copeland to take this semi-private information about something someone is working on and turn it into a story in and of itself. Can't imagine its allowable under the terms of service. But worse, he is guilty of the same bias of which he accusses Cho -- while attaching a backchannel service that helps reduce bias in journalism.

When a journalist works a story they usually start with a source or event and then follow and investigative trail to find other sources. Often the first source represents a single side of the story and the trail, contacts and skills of the reporter finds the other side to assure its fair and balanced. However, under the pressure of deadlines and resource constraints, finding the other side of the story can't happen in time. Profnet is a resource for finding the other side of the story without breaking it. But yet, Copeland posts again:

But I do think it's important to understand how news is gathered, and her query illustrated that point perfectly. I can't begrudge anybody for going into a story with preconceived notions or opinions. But where journalism gets really dangerous is when reporters go source shopping for someone to enforce -- and not challenge -- those preconceived notions and opinions.

Just because Cho posted a query for one side of the story doesn't mean she hasn't already interviewed the other side. Just because she wants someone who has written a book doesn't mean she is looking for bias, its more likely she seeks qualified expertise. Revealing a snippet of the process of building a story lacks context. Without a backchannel for casting a wide net for sources, I would suggest there is a greater risk of journalism being less fair and balanced.

Blogs don't have this problem. We break the story and then comments and posts reveal the other side through conversation. Maybe that's what Copeland sought by posting this, so I'm happy to provide the other side.

UPDATE: Dan Gillmor gets a comment from Profnet founder Dan Forbush:

Our members are contractually obligated to maintain the confidentiality of reporters' queries. In this case, it appears that one of our members -- disturbed by the phrasing of a query from a reporter -- violated our conditions of membership and forwarded the query to another reporter...

Bill Gates on Blogging

From the Microsoft CEO Summit, Bill Gates gets internal blogging...

"This (weblogs and RSS) is a very interesting thing, because whenever you want to send e-mail you always have to sit there and think who do I copy on this. There might be people who might be interested in it or might feel like if it gets forwarded to them they'll wonder why I didn't put their name on it. But, then again, I don't want to interrupt them or make them think this is some deeply profound thing that I'm saying, but they might want to know. And so, you have a tough time deciding how broadly to send it out.

Then again, if you just put information on a Web site, then people don't know to come visit that Web site, and it's very painful to keep visiting somebody's Web site and it never changes. It's very typical that a lot of the Web sites you go to that are personal in nature just eventually go completely stale and you waste time looking at it.

And so, what blogging and these notifications are about is that you make it very easy to write something that you can think of, like an e-mail, but it goes up onto a Web site. And then people who care about that get a little notification. And so, for example, if you care about dozens of people whenever they write about a certain topic, you can have that notification come into your Inbox and it will be in a different folder and so only when you're interested in browsing about that topic do you go in and follow those, and it doesn't interfere with your normal Inbox.

And so if I do a trip report, say, and put that in a blog format, then all the employees at Microsoft who really want to look at that and who have keywords that connect to it or even people outside, they can find the information.

And so, getting away from the drawbacks of e-mail -- that it's too imposing -- and yet the drawbacks of the Web site -- that you don't know if there's something new and interesting there -- this is about solving that.
The ultimate idea is that you should get the information you want when you want it, and we're progressively getting better and better at that by watching your behavior, ranking things in different ways."

[via John Robb]

See Also: Reuters, BBC, CNET and Mary Jo Foley.

Joi: So, we already knew that Microsoft knows about and cares about blogs. Does the fact that Bill Gates explained blogs to a bunch of people who already knew what blogs were mean anything substantive?

Red Herring Conference Blogging

I'm blogging in the Eventspace today.

The homepage links to great session notes and video blogs. Mitch took great notes.

The most substantive CEO conversation is on the LinkedIn Blog. Unfortunately, the word didn't get out effectively to many CEOs to participate during the event, but we are pinging them if there are comments on their blogs.

Plogs

Michael Schrage has a great article in CIO on the Virtues of Chitchat, or using a blog for informal IT project communication. He calls an informal project weblog a plog, extolls their benefits for project members and management alike.

So plogs can and should be different from blogs. Different organizations have the opportunity—I would now say the obligation—to explore how best to marry this medium of expression with the insatiable need for better managing communication, coordination and collaboration with IT and its clients. Frankly, I think plogs—like project leadership—represent an investment in professional development. That is, if a developer or manager or customer support rep can produce plogs that attract interest, raise awareness and foment change—well, that's a skill that deserves recognition and reward.

I tried hard not to plug our plogs in the comments:

Project Blogging Works

This is consistent with how our 50 customers (7 F500s) blog internally. Consumer blogging tools are adapted by individuals from the bottom-up, often "unauthorized," but mostly because its not supplied from the top-down.

Eventually, the efficiencies of this mode of communication lead managers or the enterprise to support this activity and engage Socialtext. This is when it shifts from individual blogging to project blogging.

Project blogs, where all team members can contribute, become a source for what's new and the narrative thread of the project. This thread helps develop a group memory and helps with the archeology of decisions. In most cases, the informality that is half the value of what you describe isn't lost, while managers gain visibility across multiple projects.

One particular difference occurs when project blogs are contained within project spaces. When new groups can be formed in a click, some plogs can benefit from openness and some from privacy. Both are necessary. And with a hosted service, shared spaces for clients/vendors/partners can encourage even greate benefits of working openly.

Also because its a service and easy to use, blogs and wikis are not just for IT anymore.

Hope this helps and isn't too commercial, its just what we do.

Ross

And then, Jamie Thingelstad, CTO of MarketWatch.com chimes in with music to my ears:

More than just blogs, Wikis

We have been using Wiki tools in our IT organization for a little over a year now. Wiki's are very different then blogs, but have brought a lot of benefits for us. In addition, we have some blogging activity that happens in our Wiki installations that has gotten a lot of positive comments -- including a blog that I write nearly daily about activity in IT or other thoughts regarding technology.

Also, tip o' the hat to Jon Udell's writings on project blogs

Mountain Lion in My Neighborhood

Aside from all things tech, Palo Alto is a pretty boring place to live. Except when you have a Mountain Lion roaming your neighborhood.

I got wind of it when a press release from the police department saying it was on the loose was forwarded by my parents. All day helicopters and police sirens circled. Picked up my daughter from school to learn it visited the schoolground. She was very excited. Its completely bizzare that a mountain lion could make its way from the foothills to here. Today we are national news of the strange.

Then got the news that it was chased up a tree by a black Labrador named Kelsy and shot. The other week there was a similar incident in the East Bay. Thought somehow we would do it ther overtly humane Palo Alto way, but it seems to be a common solution (in no way analogous to anything).

Of course, just after this, the parent's mailing list circulated the original release that it was loose. Well-founded panic breeds uniformed panic.

100 Conversations with 100 CEOs

This week Red Herring is hosting 100 Conversations with 100 CEOs from the Red Herring 100 on 100 Socialtext Weblogs -- an unprecedented opportunity for direct conversation with leading private companies.

Socialtext is facilitating an Eventspace for Red Herring Spring.

The theme of the event is the Red Herring 100 Top Private Companies. Providing 100 Weblogs where attendees and remote participants can engage in conversations with the winners lets the event scale and extend its reach.

Upcoming Events

Some great events coming up, mostly this week:

• Red Herring Spring -- May 18-20th, Monterey, where they introduce the Red Herring 100 Top Private Companies. Facilitating an Eventspace. Much more on this later.
  
• Institute for the Future: A New Literacy of Cooperation -- May 19-20th, San Jose, where they introduce a framework for cooperation. Howard has helped shape the framework, should be fascinating. Facilitating a private Eventspace and speaking.
  
• Social Software for the 21st Century Organization -- If you can't make the above, there is a virtual 5 day course I am participating in.
  
• Inbox 2004 -- June 2-4, San Jose, the email event. Facilitating an Eventspace and speaking in a conference plenary alongside some of the best.
  
• Supernova 2004 -- June 24-25th, San Jose, one of my Faves.

Let me know if you are attending the above. Otherwise, look forward to some conference blogging.

Religious Liberty

The Alliance Defense Fund, which describes itself as a legal alliance of more than 700 attorneys defending religious liberty, announced Thursday it has filed a lawsuit against the city of San Jose and Mayor Ron Gonzales in an effort to prevent the city from recognizing same-sex marriages.

Doesn't this render the term religious liberty into an oxymoron? To me, fair and equal treatment is a basis of liberty. Its an interesting time for separation of church and state. With the administration expanding government regulating the religious sector (faith-based initatives) -- perhaps this group is warming up for the business to come.

Why I'm Switching to Gmail

While I'm boring you with my personal IT, let me tell you why I am switching to Gmail:

• I want all my personal data accessible anywhere anytime. When getting a passport renewed, I had to get proof of travel and had to get it in 15 minutes. Kinkos two blocks away. Plopped in a credit card, logged into webmail for my earthlink account to find the recent receipt was no more. Was able to call the airline and have them email another copy, get it, print it and provide it by the deadline.
  
• Privacy concerns are overblown. The gravest concerns have to do with what Google could do because so little is explicit in their policy, especially as Orkut and Blogger are integrated. Trust and goodness is part of their brand, the world is watching and will iterate upon them if they fail us (notice I'm talking about them as though they are people, not an enterprise, their initial iterations are positive, and there is little chance of change of control). I'm more concerned with services that model me and my relationships without my permission or control.
  
• Its the best webmail app there is. Simple, usable and powerful. Not the best web app, because it bastardizes the browser, but best available.
  
• The user experience fits my usage model. With the exception of a couple filtering techniques, I have always kept my Inbox as a record of what comes in, Outbox of out and Sent as sent. Then relied on search and flagging instead of classification. If I wasn't on a Mac and occasionally mobile, Bloomba would be my ideal tool.
  
• Goodbye dialup account. I have kept a Earthlink account for dial-up while traveling and spam filtering via Brightmail. Would rather pay for 800 charges while travelling. I have confidence in Google's own anti-spam solutions over time, but we will see as I use it to filter my published addresses. The main reason for keeping this account was a persistent address so old friends can find me. Now I have an identity on the web and with social networking services I don't need address persistence.
  

There is another thing, I'm using email less than I used to. I don't consider dealing with spam using it. Most of my messaging has been offloaded into more efficient modalities:

• Workspaces for critical processes and productive groups
  
• IM, IRC and AVChat for on demand coordination and in lieu of calls (beware the interruption tax). Key to managing interruptions is a moderate buddy list, use presence at risk of being Busy when you are not, quick social gestures like "on phone" that people can understand or ignoring when absolutely needed -- otherwise, when I'm online I'M on.
  
• Public blogs for the big CCs, keeping up with the network and what used to be mailing lists (with only a couple of exceptions, and the quickest way to turn down email volume is unsubscribe from lists). Aggregator always hovers around 150 subscriptions.
  
• Social networks for introductions
  

Except IM, all of these modalities use the pull model of attention management. Even social network spam, I log in to process these more passive messages by choice. When people ask how I find time to blog, the answer is simple -- less email.

UPDATE: I disabled comments on this post because its becoming ripe with comment spam

What Will Bugs Feel Like?

Two months ago I spilled water directly into my laptop. Looked dead. I let it dry for a while and the screen came back, with static fuzz that faded into clarity after a week. Problem was, I lost the best feature of a PowerBook, the ability to close it to go to sleep and open it to have it immeadiately on. Worse, I couldn't project. About the worst features to loose for someone as pompus as me -- who needs to blog when the moment strikes and project my ego upon occassion.

This week something wonderful happened. It all came back to life.

This healing was almost organic. I wish all bugs and faults were like this, gradually coming back to life on their own. With the option of taking it in for a more immeadiate and perhaps costly fix. I'm not ashamed that I didn't figure out the exact underlying cause of the malfunction and left much to ignorant metaphysical wonder. The machine was still the simplest thing that could possibly work and had better things to do.

Viruses are almost the opposite of this pattern. You hear warning its floating around, perhaps you patch in time, you contract, wait for fix in some cases and then there is a sudden cure. But this still differs from a bug that gives you sudden death, its more complex, feels different. I keep talking about how computers make you feel because it matters as much as what they for you and what you do with it.

I imagine one day all bug repair will feel like this. Organic, as autonomic agents work their way towards resolution.

Gold and Iron Triangles

Recently we have had a crisis of confidence in how both the private and public sector handles information, but divergent approaches to fixing it.

We're functioning with peacetime constraints, with legal requirements, in a wartime situation in the Information Age, where people are running around with digital cameras and taking these unbelievable photographs and then passing them off, against the law, to the media, to our surprise. - Donald Rumsfeld

The US government is the largest producer of information in the world and the most powerful organization. How it produces and disseminates information, as well as how it informs decisions, is not only its primary function as an institution. Institutions shape society greater than any other influence. The World Trade Center bombing revealed intelligence failures in the culture and rules that dictate information flow. Recent human rights abuses in military prisons in Iraq like Abu Ghraib revealed the same. Failure occurred not just in how information was supposed to flow up and command to flow down. Failure occurred from the lack of lateral flows and decentralized decision making.

Enron, Tyco, WorldCom and other abuses caused a crisis of confidence in corporate America. Lack of disclosure by listed companies and transparency in reporting was a primary fault. Regulation of markets extends beyond the SEC to the market makers themselves. Investment banks are arbiters of trust. Banking and research working together corrupted the resulting information products.

In the public sector, the response is tearing down silos of information. In the private sector, the response is the opposite, creating new walls inside the organization.

For government, there is a trade-off for de-compartmentalizing information. It grants greater authority to people who use intelligence to inform decisions. But this authority becomes easier to abuse.

There are two methods of intelligence gathering. Investigative starts with a lead and explores connection to connection to build a case. By contrast, a top down approach is to develop a profile and filter reams of data until there is a match or a pattern is revealed. The latter approach requires the largest data set available and has graver privacy concerns. The former requires efficient methods for brokering authority to let investigations cross walls when necessary. Usually these are human checks that can manage exceptions well, but good policy and enforcement needs to come into play. Tearing down silos (literally and figuratively), can be a good thing -- but there is the potential for more harm than good. Particularly as new rules for privacy and authority are institutionalized.

Abu Ghraib raises a new case. Its becoming clear that compartmentalizing information kept the right decisions of decency from being made. Ironically, it was the proliferation of new information tools (phone cams, distribution on the Net), that caused the exception to reach decision makers -- in a very public manner. The power of these images is a remarkable change agent. Family and Guard members are moving quickly to humanize the accused with their own images and re-contextualize the event.

I'm just at the beginning of The Future of Work. Thomas Malone offers a new perspective on the impact of falling transaction costs for information, beyond the death of distance and other decentralizing implications. His view is that for the first time in history all employees in an organization have the information to make decisions. More on this book later, but it cannot be long until Privates realize that abuse cannot be private. Until the warden uses the information at his disposal to make the right decisions.

Now that walls have been erected between research and banking, there is less risk of corruption and invasion of corporate privacy. Perhaps innovation is a dangerous thing, but it should be said that there will be less of it as lateral sharing of information has decreased. New regulations formalize the policies of information storage and retrieval. Compliance costs will cost the company in knowledge too, as conversations have been silenced. Knowledge is conversation.

Information flow guides the formation of relationships. Relationships also guide the flow of information. In political science, the concept of iron triangles are used to describe the strong relationships between policy makers, bureaucrats and special interest lobbying organizations in the private sector. People shift jobs between these sectors because of their connections and domain expertise. Each group leverages relationships to provide information flow and achieve mutual goals.

What's interesting is again the private and public sectors have gone in opposite directions. The Bush Administration has enlarged government, even to the point of bringing regulation to new sectors like religion. Faith-based administrators will one day return to the private sector and their relationships will remain despite reinstating separation. One can argue that during the Bush Administration, some cross-sector relationships have become stronger (Haliburton) and information flow is more selective (Press).

By contrast, the public sector has increased disclosure, instituted reforms to decrease the value of relationships and instituted barriers between occupational roles. Undoubtedly, the Gold Triangle will continue to span the boundaries between banking, markets and regulators. But the regulatory thrust may decrease the effect of relationships between these institutions.

The policies of relationships and information flow can trend towards vertical integration or decentralization. The private sector is decentralizing. The public sector is integrating. When trending towards decentralization, customers gain freedom and confidence. When trending towards integration, customers may loose their freedom and privacy. These are only a couple of the forces at play, but worthy of consideration because they shape society and markets.

I believe the contrast between public and private sectors will change. Its an aberration of our times where government can threaten privacy and foster corruption. It has to be...

PR Plans in Wiki

Shared spaces with customers is a great way to get things done and build trust. Especially when you use a wiki page for the agreed plan, or statement of work, which you fulfill together, clearly -- through the page. Mike Manuel of Voce Communications is doing exactly this:

Given that most communication programs have an annual or quarterly PR plan as the basis for ongoing projects, I’m currently piloting the idea of using a wiki-based PR plan for one of my clients -- and so far it’s working beautifully. One of the reasons I think it works so well is that program priorities inevitably shift, resources change and the task of constantly revising a plan to better map to the activity level can, quite frankly, be a pain.

With the wiki, it’s easier to start with an agreed upon plan and build out different projects via the wiki so that the client can see (real-time) where our account team is executing – and where it’s not. This later point is actually important because it provides the client with a realistic view of how priority shifts affect the overall program (e.g., that “urgent” partner announcement last month impacted your vertical markets initiative).

Using Socialtext, of course.

Wireless Estonia

In a couple of weeks my family heads back to Estonia for a couple of months, leaving me behind to work like a madman for a while. Its going to be hard to be apart for so long, but I know its easy to keep in touch:

The BBC reports that wi-fi is quickly becoming the rule, not the exception, in the Estonian capital of Tallinn and throughout the country.The first wi-fi hotspots appeared in 2001 and today there are more than 280 throughout the country. The article points out that "the surge in wireless access hardly seems strange in a country that some have dubbed "E-stonia" for its hi-tech prowess. After all, in Estonia the vast majority of the population does its banking online. Drivers in Tallinn can pay for parking by simply sending a text message from their mobile phones.Even the Estonian government has gone hi-tech. Cabinet ministers meet weekly in a room fitted with more than a dozen high-end computers, complete with flat screen monitors and broadband connections." [via SmartMobs]

Will join them this summer, when the sun doesn't set.

IRC is Evil

Anytime there is a relatively new mode of communication, its blamed for all things conceivable. A NY Times article takes aim at IRC as a breeding ground for file sharing, child porn and, god forbid, hackers. It specifically takes aim at its direct file transfer capabilities.

"I.R.C. is where you are going to find your 'elite' level pirates,'' said John R. Wolfe, director for enforcement at the Business Software Alliance, a trade group that fights software piracy. "If they were only associating with each other and inbreeding, maybe we could coexist alongside them. But it doesn't work that way. What they're doing on I.R.C. has a way of permeating into mainstream piracy.''...

"Basically the F.B.I. is interested in the best way to monitor the traffic,'' William A. Bierman said..."Look, if we find one channel and close it, they move to another, it's been like this for years. You can't really stop it.''

Hear that? Joi Ito self-replicates. There is no hope, Mr. John C. Dvorak -- it will not die.

Networking, Business Models and Entrepreneurs

Knowledge@Wharton has a fresh article on social networking business models. I'm quoted a couple of times, its a nice piece. Particularly this simple point about what's new:

According to Wharton marketing professor Peter Fader, networking services may succeed where a multitude of dot-coms have failed for a number of compelling reasons. One is that the Internet has become a part of just about everyone’s daily life, including in some cases their social lives. The second is that in an era in which the Internet has also become a tool for communications, the networking services indeed have something tangible to offer – the ability to connect with people who may be important to you. In fact, says Fader, he has personally experienced the value of networking services as a member of LinkedIn, one of the hotter networking services around.

And you have to love this point from Stowe Boyd:

Corporate networking services could even change hiring and firing decisions, Boyd adds. “If you decide to let Joe Jones go, it may not look like a big deal on the surface. But, whoops, if you look at it from a social networking point of view you may find that he is an incredibly connected guy who was a powerful influence and has been responsible for closing 25 deals.”

On topic and on site is Why Global Business Needs Kinder, Gentler Entrepreneurs and Leaders. Some panelists agreed that networking can be more important than having great ideas. In another panel, a researcher described how Shackleton's concept of th e humble leader is making a comeback:

“Is there an environment you can set yourself in to achieve something great?” he asked. “There is, but you create it yourself. If you foster an environment that allows the best people around you to develop, you produce people fiercely loyal to you, which in turn creates new opportunities for you in later years.”

Wifi VoIP and the Last Arbitrage

When you can make an end-to-end call most anywhere-to-anywhere for practically free, it changes everything.

Om Malik interviews TI, which has an 80% market share of VoIP silicon and learns we can expect 12 handsets that combine Wifi and VoIP this year. These handsets will let users make regular mobile calls or arbitrage the last mile when wifi is present.

In the brief history of telephony arbitrage, the last mile has always been the barrier. Cellular played a role before it was a node, decreasing expectations for call quality to its common denominator so VoIP could be accepted by consumers. Vonage, Skype and FreeWorldDialup are breaking the barrier for terrestrial calls. As mobile surpasses land line consumer penetration, phone cams are the fastest growing consumer electronic device, if these new handsets take hold -- voice will be completely uninhibited.

Kevin Werbach discusses VoIP regulation and quotes FCC Chairman Kevin Powell:

"If you're a big incumbent and you've sort of enjoyed a competitive advantage . . . you, in my opinion, ought to be terrified."

"I think it's going to be the very, very best and biggest breakthrough in our ambitions and dreams about competition ever."

Now incumbent mobile telephony players are under threat too. Will be interesting to see if they subsidize these handsets.

UPDATE: Great AP article on Wifi Phones

Are You Getting Too Popular?

They are turning down the volume at LinkedIn

Dear Ross,

As more professionals are actively adopting LinkedIn, you may have noticed that you are also getting more emails from people inviting you to be their connection.

While this is the easiest way to build your network and a testament to your reputation as a professional, we recommend you only accept invitations from people you know and who you are willing and able to recommend to other professionals you know.

To prioritize your inbox and reduce the number of invitation messages you receive, you now have the option of limiting incoming invitations to those coming from people who you already have in your address book.

Turn on invitation blocking.

Also, you may want to check if you have pending invitations. Our new design streamlines the process of dealing with multiple invitations at once.

Your LinkedIn Team

Finally, etiquette from a social network service.

An Experiment in Group Editing

JD Lasica posted the first chapters of his new book Darknet: Remixing the Future of Movies, Music and Television:

Check it out at the Darknet wiki. Much of the book has to do with participatory media, so I hope many of you will join me in this experiment in collaborative editing.

Darknet will detail the rise of the personal media revolution and the escalating conflict between entertainment companies and individuals using the power of digital technology. Part of this book is about you, so go be a part of it.

(the wiki is on Socialtext, of course)