"Why Blog?" and "Why Bloggers Matter."

Bob Cargill at A Fine Kettle of Fish has a great three part series on blogging called “Why Advertising, Marketing and PR Pros Should Blog.”

It should be interesting to anyone involved in or curious about blogging.
I think a better title might be “Why Blog?" or perhaps “Why Bloggers Matter.”

An excerpt:

Blogs are Authoritative. We’re not talking about those cathartic, diary-like blogs kept by moody, meandering teenagers. We’re talking about the most sophisticated among the blogosphere, the ones owned and operated by today’s savviest business people. Written by the heaviest hitters in their fields, these blogs go a long way toward formalizing their authors’ knowledge, insight and overall sphere of influence. Ideally, your blog will provide readers with plenty of fresh, premium content they can’t find anywhere else. But you had better think twice before posting. If you haven’t done your homework, your readers won’t hesitate to call you out. On the other hand, if your commentaries are consistently on the mark, your blog may soon become a frequently visited destination and raise your industry profile to unprecedented, new heights.

Part One Part Two Part Three

Google Search Engine King - barely

I would have thought that Google was far and away King of the search Engines, but apparently it is barely ahead of the others, says a recent survey. Yahoo and MSN are close behind.

Yahoo is tied with Google on their local search, which seems to be one of the new search engine battlegrounds. A fascinating blog focusing on local search is http://localsearchideas.blogspot.com/

Book Review: "BLOG" by Hugh Hewitt

"BLOG (Understanding the information revolution that's changing your world)," by Hugh Hewitt

This impeccably well-written book (this dude can write!) is about blogs and how they are melting down mainstream media's influence and importance. Hugh Hewitt asserts that "People's attentions are up for grabs" and blogs are capturing much of that attention. He is a national syndicated radio host and has one of the most popular political opinion blogs with over 100,000 unique visitors some days. His knowledge of the blogoshere is apparent. He examines recent events that have brought blogs into the mainstream consciousness including Dan Rather's recent disaster involving forged documents. Hugh doesn't hide his political opinions or the fact that he is a political junkie. Although this book is a quick and fun read, those not interested in US politics may end up skimming some of the later sections including the 41-page appendix A, "Early Writings on Blogging."

Part 1 contains historical information on significant blogging events, all political in nature, a fascinating comparison of the development of the movable type printing press and blogs, and a brief history of text as it relates to blogging. Although I ignore politics as much as possible, each of his examples were familiar to me as they were "big deals" in the news. His concept of "blog storms" is interesting; when many blogs start examining the same events or story, an opinion storm brews and if it breaks, fundamentally changes the public's perceptions. Examples include John Kerry's Vietnam service in August 2004 and Dan Rather's blind faith in his forged documents in September 2004.

Part 2 focuses on the meltdown of mainstream media due in part to their extreme leftwing political bias and loss of trust with most news consumers. Hugh also comments briefly on a large number of influential and widely read blogs, primarily political in nature. He makes a good case that blogs have gained the trust that mainstream media has lost. "Why bloggers blog?" is an interesting question. Hewitt believes that bloggers are vain and blog for two reasons: to persuade, and to leave a record of having been there. He claims that both pursuits are a blast in real time and I concur. In the recent past, those who wanted to persuade had to persuade someone to let them persuade, for example a magazine or newspaper editor. Today the gatekeeper is gone. Anyone can start a blog, and if they have something interesting to say and some luck, might generate an enormous audience. The public takes on the role of editor by choosing what to read or not read. Bloggers have the same authority as big name columnists for the mainstream media, whether they have 10 or 10,000 regular readers.

Part 3 is the most fascinating but by its nature least detailed section. It concentrates on blogs and business uses, which are in their infancy. Hewitt suggests first developing a defensive blog strategy, as the destructive power of the blogosphere is immense. He then moves onto ways to use blogs for public relations and marketing purposes, including suggestions on finding appropriate bloggers for organizations, and advertising on blogs. Hewitt's "A Dozen Blogs I Would Start If I Were . . ." contains some fascinating thoughts on uses for blogs. The last chapter, "Getting Started: The Technology," contains very little technical advice as Hewitt isn't a technologist, but does have a superb list of key rules of "blogging success and significance."

I fully enjoyed this book despite despising politics. Since much of blog's recent rise into the public consciousness has been due to political events, some political content is unavoidable. Hewitt makes no apology for his political views or focus, and he shouldn't. He simply uses his experiences with blogs, which are unabashedly political, as his primary view into the blogosphere. The book is worth reading just for Hewitt's many insights, for example that bloggers run the spectrum from pure aggregators of other's materials to pure analysts, "blogs are about trust," and bloggers are part of a new culture of hyperscutiny. Anyone seriously interested in the impact of blogs should read this book.

Security School with Ed Skoudis and SANS

Dan Verton sat in a SANS Institute class taught by Ed Skoudis recently and wrote this interesting article for Computerworld.

I know Ed, not well enough to call him an old friend, but we've met several times and I've had the pleasure to see him teach. He's good, extremely good. He has what too few fellow geeks have: a great stage presence, sense of humor, and perspective. These combined with his obvious depth of knowledge and hands-on experience make him of the best teachers on security topics around. He'd probably make a decent standup comedian as well if he was interested :)

SANS deserves credit as well for having a great set of Security Classes. Intense, in depth, and full of practical knowledge, just like Ed. Most of their classes are 6 days, run over the weekend, several include night time "boot camp" sessions, and none of the students complain! The material are not the regular class materials most of us are familiar with: it would be more accurate to say that each class' materials are the equivalent of several text books and are excellent ongoing references. (ship them home if you can - they're heavy. I'm estimating that Security Essentials alone is a 8 inch/25 pound stack of books!).

Disclaimer: I occasionally teach SANS classes and they occasionally pay me.

How to Stop Spam

I get spam, lots of spam, and so do you. I’ve never bought anything from a spammer, and I never will. So why do they keep sending me email?

Two reasons:
1) It’s free
2) I might buy something.

Maybe email should NOT be free? Perhaps there should be a small anti-spam charge, which would be insignificant to non-spammers. Perhaps a fraction of a penny? Any charge would change the economics of spamming and be significant to spammers! I’m not sure I endorse this idea – I need to think about more, but it’s a possibility. And to all you doltish naysayers, I’m old enough to remember when the mere thought of doing anything commercial with the Internet was heresy. Things change . . . .

Let’s address the “I might buy something” part. Unlikely, very unlikely. I don’t buy things from people that annoy me! But many many people do – eventually.

I was in Kuta Beach, Bali, which is sort of like Cancun for Australians. Beautiful place, full of young drunken Aussies, and thousands of annoying locals trying to sell things in the most annoying ways – real life brick and mortar spammers. I quickly learned the Bahasa Indonesian term for “village chieftain” and would say “NO, villain chieftain” which would briefly stun them while I walked around them and away.

I was walking down the street with 3 Danish women and a couple of Englishmen, and we were being followed by two young teenagers relentlessly trying to sell us “shells.” The village chieftain stunt had gotten laughs, but hadn’t shaken then, so after 20 or so minutes of being hounded I politely explained that they really were wasting their time on us. We simply were not going to buy and since they seemed like nice kids I was offering them some friendly business advice. An hour+ later they were still following us. Then the unimaginable happened. The Danish women decided to buy shells from them! After being heckled for an hour and a half, they rewarded and reinforced their obnoxious behavior!

Same thing happens all time with email spammers. Someone, somewhere, eventually buys something and the numbers add up. These people, the ones buying from the spammers, are a major part of the problem! They are encouraging and rewarding spamming.

Stop it! It’s unethical to buy from spammers.

Tips for great blog writing

BL Ochman's How to Write Killer Blog Posts and More Compelling Comments is great advice, and well worth reading.
In general these guidelines are good common sense – which isn’t always common, and I’ll make a point of rereading them again.

Excellent tips like:
"Short, declarative sentences are good"

"Link like crazy"

"Include complete thoughts in headlines"

"Omit all unnecessary words "

"Read your post out loud." - a GREAT suggestion. I know it may sound silly, but IT WORKS!

Perhaps her best tip is "Write like it counts." It just might count . . .

I don't necessarily agree with 100% of these comments (do I ever agree 100% with anyone?):

"Aim at keeping your posts at about 250 words."
My posts are often longer than 250 words, as is this post of hers:) 250 words is often too limited to deliver value.

“Use the simplest possible word and sentence structure.”
Sure, but I refuse to dumb down my language or content. I assume my readers are intelligent and articulate. Simple? - yes. Fourth grade level? - no!

“Forget what you learned about business writing in school.”
I never learned anything. Isn’t that obvious? :)

And I’ll add one of my own:
“Beware blogging while drinking!”
Although I’ve been known to write a fine post while enjoying a glass of fine wine, its best to save as draft and review when well rested and sober before posting!

Worst Practices in Developing Secure Software, Part I

As I’ve said before, The “Best Practices Mantra” annoys me.
A major component of success involves avoiding making any major mistakes. Instead of focusing exclusively on implementing “Best Practices,” I suggest avoiding “Worst Practices.” You can do almost everything perfectly, but if you do one thing horribly wrong you can negate everything. A soldier greatly increases his chances in a firefight by doing things right, but one serious mistake and his odds of surviving plummet. Fatal flaws and mistakes are often exactly that – FATAL!

Part I focuses on higher level issues while part II will focus on lower level issues. Part II will be coming in February.

Assuming that only “important” software needs to be secure.
All programs and services need to be secure. Even a simple game or utility could be compromised, contain a Trojan or otherwise harbor malicious code, and lead to your entire network being compromised.

Emphasizing hitting deadlines ahead of writing “Good Code.”
Deadlines are important, but not at the expense of writing decent code! Can you image an engineering project in the physical world taking the equivalent attitude? “That bridge will open August 1st no matter what. We’ll let the bridge users uncover any unresolved problems and patch them later.”

Having IT make all risk management decisions.
Every business decision involves risk. Many important IT decisions are important business decisions and can involve significant risk. Some IT decisions involve enough risk that executive management should be involved in the decision making process.

Not considering security during the entire application lifecycle.
Security should be considered during the entire application lifecycle. Security must be part of the system design based on the product security goals, attention must be paid to security during implementation, and operational issues including installation are critical as well.

Adding security is more time consuming and resource intensive than doing it “right” from the beginning, hence it is less likely to be done well or given due diligence.

Assuming the software won’t be attacked.
Most software is attacked! Don’t make the following common and usually false assumptions:
–The users are friendly
–Input will not be malicious
–The environment is hospitable
–The firewall will shield the application from hostile users and attacks

Not doing any security testing.
Security testing is *much* different than functional testing and both are important. Instead of examining a system’s response under fairly normal circumstances, security testing involves probing the system looking for weaknesses much like an attacker would.

Condensed from http://www.demop.com/WorstPracticesSecSoftI.htm, which is condensed from the course Application Security Principles.

Registering to work for the US Government

Very recently I needed to “register” to work for the US Government. It wasn’t a lot of work, just delivering a keynote speech at a conference for a branch of the Department of Defense. Sounds like a lot of “registration” for just a little work doesn’t it? Most people’s gut reaction: “Man you’re going to need to wade through as shitload of bureaucracy and paperwork!”
It wasn’t bad – pretty simple actually. Maybe took an hour total, including registering for a Dun and Bradstreet number and filling out some online forms. Quite efficient actually, and if I had a better sense of humor I might have registered as a supplier of munitions or lunar rovers as well :)

In contrast, I’m currently working on getting approved as a vendor for a major high tech company you probably know and respect - I certainly think highly of them. I’ve been working for them for close to a year as a subcontractor, and they want to formalize our relationship and have me work and bill directly. Sounds good to me!
So far, I’ve filled out about 1/2” of forms, had to call my bank several times for arcane data, needed to get New Hampshire’s closest equivalent to a “Business License” (hey, we’re the “Live Free or Die” State - we don’t need no stinking licenses!), documented my ongoing and regular business expenses, located my Social Security Card (I had never seen it – turns out my mother had it), photocopied several invoices, provided a list of very current references, and personally hired some company to research my past and verify I’m not an evil guy. Oh, and they want several types of insurances I’ve never needed in 15 years of consulting, including one my insurance company has never heard of!

The Libertarian in me wants to blame the government for this “Vendor Abuse Program” (their term, not mine!) since perhaps government regulations are making us jump through all these hoops to work together. That’s certainly part of it, but who really knows?

What’s my point? Quite simply, the US Government gets some things very right! And incidentally, all the people I worked with were not only super efficient but also a pleasure to interact with. I have been very pleasantly surprised! Viva Las Vegas – errrr, the US Government,.
Maybe it really is “We The People?”

Blogs - The Next Big Thing in Marketing

I’m amazed – my new blog has increased my web traffic by over 200% in its first month!
It has also helped sell consulting and keynote speeches, and I’m now helping others start blogs to promote their businesses. It seems that my blog has a somewhat different readership than my website and newsletter as well, increasing my audience.

So, what is a blog? The "traditional" answer is that it's a Content Management System. A better answer is that a blog is what a website wants to be when it grows up. My blog is typical in that it’s implemented as a very simple and small extension to my original website and I usually update it every day or two. Blogs by their nature are simple and regularly updated.

Most company's websites tend to be pretty boring and static - certainly most don't change in any significant way on a daily, weekly, or even monthly basis. Internet users typically don't have much reason to visit a website over and over unless they want to buy something. A typical and smart way to try to overcome this "pretty boring" scenario is to have "free" stuff available and update and enhance it regularly. "Free" is very important on the Internet. No one wants to read your marketing crap no matter how well done you may think it is. But add something free that users like and regularly update and add to it, and Internet users will begin to like your site and hopefully visit it regularly. Articles, bulletin boards, news items, etc. are good “free” stuff that might work. For example I have free articles on demop.com, a free newsletter, and regularly add new free things. Soon I hope to add audio from a recent keynote or two and may give out a few free copies of my forthcoming video from WatchIT. But this free stuff tends to play a relatively minor role on most company websites as they are primarily marketing vehicles.

What if:

The “free” stuff was the highlight and majority of the website?

The website could somehow be less formal yet still equally professional?

Users saw the latest information by default?

The website was dynamic with very frequent new non-promotional material added?

Users could add comments, making it interactive?

All this information was archived and somehow indexed for ease of access and to make the search engines happy?

So, what do you have now? A blog.

Blogs are quickly evolving from quirky and droll Internet diaries to the next wave in the information revolution. They have been responsible for breaking a number of news stories including the capture of Saddam Hussein and the recent Dan Rather “Bushgate” fiasco. Many companies are incorporating blogs into their websites or encouraging their employees to blog. A number of books on business blogging are starting to be released including "Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies," and many companies are starting to offer business blogging consulting. PR companies are starting blogs for their clients.
Microsoft has hundreds of bloggers. Stoneyfield Yogurt has a four blogs. Boeing’s Vice-president of Marketing is blogging for Boeing. Forrester Research has a report on business blogging and recommends that companies “Start Slow But Start Now With Blogs.” Blogs are a cutting edge information dissemination and marketing technique that is quickly becoming mainstream.

Blogs can help companies market in several ways:

They add a more personal voice to a company and add personality to its website and brand.

They are a great way to publicize company programs, opinions and values. Examples include Stoneyfield’s program Creating Healthy Kids, which promotes healthy eating among children.

They are dynamic and interactive and tend to attract a regular following of readers.

Search engines love blogs.

Advertising on blogs can be an effective way to reach certain groups.

Due to their dynamic content, regular readers, and search engine popularity, blogs attract traffic.

Until recently, blogs were considered a bizarre Internet phenomenon without any use to most people. Now they are rapidly proving themselves as significant business tools.

Avoiding “Worst Practices,” or praying at “The Temple of Best Practices.”

Full Article at http://www.demop.com/WorstPractices.htm

The “Best Practices Mantra” annoys me.

I define “Best Practices” as practices validated by experience and common sense. Often the “common sense” component is entirely skipped and the “Best Practices Mantra” is used as an excuse for not thinking. That includes not thinking about what “Best Practices” actually means. A quick google reveals lots of “Best Practice” links and “Best Practice Institutes,” but none of them bother to define “Best Practices.” No one bothers to define the Bible or Koran either, but I would argue that they do not need to be defined, and are certainly not fads. The jury is out on “Best Practices” . . .

I was at a new client’s facility yesterday and when I asked about certain security practices and configurations, I often got the blanket statement “Best Practices” as an answer. It was clear in several cases that these alleged “Best Practices” either did NOT apply or were INCORRECTLY implemented. In both cases no one had used their common sense and had instead chosen to place their blind faith and prayers at the “Temple of Best Practices.”

Hence we kick off our Worst Practice series with:
Worst Practices in Best Practices
Practices to avoid like the plague!!!!

1) Assuming all Best Practices apply. Few Best Practices are universal.

2) Turning off your brain while implementing and using Best Practices. Nothing is foolproof, and you should always apply common sense.

3) Implementing Best Practices and thinking you are done.Nothing is static; that includes Best Practices.

4) Implementing Best Practices without avoiding Worst Practices. One major blunder can negate everything!

Permission Marketing

I recently finished Permission Marketing, subtitled “Turning strangers into friends, and friends into customers” by Seth Godin.

I’ve never had much interest in marketing, so why did I buy (and enjoy) this book? Well, it is visually striking. The cover shows Seth’s ultra baldhead from the ears on up, looking upwards. In fact my children referred to it as “The Bald Book.” It’s about Internet marketing (although not exclusively). As a 25 year veteran of the Internet, many things Internet interest me. And it’s got a catchy title too, so I picked it up in the bookstore to check it out and ended up greatly enjoying reading it!

The big idea in this book is that traditional marketing, which Seth calls “Interruption Marketing,” doesn’t work well anymore since we have less time than we used to. Besides, being interrupted is annoying. “Permission Marketing” is about sending information only to those people who have signaled an interest.

As I thought about the basic concept, I realized that I’m engaged in Permission Marketing myself.
On a basic level, I develop content (i.e. “write stuff”) and put it on my website, and eventually someone looks at it of their own free will and perhaps hires me because I seem so intelligent, well organized, and clearly never ramble or use run-on sentences which I would never do.
On a more sophisticated level, people sign up for my free newsletter securITy, giving me permission to interact with them (send them bulk email in this case). My spam – errr, newsletter, doesn’t contain “marketing information,” but does contain information that is useful to clients as well as potential clients, and hopefully represents me and my services in a positive light (and I enjoy writing it too!).

Seth states that potential customers are first “Interrupted” as in classical Interruption Marketing and offered value in exchange for permission, in my case permission to send them my newsletter every month or two. This only seems to partially apply to me as most recipients of securITy never were interrupted, but instead initiate contact to receive my free newsletter. However when I first started my newsletter, I did interrupt people. I asked about 30 friends who I thought would not become violent if I could send them my security newsletter. Only one became violent!

Seth expands on permission and interruption marketing techniques in quite a bit of detail and I honestly found the book hard to put down. The book is somewhat dated (1999) for an “Internet Book” but at most that’s a minor distraction. His case studies in chapter 12 are quite dated for example, but still useful.

I liked this book enough that I just ordered two more of Seth’s books, something about a “Purple Cow” and “Red Fez: Your website sucks and here’s how to fix it” or some similar title. Judging from this book, worst case they’ll be quick and amusing reads, and best case I’ll also learn a few useful things and will be spurred into thinking about things I never have thought about before.

The Offshore Threat, is it Real??

There are a lot of IT workers and potential IT workers in less developed parts of the world and many people in North America and Western Europe are understandably scared. The basic premise is that since it costs less to live in the 2nd and 3rd world, these people can afford to work for less money and can “steal our jobs.” Certainly in other industries, for example manufacturing, this has been happening.

I have a long history with “offshore outsourcing,” with both Asia and Eastern Europe. I was the CTO of offshore outsourcing company Cerint Technology Group (which I must add was a “textbook failure” of a startup – ask me someday!). I have some opinions and the experience to back them up. Being a wonderful, intelligent, open minded guy :), my opinions evolve and I’m happy to hear and maybe even publish dissenting opinions! Quite simply, in offshore outsourcing some things work well and some simply do not. Some jobs are easily moved and some are not.

Certainly some IT jobs will go offshore but a great many IT jobs will exist onshore. As the general long term trend in IT is up, ignoring the (extremely significant) current boom/bust cycle of the Internet explosion, the number of jobs is increasing. The jobs that go overseas will tend to be lower level jobs, for example telephone support. It also helps to remember that many of today’s high level jobs will be tomorrow’s low level jobs. Remember Cobol was once hot. There is an excellent chance that if you are in IT your current job won’t reside where you are in a few years. It might not even exist anywhere although there may be a very different job with the same title. But it probably didn’t exist a few years ago, and jobs and work are evolving quickly in IT just as they have in the past. This is no surprise! Since we are currently emerging from the Internet bust, the short term and long term outlooks for IT jobs are positive as well. Two years ago I would have said the long term outlook was good but the short term outlook miserable.

Why won’t all IT jobs go offshore? There are a number of reasons:

The benefits of “low cost” are not always valid. Often times more management (or micromanagement) is necessary which increases costs. I can think of a couple projects using offshore resources where everything had to be micromanaged. We couldn’t just tell them what to do; we had to tell them how to do it in incredible detail, including specifying the exact algorithms for run of the mill programming tasks. Of course this isn’t always the case, and I’ve occasionally seen similar circumstances in the US, but it very often is a significant factor in offshoring.
In Edward Yourdon’s book Outsource?: Competing in the Global Productivity Race, he says that it's hard to determine if cheaper code is produced offshore. Cost savings are not automatic or easy.
Offshore prices are also going up, e.g. the Silicon Valley type boom in Bangalore, India and other places. Just the boost to a local economy from the influx of foreign money drives up prices.

Cultural and other differences certainly come into play and can be very significant. We have different values than many other cultures, there are language difficulties and time difficulties as well. Certainly India suffers from these difficulties. Other areas suffer to a lesser degree; for example Poland has an essentially Western European culture similar to the USA, there are many well educated and experienced software and other engineers who speak English very well, and the time difference is not as significant. Whenever I had a question or issue working with Poland I could simply pick up the phone and call as our standard work days had significant overlap.

Many IT tasks are not particularly well suited to offshoring. Information Security is one area that is often mentioned. Any project in which Intellectual Property Rights are paramount is not – Intellectual Property Rights essentially don’t exist in many locales! Also projects where the requirements are evolving are not typically suitable for offshore outsourcing. This one is less obvious, although part of the reason is that offshoring requires another level of management which tends to stifle flexibility and innovation. A whole book could probably be written on the topic – let’s just call offshore outsourcing of projects with evolving requirements a “Worst Practice” for now.

Also for some unknown reason, most innovative software is developed in the US. There are counterexamples of course, but for some reason the US seems to be the hotbed of software innovation. Perhaps our mindset, cultural values, or . . . ?

What about offshore workers coming to the first world and working here – is that a threat? For example there are approximately 500,000 technical workers in the USA under the H1-B visa program. They take jobs that are apparently hard to fill with US residents. N. Sivakumar's book Debugging Indian Computer Programmers: Dude, Did I Steal Your Job? argues that H1-B visa holders, as well as high tech immigrants, are desirable and help support our economy, and I largely agree.

Every H1-B visa holder has at least 16 years of education. US taxpayers didn’t subsidize this education as they didn’t go to US public schools or use US taxpayer subsidized student loans. We’re getting educated people for free.

Each one has a US Company sponsoring their application and there is a job waiting for them, which might have not been available for or easily filled by a US resident.

H1-B workers pay the same taxes as other legal US residents but reap fewer of the benefits. Most are single and don’t send children to the schools they help subsidize and few will ever collect on Social Security or the medical-care systems their taxes help support.

Sivakumar also refers to a Berkeley study that shows during the boom years of the 1990s, Chinese and Indian immigrants started almost 25% of the high-tech startups in Silicon Valley, which translates to the creation of approximately 100,00 new jobs.
There are a lot of IT jobs worldwide and then number is increasing. The Internet bubble, or rather its burst, has made the IT job market pretty miserable, but the long term trend is up. Many current IT jobs are going offshore. Many of these jobs didn’t exist a few years ago, and many jobs we’ll be doing in a few years don’t exist today. Jobs and employment in IT has never been static and there is no reason to believe it will be in the future.

It wasn’t too long ago that people worried aloud that we didn’t have enough qualified IT people. The USA is able to pick the best intellectual draft choices from around the world and bring them to the USA to work. The H1-B program lets the USA get well qualified IT people in addition to the ones educated partially at US taxpayers expense. They pay taxes that subsidize social programs they almost certainly won’t get to take advantage of and many of them are quite entrepreneurial and start companies that create jobs. Sounds like a good deal to me.

The Dark Side of Technology

Technology and technical advances are not without their downsides and drawbacks.

These can occur for many reasons, including application of technologies or products that are not mature, people displaced or replaced in the job marketplace by technological changes, inappropriate applications of technology – sometimes “technology for technology’s sake,” and many other reasons.

We’re going to look at just few examples of the downside to technology: the unreliability of PCs, the current insecure state of the Internet, the plague of excess connectivity and email overload, and the use of technology for technology’s sake.

The unreliability of PCs and software:

PC stands for Personal Computer, but quite honestly, PCs are often miserable creatures! There is little personal, or at least personable, about them. They should be as reliable and safe as ATM machines, refrigerators, and washing machines. They should require minimal maintenance. They should not have the absurd amount of problems they do today.

I’m a technical guy and even I have problems and get fed up. There often isn’t enough time in the day to fix all the minor glitches and problems I encounter so I just live with them. For example, this new laptop with up to date operating system, software, etc. simply refuses to install AOL Instant Messenger, will not accept Eudora as my default mail program, and won’t let my antivirus software automatically update. And the home PC has problems: the scanner makes it crash about 25% of the time, the writable CD is flakey, and I can list more problems. The last couple of days my even cell phone has needed occasional rebooting. In each case I’ve spent a little fruitless time trying to fix each problem, and I will eventually find fixes or workarounds for the most important problems, but I’m just too busy to spend lots of time. Maybe I should just dedicate the whole weekend to fixing problems? Sorry, but I’m going to play with the kids instead this weekend! I assure you I work more than enough. Besides, PCs should be tools, not obsessions.

PCs need to become appliances – and by that I mean reliable pieces of equipment that rarely if ever need to be updated. They are absolutely not today!! Why?

Software is too complex:

PCs typically have lots of (complex) software installed and the interactions between the software are even more complex. All this complexity is NOT required and leads to increased unreliability.

There is an often quoted statistic that I’m not going to get absolutely right: 95% of all Microsoft Word users only use 5% of its functionality. This may or may not be entirely accurate, but it is clear the vast majority of users only use a small percentage of most software packages functionality. So why is most software so big and complicated??? The more complexity software has, the more bugs, the more security issues, the harder it is to test, the more likely it is to have unexpected interactions with other software. It’s as simple as that.
All other things being equal, simpler software is more reliable as well as more secure. We need more “Simpler Software.”

Software changes far too rapidly:

New and improved versions are “better,” have more functionality, and are in many cases actually “improved and better.” But you can’t make a moving target reliable. How much testing will a software vendor do if they know they’ll be issuing patches soon after release and end users can find the bugs anyway? Not enough! End users and end user organizations let them get away with this – often lending encouragement by refusing to pay extra for robust, reliable, secure software.

Often any “new and improved” benefits are debatable and the new software is usually larger, more complex, and less reliable. There is just more that can go wrong with more complex software.

Software also seems to be written for the latest hardware with not enough emphasis on reasonable performance on older machines. My mother has a refrigerator that’s almost 30 years old. I think it would be reasonable to expect a two or three year old PC to run most new software extremely well!


My car has a microprocessor and software code, but I don’t change the code in my car ever! I shouldn’t be forced to change my OS and key applications frequently!

The Internet is unsafe:

Let’s face it, wonderful as the Internet is, it is not a safe place. Several times a week I get bombarded by people trying to rob me: phishing schemes asking for my credit card number and other personal info, ridiculous letters from Nigeria asking for cooperation in return for a few million dollars and other too good to be true schemes, random packets flung at my PC every few minutes at least – many obvious hacker attacks and probes, and I’ve received several viruses just this morning in my email.

How often do con artists try to interact with me in the physical world? How often does anyone try to break into my office, car or home? How often do vandals try to attack? Clearly these events occur far far less often than similar events on the Internet!

Before the Internet becomes relatively safe (use your own definition) we need some changes: hacking needs to be treated as a serious crime, software needs to be simplified and its rate of change slowed down, Operating System vendors and Internet Service Providers need to assume more responsibility for security, and Internet users need to have responsibly secure computers. For more details, see The Three changes needed to make the Internet safe.
On the Internet, you should be paranoid, just as in real life. Just more paranoid on the Internet as more people ARE out to get you!!! I’m certain the Internet will become safer as it matures, but never 100% safe. Nothing is 100% safe.

Excessive connectivity:

I was recently working at a client site where each employee had a cell phone, pager, email, and instant messaging. If we needed to contact someone to get something done, for example rebooting a server, it was great.
However the people I was trying to work with were constantly getting interrupted and our productivity was running probably about 50%. Even lunch was interrupted more often than not.

There is simply no way that overall productivity was increased with all this excess connectivity! No, of course they didn’t have any metrics, just a warm fuzzy feeling that being able to interrupt anyone at anytime was a great thing! Personally, I leave the cellphone behind sometimes. Although I might take it fishing, I’m equally likely to turn it off when sitting in the office and trying to concentrate. I don’t always read every email as it comes in even when online. If I’m in a meeting, whether in person, online, or over the telephone, I turn off instant messaging, my cell phone, and email.

Email Overload:

How many people feel the absolute need to check and respond to work emails from home, perhaps after dinner or early in the morning before work? I usually do, but in my case it’s a personal decision as it is with many people. But I know many people with fulltime jobs who simply need to in order to do their jobs effectively. Their employers as well as fellow employees expect it of them.

I used to have a regular job way back in the dark ages of the Internet. When I left work, I left work behind. Although I might have thought about some work issues, or perhaps read an interesting technical book after dinner, it was my time.

Work and personal time have blended together, but unfortunately the mix is more work in your personal time than personal time in your work. Companies talk about promoting “life balance” but often it is an illusion.

Inappropriate Applications of Technology:

There is an episode of the old TV show “The Jeffersons” where George Jefferson has just learned about “i.e.” and “e.g.” He had a visitor he wanted to impress and he used “i.e.” or “e.g.” in just about every sentence. Sometime I feel we’re doing the same with new technology – inserting it everywhere whether appropriate or not.

I have two new light dimmer switches in my house that are microprocessor controlled. Why would anyone put a microprocessor in a dimmer switch? I can think of a very few reasons, but they don’t apply here. I hate these switches and will be replacing them soon.

My wife’s new spaceage minivan is more high tech than many spaceships in old science fiction movies. The level of technology, and complexity, is simply amazing. Of course more complexity leads to less reliability as there is simply more that can break. Much of this technology, as described above, is very useful. But some of it is simply ridiculous.
For example the keys have microprocessors in them! A key without the microprocessor can unlock the doors but not start the engine. Allegedly it’s an antitheft feature, although it reeks of “technology for technology’s sake.” Somehow I think it’ll be more of an impediment to the rightful van’s owner if they ever lose their keys than a professional car thief.

Many products have too many bells and whistles. Cellphones top my list. Although maybe I was wrong and a camera is a great thing to have integrated in a phone, or at least many people think so, some of the latest features are just ridiculous. The latest cellphones I’ve seen allow you to watch TV or movies on their tiny screen. Is anyone really going to do this? The screen is just soooo small that watching TV or movies is just a novelty and not practical.

I just heard about perhaps the silliest application of technology ever. It’s a US$60,000 bed that turns into a bomb shelter. I don’t think I could make up anything stranger! To potential users of this bed: just sleep in your bomb shelter

Technology, just like anything else, has both good and bad sides. Most of us, except for a few Luddites, believe the potential good outweighs the potential bad. We need to strive to avoid the bad effects of technology just like we need to strive to avoid the bad effects of everything else. Food is good but too much food or too much unhealthy food is bad. We know that, since food is nothing new, yet many of us still struggle with obesity and other food related issues. I’m fond of beer and wine like most of my friends and have no problem with alcohol, although certainly some people do. And most of us, at least in the US, have had problems with drinking too much at least a few times, probably when alcohol was new and fascinating when we were teenagers. New technology will always be alluring and fascinating and have unexpected dangers, as well as incredible potential upside.

“Less than Killer Apps” and Non Earth Shattering Technologies

It’s perhaps easy to point out the “killer apps” and technologies that have caused major changes to our lives, but I’m not convinced that the small continuous improvements from “less than killer apps” and non earth shattering or non disruptive technologies are any less important.

There are many applications of technology we typically overlook that make a difference in our lives. Not obvious things like email, the Internet, laptaps, etc., but ones less obvious and usually ignored that improve our lives.

For example, in my life the following make a difference:

DVD players – an “educational” video settled my 2 year old down so I could start writing this. I know they’re not “new” – I first encountered them when they were all in rage in Indonesia close to a decade ago, but they’re new in my household. I use the DVD player myself as well as using it to occupy children.

Actually we have a whole slew of “smart toys” the children love. Hopefully they are teaching the children things, as well as amusing and occupying their time so my wife and I can get things done!

There is fresh snow on the ground in New Hampshire as I write this, and the beginning of snow and ice season signals a substantial increase in auto accidents. I’m convinced that antilock brakes reduce vehicle accidents substantially. When accidents do occur, relatively new safety enhancements such as airbags absolutely reduce the rate of injury and death.

A couple of additional high-tech improvements in my wife’s new minivan are well worth mentioning as well. The front LCD displays a map and shows where the van currently is and which direction it’s traveling in real time. It’s not perfect, for example it can’t find my street, but it’s nice not having to break out a map every time we go somewhere new. It’s also great for not missing turns – something I’m very good at doing when driving even common routes.

That same LCD displays the area behind the car when backing up. With 2+ kids and a dog, the van is often overloaded to the point of reducing rear visibility, and we are always driving around areas where little kids are playing making it even more valuable.

I love my $15 digital watch. I have a couple of nice watches, but I like this cheapie better for three very significant reasons:
1) It’s cheap. I lose and abuse watches and don’t need to worry with this watch.
2) The display lights up with a simple push of a button. I use this feature at least a couple of times every night when I wake up, or perhaps a fussing child wakes me up, and I wonder what time it is.
3) The built in alarm is great! It usually serves as my primary alarm, and it can usually wake me up without waking up my wife and any child that may have migrated to the bed overnight. When I travel for work, it serves as a backup alarm – hotels do sometimes forget wakeup calls.

I’m a coffee addict – addict is unfortunately the right word, but as far as addictions go it’s not a bad one. When I absolutely positively must wake up early and know I won’t want to, for example when I have an important morning meeting after flying in late or staying up half the night dealing with Hong Kong or after a 3AM phone call with Belgium, I wake up to the smell of fresh coffee. My coffee maker has a built in timer. Just the smell of the fresh coffee makes all the difference in the world. It might sound foolish, but it does make a difference to me and that’s all that matters.

I just spent a weekend at a friend’s place way up in northern Maine. He has an elaborate commercial hunting and fishing camp with over a dozen buildings located 105 miles down dirt roads. It was quaint waking up several times a night to add wood to the stove and I didn’t mind, but I wouldn’t want to do that regularly. Modern heating is a great thing in cold climates just like air conditioning is considered a necessity by many living in hot climates.

Many of us are involved in sports and hobbies and they can add a lot to our lives. Quite a few of these have changed or evolved for the better through the application of technology.

My friend George is a serious endurance athlete. He insists that his heart rate monitor has made substantial improvements in his training. And unless you want to have an hour plus conversation, don’t bring up the subject of improvements to sneakers, or bikes or much of anything else. Actually he can talk about technical improvements to bikes for an entire weekend – I’ve heard him do it!

I’m an ardent saltwater fly fisherman. Flyrods and reels have been lighter and much easier to use over the previous couple of decades. I can fish longer without getting tired or sore. Some new synthetic materials have great applications in making flies as well as producing better performing flylines. And insect repellent and suntan lotion are wonderful innovations as well!

I’m also involved in competitive ham radio – yes, there is such a thing. Although I enormously enjoy the non high-tech parts, including using tractors, chainsaws, cement mixers, climbing belts, handling 500+ lb spools of cable etc. (every competitive station has a major investment in antennas and supporting towers), the amount of technology involved is amazing. Instead of spending about a minute throwing multiple switches and then “tuning” the radio and amplifier when switching bands, everything is automated. I just switch bands, and then filters, antennas, amplifiers, logging software, etc. automatically follow my move. My antenna rotators sitting on top of my towers are all microprocessor controlled and I can just tell them where to point and they move automatically. I can predict with reasonable reliability when I’ll be able to talk to specific parts of the world using propagation prediction software. I am connected to an Internet Protocol based radio frequency multicast network known as “Packet Radio” which tells me which stations are on the air and on what frequencies. Computer modeling has improved antenna design and can even tell me what specific antenna heights are optimal at my location.
The amount of technology in the station is astounding and it does make the station easier to use and increase its performance significantly.

Even bowling has been improved significantly by technology – or so I’m told.

Information Technology and other technology has brought a lot of small incremental improvements to our lives. We usually don’t think about these changes, and some of them are practically invisible like antilock brakes and incremental improvements in supply chain management that bring us lower prices, but their net sum is very significant. I’ll certainly be happy when I go to bed tonight that I won’t have to wake up a few times to throw wood in the fire.

Killer Apps, Killer Benefits

Technology has improved our lives and will continue to improve our lives. Its full promise has not been remotely realized yet – there is much more to come.

Technological advances allow the production of more output from existing resources. This include more efficient ways of producing existing output which leads to more output and lower prices as well as the production of new (or substantially improved) items such as anti-lock brakes, cell phones and other innovations. We gain both from more output/cheaper prices and from improved items and innovations.

Innovations can have major impact on our lives. The term “Killer Apps” is sometimes used to describe innovations with such an impact. Note that we’re using “Killer App” to mean a “Killer Application of Technology” instead of the narrower definition of a “Killer Computer Application.”

Here is a brief list of some technological applications and innovations that have had major positive impacts on most of our lives:

email: How could we live without email? It is the number one “Killer App” in many people’s minds. I’m a 25 year veteran of email, and about fifteen years ago my high tech clients expected me to be accessible by email. Now everyone expects me to be available by email, including my dentist, my 102 year old father (or so he claims), my cleaning lady, and even my occasionally homeless friend Ralphie. I check my email several times almost every single day of the year – and am expected to. This includes Christmas, Easter, my Birthday, etc. My wife says I check my email more often than I go to the bathroom! Many of us are “email junkies.”

I didn’t take my laptop with me for a long weekend at the beach last summer and not checking email daily felt weird – almost unnatural! I felt kind of guilty, and Greeks don’t tend towards guilt, unlike some other groups (you know who you are!).

So what does email do for us? A sort non-exhaustive list includes:

It allows us to stay in touch with more people, including friends, business partners and acquaintances, relatives, etc.
Email reduces time wasted playing “telephone tag” – it’s an asynchronous communication mechanism as opposed to the telephone, which is primarily synchronous, and is far more appropriate for some types of communications.
It reduces the need for meetings and telephone conferences or “bridges.”
It’s great for getting more information from retailers and service providers, as well as resolving difficulties.
It allows the sending and sharing of more than just text – we can send pictures, binaries, documents, etc.
It greatly facilitates telecommuting and working with geographically dispersed groups.

Email is essentially a very efficient communication mechanism that we have come to rely on. I have some very happy clients I’ve never met or talked to – all interaction has been through email!

Shopping and Retailing: Who would have thought that the Internet would have revolutionized shopping and retailing forever?? Although I don’t shop much, I shop primarily online. Why?

I’m not constrained by choices local merchants have or choices in paper catalogs, which are usually out of date before they’re printed.
I don’t need to deal with crowds, inept cashiers, inadequate parking and annoying salespeople.
Hard to find and specialty items are simple to find now.
I can shop at MY convenience.
Prices are often better. Actually prices have improved at local retailers as well due to Internet competition.

There are many retailers that don’t even have a physical presence, and most large established retailers have an online presence. And yes, I have a couple of favorite brick and mortar stores I still frequent and patronize, even if they might cost a bit more. Sometimes I just want to see touch and feel before I buy, or browse, especially with books.

Information Access: Information access and availability is infinitely improved. A few quick examples follow.

A few years ago I was given a bottle of Graham 1983 Port. I knew little about wine, but knew I liked Port and that it was supposed to age a long time before opening it. A quick web search found how to serve it: room temperature, with what: stinky cheeses, and when: it was old enough to taste great but would easily last 20 more years, and that it was traditionally served after dinner. This information couldn’t have been easily and quickly assembled pre-Internet!

I’ve got two critical Federal Express packages on the way as I write this. One has my Passport and a Visa I’ll need very soon, and the other contains perishable food. I can very easily and quickly check their status with a quick click of my mouse.

Friends of mine are pursuing an international adoption. The amount of information available online is simply mind-boggling. Since the same information is available from multiple sources, it’s easy to confirm the validity of most information.

I just bought my wife a minivan. When we went to the car dealer, we knew what they paid for the van, we knew the available options, we actually knew more than the salesperson. When my wife checked a second dealer, she could very quickly determine he was the kind of scum that gives car dealers their bad name!

Cell Phones: I’m not going to pretend I love cell phones. I don’t love phones at all. Although sometimes I feel like I love my laptop, a phone is just a tool, and often times a slightly annoying one. But I must admit, my cell phone is very useful and certainly improves my productivity.

I can be in touch with business colleagues when I’m not in the office. I can answer the phone when fishing, going for a bike ride, or working out in gym and no one knows the difference or cares. This certainly increases my availability, and since I often chose to take off part of the day and work late at night, it is a non-disruptive way to increase my life balance since most of clients work standard business hours.
I’m always available. There might be an emergency, or my wife might want me to pick up a pizza or gallon of milk on the way home. A couple weeks ago an old friend from Europe I hadn’t seen in years was stranded in the Boston airport. He didn’t find me at my home number, but my wife gave him my cell number and we got together for dinner and had a great time.
Like most Americans, I spend a lot of time driving. Both to and from the office as well as client’s sites. Ten years ago driving was basically wasted time. Now I’m typically on the phone and productive while driving. I show up at the office ready to work, not ready to “catch up” on phone calls.
I travel for work a lot and it’s great to have ONE phone number that works almost everywhere. If someone wants to talk to me, they rarely care if I’m home, in Kalamazoo, or in Albuquerque. Unfortunately due to different standards, US Cell phones don’t work in most other countries. When I was in Hong Kong and Singapore often, I had two phone numbers: North America and Asia-Pacific. That was still much more efficient than using phone numbers tied to physical locations.

I’ve briefly mentioned three somewhat obvious “killer applications” of technology that have changed most people’s lives for the better. It would be easy to think of more – for example, medical advances immediately come to mind.

I don’t think its possible to predict new killer apps. I don’t think anyone ever predicted the printing press, the cotton loom, gunpowder, nearly universal email, or their impacts. But we can be sure there will be more killer apps, and we will feel their impact.