Answer Guy Central

Last week I commented on the debacle that Amazon.com created by reaching into Kindle devices and deleting George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984. Read that story again, here, and check out the update in comments.

Bad as that was, and Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos has acknowledged it was a mistake, here’s something worse: The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), who watch out for the “best interests” of that business and have spent the last few years terrorizing people who . . . <ahem>, share music, have now weighed in with the opinion that if you buy music on-line, legitimately, and it’s protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM) software, you shouldn’t expect that the computers controlling your rights should stay up and running.

Meaning that what you buy becomes worthless.

Wow.

So I can buy a physical CD, and as long as I take good care of it have it forever. I can back it up (this is legally protected action in the US, as long as you follow some rules and don’t share your backup with other people), and be protected against accidentally scratching the disk. I can buy non-copy-protected versions of music on-line and not need anyone else to protect them. But if I buy DRM-protected media—which the RIAA champions—I should accept it when the company holding the keys to my vault loses the keys?

I’m not a fan of DRM, and I do my best to protect myself from it. But we have clients who buy DRM-protected music and don’t understand the details—and shouldn’t need to—and have then paid us to fix the problem that crop up because it’s already too hard. Thanks, RIAA. You were already the bad guys. Now you’re standing up and saying so.

Sometimes, I can just point to someone else’s work, step back, and tell you how great it is.

This is almost one of those times. Check out this article in Wired.

Aside from my concern with the author’s statement that you should leave your WiFi connection open to the public, pretty much everything here makes sense. And seriously, in a Blog about Change, this article is fun, on-message, and . . . well, just great!

So if I send you all to that article, add a comment or three, and step back, have I changed your life? If you weren’t gonna see it otherwise, you bet.

Lives changed . . . movin’ on . . .

It’s my Twitter Page. I can say anything I like in 140 characters.

And then get sued for it.

Did you hear the one about the girl who hated her landlord, claimed on Twitter that her apartment was full of mold, and got sued by the landlord?

Heads up, folks. Off-the cuff remarks can get you in a lot more trouble now that anyone can see them.

The landlord’s response will probably hurt them a lot more than the remarks would have had they simply been ignored, by the way. And I’m not siding with the girl; I don’t know what the real story was at her “moldy home”. But for you, dear reader, the point is more important: don’t think the things you say or do online are private. AT ALL.

I remember a few years ago when my oldest son started college. I attended a seminar where the head of the athletic department made a point about kids and Myspace. Let’s leave it at this: “if you have drunken pictures of you up there, you aren’t playing sports here”. But now add Twitter, Facebook, and wherever else you tell the world about yourself.

I’m not saying you should be afraid of these services or stay off them. I’m telling you that change needs to be managed . . . like change.

Who’d have thought? Teenagers, the invincible superheroes who also happen to lead us through all new things . . . aren’t using Twitter.

Anecdotally, I can tell you that one of my three sons thinks Twitter is pretty cool, and uses it to tell anyone who’s listening what’s he’s up to. Usually, the information strikes me as not of use to anyone except a friend who might be waiting for him to arrive somewhere.

Or a bad guy. Which is the point.

A couple of weeks ago, 15-year-old Matthew Robson, interning for the summer at Morgan Stanley (good luck wrapping your head around that one, by the way) wrote a report on the way teenagers use social media and other technology. Bloomberg got hold of it, and here is their encapsulation.

The short of this? Kids A) Don’t really think anyone is reading their tweets, and B) Think it’s creepy to throw all their personal information out there for anyone to read.

I tweet. Ashton Kutcher tweets. Oprah tweets. And we all have reasons for doing so. But do you? Do your children? Well, maybe. And Twitter is of course another example of change . . . and you want to pay attention.

But your teenagers aren’t. Think about that.

No kidding, REALLY?

We have a little side project here at Answerguy Central: It’s found at this link, and while not very interesting to look at, the idea behind I Hate Texting is pretty much self-explanatory. And we have some social engineering stuff in mind; stay tuned for that.

Today, The New York Times published an article outlining just how dangerous texting is when people driving trucks do it. Presumable the findings apply to cars, motercycles, and whatever other form of transportation you favor as well . . . I’ve had people walk into me because they were texting at the time, for example, and seen people walk in front of cars because they were looking down and working their thumbs instead of following the simple rules our parents laid out for us before we were ever allowed to cross a street.

So on our topic of  “change” the question is: has the need to be constantly multitasking created a behavior that is not only annoying but flat-out dangerous?

Yes, it has. I’ll redefine the question, though: Do you really need to be constantly multitasking in this way to succeed in life or business?

No, you do not.

Don’t get me wrong; everyone has different things to deal with, and I haven’t met anyone lately looking to shrink their circles of contact. But you don’t need to be constantly doing three things.

Here’s a simple place to start: no texting at the dinner table. It’s a change you can choose to make and it will not hurt you; I promise there’s absolutely nobody who will think less of you for closing off a single 45-minute block of time every day.

Now get back to work. And do one thing well, please. Something other than texting.

I have a friend who’s spent his entire career in the music business. Up until a few years ago, he headed A&R (the part of the company that finds new talent) for Atlantic Records, who were, and if the recording industry still “exists” in any meaningful format still are a big label.

Well, it doesn’t.

I’ve known this for quite a while. The old school media companies have been fighting it for over a decade. There have been hundreds if not thousands of articles written on the subject, and the short point is that the businesses these folks are in have changed. The Internet has hastened the change and record labels, television networks, and newspapers are in full and fast decline.

There’s a fascinating article this week in The New York Times. It tells in pretty simple language what’s changed and why, specific to the recording industry. The lessons apply across the board to all media.

And here’s why you care:

No matter how big you are, no matter how well entrenched your business is in your industry, or your industry is in society, change is coming. And you need to be ready to adapt.

That’s all. You get the message. Call if you need more help;  it’s why we’re here . . .

I usually write about change here. Today, I’m writing about how ‘change’ and ’staying the same’ have become . . . indistinguishable.

Last week, people who use Amazon’s wildly popular Kindle eBook readers, and who happen to have bought George Orwell’s 1984 or Animal Farm got an incredibly rude surprise. The books were gone.

The irony is delicious. Nothing remotely OK about Amazon deleting the content off your Kindle, but the fact that it was Orwell  . . . just amazing. Now let’s move on to the big question: What’s UP?

I see two big questions:

1. What does this mean technically?
2. Why are they taking my stuff!!??!!

The second question is easy: Amazon discovered that the company that had made the books available didn’t have the right to do so, and they (correctly) pulled the plug on the books. By “correctly”,  I mean that they needed to discontinue sales.

The first makes my head spin, though: What’s next, police standing at my door demanding that I hand over my things?

While that would be worse—I think—I’m not being dramatic. Amazon has reached inside all the Kindles that held the books in question and taken them back. Because they had what amounted to police power.

To be fair they’ve promised not to do it again, but here’s the deal: While you do not own the words in the documents you download to your Kindle, you DO own the files in which they reside, and the device holding the files. Amazon didn’t care. They trespassed. Period.

“Big deal”? “No harm”? “They returned my money so I don’t really care” ? Sure. But what if you were writing a report on one of the books they deleted, or using a book as a source for something, had taken notes (which are YOURS, not Amazon’s, not the book’s authors, nobody but yours) and those notes went away along with the book?

Now take it to another scary place: what if Amazon, through this “power”, decides to get into the book censoring business?

See my point?

Sadly, there’s little to nothing you can do about this, other than continue to do all your work on and from paper. And of course if you’re that person you aren’t reading this. But there’s one thing you can do, and you must: manage your own expectations of how your “stuff” works, or hire someone  to manage it for you.

World change, you change, too. Done deal.

=====

UPDATE, September 4 2009:

Amazon has made good on the issue (albeit a bit late if your research was for work due before now). Here’s the letter that has just gone out to Kindle Owners who had downloaded the Orwell books 1984 and Animal Farm and had them deleted:

Hello,

On July 23, 2009, Jeff Bezos, our Founder and CEO, made the following apology to our customers:

“This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our “solution” to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.

With deep apology to our customers,

Jeff Bezos
Founder & CEO
Amazon.com”

As you were one of the customers impacted by the removal of “Nineteen Eighty-Four” from your Kindle device in July of this year, we would like to offer you the option to have us re-deliver this book to your Kindle along with any annotations you made. You will not be charged for the book. If you do not wish to have us re-deliver the book to your Kindle, you can instead choose to receive an Amazon.com electronic gift certificate or check for $30.

Please email Kindle customer support at kind...@amazon.com to indicate your preference. If you prefer to receive a check, please also provide your mailing address.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

The Kindle Team

I’ve been around long enough to witness a lot of change. Not quite long enough to have seen the Supreme Court Case in 1959 that made so many thing that were up until then classified as “obscene” all of a sudden, like magic, legal, but close, and certainly long enough to see Hustler Magazine and Larry Flynt forever change the face of the subject in otherwise conservative Cincinnati, Ohio.

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of that 1959 Supreme Court Case. The lines between obscenity and art were forver blurred that day, when a very smart attorney named Charles Rembar argued—and won—an argument that a work that might otherwise be classified as obscene would be rendered something else if it also “presented material of redeeming social importance”. It was a brilliant argument, primarily because it played against an earlier Supreme Court decision in a way that all but cornered the Court into eating their own words. For a longer version of this , look at this link to a story in the New York Times.

I was thinking about this, and came to realize that it outlines an idea that we all need to be more comfortable with: Change Happens.

Imagine what it felt like when “obscene” became “OK”, and you’ll find yourself in the very same shoes that today’s businesses have to wear. Remember when America On Line was both your content provider and connection to the content? Odds are good that if you’re reading this that by now they’re neither to you. And if you’re reading “their” news, you sure aren’t paying for it any more.

Your business is changing the same way. Things you used to be able to charge for are now the things you give away for free. Services that used to be your big money makers are now your loss leaders. And finding new ways to make a living get harder, and harder, almost every day.

Except they don’t. All you have to do is embrace change.

Now, gimme a hug . . .

Who thinks they understand Barack Obama’s Health Care Reform initiative?

Guess again.

It doesn’t take much thought to see that President Barack Obama is trying to change the way health care works in the U.S. And with full disclosure that I’m a fan and a supporter, I feel compelled to state that the great man has yet to put forth a “plan”. That’s not the point of this post.

The point is that today Republican National Committee Chairman Steele has accused President Obama of having a plan that “is socialism”, which is just the beginning of my problem with his words (and by the way, at the end of the day, whenver that is, there sure will be some socialistic traits to whatever “plan” emerges).

The big problem is this: for all the rhetoric being tossed around about how Barack Obama’s Health Care Reform Plan has one problem or another, what I don’t see anyone doing is offering—or even attempting to offer—viable alternatives.

This is a business blog, friends, so despite Health Care Reform seeming to be the topic under discussion, what I’m really saying is much more broad. Ready?

Do Not Point Out a Problem Unless You Also Point Out Its Solution.

Carry that one with you. Carry it to Washington D.C. if it’s your bent, but carry it everywhere.

President Barack Obama, I know you’re listening. Now everyone else, whether you are trying to reform Health Care or something else . . . it’s about solutions, not problems.

So I’m reading the thoughts of Jeremiah Owyang, of Forrester Research.

The question comes up: Are LinkedIn Recommendations worth anything?

Jeremiah says “no”, pretty much, but then softened his stance when he responded to my post here.

What do you think? Is the World Wide Web a Way Wacky Wilderness that’s made us all something less than recommendation-worthy?