Answer Guy Central

Chris Brogan has spoken: the social crash is upon us. And “Ambient Connectivity” is the solution.

I can’t argue the first half of that, and I don’t; I’ve been telling you for quite some time that even as we look for new ways to do social networking and engage our clients and potential clients and enact the business change that this new world calls for we need to scale back on the volume of social networking we do. Quantity simply doesn’t equal quality.

If the story Chris told in his post yesterday wasn’t such a train wreck I wouldn’t be thinking about it or passing it along to you. As smart as Chris is, he hasn’t said anything new in about a year now and has fallen into a pattern where he does little more than scream “rah rah!“. I’m bored with it, and while I’ve commented on Mr. Brogan’s activities a few times I had pretty much decided that until he said something new I wasn’t going to talk about Chris Brogan any more.

Oh man.

Let’s remember that the point of social networking is to engage the people you’re “targeting”. I could use a nicer-sounding word than that, but whether it’s business, personal, or whatever the word target is about as accurate a descriptor as I can come up with.

In describing the in-progress “social crash”, Chris held his own situation up as an example. Fair enough; Chris Brogan is connected in ways the rest of us can only dream of, and I believe that his experiences are about as valid and representative as anybody’s. And the short of it is that Chris Brogan, social networking and business expert, is now suggesting that people who are in his social network shouldn’t expect to be engaged by him. Euphemistically, he referred to the need for “ambient connectivity” in a world where there are more people trying to get his attention then he has the time or inclination to interact with directly.

Here’s the problem: Chris is right. Neither he nor anyone in his position can possibly keep up with it all personally. But because Chris Brogan’s digital peeps BELIEVE they have a “real” relationship with him, he has no choice but to keep them thinking so, unless A) he just don’t care or B) thinks they “get it” when he floated his ambient connectivity idea.

Oh they got it. Brogan spoke the truth, and used that truth to disconnect from the people who thought they were connected.

I hate to use so trite an example as an Eminem song, but what Chris Brogan is suggesting smacks of “of course I want you as a fan, but you shouldn’t expect anything in return”.

And that ain’t “social”. It’s demagoguery. Good luck with that in a social networking world.

The real answer is that when your social networking needs outpace your ability to keep up with them you need either to start employing someone to handle the overrun, or stop acting in a way that is so clearly faux social. Or better yet, both.

By the way: I posted a response to Chris’ story that made many of these same points. While critical it was certainly on-topic, and polite. And it got deleted. Apparently “social” in Chris Brogan’s world includes editing what the world thinks of you. I retract this. My comment has been reinstated, or I missed it earlier.

But what do I know? It’s not like taking care of impossible situations like this is what I do. Ambient Connectivity. REALLY?

Oh wait . . . it is . . .

When the United States Library of Congress created a policy that amounted to law, I made a passing remark about downloading movies in the aftermath of my local video store shutting down.

While Blockbuster Video isn’t responsible for the way people watch movies, Netflix may be. Yesterday, the movies-through-the-mail-and-over-the-Internet company announced a deal with three major movie studios to stream their media to subscribers over the Internet.

Before you get too excited (as I did for a moment) read the fine print.

Netflix is getting the right to stream new-ish movies to its users. The delivery lags the period during which the movies will be available in the dwindling number of freestanding video rental stores, but I’m OK with that part; the movie studios had to keep their existing customers happy, and probably have contractual obligations to do so.

But once on Netflix the movies will be available for a limited period of time, and then disappear as they become the sole purvey of television networks. In fairness, that’s a lot like what I mentioned relative to the slight delay in movies becoming available on Netflix, but in the real world it means that for some variable period of time anyone who wishes to see those movies, formerly available at the local Blockbuster store, will have only one option: download them illegally.

This is not business change, it’s business head-in-the-sand.

Kudos to the movie studios for seeing that Netflix and streaming need to be embraced. But until we can use Netflix to see whatever movies we wish to see, I’m not going to be excited about using them.

I guess TV will be with us for a while longer . . .

So now that Verizon and Google have proven themselves to be liars, the FCC is out of the Internet regulation business, and you still have to plan for business change, what should your next move be?

None. It doesn’t matter. Move on.

OK, so it isn’t as simple as that, but it’s close. Last week, when I told you about the Google / Verizon Collusion on Net Neutrality Pact, the most important point I made was this: Verizon and Google, working from a place that the rest of us can only dream about, are essentially making law. Oh sure, the FCC will eventually get around to writing the “official” version of how things work, but by attacking the issue preemptively, Google and Verizon have set up a showdown designed to ensure that the ultimate outcome is in their favor.

Let’s make sure what this means is clear:

Net Neutrality, the tenet under which telecommunications carriers like Verizon don’t decide for users what’s important, is an idea that isn’t really viable unless the laws governing it are so clear and carry such harsh (and easily enforced) penalties that carriers simply stay clear of even the perception of impropriety. This Isn’t Really Possible. In the United States our legal system is designed to allow skirting issues for long periods without fear of immediate enforcement.

Google and Verizon, under the thinly-veiled pretense of “doing the right thing”, are going to start operating in a way that, once established, will be nearly impossible for the FCC or any other governmental agency or lawmaking body to bust up without decades-long litigation.

And that litigation will happen. And millions if not billions of dollars will be spent running that litigation through the system. And when Verizon, Google, and whoever else is involved eventually “give in” and agree to government-mandated rules, those rules will be diluted to within an inch of being completely meaningless.

Big Business wins. Net Neutrality is over.

That said, the reason this doesn’t really “matter” is that

1. Big Business Always Wins
2. Everyone else figures out a way to deal with that

You may need to find ways around filters (yes, The Computer Answer Guy can help). You may need to move certain services to specific places (this is where Google comes in). You may even need to pay a little extra for special, higher-priority Internet service. But ultimately, you’ll be fine, and your business change planning will keep you in the game.

But Net Neutrality sure was a cute idea while it lasted!

OK, one more time: software patents are bad.

When Facebook was granted US Patent 7,669,123, I talked about it, and you’ve talked back for months; this thing simply should never have been awarded.

I’ve spoken more broadly about software patents, too. They stifle innovation and generally prove close to nothing. They’re a bad idea.

Last February, I pointed out something that bothers me a little bit less, though: when you own a patent (or patents), you need to defend your property, and the “patent troll” business is thriving.

And now Facebook is in the patent troll business. One $40 million payment to Friendster, eighteen patents in pocket, all of them covering social networking.

Again: software patents are a bad idea. But if they’ve going to exist, having them is a great way to go, especially if you have deep enough pockets to defend and enforce them. And Facebook certainly does.

Business change ought to be about actual change, and the patent troll business isn’t that at all. On the other hand, when you can effect change by making new revenue from the assets you already possess, you’re still looking forward. Much as I prefer to bash Facebook most of the time, this move is a winner. At least for them.

Remember last January when I told you about Best Buy / Geek Squad’s mandatory computer set up fees and what a rip off they were? At least they (presumably) were doing something for that money.

The folks at Lifehacker have uncovered something new. Best Buy / Geek Squad will now “set up” your new e-Reader for you. That’s right. $30 to put in a password.

Umm . . . does anybody need this service? I mean, seriously: if you can’t figure out how to set up an e-reader, should you be using one?

Listen: I applaud anyone who finds a way to add revenue. Most important business tenets are about maximizing your relationship with each and every customer. Best Buy / Geek Squad have every right to do this and if you’re willing to pay them to do stuff then more power to them. But if you do “work” for your customers and deliver absolutely nothing of value you’ll maximize customers sales figures in the short run and chase customers away over time.

Customer Service? Negative impact in this case. Really bad idea.

Make sure everything you do adds value. And have enough respect for your customers to avoid things that cast them as stupid.  Or like Best Buy / Geek Squad, you’ll come off as a rip-off artist.

I’ve mentioned the idea of Net Neutrality a few times. It’s a simple, yet nuanced idea, and basically means that companies providing Internet access shouldn’t have any say in what traffic is important.

And that ship, as they say, has now sailed.

Yesterday, Google and Verizon announced an agreement under which Verizon won’t control what Internet traffic gets priority over other traffic . . . “unless it’s in the consumer’s best interest”.

Read that again.

Google, a company that can issue edicts based solely on their size and reach, and Verizon, a telecommunications giant that can do the same except when governmental agencies and lawmaking bodies tell them not to, have agreed to prioritize traffic, but only when it’s good for us.

Thank goodness we have Google and Verizon to protect us.

Tongue now removed from cheek, let’s be clear: Neither Google nor Verizon have any interest in protecting consumers. This is about taking control of a situation preemptively; the FCC has threatened to re-regulate data, and when that happens there will be years if not decades of litigation. Rather than wait for that event, Google and Verizon have simply gotten a jump-start.

And once the deals and operating parameters are established, a silly little body like the FCC isn’t going to stand in the way of Google and Verizon continuing to do business “as they have been”.

By the way: the broad parameters of the deal also specify that wireless data is going to be handled differently than data delivered over permanent lines. Which is great awful, because that real-world business change for the consumer isn’t really a business change for Google or Verizon.

But by pretending it is, they can obfuscate this issue even further.

UPDATE: less than a day later, Verizon and Google have both denied this story. Uh-huh. Let’s go back in time about 10 months to when AT&T, a company very much like Verizon, accused Google of being against net neutrality. And with good cause. Now Google’s taking the high road? OK, I believe them !

Oh, and by the way: the FCC has called off Net Neutrality talks because they couldn’t reach consensus with the involved parties. Maybe because the involved parties are doing this?

Have you noticed how little actual contact you have with people?

I don’t mean social networking-type contact. In fact, as I’ve told you before, there’s real evidence that social networking causes isolation and depression. The Internet and technology and so-called “advances” have created social problems, and yesterday I came a cross an article that made me think. It was written about IT people in particular, but it applies to just about everyone.

You need to visit your customers.

This isn’t always possible, of course. I have coaching clients across the globe, and while I do see some of them in person every now and again it isn’t practical to make a habit out of in-person visits. PC-VIP, on the other hand, includes client visits as part of our protocol despite being designed as a mostly-remote service, and of course The Computer Answer Guy does traditional break/fix in-person computer support in the New York City area.

So I’ve just described three very different business models. And they all work. And the level of in-person interaction varies.

But people like to see you. They just do.

Let’s use PC-VIP as the template for navigating this issue. And let’s break it down to something simply: humans are . . . human.

People like to feel engaged. As I mentioned above, PC-VIP’s fixed-cost corporate IT services are designed to be delivered remotely—because frankly we couldn’t afford to do things the way we do otherwise. HOWEVER, each client is assigned a team of people who they not only GET to meet, but who always show up on a several-times-per-year schedule.

This means we’ve designed a service that is supposed to reduce visits . . . and then planned for visits anyway as an important part OF the service. No surprise: our clients love it.

So if the goal was to reduce costs (success!) and also stay engaged (success!) we’ve hit the mark. But it took planning to create this kind of customer service.

And maybe that’s why social networking seems so anti-social. There’s no planning.

I remember a story someone once told me about trying to meet up with a friend at an event in Central Park in New York City. Central Park is a huge place, and when there’s an event it can get crowded in a way that the word “park” doesn’t usually conjure up.

The rendezvous happened, but not until one person called the other on their cell phone—from literally three feet away. As a great as being able to recalibrate that way is, the point of the story wasn’t that there had been success; both people felt dumb.

In the days when planning was involved, we all felt a little bit more special. Plan to see your clients. Today, sadly, that’s business change. But sad or not, it works.

It’s a simple idea, really: get peoples’ attention with a free offer, make yourself indispensable, add scarcity if you can, and they’re hooked. Social Media is just like dealing drugs.

Of course on the Internet creating scarcity is incredibly difficult, but hey: that’s why some drug dealers are more successful than others.

Public relations guru Peter Shankman has compared doing social media to selling drugs on the street. And once you get past the silly opening line—and judging by the comments on Shankman’s article it looks like people are having a hard time doing that—his words are pure genius.

Marketing, social media, social networking, or if you insist public relations are ALL about these points. People have to listen to you and want more. You need to convince your targets that you have something they can’t get elsewhere. You have to be easy and accessible, and you need—at least occasionally—to distract your targets from the fact that you’re trying to sell them something.

What are you doing to make the products or services you sell special enough that the folks you sell them to can’t live without them? Or at the very least, what are you doing to make sure that your targets are at thinking of you when they go out consuming?

I’ve expressed concern about the way Google is handling the Android Operation System. I even went so far as to suggest that Google Had Killed The Droid.

Today, Verizon put the nail in that coffin. And it’s about grabbing more of your money. Thanks, guys.

Of course, it shouldn’t come as a surprise when Verizon or any other business tries to make money, and let’s be frank: SmartPhones have a notoriously short shelf life. But with the update to Android 2.2 slated to happen to Verizon’s original Droid this week I find it incredibly short-sighted that Verizon has announced that the update will omit the two most interesting features of the so-called “Froyo” Android update.

It’s likely that Engadget’s analysis is spot on; Verizon doesn’t want last year’s Droid to be able to do everything that the two models being released this summer can do. But they really shouldn’t think us all too dumb to spot their lie on the matter.

I’m not overstating this; Verizon is claiming that the original Droid isn’t capable of doing tethering (using your SmartPhone as a wireless modem for getting data into a computer when there’s no WiFi available) or acting as a WiFi hot spot. I can promise you that the former just isn’t true (look in the Android Market for PDA Net and see how easy it is to get you Droid to act as a tether), and the latter is similar enough a trick that I’m certain it can be done, too.

Considering that Verizon is planning to charge for the ability to to tether the Droid 2 and Droid X, I just can’t understand this incredible short-sightedness. Compound it with the flat-out lie and it leaves me thinking the iPhone 4 might not be such a bad idea, after all.

You know all those s***** deals the f****** a******* at Goldman Sachs and other sunk-the-economy companies have been making? I have some great news: Goldman Sachs employees aren’t allowed to e-mail about them any more.

OK, in this case, it’s actually terrible news for everybody but Goldman Sachs. But at least the investment bank’s employees will learn to communicate more professionally!

Goldman Sachs has issued an official ban on using profanity in e-mail. If it wasn’t a company suffering from hubris overload I’d approve; there really isn’t any reason to use profanity in anything you write in business communications. It’s a sign of laziness, and you don’t want to be seen as lazy by anyone in your business circles.

But in the case of Goldman Sachs, the loose communications style that’s been in place as a matter of corporate culture has helped the rest of us gain insight into Goldman Sach’s dealings. Let’s be frank; the same laziness that had high-level Goldman Sachs employees using uncensored expletives in written communication made them less likely to cover their tracks as they merrily committed fraud for personal gain.

OK, so I actually approve of the no-profanity edict at Goldman Sachs. It’s possible the the same enforced gentility prohibiting bad language could permeate their overall culture just a tiny bit and short-circuit a dirty deed or two before they happen. But forget Goldman Sachs.

What’s your company’s profanity etiquette policy?

People who know me well enough and do business with me for any period of time will attest to the fact that in casual conversation I use naughty words. And I’ve been known to drop the occasional F-Bomb for intentional effect even with people I barely know (when I know that they business I transact with them will conclude soon after).

And let me be clear: this isn’t about prudishness. There’s not a streak of that in me.

What I’m saying is that when you write something down and send it off into the ether, there is absolutely no reason for it to include profanity. It’s like making sure no pictures of yourself end up on Facebook that could get you in trouble later.

Think about Propriety and Etiquette before you write something: it’s a simple business change.

When I wrote a few weeks ago about Microsoft’s cool new battery technology, I was thinking that the beast from Redmond had headed down a new road. They’re actually giving the technology away under some circumstances, and mundane as it sounds, real changes to the way batteries work are REAL change.

But then I came across a business change at Microsoft that convinced me of something ugly I mentioned last month. Microsoft Is Becoming Irrelevant.

Yesterday, I started using a new portable computer. It’s one of those Netbooks that weighs almost nothing and gives me a whole day’s battery so that when I’m out I can work on a screen and keyboard that are easier to handle than those on my Droid SmartPhone.

Like most netbooks it comes with Windows 7, which while frustrating to an old computer geek like me is actually a pretty good upgrade. And the fact that it’s Windows 7 Starter Edition is fine; this little computer would be overwhelmed trying to do some of the things that the higher-end versions of Windows 7 can do.

And in playing with this little toy I realized that something we’ve all come to take for granted isn’t possible in Windows 7 Starter Edition. If you use Windows 7 Starter Edition, you can’t change your desktop wallpaper.

Let’s start by being clear: this isn’t really important, right?  And forget libertarian posturing like  “I have the right…!”  You don’t.

But here’s the thing that matters: Microsoft didn’t fail to include the ability to change wallpapers in Windows 7 Starter Edition; you can download third-party software that makes it possible. What they’ve done is leave out a simple feature that the whole world has come to understand, and made it a component of a much more complex upgrade that wouldn’t work very well on most of the computers that come with Windows 7 Starter Edition. And suggest you buy that upgrade.

And even that isn’t it.

When I was looking into this issue I came across this page. And I checked: the license for Windows 7 Starter Edition specifically forbids you from changing your desktop wallpaper. Check the link if you like, or if you have a computer running Windows 7 Starter Edition you can see the wording in paragraph 8 of the file C:\Windows\System32\license.rtf.

Business Change takes many forms. I begrudge Microsoft not one cent of any revenues they can generate. But suggesting that people perform an ill-advised software upgrade and going out of their way to point out that something as simple as changing your desktop wallpaper is illegal? Wow.

If you got to this post by reading the description, you’re already nervous about what’s to come. Strap in.

I’ve mentioned before how little Google cares about your data security, and while you could read some of this as a “the sky is falling” rant, it’s nothing of the sort. Fact is, there’s no real security on the Internet, and the issue isn’t that you’re being watched so much as it is that you need to understand how, and have some idea what that means to you so you might protect yourself as best you can.

This week, a new browser plug-in that will keep you up to date on just how often you’re transmitting personal information to Google became available. It’s available here, and works with both Firefox and Chrome.

If you install this software, you’re going to spend an awful lot of time being jarred by flashing and noisy alarms. I suspect that very few people will use it for more than a few hours before they uninstall it, stop browsing the Internet, and hide underneath their beds.

OK, so you’ll just uninstall the software, but you’ll still be horrified. Allow me to repeat: there is no data security on the internet (and) Google is the prime perpetrator of that truth.

So What?

Actually, you can read the “so what?” a couple of different ways:

Say it like a child and it means “this has nothing to do with me; it’s beyond my control, it is what it is“. Fair enough, and ultimately correct; you aren’t going to stop using the Internet, so get used to and accept that information is being gathered about you and your habits.

Or, make a plan. A dear friend recently bought a paper shredder to make sure that her bills and other documents didn’t get used against her when she threw them out, and weeks later she’s still talking about how good using it makes her feel. She happens to be quite old and doesn’t use the Internet, so imagine what she’d think if she read this!

The Computer Answer Guy can help you with your data security. So can PC-VIP and any number of other technology consultants. Or you can do it yourself. But if your meaning for “so what?” isn’t the childish one, you need to do something.

Right Now.

We have a legal system in the USA that’s meant to ensure nobody gets railroaded by a single party with an agenda to fulfill. And while the Internal Revenue Service gets to act as judge, jury, and executioner, most everything that doesn’t involve taxes takes the cooperation of many parties to resolve.

I have a new fear of respect for the Library of Congress.

The folks who previously started archiving the entire stream of drivel scrolling through Twitter have ruled (umm . . . overridden law) that certain portions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act just  don’t count. What was illegal is now . . . not

The new “fair use” exemptions specifically allow a few things that have been happening as a matter of course, including the “jailbreaking” of SmartPhones like the Apple iPhone, and making copies of DVDs under certain conditions.

I approve. Now here’s the thing:

• You may have the right to unlock your iPhone now, making it legal to install software that Apple hasn’t approved. But Apple still has the right to push out software updates that will undo your unlock, potentially breaking your iPhone. And they have the right to void your warranty because you did it.
• You may have the right if you are doing something “non-commercial” and “educational” to copy a DVD or grab a portion of it for use in a presentation, but there’s a reason I put those words in quotes.
• You may have the right to circumvent the software in a piece of hardware designed to stop you from copying software, but I’ll bet that for almost everyone a better idea is just to buy newer software.

Or as Jeff Goldblum’s character famously said in Jurassic Park, “just because you can doesn’t mean you should”.

I’m not making a moral distinction. I can’t given that when my local Blockbuster Video shut down I started feeling pretty good about downloading movies over the Internet. I’m saying that I’m impressed that The Library of Congress had the power to do what they’ve done and have made so obvious a good call and there’s nothing the regular powers-that-be can do about it.

And that’s what business change is. And it’s why The Answer Guy is here.

Welcome back to Chatroulette. We hope you enjoy exposing yourself to strangers across the world one at a time. But we’re going to help police arrest you, because that works for us.

Actually, I like this.

Ever since I mentioned Chatroulette a few months back, my words on how ridiculous Chatroulette is have been a big draw here; we get traffic every day to this post about Chatroulette,  and I suspect the reason is that we were the first to point out the issues with geocoding pictures of naked masturbating people.

Vist Chatroulette.com now and you see this ominous warning:

Welcome to our site. Enjoy your time here.

Warning: Broadcasting inappropriate content to minors is a violation of both US and UN law.
We are actively cooperating with law enforcement agencies.

Yeah, that’s right. It might not have occurred to you when you dropped your pants for all the world to see, but “all the world” includes minors. And exposing yourself to minors is illegal in many places.

Well, as NewTeeVee.com reports, Chatroulette is now cooperating with law enforcement officials who ask for help identifying naked people. And this isn’t a freedom of expression issue, it’s a “what the heck is happening on the Internet?” issue.

Or it’s about business. Chatroulette is a cool enough idea in a “social networking is what the Internet is really about and Chatroulette is a form of social networking” way, but there’s no good way for a small operation to police everything that happens on their site. So let’s let the police do our policing! It’s free, and we look like good guys!

What if your next business change included a way to let others make your change for you?

I Hate Facebook. Oh, I use it,  but I hate it. For me, Facebook is as good an example of how to do absolutely everything the wrong way as you’re ever likely to see.

And now it’s getting worse.

This week, Facebook started experimenting with a new way to present your news feed. Forget the fact that Facebook’s Patent on The News Feed is Ridiculous; the idea itself makes me feel as though I’m missing information, not getting it.

At least I can turn off the news feed and get a chronological information dump of what my friends are up to if that’s what I want . . . right?

Maybe not for much longer. Facebook has started changing your options in this regard. So far it’s just an experiment, but some Facebook users have lost the chronological option. If you’re in the group of people Facebook selects for this little test, your new options become, essentially, Newsfeed One or Newsfeed Two.

Social Networking is supposed to be about YOU AND THE PEOPLE YOU CHOOSE TO BE NETWORKED WITH BEING SOCIAL, isn’t it? Why in the world would you want Facebook to tell you what was important to you and your friends and not have a way to take back control?

And YIKES! Imagine you use a social networking site for business purposes. Just what I want: Facebook dictating the way I manage my business change.

There’s no moral to this story; you have it all, already. And if their history is any prediction of how they’d respond you don’t need to bother telling Facebook how bad an idea this is (although they are claiming they care; weigh in here).

By the way: The Answer Guy is in the process of developing a social networking alternative that . . . I’m not kidding . . . will fix many of the problems at Facebook. I can’t reveal details just yet, but if you drop me a line I’ll make sure you hear about them before anyone else.