Answer Guy Central

Once upon a time, I spent a few years working for Verizon. It was an amazing and eye-opening professional experience for me, and although I ultimately came back to the world of small business development I learned quite a bit in my time working for one of the world’s largest companies.

While I was there, Verizon and their large telecommunications brethren managed to convince the US government—specifically the FCC—to deregulate data. At the time, this was presented as  a matter of fairness; telcos were (and still are) obligated to allow “alternative carriers” to provide switched voice service over the lines that they built under government protection, but because advanced systems like Verizon’s all-fiber optic FIOS service weren’t built with government help the Verizons of the world argued successfully that the rules applying to the old copper lines shouldn’t apply to new lines. Fair enough.

Last September, the FCC made rules controlling “Net Neutrality”. On the surface, these rules are designed to stop Verizon and the other owners of physical lines over which Internet traffic moves from providing preferential treatment to the traffic they deem important. Again, fair; I suspect that like me you don’t want your Internet Service Provider slowing down things they think aren’t important and speeding up the things that they think are. There are censorship issues in that, and also issues surrounding your favorite sites being slowed by your connection provider if they have a competing service or do business with someone who does.

Well. OOPS! The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has decided that the FCC had no right to issue Net Neutrality rules because the Internet lines were deregulated as I explained above.

Don’t you love business change? And government bureaucrats? And lawyers? Now, the FCC has decided that they can get their way by re-regulating the lines. I don’t know it they’ll be able to pull that off, but either way, my head hurts just thinking about the years of legal wrangling ahead, the money that will be spent, and the outcome that will ultimately do . . . nothing.

Make your business decisions with an eye to the future. Hedge your bets when necessary. And if you have a preference for which way this issue should be decided, make some noise.

Nice choices: greater government regulation, or someone else controlling how you use the Internet. Stay tuned. For years.

Sounds like fait accompli, does it not? Google enacts one form of business change or another pretty much every day, and every one of their changes puts someone else out of business. Yesterday, they outdid themselves.

Google’s business change (and business changing) idea o’ the day was the introduction of a feature that lets Google Toolbar users comment on web pages they visit. Interesting? Stupid? A little of both? I say “genius”.

If we start with the very idea of people being interested in other people’s comment on the items they’re reading, we immediately get to what’s driving the Internet. For better or worse, we’re all reading the rantings of strangers who may or may not have expertise in the subject they’re writing about. You’re reading this because you’ve come to believe that I have some expertise in business change, business operations, technology, business ideas, or . . . something. OR: you’re here because you followed a link. And that link may have been one I planted out there to draw you here, or it could have been put up by somebody else who thinks I’m smart. BUT YOU’RE HERE.

(Thanks, by the way!)

There are any number of web page commenting platforms out there, and Google is saying something clear by launching their own: they want a piece of everything we do. Now, tie it to their toolbar. The toolbar drives adoption of the new feature, and the feature drives adoption of the toolbar. This may not be business change for Google, but if they change the way you do business, it sure is for you!

My concern is this: Google is controlling which comments actually get posted. They’ve detailed the rules in typically non-specific Google fashion, which in itself is fine, but by being both the people who show us search results and controlling which results are available for search, they’re going a bit too far. I commented earlier this week about Net Neutrality, and Google’s been a big proponent. Now this?

When technology, business change, and ideology cross paths, this is what we get. Let The Answer Guy help manage your business change.