Have we shared ourselves into Silos?

As I look out across my 30 column wide Tweetdeck app it dawned on me that it has started again.

I am pondering when did we get back to this point. Not sure it can be nailed down to one specific inflection point.

Once upon a time there was a monolithic world of business and it was a top down approach of management over employees. Information was on an as need basis or a "pay grade level" basis. However you view it, or heard about it, it existed. It sucked!

But not to everyone, and not so obviously. Many people were happy to go on with their work lives as drones in the corporate world. Some people wanted a better way and nothing really provided a way out.

Along came the PC revolution and networks, people could share information and the work world seemed a little less monolithic. Maybe we were on the cusp of something at that time, maybe we weren't. The hope and promise was there, even if the technology was not quite there. Although for the time it was pretty damn near incredible.

And then we found the commercialized Internet in 95 when it was opened up for us outsiders to become our babysitter, how-to manual, gripe board, chat board, equipment drivers locator and a far cheaper way to stay connected to our friends and the people we love. Unfortunately it also helped us stay connected to work.

Openness was everywhere, and still is, but it came with a price then and now. Join me, login here, register with us, become a member, and more yellow brick roads to what we thought was more sharing and socializing all popped up.

If you didn't mind the mini-silos, you were fine.

I minded then, I still do. Evidently while I am not unique, I represent a smaller percentage, and definitely of Americans, that want to share more with people.  OK, maybe not everything, but still...

On average, 24 percent of the world says they share “most or everything” that they do. But only 15 percent of Americans admitted to sharing nearly everything online. - Mary Meeker, 2013 Internet Trends Report

I am very against silos, in business, in religion, in schools, and in life in general. I may not like, or agree with everyone, but we are all here for each other to work our way through the maze of life.

There is an app for everything and nothing. Probably the most interconnected app for people is Facebook or Twitter. Both provide connections to people and their thoughts but still the people using either app is inconsistent. I have friends who use none of these, one of these or all of these forcing me to monitor many places, if I care enough. In time new shortcut apps popup that help, but in some ways we are breaking into more pieces than we ever did before.

There are niche of niche products, discussions, even zip codes or buildings have the exclusive of exclusive. And for what purpose? So we can be separated and divided further.

You say, "No, you got it all wrong! It's customization, personalization down to every whim you have or search you perform. We live in the ultimate open ended world, not a silo."

I see that side as well.

Really.

I do.

People always had outlets, work, sports, pubs, friends, family, but now everyone else knows about it and likes you more, or less, depending on the things you post and join. Want a new car or house but don't want neighbors to know, good luck keeping it form them if they follow you.

It's all good in the end, let's just be careful out there.

Novell's Vibe collaborates differently for the better

I have been spending some time lately playing with Novell's Vibe which is in beta, you can sign up at the link.

It is far from polished or ready for prime time, but some interesting findings which I want to share with you.

Privacy is a luxury. One of things I always found odd about Groupwise was the way they enabled anyone to read and send email as though it was the originator. Nothing new, we have this in Notes too, but Novell took the view that it's not a security issue or a privacy one, if you know someone is doing this. Thus their view of collaboration is also not weighted down by security or privacy, compared to Lotus ones.

Novell is working to bring the Google Wave idea to some usage, but to me at least, it is still as confounding as Google's product. Maybe I am too linear and old school but the almost random items that fly past you in the stream/river(they call it the Biglist) troubles me. I was told there is an icon to let me know what is a private message but at the time everything appeared open.

Novell wants people to share information truly collaboratively. And I applaud that effort and look to Project Vulcan to bring some of this as well. But my original posting, or message is editable by anyone right now. That is just mind blowing to me. Scarily so. From the threads it looks like that will not be the case at Live date but needless to say that raises questionable ideas. I'd like to see my posts ask me if they can be edited or not. And I'd like to see items not be allowed to be copied, printed or forwarded or "bring in" someone else to read it. Funny thing was the developer I was talking with said they did not have these limitations/security in Groupwise.

Before you think I am killing on Vibe, I am not. It's beta, it needs feedback. It is rather fun to be playing with code that the developers are using and logged in to as well so they can listen and chat to me while I am experiencing the quirkiness of a new product. I can't remember the last time we had this in Lotus.

Also, in the grand scheme of consumer vs. corporate philosophy I think Novell has a perspective that IBM should think about. Are you writing a product that will foster or hinder collaboration? Is too much security and lock downs bad in this day and age? As an admin and speaker at conferences I know the pros and cons of this question well. I also see companies not truly recognizing the path they are on may lead to a down side where employees may not choose to work there.

While certainly there should be some security, the premise of true collaboration is everything should be open all the time to everyone. Not a place that has a public and a private side and then squirreled away secret rooms inside those. Thinking like a customer I would like to see better security on offer, even if clients do not use it all, than see less security available.

What will be of interest to me is how Novell deals with this product from a mobile device. Will there be a special app for the big3(Apple, Google, RIM) or will it just be a browser? Will the promise of 4G speeds make this work well or be bogged down?

The same could be asked of IBM and Project Vulcan. Right now the argument goes on about how to build traveler and support what and where. I am looking beyond these devices to understand the future and it seems no one really has a great handle on it.

I don't care about devices or OS, I care about getting my data to me no matter what I am using. And my clients ask the same of me. But I do care about privacy(Yes I use social media and location based programs but that is different from inside the company firewall privacy) perhaps more than security because in the end all systems will have their security methods but privacy seems to be the forgotten step child.

After all, BCC was created for a reason, maybe not a good one, but there are good reasons for it as well.

An Invasion of Privacy by Citibank and AT&T

Dear Citibank and AT&T,

If you robocall someone, ask for their name and zip code, which is not that hard to produce for criminals and then ask for me to speak to someone to assist me, they should be able to let me know what account # we are discussing BEFORE asking me for real information like Social Security #, birth date or my bank details.

I asked for them to let me know which card(we have a few between corp and personnel) it is, tell me the last 4 digits of the card or the last digits of one of our accounts, but they are unable to comply unless I give out my details?! YOU CALLED ME!

So you get to invade my privacy and request personnel information BEFORE your people can tell me anything? and you expect me or anyone else to believe you are Citibank or whatever?

The person suggested I call back the number on the back of my card, I asked, which card, they can't tell me.

Thank you,

A not very happy customer

The "Death Patrol"

I was commenting on Karen's recent post about lack of privacy and the Social Media/Web 2.0 world and realized this may be of interest to some people.
What if you were the subject of "The Death Patrol"?

Some background.

My grandparents have some great friends who love them dearly, but heaven forbid my grandparents not show up to a regular event and I get the "are they okay?", "do you know anything?", "can we help them"?

Keep in mind, my grandparents from my mom's side are 89 and 87. They use the net and email and have done for years, not always efficiently, but it works for them, I am happy they do it at all. Okay, I have to adjust the screen resolution when helping them on their computer but other than that all is good. In truth it was their original IBM PC which I took apart, literally, many times over the years as I updated it and taught them how to use it. So much for training in the 80's.

So when I discuss Social Media with people I remind them that it's all fine and good until someone gets hurt. Stalkers are just one problem. ID theft, mail fraud, burglary, putting your kids in harm's way, hate groups are better informed as well, not to mention what a future employer or customer digs up on you via Google.

1984, close enough isn't it. Or maybe it leads to a Logan's Run scenario where everything about you is known and maybe you end up on a hit list for being too old, or in the wrong place or comment the wrong way and the government brings the Sandman(see the Logan's Run link) after you.

But I'd rather be seen and known than unknown and having "The Death Patrol" on the case. Maybe I just feel like that until I make my first million.

Only time will tell.