The Converging Network

The Year The Media Died

Now, I'm not actually a subscriber to the theory that traditional media is dead to be replaced completely by digital and social media. Newspapers may be drying up while social media is ramping up but things are never as black and white as they may seem they'll be. But, I ran across this Mad Avenue Blues video on GuruOfNew and thought it worth sharing with you.

Enjoy the video.

Generations Of Communications and How They Influence Business and Products

Part 1: One of the reasons I enjoy creating software is that I'm fascinated by researching and understanding users of the technology we create. I sometimes refer to myself as a software anthropologist. That's part of why I also enjoy user interface design. So, enough about me... lets get on to the topic.

Over time, I've noticed how the form of communications we use is generational. By that I mean as time marches on, we create new ways of communicating and that tends to be the form users of that generation stick with. Some make the transition to the next generation, some have a foot in both camps, and others stick with what they've been comfortable with.

When I first started my career, business people communicated very differently than they do today. Besides the phone, communication was written, either through memos or reports, or personal letters between friends and family. There were no cell phones yet, and desktop computers were just beginning to make their way onto desktops. Yes, I'm really dating myself here.

But how I communicated was a bit different, a hybrid actually. I was a computer science student in college and had a side business writing medical software for the Apple II. I was exploring online bulletin boards and using word processing software (that's what we called it back then) to create my content, but few were doing this when I started creating software at the bank where I worked. Very soon after that, I was setting up my first LANs and starting to deploy email servers and email clients, something else that was also very new to the PCs in businesses where I worked.

So, with that as a starting point, I noticed that I was different from those around me in the bank and in the IT department. Everyone lived by pen, paper or a typewriter, while I was always on a computer. And over time I observed how our communication patterns tend to change with new generation of users and stay the same for others.

Here's how I break down the generations of communications and how users of that generation create and consume content.

Non-computer - short hand, dictation, pen and typewriter. I collapse all of these forms together because they don't involve the use of a computer, matter of fact they largely predate computers. Content was handwritten or created verbally and either written down in shorthand or recorded into a Dictaphone type device, and then transferred via typewriter into written form. This is the generation my parents and grandparents grew up in. My grandmother was well known at the local hospital for her typing speed and accuracy at deciphering and spelling medical jargon dictated by doctors. That couldn't have been easy. Other than the use of the phone, all of our communications were written. (You could go back in history and talk about typeset, printing press and when everything was handwritten, but I'm not going there in this blog post.)

Word processing. When I officially joined the workforce (after college), word processing was making it's way through businesses. This was the Wang word processor era, specialized hardware and software just for word processing. I was using PC software for word processing, like ScreenWriter II (Apple II), MacWrite (Mac), WordPerfect, WordStar and eventually Microsoft Word (PC). I really only saw the tail end of dedicated word processor generation, as it was pretty short-lived from my experience. I recall on the first development project I worked how many people created content by writing it on yellow pads, and then the word processing pool (formerly typewriter operators) transferred it to typed pages. This was an odd period for me because I was using my own word processing software to create content and either printing it on my own printer or handing it over to the word processing pool to retype. (Go figure.) As computers moved onto the desktop, thanks largely to VisiCalc and Lotus 123, word processing shifted to the desktop as well. Understand that ultimately what we're talking about here is content that's only consumed once it's printed. Creation of content is still written but it's being translated to the computer rather than being created at the computer.

Email. I'm largely of the email generation. I remember setting up one of the first LAN-based email servers in EDS where I worked. The email software was InterMail and it ran on the Mac (and I believe later became part of ccMail.) Most in the email generation send, receive and consume content via email while they are at their computer. They do it themselves. (This probably sounds like no big deal to you because that's likely how you work and communicate.) An interesting side effect is that non-computer and word processing generations typically didn't fully make the transition to email. I remember countless managers and executives who had their assistants print out their email for them, write comments and responses on the printed page for their assistants to type up and reply back to the sender. That seems as uncomfortable to me as having someone act as a mediator between myself and a caller on the phone, but for those of the written communication generation, computers, mice, keyboards and email programs seem just as foreign or strange.

Instant Messaging (IM). A relatively collapsed generation are IM users. I say collapsed in that IM tends to be an extension of email users, not really a generation in and of itself. It doesn't replace email, but gives instant communications to individuals and groups. The audience of people who you IM is usually pretty small, such as co-workers in your immediate workgroup, some family members and friends. Except for a relatively few users on the extreme, I don't see this as a way an entire generation changed their communication patterns, giving up email in place of IM.

Texting. My kids are of the texting generation. They rarely use email (mostly to communicate with me) and they don't use email to communicate amongst their friends and social groups. They text, and they text a lot. They see email as something Dad does, but not them, though they use email for other purposes such as their school email account where information is delivered to them via email. Both my kids and I are hybrids, but at different extremes. I text, but use much more email while my kids' generation text and use a little bit of email. We're at that crossover point in this transition from email to texting in a variety of forms as we'll see in  a moment. People like myself who have adopted texting will better communicate with the next generation and may transition there themselves (I hope I do), and those who haven't will still require their audience cross back and forth between their preferred method and previous generation's methods.

Twitter and social networking. Clearly social media, with the exception of blogging, is designed around the same types of short messages we've seen from the texting generation. But it's different in  that social networking can reach one person (such as with a direct tweet or wall-to-wall message) and also go out to many within our social networks, both close friends and family or more distant observers. An interesting aspect of social media is how it has quickly crossed multiple generations. While mySpace was primarily a youth and music oriented community, Facebook is used by a much broader spectrum of age groups. Twitter is rapidly making its way into businesses as a new medium for reaching their audiences, but we're still largely in that early adoption phase.

One of the things I haven't addressed yet is mobile communications, i.e. cell phones. Clearly mobile technologies have enabled options like texting, while twitter, IM and email communications can be performed with and without cell phones. I won't go into mobile communications any deeper here as I think I could write a very similar blog post about how mobile communications has shifted from one land line phone per home to wide spread use of mobile phones and to a lesser degree SmartPhones.

Okay, that's the breakdown. In Part 2 of this blog post I'll discuss how thinking about communications in this generational context is important and how it influences our products, IT systems and methods of reaching customers and communities.

Social Media Is Building Schools In Africa $10 At A Time - Please Donate

Earlier this year, a client I advise about social media and web technology approached me asking for help with a fund raising effort on Twitter. The idea was to raise enough money, $10,000, to set up a young Kenyan boy and his brother with a store they could operate and make a living. 

This situation was special because the boy had lost his arms after both his parents died from AIDS. He was so distraught, the village elders were worried he might take his own life, so they tied him up, cutting off the circulation resulting in him losing both arms. It was a tragic story but one with a happy ending. The www.boywithoutarms.org campaign raised over $10,000 to build the boy and his brother their store. Donations were raised over a 48 hour period, using Twitter and a web page, asking for $10 donations. A similar effect was sucessful at Thanksgiving last year, but frankly, the results amazed me.

Jeff Power, US Mobilization Director with Global Hope Network International, a non-profit and non-religious organization, is undertaking his next Twitter-based fund raising campaign to build two schools, one in Kenya and the other in Ethiopia. Same approach: Twitter, requests for $10 donations, and a web site, http://buildanafricanschool.org.

Social media is getting a lot attention, especially Twitter and Facebook. CNN, Dell, Microsoft, and countless other businesses use Twitter to reach their customers. Individual users Twitter to connect with colleagues, family and friends. But there's more to Twitter than just a short message, micro-blogging platform. 

Twitter can mobilize people, it can call them to action, and it can do good in the world, reaching even the poorest villages in Africa. Whether you're a social media wonk or a sckeptic, social media is having an impact on our society. I'd prefer it be a positive one, and the Build An African School shows us just how much of a positive impact social media can have.

Now... here's your chance to make a difference in the lives of a bunch of kids in Kenya and Ethiopia who can move from holding school under a tree, to school building and a classroom. Over the next two days (Wednesday and Thursday):

• Donate $10s or more at http://buildanafricanschool.org
• Follow @GHNI on Twitter 
• Retweet @GHNI messages on Twitter and Facebook 

Video Interview About $200m Russian Facebook Investment

Michael Arrington at TechCruch (a great site, btw) posted an interview on YouTube that he did with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Yuri Milner of Digital Sky Technologies, the investor who just plunked down a $200m investment in Facebook at a $10B valuation.

The interview focuses on the question of why Zuckerberg took the investment, how this investment was a bargain comparted to the Microsoft (and other) investment made at a $15B valuation in 2007, and opens the question of whether Facebook will be doing much more with acquistions this year.

You'll find this interesting if you like to follow the investment and financial side of social media companies.

Is Your Avatar Doing You Justice?

In a blog post It’s All About The Faces, Brad Feld talked about the impact on his readers after changing from his normal portrait style avatar to a more artistic version. Followers commented how he seem so much less accessible, resulting in Brad changing back to his orginal picture.

That blog post immediately reminded me of a somewhat releted experience I had that same day. While creating a new group on Facebook, I ran into some challenges when trying to invite some of my Facebook friends to the group. For some reason my web browser would only display my friends avatars, and not their names, so I could only identify them by the avatar they'd selected. Many friends were easy to recognize, I was shocked by how many I was unable to recognize only having an avatar to go by.

Why? The friends I couldn't immediately identify all had something other than a picture of themselves for their avatar. Examples included bears in a field, pictures of their babies and kids, scenary from a vacation or favorite location, far off shots that basically showed the person in sillotte, or they were just difficult to make out in the picture.

Now, I'm not saying it's bad to be creative with your Facebook, Twitter or other social networking avatar. But the avatar you chose may impact friends and followers and the connection they feel with you. Some of my friend's avatars have the person's face front and center. I really like those because I immediately feel I know who I'm talking to, and in some esoteric way it refreshes for me a small part of the relationship I have with them.

The Facebook experience caused me to think about my own choice of avatars. I rotate primarily between three pictures; the first two are more "professional" in nature with one being based on the same picture you see in the heading of this blog, and another taken from a video interview I did a while back with Network World. The third is a little more distant shot of me playing my project Strat guitar, which I use for my music and personal posts. Those first two are pretty clear pictures of me, and should make it easy to recognize me from my mug shot. The third is not as easy to make out, though playing music is a deep passion of mine and I do enjoy showing off my guitar. I suppose showing me in that way does present my connection with music, and that's something most who have non-professional relationship with me know if an important part of who I am.

In any case, I think the important thing here is to recognize that your choice in the pictures you use to represent yourself via an avatar does influence both people's ability to recognize you, and more importantly, to establish and re-establish their connection with you. Unless you're twittering under an account used for your business, your choice in avatars is more than just your badge or logo, it's you we're talking about. After all, isn't that what social networking is all about... enabling interpersonal relationships, and building communities with others based on interests, topics, events, work, pop culture and social causes?

So take 2 minites and go check out the avatars you're using. If they don't help others relate or connect with you, maybe it's worth considering a new avatar or dusting off that avatar you set aside in favor of some new, more artistic but less personal version. Remember that ultimately, social networking is about you and the connections you build with others. Some cool new Facebook survey you completed may say you relate to the world as a bear, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world should see you that way or that you want them to.

This Is The Matrix... On Microsoft Windows

   My editor at Network World Microsoft Subnet, Julie Bort, posted this video parody of the movie The Matrix that pokes fun at Microsoft Windows. No matter if you're a Linux fan, Mac user or you use Windows regularly, I think everyone will enjoy this video.

Recession Accelerating Social Media Adoption

"Crisis brings opportunity to change." Keep that quote in mind for a moment as you read this blog post.

You can't watch a cable news channel, particularly CNN, without hearing some reference to Twitter. Facebook has pretty much supplanted myspace as the dominant social networking platform, thanks in large part all of the applications, groups, social causes and the beginnings of businesses using Facebook to reach customers. It's pretty easy to find a blog post or a site about tips and common mistakes when using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, blogging and just about any other social media tool.

The activity I've seen lately seems to fall into six categories:

• Folks who have been using social networking for some time now (experienced Twitter'ers, Facebook, etc.)
• Individuals exploring the use of social media as part of an entrepreneurial, small business or "multiple streams of income" effort,
• Business networking between professionals falling into business development, sales and professional networking,
• Job seekers who have been laid off and are working to find their next position, or are proactively building up their network in case a pink slip event occurs,
• Traditional media reaching out to readers and watchers through Twitter and blogging,
• Spammers, lurkers, etc., using social media as an email replacement for lead generation.

I'm sure there are probably more classifications, but those stand out for me from my perspective. The social media topic comes up in the circles I operate in almost every day. Just as an example, I had lunch with a friend today and our discussion was all about social media, sharing experiences from blogging and social media, and how that applies to generating multiple streams of income.

The prior day's lunch was with someone I work with and our discussion was all about using social media to more effectively start up and engage small, specific interest groups interested in volunteer activities. (Sounds like I must go out to lunch a lot, lol.)

At a business executive meetup group I attend bi-weekly, many of our discussion topics have been around social media's application in business. All of this is representative of only a fraction of the conversations, projects (through my Converging Network business), email threads, and various inquiries I receive involving social media.

I have a theory about all of this activity -- it's being driven in part, possibly in large part, by the recession we're currently in. Business has slowed across the board for most everyone. Everyone is trying to figure out how social media can help them network, identify new customers, find leads and business opportunities, get a lead on a job or increase our personal income.

I heard Muhammad Yunus (Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Grameen Bank) on Bill Maher's show say, "crisis brings opportunity to change". Muhammad was specifically referring to our over emphasis on making money and reform of our banking system, but that statement also applies to the growth we're seeing in social networking.

People are reaching out. Some of it is for comfort... reaching out to old college friends, coworkers and family.  Part of it is driven by the motivations I listed above. But if in the end, one of the things the recession does is expand the relationships we have with other people, using social media or otherwise, then that is certainly one of the opportunities created out of crisis.

Blog Shoutout - Steve Baker

I had the pleasure on Friday of speaking at a business breakfast about the topic of blogging. During the process I discovered that the group organizer, Steve Baker is a blogger as well. Steve's an entrepreneurial business guy with lots of wisdom and experience to share. He's sharing that by authoring a book, Pushing Water Up Hill With A Rake, and a companion blog. I have had a chance to read some of the posts and like what he's written.

So please check out Steve's blog at http://www.pushingwateruphillblog.blogspot.com

Product Bistro: A Product Manager’s Dream and Nightmare (cont’d)

Continued from a previous blog post…

The Digital Age Will Save Us… Uh Huh

If you haven’t noticed our world of software is changing right from under us. We rarely receive CDs or DVDs when you buy software. All the Microsoft products I use in my business all come direct via the web, downloading an installer or the ISO image of the DVD to my computer. We buy and download our music through Amazon and iTunes. Now customers have much greater access to products, and we have instant delivery of online services and software products to our customers. 

Fall 2008 at the Microsoft developer’s conference, Microsoft announced Windows Azure, their strategy for bringing applications and infrastructure services into the cloud. It’s a bold step but nothing short of bold will do to be able to compete against the lead created by Google and Amazon. We’re entering an age where computing power, storage and network bandwidth are services we can spin up or wind down as needed. That’s a product manager’s digital dream, right? Well, it’s never that easy.

Yes there are automated processes for provisioning services and bringing new servers online, and they work, but not always in peak situations. There’s always more to it than standing up a dozen or more servers and “bring them online”. Databases, load balancers, firewalls, application software, backup/recovery, bandwidth, failover schemes… it all plays into the equation.

Microsoft was down for nearly a full day reconfiguring their service to be able to handle the huge demand for the Windows 7 beta. We don’t yet think of Microsoft as hosting thousands of computers like a Google or Amazon EC2 and S3 (Amazon’s hosting and storage services). But Microsoft runs a huge infrastructure that delivers MSN Messenger, MSN email, MSNBC site content, Windows Update service (all those patches you keep receiving), automated anti-virus updates for OneCare…. see there’s a lot. So, Microsoft’s no newb at the online services hosting game and it still took them a day to get back on their feet delivering Windows 7 downloads on the Internet.

It’s Not A Successful Launch Unless The Order System Gets Hurt

I see a trend happening. It’s obviously not intentional but it may become one of the criteria for any mind blowing, gang buster style product launch. The trend: crashing the servers.

Apple’s iPhone 3G was plagued with enormous problems which revealed a single point of failure in their online and SmartPhone strategy – the iTunes service. Yes, that nice little program you have on your Mac or PC to play songs, sync up you iPod and iPhone, and buy digital songs and movies. Behind your desktop app are the iTunes service which not only provide the online store for buying digital content, it also is crucial to provisioning iPhones and delivering software upgrades. Apple unwisely chose to bring out a new iTunes and iPhone software upgrades, and convert the .MAC service to MobileMe… all within a few days of each other. Busted. When demand peaked, the iTunes servers couldn’t handle the demands and customers were impacted on all fronts.

Verizon’s Blackberry Storm was plagued with similar issues when their ordering system overloaded during the first day of product launch. Call me silly but I’m pretty sure they knew the demand was coming following several very public product launch date delays, tons of attention from online on technology sites and blogs (like mine) and Verizon’s own billboards plastered around town more than a month before launch. (A consequence of moving the launch date once too often.)

Don’t Do It To Yourself… or Your Customers

What’s the second most under appreciated component of any piece of software? Answer: The installer. And what’s the number one under appreciated component of any software product? Answer: The upgrade.

My mom used to say that you don’t get to go to kindergarten until you can remember three things. (I forget what the other two things she says are, but I digress.) My adage is a product team doesn’t really know how to ship a successful software product until they can reliably do software upgrades successfully at least three times consecutively. (And not just minor upgrades.)

Apple is notorious for really bad upgrades, the consequences of which are bricked iPhone, wiped out data and pissed off customers. It’s not happened with just one software release, but occurs time and again. I’ve personally had two iPods blanked from Apple’s software updates, one of them was totally DOA and not recoverable without sending it to Apple. The most recent episode smacked down my buddy Alan’s iPhone, wiping it and causing him to wait while fix was tested and posted. That one experience moved him from being an iPhone advocate to an iPhone protagonist.

In IT shops software upgrades might be something we do once or twice a year. They are well planned (or should be) and timed, and include a recovery strategy should something go afoul. But that’s become much different for consumers and PCs in small and medium businesses. An upgrade or patch to Windows or Mac OS X could happen at any time, resulting in our PCs being reboot overnight or creating a capability problem you didn’t have the day before.

Upgrades are crucial to a positive customer experience. Their importance is drastically increasing. In my opinion, we’re not far from the day where every company needs to learn to do upgrades flawlessly or they get to go away.

The Fundamentals & Learning Faster

Shifting to the age of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), online hosting, services on demand, and digitally delivered products are launch and delivery strategies we all are likely to consider and use at sometime. It opens up new possibilities, gives us access to new customers and markets, and drastically decreases the time to reach customers before, during and after the sale. It also means we need to be smart about learning from our experiences and the experiences of others in market.

Jumping onto some new technology often means we forget or ignore the fundamentals. Who’s the customer, what really are their needs, what will create a satisfying experience for them, positioning, messaging, the 5 P’s, etc. If anything technology accelerates and shortens the window between a buying a experience and a satisfying product experience. That means we have to learn faster, plan better and be prepared for more contingencies. We have to be open and transparent with our customers because they see the magnitude of product issues we experience and the age of whitewashing problems through some fancy PR campaign of CEO slight of hand are gone. Ask Jet Blue’s former CEO who is Passenger Bill Of Rights won over unhappy customers who sat in the plane grounded for hours.

Transparency. Something I’ll talk about at another time.

Product Bistro: A Product Manager’s Dream and Nightmare

If you create products (or run a business that does), it’s your professional and personal goal to create something everyone wants so badly that products fly off the shelves like Nintendo Wii’s at Christmas (and most of the year, actually).

There are countless examples of this kind of demand, including the Wii, XBox’s, iPhone, Tickle Me Elmo, and Cabbage Patch Kids to name just a few. Now we’re seeing the online equivalent of customers banging down the virtual doors of our servers and networks to get at products. Rockies world series tickets and Apple’s MobileMe service are examples where servers cratered over the demand by users within a very short time window.

A very recent example is the public-beta of Windows 7, the successor to the much maligned Windows Vista. Microsoft had to shut down their download servers and regroup on Friday as too many requests were coming over the gun walls, causing a bad experience for everyone trying to get new bits.

As a product creator I haven’t (yet) been fortunate to have that kind of success for a product. (But you gotta believe you’ve got that in ya :) ). 

Limited Supply Can Be A Good Thing

In the recent Blackberry Storm SmartPhone product launch, much was made about the Storm being the device to knock the iPhone off the top of the leader board. While the Storm certainly didn’t do that, it was a very successful product launch. It’s no doubt by anyone there would be high demand for the Storm, but Verizon stores had limited supplies of them on hand the day of the product launch. The store I visited at 6am on a Friday morning only had an allotment of 30 Blackberry Storms. All stores only had a limited few phones, and before I left with mine in hand, other Verizon stores were calling the into the store I was in looking for more phones. The warehouse was out by days end.

Certainly Verizon and Blackberry anticipated high demand upon launch of the Storm. But did they purposefully limit the number of units available on day one to help keep demand for the Storm high and in the buying market’s mind? Or were they just being prudent and protecting themselves on the backside from an over supply if the product’s acceptance didn’t live up to the pre-launch hype. The only recent product I’m pretty certain has been purposefully kept in short supply is the Wii. There’s been a shortage of Wii’s (at least a perceived shortage) virtually since the gaming console came out.

It’s A Manufacturing Problem

Then there’s the “RAM factory burned down in Japan” or “manufacturing can’t keep up” situation. Now that’s something no product manager wants to have happen. The customers are there but the product can’t get to the customer due to manufacturing.

There’s a flip side to this dilemma too. At a training course (I think it was a Florida Power and Light Quality course, but I’m not sure) we played something called the “beer game”. No, it wasn’t a drinking game like you’re thinking. It was to show how decisions in the supply chain can run afoul. You come out with the hottest new beer on college campus’ but no one anticipated that outrageous demand you’re seeing. Beer isn’t like CDs, you can’t just stamp out more… it takes time to cook. Long story short, folks in the supply chain start over ordering attempting to raise their position in the queue, and fill demand for beer money that’s been left on the table, and then… demand suddenly drops off, that beer's not in vogue anymore. Suddenly everyone’s cancelling orders and sitting on more product than they know what to do with. It was a very enlightening scenario, which emphasized the need for systemic thinking.

Note: I always tell clients and friends I coach about blogging and social media to keep it short, three paragraphs or so. With that in mind, I’ll break this up in to more than one post.

To be continued…

Blog shout out: www.Paths2Trust.com

We have another network security blog in the house. Not too far on the heals of Secure64 CEO, Steve Goodbarn, two of his technical guys have decided to join the ranks of the network security bloggers. The blog, www.Paths2Trust.com, is co-authored by Joe Gersch and Bill Worley. Joe, the head of development for Secure64, has taken the lead and started putting up some blog posts while Bill’s been heads-down cranking out DNSSEC product code.

The primary topic of their blog is DNSSEC. Both are active in secure DNS product development and I expect they’all also share some of their experiences with the standards bodies, DNSSEC adoption, and implementing DNSSEC. Both Joe and Bill have the career chops to talk tech and I’m sure we’ll enjoy hearing what they have to say not only about DNSSEC but also their past experiences in networking, RISC computing platforms (in which Bill is an industry pioneer) and other topics of interest.

I enjoy working with all of these guys as part of my Converging Network LLC business. It’s a real pleasure to see them joining the security blogging community. Take a moment to welcome them by checking out both www.paths2trust.com and www.stevegoodbarn.com. You can also check out Steve on his recent SSAATY podcast appearance.

Journey To The Last Lecture

I'd heard through many different paths about Prof. Randy Pausch's Last Lecture given at Carnegie Mellon, but like so many things I want to do, I just hadn't gotten around to checking it out. I remember hearing about his lecture on TV, seeing the book The Last Lecture when it came out, hearing others talk about it... even a good friend gave me the book to read but I hadn't read it.

Tonight, I saw an email sitting in my junk mail folder, which I check every once in a while, and saw an email from Carol Ross's blog. It was an email saying "Your turn" to share about something you're grateful for. That's an easy and a hard question for me because there's tons of things I'm grateful for, and there are 10x more things I should be grateful for but probably go on blindly not recognizing them.

Anyway, I popped over to Carol's blog, made a comment on a post and took a quick scan to see what she'd been writing about. For whatever reason, I saw a link referring to a project Carol worked on for a friend who'd passed away a while back. She'd told me about it, so I decided to pop over there and check it out.

At the bottom of the site is a small YouTube video (246x140) and for whatever reason I had a feeling it was Randy Pausch's talk. It was 1 hour and 16 minutes long, it's late, and I'm behind on the project I wanted to get done tonight. All good reasons, again, not to watch this video... just like I hadn't read the book. Not sure what possessed me to take a different path, but I decided to watch a little bit of it. It's on YouTube, I figured, so I can always go finish watching it if the video's that good.

Well. I just finished the video 10 minutes ago and it has to have been one of the best talks I've ever seen. What caught my attention first is that Randy was a leader in the virtual reality field, something that speaks to that geek and video gamer in me. But more importantly, he was born in 1960, the same year I was born. He went through some of the same childhood experiences I had, like being fascinated watching men walk on the moon on TV in real time as it happened, and experiencing a family "driving" vacation out to Disneyland, something my family did too when I was nine or so. Hearing about his gaming the system to get to ride on the "vomit comet" in order to experience weightlessness set the hook so I had to watch the rest of the lecture.

Today, I had lunch with two friends who I've partnered in business with, worked with, worked for and visa versa. During our lunch, one friend, Donald, kept referring to and quoting things he said he'd learned from me over the years. I guess if I squint real hard I can kinda-sorta remember telling him those things, but not really. I told him he was giving me too much credit. I just didn't remember saying any of that to him, but I did agree with the things he was espousing. Maybe those are things that just came across in observation, I don't know. Donald's very observant that way. If I did really help him in the things he said he learned from me, well... then I'm flattered and honored he'd consider them important enough to pick up and use again. What he doesn't realize is I know I've learned 10x from him compared to anything he learned from me. At least that honestly is how it feels to me.

So, in the spirit of sharing what we're grateful for (back to Carol's email), I'm grateful for friends and colleagues who I've worked with and grown from in the process. I'm grateful for the long but completed path to Randy Pausch's Last Lecture video and I’m grateful for what he shared with me in that lecture.

If you haven't watched it, here's my opportunity to pay it forward and share Randy's talk with you.

Recession YTD, Brain Damage Already Done

It's official. We've been in a recession since December... of last year. 12 months already. CNN reports that most US recessions last 8-10 months, and global recessions average 16-18 months. Obviously we're in a global recession, which means somewhere around another 8-12 months, if history is any indication. The tangible impact of a recession are clear; layoffs, unemployment rises, downturn in spending, failed businesses, etc.

Now I'm no economic expert, don't play one on TV and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I have to ask, what additional deep damage has our federal government done by heralding the coming catastrophic financial, banking and credit crisis. By getting on TV and announcing we're facing a dire financial situation, Henry Paulson and George Bush perform the equivalent of yelling fire in a crowed theater while not owning a shred of fire fighting equipment.

Just as tangible as the impact of job losses are, economies are just as much about how we perceive them - we often describe this as "confidence in the market". If we believe the markets are going to be in the tank, they will be. It's a self fulfilling prophesy. The reverse is true when we're bullish about the economy - somehow we make our predictions come true. I believe Bush and Paulson have done us all a huge, huge disservice, making things even worse by all their aimless handwaving of warnings and non-specific dark cloud predictions.

The best things Bush and Paulson can do for the economy is to:

• stop talking
• stop appearing on TV
• focus on transitioning to the Obama administration

Blog shoutout - Steve Goodbarn

It's always satisfying when someone takes your advice and as a result I'm happy to welcome a new blogger who's decided to join us. The new blogger on the block is Steve Goodbarn, CEO of DNSSEC vendor Secure64. Steve's a client of my business, Converging Network LLC, and we've been talking about doing a blog with two of his other "more technical" executives. But after spending time with Steve it was really clear he has a unique perspective and a great deal of wisdom to share with us. Steve comes from a background as CFO of Janus Funds, so he really understands how businesses (and CFOs in particular) evaluate, assess and justify risks and mitaging costs around security purchases. Plus he's a genuinely nice guy which I'm sure others will discover as they read his blog and meet Steve at various industry events and security blogger get togethers.

Join me in welcoming Steve to the blogosphere and the community of security bloggers. You can find Steve at http://www.stevegoodbarn.com. Steve also recently appeared on SSAATY podcast episode #61 with Alan and me.

Podcast #62 - Mike Rothman goes to the dark side

Fast on the heals of our podcast with Steve Goodbarn of DNSSEC vendor Secure64, Alan and I whipped up an interview with Mike Rothman to talk shop about security and his goings on at his new company, eIQ Networks. Honestly, I thought Mike had sworn off working for another product company and would never had guessed he’d join someone from the SIM space, so you can imagine I was pretty to surprised to hear Mike found a new home at eIQ Networks. That says a lot about what he thinks about the prospects for eIQ and the kind of team he’s joining. Mike’s been a good friend to me, and many in the security world, and I definitely wish him all the best in his new role at this new company.

Just in case you are wondering, Mike is going to continue blogging at Security Incite and is also launching a corporate blog and podcast at eIQ Networks. Since social media for product companies is something I specialize in myself, I'm interested to see where Mike will take the corporate blogging efforts. BTW, if you'd like to learn more about the social media strategy and product innovation services of Converging Network LLC, please contact me directly.

Check out the podcast here. Enjoy the podcast and email us with any comments, ideas or suggestions. Blessings!

Today is World AIDS Day 2008

Seems like we don't hear very much about HIV AIDS anymore. Maybe we're over saturated with news reports, we're just numb to it, or we thought the problem went away. If you're like me, you recall hearing we've made progress and HIV AIDS isn't growing as fast as it once was. If you think the HIV AIDS problem has gone away, think again. It might not be the biggest "killer disease" in the US but it is very much a world epidemic scale problem, with AIDS killing 1.5 million in Africa and 340,000 in South-East Asia in 2007. Worldwide there were over 2 million deaths from AIDS.

Today, December 1, is World AIDS Day 2008, a day set aside some eight years ago to help continue worldwide awareness of AIDS and the impact it has on countries and people across the world. Part of my business is working the companies and individuals on social media strategies to help them become contributing members of the online world where they can reach and build relationships with customers. My own further exploration into social media caused me to get into doing more things with video. I video tape and post conferences, do online product demos and reviews, and I've also dedicated some time to creating video assets for social causes I'm involved in or believe in.

This week I created a video, and posted it on YouTube, about the global impact of AIDS to help increase awareness about the disease. Once the recording project I'm working on is close to wrapping up (in the next few weeks) I'll recast the video with one of the songs from that CD.

I would appreciate it if you would take a few minutes to watch this 3 minute 35 second video about World AIDS Day 2008 and an organization I support that works with orphan children in Romania and more recently Africa, called Global Hope. You can watch the video here or check out a few of my other original videos I've posted on my Converging Network YouTube channel page.

Here's a link to a document from the Joint United Nations Programme On HIV/AIDS if you would like to see more information about HIV/AIDS statistics across the world.

Being Thankful, Always Hopeful

I love irony, qwirky humor and interesting things that bring a unique twist or different perspective to our world, which you can probably see in many of my blog posts. At my core I’m a very positive, optimistic person and I believe in the possibilities in life. I love people, helping people succeed and seeing the great things that can happen when you combine ideas, people and passion. Is this all some type of blog confession or something? No, stay with me for a minute and you’ll see where we’re going. Lately, we are all bombarded by messages about troubles in our economy, frozen credit markets, home foreclosures, failing banks and businesses, and more hard times ahead. Those are all euphemisms for saying that many people are dealing with some tough financial situations, have been laid off and are looking for work. It effects all of us in IT and technology.

My message this Thanksgiving is to keep our eyes on the prize, be hopeful for the future and thankful for all each of us have been blessed with. Markets, businesses and jobs grow and retract. That’s a natural part of an economy and sometimes that means we might have to tighten our belts, focus harder on doing our best at work, or look for work if you’ve been laid off. But don’t let the messages in the press and on TV be what dominates your thinking. Like the saying, you are what you eat, well... I believe you are what you think. In so many ways you get what you give back... oh, that’s so true. Let those external things get you down and you’ll be down. Be positive about the opportunities and challenges in front of you and guess what, you’ll probably break through them faster than expected.

I’m so thankful for many things this Thanksgiving holiday. But notably as I’m reflecting back now, none of them are really “things”, as in possessions. First and most important in my life is my wife who is doing very well and had some very good news about her health. That’s an amazing gift, as she is to me. Next is the birth of my grandson, Jonas. Yes... I’m too young to have a grandson, at least that’s what I tell myself. Remember about that “thinking positive” thing I was just saying? I love my two kids and enjoy every chance I get to be with them.

I’ve been fortunate with my business, Converging Network LLC, this year. And we are blessed with a wonderfully supportive and vibrant church, BUMC, where I work part time leading the contemporary music ministry while our leader is on sabbatical. I also play at a larger mega-church, SECC, where I’m able to play, grow, and bring back new ideas and experiences to help our church up north. I get to play my guitar nearly every week and I’ve been a part of a new recording recording project this summer and fall. I’m thankful for my wonderfully supportive friends and business partners.

So much of what I’m thankful for aren’t things I’ve sought or earned, like a position in a company or a new car. They are things that have been given to me, most of the times unasked or I couldn’t acquire by asking. They are gifts, blessings, acts of friendship, faith and love. I only hope I’ve been even close in equally giving these things and more to others. And I thank you for following and participating as part of this social community of bloggers, readers, security professionals, etc.  Whether two people or 200,000 see and read what I write, it’s still about sharing ideas, debating them, and moving the ball downfield. I’m very thankful for you too.

So next time you get in front of your computer or pick up the phone, do something for someone else. Do it unsolicited and without expectation of anything in return. Make an unsolicited introduction for someone looking for a job. Write a recommendation on LinkedIn for a friend or co-worker. And most important, let those around you know how important they are in your life, and how thankful you are for them.

Podcast 61 - Steve Goodbarn is all about DNSSEC

Our guest on SSAATY podcast #61 is Steve Goodbarn, former Janus Funds CFO and now CEO of Secure64, maker of highly scalable and deployable DNSSEC products. DNSSEC has been in the news a lot lately, (Network World seems to be the place where it's covered most), largely because of Dan Kaminsky's talk this summer at Black Hat 2008 in Las Vegas. Now you frequently see articles and blog posts explaining how cache poisoning exploits can be used to hijack not just individual servers but entire domains, right up the path to .com, and . root.

Fortunately solving DNS security isn't as ginormous as stopping global warming but to truly secure DNS then DSNSEC would need to be fully deployed throughout the Internet and will happen in steps over time (as discussed in this blog post.) That's where Steve and the other experts at Secure64 come in. They've developed technology that can both handle the high speed demands of very large DSN infrastructure (and small) and makes DNSSEC much easier to deploy. Both of these challenges are obsticles DNSSEC has faced until now. Secure64 is not only a client on Converging Network LLC (my company) but also someone who I think will be a winner in the new era of domain sercurity services.

In the podcast Steve gives Alan and me his take on the DNS security issues and how Secure64 tackles these problems for their customers. Steve and some of the technical leaders are getting into blogging, with a little prodding and assistance from yours truly. Steve's blog is at www.stevegoodbarn.com. Secure64's CTO, Bill Worley, and VP of engineer, Joe Gersch (read more about them both here) also have their own blog at www.paths2trust.com.

If you'd like to learn more about the social media strategy and product innovation services of Converging Network LLC, please contact me directly.

Check out the podcast here. Enjoy the podcast and email us with any comments, ideas or suggestions. Blessings!

Biden is really Walter

Joe Biden's kind of been left in the dust as Obama's begun putting together his cabinet team. So, I thought I'd put up this little post to brighten all of our days. One of the funniest comedians I like is a ventriloquist Jeff Dunham. His main puppet is an old crotchety guy named Walter. Walter likes to say it like it is, not holding back much. Kind of like...ah... Joe Biden, and he looks like Biden too!

As evidenced by this side-by-side picture, it's clear that Job Biden and Walter are one in the same. No wonder Biden was so good at mouthing Obama's talking points during the presidential campaign. Also, Biden's pretty good at "rhetorical flourishes", similar to Walter's no-holds-barred, outspoken behavior. Yep, they're one in the same.

May 8, 2009... The Wait Is Over - Star Trek Movie

Okay, I'm a totally knock-kneed, bad body odor, greesy haired, pizza eating nerd when it comes to Star Trek. I've been to Star Trek conventions, I watch the shows and have all the movies. When it comes right down to it, I'm really a fan of the classic Star Trek, more so than the other series (though I've watched and enjoyed them too.)

I remember when I watched the original Star Trek TV series on my parent's black and white TV on Friday nights. I was nine. I loved the show but it of course went away, forever I thought at the time. Next I was to rediscover Star Trek around 1975 in syndication while on vacation in Colorado Springs, CO, when we checked into a hotel room and turned on the TV. My brother, who is 5 years younger, thought Star Trek was a scary show and continiously cried unless I changed the channel. I wasn't about to, so I smacked him and made him watch it. After a few minutes he stopped crying and discovered Star Trek wasn't scary but was a cool show. From then on Star Trek was back and something I'd watch on TV and see in the movie theater many years since.

I'm excited about the next movie in the Star Trek which takes us back to earth before James T. Kirk was in the Kirk we knew on the U.S.S. Enterprise. Young Kirk was a renegade, someone who didn't feel like he fit in on earth and who was somehow destined for more. Spock was of two worlds, human and Vulcan, and left his family to make his mark. Both meet up in the Academy and the story takes off from there.

We'll have to see where the story line takes us but just like Batman Begins restarted the whole Batman story by taking us back to its roots, Star Trek looks to do the same for the Star Trek world.

So sit back, enjoy the trailer and cross your fingers it will be a good (hopefully great) movie. You can also visit the site website at www.StarTrekMovie.com.

Star Trek Exclusive spot