Something I Was Shown on Twitter

Here is a post worth sharing. One of the folks I follow on Twitter mentioned this.

It is a post by the woman who ran Pets.com discussing the experience of that business and the effect it had on her personally. Finally it discusses how to see yourself as more than how others see you.

http://www/smartnow.com/page/5991

Starting at the Back of the Pasture

This is just a story I have often told about how I decide to start a new product or business.

When my wife and I bought our first place - a little farm to be - we cleared the pasture sections and planted grass. We built our own barn. Now we were ready to fence the pasture.

I had never done any fencing. But I was excited and ready to go.

I loaded up the pickup truck at the feed store with all the fencing stuff I needed and pulled in to the head of the drive. Starting at the closest place I came to.

No surprise, the section of fence that I started with was the absolute ugliest and worst section I have ever put up. Every day when I went in and out of the drive I had to look at that awful job I had done.

Now I start everything at the back of the pasture. Fencing, new products, new businesses. I know I will make a mess in the learning process. I keep it hidden and out of sight. And I don't have to look at it every day after I do learn.

More Thoughts on Digital Identity

Your thoughts on this will be particularly helpful.

Is your Digital Identity only able to move sideways?

Here is what I am trying to get a handle on. In the social networks I have used I am able to invite in friends or be invited. Then we can share things back and forth.

In a business setting this allows me to share with my co-workers. That way anyone who takes a call can help the customer. That is a good thing as far as it goes.

But what if I am responsible for the group. Can I see everything going on in my group without letting the group see everything I am doing?

To me that would be allowing Identity information to move sideways in the group and allowing it to move upward into the manager.

Now what if I wanted to allow access to part of my Digital Identity, but not all of it, to be shared with my group and one specific person not in my group. 

To me that would be moving Identity information sideways and down.

Do any of you who use social networks have any thoughts on this. Can the networks you use now do this type of thing?

Thanks for any feedback.

Automated Phone Calls

I am sitting in the library at home re-reading the ClueTrain Manifesto when the phone rings. It is a machine telling me "I am calling about the vehicle you currently have listed for sale. We can sell it for you faster and for a higher price".

First disturbing thing - I have no vehicle currently listed for sale.

Second disturbing thing - my home phone number is unlisted.

Third disturbing thing - my son does have a boat he is selling and listed it on Craigslist with this phone number.

Fourth and last disturbing thing - I hung up fast and the damn phone rang again with the automated call still talking. I hung up again and the phone rang immediately again with the automated message still talking. I could not hang up on this thing until it hung up on me. How did they do that?

Surely no real person would ever do business with a company so low as to have its computer call you and not allow you to hang up. These people deserve to be taken out back and have some convincing done.

But worst, now my beloved Craigslist is compromised in my mind. Some bot is out there pulling this data into its robot phone sales person and invading my life. I don't blame Craigslist but regardless I am now more circumspect about using them in the future. I suppose I will resort to proxy phone numbers but that will hurt my ability to interact with the people I want to call.

How appropriate that I was reading Cluetrain. Maybe the bot and its master should be required to read it also. Maybe a good Turing test for people to prove they are people not computers would be to be able to tell they can tell the people they are talking at were also people.

Digital Identity and Profile / Update Aggregators

I have been considering the concepts of digital identity and the way it is used in current social networks.

The idea of a digital identity seems to mostly have been implemented as a profile with name, address, web links, some media and a friends or followers list at this point. It is a start. Better than nothing.

Some services are trying to move the dime off of having to create a unique profile for every additional social network you join. This is the next obvious step. It seems to me that it runs into the beautiful irony that now you have to join the correct digital identity aggregator to match your networks. If you don't, now you have a new layer of aggregators you have to join.

This issue will generate a grand but fruitless debate about standards. The folks that develop a standard will see it as a solution to bring peace and harmony to the world. Plenty of others will see it as giving up a proprietary advantage. (Here comes the data portability gang) 

I am always reminded of the X-Files episode where Muldar was granted three wishes. He wished for world peace. He got a world where he was the last human on the planet.

If you have two people you are going to have two opinions and two motivations and disagreements. This is not a bad thing. 

Diversity is a strength that we need to embrace, not control.

Take much of the effort and resources used to try to mold the digital identity world to a single standard and apply it to understanding the reality - even the virtual reality - of differences and how to accommodate that with the goals of social.

I have tried to think of instances where standards have worked. I figured this would help show the limits of standards.

The first, as a web user, is the Internet Protocols or the World Wide Web core level structures. But, of course, after thinking about these I quickly come to the admission that this is only one existing standard among many for electronic communication.

Finding standards that work seems to always include finding definitions to severely limit the environment in which standards are sued. The smaller the environment - the more closed the environment -  the better chance standards can exist or succeed.

What are your examples?

After more thought I am down to standards such as human beings need food of some sort, air to breathe and water.

I guess that a better list might actually lead to world peace and harmony. But that list seems beyond my ability. How about you?

What is it that gives us the hubris to believe that even though we can not all speak the same language on this planet, share the same beliefs or have the same cell phone backbone we somehow think we can set standards that will give us this online?

Is our vision of the online world so much smaller than the reality of the physical world?

I think the story of the Tower of Babel is a story not of punishment, but of freeing the creative human experience. That freeing leads to the ability to test learning and growth in many more ways. The benign despot may well be the most successful form of government every conceived, but it would have put Charles Darwin out of the theory business.

It is going to be fascinating to watch as we - all of we - continue to address these basic human issues down the road of this online journey.

Who Owns the Data and Files on Yours Customers

I like the Twitter and former Flickr terms of use wording. More or less "What's yours is yours. You are responsible for it."

If you take a picture and upload it to Flickr, you own it - not Flickr.

If you upload the same picture with an application to an insurance company, they will tell you clearly they own it and they may, if they feel like it, let you view it, and maybe download it.

If you upload the same picture to most insurance agency management systems, they will tell you that you own it, but if you want to stop paying them a monthly fee, they will certainly take away your only means to ever see it again. Seems like they own it to me.

This is the question behind the current discussion o data portability.

Captive data has long been the main reason many software companies make money over time. Why do we keep falling for this?

Your Personal Brand and My Flight With John Edwards

As I left the Admirals Club  at RDU, John Edwards - former Senator and serial Presidential Candidate - passed me on the way in. (BTW he is shorter than you would think, but still taller than Steven Seagal, the actor. I stood behind Seagal in the cashier line at a bookstore once. His head didn't come up to my chin. I felt like pulling his pony tail. Isn't it great to have a cheap and easy way to feel like you are superior to celebrities when you meet them - OK, sort of meet them. You knew who they were at least. I will refrain from telling you about standing at the urinal next to Kevin Costner.)

I digress.

I head on over to the gate for my flight and just before boarding, John - I feel we are on a first name basis now, and that is part of the point here - walks up, the airline staff knows he is coming and are all smiles greeting him. Other folks recognize him, he smiles at all, is incredibly comfortable, makes everyone he looks at feel like seeing them is the highlight of his day. Folks are just giddy.

Of course he is seated in first class so everyone boarding the plane walks by and he graciously acknowledges all. Gives himself to them as individuals.

I have never seen a flight crew in such a wonderful mood for a flight.

What would you give to get that reaction from any living creature other than your dog?

Now that is a powerful personal brand.

You do actually have a personal brand whether you know it or not. If you want to have one like my new bud John you need to cultivate it very consciously. You need to become more of a public presence. While you probably will not ever get exposure from endless coverage of a presidential campaign, you can expand your brand through everything you do. And, of course, as an online apostle, I suggest you use the web to do so.

Persistence pays off in this game. Let me know when your mere presence makes an airline crew giddy. I will want to be in your posse. It is completely possible you know. You just have to make the decision to pursue the goal and then the discipline to execute over time.