Gearheads: The Sterling Communications Blog

Is your email safe?

In my last blog post, I wrote about a new technology that I think crosses the line of ethics. I really don’t see how anyone in good faith would need a service like Slydial. However, the technology Ben Worthen covered in his Wall Street Journal Business Technology blog really takes the cake.

I truly cannot believe there are services (plural!) that enable people to steal other people’s passwords, go into their email, read through their private things, and, worse, send out emails pretending to be them. Apparently it’s legal for these services to exist, but not so legal to use them (go figure).

We’re really getting hit from all angles here — spam from Nigeria, phishing Web sites masked as a financial institution, Paris Hilton getting her SideKick hacked a few years ago...and now for $100 someone can gain access to another person’s Web mail account… What’s next?

Life Gets Tougher for Yahoo! Shareholders...and Jerry

It's been a few months since I brought up the subject of Yahoo, but I still think there's more to come in this particular soap opera. Yahoo's stock continues to drop like a stone, and more than one really, really rich guy has been publicly lamenting management. Jerry held onto his position as CEO, but he racked up $36M in advisory fees fighting the MSFT deal and now that the stock once is hovering around $19/share and business is down, the $64,000 question is: how much longer can he hang onto it?

Making matters even worse, there are rumblings that Google may be having second thoughts about its recent deal with Yahoo. Ugh. I definitely wouldn't want to be Jerry right now.

Jerry and Bill: The right fit for Windows' Future?

Since its NFL opening-day debut, the new Microsoft ad has certainly "stirred up a blogstorm," as noted by Rob Hof in BusinessWeek last week. As a Public Relations professional, I have to admit that despite the deluge of questions, head scratching, and Geek-supported brouhaha, it seems to be an outright success! After all, isn't widespread attention and conversation exactly what advertising attempts to create?

Michael Arrington had his say in a recent TechCrunch blog post, wherein he included the actual email notification from Microsoft SVP, Bill Veghte, to all Microsoft employees, explaining the new $300 million ad campaign's goal to "engage consumers and spark a new conversation about Windows." Even though the exorbitant ad barely mentions Microsoft or its technology, it seems to have achieved its charter. Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates were -- in my opinion -- such an oil-and-water combination that it was off-the-wall and hilarious. (Come on folks, who didn't enjoy seeing the now-infamous Bill-wiggle?)  The result is that people are talking about it. It's an attention-getting first ad in the campaign and it certainly made consumers ask the question: "OK, so what is the future of Windows going to be like? Other than delicious, of course."

Patience is a virtue

Regardless of who wins the U.S. elections this year, one thing is clear, the job will be extremely tough. According to 51 economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal, the next U.S. president will have to deal with many difficult issues, such as a slow growth economy, high unemployment, reforming healthcare, fighting global warming and the ongoing Iraq war.

Undoubtedly,  the list is long and whatever changes will be made, the results won't be felt until the next president's term. I don't mean to sound negative, but I do think we all need to be realistic and realize that although change is imminent, the rewards won't be reaped immediately. As Confucius says, "Patience is a virtue."

Politics & Tech: Not-So-Strange Bedfellows

A few months ago, in my self-appointed role as Sterling’s in-house Andy Rooney, I growled about the need for greater leadership on tech issues at the highest levels of government.

Change is on the horizon — change we can believe in, apparently. Bridget Carey of McClatchy Newspapers provides an interesting overview of the geek factor of the presidential and veep candidates.

Earlier this summer, at the annual Personal Democracy Forum, bloggers and tech experts came together to discuss the increasingly entwined relationship between politics and technology. While they grumbled about the fact that the U.S. has dropped several notches down the worldwide ranking for broadband adoption, they recognized the amazing impact that the Internet is having on the current election. Online donations, citizen journalism, blogosphere gossip, campaign announcements via text messaging – these examples of “e-politics” barely existed four years ago, if at all. The result is a(n) endless campaign that has people more fired up than we’ve seen in 40 years.

Perhaps as the candidates see the positive impact of the Internet on their own fortunes, they’ll realize how crucial it is that the U.S. not stand idly by as its leadership role in IT evaporates.

The slow, sad demise of local tech media

As traditional newspapers fight for their survival, one of the consequences is a precipitous decline in the amount of original local reporting they do on the technology beat. Here in Seattle, one of the city's two main newspapers, the Seattle Times, has been systematically cutting staff to cope with declining revenues. Seeing the writing on the wall, many other reporters, including some friends of mine, have left or are leaving for greener pastures.

In years past, the Times' TechTracks blog, along with the Venture Blog, written by the Seattle Post Intelligencer's John Cook, was a must-read for the Seattle tech community. It covered a wide range of companies and kept decent tabs on the area's vibrant and well-funded start-up community. While Cook continues to provide solid coverage of local venture activities, TechTracks recently became Pri0, a geeky name that signifies the blog's new focus on all things Microsoft. That's a sad, but not unsurprising development. For months now, it's been apparent that the Times has been cutting back on its tech reporting and focusing its limited resources almost entirely on Microsoft (and to a lesser extent Amazon). Getting the attention of either of the local papers has become an increasingly difficult challenge for just about every other tech company.

Donate Now, Repent Later? Never!

The Internet not only makes it easy to buy on impulse, it’s also supremely easy to donate on impulse. For example, last night I donated to a certain political campaign, and this morning — only 12 hours later — I had an email asking me to donate another $25 to help combat the disinformation coming out of St. Paul. While I don’t regret the donation at all, I rather wish I’d mailed it in the old-fashioned way — and anonymously. I hit “unsubscribe” immediately to avoid what are sure to become weekly requests at a minimum.

But there’s a different worthy cause that I recommend for your support. The speeches at the two political conventions have reminded me that the anniversary of the attacks of 9/11 is coming up next week. Seven years already, but the images of that day are burned into my brain so vividly that I’m tearing up as I type.

Some of you may not be aware that the empty field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where United Flight 93 crashed, is now part of the National Park Service. The Families of Flight 93 association has been working for several years to raise money from the public to erect a memorial. Dedication is planned for 2011, with the final memorial expected to encompass 2,200 acres, including a perimeter of “view shed” easements to protect the memorial from incompatible development. To donate to the Flight 93 National Memorial Campaign, click here:

Ask 'Why' Before 'When,' 'Where' and 'How'

I upload my photos on Flickr. I add my videos to YouTube. I tag my bookmarks with Delicious. I post my random thoughts on Twitter. I add images that interest me to Tumblr. I socialize a bit on Facebook. I network a bit on LinkedIn. I keep my wishlist with Amazon. I add my restaurant reviews to Yelp. I track my conversations on FriendFeed. And I display most of that in a timeline on Swurl.

With all that, I've found it a challenge lately to sit down, take a breath, and spend a few minutes composing thoughtful posts on my weblog, Betterness. I don't know, honestly, if that's a good thing or not. I have plenty to do: interesting projects at work, marathons to run, and a wife, a dog, and a couple of cats that care enough about me to want me around.

Still, seeing how few posts have made it to Betterness lately makes me wonder if I'm just cataloging things that float into my life rather than examining the actual life I lead — the whole point of creating that blog in 2001. And it begs the question: Does the process of online participation endanger the reasons for participating? Do the "when," "where," and "how" overwhelm the "why"?

Trust me when I say it's good to ask and answer the question for your clients, your company, and yourself once in a while.

The press release is dead! Long live the press release!

Remember all those discussions about the death of the press release a couple of weeks ago? A number of people interpreted statements from the SEC about blogging to mean public companies could satisfy Fair Disclosure regulations with a blog post rather than a press release. This was met with no small amount of joy from journalists, many of whom hate press releases. Today, BusinessWire weighed in. Their take? "Ya, not so much."

Tech's Olympic Sport: Hype Cycling

We've all seen it happen. (Well, most of us anyway.) Certain technologies burst onto the scene with the kind of infinite possibilities that cause heads to spin and VCs to invest like drunken sailors (even without a clear path to profitability). Other technologies take more than a decade to catch fire, despite the enthusiastic prognostications of early adopters and gurus (e.g., back as far as 1983, industry pundits were calling for "the year of the LAN," which didn't materialize until the 1990s). Still other technologies are discounted by folks who are just plain wrong or the companies they inspire die on the vine for no apparent reason.

I chuckled to myself as I checked out Gartner's 2008 hype cycle last week on vacation. Why? Because we never seem to learn. Everybody — entrepreneurs, VCs, investors, etc. — goes for the gold (pun intended), and expects to get it. Life just doesn't work that way. If you don't believe me, just tune into the Olympics. Tremendous talent, lots of drive, enormous dedication, unbounded hope...but only 3 medals in each event.

A a communications practitioner specializing in the tech field, I have felt both the thrill of victory and — if I'm honest — the agony of defeat many times over the last 20 years. Some of the races were easy, others were exhilirating, and a few were downright grueling. Taken together though, this rich set of experiences has made me a better all-around coach...one who's still very much interested in learning and in taking on new challenges.