Big business has a herd mentality.  It seems all the financial institutions I use, and other large non-financial institutions I use, all use Epsilon.  I can’t see a reason for it except that they’re all acting like sheep.  Over the past two weeks, I’ve received three or four emails about Epsilon stealing my data. And I’m thinking, why is it that the big companies always screw us over, and then try to hide what’s been going on?

Now, I understand that shit happens.  Data get breached.  Of course, data don’t breach themselves.  And breach didn’t just come down about the data like a plague of locusts.  ”Data” are not “breached”.  Systems are.  ”Data breach”  is a blameless way of saying your shit got hacked.  This could be because of lax data, systems, and security practices.  Or it could not be.  It seems to me when this happens to big companies, two themes repeat themselves:

1. They try to hide or sugarcoat the problem
2. They care about the bottom line more than they care about me
3. They’re pompous bastards (maybe I can’t count)

On the other hand, the small guys, the startups, innovators, mom-and-pops…what ever you want to call them, really care about their product an their client.  Some of them fail because they spend more effort into creating a superior product than selling it.  And of course, we too are susceptible to “data breaches.”  But, to the one, we give it to you straight, we work with you to solve the problem, and we eat several helpings of humble pie.

I guess the difference is simple:  We are proud of our work.  Big business is proud of their bottom line.

Discuss,

Shantih,

—mickey

in the corner!

In the “wall of shame” series, I got an email today that stated “Please fax in all documents. We can no longer except documents  by E-mail.”

Pause to reflect.

OK.  So, about 7 years ago when I closed on my house, my mortgage company could not send

documents by email.  And of course, they forgot to fed-ex the documents as well.  So we sat around for 6 hours through several attempts to fax an entire tome of contracts to the closing firm.  The first 12 attempts failed at page 40 or something.  After that they started sending it out in 30-page batches.

Here are are now, and people can’t receive documents over email?  What happened to technology? The environmental movement? Common sense?  And to top it off: No longer

?!  I mean, you are a ludite or live in a cave with a single fax line, I understand.  But to have seen the light, and then step backwards about 10 years?!

Whoever you are, get with the times!  While you’re at it, start accepting digital signature.  I can show you how…call me!

sent from you blackberry?

About a year ago, I was sitting next to a business executive type on a plane back to DC.  As soon as we touched down, he brought out his blackberry and started feverishly tapping at it.  Someone asked him about the blackberry, and he confidently exclaimed that it’s made him 25% more productive, or some such.  So I said to myself,  Hold your horses, there, skippy!

Now, I don’t know the guy.  He may have data to support his claim. But let’s break this down. His grand claim means that in an average 10 hour workday, his blackberry allows him to reclaim 2.5 hours for other tasks.  What does he do on his blackberry that gives him that time back, that would be done less efficiently without the blackberry?  Email is a lot clunkier to type on a blackberry, so it can’t be it.  Most people claim that they can get rid of email quicker since they check it on a blackberry while not at the office, and act on it, freeing up on-computer time.  And it’s fair to assume that this guy may have a one-hour commute each way. Hopefully he has someone driving him around too, because I know none of us are so dangerous to reply to email on the blackberry while driving.  Then, there’s meetings.  You can of course check your email in the middle of a meeting.  Speaking of efficiency, if your meeting is so trivial that you use it to check your email on your blackberry, wouldn’t it be more productive to not have the meeting in the first place?  Or do you think your lunch buddy really enjoys watching you check your email?

I’ll tackle a few other points in a bit.  I, like many of us these days, look at efficiency and productivity as it relates to our full lives: our work, of course, but also our hobbies, our personal time, our family.  The blackberry and similar devices has, for better or worse, erased the work/personal lines that used to exist at 0900 and 1700 every day.  I check email at home, at the restaurant, while I volunteer…If I’m not efficient in these places, I’m not efficient at work either.  Spending 2 hours working at home after dinner does not mean I am 2 hours more efficient.

So let’s move to item 2.  I’ve done a little informal survey of people I know who get their email delivered to their mobile device.  All of them, me included, always read the email, but usually postpone a response until they get home. (Most emails don’t, or shouldn’t, require a simple answer.)  Then when they get at their computer, they have to re-read the email, but also look for it because it’s no longer marked as “new”.  So let’s review this process:

On the blackberry:

• Read the email
• think about how to reply
• act on it: usually decide to reply later.

chicos soma