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Sunday, August 27, 2006 |
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Core Connectors
The goal is to build a social networking community -- a "place" where the possibilities are endless -- collaboration on projects, personal networking for jobs and deals, referrals to and from IBM, and networking just for the fun of it. One of the key questions being asked is how does Greater IBM get highly-networked 'core connectors' to spend the time to help get things going and spur organic growth of the community. Not easy for sure. The challenge is that the people who are the best networkers are already so busy networking that it is hard to motivate them to take on yet another "channel" of communications. I encounter the same challenge at the numerous boards where I am privileged to serve and that have the same goals as IBM -- building their communities. I don't claim to have the magic answer but in short the best approach I have seen over the years is to apply tenacious program management, just as IBM is doing. Occasional emails from people encouraging the "cc's" to visit the blog and or group and post something eventually work. It is a given that the people with the most to contribute are also the ones with the least time and so the occasional nudge often causes things to happen. The other angle is to publicize success stories about how the community has actually helped someone. It is best if the person actually helped tells their own story -- again perhaps with a little prodding. The successes are often subtle and indirect. It isn't that someone posts "I need a job" and they get an email with an offer for the dream job. More likely the job (or deal) comes from someone who knows someone who knows someone who read something about an opportunity or a person and then was able to make the connection. Sometimes there are multiple bank shots involved. Here is an example of what I mean. I started writing "reflections" in 1996 and they evolved into my blog. In the early days of RSS (really simple syndication) many people didn't know what a blog reader was and didn't know how to include an RSS feed into their browser or news portal. I started enabling people to "subscribe" to my blog in a way that generates an email version of each story that I write. There are now more approximately 400 people who read patrickWeb via email. When readers like a story they tend to forward it to their friends and this results in more subscribers and more readers. Some of the readers are reporters. Sometimes a reporter will send an email asking for an interview. The interview gets covered in the press. XYZ Company decides to hold a conference for their customers and they call or visit the Washington Speakers Bureau to get an outside speaker. The WSB refers XYZ to the interview that was in the press and sets up an engagement for a paid speech. In some cases the story that lead to the chain of events may have had nothing to do with the ultimate subject of interest to XYZ -- it was the communications that lead to something that lead to something, etc. The same principles apply to getting a job or landing a deal. Building the community and getting tangible results from it takes a lot of time and tenacity. Greater IBM is on the case and making progress. I encourage all of us out there with stories to tell to keep telling them. You never know where they will lead.
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Saturday, August 26, 2006 |
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For Your Protection
One of the areas that is overdue and ripe for automation is the bank "wire". Whether you have the money, borrow the money, or are receiving the money, it is often convenient to move the money using an electronic funds transfer -- otherwise known as a "wire". A bank wire moves money from your bank account to a car dealer's bank account, a home equity loan account to pay off a bank loan or for a real estate closing, or from your bank account to a son or daughter's checking account for college expenses. Paypal has made moving money really simple -- a few mouse clicks to send or receive payment from an eBay auction. In the world of banking, it seems the goal is to make moving money as hard as possible. A recent real estate closing convinced me that my bank (a large national one) is truly behind the times. Like the majority of their peers, they seem unable to adapt to the Internet. There are regulatory compliance issues but I am convinced these serve more as a crutch -- an excuse -- to not change faster. Here are the instructions provided to customers who want to make a wire transfer. In order to make a wire transfer the customer must get "All Wire Forms and necessary paperwork" to the "Risk Management Area" by 3 PM the day prior to the day of the transfer. The overnight package must include "original signatures" and a "copy of a valid driver’s license". If you get through all the hoops the wire goes out the on the third day of the process. But before it goes, and for "further protection", the bank calls and asks a bunch of security questions and the amount of the last check drawn on the account "prior to completing your wire transfer". If you happen to be traveling and can't take their call, the wire does not happen. You can buy or sell merchandise and trade stocks online but when it comes to moving money, the process is incredibly cumberssome. Is the bureacracy really "for your protection". I don't think so. It is culture and unwillingness to change. Is a really secure electronic funds transfer online possible? Of course. There are numerous technologies available to implement encryption and authentication, including biometric identification such as on the Lenovo ThinkPads. Even the IRS has implemented a secure approach for e-filing tax returns. Tens of millions of people use it. It works. To add insult to injury I received a letter in the mail the other day from one of the largest banks in the world. "It is our policy to reconfirm the following wire instructions" which they have on file in case they are needed. The letter contained my name, address, phone number, the ABA routing number for the bank, and my bank account number. The letter opened with "For your protection". So for my protection the bank sent a letter through the postal system with their name emblazoned on the envelope containing a lot of valuable information that an identity theft would love to get their hands on. A major source of identity information comes from thieves going through physical mailboxes looking for letters from banks. People have to buy shredders because of their banks. Do the banks have privacy policies? Yes, and most of them say in essence, we have your information and we will use it to develop new business and we will share it with our partners. If you want to "opt out" you have to write them a letter. For their protection. Epilogue: Ten years ago, some predicted that "local" banks would be gone by now. Today they are flourishing. People know their local banker and if they need a wire, they just call and it gets done. Authentication gets done because the people know each other. |
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Tuesday, August 15, 2006 |
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IBM Happenings: July 2006
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Monday, August 14, 2006 |
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Jubilee
My goal, in addition to enjoying riding through the hills and valleys of the area, was to find eight USGS benchmarks. This turned out to be far too aggressive. The first one was to be on the lower shelf of a concrete bridge, eight feet below the road, near Madisonville, PA. I found the bridge but could not find the mark. There was a lot of erosion of the concrete and possibly some vandalism. After climbing down to the stream and looking closely, I finally gave up and headed to the second benchmark. Long story short, the next six were all on private property. Most of the marks in this area were placed between 1934 and 1959 so, not surprisingly, a lot has changed since then. Many have been bulldozed or become absorbed into private property. Attempt number eight was in the town of Jubilee -- population probably less than 50. The mark was in a huge boulder next to a building on a corner lot. The boulder was so huge that it was not able to be bulldozed or surely it would have been. One out of eight was not very good but generally my luck is better. The Jubilee mark was #77 (plus 73 geocaches). If you haven't looked for any benchmarks yet, you can visit geocaching.com/mark and enter your zip code. You will be surprised how many there are close to where you live. I hope to find a geocache while in Norway this week for a board meeting at Opera Software. |
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Saturday, August 12, 2006 |
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HippieFest 2006
The origins and goals of hippie (and now neo-hippie) are debated but most would agree that it involved rebellious youths and rock and roll music. HippieFest was billed as "a return to the flowery, phantasmagorical days of the 1960s. The audience was of mixed age but definitely many that were north of 50. Some remembered their love beads and headgear. Many were reliving their past. Can't say that I ever qualified as a hippie but I fondly remembered most of the music. Watching these performing groups on stage was inspiring. A little arithmetic can quickly show that most of the performers were 60+ and some may have been 70+. Some looked it, some did not. All of them had great energy, voices and rhythm. If you look at their concert schedules on the web sites you can see that they are performing almost constantly -- one group claimed 208 concerts last year. Why are they doing this? Why don't they stop and retire? It is possible some lived past their means or had not invested in their future during the hay days and now need the money. Others may do it out of loyalty to other members of their group. Some may not know what else to do. Most however, are probably doing it because they love it. You could see the sparkle in their eyes and the spring in their step. As the audience raved, the performers were inspired, and the cycle continued. It was a great night. |
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Thursday, August 3, 2006 |
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doctors@email.not
It is understandable that physicians do not want to spend their time slogging their way through an email inbox, sorting out spam, reading life histories of patients, requests for second opinions of " medical" opinions of friends and family, etc. Then there is the legal side. Attorneys advise against giving online advice, warn about authentication of emails, express caution about liability when giving advice without actually seeing the doctor, etc. Just to round out the downside, I have no doubt that most doctors believe it is a choice -- spend time with patients or spend time with email. On the other hand, the glass could be half full instead of half empty. There are numerous software packages and Internet services which offer encrypted, authenticated, secure, tamper-proof email capabilities. There are various challenge/response systems, such as spamarrest (which I use), that can ensure zero spam in the doctor's inbox. The issue is not technical -- the technology is available to be as safe and secure as wanted or needed. The issue is attitudinal and cultural in nature. Someone has probably done the study, but I believe that looking at the entire time spent and the entire experience for both physician and patient, that healthcare would be better with greater use of email. Physicians do not have time to shoot the breeze on the phone with patients for sure, but they do get phone calls and make phone calls, they do get interrupted by their assistants, patients do call back, and some get dissatisfied with a curt call-back at an inopportune time. Email is certainly not a substitute for "hands on" medicine but there are many cases when the hands are not needed. Doctors have incredible memories and know a lot about their many patients. Simple questions could be answered with simple answers. How many calls does the doctor get like "Is it ok to take two Tylenols for....". If you get through the switchboard and call center menus, good chance the receptionist may ask a nurse who may then ask the doctor and then tell the receptionist "Ok to take an extra Tylenol. If you don't feel better in the morning call for an appointment to come see me". More sophisticated approaches will evolve as docs get into the swing of things with email and the web. Artificial intelligence will enable a patient to send an email and have it be automatically analyzed for keywords and then be presented to the doctor along with a set of possible responses which he or she can then customize easily and quickly. Appropriate reference material could be automatically appended. The web has empowered all of us to gain information and somewhat take control of our health, but an electronic connection -- in addition to, not instead of -- the hands on approach of seeing our doctors would be a big plus for healthcare. The other big change is the personal electronic health record. We can download our financial transactions every day into Quicken and be on top of our financial health. Get a blood test, however, and the data goes from our arm to a computer to a digital analysis and back to a faxed piece of paper. When we have that information in our PC, and this is happening for millions of people, we will know more about our chemistry than doctors do today. It may make some of our emails harder to respond to but ultimately will make us healthier. The patient centric world is coming, and quickly. Beyond that is the world of genomics. The breakthroughs in the next ten years will exceed the progress of the last one hundred years. There are other stories about healthcare here on patrickWeb in the healthcare section. |
Ten years ago Bill Gates said that U.S. banks were "
The weather has made it impossible to resist motorcycling the last few days. Yesterday's ride started down route 507 to 
Most of the entries in the 
Today I received two letters in the mail from medical practices in Connecticut. They were both routine, practice announcements about