Harvard Business Review this month is running a “case study” (pure fiction) I wrote about whether companies can and should be authentic. The case study is intended to be even-handed in its presentation; it’s followed by expert commentary. They’ve posted the case on their Web site and have opened it up to readers for discussion. There’s also a video of Julia Kirby (one of the editors) interviewing me on the topic, on that same page. FWIW, I am not at all convinced that the term “authenticity” is helpful — or maybe even meaningful — when applied to business.

[Tags: marketing authenticity hbr ]

4 Comments »

Given Wal-Mart’s size and its heavy-handed approach to so much of life, the fact that it’s letting its buyers blog freely is welcome news. (Disclosure: I consult to Edelman PR, which has Wal-Mart as a client. But all I know about this is what I read in the linked article; I assume but don’t know that Edelman was involved. And, yes, this disclosure is now longer than the post.)

[Tags: wal-mart blogs cluetrain ]

Be the first to comment »

If anyone would like to help me figure out why my MacBook crashes seemingly randomly, here are some crash reports: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9.

My MacBook is 9 months old. Apps were crashing under Panther. I did a total clean reinstall of Leopard. It seemed to be ok for a couple of weeks, and then the apps began crashing again. I took it in to a highly recommended local Apple shop. They kept it for a week, ran thorough diagnostics, replicated some of the crashes, and replaced the motherboard. Again, for a couple of weeks it seemed to work. Now things crash intermittently but fairly frequently. Usually, the crashes only crash the app, but Keynote has crashed all the way back to a cold boot a couple of times; I don’t have crash reports for the cold boots.

Help? Any ideas?[Tags: mac os_x tech ]

12 Comments »

Susan Crawford comments on the Comcast FCC hearings, urging that we not view this simply as a matter of keeping net management neutral. Rather, she says, we should recognize that the Internet is not a medium but purely a transport system. The implication is that those who sell access to the Internet should not also be selling content and services over the Internet. (Delamination now!)

This is the crux of the matter. We’ve handed the implementation of our Internet over to companies that view themselves as providers of programming (in the TV, not the software, sense). That’s why they almost all think that giving you a fifth or a tenth of your download capacity for uploading makes obvious sense.

We could get a favorable (from my POV) ruling on Net neutrality from the FCC and still leave our Internet in the hands of those who are structured to treat it as a medium for passive viewers of high-def programming.

[Tags: susan_crawford net_neutrality comcast fcc ]

* * *

The Boston Globe has a pretty good editorial about the Comcast affair. My main concern with it is that it assumes this country’s failure to deliver a satisfactory Internet infrastructure shows that that infrastructure can’t come from a competitive market … as if the current situation is a competitive market. In my view, we need a mix of government steps to open the market (by rquiring access providers to act as wholesalers, for example), probably some direct government intervention (e.g., subsidies of some sort to reach areas quickly that the market won’t), and (I wish) government-enforced de-laminating of the industry. Something like that. But I have more faith in the power and efficiency of truly open markets than the Globe seems to have.

PS: I still wish we’d embrace the Open Spectrum idea. Lots of problems would be rapidly solved if and when it becomes practical technically and politically.

4 Comments »

From a NY Times article whether the press has been unfair to Hillary Clinton:

“Part of it is her campaign’s fault,” Andrea Mitchell, the longtime NBC political correspondent, said backstage at the MSNBC debate in Cleveland in Tuesday. “They started with this notion of inevitability. And they were very arrogant.”

So, the press will give crappy coverage to a candidate the reporters think is arrogant? Isn’t that exactly what our media are supposed to not be doing, by their own standards? [Tags: media hillary_clinton journalism ]

15 Comments »

I’m working on a review of a book about the Web and yesterday found that I’d written an opening paragraph that is a potential winner of this year’s Bulwer-Lytton award:

As the boa constrictor of culture swallows the large, furry mammal that is the Web, you can see the lump traveling further down the alimentary tract, getting more fully digested day by day. How you feel about books explaining the Web depends on where inside the snake (oh, metaphor, don’t let me down!) you are.

I’m confident that my new opening paragraph is better, simply because, well, it has no choice.

Can we please pretend I was joking?

[Tags: bad_writing snake_metaphors furry_mammals embarrassing_moments ]

4 Comments »

From The Onion. [Tags: politics humor satire diebold ]

6 Comments »