Toby Bell

The emergence of social spending analysis has enterprise implications – even if you’re not a retailer. Blippy, the first service provider in the space, delivers a live feed of purchase data from registered users’ credit cards. It also provides segmented data for specific retailers, though not in depth. For example, as of the moment I write this sentence, 33,544 purchases were made at Apple’s iTunes store by 2,704 Blippers since it went ‘live’ in mid-January 2010. I can’t (yet) see total dollar value, geographic, or demographic specifics… though Blippy owns all that. Maybe for more fine-grained cuts of the data, I’ll need to upgrade my Blippy to Platinum. I hope it doesn’t hurt as much as a knee replacement.

Why, though, do people willingly submit their purchase information (”Blippy is a fun and easy way to see and discuss the things people are buying. Automatically share your favorite purchases from iTunes, Amazon, Groupon, Woot, Zappos, Visa, MasterCard, and more”)? It’s a logical extension of the Twitter model (which is a fun and easy way to see and discuss the things people are thinking or doing). People you follow – and who follow you – share ideas and information often in tiny increments. Blippy and Twitter might co-exist in this sample scenario:

Twitter: @tobybell: “Just pre-ordered my iPad. Delivery to be advised.”
Blippy: “TobyBell Spent $499 Pre-Auth at Apple”
Twitter: @tobybell: “Woot!! Am 4 millionth in line for Apple’s expensive Kindle alternative. Getting coffee at Starbuck’s to celebrate!”
Blippy: “TobyBell spent $0.79 on coffee at BP Gas Station”

And people can comment on all that! Fun!

So, as you might imagine, I don’t care about Blippy. Even if its name is a charming reference to radar. But I do care about the implications of technology for my clients. And, because the recent global economic woes have spurred a large number of inquiries about technology contract details, it seems possible that the emergence of Blippy foretells a more impactful event: the emergence of transparency in software and services pricing for procurement of big-ticket systems.

Today, for example, if a line of business leader in property and casualty insurance wants to revamp the claims handling process to be more dynamic, collaborative, and cost-effective, he or she is likely to start the project by evaluating the present system. And all its interfaces, custom code, support requirements, user population and acceptance, other stakeholders, software and service providers, and estimated maintenance costs.  This is the Run Rate. Unless moving away from Run Rate (which is easy to budget for as it continues the same spending year over year) moves the business closer to new, improved, and calculable values, it is hard to get sponsorship for change. So the software business is less about new licenses and more about maintenance. The services business is less about initial engagement than support and follow-on work.  I call this pairing Software Stockholm Syndrome and Services Stockholm Syndrome.

Wikipedia defines Stockholm syndrome as “a term used to describe a paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express adulation and have positive feelings towards their captors that appear irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims”. So, I am suggesting enterprises are in some ways captive to vendors. Shocking, I know. But I think – after having reviewed dozens and dozens of million-dollar software and services proposals – part of the problem is a general lack of transparency about the specific cost of systems.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked for even ballpark estimates of average per-seat, per-hour, or per-server costs. Obviously, it would violate all kinds of Gartner guidelines for me to post all the bids from all the vendors sent to all the clients. Gartner delivers the technology-related insight necessary for our clients to make the right decisions every day. We don’t deliver discount price lists or negotiate lower fees.

But you can. Granted, it won’t be through Blippy – unless you use a corporate debit card to buy your next CRM or ECM suite. All it takes, perhaps, is a Facebook Group. Set one up for your industry, geography, department, or whatever. Call it “Anonymous Financial Services Procurement Pro” or “Legal Technology Spend Analyst” – just don’t use your regular Facebook name unless you don’t mind repercussions. Throw some real numbers out there: “Just signed a $475K contract for a 3-year software and services deal with (insert vendor here). 400 seats, 2 servers, 20TB of cloud-hosted storage. Did I get a good deal?” Get feedback. Invite others. Repeat. Maybe look for people with similar titles and interests on LinkedIn and connect.

The nice thing about Blippy is that it makes spending a social skill. Enterprises may not be willing to expose their technology spend to similar public scrutiny, but (somewhat) anonymous peer review is now possible and a positive first step toward transparency. Now, I completely understand why software vendors are willing to discount licenses in favor of other value propositions like maintenance, services, hardware, or references. Many similar businesses have made a successful transition toward democratized pricing information. Did the auto business suffer broadly just because average buying costs became a matter of public record? Oh… that’s right. It did.

For the record: I give Blippy six months unless a major conversion of its business model occurs. If it is re-launched as a software and professional services buyer resource on a paid subscription basis, I give it one year until competition from free providers overwhelms it. If exactly the same technology were part of Gartner’s Web site and also part of our subscription model for IT execs and business leaders, I’d give it a much better chance. Of course, it may have an effect on our relationship with vendor clients. But at least they’d know what the competition was offering. Is Blippy a signal of what could happen in enterprise software and services soon enough? Let me know what you think.

Toby Bell’s Recent Gartner Research

When business leaders think of advances in computing, they might remember the images of the early Cray Supercomputers and what came next:

Then…

… and Now

In short, they remember a futuristic machine seemingly able to manipulate the curvature of space/time evolving into something that now more resembles a space heater. The same happened with the people working for large companies in technology roles. Once considered to possess a combination of the better attributes of Sherlock Holmes, Einstein, Steve Jobs, and MacGyver, they suffered a precipitous decline in reputation over time. They became mere mortals. Then mere mortals who worked elsewhere. As the era of empty cubes began, every technology team – comms, networking, security, apps dev, architecture, etc. – shed jobs at an alarming rate partly because business leaders weren’t always confident in the value they added. For 2010 and beyond, it is imperative that technologists deliver both ‘cool factor’ and ROI at an enterprise level rather than merely in consumer gadgetry, video games, and iPhone apps. For those who work in technology groups within large corporations, the coolest deliverable could in fact be absolute alignment to the business.

The early expectation from the large percentage of business investment in technology was to create agility at light speed. Later expectations were set more appropriately after decades of diminished enthusiasm and results. Spanning the gulf between business and technology expectations and abilities often resulted in structural problems similar to the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge: the outcome was subject to wobble. Sadly, the biggest number of victims of fallout from strategic structural collapses came from realm of technologists, who had to go further across toward the business side to try to relate better to business priorities. Thus, the decade spanning 2000 to 2009 might be remembered as Galloping Gertie. The new decade has begun with something even more twisted and sinister.

Hey! Don’t clean up that men’s room… I can make a computer out of it!

Now, several R&D teams are straining the very bounds of relatability for all technologists by suggesting that advanced calculators, processors, storage devices, and robots can be fashioned from leeches, slime mold, and E. coli bacteria.  Imagine being the technologist responsible for reviewing the advances in biological computing and relating them to business leadership in the enterprise… imagine at least the awards and accolades: “I’d like to shake the hand of the person who brought this company into the age of E. coli computing!” Of course, it was easier to imagine after Johnson & Johnson (maker of hugely-successful flagship product Purell hand sanitizer) bought IBM in 2015. Since we’re imagining and all….

Well, thankfully, Gartner is willing to do the so-called dirty work and has written on biological computing in a recent Hype Cycle for Semiconductors. In it, intrepid analyst Jim Tully refers to early research in DNA computing, where molecular properties of DNA can be used for storage and processing. Of course, DNA is ‘cleaner’ than leeches, slime mold, or E. coli. Even with that incentive, though, teams have yet to make progress suitable for commercial technology delivery and investment. Here’s an excerpt from the Gartner research:

“Commercialization will require standards — totally lacking in DNA computation — for representing and encoding data, inputting and outputting data, and so on. There are also unanswered questions about the scalability and repeatability of computations over a range of temperatures and other variables. In addition to these basic challenges, the technology would require a new hardware and software infrastructure, which is clearly a huge barrier to adoption.”

He closes the section by suggesting at least a five year horizon before significant advancement.

But, where’s my what if? What if Apple were to fund and then leverage bacterial research and get to market faster with a productized version of its own technology? Wouldn’t it be great to own the first E. coli iPod? What color could it be? Wouldn’t it sell even faster if it came pre-loaded with all the selections from the Jukebox in Hell? Isn’t that already a dated term? Does anybody know how bad ‘Honey’ by Bobby Goldsboro really was – even in its day? How about ‘Heartlight’ by Neil Diamond? Honey, by the way, is quite effective in killing E. coli, so that might pose a problem…. Hmm. What could ServiceMaster do with a slime mold robot?

The best thing about being a research analyst is considering the implications of technology. The worst thing about being a research analyst (sometimes) is having too many interests and not enough time. In the case of leeches, slime mold, and E. coli (oh, my) it is more a matter of making a choice between three unappetizing options and doing a deeper dive. Think ‘trendspotting’ and not ‘Trainspotting’, please. Come to think of it, I’d better go with leeches.

Leech Computing

The fog future comes creeps in on little cat feet um….

My apologies <again> to Carl Sandburg. Had I studied the work of any other poets, I might have stolen concepts from more than just the one. Sadly, the numbers of modern students of literature have dwindled in direct proportion to those who have since overwhelming chosen studies of law, languages, or even leeches. Oh, well. Onward. Luckily, I’ve already interviewed a leech team and can share the few parts of the interview not covered by nondisclosure. The first few years of the new millennium proved to be the ‘go go’ years of Leech Computing, and I seem to recall taking a trip down south to interview one of the leading leech labs in 2000 or so. Thank goodness it wasn’t Georgia Tech, as they took things very seriously at the turn of the millennium.

Then…

Here’s the article from the 4^th of June 1999 that prompted my interest in the subject:

“BBC News reports that scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a computer device made from leech neurons. Presently this biological computer can only calculate the sum of numbers, but scientists are working to enable it to make intelligent decisions. Traditional silicon-based computers require full information to compute, but the GIT scientists contend that the biological computers will be able to form their own connections from one neuron to another. The scientists speculate that the biological computers will eventually think for themselves, achieving “the correct [calculations] based on partial information, by filling in the gaps….” It will be several years before this level of success will be achieved.”

My initial reaction: haven’t these GIT guys seen any movies at all? Don’t they have an Odeon or Multiplex in Atlanta?  And, why didn’t the BBC figure out it’s called Georgia Tech?  For answers to these and other pressing questions, I ignored Georgia Tech and interviewed some other researchers I met elsewhere. Here’s a sample of my notes from the day:

Biological Computing Hobbyist (Me): “Didn’t it occur to y’all that if we develop computers that think for themselves, they’re certain to turn on us? The best minds of our generation to this point have all concluded (in movies like I, Robot, WestWorld, 2001, Alien, The Terminator, The Matrix, and, uh Event Horizon) that such machines inevitably go haywire. And, as if the haywire people population wasn’t dangerous enough — The Darwin Awards come to mind — you’ve decided to tempt fate further with Leech Computers?”

Dr. Wan Visage, Director (Dizzy):  “This is serious research, generously funded and certified by both the government and by the private sector. Anyway, they’re more like Leech Calculators at this point.  Our preliminary findings indicate that the potential for disaster is quite small. Not even considering the fact that we teach them the Prime Directive first.”

Me: “Prime Directive? You mean the same one used for Robots?  “You can’t throttle the scientist who tightens the last bolt or even works for the same company as him/her’?”

Dizzy: “The very same. Moreover, the incidence of even slightly aggressive behavior is fairly low.  Leeches seem to have a high degree of predictability when it comes to behavior.”

Me: “So… you’re saying that they pretty much limit themselves to bloodsucking and solving simple mathematical equations.  Isn’t that what mortgage brokers do?”

Dizzy: “Precisely. That’s one of the first and most obvious implications of our research.  We can imagine that within a couple of years certain segments of the human population can be repurposed as a consequence of exciting advances in Leech technologies.”

Me: “Interesting perspective, Dizzy.  May I call you that?”

Dizzy: “Of course.  Everyone does. Do you mind if I sit down?  I’m feeling a little faint….”

The interview was interrupted at this point by the intervention of several members of Dizzy’s lab team, who rushed to his side after he swooned, the fall only partially cushioned by the many leeches attached to his arms, legs, and back.

After the mandatory orange juice break, I continued the questioning with another research fellow intimately familiar with the ongoing leech trials:

Me: “Has it occurred to anyone that maybe the leeches are to blame for Dizzy’s condition?  Isn’t there another species of animal you could have studied? Aren’t any of those lipstick monkeys from the cosmetics labs still available – given this seems to be a more humane line of research?”

Dr. Casper Whiteman (Slim): “Well, you’re right.  We maybe could have gotten another sample.  But once you go down the leech road, it’s hard to turn back… I like to call it a slippery slope <laughs>. Our corporate sponsors seemed keen to keep them, too. Besides… you’ve got to catch a cheetah to harvest its neurons. That’s a pretty popular saying around here.”

Me: “Funny. Do you mind if we ask which companies are funding the study?  And, why?”

Slim: “I guess it isn’t a secret.  Hormel is looking for an easier way to get the Spam cans opened, and it appears that ‘from the inside’ has been an overlooked option.  And, the Bandaid people think there may be some product tie-ins, too.”

Me: “What might this study and its results mean to any enterprise client in terms of applicable technologies?”

Slim: “Well, do they manufacture any canned goods?”

Me: “Uh… mostly, no.”

Slim: “Do they have large numbers of users who log onto a network and have to remember a username and password for authentication purposes?  And, do these same users face numerous challenges for key cards and passwords based on multiple secure doorways, outside e-mail, and internet site accounts?”

Me: “Uh… yes.”

Slim: “Okay. This is good. How many people are in your typical client organization?”

Me: “At last count around 77,000.”

Slim: “Great.  Now, what if we deployed a primary and a backup leech for each of their people?  That’s what… 123,000 or something?  See what I’m getting at?”

Me: “Uh… no.”

Slim: “It’s biometrics, baby!  The leech stays affixed to the end user’s thumb, permanently identifying them for purposes of security.  We could have a little leech interface card called ‘SmartLeech’ that can fit into a single USB slot. We can even run a keyless entry system if we can get the leech to punch numbers on a teeny Bluetooth pad. Just the single sign-on possibilities alone are endless.”

Me: “Any particular reason people call you Slim and not Dizzy?”

Slim: “Well, there’s already a Dizzy on this floor, and there’s another Slim and another Dizzy in room eight.  Kind of a coincidence, I guess.”

Me: “Thanks for your time and trouble.  It was very interesting.  Thanks.  Bye, now.”

… and Now

Only 6 years later, leech computing was on the skids. I revisited the lab and found that by comparison, today’s small leech team was listless. Why? Well, I believe the investigative method failed partly owing to poor hypotheses and a lack of hands-on funding sponsors. Several members defected to larger labs in the public sector. And, venture capitalists had moved on and were now putting their fingers more into slime mold and E. coli research.

Happily, the team’s Hypothesis Wiki (HypoWiki) chronicles the few successes (and many failures) of the team and now includes as a bonus a virtual comprendium of leech humor apparently born out of later lower morale – two samples: “Why did the leech cross the road? Because this side of town sucks” and “What’s the difference between Leeches and Lawyers? Leeches stop sucking you dry after you die.” Plus the inevitable recipes A-M and N-Z, including Black Bean Ragout with Leeches, JambaLeechLaya, and my favorite: Puff Pastry with Leech, Lime, and Brussels sprouts.

Conclusion

Potential uses for Leech Technology at the enterprise level: none seen at present.  But I would be interested in building a better Jukebox in Hell on the E. coli iPod. Feel free to comment on the posting or just submit some songs. Odious seasonal selections – including Dogs barking Jingle Bells – are welcomed, too.

“The true course of every human journey that is set by money instead of by stars or better counsel is to meander inevitably toward misery.”

This might be a real quote, albeit by a relatively wordy poor person. It’s more likely that it is a logline – perhaps one from a Greek tragedy written centuries ago. Maybe I’d be more willing to spend my drachmas as a theatergoer if the description weren’t so complex… thus the emergence of pithy taglines: “Hero finds gold – pays with death.” And, thus too the emergence of today’s theme: “The clearer the information, the better the outcome.” Hmmm…. Must work on pithy.

Idiocracy, by the way, is a 2006 movie about a future imagined by our present focus on celebrities as culture and money as our only motivating force. Here’s its logline: “Private Joe Bauers, the definition of “average American”, is selected by the Pentagon to be the guinea pig for a top-secret hibernation program. Forgotten, he awakes 500 years in the future. He discovers a society so incredibly dumbed-down that he’s easily the most intelligent person alive.” Here are its taglines: “The Future is a No Brainer;” and, “In the Future, Intelligence is Extinct.” Really, the concept was more political: a future government of the idiots, by the idiots, for the idiots (see Gettysburg Address) emerged with a suspiciously southern drawl. Or maybe Texan. Maybe the movie had too much fodder for too few cows. The movie wasn’t a huge hit, though it does speak to some urgent issues demanding enterprise attention. I’ll note one or more here, I promise.

So, prompting this whole new outburst was a cursory inspection of what little remains of my daily newspaper. You remember newspapers, don’t you? They were the sometimes inspired result of a marriage of rhetoric, politics, and advertising that meandered toward misery over centuries. And, to my doorstep yesterday, bringing in it a section optimistically entitled “TV Listings.” This relic from a distant past haunts me now because I see how it could make even my future less meaningful. Here’s how… <insert sounds of static and tuning-in here> … oh, wait. I can actually insert that here.

Again… here’s how: having recently been bothered by the movie industry’s use of box office receipts to hype their product – thus “The Hangover” is now touted as having surpassed “Beverly Hills Cop” to become the “Most Successful R-Rated Comedy in History” – by measure of Money. By Accountants. Of the Studio. With an interest in Selling the Movies.  So, in the future I will no longer remember Beverly Hills Cop (BHC) as having two fine actors at the peak of their careers – one of whom went on to become my favorite Halloween costume of 2002. I will remember instead that it was not as popular as The Hangover (TH) and therefore will tend to prefer the more recently hyped movie. This despite the fact that BHC actually delivered more money in real (1984) dollars as well as a higher overall score from reviewers. (Rotten Tomatoes, by the way, routinely delivers value with a reputation scoring system worthy of 100 on the Tomatometer itself… and of being studied by every other Web community seeking a standard that works as well as RT in its media milieu).

So that’s what I’d remember If my memory serves – which it won’t. So, I’ll have to follow hyperlinks. Which are the trail marks of agile, instructive minds trying to develop a meaningful bridge from a discordant, Dewey decimal’d, paper-bound past to an elegant, persistently-connected idea-rich future where if one link fails, reliable redundancy among certified sources will sustain information’s value by bridging any gaps. The truth as we will come to know it retains currency and gathers even more over time. Memory becomes positively institutionalized unless wretched commerce intervenes in utopia.

So, scanning for movies in the TV listings in the newspaper I realized it wasn’t intended to benefit future civilizations. Or at least the one I want to occupy – where one version of the truth gets built from reliable sources. Entertainment Weekly has already embedded a video player in the print versions of its magazine in certain markets. This means something. Mostly it means that longer-form video (and less often film) will get snippetized and become source material for delivery to people with short spans of attention across a huge span of modalities. Like ringtones from songs got monetized without the need to expend any further creative effort. It also means that the relative cost and quality of the source (and its measurable popularity) will become the first pass criteria for its selection and insertion in whatever content it is I consume. Thus, I am more likely to see “Neil Patrick Harris” and less likely to see “Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio”. More “Dancing with the Stars” and less “Dances With Wolves”.

In sum, more is less. Setting the stage for this media-rich void are the present descriptions and ratings assigned as part of the source databases for movies shown on television. If you were surprised to hear that NASA had lost the original video footage from the live TV broadcast of Neil Armstrong stepping onto the lunar surface, you’d be flabbergasted by what else will fail to traverse the void from film or TV to Internet. Let’s broadly call it “metadata”. The stuff we partly use to describe content containers. Hence the taglines and stars associated with critical reviews constitute – along with titles and dates – common descriptors in these listings. The problem? It’s bad and getting worse. We don’t know the source of either the original review or the taglines. We can’t help but suspect, though, that linkage to either Rotten Tomatoes or IMDb is missing… and a cheaper source is mined. The “Faux-lex” of such data. Looks like the real thing but is constructed poorly and will not last. Maybe the next billionaire in tech will be a broker of cheap media context.

Here’s the listing for “My Cousin Vinny” – no year listed, no stars, tagline is “Brooklyn Lawyer.” (I’m sold…) “Saving Silverman” – (2001), two stars, tagline is “Wrong Woman.” (Wait… now I’m torn). “Sixteen Candles” – (1984), two and a half stars, tagline is “Girl’s 16th Birthday Gets Overlooked.” “Scream” – no date, three stars, tagline is “Teens Murdered.” And so on…. insufficient, incomplete, incompetent. By the time Gasblechistan gets cable, their program guides will be polluted by such mediocre metadata. By linking out from paper to reliable sources – as I’ve done in this posting – we set more reasonable expectations about what these movies are. And what they’re worth.

Enterprises should consider this example, too. Open any file and review the Properties to see all the missed opportunities to better describe content for present – and future – reuse. Though I have failed to follow my own prescription (see example below), I advise Gartner’s clients to do better. As content begins to traverse enterprise repositories and then migrates in whole or part to Cloud-based hosts or mobile devices and otherwise reconstitutes itself for various users and means, you’ll want to keep this in mind: The farther your content will ultimately have to travel, the more ways you’ll want to have to recommend it, protect it, and call it home.

All the Money is in Metadata. It’s the Plastics of the semantic Web.

Your comments as always are welcomed.

Actual Properties

No – it’s not the name of a law firm. It’s a business model. The concept behind this is that seatholders represent the lasting value toward enterprise software vendor stability – that gathering and then holding onto as many of those end-users as possible will keep one vendor afloat on a stable sea of maintenance while others in the same market flounder and drown. And, it works given no other changes to the environment. So, in the enterprise content management market (ECM) for example, we’ve seen growth, consolidation, and maturity… but no decline as of yet. At least for many vendors. But there are exceptions. Like Vignette.

With yesterday’s announcement of its intention to acquire Vignette, Open Text has reminded us that standards and practices in typical software M&A don’t always have to apply. You don’t have to intend to leverage the actual technology or brand or channel or partner ecosystem. You just need to leverage seatholders. Fact is that Open Text’s acquisition algorithm is fairly successful. Another fact is that many of the assets under management within OTEX’s portfolio haven’t gone completely away, they’ve been layered under a brand management hierarchy that positions those assets toward new buyers and markets. The only question for which no fact has yet emerged: “After maintenance from product inventory shrinks to a specific level, can it upsell or cross-sell effectively?” In other words, can it farm as well as it hunts?

Generating loyalty in enterprise software markets can be tricky. Generating ’sticky’ is not quite as hard. Vignette’s products are often tied to long-running processes for mission-critical applications – whether Web channel or imaging-based. Open Text seems to have wisely waited until the falloff of potentially more fickle customers and prospects had been completed. The business core thus revealed, it swooped in with the right offer at the right time. VIGN’s value to Open Text is not the technology, it’s the seats. The very plushy ones of large enterprises with global potential to look at one of its own (now) incumbent suppliers to provision other user needs. And, Open Text has options for those enterprises in spades.

Now it remains to be seen if – having won and wrung value from many other vendors’ customers – it can wean them off last year’s (or even last decade’s) models and move them toward an interesting ECM future. Open Text has been playing its cards right if revenue growth and seat share are the only measures of success. But I think it’s betting on other hands we can’t yet see. With combinations of Portal, Content, Collaboration, Process, Social Software, and Digital Asset Management technology, it isn’t hard to imagine that Open Text has all the table stakes necessary to buy into the big game with other new media titans as much as hold ‘em in the $4B ECM world.

Am I seeing the same things you are? Comments are welcomed… As are attendees at the Gartner Portals, Content, and Collaboration Summits in Orlando, 8-10 June and in London, 16-17 September. We’ll discuss the turmoil in ECM during a Magic Quadrant Megasession in both locations.

Doctors don’t want to be rated by users of Angie’s List and I
don’t blame them. Hear me out, as I’m sure it appears at first
blush that I’m much more sympathetic to doctors than I really am.
Of course, maybe it’s because I still have lingering pain in the
backs of my knees and I may need a specialist someday. I’m
generally fearful of inviting retribution. Maybe generally,
therefore, blogging isn’t such a good idea. Too late to stop now, I
suppose. I digress.

Scoring mechanisms for Internet reputation management are in
their infancy. In an earlier post, I suggested that typical “5
Star” systems fail to cast effective light on quality of goods,
services, companies, or even people. Sharp readers contacted me
indirectly and called out Gartner’s Magic Quadrants, Marketscopes,
and Vendor Ratings as examples where scoring is fundamental to the
overall reputation of technology providers. “Why,” they wondered,
“do you think average people can’t effectively rate technology as
well as analysts do?” And, perhaps adopting the same tone of voice
as any doctor, I might reply “because we’re experts in our field”,
or better still, “because I said so.”

Actually, scoring for our branded documents like Magic Quadrants
is transparent, comprehensive, dynamic, appropriately triangulated,
and effective. The merits of the vendors and products are compared
and then clearly articulated. It’s a beautiful thing. Especially
when conducted by me personally at events like Gartner Portals,
Content & Collaboration Summit June 8 – 10 2009 in Orlando,
FL at JW Marriott Grande Lakes. But we have yet to invite public
participation in Magic Quadrant scoring – though that day may come
soon enough.

This is because Reality TV and the Internet have stimulated
belief that just about anything could soon be turned into a talent
contest. Rather than hearing “This is… American (or Bolivian or
Armenian) Idol!”, expect someday to hear instead the annoying
introduction of yet another episode of “Crazy Brain Surgeons” or
“The Fastest Colonoscopy in Canada” or “Hand Surgery on Roller
Coasters”. The key point being that comparisons make the most sense
when they’re apples-to-apples rather than… um… apples to
orifices. Sorry for that.

So, Angie’s List is the first major Web player to effectively
pit plumbers against heart surgeons with public judging of
reputation on a single scale. Is an ‘A’ for one the same as an ‘A’
for the other?

Uh… no. Out of a scoring alphabet of 26 letters, Angie’s List
has chosen only three to represent the spectrum of difference
between every professional (and every layperson): Price, Quality,
Responsiveness, Punctuality, and Professionalism. Fact is, the only
things that doctors and plumbers have in common is that they get
dirty, fix leaky things, take pride in their technical competency,
and have an apprentice program that involves a serious investment
of time. They don’t like to have to explain every detail of what
they’re doing. They routinely deliver bad news. They respond in
emergencies. But doctors and plumbers (and technology industry
analysts on occasion) might all agree that Price or Punctuality may
not be the best basis for comparison.

Ideally, there would be a scoring mechanism unique to each
profession that fairly provides evidence of qualifications and
experience and references without bias. Sure, doctors could still
score doctors, but so could the medical media, membership
organizations, patients, and even ex-spouses. Oh. That’s the point
I was searching for: the Internet isn’t meaningful as pieces/parts,
but more as a collective with various scores tied to roles, rules,
and identity. But as a professional, it is unfair to opt-out just
as the world begins to tune in.

Some physicians are asking their patients to sign waivers
indicating they won’t provide their feedback on sites like Angie’s
List. Think about it: when was the last time you were asked to fill
out a survey about your experience – at any point – while a patient
in the US healthcare system? According to doctors I interviewed,
the only people qualified to evaluate any doctor are other doctors.
I wonder what basis they would use to score each other? I seriously
doubt they’d emphasize “bedside manner” and “relating to family
members in the waiting room with sincere empathy”. I suspect it
would have something to do with accurate diagnoses, high recovery
rates, teaching, advanced education, etc. I should have asked the
doctors these and other questions but I didn’t have “interview
insurance” and they were called away on “emergencies”. But what
would you expect to see after searching on Angie’s List for a heart
surgeon?

Okay… I figure I could save a little by using a doctor with
mostly ‘B’s. Maybe a Chevy instead of a Mercedes cardiac surgeon.
And, maybe since most doctors I know seem to have common goals in
dealing with patients generally, these attributes could be the
basis for a new approach to scoring:

I don’t want to appear to be overly critical considering I am
very likely to get sick in the future and wouldn’t want to be
tended to by my plumber. But the simple fact is that scoring
everything on the Internet depends on simple rules: 1) the sum of
the business or individual reputation should include more than one
source; 2) the less anonymity in scoring mechanisms the better -
with visibility comes responsibility; and 3) scoring mechanisms
have to evolve to more fairly reflect qualified perspectives of
both the supply and demand sides of any goods or services.
Understanding how doctors would score themselves – as colleagues of
each other as much as in the role of patients – could serve us
better in dealing with them.

I also think I might finally give my personal physician an ‘A’
for trying hard to keep me from needing to score a more urgent care
provider. Maybe one factor is how well a doctor focuses us on
resiliency rather than recovery – terms already familiar to many of
my colleagues in technology. So, it’s clear the way we score may
have to take into account bias, experience, ability, and other
factors that qualify us to qualify others. I don’t propose to
certify doctors – but I would certainly be more interested in the
opinions of those qualified to do so. There are dozens of such
scoring mechanisms already in place for medical practitioners.
Learning to use all the resources to effectively judge reputation
is at present more art than science. And, can be a very interesting
topic for further research. Watch for more here. Or add some as
comments.

I still read newspapers, though I have alternatives. My local source, unfortunately, has recently fallen prey to “pastiche syndrome” – it’s now composed primarily of clippings culled from international services rather than being a reliable purveyor of local items of interest. I used to like the fact that editorial bias was once apparent in every place I’ve lived – and that we could begin the day enthralled by how far “lefter” or “righter” the apparent slant was compared to other places. I also liked discovering degrees of difference in language – regional colloquialisms that express the character of a place. I’d usually find them in Obits, Police Blotter, or Sports sections. The smaller the town, the richer its vocabulary, and the weirder by comparison to big news outfits like CNN.

I’ve lived in places where the editor in chief’s peculiarities and peccadillos were not only local legend – but also clearly chronicled on a daily basis by insertion or expungement. But now the long downward spiral of local print news media has ended with a thud – actually, more of a piffle (if by piffle I also mean “a smallish noise” related to the arrival of a tissue-thin insignificant object on my porch). The fancy mastheads remain but even the memories of meatiness are fading. Modern morning paper disillusionment in small towns in 2009 is akin to opening a leather-bound novel apparently by Faulkner or even L’Amour and discovering a Reader’s Digest Condensed Version inside – heavily edited for extreme consumability but lacking the full flavor of the original and overwhelmed by the locality-indifferent national advertisements from bland chain stores of all stripes.

So why, I wonder, did the editors of my Citizen-Times select one particular Associated Press article for its Nation & World page – one surrounded by headlines like “Finance officials pledge action”, and “What next for stock market?”. This item – entitled “Robin Hood: Good guy or petty thug?” (in the extended more titillating print version at least) – was clearly intended to draw my attention, given my interest in Reputation Management and coverage of same on Gartner.com. Two things came to mind as I read further: 1) the research of academic Julian Luxford elevates ‘Marginalia’ to a gasp-worthy height; and, 2) the local newspaper might actually continue to thrive if it can target specific news and advertising to specific readers.

Maybe a just-in-time Toby Gazette-Herald-Bee that I can download and print based on a solid profile I complete upon subscription that’s updated continuously by other inference algorithms that can detect what I’d like to read about but don’t presently list on my profile. More like this, less like that. Cats and Dogs NOT rain. NOT “Lindsay Lohan”, “Rush Limbaugh”, or “AIG executives” UNLESS a cruise ship on which they ALL are coincidentally booked – WITH entertainment headliner “Rod Stewart” aboard as well – mysteriously vanishes for a long while WITHOUT further coverage of ANY kind. I know I could write a series of such “UNLESS” search strings. I’m sure you could, too. I hope the bulk of neither of our queries for such exceptions become the essence of our rule sets. That would be sad. Certainly, it would the basis of a good blog entry. Another day….

I’m back to Reputation Management and the issue of “re-appearing ghosts from the Marginalia of past lives.” Maybe a shorter title for the issue would be better. The gist of the article is that a monk wrote 23 words in a book margin some 549 years ago that has surfaced only recently to cause a legendary hero some reputational harm. Here are the 23 words as quoted from the AP: “Around this time, according to popular opinion, a certain outlaw named Robin Hood, with his accomplices, infested Sherwood and other law-abiding areas of England with continuous robberies.” This, for reasons we’ll examine, has become inside-the-front-page-news in 2009.

By all accounts, Robin Hood meant well. Was a hero of the common folks. Had some skill as an orator and archer. Wore a rakish hat – and footwear that elves, jesters, and jongleurs would envy even centuries later. Served as a colorful reminder of the dynamic tension between royalty and commoner – “fairness is rarely doctrine” and “might makes right”. And, perhaps most importantly, later gave Errol Flynn a legitimate outlet for his urges. My bias has been built up during the course of years and has been sustained by input across several sources. And Yet. Here comes an academic and his 23 words to skewer my mindset. Will I let him? Do the tart words of Snidely Whiplash in a monk’s getup (obviously more sympathetic to the monarchy than to Tuck) writ centuries ago bear reliable witness to the larger opinion of the age?

I dare say not, sir. Two points best support my argument: 1) History is Not Written in Margins – it is the published sum of interpretation of an age by experts. Moreover, it is a matter of fact that when personal expressions of petty ill will are written in the margins of history books, any further credence is suspended. This fact to remain in force at least until such time that I recover the boxes of textbooks remaining in storage units in Illinois. I will revisit this in the future. 2) We live in an age where three things are happening simultaneously: the thirst for information is unslakable; the amount of information and its persistence is almost unimaginable – more is making its way daily toward digital from analog; and, the numbers of amateur opinions expressed without any appropriate scoring of qualifications and experience (and the potential effect of this din) continue to overwhelm reason, trust, even sanity. Well – perhaps I am using hyperbole to make a point. Maybe this is thematic.

But in an earlier post I contended that “there’s a reputation corollary to Moore’s Law which states that ‘the sheer numbers of opinions will soon exceed any reasonable attempt to analyze them’; and that Reputation algorithms will have to constantly adjust to ultimately score the perception of corporate, individual, or product character versus attributes that contribute to actual character. Simply put, hype beats out reality. Moreover, the speed at which a reputation can be concretely made or ruined by means of Internet promotion will become calculable (and therefore monetized) by 2010.” And I believe this to be true. It will become even more true unless we develop scoring algorithms that match opinions to their authors and both to the events or individuals they describe and qualify the whole thing for credibility, accuracy, merit, and vitality. I’m sure there are others, but as an amateur blogger I’m in a hurry and don’t have time to delve too deeply.

I won’t cover the first two (accuracy, merit) in this posting – I intend to write about them later when I explore Reputation Scoring on the Internet – Why 5 Stars Don’t Cast Any Light. A starting point will be how doctors are asking patients to sign waivers indicating they won’t post reviews on sites like Angie’s List, and why they’re likely to drive scoring algorithms forward even as they resist them. But I digress. The Vitality test as applied to the AP headline – and ignoring the ‘luridness’ factor I didn’t even mention until now – would score the content low, as a single margin note from even an educated monk does not equal numerous worthier citations. It loses by a landslide. So much so that the headline became the only news – the AP was willing to spin an academic finding of “footnote value” into a headline. Despite claims of responsible journalism, it would be impossible to take the 23 words that quote “popular opinion” of a day and extrapolate a much larger indictment of a historic figure. Or at least I would hope it would be impossible. And Yet.

I cut my finger attempting to change a watch battery prior to flying from Asheville to Beijing a couple of weeks ago. Some may wonder how such a thing is possible. Yet among the jittery inhabitants of Planet Caffeine (PC) – where coffee is synonymous with oxygen – each of us can completely relate to the inherent dangers we face while performing simple household tasks. In this particular case, the injury was a routine one and therefore only partly life-threatening, and I tried to put a brave face on things by only whining for an hour or two and failing to put away any of the wrappers from the dozens of Band-Aids I diligently (another synonym: for “haphazardly” on PC) applied.

Apart from doing ourselves fairly frequent harm, we find others willing to contribute, too. We tend to complain and people tend to hit us. If you can imagine the potential irritation endured by the roommate of Jar Jar Binks during his “addicted to Pixie Stix” phase, you can sympathize with those who might suddenly make the quite literal leap from friend to foe. With that risk remaining but my wound bound, I headed with my wife to the airport confident that the incident would soon be forgotten – replaced soon enough by another distracting calamity. This is not foreshadowing. This is experience talking – of course, it’s talking very quickly thanks to an added shot of espresso. And that’s the real point of this posting… how time shifts even in communications as the world gets smaller and smaller. Or maybe other themes will emerge and displace that one. Like there’s a plan for the Universe or for blogs.

Anyway, I have had a number of universal truths made clear to me as I’ve traveled. Some are rooted in history, others tied to peculiar moments of a particular time. For example, I’m sure ancient Sumerian airline ticket agents would not recoil in horror at the sight of a spot of blood. (Wikipedia entry on Sumerians: “Tears, lament, anguish, and depression are within me. Suffering overwhelms me. Evil fate holds me and carries off my life. Malignant sickness bathes me.”) Sadly, though (or, perhaps more generally happily except for this specific context) times have changed and I am a Pariah for the spot on the bandage on my finger. One truth that hasn’t changed one iota in eons: you’ll know when you have become a Pariah, even if you don’t fully understand the term itself and won’t do research. Advice to travelers – keep all your blood on the inside, please. It’s the civil thing to do.

Americans are often accused of cultural insensitivity. At least I’ve heard this (of other Americans, not me) from all my friends overseas. We apparently export the worst of our habits – like fast food – as well as routinely under-appreciate the unique aspects – art, architecture, and haggis – of countries we visit. But, most significantly, we do not even understand English spoken by English people, much less French or Italian or German or other languages spoken in countries like Luxemburg (the native language which I will not hazard to name, thereby sparing myself embarrassment… oh, wait. Too late).

Our expectation as visitors to anywhere is that a sizable local element will have undertaken the study of English whilst we remain oblivious to our role as global citizens and study nothing more taxing than an onscreen TV guide. And, even as we begin a new century of stupifyingly simple-minded provincialism (again, these terms are collected as comments from foreigners) Americans presume that the influence of technology will further diminish the need to actually study another language. And, technology answers that presumption in a number of ways which I will cover over a few postings.

Today’s translation technology is the handheld Lingo 40 and the test environment is Asia Pacific. What an average end-user expects: I type in a phrase – either in English or another language – and can either listen to the translation via earpiece and then repeat it aloud or have the unit speak directly on my behalf to someone else. In theory, this is very valuable. I have, in the past, used a simple ‘Point It’ passport-sized photo album dedicated to disambiguation via visual elements (see Point It on Amazon.com) whereas once I might have pantomimed. How many times have we all taken off a shirt in a hotel lobby, mimed spraying starch on the collar, and then spread it over an imaginary surface and ironed it? Now, I show the front desk clerk a picture of an iron and ironing board and voila… in mere hours I am waiting in my room for one that never gets sent!

There are eight simple rules to remember when traveling overseas:

1. A translation device should be replaced as quickly as possible by a local person willing and able to communicate your wishes more effectively. Hotel concierges, business associates, consular employees, and sympathetic prison guards are among those representing likely resources.
2. Translating even “simplified Chinese” phrases can be troublesome, given there are 7,000 individual characters for “dangerous things” alone (this may qualify as exaggeration) that are virtually indistinguishable to bleary-eyed tourists. Granted, I might have been able to avoid future gastric distress had I been able to execute entry of characters more successfully as I contemplated a food vendor’s sign on a side street.
   It turns out that “不正派的手人的被不烧的贝站立” can be loosely translated to mean “Unclean Hands Man’s Uncooked Shellfish Stand” which generally one would be wise to avoid.
3. Much as smokers used to light up between appetizers and entrees because it appeared to hasten delivery of the next phase of their meals, so too is it true that I’d get into any random cab and then begin entering the address of the next location only to have the exasperated driver ask “where to, Bub?” in decent English. This was found to have been the case more than four times during my travels, thus qualifying as a Universal Truth in my research. Fact-based research, by the way, is less of an imperative when jet-lagged. Universal Truths are 99% more likely to get qualified as such under duress.
4. The amount of time it takes to write appropriate phrases for translation is directly proportional to the pressure you’re under to make your meaning clear. Thus, at a routine traffic stop of your rented motorcycle in Bangkok, factor in some “adrenaline time” to communicate effectively with the police officers. There can be a “long tail effect” to any early failures to establish understanding.
5. Do not clear a phrase from the screen until it has been clearly heard and understood by its recipient. Learning to repeat a phrase via a single button versus re-entering it should have been identified as a crucial item in the product quick start guide. As should be a willingness to ignore the extreme irritation of passersby and onlookers when you’ve got the volume turned all the way up to 11 in a temple and need to know what the policy is for exposed sockless ankle skin. Another crucial item should be “never try to translate certain phrases aloud in public places.”
6. Invariably, those to whom you’ll play your phrases will want to use the device to respond. This requires fumbling through sets of keyboard overlays and lots and lots of pantomime that will not deliver any understanding. If you cannot master the use of the device, the small child who has worked his way to the front of the crowd can. Later, of course. In the privacy of his lair. Drat.
7. Learning the basics of polite social interactions – whether ‘Hello’ or ‘Thanks’ or ‘I love you’ or ‘That’s not what I meant to say’ or ‘How was I supposed to know the gun was loaded!’ or ‘What do you mean it’s a sacred animal/place/deity/candle/towel?’ – from your new portable translation device can take some time. Plan to spend at least 15 minutes per language and try to have some scenarios in mind for the phrases you’re learning. Most important: expect to have an accent that sounds somewhat ‘tinny’ to any listener.  One phrase worth learning is “Danger, Will Robinson.”
8. Lastly, if you have cut your finger changing a watch battery and it continues to bleed across several continents, it’s wise to “think like a listener”: The man behind the counter in the pharmacy in Beijing or a policeman or even a maid will know what a rubber glove is… but ask for a butterfly Band-Aid and you’ll get nothing. Well, at least nothing my machine could understand. That would be the upgraded model, I guess. The one that would record his response and translate to English: “Are you crazy? Are you saying a butterfly sliced open your finger? Are you saying you are trying to bandage a butterfly? Do you even know what you’re saying? Get out of my store…”

Next posting will cover the evolution of machine translation… this|close to perfection. If, by perfection, we mean we’re willing to cut it a lot of slack.

There’s a discreet neon sign in a window that you’ve driven or walked past recently if you live in a town of any size. “Fortunes”, it offers. And few of us dare go inside. Maybe we fear the image itself of the wizened gypsy woman we imagine waits inside. Maybe we fear being seen entering and thus diminishing ourselves somehow. Maybe we don’t want to believe that something as precious as our future can be foreseen. Maybe we fear the truth. If there’s a bigger plan for this universe that somehow requires me to suffer, I’d prefer not to know… even if my contribution of personal suffering winds up being noble in some grander context. Yet I wonder. If I were to meet a fortune teller, what would I be told? Would I act on this? Would it matter if I did?

Mostly, though, we still think we’ve got a better handle on what’s inside us (magnificent potential) than any outsider could see. Really… how much life experience and sensitivity could this person have? She lives under a dry cleaner, surrounded by cats and furniture made from trees long extinct obviously carved by woodsmiths high on a Transylvanian peyote equivalent. It smells like a leaky basement filled with wet boxes of leather-bound books, kitty litter, and an unwrapped bar of Irish Spring soap in the corner near the boiler. And, time suspends itself there. I worry that she’s not eating very much. She wears no rings and her fingernails are polished (but not red). She has photos of her son and his kids on the mantel. Her breath smells like Tic Tacs. She offers me one and I take it. I want her to like me. I promise not to tell the rest. But I believe every word she says. She knows.

So, though most of us reject fortune telling every day in a formal sense, we become participants in it casually. The human mouth has, by some accounts, more toxins potentially deadly to other species than science can catalogue. Partly we don’t know the particulars because “biting kittens seems somehow wrong”. Even science knows where to draw some lines. Despite having no formal training in the discipline, human mouths generally do much more damage to other humans than to kittens, I’d suggest with confidence. The killer toxins are transmitted via air directly to another human ear. But imagine the damage mouths do when they bite off the words that otherwise might spare victims of ignorance. Maybe unspoken truth is a greater risk to us than the possible damage done by lies. Imagine any wedding party and the thought bubbles we can draw over the heads of the guests as if we’re there:

He’s going to beat her like he did me….

She’s lost too much weight….

His father’s a worthless drunk….

They’re too young….

She’s probably pregnant….

He’s about to lose his job and doesn’t know….

She’s already cheating on him….

Is it harder to think that the thoughts might be positive and not negative? And, can you as quickly put together a list of positive thought bubbles for the imaginary wedding guests?

Their kids will be beautiful….

Uncle Harry looks much better these days….

She looks so pretty dancing with her father….

What a perfect day….

We’re all so lucky to be gathered here….

I’m going to offer him a job….

I’d better get going before traffic gets too busy….

Sorry for that last one. So, what’s the difference between truth, gossip, and slander? It’s intention, I’d aver. In the case of a wedding party, some of the thoughts would, if expressed, likely end the celebration altogether. We might actually foresee that the relationship is doomed because elements of the character of the couple has been revealed to some of the guests and exposed in the thought bubbles. But rarely aloud to the bride or groom. Love isn’t all you need… but love is an anti-venom. Love can offset gossip and slander, but won’t ultimately affect the truth. Love is a delaying tactic against the truth – one that perhaps allows us to deliver a better version of ourselves over time than our past otherwise predicted.

This is why I suggest to my daughter that she spend her life gathering a council. Find wise, experienced, expressive, and committed advisors of all ages willing and able to guide her when she faces choices and consequences larger than her own inventory of ideas and strengths and education and intellect and experience alone will suffice (or even those of her father by extension) for solving problems. Willing to tell her the truth as they see it; and willing to not withhold evidence that – though unsavory – might spare her longer-term suffering if presented immediately. I have tried to do the same in my life. And, I try to do the same for my clients as a Gartner analyst.

So today we have a new couple – Autonomy and Interwoven. And they have chosen to merge and become a new combined entity. And I know them both reasonably well. What Autonomy brings to the union is intelligence and governance. What Interwoven brings to the union is a Web channel for that intelligence as well as a dowry of millions in revenues generated from relationships with blue-chip customers and law firms. There are thousands upon thousands of interested and affected individuals and enterprises invited to the party. Let the champagne flow and the thought bubbles blow!

What Gartner thinks of the prospects of this union will be made apparent in forthcoming research. What I think can be exposed right now. Web channel technologies are critical to the success of nearly every business that matters. Media management is an imperative because what we think of as ‘information’ will undergo radical transformation in the next few years. My colleague Whit Andrews has posited that something like 50% of the information you receive in 2012 will be composed on the fly when you request it. It won’t exist in any particular format – whether words or audio or video or the likely combination of all – until it composes itself on your behalf.

Because you’re mobile. Because you’re a CIO. Because you need a little. Because you want it all. Because you’re rich. Because you’re smart. Because you want to be. And you’ll experience it via Web channel technology – where Interwoven is a dominant vendor. And you’ll experience it because something can successfully predict what the many ‘becauses’ of your interests, abilities, roles, etc. are – and Autonomy is a dominant vendor in intelligent analytics that can understand the meaning of information and relate it to users prescriptively on behalf of its customers. The Web is becoming a council in its own way, thanks to social media. “Thought bubble harvesting” is what Autonomy does. Some may call this correlative analytics. I see a bubble machine and hear Lawrence Welk and add a dash of action and dialogue from Jack Bauer on TV’s 24… and that’s what Autonomy and Interwoven might do in combination. Or maybe not.

My other thought bubble tells another truth. Here’s what people want (uncheck the box that omits adult terms if you’re alone):

Dogpile SearchSpy

Autonomy says it wants to help prescribe what they need. Two truths… two possible outcomes. But if Autonomy is willing to express this and Interwoven is willing to commit as well, I will raise a glass today and toast along with the rest. If you want to know what I’m thinking about the merger next week, you’ll have to be a Gartner client.

Here. Have a Tic Tac. Toby Bell’s Recent Gartner Research

Think about the implications to reputation of an online world where more and more people and businesses spend a predominant amount of time interacting. A place where opinion, influence, anonymity, persistent data, ad-based search engines, few regulators, and criminal interests coexist and intersect at an unimaginable scale.

Is this person safe to date?

Will this surgeon heal me?

Is it OK to give my credit card number to this Web site?

Can we trust this outsourced manufacturer not to exploit our trade secrets?

Should I believe this scientist’s warnings about global warming?

Is this published content an opinion or the truth or a lie?

What’s the best software for my enterprise content management needs?

There’s a reputation corollary to Moore’s Law which states that ‘the sheer numbers of opinions will soon exceed any reasonable attempt to analyze them’; and that Reputation algorithms will have to constantly adjust to ultimately score the perception of corporate, individual, or product character versus attributes that contribute to actual character. Simply put, hype beats out reality. Moreover, the speed at which a reputation can be concretely made or ruined by means of Internet promotion will become calculable (and therefore monetized) by 2010.

It is a truism that even professional people who need to use it really begin to relate to technology only when it relates to their personal interests. And so is it the case with me. I became interested in reputation management technology not after discovering and helping to manage the risks faced by my clients, but instead after the Internet taught the kid next door how to steal my bike in 2004. Prior to that moment, I gave little thought to how quickly the seemingly ineducable truant might become a threat in any way. But, as Mark Twain suggested even in the day when the capacity of information delivery technology was agonizingly limited: “A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.”

The fact is that the truth got its boots on in 1992 when the first stories about how to pick a Kryptonite bike lock with a Bic pen broke on BBC-TV. Then the truth failed to depart – like a Phileas Fogg of its day – for its visit overseas to the very doorstep of my then-five-year-old neighbor. It would take another 12 years before the single truth registered there, and all the lies that I’d succumbed to about the lock’s impregnability became apparent. Until that point, had any search engine – Google or Yahoo or AOL – been queried about “bicycle locks and security”, the results would have been overwhelming and favorable regarding Krytonite bike locks. Now, the many opinions and reviews and stories shared for decades unraveled compellingly quickly to reveal a new truth… these locks could not protect themselves, much less an expensive bicycle. Moreover, YouTube posts gave instruction in how to pick or break the lock using a variety of tools – just in case a cheap pen wasn’t handy at the moment. Perhaps you’ve got a potato chip? How about a kazoo? And so I knew, too, that my cherished Schwinn might be taken from its place in my garage and sold to some little thug across town for a few dollars.

Granted, the company offered a buyback program as well as a reengineered product in response to the clamor, but I suspect the costs were huge in dollars and trust. I now carry twenty feet of chain weighing forty pounds and secure my bike with a lock more resembling an anchor or anvil and still feel unsettled when leaving the whole mess on some lamppost. I suppose this qualifies as emotional damage and I might be able to sue either Kryptonite or the Kid. But I have other causes for concern and little time to invest on my own behalf any longer because one of my clients now faces business losses stemming from technology that far exceed what I’d thought possible. The truth is now again in its boots and the number is somewhere near $10 Billion dollars, according to the value of its reputation expressed by a recent client.

Now, imagine this moment: I am engaged to provide an executive briefing to the CIO and his colleague at a major multinational enterprise. Though the initial invitation seemed more focused on some secret technology investments, it becomes clear that something else is bothering the two executives as the meeting progresses. Their combined demeanor is close enough to panic that I can’t ignore it even given my limited capacity for empathy. Did I mention that this particular company has global business interests and huge dividends that have accrued over decades owing to the ruthless power-mongering of a small cadre of leaders seemingly intent on unimaginable personal wealth gained partly by leveraging the lowest possible wages and most limited opportunities for advancement of its workforce – not to mention the questionable quality and safety of its products and services?  At least that’s what the Web message boards are saying. I know… could be anyone these days. Even some countries match this profile. Perhaps more detail, then.

We are sitting in the office of the head of risk management. Not the typical technology executive’s digs. This one is more scholarly/lawyer-ey but not without a few of the explorer-type trophies won by the big game hunters of the distant past. In his case, they were lucite-encased contracts and other documents signifying his legal acumen and forecasting ability. Both the CIO and the lawyer seem eager to get past my initial presentation. No comments or questions, just the ‘hurry up’ faces of people with limited interest and time. I wonder why I’d bothered to wear a clean shirt and tie my shoes correctly. I had initially hoped my old-school blazer and tie would tell them that I understood their clubby culture and could therefore relate to their technology interests. But it becomes immediately clear to me that we aren’t at all part of the same collegial business tribe after I ask, “I know you’ve got something else on your minds. Would you like me to stop now so we can talk about it?”  And they nod.

If you’ve ever looked into the bright eyes of a child with a fever – unable to adequately express his discomfort and begging for relief – you might think I would have been more sympathetic than I was. But if that same child was able to then speak the words, “To what extent have we secured you? Are we under a non-disclosure agreement? Would you be willing to sign one now?” you might react as I do. With a cringe and suddenly aware that time passes slowly for the cornered animal. I indicate that we are covered by a general confidentiality policy between my company and its clients and that all I hear would remain secret. At least until now.

I’ve summarized the findings in a number of research notes and encourage enterprises and individuals to review the emerging best practices in enterprise Internet reputation management I’ve posted to Gartner.com: http://tiny.cc/Toby