Public Relations

It's no secret that I'm administrating a fair amount of land these days - and part of that job is assuring that basic amenities are made available. Due to the fact that a lot of people have been getting connections without landowner permission in the past (which is the tail end of simply building a house without permission), Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (T&TEC) has put in place measures to assure that this does not happen - thus assuring that they are not liable for damages and property loss.

But it's a half measure, and can be considered as effective as no measure at all.

I'll explain. As a landowner, tenants ask me to get permission to get the electrical connection - mainly because present policy forces them to do so, I think, but so be it - the policy only protects me from honest people encroaching on my lands. Honest people typically aren't the issue. That said, here's what is supposed to happen for someone to get connected on tenanted land (ignoring any previous permissions): { Read more }

1. The house is inspected by a licensed electrician.
2. The inspection certificate is made up and given to the tenant.
3. The landowner then fills out a letter with the deed number and their identification number, as well as the identification number of the tenant, and where the house is situated.
4. The letter, with copy of deed and copy of landowner's identification as well as the insurance certificate, is then passed along to the head office and T&TEC facilitates electrical connection.

When Richard Jobity pointed me at How I got a Windows Vista refund from HP, I was not only happy to see that Hewlett-Packard had refunded the person who did not want to accept the Windows Vista End User License Agreement (EULA), I was impressed with the fact that the fellow had gotten his money back. While I am known for supporting Free Software and Open Source, that isn't really what pleased me. What pleased me is that someone took the path least traveled. It also pleased me that he is running Drupal.

Here's the thing: When you get a laptop, either you accept Microsoft's EULA - or not. Most people don't bother with even trying to say 'no' when the EULA pops up on the screen, they simply click through and say yes. Why? It is simply the easier thing to do; you can accept the EULA or just toss Linux on the machine. What you can't reasonably do is choose not to accept the EULA and get a refund for the software on the laptop. One person got a refund from Hewlett Packard because of persistence. They stayed on top of it, they did not budge.

Question: If you sell a product that has a precondition of use in accepting the license of a software package, but you do not have other options available to users who choose not to accept the license, is this really a choice?

This is apparently what Hewlett-Packard, as well as other computer manufacturers do. Leave all the Free Software/Open Source stuff on the side: They sell a product that asks a user if they will accept a software license after the product is purchased. That doesn't seem fair, it doesn't seem right and it most certainly doesn't seem like they care about their customers as much as Microsoft's EULA. Granted, they may be shooting products out with a shotgun for the masses, but if you offer a choice it should be legitimate. { Read more }

After reading Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide: Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations, as well as reviewing the book, I've been considering a lot of things. Mix in a dash of Andy Oram's The Behavior Gap: Three Persistent Problems for Internet Technologies and my reaction. Squeeze some more efficiency for users in. Add an economy for users of Social Networks. Remember the Cluetrain Manifesto, and that 'markets are discussions'.

It seems to me that a large portion of what will be Web 3.0 will stand a lot of what caused success in Web 2.0 on it's head - inverting it so that the users gain some dominance. After all, without users, Web 2.0 would not exist - and while it is all well and good to make money while providing a service - the question is how much the users will tolerate. Just as there was a tipping point for success, there may well be a tipping point for failure. Alienate your community and you alienate your business base - keep your community happy and it will stay consistent and grow.

One of the problems with Web 2.0 has been, and continues to be, that it is focused on how very few people or legal entities make money providing services to many people. At some point, the majority of people who are interested in such things may well figure out that Web 2.0 is only about them as much as they allow themselves to be. Somewhere along the line, people may figure out that they are financial pink bunnies to the remote controlled social network - that they are only benefiting casually while others literally cash in on what the masses do. It is no different from traditional business in a sense; in this way social networking businesses are not too different from McDonalds. Lots of people eat at McDonalds (ask any dietician), but few people work there. Even fewer people gain the ability to improve their own positions through working at McDonalds.

It is a little reminiscent of Levitt & Dubner's observation in Freakonomics about crack dealers in the 1980s averaging $3.30 an hour. { Read more }

Sometime in May, my PayPal account was marked for 'limited account access' - a nice way of saying that they will happily collect money for you but will not disburse it to you. This, they say, is done for the greater good of assuring that one's account is indeed secure. I wrote through their email portal on their site and explained the recurring costs I have to Linden Lab (I am Nobody Fugazi in Second Life), and they cleared that up for me. In May.

But then, in June, this limited account access came back with a vengeance. The case is PP-490-015-326, so they say, and the reasoning of the limited access is:

Jun. 11, 2008: Our system detected unusual activity on a credit card linked to your PayPal account.

I held off on writing this in the hope that they would prove what I thought wrong. And yet, almost a month later, here we are.

So I went to my bank's website, and there is no activity that was not normal. There was no 'unusual activity'; what had happened was that my old debit card from the bank had expired and I was issued a new one. I attempted to change the date, but then PayPal found that my address had changed as well - it is no longer in Florida, but now in Trinidad and Tobago. No secret, that. And their system does not permit for the change of address to Trinidad and Tobago because the alleged industry leaders in internet financial transactions have not realized that one can have a legitimate bank account in one country while residing in another. It appears to be magic to them that this could happen, as their system cannot cope. { Read more }

I ran across the phrase, 'Building a More Strategic, Collaborative And Sustainable Movement' in my email a few moments ago, and at first read came up with Building a More Strategic, Collaborative And Sustainable Bowel Movement.

And I wonder who comes up with these things. But let's strategically analyze the significance of the accidental metaphor for social interaction. After all, there is waste. Let us address the waste, which we will officially call Predictably Ostentatious Objects (POO) where objects transcend the tangible and include anything that is referenced as a noun. For example, a meme.

In the context of the Internet, POO comes along and clogs up blogs, aggregators and even email. It has been known to crossover to books, newspapers, magazines and even bathroom walls - and vice versa. POO, as they say, happens. So now we need to address a More Strategic, Collaborative and Sustainable Movement for handling POO - like peristalsis.

POO starts somewhere and gets spread around. Some people sniff it cautiously, others feel it for intellectual texture, still others roll it on their tongues, and still others step in it accidentally. However POO is handled, in a collective way the world digests it in it's many forms. Someone, somewhere, rolls the POO into a nice and neat bolus that begins rolling around. It gets around to just about everyone, even in passing - the spread of POO is more and more noteworthy as more marketers than content creators participate. We get new and improved POO, which is neither. We get more efficient POO. We even get more efficient POOing. But what we don't have is a direct method of dealing with this POO other than ignoring it. In many ways, POO is dealt with like that bad smell in the elevator:

"It smells really bad! Come smell!"

No, thank you. I believe you. I believe it smells bad. { Read more }

These days, time is a precious commodity and I quite simply don't have as much time to spend dealing with social networking... networks. Facebook is one thing which is an enormous time sink and becomes more so because most people get a new toy and, like most people when using something that dumbs down the Internet enough for them to use, go a bit nuts.

It's ok. I understand. I don't necessarily like it, but I understand. And as someone who does understand, it is my responsibility to enlighten. After all, I've been around long enough to remember when the phrase 'asbestos underwear' was new. I remember when email addresses were strings of numbers and dots. For that matter, I remember when pornography was hard to come by (no pun intended).

Here's a short list of what not to do with Facebook if you don't run into the dark side of this techno-dinosaur - and what would be considered inappropriate etiquette by anyone who doesn't view the Internet as a toy built for someone else's recreation... at that someone else's expense of time and energy. { Read more }

• Poking someone who is already your friend is annoying. 'Poking' seems to have been designed to allow people who are not your friend to see your profile. If you want to say something, then bloody well say it or be advised that I have another idea of where you can stick your digit. And it typically doesn't smell nice, unless you're into that sort of thing... at which point I'll have to pick a new place for your finger. Like in your eye.

I've been quiet about the OLPC shifting to Microsoft's Windows XP operating system, other than a response to 'Sic Transit Gloria Laptopi'. The reason is very simple: I just haven't had the time to read up on it. Today, I made some time - the OLPC, formerly known as the $100 Laptop, isn't really high on my priority list because I think that I believe it is a meme that should be fed to the fish. No, I'm not against the use of technology in the classroom or anywhere else - but what I am really for is appropriate use of technology.

Pliable Sugar

The Sugar Interface originally developed for the OLPC is moving right along, despite Microsoft's gaining of marketing traction on the neon green machine. And I think that the Sugar interface is very interesting and perhaps even important - to me it isn't so much about an interface, but rather an open source approach to researching interface issues. What we all know by now, or should, is that the whole mouse/keyboard interface is less than appropriate for humans. Or, more plainly, it sucks. We can do better, and it makes sense that working with children who are not influenced as much by present interfaces would help. The worry, though, is that children are quite pliable and may not guide the interface as much as Sugar may guide them... something that bears some scrutiny. { Read more }

When a friend sent me a link to the blog entry, Sic Transit Gloria Laptopi, I expected a continuation of the OLPC Meme that would not die. I was in for a bit of a surprise, and even as I was getting ready to go about some business that allows me to get into sunlight I found it necessary to pause and write this answering entry.

Frankly, the whole issue of the OLPC is more a matter of marketing than actual headway - it's sort of like discussing which politician is best to become President when the acid test is putting them into the Institution of the Presidency itself - not whether they can charm the underwear off of an easily manipulated media. The reality that most see is what the media presents. The actual reality, the one that is real, is the one that the media shades be it consciously or not. When the New York Times writes an apology for poor coverage which may have swayed opinion on the invasion of Iraq, there should be little doubt of the power of media swing to do things, good or bad, for the wrong reasons. A course is not charted by one point. A course is charted by many, and the direction is guided by reasons.

Back to the subject at hand. I agree with Ivan on some things he wrote: { Read more }