Mike Schubert

The social software of the Internet has been a real curiosity for me over the past 3 years. People are essentially putting their entire social life on display without giving it a second thought. Things that were once kept amongst a close knit group of friends are now being shared with total strangers without a second thought.

Looking at this a step further, relationships are being built in cyberspace in ways that would NEVER take place in the real world. Could you imagine having a conversation with someone 140 characters at a time in real life? And what exactly does the "Poke" button on Facebook do? Here is a quick video showing you what real life would be like if it actually mimicked Facebook. Enjoy!

Facebook quizzes seem relatively harmless. But a recent app the ACLU put together as a quiz demonstrates the amount of information you make available when you take the quiz to find out what Wizard of Oz character you are. The article cited below notes that "Once details about your personal life are collected by a quiz developer, who knows where they could end up or how they could be used. Shared? Sold? Turned over to the government?"

While these questions may seem alarmist, the report certainly sheds light on exactly what is private on Facebook - really nothing. You may think you are only sharing photos and information with your friends, but the reality is that you shouldn't put anything on Facebook that you do not want shared with the entire world.

Read More -> Facebook knows too much, ACLU says in warning of quizzes

Bhutan -- Gong - Rinpung Dzong
Originally uploaded by sgluskoter

IBM yesterday announced that it is reverting to the pre-y2k licensing model for Lotus Notes whereby everyone would be entitled to the developer client for free. In many ways this is a good move on their part. My first experience beyond the Notes mail client was building a knowledge base for our fledgling software support group back in 1996. I was at an insurance underwriter with 33 different versions of software and no coherent way to collect and share solutions. Lotus Notes was the answer and the development tools were built right in. 

Thinking back to those days though, I remember some of the pains of everyone having a developer client. Users were within a few clicks of hosing their mail file (you had top level ACL permissions to your mail file so you could change anything you like). Then there were the "power users" that would throw together some little app and expect to throw it out on the server. That wasn't that big of a deal in 1996 - LotusScript was new and over the heads of non-programmers. But today, there are a lot of people in corporate America that fiddle with javascript mashups and the like and I think we will see some of these folks end up with a Designer client on their desktop.

So my question to you is this - are you ready for amateur hour? Do you have your servers sufficiently locked down to prevent publishing of unapproved databases? Think about it - it's not difficult to write some LotusScript or Java code, deploy it to what is thought to be a hardened server, and gain access to the CEO's mail file. All cleverly disguised as an app based on the discussion template.

My advice is this: Harden the crap out of your server. There should be one, maybe two names explicitly on the server doc allowed to create new databases or new replicas. And you should have a gong. Set up a gong in your little area and make a game out of publishing requests. Have the requesters come demonstrate their apps to you (you do have a separate development environment, right?). And dance around with a mallet. For better instructions, watch this video clip and you'll see the band's day end at the 57 second mark with the gonging.



Just an idea. Have fun and be safe out there, kids.

There have been many articles over the past couple of years telling you to watch what you say online. The same holds true for who you associate with. Your Facebook, My Space, Blogger, etc. pages are burned into the archival powers of the Internet for years to come. You are leaving footprints every step of the way. Many have warned that this information may be used against you when applying for jobs. And that is true - I know hiring managers that will do a quick Google on your name before hiring you (note to self: take down picture of me & Michael Phelps).

We are starting to see incidents of companies disciplining employees for their online behavior. Offending postings don't have to be made on your employer's computers or networks and they may well be made during your personal time. While you may think the constitution protects your freedom of speech, it only does so to the extent that the government won't stop you from expressing yourself. If the private sector takes umbrage with your words, they are free to dole out the discipline. It would be just like dis'ing your friend - he wouldn't be pleased, why should your employer be any different?

A recent article expoesed this phenomenon in the world of journalism. A reported had sent 'Friend' requests to managers so that they would join his Facebook page. Only, they weren't really his friend. In fact, one turned him in for his ciriticism of the company. A News Media Guild representative summed up the situation:

“We have seen about six Facebook problems over the last two months, with employees — maybe managers you have as friends — reporting potential issues to management,” union guild chief Kevin Keane wrote in a memo to union members last week. “You must be careful who you allow on as friends.”

To take it a step further, you need to really be aware of the friend of a friend concept and not put anything negative out on these social networks. I know you still will, but I at least warned you.

Read More --> AP Reporter Reprimanded For Facebook Post; Union Protests

Today's Best of Mike Series post comes from April 7th, 2005. It is apropo to the project I am currently leading at work and was interesting to re-read these thoughts from 4 years ago. Enjoy!

 The Way of the Wiki

What's a Wiki you may ask? Check out it's definition at perhaps the greatest example of them all - Wikipedia.

My job as a technologist is to figure out innovative ways to allow non-technologists to perform their job functions better. In the old IT model, we focused on centralized processes - forcing people into certain models. There were many good reasons for this - supportability being one of the keys (that's just another word for control).

Along came the concept of alignment. IT departments became concerned with whether their initiatives were meeting the current needs of the organization and whether they were structured to fit the overall strategy of the company. Knowledge management caught on to some extent, and companies used products like Lotus Notes to enable collaboration to take place on a grander scale. Conversations could be turned into documentation and shared with the masses. But this technology still relied on centralization.

We are now entering a phase where IT departments won't be focused on alignment, but rather convergence. I think you will still have a core IT group focused on internetworking, storage, server farms and support - but the analysts, developers, technical writers, etc will be more integrated into business units rather than centralized in IT. Granted, this will probably take a long time, but it is a move toward decentralization and is clearly putting technologists at the edge of the network.

Moving collaboration and the supporting structures to the edge of the network is one of the first challenges we face. If you untether the developers and so on from their IT silo, they will need tools to allow them to quickly construct their support mechanisms. These tools need to be lightweight and fast.

I think the wiki will be one of these tools. And I'm not sure that a formalized IT process will actually bring it in the door. Compare the way of the wiki to the way Blackberrys entered the enterprise. Most IT shops I know did not embrace the Blackberry at first. It was the demands of their business users that brought them in the door. We were then left scrambling to do risk analyses, training, and infrastructure upgrades in order to support this "disruptive" technology.

I'm looking to avoid incidents like the one the Blackberry brought about. I am evaluating each of the problems we see in the environment against all of the tools that are sitting on the landscape and I think I have found one that a wiki system just might solve.

Recognizing change is the first step toward embracing it.