Monthly Archives: October 2006

BBC PC Security Reporting

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These seats in Business Class are rather largeToday seems to be BBC PC Security reporting day with articles on their web site and on the TV news.

It seems that they conducted a reasonably simple experiment and decided that the results were news. I suspect the real driver is coming from the Get Safe Online campaign though.

If you have reasonable level of knowledge about IT security then be prepared for a number of cringe moments. Making this complex issue as simple as possible is a real challenge, I know I’ve tried explaining it a number of times.

What I can’t decide, though, is whether the BBC has done us a service or a dis-service in this reporting. The issue is the level of alarm and the target of the alarm.

I’d like people to be concerned and to take the right actions to alleviate those concerns. When we drive on the road we should all be concerned about the safety of our vehicle, being alarmed would be an unhealthy response. When people use IT, I want them to be concerned about the safety of what they are doing.

In car terms people terms people are thought to check the basics; oil, tyres, windscreen wash, etc.. On the BBC coverage they tried for three “do’s” and three “don’t” while it’s a reasonable approach to communication it’s prone to over simplification and false assurance. One of the over simplifications was in the TV report, when people were told to use their common sense when opening emails, and not “open” suspicious ones.. I have a real problem with the notion of “common sense” in this scenario. This is new technology to most people so the level of “common sense” is very low and can’t be relied upon. It also raises the tricky question: “If I don’t open it, what do I do with it?”

On the whole I think these reports probably did strike the right balance, just.

One piece of advice that really frustrated me was the level of advice given at the end of the TV news report. The only advice given was to go to Microsoft.com and use the tools their. I’m sorry but that’s terrible advice. It’s terrible for all sorts of reasons:

  • Microsoft.com is a terrible place to start. The only obvious link on Microsoft.com is a link to a 90-day trial for Live OneCare. Live OneCare is only available in the U.S. at the moment .
  • Microsoft is a product company and wants to sell its products. What about other companies products? What about free products?
  • How is Microsoft going to help all of those Apple customers?

The Get Safe Online site has a much more rounded approach to security.

Microsoft are probably a bit disappointed that the link to “Microsoft online scanner” on the “Tips to help you stay safe online” article (which is the more detailed article) point to the Malicious Software Removal Tool on the very day that Live OneCare safety scanner is released.

Working Environment – Thinking Outside the Box

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La PaludAlexander (The Chief Happiness Officer) has a great set of pictures taken in inspirational working environments today.

Inspired me to think again about this room in which I sit for most of my working day. It made me slightly ashamed that I have created something predominantly traditional with a standard desk and book shelves.

The only break from the norm is the sofa (but that’s hardly radical) and the dolls house where Jimmy and Grandad live.

One of the nice things about this room is that I can control what is in here. The other day I finally decided to resolve an issue with the way some of the cables were tangled under the desk. It’s my desk, so I can. At the office I would have though twice about such things.

The thing with this room is that it is always going to be a compromise, because it is also the guest room so one it’s necessary to have a sofa bed in it, but that’s about the only restriction.

I’ve been thinking about putting a nice big whiteboard on one of the walls, because I am finding that it’s a great way of encouraging the creative flow. Anyone who has seen me in a presentation will probably be amazed that I don’t already have one .

Time to get the creativity working again.

(That reminds me, I must get a frame for that picture that needs hanging)

Instant messaging and its impact on e-mail and collaboration

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Jimmy consults Dr Kawashima about his Brain Training RegimeAdam Gartsberg has blogged Mike Rodin’s Town Hall. I feel a bit like I’m reporting something third-hand but never mind, perhaps that’s what blogging is about.

There are some really interesting observations that concur with some of mine:

We think the idea of innovation is all about collaboration.  We’ve connected everyone together.  Think about how you work today, what you came in and did this morning.  What are the first things you did this morning – probably log onto Notes and bring up your buddy list.  Or maybe not in that order.  For me, it’s primarily the buddy list.  I use e-mail today the way I used [interoffice] mail when I started 20 years ago – maybe I check it once a day or so.  IM is my primary business tool.
What’s your primary mode of communication?  (Polled the audience of 200-300 people)

  • e-Mail?  [I only saw 1 or 2 hands go up]
  • Phone? [About the same]
  • Sametime?  [Almost whole room]

If this is really how this presentation went, then there is a good deal of suggestion in the question, having already told them his answer. I assume that when he is talking “Sametime?” that he is primarily talking about IM type capabilities, but I could well be completely wrong there.

If I ask myself the same question “What’s your primary mode of communication?” then the answer is “it depends”.

  • If I want a quick answer to something I’ll use an IM client
  • I have as many phone conversations as I do IM conversations.
  • Many IM conversations get converted into phone conversations.
  • I rarely send files over my IM clients because, like me, people want them in their e-mail. It’s also rare that I send a file to one person, I’m normally sending it to a group of people.

Don’t get me wrong here, IM has radically changed the way I work and I’m a big fan, but I’m only a fan of the correct use of IM. There is still a lot of life in e-mail though. Which brings me on to the other interesting part (for me):

There’s a generation coming up where these tools – MySpace, Facebook, YouTube – are central to how they live.  A friend’s daughter left for college, and knew the majority of students before her first day on campus.  People we’re hiring think this way.  When we give them an e-mail client, they think “e-mail is for my grandfather.”  It’s not how they think, not how they work.  We’re creating a set of tools for the next generation of workers.

I was doing some problem solving on my son’s PC yesterday (with iTunes). While I was there I was a nosey parent and decided to look at his e-mail. Turns out that he hadn’t checked his e-mail for more than two weeks. There was a good deal of new e-mail in there, but it was nearly all SPAM. I’ve written before about this generation and their expectations of the workplace as have others. I’m still to understand how we create a workplace that has all of these tools, but is still productive. There is a difference between work and play. When you work you have to produce something, when you play you don’t. Employers aren’t going to pay people to play without it producing anything. But provide some of these capabilities is exactly what we are going to have to do.

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EMC and Microsoft Extend Agreements

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EMC DovedalePress Release:

“EMC and Microsoft Form New Enterprise Content Management Alliance, Extend Microsoft Office SharePoint Server With Content, Compliance and Archive Solutions

EMC will bring to market new solutions that seamlessly integrate the EMC Documentum platform with multiple Microsoft solutions and platform technologies including Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, SQL Server™ 2005 and enterprise search solutions. Microsoft provides content management capabilities in SharePoint Server 2007 today. With this new alliance SharePoint users can take advantage of the advanced ECM capabilities of the Documentum platform. Information workers will be able to access the Documentum platform natively from within Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and the Microsoft Office system, enabling users to leverage the power of the Documentum platform in areas such as advanced records management, business process management, imaging and rich media from their preferred Microsoft applications.”

and

“These solutions from EMC will allow manual or automatic archival of content from SharePoint repositories to a Documentum repository while keeping content accessible and searchable from within Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. By archiving content from SharePoint into Documentum for long-term retention and management, organizations can help their information workers meet compliance, content utilization, and storage optimization policies and procedures, all from within the familiar Microsoft applications they use every day.”

I am currently working with a number of customers who are feeling let down by the document/content/knowledge management project they undertook 2-3 years ago and are now looking for something much lighter and far more integrated into the normal day-to-day activities. A lot of these people have been looking at SharePoint as a way of filling the gap between the file system which is anarchy and the document management system which is owned by the process zealots.

Perhaps these activities will help enterprises build a bridge that will keep the process zealots happy.

What do EMC get out of this deal? The ability to retain a few more customers.

What do Microsoft get out of this deal? The acceptance of SharePoint by the process zealots (because they can carry on using Documentum). They also get EMC saying how great Documentum is on SQL Server.

Looks to me like Microsoft got the better deal.