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Friday, April 01, 2005 |
It appears as though Microsoft and research outfit Security Innovations are learning the hard way how lack of research transparency can damage the credibility of a research project as well as those involved. The study in question, performed by Security Innovations, concluded that Microsoft Windows Server 2003 has Fewer Security Flaws than Multiple Configurations of a Comparable Linux Server." Controversy erupted
over the report when it was discovered last week, well after the
report's results were orginally unveiled at February's RSA Security
Conference, that the research was commissioned by Microsoft. That
important detail was not disclosed when the results were originally
reported to conference attendees, leading Counterpane Internet
Security founder Bruce Schneier to tell the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"It was evidence that Microsoft was doing better, and now the evidence
is tainted....The results might be accurate, but
now nobody's going to care, because all they'll see is a bias that was
undisclosed."
Though the disclosure is made in the report, Security Innovation's summary page
that describes the research still makes no mention of who funded
it (by the time you read this, that may have changed). It should because there are plenty of IT buyers who pay no
attention to research that's commissioned by vendors and they have a
right to know, without having to dig into the report, whether or not
the report was funded by a vendor or not. According to the
Post-Intelligencer's report, the researchers behind the effort claimed
full transparency saying "Our own requirement for the methodology was
that it had to be very
open and transparent. We wanted to give people the recipe so they could
go out and recalculate the numbers for themselves." The
researchers also maintained that Microsoft was not allowed any
editorial control over their methodology.
Unfortunately, that sort of transparency, sans the information
regarding who funded it, doesn't paint the complete picture of
commissioned research and here's why: What happens in the case of
commissioned research that doesn't find in favor of the vendor that
sponsored it? In my 15 years of journalism, I can't recall one
time where I saw a commissioned study that concluded in favor of the
sponsor's competition. Can you? (please write to me about it or
comment below if you can). I've seen commissioned studies where
the competition wins on a few points, but never overall. While I
can't say definitively that such a study has never been made publicly
available, I've heard plenty of stories about how such studies do
exist. But, since a vendor is paying for the research in the
first place, it has every right to take the study home and stick it in
a file cabinet where it will never see the light of day. Or, the
studies are used to help vendors figure out what they need to do to
beat competitors (and are sometimes be cited in vendor presentations as
a way making some forthcoming product upgrade sound credible and market
leading to the press).
Also, I have another nit about methodology transparency.
Disclosing the methodology in such a way that allows others to
reproduce the results is definitely better than not disclosing the
methodology at all. But that misses the larger goal of
transparency. Transparency is also about change and
improvement. Had Security Innovations announced that it was
performing the research study on behalf of Microsoft, published
the proposed methodology,
and invited other security experts to make suggested changes, and then
taken incorporated those changes into the methodology (or explained why
it didn't), then that would
have made the final results much more defensible (and trust me, if word
got out that a research outfit was seeking feedback on a methodology
for a Microsoft-funded comparison of Windows and Linux security, the
researchers' suggestion box would have been overflowing with "help").
So, just making the methodology transparent as Security Innovations did
isn't transparent enough, if you ask me. Not only does real
transparency involve the disclosure of the methodology and who funded
the report (on the front page), but it should also include the contract
verbiage that describes what control the vendor may have over the
methodology (reminder: in the above case, the researchers are claiming
Microsoft had none) and what veto power, if any, the sponsor has over
the publication of the research for public consumption.
Finally, the ultimate consumers of the research -- the people who make
buying decisions based on it (whether they had direct access to the
research or it trickled down to them in some other way) -- aren't the
only ones who would benefit from full transparency. The studies
and those involved (the researchers and vendors) benefit too.
After all, when everything is above board and more defensible, it can
strengthen the reputations of those involved. But the minute lack
of transparency becomes an issue around a particular piece of research,
then everyone goes down with the ship. That can't be
good for business.
10:24:11 PM 
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Dan Gillmor picked up on an important report
for the Carnegie Foundation. Entitled "Abandoning the News." For
any mainstream media (MSM) outlet that's doing some soul searching (which
they should be doing) and that's looking for some survey data on the
perception of their medium (newspaper, TV) versus the Internet,
this report is backed by a revealing PowerPoint presentation that gets
into the heads of 18 to 34 year-olds (obviously, a very important
group).
Why the established media should care: In no small way, it articulates the the challenges that the MSM will face as a result of democratized news provision.
Relevance to transparency: First
and most important, trustworthiness is listed as one of the top three
criteria in selecting information sources (it appears at the top of the
list but it's not clear whether list order is an indicator of
importance). Timeliness is listed second. While
the Internet gets high marks for timeliness, it's perceived to be the
second worst in terms of trustworthiness. So, given that
transparency is about credibility and trustworthiness... well, now you
understand the relevance.
9:34:38 AM
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Thursday, March 31, 2005 |
Yes, it has been a while and apologies. Time is such a gating
factor to running this channel. As you can see, I'm still doing
some stuff behind the scenes. For example, I'm adjusting the
design of the site and have some work to do there. I'm also
prototyping a software connection between my e-mail system and this
transparency channel to more efficiently move content into the channel
(since so much of the relevant content comes to me via e-mail).
This is taking longer than I had hoped. But once I'm done, I'm hoping
the result will be like prying loose a cap off a fire hyrdrant.
The flow should pick up significantly. On this vector, the
important finding of my experiment is that it's not as easy to be a
transparent journalist as you'd think. If you're on the hook to
crank out content on a daily basis (as I am in the two blogs that I
write for on ZDNet), there's not a lot of time left over to be
transparent. This is particularly so when the heavy lifting to be
transparent on a particular story is about 10x the work of the story
itself.
All this said, I have some cool postings in the works that get to the
heart of some really interesting blogging/journalism matters and also,
I have several things cooking on the research transparency front.
My musings
about research transparency have apparently struck a nerve and my inbox
is full of comments and thoughts that I must parse through. Stay tuned.
9:58:16 AM
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From the below press release: "a one to sixty minute video uploaded to
MPEG NATION, encoded into Microsoft(R) Window's Media(R) Format (150k,
300k & 700k), costs just $4.95 including unlimited streaming (viewing)
bandwidth and storage for six months."
Long term, given the efficiency and convenience of time-shifted
consumption of text, audio, and video (and a fourth medium like Flash
that I call i-media... the "i" is for "interactive" and implies a form
of audio or video that the end user can interact with), and the fact
that portable hard drive space simply isn't an issue, I wonder whether
streaming will finally give way to downloading for all but the most
incredibly time sensitive news and information. About 99.99 perecent of
the content we consume doesn't have to be consumed live or while
connected to some network.
MPEG NATION Launches Powerful Broadband Streaming Video Service for the
Masses
Stream your video world-wide to millions of people for less than $1 per
month!
CHICAGO, March 30 /PRNewswire/ -- MPEG NATION, a division of Digital
Silo, Inc., a global provider of integrated content delivery and
streaming media services, today announced a new, first ever, low-cost
service to encode and stream consumer and commercial video content via
its worldwide content delivery network, within minutes, via a simple
upload.
MPEG NATION enables individuals and companies to inexpensively begin
streaming video across a high-performance, reliable content delivery
network without having to spend hours encoding and transcoding formats,
negotiating rates, or worrying about ongoing storage and bandwidth
costs. MPEG NATION is the first-ever "one-price-fits-all solution" for
placing video in blogs, auctions, personal and corporate websites.
"We are working towards a world where television and video
distribution are much more democratized and where a creative spark, a
camera, and a computer are all it takes to put video content before the
eyes of thousands of people. MPEG NATION is excited to announce the
first affordable streaming video service for delivering streaming
solutions to meet market demand for
Microsoft(R) Windows Media(R), RealNetwork's RealPlayer and Apple's
QuickTime video formats," said Scott Wolf, president and chief
technology officer of Digital Silo's MPEG NATION division. (more)
8:39:32 AM
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This sounds to be true. But even if it isn't, it suggests that
entrepreneurs are out there thinking about interesting ways to move
broadcast media onto the internet. So, the theme is convergence and
broadcast media execs (radio and TV) have to be thinking about what
entrepreneurs like this mean to the their business. Whether this really
does what it says it does doesn't matter. Sooner or later, someone will
figure out how to do this and the international nature of the Internet
could will affect the legal options that are available to broadcast
media outlets.
From: Jonathan Rodriguez [mailto:JonathanR@bitmar.com]
Sent: Friday, March 25, 2005 1:33 PM
To: David Berlind
I am the creator of WebBrowserTV and WebBrowserRADIO; two new,
revolutionary, upcoming computer softwares. Basically, by inserting
these CD-ROM softwares into a computer, any user can watch live
worldwide television and/or radio, right from their computer. An
Internet connection is used as the receiving via (no antennas and/or
cable box needed).
Please take under consideration that most people are now, more than ever
before, going online for everything. Television networks and radio
stations are now realizing that the computer business is taking over the
world, including their own industries (TV and radio industries). As a
result of our constantly-changing competitive world, new technological
products are always arising, re-shaping each of the industries they fall
under. I feel that I may have a product line (these two products) with a
great possibility of becoming a major deal in the market, especially if
large chains (like Wal-Mart, Staples, Best Buy, Radio Shack, etc.)
decide to add these products to their catalogs. That could mean a
tremendous amount of long-term business. The other good thing about
these products, in particular, is that they are both hybrids of very
stable industries: The Internet, TV, and Radio... (more)
8:00:10 AM
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I received the following email on March 30, 2005. I'm not sure how many
people realize how vast the Windows Media empire is. In the traditional
ecosystem sense, where more developers begets more content and more
content begets more users and more users attracts more developers (all
to the benefit of the underlying platform), is there any digital media
ecosystem (the choices are quicktime, real and flash) that matches the
depth and breadth of the Windows Media ecoystem? The
e-mail does a great job of describing the reach of the Windows Media
empire. Don't forget that media platform pervasiveness begets
digital rights management platform pervasiveness.
(ps: I normally don't publish emails without the
permission of the sender but this e-mail is obviously a boilerplate with
nothing specific to me or other recipients. I redacted the sender's
contact information)
==Email Begins Here=
Microsoft Corp. today will announce the launch of MSN Video Downloads,
which provides daily television programming, including content from
MSNBC.com, Food Network, FOX Sports and IFILM Corp, for download to
Windows Mobile(tm)-based devices, such as Portable Media Centers and
select Smartphones and Pocket PCs.
Since launching the Windows Mobile-based Portable Media Center last
fall, more than 20 new partners, including CinemaNow Inc., MLB.com,
MSNBC.com, MTV Networks Music, Napster Inc., SnapStream Media Inc and
TiVo Inc., have agreed to make video available online specifically
formatted for Windows Mobile-based multimedia devices.
In addition to MSN Video Downloads announced today, there are a number
of ways to obtain legal content that can be transferred to Windows
Mobile-based devices:
* People can transfer recorded television to Windows Mobile
devices from any Windows XP-based PC, either with Media Center Edition
PCs or PCs with built-in TV-tuner cards from companies such as ATI and
NVIDIA and third-party PVR software such as SnapStream Beyond TV 3.
Soon, via the TiVoToGo service, people can take their TiVo Series 2
content from the PC and transfer it to a Portable Media Center.
* The recently launched Napster-to-Go service allows people with
a monthly subscription to have unlimited access to hundreds of thousands
of songs that can be transferred to Windows Mobile devices. In
addition, online movie provider CinemaNow will have hundreds of movie
titles formatted specifically for viewing on Portable Media Centers.
* On March 16, CinemaNow and MediaPass announced it will make
music videos available specifically for Windows Mobile devices.
Following is a summary of today's announcement. The full press release
is below.
* The MSN Video Downloads service is one of the first online
video download services dedicated to portable entertainment and is
designed to keep people better entertained and informed, wherever and
whenever they want. MSN Video Downloads debuted in a preview of the
service at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January
2005.
* New in the launch of the service is the ability to select the
specific content downloaded to the subscriber's Windows XP-based PC each
day. Also people will be able to activate a new "automatic deleting
feature," which specifies how long video from the MSN Video Downloads
directory remain on the PC, avoiding a large backlog of clips.
* Along with our CinemaNow and MediaPass partnerships announced
last week, content from MSN Video Downloads is for use with PlaysForSure
compliant devices that play video, enabling people to download to their
Windows(r) XP-based PC and transfer to any Windows Mobile-based Portable
Media Center, or Smartphones and Pocket PCs equipped with Windows
Media(r) Player 10 Mobile.
The Following Companies Have Announced Support for Windows Mobile-based
Devices : (more...)
7:46:34 PM
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Hollywood seeks iTunes for film.
Sony Pictures, other media giants mull "anti-Napster" for movies and
the future of advertising at Digital Hollywood conference.
This is a story about digital rights management and sooner or
later, Hollywood will be forced to talk to Microsoft since it's media
client is the most pervasive (not just in computers).
7:25:23 AM
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Monday, March 14, 2005 |
PR Week interviewed me a few weeks ago. An edited-to-fit-in-print
version of the interview can be found in PR Week's print edition or you
can go to the full version on-line.
8:28:28 PM
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Tuesday, March 08, 2005 |
Andy Lark calls tech research A House Of Cards. In his post, he says:
I don't know of any industry other than tech in which such "corrupting" business practices exist....What isn't OK is the business practice of pay-for-play masquerading as
independent consultancy. The only equity in it is that this model
punishes big and small alike. The big have to keep fueling the beast
and where they don't they suddenly see their rankings plummet and
adverse commentary. The small can't afford to really play at all.
He doesn't stop there. Next, he proposes a Research Transparency Portal
and suggests that to get the research outfits to go along with the
idea, vendors should put away their checkbooks and organize a boycott
until the researchers capitulate. Go Andy. Go. You
have my support.
12:26:19 AM
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Monday, March 07, 2005 |
I think we have to distinguish here too between the analyst him/herself
and the organization they work for. I can't tell you how many
times I have been on the phone with analyst/executive and the analyst
rather sheepishly says - "Oh, I really need to give you the sales pitch
now." Or something along those lines, intimating they are forced to it
by "management."
I question whether research associates are the best people to
give sales pitches. Those two skills don't always go together!
Many times, for clients, our meetings with analysts are two-fold.
To get on their radar screen, and to evaluate whether we want to pay
them for future engagements. The sales discussion has always been
some part of the negotiation. But, over the past years, the
balance of power has shifted to the sales side.
I agree that analysts should not be seen as objective or independent, when you have to pay to play.
Aside: I work with Gene Signorini of Yankee Group, and now Nick
McQuire, through the Mobile Enterprise Alliance and I have been
impressed by both of their smarts. This has been mainly true over
time of Yankee analysts as a whole. My original rant referenced
above comes from Oct. 2003. Maybe their scheduling system has
changed since then; I haven't used it in awhile. Gene and Nick
are members of the MEA's advisory board and I don't need to go though
the scheduling system to talk to them.
11:10:26 AM
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If you've been following this transparency channel, then you may have
seen how I just took the IT research community task over its lack of
transparency. For obvious reasons, I wrote this from a reporter's
perspective. I just got done reading Elizabeth Albrycht's perspective
from the public relations side of the equation and all I can say is
"Someone get me the Pepto please." Give it a read and you'll see
why it just makes you ill.
The most disturbing quote from her posting -- one that may corroborate
the tainted process that I read about in the InternetAcceleration
newsletter -- talks about how analyst briefing requests are held
hostage for a ransom of a sales pitch. Albrycht has no qualms
about identifying who engages in what practices:
Then there is Yankee. You now have to talk to a sales person before you
are allowed to request a briefing. You have to listen to their pitch
before you get to climb Olympus and talk to the ever-quoted Zeus.
The implication from Albyrcht's account is that if you're a vendor
that's not a customer of a research company, then to get on an
analyst's radar (an analyst that the rest of the world trusts to have
objectively surveyed the entire landscape by the way) requires a sales
pitch first. Imagine if this was standard practice in the press
too? Holy cow! Media company's would be making money hand over
fist. Thankfully, it's not. At least not where I've worked.
All vendors have an equal shot at me. I'm not saying that I'll
write about every one, or even take every briefing that's tossed my
way. That's physically impossible. But if my sole purpose
of being was to offer exhaustive research on some vertical
category in order to empower buyers to make informed decisions, then
I'd want to hear from every single player in that category on a regular
basis and I woudn't want my sales department standing in the way of
those briefings.
But instead, we have eyewitness accounts from outfits like the
InternetAcceration newsletter that are disturbing at best when it comes
to the implications to a research reports objectivity and thoroughness:
We asked a few of
the vendors listed in the [Magic Quadrant] how much effort Gartner put into its evaluation
(did Gartner contact them, interview reference accounts, talk to investors,
business partners, review "bake off" findings...) and we were basically told
that, from these vendors' perspective, Gartner had done very little. Here's
a shocking example of what one vendor told us: - "we spent about a half hour
with ... [Gartner Research Vice President Name Deleted] ...of Gartner almost
exactly one year ago. We gave him a brief overview of our company and
exchanged pleasantries. As I recall the subject of a 'paid relationship with
Gartner' was raised more than once."
Now,
before we go casting the whole lot as a bunch of crooks on the take,
I'd like to point out a few things. First, research companies,
like all other companies, can't exist without revenues. And given
that their research is useful to the buyers of IT as well as the
vendors who are featured in it (eg: for competitive analysis), it makes
perfect sense for research outfits to pitch both communities on
research provision. But, like the press, the #1 asset that a
research outfit has is it's credibility. If it loses that, it loses
everything. So, in the name of credibilty, great care must be
taken not to poison the well. As a researcher, I'd want to spend
a few hours per quarter (or more) with each of the companies in my beat
and, in the name of revenue, I think it would even be fair to let them
know that my research results are available to all parties on the same
terms and who the contacts are if they're interested. But I would
also engage in complete disclosure. First, I'd have a publicly
available disclosure that describes how I go about guaranteeing
objectivity and comprehensiveness. In it, I'd mention what my
company's business model is and how I occasionally discuss the
availability of my research with all potential consumers but that it's
more of an awareness thing than a hard sell and that it in no way
impacts the outcome of my reports. Then, in my reports and any
summaries of them that get republished by other entities (charts for
example), I would be very clear about who in the report is a paying
client of the company, and who is not.
Playing a role in sales, making money, and having a financial
relationship with the companies or people that a researcher researches
isn't the mistake. The mistake is in not disclosing everything
there is to disclose about how the process works and where credibility
could be called into question should the nature of certain
relationships that aren't otherwise disclosed become public
information. With the blogosphere, it's only a matter of time
before more of these relationships and processes are outted and certain
research outfits are put on the defense (never a good position to be
in). Better to go on offense so that by the time a question comes
up, the world has pretty much already established a comfort level with
how things work. The bonus is that, just like with journalists,
when researchers know that full transparency is in effect, they have no
choice but to work extra hard to be objective and avoid any
misperception of bias. The resulting research can only enhance a
research outfit's credibility and revenue prospects.
Update: A person claiming to be David Scott Lewis has responded
to my original post on researcher transparency with his own first hand
accounts and uses the disturbing verb "Aberdeened." I've never
met Mr. Lewis, can't guarantee that it was him that made this post (if
you are him and want to "authenticate," please e-mail me), and I cannot
vouch for the authenticity of his comments. But, if for no other reason
than the fact that his storytelling shares some commonalities with
other accounts of shameful behavior, it's worth a read.
8:10:06 AM
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Friday, March 04, 2005 |
So, I think we're in agreement that the media needs some transparency.
And based on what I see being written elsewhere, some PR transparency
appears to be on order as well. So, what about research? In
our industry -- the tech industry -- if there's a part the
business that desperately needs more transparency, it's the research
part. I was reminded of this today when I was forwarded an e-mail
newsletter known as the InternetAcceleration Newsletter from InternetAcceleration.com. In the February 22, 2005 issue is a segment called There they go again. In
saying "We think that the current quality of output in its Magic
Quadrants are both potentially misleading to IT buyers and an abuse of
its brand," the report has some harsh words for tech research outfit
Gartner who owns the Magic Quandrant brand. In fact, so harsh is
the newsletter in levying accusations of impropriety (could this end up
being a transparency test), that I can't help but wonder how Gartner
cannot react. If Gartner sues for libel, then we get to watch
Gartner's image go on trial. If Gartner does nothing, what are we
to think then? The report goes on to say:
"Here's
a shocking example of what one vendor told us: - "we spent about a half hour
with ... [Gartner Research Vice President Name Deleted] ...of Gartner almost
exactly one year ago. We gave him a brief overview of our company and
exchanged pleasantries. As I recall the subject of a "paid relationship with
Gartner" was raised more than once." That wasn't the only response like
that. This situation turns out to be worse than we thought. It appears to
us that not only is Gartner clearly doing insufficient research (hadn't even
spoken to a vendor listed in the MQ for a year!), but that Gartner Vice
Presidents are using vendor briefings as thinly disguised sales calls. It's
pretty intimidating for a vendor to be asked to sign up for research
services IN THE SAME discussion as they're providing input used in a MQ
ranking and some may say unethical."
Whether
or not these stories about Gartner have any merit remains to be seen
(or perhaps we'll never know). But there are many research
outfits in the tech business and in my discussions with certain marcomm
pros that I've know for years and trust, there is no question in my
mind that these sorts of shennanigans are taking place behind the
scenes. While I'm not going to call anybody out for a bar room
brawl, the newsletter reminded me that research transparency is
definitely a discussion that needs to be had. For example,
when presenting scoreboard like research like Gartner's Magic
Quandrants, shouldn't the charts say which of the companies listed in
the chart are also Gartner clients? Or how about when the press
gets pitched on "new, earthshattering" results as a proofpoint of some
vendor's leadership?
Case in point. Recently via e-mail, I received a copy of a press release from Check Point Software Technologies that says:
Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: CHKP), the worldwide
leader in securing the Internet, today announced that recent
independent tests conducted by The Tolly Group confirm that Check Point
provides the broadest breadth of coverage and the lowest Total Cost of
Ownership (TCO) for today’s complex security vulnerabilities in
comparison to Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) and Juniper Networks
(NASDAQ: JNPR).
First, if you're a public
relations professional, please listen to what I'm about to say: I
don't know about other journalists and I know you're just trying to be
helpful, but when you pitch me on customer success stories and
research-based proof-points, my spider senses start tingling.
Call me fickle, but the last people I'm going to trust to provide me
with objective information about your products or services are the
people you're recommending to me. Think about it. What are
the odds that you're going to furnish me with a contact that has
something really bad (read: objective) to say about the product your pitching.
Would I really doing my readers a favor by relying on these sources as
authorities?
Second, this was one of the first research-touting e-mails that I've
received since starting this transparency channel and as I read it, I
realized that, in the name of transparency, it's time to start asking
questions. And I did. In this case I asked the following
question "Was the study by the Tolly Group commissioned by
Checkpoint?" Answer? "Yes, the Tolly Group study was
commissioned by Check Point."
I'm glad the public relations professional was honest. That was a good
move. But, for the research community, this puts the
transparency issue at front and center. Although I'm an
ex-testing lab director, I can't for a minute make a qualitative
assessment about the Tolly Group's research methodologies. I haven't
seen them. But I can say its time to insist on several layers of
transparency.
First, any pitches by vendors or public relations personnel to the
press, analysts, or customers that cite research must absolutely
disclose any relationship that those entities have with the provider(s)
of the research being cited. Second, there needs to be a
review and consensus of what language can be used in these
pitches. In the aforementioned pull-quote from the press
release, the Tolly Group's tests are characterized as
"independent." Now, perhaps everyone who signed off on the press
release including the folks at the Tolly Group have their own
definition of independent and they're certainly entitled to believe
that. But, in my book, when the cited research is commissioned by
the vendor that's pitching me, it doesn't pass my test for
indepedence. It doesn't even come close. Third, as I said
earlier, all published research should be accompanied by disclosure
of the client relationships that are relevant to that research. If
such relationships exist, then I think that calls for an additional
layer of transparency -- one that discloses whether the vendor was
exposed in anyway to the research methodologies prior to the start of
the testing or research. If so, then the nature of that
exposure must be detailed. Was the vendor allowed to provide
consultative input? Was the vendor given any veto power over certain
evaluation criteria? If a comparison was involved, did the vendor
have any influence over the competitive set? I'm sure there are
other questions to ask -- questions that make it possible for consumers
of any research to make their own judgements about the results being
shown to them (very often to help turn a prospect into a customer).
I think you get the drift. Today, you'd be hard pressed to find
any of these practices in use and there's a reason for that. It's
one of this industry's ugly, dirty little secrets and it's time for a
change.
Update: Be sure to read the
comments on this blog entry as well my interactions with Elizabeth
Albrycht. How many more "cathardic" postings from insiders
(former or present) will it take before the issue snowballs into
something bigger?
Finally, I know it has been a while since I last posted, but it has not
been a while since I've been working on this transparency channel. As
you can see by my expandable blog roll on the right side, I've been
experimenting with OPML. I've also been spending a lot of time under
the hood of Radio Userland, trying to figure out the best ways to
connect my e-mail system to it in a way that turns Radio into a
transparency content management system, something that would serve as
the underpinnings of my evolving JOTS specification.
10:55:27 PM
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Thursday, February 17, 2005 |
I've been at LinuxWorld this week hammering out podcasts one after
another. By the time I'm done with the show, I think I will have
published a total of ten podcasts. For transparency's sake, not
ALL of them were done at the show. To get my coverage off to a
headstart, three of them were pre-recorded. One of those pre-recorded interviews was with Emic Networks vice president of product management and marketing Donna Jeker.
Although it doesn't happen often, this was the second time in a week
where my interviewee didn't have the answers to some obvious
questions. I don't want to turn this transparency channel into a
bitching and moaning session about poorly executed PR. While this
again is an example of how a the practice of media transparency can be
embarrassing to interviewees, the companies they work for, and their
public relations representatives, there's an upside. Transparency
should make all three of those parties much better at what they do
because they know that there's more on the line than just the
story itself. And why shouldn't that be the case. Everytime a
journalist writes a story, their ass is totally on the line. Why
shouldn't the demand for that excellence be pervasive throughout the
entire food chain of a story. If this was the case, then the
final outcomes (the stories) would consistently be better throughout
all of journalism. So, transparency raises the bar for everyone,
as well it should which is why I think examples like this are worthy of
discussion. Again, the purpose of this channel isn't Public
Relations 101. But if this it what it takes to raise the bar and
make journalism better, then, then it needs to be done.
As I said in my tranparency notes on the first case,
I believe the responsibility for such gaffs are shared by both the
interviewee and his or her press relations counsel. But not
equally. Unfortuantely, Ms. Jeker was not prepared for some of my
technical questions nor did she have specific pricing information
regarding the product her company was announcing (the reason Emic
originally pitched me on the story, and I took the bait). I'm not
even sure what to say about not having pricing information. That
mistake speaks for itself. But regarding the technical question
problem, I believe from my observations of PR people in action is that
one of their jobs is to prepare the interview for the type of questions
they're going to get from a journalist and figuring that out isn't hard
to do. Except for brand new reporters just coming onto the scene,
it's not all that difficult to research a journalist's body of work to
get an idea (in the case of tech journalism) of how technical the
questions might get.
So, the following clips are from the raw unedited audio of the
interview. It's perhaps another example of Mike Manuel's
recurring nightmare (time codes indicated where exactly in the MP3
file you can listen to that part of the conversation. The
announcement was about a product for people who run open source-based
J2EE application servers.
[8:10 Me] When
you say restarted, do the transactions restart themselves, or does the
user have to physically recognize that the transaction needs to be
restarted an take action.
[8:25 Answer] That may depend
on the exact scenario and maybe for the purposes of this conversation
those details might be too fine grained. Is that a fair answer?
[9:33 Me] We're describing the
type of failure that happens for example when you're on a Web site and
you've started an ecommerce transaction. What about with J2ee -- what
your announcing today -- with J2ee, a lot of the transactions and
workflow take place behind the scenes. When there's a failure there.
How does the system respond. How does it get back to the point that a
transaction must be restarted? How does it take the same action that
let's say an end user might have to take if they're sitting in front of
their browser and they realize they have to restart?
[10:12 Answer] That question
is actually not something I can answer right at this moment. Not
because I don't want to but because I'm not a J2EE expert. If you're
users would like that answer, I can get that for you and it can be
posted at a later date.
[16:59 Me:] [just after gettin a rundown on the pricing of
previously announced (existing products) I ask about the one being
announced] And for J2EE?
[17:03 Answer] Basically we have some bundled pricing -- one for the LAMP cluster and one for the LAMJ cluster [DB's note, the latter is the one with J2EE as signified by the "J"] and that pricing I don't have memorized but its a combination of the products and an effective discount applied.
[17:39 Answer] [DB's note: at this point in the interview, the
interviewee makes a mistake that all potential interviewees and PR
people should learn from: comparing apples and oranges in a way that
paints the solution in a better light than a competing
alternative.] We're providing Oracle RAC like capability at MySQL prices.
[18:19 Me] [DB's note: At this point in the interviw, my
thinking was, OK, if you want to go there, we can go there and I
do.] With [Oracle's] 9iRAC or
10g, my understanding is that they use a shared everything approach
....is your solution the same sort of thing? My understanding is
that the engineering that goes into that sort of approach is
extraordinary and its sort of unusual to find that.
[18:59 Answer] I probably don't want to get into the pros and cons of the different approaches...
The dialog speaks for itself. If you're not prepared to
back up a claim, then making the claim in the first place probably
isn't a good idea. Any decent journalist will grab hold and the
outcome will not be good. In this case, here is the resulting
coverage from my story:
"At the end of the interview, Jeker initiated a comparison of
Emic's technology to that of Oracle's and made it seem as though you
get the benefits of Oracle's clustering solutions for a fraction of the
cost. Ultimately, yes, both solutions deliver a degree of fault
tolerance, scalability, and manageability. But the approaches to
providing those services and the degree to which the solutions can
power massive, mission-critical applications are so different that I
can't help but wonder if that's like saying that a Kia offers equal
protection to that of a Hummer because both have airbags. While Emic's
solutions may very well be worth the investment for what you get (as
are many low-to-midrange clustering solutions), just remember you get
what you pay for. I'm not sure making the comparison to Oracle is a
good idea."
Almost finally: Sometimes, the interviewees get straight
A's. If you're looking for an example of this, check out my audio interview
with AMD's vice president of commercial servers and workstations Ben
Williams. This is a shining example of how well-prepared an
interviewee can and should be for an interview. What was
the role of William's PR counsel in getting him to that state of
preparedness? I have no idea. Nor should I, right?
Finally, I'm going to make this my last post on the effects of media
transaparency from the PR/interviewee angle. This is an
experiment for now and I think two real-world observations are enough
to conclude that the impact of media transparancy goes well beyond the
issue of media credibility. This was a surprise result of the
ongoing experiment, but a result nonetheless and when Jay Rosen said I
should write about how the experiment is going as it's taking place, it
was precisely these sorts of unforseen results that he knew I'd
encounter and that need to be noted.
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Thursday, February 10, 2005 |
In a previous entry, I point to Mike Manuel's Media Guerilla blog where
he describes how transparent journalism can reveal some awkward
moments. Although my example
doesn't involve that moment that many journalists have experienced -- the one
where they ask a question and the PR person pipes in like an attorney
exclaiming "objection!" -- it involves an equaly awkward moment that gets caught on tape. One
where the interviewees have no idea what the answer is an obvious
question is. I mean, like REALLY obvious.
Who's to blame for such an embarrassing moment? Of course, the
interviewees should be well-versed in their subject matter before
meeting with the press. But the PR folks are the safety
net. Their job is to anticipate questions -- especially the
obvious ones -- and make sure that their clients are good and ready
before taking that interview. Understandably, you can't be
prepared for every question. But let's say the client is an
organization looking to get press and the main message is that the
organization is focused on five critical issues. Shouldn't the
client be prepared to discuss each of them in detail?
In this "case study" of how transparency can reveal some awkward
moments, I'm meeting with Oracle's Tony DiCenzo and Sun's Peter
ffoulkes to get introduced to the Enterprise Grid Alliance -- an
organization that they were representing at a recent grid event in
Boston. I didn't ask for this meeting. I was pitched on it
and accepted, given that my primary beat is enterprise computing.
During the meeting, which I recorded, ffoulkes and DiCenzo
explained to me that the EGA is focused on five primary objectives and
even has working groups assigned to each one. The five working
groups (and initiatives) are even listed on the organization's Web site. As explained to me, they are:
- Terminology (Reference Model)
- Accounting
- Grid Security
- Component Provisioning
- Data Provisioning
After being told of the objectives, one by one, I asked for an
explanation of each. After all, if I'm going to explain what the
EGA does to ZDNet's audience of enterprise technologists, they deserve
to have each of its major initiatives explained. Only,
there was one problem. When I asked what "data provisioning" was,
neither interviewee had the answer. Neither did either of the two
PR counselors who were accompanying them. For me, it was as strange
moment. It seemed like an obvious question. Perhaps for them, it
wasn't. I was told they'd get back to me.
Unfortunately, given how frequently I write, I have to get the
stories out while they're fresh in my mind. There's really no time to
get back to me. And so, the story goes out with text like this:
Unfortunately, when it came time to discuss what data provisioning was, neither ffoulkes nor DiCenzo could answer.
Want to be a fly on the wall for the awkward moment? You can download the MP3.
9:55:10 PM
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Wednesday, February 09, 2005 |
In a recent e-mail discussion with Dan Bricklin regarding how the
automatic publishing of e-mails from PR folks was making people
nervous, and how, in the name of getting my job done, the need for
ultimate transparency will have to be balanced against a source's right
to privacy, Bricklin compared the situation to what happens when a
video camera with a blinking red light is unexpectedly thrust into the
face of a source. He makes a great point about offering veto power
before publishing, but how that runs the risk of not getting the
coverage altogether. Here's what he said:
From: Dan Bricklin
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2005 3:53 PM
To: David Berlind
Subject: Re: media transparency channel, further developed
David,
Good stuff!
In video there is the red light when the camera is rolling which kind
of reminds you. But, that sometimes makes people clam up, like when you
hold a mike in their face. Perhaps the "asking after the fact" thing is
better. Show them what you'll make available and give them veto, but if
they do, then they veto the story and some parts are explicitly not
vetoable (the stuff when the "red light is on"). Things in a public
podcast, for example, are available for transparency and timecodes into
it are always OK like links to a website (or screen captures of
something that was on a website).
The email editing is tough because of the time, but providing it is
making reporting consist of producing more material which is good for
readers. As publishers need less to do (with distribution not needing
all the printing and shipping logistics) there can be more expense on
reporting. :)
DanB
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Monday, February 07, 2005 |
Here is an interesting development in my e-mail. Apparently aware
that anything sent to me via e-mail might be fair game for publication
in my blog, a source who shall so far remain nameless sent me an
e-mail with the following text at the bottom:
this email is: [ ] blogable [ x ] ask first [ ] private
How interesting is that? In terms of specs for JOTS, this clearly
points to the need to establish some sort of preferences that can be
applied to e-mails on both a global basis (for all e-mails from a
source) and on a per-transmission basis (that overrides the
global preference).
5:37:48 PM
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In my experience, it has been standard operating procedure for any
checked facts on stories regarding Microsoft to be anonymously
attributed to "spokesperson" when the person fielding the inquiry works
for one of Microsoft's public relations firms such as Waggener-Edstrom
or Fleischman-Hillard. When a Microsoft employee fields such an
inquiry, the answer has always been attributable to that person.
As you can see in a recent blog entry of mine, such attribution is made. I'm fairly certain this is a Microsoft imposed policy.
This raises some issues for the JOTS specification. There should
be a way that such policies can be set as preferences in a way that
automatically includes a short document like this as the part of
a full disclosure or transparency statement for any given
story.
5:00:18 PM
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Friday, February 04, 2005 |
Objective: Provide a way to keep the raw materials going into an unpublished story from public viewing until after the story is published.
Abstract: As I said in my entry regarding the need for an RSS feed on a per editorial project basis,
one reason RSS feeds would be great for media organizations is that
they would allow editorial managers to track the projects that their
editors and writers are working on. But, editorial organizations
-- especially ones that do any investigative reporting -- probably
don't want editorial projects-in-progress to be available for viewing
by the public until after the story is published. After all, you
don't want to show your hand to competing journalists and media
organizations. So, on per category basis, you need a way to
toggle the editorial project as public or private. This of
course raises the issue of security which I'll try to address more in
depth in another post. But, suffice to say that JOTS has to have
the sort of security baked into it that gives an administrator control
over users and what authority those users have. For example, who
has the authority to switch an editorial project from private to public?
10:36:28 PM
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Objective: Break a transparency
channel down into sub-channels and allow people who want access to the
raw materials to subscribe to the complete channel, or individual
editorial projects.
Abstract: This is a
pretty straightfoward part of the spec and it's why the underlying
infrastructure of a blogging system may be ideal to serve as a
transparency channel's infrastructure. I've already broken this
transparency channel down into multiple categories, many of which are
focused on a single editorial project. The idea is that if
someone wants to narrow their view down to the raw materials for one
particular project, the system should make it really easy to do
this. Most blog infrastructures such as the one I'm using to
prototype this channel, will automatically generate RSS feeds for each
category. With categories, the RSS feeds and the Web site provide
a plethora of entry points to those interested in the raw
materials. For media organizations, RSS feeds at the editorial
project level would also provide editorial managers with a great way to
keep track of the stories that their staffs are working on.
10:27:00 PM
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As with my first test, I've completed another test where the editorial points to the raw material. In the first case, the editorial
provided time codes that could be used to advance to certain quotes in
an audio file. In this case, the raw material is an e-mail
instead of an MP3 file and the editorial mentions that the full text of
the e-mail is available here, in the transparency channel. In
response to concerns from the PR community regarding the automatic
publication of their e-mails into my transparency channel, I adjusted
my methodology and checked with the source (Kelly Larabee of Skype) to
make sure she was OK with it. You can see in the thread where I
asked:
Would you mind, if for transparency's
sake, I published this contents of this thread between you and me on my
transparency channel?.....Your email address will be removed as will
any phone numbers (including my conference line numbers).
and she responded:
That would be great, no problem at all ~
So, in summary, I felt pretty good about the way this worked out.
By asking Larabee if she was OK with it and assuring her that her
contact information would be redacted (a laborious task, by the way),
her expectations were not only properly set, she was agreeable to the
idea.
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Thursday, February 03, 2005 |
In an attempt to evolve a system spec for designing a system that helps
journalists maintain transparency without so much burden that it
intereferes with their jobs, I'm starting the JOTS specification.
JOTS stands for Journalist's Online Transparency System and, based on
my experiences in trying to manually build my own transparency channel,
I will be proposing JOTS features whose main objective is to achieve
maximum transparency with the least amount of effort. I've
established a separate category called JOTS Specification for those of
you who just want to browse the various spec items, and offer ideas.
9:11:48 PM
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Objective: Establish a database
of sources and their transparency preferences as a pre-processor for
raw materials coming from that source
Abstract: The system should include a database of contacts and a tickler
that helps the journalist to understand whether or not a source has
been notified of the journalist's transparency policy and how that
source has responded. For example, the source may provide blanket
approval to publish all notes or may say "Ask First." A
more advanced feature could include a way to provide redactable text
strings. For example, a boolean (true/false) field that goes with
a source's e-mail address to that indicates whether the source is ok
with having their e-mail address published or not. Let's say the
answer is no. The "Redact Email Address" field would be set to
true, and the next time I forward an e-mail into the system from that
sender, the system automatically redacts all occurences of the e-mail
address from the text (but still gives me the opportunity to review
it).
9:07:01 PM
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Objective: With e-mail being
one of the ways a lot of raw data is captured, there needs to be a fast
and easy way to move raw material from an e-mail inbox into JOTS
(Journalist's Online Transparency Systems) without the journalist
having to do too much to make sure the raw material gets handled
properly.
Abstract: I've had to cut and paste e-mails in a way that formatting is
very screwy and I have to and fix it. Also, redacting senstivie
data is cumbersome and could use automation. When I receive an
email, I should be able to forward it to a system and tag it with, at
the very least, the sender's name and a title for the editorial project
that the story is associated with. The system should respond via
e-mail with a URL for editing the entry which I can click on an review
before publishing into the transparency channel. The system could
for example provide me with a way to look for specific text to redact
and then do a search and replace on that that text (instead of me
having to do it by hand)
9:04:44 PM
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Now that I' ve published a few e-mail threads in the raw between me and
various public relations officers for the companies I'm covering, some
valuable feedback to the experiment is beginning to arrive that has me
rethinking the idea of automatic transparency (in other words, for the
sake of great transaprency, post threads now, ask questions
later). In his blog,
Andy Lark, who recently vacated his post as vice president of
global communications and marketing for Sun Microsystems appears to
approve of the idea and carries it forward as an example of the sort of
transparency that public relations professionals should practice.
Can you imagine the potential of that -- a transparency thread that
connects the transparency of journalists to the transparency of the
public relations community? But, in his Media Guerilla blog, Voce Communications' Mike Manuel has a slightly different take saying:
But then it got me thinking, this practice (if it catches on) has
some interesting implications for PR folk --- particularly the command
and control types.
Case in point, every PR practitioner I know of has (at one point or
another) had to intercede on a line of questioning in an interview.
Perhaps the journalist is looking for dirt or prying for information
that shouldn't be shared or is just leading the interview down a weird
path. How odd would it be to have that interruption recorded and then
later distributed with the story?
Can you say A W K W A R D?
Manuel wasn't alone in expressing some reservations about the idea
of full-blown transparency. Via e-mail, I was notified by one of
my sources of how the grapevine within the hi-tech PR community was
buzzing with rumors -- all true of course -- that I was publishing the
full text of some my e-mail correspondences with public relations
personnel, including their original pitch to me. For example, my exchanges with the folks at Good Technology and RIM for a blog entry I was writing and then my correspondences with representatives for VMWare and IBM regarding some potential coverage of those companies.
An e-mail
from that source (whose asked not to be identified) does a much better
job than I can in describing the thoughts that might go through the
minds of a PR professionals when dealing with journalists who are
practicing automatic transparency. Of even more interest
was the fact that the source subequently sent me a pitch regarding a
controversial issue and when I said I did not agree, the source's first
response was "Please tell me you're not going to publish this on that
transparency channel thing."
Many journalists might be reading this and saying screw the PR
people. Everything they send you is on the record unless
otherwise noted and is fair game. And, if you know me and my no
holds barred style, you probably could see me doing just that (screwing
the PR people). But brushing off the PR community in the name of
transparency would not be a very strategic move for any
journalist -- especially those who understand how the blogosphere
is increasing the competition for eyeball-minutes (sort of like
man-hours).
Looking back over my career as a journalist, some of the work that I
consider to be my best stuff could not have been accomplished without
the assistance of my contacts in the public relations community.
These contacts are often the decision makers who can make or break a
journalist's access to key executives and interviewees. In
a landscape where there's intensified competition among a growing
supply of content providers for eyeball-minutes, the highest quality
content with the best access to sources will rise to the top and get
the most attention. The PR community and the relationships that a
journalist cultivates with its members are some of the most important
assets that a journalist has at their disposal -- assets that not every
content provider has. In other words, they're assets that someone
who makes there living being a journalist like me must think twice
about before taking those relationships for granted and risking
alienation.
Now, I'm not for one minute suggesting that a journalist shouldn't
keep themselves as a respectful arms distance from the people they
cover. This isn't about getting cozy and forgetting
transparency. It's about journalists figuring out how to best
deliver transparency without being disrespectful to the people that
give them their competitive advantage (as journalists). The
aforementioned e-mail with my source turned into a thread out of which
grew some very concrete facts, ideas, and recommendations. I am
taking these on as action items and am looking for feedback from all
corners.
1. Publish an explanation of why I'm practicing transparency.
2. Publish a transparency policy that explains how it works. That
policy should include but not be limited to the following explanation
of my practices (feel free to comment)
- Emails like the ones I published will not be automatically
published without the permission of the sender and without giving the
sender a chance to review the policy. In the interests of
transparency (and protecting the policies of certain PR outfits), I
should be flexible in my requirements as to what must be
published. For example, some PR agencies would prefer that
certain information like the names and specific contact information for
their staffers be redacted.
- I honor all Off the record statements and Non-Disclosure
Agreements (NDAs) but a clear indication should be made in any
correspondence when statements being made are not to be repeated,
off-the-record or not for attribution, or being conveyed under the
auspices of an NDA.
- Dispute resolution: Supply my contact information in the
event that information published in the transparency
channel is innaccurate (bad cut n paste, wrongly attributed, etc.) and
is need of correction.
- Initial inquiries made by me (as opposed to pitches made by
public relations) are fair game for publication as I am the
author. The policies listed above apply to the replies.
3. A reminder in all correspondences that transparency is in "effect" and where -- online -- to get the details.
This is obviously just a start but, per Jay Rosen's suggestion, I
wanted to get my thoughts down when I had the chance. I worry
that I already may have forgotten some of my ideas.
Already, my exchanges with various PR folks has molded my
behavior. In preparing my coverage for a new version of Skype,
I've been exchanging e-mails with Skype's public relations officer
Kelly Larabee that discuss a bug that I encountered. After
several e-mails flew back and forth and she acknowledged the bug, I
asked if I could publish the entire e-mail thread
(with contact info redeacted) and she wrote back "that would be
great, no problem at all." So, here already was a case
where a thread contained some sensitive information and instead of
disrespectfully just publishing the thread, I checked with the
source. By doing so, I sent Larabee a message that not only
indicates respect for her and her job, but that set her expectations
instead of blindly suprising her. My expectation now is that she
will continue to be open and honest with me knowing that when she is,
she's not running the risk of having everything she says become public.
One final aspect of this is what I call the "the system spec." In
an e-mail to me, Andy Lark wrote "for transparency to emerge -- we need
a new system -- and that system first needs a spec and a
playbook." I couldn't agree more. As you can see, from the
journalist's side of the equation, I'm attempting to develop the
playbook and am looking for feedback. This needs to be a collaborative
process. But a playbook alone won't do the trick. For
transparency to work, a journalist cannot be expect to go through the
hoops that I have so far gone through in order to offer the minimal
degree of transparency that I have so far offered. Here are some
examples of the heavy lifting that I've had to do in order to offer
some very basic instances of transparency:
- I've had to cut and paste e-mails in a way that formatting is
very screwy and I have to and fix it. Also, redacting senstivie
data is cumbersome and could use automation. When I receive an
email, I should be able to forward it to a system and tag it with, at
the very least, the sender's name and a title for the editorial project
that the story is associated with. The system should respond via
e-mail with a URL for editing the entry which I can click on an review
before publishing into the transparency channel. The system could
for example provide me with a way to look for specific text to redact
and then do a search and replace on that that text (instead of me
having to do it by hand)
- The system should include a database of contacts and a tickler
that helps the journalist to understand whether or not a source has
been notified of the journalist's transparency policy and how that
source has responded. For example, the source may provide blanket
approval to publish all notes or may say "Ask First." A
more advanced feature could include a way to provide redactable text
strings. For example, a boolean (true/false) field that goes with
a source's e-mail address to that indicates whether the source is ok
with having their e-mail address published or not. Let's say the
answer is no. The "Redact Email Address" field would be set to
true, and the next time I forward an e-mail into the system from that
sender, the system automatically redacts all occurences of the e-mail
address from the text (but still gives me the opportunity to review
it).
These are just some quick thoughts that I jammed out. When I get around
to it, I will break these out into a separate category called
Transparency System Spec and each spec item will get its own
entry. As always more to come, and please comment.
6:23:43 PM
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Tuesday, January 25, 2005 |
After noticing that my wireless Good G100 wasn't getting copies of my
e-mail, I found out that Good's datacenter was down yesterday morning
(Jan 24 2005). Good and RIM have done their fair share of
trash talkin' each other in the past (most of it off the record).
So, I thought I'd ping each of them for comment now that the lights
went out at Good. I have two e-mail threads, one from Good's PR and the other from RIM's. Here's the resulting blog entry. As you can see, the comments that I received were 100 percent cut and paste.
12:37:52 PM
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In ZDNet's sixth IT Matters podcast audio interview, Novell director of product
marketing Charlie Ungashick stopped by to discuss Open Enterprise Server...(more)..
11:47:38 AM
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In response to a blog entry
that I wrote about Intel's Vanderpool and Silvervale virtualization
technologies, Jessica Beyers, who does public relations for VMWare has
pitched me on a possible update on the company and its
products. The company probably wants to respond to this comment
that I made:
"What all this means for companies that have staked their future on
software-based virtualization like VMWare (now a division of EMC)
remains to be seen. Perhaps people will end up using solutions from
VMWare to further divide each hardware-based partition in to multiple
software-based partitions thereby turning individual systems into grid
super-nodes, or better yet, self-contained grids."
Here's a copy of the original pitch.
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Sunday, January 23, 2005 |
This will be the first in a long series of personal notes that go with
my transparency experiment to record my thoughts about how things are
going, my motivations for making certain decisions, and....(more)
11:14:28 PM
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Saturday, January 22, 2005 |
There's a report in the blogosphere that provides an interpretation of this report
by BBC Persian that indicates the Planet (a US-based ISP) may be
revoking hosting services from an the Iranian Students News Agency
(ISNA). The report has no response from The Planet so I've sent
an e-mail (click through above link) to media contact Kristin Herring
who is listed on a press release by the ISP.
More to come (hopefully)
12:32:40 PM
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Thursday, January 20, 2005 |
IBM has some announcements at LinuxWorld and is lining up the
press. I received an invitation today (click thru the above link)
and accepted. Over on ZDNet, I ask readers if they have any questions for Big Blue's Linux execs.
10:57:53 PM
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Copy of my request for extension on Userland Radio's 30 day trial period for the purposes of covering it on ZDNet.
In his response, Userland CEO Scott Young approves. At the time,
I didn't realize that using this as my transparency channel would be
the perfect test.
4:21:02 PM
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See the comments to view the exchange between me and Userland Tech Support in the process of me reviewing the product
3:22:22 PM
RadioEdit
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Here's a copy of the e-mail
thread between Userland Scott Young and me regarding his involvement as
an interviewee in my experiment on media transparency. Says
Young in this thread:
"I would be much more comfortable under all circumstances in providing
interviews if this was the general practice. I have little doubt this kind of
transparency would have a positive (drive towards honesty) effect for all
concerned."
1:48:40 PM
RadioEdit
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Tuesday, January 18, 2005 |
Serendipitiously, just when big media and grass roots journalists (aka
bloggers) are coming under fire for a variety of transgressions in
credibility, has the multimedia publish-and subscribe technology of podcasting come to the
rescue, enabling journalists to broadcast new "transparency channels"
that prove their credibility?
In ZDNet's proof-of-concept of media transparency, executive editor David
Berlind's experiment includes a column that relies on quotes from a recorded interview
and then podcasts the uncensored and unedited recording. In
the name of offering a view of the raw materials that journalists might
otherwise obscure from public view (what could be considered a form of
media transparency), not only was the raw recording podcasted, the
column itself contains in-line time-codes in the text that allows
readers to fast foward to exact location of the quotes in the audio file (download the MP3).
This way, readers can check them to see if the interviewee (in this
case, Scott Young, CEO of Userland) was misquoted, taken out of
context, or if the interview was directed in a way that forced Young
into saying something he might not otherwise volunteer (some
journalists are accused of pursuing an agenda).
With transparency channels like these, readers might be able to better
gauge the credibility of a journalist or media outfit. For a full
explanation of the experiment, see Can technology close the credibiity gap? or check out ZDNet's Special Report: Media credibility: Where podcasting meets transparency.
7:13:03 PM
RadioEdit
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Friday, January 14, 2005 |
Meet Miles Wade. From now on, when I hear about those serious
mission critical systems that are used in those heartland industries
that drive the economy, I will be thinking about Mr. Wade. Wade
designs hardened systems for the oil exploration industry --
systems that must survive the rigors of a drilling platform in the
middle of the Gulf of Mexico equally as well as they must survive the
sub-zero temperatures of foribidding climates where other oil reserves
exist, without remote intervention. For the most part,
these systems are unreachable through the Internet and the personnel in
the field who rely on the systems for their personal safety are not
savvy enough to fix the systems if something goes wrong. These
are systems that can't go down.
So far, the systems Wade designs are based on the embedded version of Windows XP, otherwise known as XPe. The
applications that the systems run keep close watch on what's going on
"in the hole" are are all based on Windows. But even though some
expense would be involved in rewriting those applications, as Wade
tells ZDNet executive editor David Berlind (download the MP3), why he's being driven to alternatives.
Strangely, neither security nor licensing costs, two areas of weakness
for Windows' when compared to Linux, rank high in Wade's decision
making. Not only does he see some advantages in embedded Linux
over XPe, he also feels as though he's on his own when it comes to
supporting XPe -- a state of of affairs that wouldn't change if he
moved to Linux.
Overall, Wade's preference is to stay with XPe. But as he tells David, Microsoft isn't making it easy and he has a message for Microsoft's Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.
4:07:31 AM
RadioEdit
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Wednesday, January 12, 2005 |
On one hand, the 500 patents that IBM has released for unencumbered use by open source software developers
is a giant step in the right direction if you ask open source attorney
and advocate Larry Rosen. Said Rosen in David Berlind's podcast interview (download
the MP3) of him, "IBM is saying we will not assert these patents against you and that's a great relief." On
the other hand, some members of the anti-patent movement, particularly
those in the European Union like Florian Mueller, the campaign manager
of an anti-patent website, are accusing IBM of hypocrisy.
But,
is there more to IBM's pledge of non-assertion than meets the eye?
Could IBM's posession of certain patents actually work to the benefit
of the open source community in ways its not imagining? According to
the official text of the pledge, there's an exception clause that
virtually guarantees revocation of a developer's right to use the
patents:
"..the
commitment not to assert any of these 500 U.S. patents and all
counterparts of these patents issued in other countries is irrevocable
except that IBM reserves the right to terminate this patent pledge and
commitment only with regard to any party who files a lawsuit asserting
patents or other intellectual property rights against Open Source
Software."
According to Rosen, this language --
which he refers to as the legal language of mutually assured
destruction -- is a reasonable way of turning the pledge into a double
edged sword. During the cold war, according to Larry Rosen, the United
States said "we're going to protect South America and Europe and other
portions of the world with our nuclear shield. And if you go after us,
or any of them, be prepared to have our nuclear weapons strike you. I
don't think that's necessarily an ineffective way of dealing with a
problem."
Rosen characterized the open source community as
being somewhat defenseless against ruthless patent infringement claims
and said "In terms of intellectual property strategy, the open source
community on its own does not have a lot of patents and it is subject
to what happens by other companies who do have patents. In
this case, IBM is saying two things. First of all, 'Those patents are
now available to the open source community without any worry. We won't
assert them against you.' Second of all, it's trying to impose this
very specific and well defined shield and saying, 'Not only are these
500 patents available to the open source community, but, we may assert
these 500 patents against anyone who sues the open source community'
and that's a kind of 'you bomb us or our friends, and be prepared to be
bombed back.' There's nothing necessarily unethical about it. Countries do it. So should companies.
So,
who should be thinking twice about suing the members of the open source
community? Perhaps Microsoft. Has the eve of a patent nuclear war
arrived, or will the cold war hold? Only time, and a handful of patent
attorneys, will tell.
5:13:46 PM
RadioEdit
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Monday, January 10, 2005 |
After a quick hit on Intel CEO Craig Barrett's on stage encounters with Aerosmith rocker Steven Tyler (download the MP3),
David Berlind interviews THINKStrategies founder and managing director
Jeff Kaplan to get his insights into utility computing, managed
services, outsourcing, and the IT research sectors in 2005.
Kaplan gives advice for potentially displaced IT workers
and identifies the companies to watch as a growing percentage of IT
budgets are allocated to services versus capital
expenditures.
While Kaplan says that IBM, HP, EMC, Sun and
Oracle are moving into position to take advantage of the shift in IT
culture, that doesn't mean they're out of the woods just yet. HP
for example fumbled its utility strategy in 2004 and has a consumer
strategy that Kaplan says is a distraction as long as the company isn't
broken up. More management changes could be on the way there while, at
Computer Associates and Microsoft, adjustment away from
annuity-based revenue streams are imperative for those companies to
survive the new IT order.
For IT workers that have been or could be displaced, it's time to
stop commiserating says Kaplan, and instead, start forming a plan of
attack which includes picking up the necessary skills to stay
competitive in a global economy. Consolidation is far from over
and Kaplan predicts a mop-up of many of the services sector's smaller
players.
Finally, on the heels of Gartner acquiring the META Group, Kaplan talks
about the shrinking demand for IT research and the balance that large
research outfits must strike betweeen servicing vendors and enterprise
buyers without creating brand-threatening conflicts of interest.
2:25:32 PM
RadioEdit
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Thursday, January 06, 2005 |
Today, Microsoft announced the consolidation of its anti-virus
utilities into one downloadable solution that will get periodically
updated as well as the beta version of an anti-spyware product based on
the company's completed acquisition of Giant in December 2004. In ZDNet's first ever podcast,
Gytis Barzdukas, a director of product management in Microsoft's
Security Business and Technology Unit, explains the announcements to
ZDNet executive editor David Berlind and discusses how Microsoft
gingerly toes the line of including improved security in Windows
without being too threatening to the vendors (ie: anti-virus,
anti-spyware, anti-spam, anti-phishing) that thrive on the constant
attacks faced by users of the desktop operating system.
5:26:19 PM
RadioEdit
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Monday, January 03, 2005 |
This is a test blog entry using Radio Userland. We like Radio
Userland because of its performance, its offline capabilities, its
support for enclosures in its RSS feeds, and the OPML outliner that
comes with the client.
2:33:34 PM
RadioEdit
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© Copyright 2005 David Berlind.
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