THE ENTERPRISE--ACTIONS AND CONSEQUENCES

FIRST AN ALERT TO MY CONTACTS: EFFECTIVE JUNE 8, I HAVE DEACTIVATED BY FACEBOOK ACCOUNT AND CLOSED MY LINKEDIN ACCOUNT.

Thus any contact that you had with me via those accounts will no longer be active and will not reach me.

If you are reading this, you know how to reach me (My contact info is at the bottom of my emails). Here is why I did this.

Four years ago, in 2008, I wrote the "Against" position on Social Media…and for those who are interested in what I said, I am posting a copy of that position.

Ten Reasons I Won’t Use Social Media Sites

May 15, 2008 By John Mariotti

Point - Counterpoint on Social Media – Against: In spite of the fact that I have always been an early adopter of new technology — or communications-based tools, social media turns me off. When I think about why, at least 10 reasons come to mind.

I have signed myself onto a couple in their early stages — at the urging of friends — and that’s when I realized why I wouldn’t have anything more to do with them, at least until they get much further down their evolutionary trip and improve measurably. Here’s why:

1. Social Media/Networking is an invitation to at best, uncontrolled and permanent overexposure, and at worst, identity theft or misuse.

2. All of us are drowning in a tidal wave of complexity already, and these social networking sites make this complexity worse by an order of magnitude.

3. Social networking is in the evolutionary stage, and as such, all of the sites that exist now will change, evolve become either more useful and secure or go away. The lessons are there in recent history: Compuserve, early versions of AOL, Prodigy and all the other now defunct or otherwise transitory Internet, email or proprietary Web systems

4. Just when a lot of people learn to use one of the social networking sites/systems, someone will come up with a newer, better, cooler or more fashionable one.

5. Security of social networking sites is as great a risk as passing business cards around in a busy bar. No matter how many times the site owner/operator promises your information will be protected, secure, etc., the lure of money will make them liars. Someone will buy the site for the contacts that come with it — period. Then they will sell those lists to as many people and companies as will pay for them, to do whatever they wish with them.

6. There are many other, more focused ways of networking and marketing instead of placing your identity, your information, photos, etc. in the public — very public — domain.

7. Real business people realize that this social networking trend is superficial. True relationships may originate in email or other similar venues, but must become personal and not electronic to be of meaningful value.

8. The hassle of meddling with your computer and the so-called “easy to use” interfaces of such social networking sites is far too great compared to the complexity it adds.

9. When I want to expand my network, I want to choose who will be involved and know that their involvement is willing and enthusiastic — not the result of an email and a few clicks of the mouse.

10. I am simply too busy to meddle with something that is at least largely populated with people who have nothing better to do with their time, or others who think is it somehow an easy way to really be connected to a lot of people.

Nothing good comes easy. If this were all it took, everyone in the world would be connected to everyone else in the world and it would all be such a wonderful place.

Perhaps in the near future someone will figure out Osama bin Laden’s email address and ask him and/or his cohorts to be our friends on Facebook or My Space, or some new, as yet unnamed network.

As I sit here today, I think about how I decided to go against my better judgement and sign onto Facebook and LinkedIn, (and Twitter) and use these incredibly powerful and incredibly risky new forms of communications. I know many people, some who are very close to me, that have become intensive users and seem to get great satisfaction from the experience. In that time I have "used them" I found them to be little more than interesting ways to waste a lot of time. Some people have built business applications that seemed to work well using Social Networks. I tried a few times, and found that nothing much came of it--again except a lot of time spent for minimal return on that time and effort.

The risk of identity theft and cyber-crime is growing daily: When I wrote novels about cyber-terrorims--first The Silence in 2001-2002, and then the re-write of the new version, The Chinese Conspiracy in 2010-2011, I learned so much about ways to misuse these pervasive networks that I re-considered my position, and even attempted to use Facebook for marketing of the second book. Not much happened--perhaps because I was not committed to how these things work, or perhaps because I was still wary about reaching out to become "friends" to hordes of "strangers," and near strangers.

In the past year, I have encountered several attempts to hack either my email, my wife's, my web site, or my credit cards. I have so many passwords and variations that simply keeping track of them all is a mess… This is exactly the scenario I predicted. And this is before Facebook is forced to sell its databases to support its inflated IPO valuation--and it will be…sooner rather than later. Inevitably, all of the major social networking sites that are sold or go public will need to exploit their databases for marketing or other reasons (that is your personal data!) to realize the value. Web-advertising has been and remains a difficult path to profit…and one that only a few companies (like Google) have successfully used.

However, I remain a believer in technological progress, and the effective, safe use of new and better technologies! I will continue to test, try, explore and use effective and lower risk new technologies. (I hope that some of those Apps I like so well on my iPhone and iPad are examples of that. Also, I am committed to a project of upgrading, and strengthening my numerous passwords, as more and more Social Networks and Subscription services get hacked, invaded and data stolen. To those of you who love these sites, use them, rely on them and find them rewarding and effective, I am happy for you. However, I urge you to review all of your privacy and account settings, and try to limit your risk and exposure to the places and people you choose…and not those you would reject.

(NOTE: In case you missed it, GM announced that it was dropping Facebook as an advertising media, since it had been unproductive.) This is reminiscent (to me) of the things that happened more than a decade ago when Yahoo, AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy and a host of other dot-com sites emerged, grew, then faltered and consolidated.

No matter how you cut it, FREE is a lousy business model. It is highly effective for gaining lots of "subscribers," but then what. Some continue to grow and prosper: Google, eBay, amazon.com, and in a different way, YouTube are the most prominent successes.

And yet, each of them has or will face inflection points at which their COMPLEXITY becomes unmanageable. When complexity becomes to great it falls into CHAOS, a condition in which a great deal of "energy" is wasted, but little of "value" is created.

I WILL GO OUT ON A LIMB AND PREDICT ANOTHER SHAKEOUT, MAYBE TWO--coming soon: SOCIAL NETWORKS, AND SMARTPHONE APPS.

WHAT WILL CAUSE THIS IS "CORRUPTION" IN EITHER A TECHNICAL OR A FINANCIAL/PRIVACY SENSE.

SOCIAL NETWORKS have almost grown out of control, and the APPS has exploded in number grown wildly--without regard to what they do and why they even exist. Some of them are wonderful. Others are OK, and many are useless, dumb and/or unnecessary clutter. (Yes, I am already culling out the unproductive Apps that are oevrloading the memory of my iPhone and iPad. I admit it: Some Apps are simply wonderful; others are intriguing; to many are either useless or too arcane to be worth the effort to figure out what they are good for. Choosing them and sorting them out can easily become a task that outweighs the benefits of the effort and time spent.

AS WE SIT HERE, TEXTING IS BEGINNING TO ECLIPSE EMAIL--ESPECIALLY AMOUNG YOUTH

This portends another kind of transition, with all of its own implications. For brief, instant messages, texting is wonderful. For more meaningful communications it reminds me of the early days of email, when too much was said with too little thought and even less "humanity," in some messages. (I've been as guilty as anyone of that.) Further, the autocorrect features on many text capably phones ofter create more humorous than informative texts. At least that happens to me a lot.

WHERE WILL THIS ALL END? IT WON'T--AT LEAST I HOPE NOT.

Progress demands that things are created, develop, evolve, mature and then decline, finally die. This is the way of nature, of life and of the world. New things replace old ones. Some are better; some are worse; some are just different.

BOTTOM LINE: TECHNOLOGY IS AN ENABLER, NOT THE END IN ITSELF. CHOOSING AND USING THE RIGHT "STUFF" IS VITAL, & SO IS DECIDING WHICH "STUFF" TO NOT USE.

THE RECENT LEAKS OF CLASSIFIED INFORMATION: WHY, WHO, WHAT WILL BE DONE? (FAST & FURIOUS--SAME QUESTIONS?0

I won't copy this text--I'll post the PDF file of it and you can open that to read a very comprehensive column about the recent leaks, entitled: Leaker in Chief.

WHAT ELSE MIGHT I WRITE ABOUT? CHRONICLING OBAMA'S INEPTNESS IS GETTING TO BE REPETITIVE! HOW ABOUT THE COMING CHALLENGES?

In coming weeks I might write about the dilemma any president will face, when cutting the massive government that's been built will lead to massive layoffs of government employees, and that the growth in private sector employment is unlikely to ramp up fast enough to absorb them. The only way this can happen is to have government leadership that both understands and supports free enterprise

Or, I can write about how many states must keep cutting too…and that just adds to the problem, but several states like IN, OH, WI, etc. are already slashing excessive government spending. Some states like CA are hopeless. Others can still rein in the runaway growth of government, but every dollar cut from government spending (even if its borrowed money) is a dollar that comes off the GDP right way. None-the-less, the route to recovery is less government and more free enterprise growth. Getting there is the hard part. That requires know-now and leadership--and that means Mitt Romney, not Barack Obama.

I should probably write about the fact that a lot of government spending is just a conduit to private enterprise (that the DOD--all the spending on weapons systems flow through contracting into the companies that actually make the weapons, Raytheon, Lockheed-Martin and hundreds of others. I should write that the suppliers to all of those government office buildings and people are private sector contractors and companies like office products providers, computers and communications gear providers, and on and on. Once this fact is known and accepted, the places to cut--and not cut--become much more apparent

I will write, over and over, that fixing the mess Obama is making will be a Herculean task…the longer he stays in office and continues his misguided policies, the worse it gets. The Democratically controlled Senate are willing accomplices to the crime that is being perpetrated on the American people and our economy. Fixing the deficit spending mess will only be partially helped by the positive impact of cutting the heart out of Obamacare, canceling the over-regulation and "getting tough with China" over currency and trade.

The real question is: If I write all of this, would that kind of message be more interesting, more informative, or more depressing??? Sometimes the truth is "bitter medicine."

WHEN A STAUNCH DEMOCRATIC SUPPORTER LIKE MAUREEN DOWD STARTS DOUBTING OBAMA--YOU KNOW HE'S IN TROUBLE!

June 2, 2012

Dreaming of a Superhero

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

ON Friday night, the nation’s capital was under a tornado watch. And that was the best thing that happened to the White House all week.

As the president was being slapped by Mitt Romney for being too weak on national security, he was being rapped by a Times editorial for being too aggressive on national security.

A Times article by Jo Becker and Scott Shane revealed that the liberal law professor who campaigned against torture and the Iraq war now personally makes the final decisions on the “kill list,” targets for drone strikes. “A unilateral campaign of death is untenable,” the editorial asserted.

On Thursday, Bill Clinton once more telegraphed that he considers Obama a lightweight who should not have bested his wife. Bluntly contradicting the Obama campaign theme that Romney is a heartless corporate raider, Clinton told CNN that the Republican’s record at Bain was “sterling.”

Covering a humorous W. at the unveiling of his portrait, the White House press actually seemed nostalgic for the president who bollixed up Afghanistan, Iraq, Katrina and the economy — a sure sign that the Obama magic is flagging.

On Friday, an ugly job market report led to the stock market’s worst day of the year. As the recovery flat-lined, the president conceded to a crowd at a Honeywell factory in Golden Valley, Minn., that “our economy is still facing some serious headwinds” and getting sucked further into Europe’s sinkhole. In depressing imagery for the start of the summer campaign, cable channels carried the red Dow arrow pointing down while Obama spoke; the Dow wiped out all of its 2012 gains.

The president who started off with such dazzle now seems incapable of stimulating either the economy or the voters. His campaign is offering Obama 2012 car magnets for a donation of $10; cat collars reading “I Meow for Michelle” for $12; an Obama grill spatula for $40, and discounted hoodies and T-shirts. How the mighty have fallen.

Once glowing, his press is now burning. “To a very real degree, 2008’s candidate of hope stands poised to become 2012’s candidate of fear,” John Heilemann wrote in New York magazine, noting that because Obama feels he can’t run on his record, his campaign will resort to nuking Romney.

In his new book, “A Nation of Wusses,” the Democrat Ed Rendell, the former governor of Pennsylvania, wonders how “the best communicator in campaign history” lost his touch.

The legendary speaker who drew campaign crowds in the tens of thousands and inspired a dispirited nation ended up nonchalantly delegating to a pork-happy Congress, disdaining the bully pulpit, neglecting to do any L.B.J.-style grunt work with Congress and the American public, and ceding control of his narrative.

As president, Obama has never felt the need to explain or sell his signature pieces of legislation — the stimulus and health care bills — or stanch the flow of false information from the other side.

“The administration lost the communications war with disastrous consequences that played out on Election Day 2010,” Rendell writes, and Obama never got credit for the two pieces of legislation where he reached for greatness.

The president had lofty dreams of playing the great convener and conciliator. But at a fund-raiser in Minneapolis, he admitted he’s just another combatant in a capital full of Hatfields and McCoys. No compromises, just nihilism.

If he wins the election, “the fever may break,” he said. “My hope, my expectation, is that after the election, now that it turns out that the goal of beating Obama doesn’t make much sense because I’m not running again, that we can start getting some cooperation again.”

In his new biography, “Barack Obama: The Story,” David Maraniss writes that a roommate of the young Obama compared him to Walker Percy’s protagonist in “The Moviegoer”: an observer of his life, one step removed.

Obama’s boss at his community organizing job in Chicago, Jerry Kellman, observed: “He was not unwilling to take risks, but was just this strange combination of someone who would have to weigh everything to death, and then take a dramatic risk at the end. He was reluctant to do confrontation, to push the other side because it might blow up — and it might. But one thing Alinsky did understand was that within reason, once something blows up, to a certain degree it doesn’t hurt, it helps.”

Maraniss’s book depicts Obama on an intense odyssey of self-discovery, moving toward defining himself less as a half-white man with white girlfriends than as a black man who wanted to be part of a black community.

His New York girlfriend, Genevieve Cook, told Maraniss that Obama confessed to her that “he felt like an impostor. Because he was so white. There was hardly a black bone in his body.” When she predicted that his future might be with a black woman — “That lithe, bubbly, strong black lady is waiting somewhere!” she wrote in her journal — he told her “he doubted there were any black women he would feel truly comfortable with. I would tell him, ‘No, she is out there.’ ”

He wanted to get out of the corporate world he found so distasteful — he described himself as “a spy behind enemy lines” — and reimagine himself as a politician.

On CNBC on Friday, Romney complained that Obama has “been more focused on his perspective of his historic legislative achievements than he has been focused on getting people back to work.”

A president focused on historic achievements? Imagine that. But in his lame way, Romney got at Obama’s problem: The Moviegoer prefers to float above, at a reserve, in grandiose mists.

As Maraniss recounts, Obama said he liked reading Hemingway because of Papa’s “integrity of grasping for those times, those visions, that are ones of true magnificence and profundity.”

Cook told Maraniss that she thought Obama’s desire to “play out a superhero life” was “a very strong archetype in his personality.”

But superheroes and mythic figures must boldly lead. Obama’s caution — ingrained from a life of being deserted by his father and sometimes his mother, and of being, as he wrote to another girlfriend, “caught without a class, a structure, or tradition to support me” — has restrained him at times.

In some ways, he’s still finding himself, too absorbed to see what’s not working. But the White House is a very hard place to go on a vision quest, especially with a storm brewing.