Tag: Facebook

Is Email Dead?

This is an update of a post that originally appeared on March 4, 2011.

When I originally wrote this post, everyone was proclaiming the death of email, yet here we are 12 years later and I’m still using email to conduct almost all of my business. The original ComputerWorld that I cited describes a company that is moving from email to social media as an exclusive option. However, many current articles like Is email dying as a business communication channel? talk about the demise of email being premature. Currently, I don’t use any of the options mentioned in the ComputerWorld article and don’t have time (or the inclination) to start using them. Don’t get me wrong, social media probably solves problems for some part of the population, it just hasn’t worked out well for me. I can’t see myself outputting tweets about my daily activities and some of the articles I read about Facebook are just plain scary. The company that thinks your right to privacy is irrelevant is facing all sorts of legal problems these days, but it’s entrenched enough that I doubt we’ll see it go away anytime soon.

My main problem with most modern communication solutions is that they’re overly intrusive. I was in the bathroom the other day and a guy was engaging in business while sitting on the commode; he just couldn’t be bothered to turn his cellphone off to take care of personal matters. That’s just one of many scenarios I’d prefer to avoid. There is strong evidence to conclude that our society has become preoccupied with communication, to the detriment of all. Just how many people died last year from texting accidents? According to the The Zebra, texting causes 1.6 billion accidents per year (and the other statistics on the site are even scarier). The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) logged 3,142 texting-related deaths in 2020. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to talk with someone that badly.

All this said, I did have my first Zoom meeting this year. Except for being able to see the people I was talking with, I just don’t see any reason to use it. Actually, I don’t care what the people I talk to look like as long as they can “lift their end of the log.” Products like Zoom perpetuate bias by promoting impressions based on personal appearance—I consider them dangerous. There is even an issue with the stress and fatigue that using products like Zoom cause as described in On the stress potential of videoconferencing: definition and root causes of Zoom fatigue. All this would be bad enough, but email eliminates issues like people’s accents (given that I’m hard of hearing, accents cause me no end of woe in understanding someone’s conversation). It also provides a paper trail I don’t get with Zoom. So, unless someone is having a serious tantrum, I plan not to revisit Zoom.

I have to admit that in the past 12 years that social media has proven to provide some benefit to business, as described in 22 Benefits of Social Media for Business. As with anything, the disadvantages could outweigh the benefits, as described in 10 disadvantages of social media for business. Here are my personal reasons for choosing email over social media or other options like Zoom:

  • Social media assumes a level of connectivity that I’m simply not willing to allow.
  • Email works better because someone can send me a message and I can handle it later; at my convenience.
  • More importantly, I can handle the email at a time when I’m not distracted by something else.
  • I can provide a thoughtful answer; one that I’ve researched and thought through carefully.
  • Email also provides me with a permanent written record that I can reference later when I have questions about the discussion.
  • Most important to me is that email makes it possible for me to deal with other people without any bias—I don’t care what they look like, what they’re wearing as they type their response to me, where they live, whether they have an accent, or any of a number of other issues that seem to have the world in an uproar today. All I care about is whether they can do the required work.

Personally, I don’t see e-mail as a dead communication technology. If anything, it’s becoming more important to me as I age and my memory becomes less dependable. As far as I’m concerned, the always connected nature of most social media today simply isn’t a good solution if you want to be productive. So, what’s your take on social media? Let me know at [email protected].

Considering Our Future Cyber War

It’s not if a cyber war will happen, but when. Precisely what form such a war will take depends on the perpetrators and their goals. I’ve spend quite of time discussing the relative insecurity of the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems out there. However, I’m only assuming that SCADA is going to be targeted at some point because it’s such low hanging fruit and no one seems to have any interest at all in securing. Plus, the attack would be of the sort that we’d have a hard time defending against (and possibly identifying at first as the hospitals fill with victims of some mysterious problem).

I recently read an article by John Dvorak entitled, “What if Facebook Is Hacked Next?” John makes some excellent points, but probably doesn’t go far enough. Why would an attacker stop with just Facebook? Why not attack all of the sources of social media out there, including places like LinkedIn and Twitter? The confusion created by the loss of all social media would be amazing. It could easily act as a smokescreen for some other activity even more devastating than the loss of data. While everyone is scrambling to fix their social media issues, someone could work in the background to do something truly horrible.

Actually, the attacker might not even have to do anything other than disrupt all online activities. Think about the number of jobs lost, the hit to online commerce, and the other problems that such an attack would cause. Perhaps these people are simply waiting until more brick and mortar stores close that people no longer have local resources to help in such an emergency. For example, think about the problems that the loss of online stores would have to IT professionals who maintain huge networks of computer systems. The potential for truly terrifying results is amazing.

A cyber war is coming. Just when it will arrive is the topic of much speculation, but my feeling is that it’ll come sometime soon. What sorts of security measures do you have in place? Have you done anything else to prepare? Let me know about your thoughts on cyber war at [email protected].

 

Contemplating the Future of the Written Word

Last week I wrote a post entitled, “An End to the Written Word” that generated more e-mail than most of my posts have in the past. The e-mail content covered a broad range of thoughts and emotions about the written word. Of course, it’s hard to imagine that anything we have used so successfully for so long will eventually go away, but that’s how technology works. A technology is kept only as long as it’s useful. However, I need to provide some more input on my thoughts about the written word based on some of the e-mails I received.

Let me put one thought to rest immediately—I’m not just talking about paper print. Yes, everyone has been predicting the end of writing on paper for many years now and if anything, some businesses actually use more paper than before the computer revolution. However, paper will eventually go away in its entirety. There are a number of indicators of its demise in my own life and I’ll share them with you.

 

  • Manuscripts: At one time I sent my manuscripts to the publisher in printed form. I boxed up my books and sent them for editing in double spaced form. The manuscript would come back with editors marks in place at some point, I’d make any required changes and send it back (the postage really got out of hand at times). In fact, paper would pass back and forth several times before a printed book came out. The process was incredibly slow. Today I’m using electronic media for all my book needs and my printer is collecting dust.
  • Royalty Statements: All of my royalty statements used to come in paper form. Some of them still do, but many of them come electronically now. I eventually look for the huge folders used to store my tax information to become quite svelte indeed.
  • Contracts: A lot of my contracts are now issued in electronic format. I use an electronic signature to sign them. Not only is this approach faster, but I don’t have to provide storage for bulky contracts any longer—the contract goes right into the same folder as all of the other electronic files for my book.
  • Book Purchases: Most of my books are now sold as e-books, not as printed books. It will eventually become uncommon for me to sell a printed book. In fact, I have to wonder how long I’ll continue to obtain printed author copies.
  • Banking: More and more of my banking is done electronically. Even when I do send a check to someone, they often don’t send it back to the bank. The transaction is performed electronically.


I’m sure you can come up with examples from your own life, but the fact is that printed matter is going to go away. However, that’s not what I’m talking about. Eventually, writing itself will become something that professionals use to express abstract ideas that can’t be presented in some other way. People will commonly not use any form of writing because there will be other ways to convey thoughts and ideas to other people. In fact, those other ways already exist. I don’t look for writing to go away in my lifetime, or even in the lifetime of my grandnephew or grandniece, but I do look for it to go away.

Many of the uses that writing once fulfilled are being filled by other technologies. For example, it’s quite possible that contracts in the future will be written using a video record, not writing. A mortgage might show an actual recording of the property in question and include pictures of the participants in the deal. An iris scan of the parties will encrypt the video so it can be played, but not changed. Of course, this technology is quite futuristic indeed, but the concept isn’t all that hard to grasp.

Books and other forms of general communication are already starting to become more visual and less written—it isn’t much of a leap to think other communication will follow. Sites such as YouTube have become popular because it’s easier to show a video of an event than to write about the event in words. In addition, the recording is actually easier for other people to understand. Sites such as Facebook also rely heavily on graphics, not on the written word. The point is that anything that is concrete and easily conveyed using a combination of audio and graphics is already being presented in precisely that form, without written words.

I’ll be discussing this topic more as time goes on, but for now, this gives you an idea of some of the questions I’ve received. This whole idea of writing going away has taken some people by surprise (and others simply expect it to happen). What are your ideas about writing? Let me know at [email protected].

 

Social Networking Traps

I recently read an article on ComputerWorld entitled, “‘Girls Around Me’ shows a dark side of social networks.” It isn’t the first time that FourSquare and Facebook have gotten press for their lack of respect for user privacy and it won’t be the last. Even the social network I use, LinkedIn, has received more than a few black eyes in the privacy arena. Any time you engage in any sort of social network, everything that you upload is going to be treated as someone’s personal data source. You have no choice about it. Absolutely everything you upload, from your name and picture, to the last time you updated the list of things you’re interested in, will be used by someone for some purpose other than the one you envisioned—count on it!

Yes, these social networks help you maintain your relationships with friends and they do provide a means of creating professional networks with others. However, if you think that these companies are running these social networking sites out of the goodness of their hearts, think again. These companies run these sites to obtain any personal information about you that they can. The information is used to generate demographics, to spam your inbox with e-mail you never wanted, and to keep outsiders informed about your activities. If you engage in any sort of social networking, someone is spying on you and they’re doing it with the blessing of the company that hosts your page. In short, if you don’t want someone misusing a piece of your information, keep it to yourself because these organizations have no self-control in misusing your information.

What does surprise me is that anyone things that this old news is even worth printing. Do people not understand that the naked pictures they posted of themselves at an illegal party will have long lasting effects? If you think that there is any help coming from the government, think again. In the US, at least, there isn’t any chance whatsoever that the government will take a stand on employers and others probing every dark secret you’ve ever posted. Lest you think that you can take a stand and simply not allow information to your information, think again. People have gotten fired for refusing to share their secrets. Anything you post also lasts forever, like some sort of terrifying tattoo that you can’t scrub clean. I’ve used special search engines like the Wayback Machine to dig up material that the author was certain was scrubbed from the Internet forever. Get used to the idea that once you upload a picture, make a statement, or do something else weird on the Internet, the material is going to last forever whether you want it to or not and someone is going to dig it up to embarrass (or harass) you at the most inconvenient moment.

I’ve used social networking professionally. It helps me make contacts with other professionals so that I can get consulting or editing jobs. With this in mind, I keep my posts professional. I try not to post anything I think could be embarrassing later. Obviously, I’ve made mistakes, just like everyone does, but nothing of a gross nature. Still, these little errors have crept up in the past when talking with others. It begins innocently enough…but you said, “So and So” on your LinkedIn page. Didn’t you really mean that? As much as a misstatement makes me shuffle in my seat, I can only imagine the terror of someone finding a picture that was supposed to be viewed by friends alone.

The short version of all this is that you need to use social networking carefully. Share only what you want people to see forever. Write your posts and save them as drafts—let them sit a day or two before you actually publish them. Don’t think that your Web site or blog are safe either; both are often used as weapons against their authors by unscrupulous people. It’s a new world out there. Social networking as made it possible for more people to find out more information about you faster than ever before. The life you ruin could be your own! Let me know your viewpoint on social networking and privacy at [email protected].