Category Archives: Helpful Hints

August 12, 2008 · 8:17 am

Who touched my stuff?

You just made the list, buddy. Also, I don’t like no one touching my stuff. So just keep your meat-hooks off. If I catch any of you guys in my stuff, I’ll kill you

OK, so someone touched my stuff.  Well, not my real stuff – my digital stuff.  Specifically, somewhere between my web host, Spry, and the Gmail client I use to access the mail on the Spry server, something changed.  Yes, I’m aware that there have been big problems with Gmail recently, although I must admit that I have not had any trouble with one account while another one is inaccessible.

Nope, all was working quite well until late last week.  For months, Gmail would ping Spry every so often, emails sent to my business mail would pop up and I’d be…umm…in business! Then, nada.  I became Mr. Unpopular.  In fact, in looking at it, it was around 7:30 Thursday evening when the mail stopped flowing.  When I had received nothing via Gmail on Friday, I used the Spry client (not as nice as Gmail) to check mail.  Hey!  Turned out I was the belle of the ball and now officially negligent in responding to the folks who had written.

So fess up.  Someone changed something and now it’s broken.  As businesspeople, it’s important to constantly improve the product, but when something goes wrong, we need to let the people who rely on us know that we screwed up.  Did the folks at Spry do something to change how POP access happens?  Don’t know.  Twitter had way more to say about Google’s problem than did Google (such irony) and that’s wrong.

The problem happened late afternoon Eastern Time and so caused an explosion in the US blogosphere. Google said it didn’t usually respond publicly to such problems, but decided to because: “We heard loud and clear today how much people care about their Gmail accounts.”

Doesn’t respond publicly?  The openness of the web should inspire the same open, candid atittude among those who derive their living from it.

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August 8, 2008 · 8:31 am

Glass Houses

I’m sure not many of you are following the latest development in Torrent Spy saga out in LA.  Having already won a major judgment against Torrent Spy, the MPAA got sued for illegally obtaining emails from Torrent Spy from a former employee who hacked into the system.  The suit was thrown out using highly technical definitions (you can read about it here – it just makes your head hurt).  The decision is being appealed.

My point isn’t that the decision isn’t good, bad or indifferent.  What I can’t understand is the thinking of the individuals running the MPAA.  How is is OK to hire someone to steal information?  If a former bank employee went back into the bank’s computer and pulled up your financial records to give to an enemy, how is that fine because they technically had access and the records were where they were supposed to be?

The organization also said it originally believed the e-mails had been obtained legally. “It was only through discovery in this case that we learned that he had engaged in conduct that violated the law. We do not condone it, we repudiate it,” the group said in a statement.

You want to repudiate it?  Drop the damages you won in the suit.  Someone acting on your behalf broke the rules.  You need to call a penalty on yourself.

As businesspeople, we sometimes do things that we know, as human beings, are wrong.  We use “it’s business” to justify what is an utterly contemptible act committed to help our revenues, help our careers, etc.  How about we all try to do better?

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August 7, 2008 · 8:21 am

Confidence

The PGA Championship starts this morning and of course the most notable thing about it so far is who isn’t there. The scary thing is that you know that even a few weeks after ACL surgery, El Tigre would be competitive and there’s no doubt in my mind that if the Tour hadn’t fought golf carts in court (ironically vs. Casey Martin, one of Tiger’s Stanford teammates), they’d let him ride if that meant he could play.

What makes Tiger, and Annika for that matter (Lorena has to prove it over time, kids) so hard to beat?  Their confidence.  They believe in their souls that they are going to win every time they tee it up.  More importantly, they make YOU believe the same thing which is why their peers tend to go in the tank when they see either one making a charge.

Confidence is something every person in business needs to have.  There was a book written a few years ago on this by Rosabeth Moss Kantor.

In her view, success and failure are not events, they are self-fulfilling tendencies. “Confidence is the sweet spot between arrogance and despair–consisting of positive expectations for favorable outcomes.” says Kanter.

Bob Rotella, the preeminent golf psychologist, has a new book out as well called Your 15th Club (under the rules, one can only carry 14 at a time).

The 15th Club is the tool that golf stars like Tiger Woods use to block out negative thoughts, doubt, and fear. It is what allows champions to perform at their peak both in practice and during the game. Golfers who lack it find the game elusive and frustrating. Confident golfers play the game as they have always sensed they could play it.

How is your confidence level?  I’m a believer that part of my job as a manager was always to get people to perform at the highest level of which they were capable.  Mostly, that just meant giving them the guidance and tools they needed and staying out of their way.  One of the biggest tools we had was confidence – the belief that we could get great things done.  Do you believe?  If so, does the rest of your team?  If not, what are you doing to address it?

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