“I’m surprised you aren’t mad at me… I thought you might hold it against me for killing 3 of your guys.” – John Smith., Last Man Standing, New Line Cinema (1996)

There’s been a number of girl books published recently that put down the “pre-adulthood” male (they call them guys). With trepidation, we enter into this discussion because one of the first things a married guy learns is he’s wrong…all the time! Of course, women have better role models. In the U.S., there’s Oprah, Rachel Rae, Ellen Degenerous, Julie Roberts, Katie Couric. Guys have Jerry Springer, Charlie Sheen, Will Farrell, Donald Trump, (add your favorites). Women rush to maturity, adulthood. Guys fight it as long as possible…sometimes into their 50s, 60s and beyond. Females say this is because men in their 20s are living a new kind of extended adolescence.

A Life Script
Sociologists assert there’s a “life script” for our events, stages.

Guys aren’t following the script:
- In 1970, 16% of American males 25-29 had never married
- Today, 55% haven’t
- 1st marriage mean age is about 30
- They experience a quarter-life crisis
- In 1970, 7 in 10 25-year-olds were married
- In 2000, only 1/3 had made this mistake

Everyone’s Waiting – Women are waiting longer to get married because their dads keep telling them not to marry beneath their station. Guys are waiting longer because they have too many things to do, too many things to play with to find the “station”. Source – U.S. Census Bureau

John Smith looked at the script and commented, “I thought everybody liked me.

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“I wouldn’t make a hasty decision. Nobody can make a snap decision. We’ve got to consider the pros and cons, make a list, and get advice.” – Frank Stark, Rebel Without a Cause, Warner Bros (1955)

Since the mainframe days, people have complained that IT was slow to respond, slow to deliver, over budget. Unisys’ latest report that IT people are willing to ignore the consumerization of IT only reinforces this old saw. According to them, IT has its collective heads in the sand. That’s a lot more newsworthy than saying IT has a helluva’ job on its hands giving company people on-the-go what they want and need and keeping the company jewels safe, secure! Sure, it reinforces all of the reasons folks have given for bringing in and using their own notebooks, smartphones, tablets. After all, work/home life had blurred so they might as well use the device(s) they use to take care of business when they’re home to take care of home stuff at work.

Jim Stark looked at the new kids and said, “You read too many comic books.” With the new-found tools/power, they got creative developing little work-arounds so they could go into the information rich company databases and gather the information, find the answers that their customers and their bosses wanted/needed. Of course, then you just have to flaunt your newly found power by making dazzling presentations for the boss on your tablet (iPad). As for the bosses, what kind of leader will they be if they don’t have the latest, best? Right? The problem is how do you manage, implement and protect something that is changing right before your eyes.

Consumerization – Firms large and small have come to an uneasy truce with employees who want to use their own devices for business and home.

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Like Me – If you’re an individual with a Facebook page, you like people to like you. If you’re a company or brand, you want people to really like you. But getting folks to hit the Like button is the beginning of a relationship you need to carefully nurture. People devote more time to social media than to online games, email, search … combined! The most popular location is Facebook, which is designed to help people connect in a disconnected world. American internet users spend more time on Facebook than any other location. According to Nielsen, the largest site – over 800M people around the globe – has U.S. Internet users spending more than 53.5 billion minutes a month. Globally, you can double that volume of online activity. More than half of the users (65 percent) are adults. And half of the Facebook population returns to the site every day.

The Real Virtual World – People around the globe have found social media sites are excellent ways to develop relationships, share information/ideas, associate with people who share your interests and you well…Like. For more than 800 million people, Facebook has been their destination of choice and companies/brands follow people. Source – Citi Investment

At this year’s F8 (Facebook developers conference), Mark Zuckenberg introduced a whole new set of “features” that are designed to attract even more users and keep them on Facebook longer. Zuck’s goal is to become the destination that defines a person’s online life. To do that he’s attracting media products – music, movies, information, games – to attract even more people (as a country Facebook’s population is behind only China and India).
The site’s goal is simply to be the source people go first for news, entertainment.

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You think I’m gorgeous, you want to kiss me… You want to hug me… You want to love me… You want to hug me… You want to smooch me… You want to…” – Gracie Hart (Sandra Bullock), Miss Congeniality (2000), Castle Rock Entertainment

Why has social media – blogs, social sites, chat rooms, discussion forums, YouTube, microblogs – grown so rapidly, become so popular? Pretty simple really…people want to establish their identity, feel connected. Sometimes it’s hard to believe, but even companies, products, services need identity…need connection…need definition…need love. Just like the rest of us, without it they wither, they die. So, since you’ve “all” jumped on the social media scene, company management wants to be there with you…to learn from you, help you. O.K., so they would also like to sell you something…if it’s something you really want, really need of course. Company managers – they’re people too – understand there are a lot of benefits to social media activities.

Priorities this Year
Why You’re There – Companies see a lot of good business reasons for entering the social media arena. But they all center on the customer, not on wholesale outreach, marketing pushes. Source – Internet Retailer

That’s why everyone wants to “own” the company’s social media program – marketing, advertising, HR, PR. They want to be the ones who get credit for reaching out, making a bunch of friends who tell other friends who all buy something. What’s missing? The customer!

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“How many people work here? About half.” That sounds kinda’ familiar when you’re talking about people who consider themselves social media professionals. The age-old statement came to mind when we read a recent blog by Mitch Joell, President of Twist Image and author of “Six Pixels of Separation.” His post was about employees who spend too much time online and how they are basically stealing. A piece in the “Globe and Mail” pertained to a government employee who was caught – and dismissed – for spending half of his time on the Web surfing and downloading “all” kinds of stuff. Mitch’s point was that employees who are caught spending too much time online doing things that have nothing to do with their work are really time thieves. And it’s not just the people who are “caught.” The rest are also stealing time but … they’re busy. They’re busy updating their Facebook page…polishing their LinkedIn image…Twitting about their coffee, their lunch, their date last evening…watching the cute kitty trick on YouTube. You know, busy taking care of important stuff.

Brave New World
When social media outlets began to gain traction, it was like the great white hope for PR/communications people. This was a frontier that companies/organizations knew very little about. What they did know was that a lot of people were there and thousands more were joining every day. People meant an audience, targets. These individuals were out there sharing everything…including ideas/information on products, services, companies, the person in the next office, their issues, their triumphs, getting hired and getting fired.

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“Thank you so very much for giving me an opportunity to get to know myself much better.” – Dr. Solomon, “Minority Report,” 20th Century Fox (2002)

Do you know what’s wrong with the entertainment industry? Someone, somewhere dreams up a contraption or scenario, some producer gets wind of it and turns it into something millions of people watch and BAM!! in a few years, it’s a seamless part of your life. PCs, notebooks, portable phones, micro cameras, tablets, cloud computing/storage, intelligent interactive digital signage, you name it; they all went mainstream because of movies and TV. We came up with this epiphany after the DisplaySearch’s recent Display Technologies Conference and watching NCIS: LA and Hawaii Five-O. Do you see how they have their text, images on tabletop and wall screens? In the flick of a pinky, the image flies from one screen to another, enlarges, gets replaced by other gotta’ have information … instantly. At the same time, countless movies have been built around informational walls that recognized you, welcomed you, gave you your information before you even knew you wanted it. As Lycon observed, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” Oh sure, they tattled on you; but nothing’s perfect. The IBM PC that recently marked its 30th anniversary looks stone age next to our tablet system and smartphone. In another 30 years, even these marvels will join the ranks of memorabilia at the Computer Museum.

Computing Evolution – Computing power won’t disappear but it will continue to evolve; and today’s hugely popular tablets and smartphones are just waypoints along the road. In 30 years, you’ll wonder why you even carried them with you to get your information, news, data, and entertainment.

Fading Shape
The computer as we know it will be the first to go.

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“I’m a very understanding person, Albert. I understand that you are going through a selfish phase. And, I’m sure that you will understand that I am going through a destructive phase.” – Mollie, Look Who’s Talking (1989), TriStar

Companies and their marketing efforts go through phases just like parents and kids. It used to be the companies talked at you, like your parents. Now, all of a sudden, a few of them are talking to you as a person instead of a target. You know, honest, friendly, reasonable, helpful two-way communications. O.K., not all of them; but some like Best Buy, Sears, Samsung, Ford, Dell and hundreds more are struggling to evolve their marketing activities and build relationships with partners/customers. Occasionally, they muck it up; but you have to give those who are trying to be conversational a little slack. It’s untested territory! Remember, parents didn’t come with user manuals so you tolerated their “mistakes.” Now it’s your turn and you hear Mikey’s words, “Hey, man, you’re on your own.” Manufacturers, channel partners and customers have the same challenge today.

Fire Hose Approach
In the Mad Men days, there was a team of folks composed of marketing, sales, service, design, advertising, PR and support people. They’d put their stuff together, spray it out, go to lunch and pray it didn’t cause too much of a mess. Hey, some of it even stuck.

Tagging – Marketing used to be refined, coordinated with each department/individual having his/her own task. Strategies were refined, tactics were developed (often with little/no coordination) and people gave it their best shot. If it worked, it was called creative art. If it didn’t, it was graffiti. The plan – in a neat 3-ring binder – was followed with little or no concern about how you reacted.

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“Just wait ’til Mom finds out that you tried to take over the world again!” – Gertie Giggles, “Spy Kids2: Island of Lost Dreams,” Dimension Films (2002)

Ever notice that when you buy something today, it comes with a 500-page user manual and a whole section of warnings. Get a kid and he/she is just dumped into your hands and…that’s it. Outta’ the chute, the little sucker is smarter than you are. Right from the get-go, they’re wired for using the PC, tablet, smartphone, game system. It’s part of their DNA.. They may not walk or use the toilet, but they’re surfing the web; blogging; microblogging; posting to the social network; shooting/posting/watching photos, videos…you name it.

Born Online – Even if you’re a teen or older, you look at the younger generation and wonder if they were born wired. They get devices – notebooks, tablets, smartphones – sooner and almost immediately, they’re outperforming you. It’s humiliating asking a little kid to help you get the most out of your device. Source – eMarketer

In the U.S., it’s estimated that over 20 million children go online at least once a month (39.9%) and by 2014, 47.8 percent of the youngsters will be cruising the digital universe. According to a recent global study on how kids interact with digital technology, 41 percent of the kids under 15 preferred PCs to TV. Once they get online, there’s no holding them back.

Learning Process – Even little kids have personal mobile devices and begin learning at a very young age. In addition to the Leaptop shown above, Leapfrog recently introduced the new LeapPad which should be a huge seller this Christmas season. Heck, we didn’t get our Commodore 64 until we were 19. Couldn’t talk to anyone because Gore hadn’t even taken the initiative to create the iNet.

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“When I was a kid, all I wanted was to be able to afford to eat in restaurants like this.” – Nick, “Flashdance,” Paramount (1983)

This year, the industry will ship more than $25 billion worth of servers and more than 800 million smart devices (desktops, laptops, netbooks, tablets and smartphones). But only the big iron and IT folks care much about the servers. If you listen to HP’s Apotheker and Wall Streeters, there’s no reason to care about laptops, less about desktops. Leo is washing his hands of the messy business. But when it comes to tablets and phones, everyone wants to take center stage so people can do their social media stuff, mobile transactions and digital content creation/consumption. Tablets are projected to enjoy a 123+ percent compound annual growth rate from this year’s 31 million iPad and “other” units. Next year, it’s estimated that about one billion smartphones will be sold worldwide (more than 4 billion phones overall). But in 2014, 291 million notebooks (52% of the computing market) will be sold with China leading the demand curve. All those devices “you can’t live without” let folks create, produce and replicate a whopping 1.8 Zettabytes (1.8 trillion Gigabytes) of content. Store it…Somewhere. Of course, it’s all for nothing without the lowly stagehand…storage.  The way we’re using our devices – computers, laptops, smartphones – content volumes will grow by a factor of nine in the next five years.

Content Chaos – Today, people not only produce their own content, they share it, mash it up, spread it around, save it everywhere…copies of copies and more. A Facebook photo doesn’t look that big, but it turns out four copies are made of every photo you post for…something. All that rich social media data produces mountains of information people want to mine, leverage, use, sell.

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“Everyone” is embracing social media – Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, etc. It’s a way for organizations to bring their staffs, consultants, customers closer together. Social media is the more efficient, more effective way for companies and consumers to identify each other’s wants, needs, goals. It was one of the underlying themes of Dreamforce – The Cloud Computing Event of the Year, sponsored by Salesforce.com. Internal and external social media has become such a big business (check all of the cloud company stocks) that the global management consulting firm, Accenture, announced they were planting a social media lab in Silicon Valley to help clients realize all of the benefits of the all-inclusive solution. It’s the next phase of industry growth beyond Geoffrey Moore’s digital chasm (bringing advanced technology beyond the early adopters to mainstream – volume – profits) that business, industry and communications are rushing to capitalize on … or be left in the dust.

Marc Benioff, Salesforce’s CEO, had the solution for organizations (customers) – add customers to Chatter, use HTML5 for mobile CRM apps, provide the means for customers to store sensitive data away from prying eyes and provide opportunities for companies/customers to forever become joined at the waist and live happily ever after. Benioff told the captive audience that the world has moved beyond Moore’s Chasm and that businesses are now faced with a huge and dangerous challenge – the Social Chasm. Make the transition now and join up with their digitally adept customers or be stranded on “the other side.” Jeezz, that’s a proposition that’s hard to resist. But… Before you make the leap across the Social Chasm to be on the same side as your customers, maybe we should make certain Geoffrey’s Chasm should be retired.

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Social media, the internet, mobile phones, and e-commerce have permanently changed the way we all see our place in the world of buying and selling. As we have seen around the globe, the democratization of media and social power is at the root of social media. It has put bad governments, bad companies, and bad products under the microscope. It has helped good companies, good products tell their story. Social media has made it harder and harder to tell people what they want and must buy through repetition and psychological manipulation.

Each social medium has its strengths and weaknesses; and if there was one right, one best solution for every company, every executive life would be so simple. There isn’t! But as a business executive your blog is a tool that can benefit the company and you because it is you expressing/translating your organization’s thoughts, ideas, goals to people around the globe. True, it can get your brand more exposure and it humanizes the company/product; but more importantly, it can provide value to your customer and partner. It enables them to share information, ideas with you regarding the company, products, and plans. Done properly, you get more than you give. O.K., so you’ve decided it’s time to move your company, your thoughts into the blogosphere; but like any good professional, you want to know the guidelines, the rules of engagement. There aren’t any!

Have ideas, thoughts, information you want to share? You can use social media to share information not just about your products and your company, but about the industry and trends. It will allow people to understand what the company and the product or service you stand for. You do stand for something…right? Once you begin, there’s no turning back.

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One of the latest emerging trends for businesses in today’s market is the ability to let customers “check-in” at your business.  In essence, you’re giving customers the chance to announce to their social networks that they’ve stopped in.  There are a number of these new geolocation services giving you a chance to try some truly unique and completely FREE marketing if you do it right.  Now what company wouldn’t like that?

How do I take advantage of this?
A number of companies are offering this “geo-tagging” but only two really stand out.  Foursquare and Gowalla are the industry leaders.  Until recently, Facebook was also a big player in this arena.  They decided to shut down their location-based check-in service due to lack of interest among Facebook users.  Both of these companies allow you to register your business for free and they offer mobile apps for your customers to use when checking in.  You simply need to claim your business and then let your customers know they can start checking in using whatever service you chose (hopefully both!).

Giving it a Boost
Each company offers various incentives for using them.  Gowalla allows users to award companies with various virtual awards that grab the attention of other Gowalla users.  Get enough awards and your business gets featured on their respective city pages.  Another feature of Gowalla is the ability to promote events to different users.  Gowalla also allows you to customize a welcome message for those who check in, plus the ability to add some kind of promotion for stopping by.

Foursquare provides a similar user experience with a few changes with how they handle promotions.  It allows you to create custom promotions for those who stop in and check-in.  You can create coupons, group discounts, first time discounts among many other things.

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“We can teach these barbarians a lesson in Western methods and efficiency that will put them to shame.” – Col Nicholson, “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” Columbia Pictures (1957)

Once upon a time there was a huge hue and cry over folks suffering from dropped mobile phone calls. You might remember those days like they were yesterday. Actually, the mobile people don’t care about your calls. There’s no money in that old-fashioned way of communicating. It takes so little bandwidth ($$$ to them), the meter dial hardly turns. Okay, that’s not quite true. One mobile phone isn’t much; but globally, we’ve surpassed five billion phones connected worldwide, according to CCS Insight. CCS Insight’s Ben Wood noted that’s more than three times as many PCs and a helluva’ lot more than tablets and ereaders. Col Green looked over the changing landscape and said, “As I’ve told you before, in a job like yours, even when it’s finished, there’s always one more thing to do.” The phone you don’t go anywhere without could be the most prolific consumer device on the planet.

They’re Everywhere
The numbers are pretty amazing:
- Asia-Pacific, including India and China, has the most growth, accounting for 47 percent of the mobile connections last year.
- In Western Europe, mobile phone penetration has reached 130%.
- In Eastern Europe, overall penetration is 123%.
- Mobile penetration in Africa has reached 52%.

More cheap feature phones are sold than smartphones; but if you saw Apple’s quarterly earnings – and Samsung’s, HTC’s, Motorola’s, etc. – the smartphone is like a rocket.

Phone Transition – Mobile phone activation has surpassed more than five billion.

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“Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*!” – Dr. Strangelove in “Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” Columbia Pictures (1964)

The annual Black Hat, DefCon events…you can almost smell the cyber napalm in the morning. While there are a lot of good things about Las Vegas (business-friendly policies), it’s a logical location for a hacking, malware, cyber penetration convention. After all, it was founded on a fundamental human frailty … personal greed, beating the odds. HINT: It’s impossible to beat the odds!

Unfortunately, you also can’t beat the odds when it comes to protecting personal, corporate and government secrets. Malicious and pain-in-the-behind bad guy hacking, hacktivism wins more often than the good guys. It’s why no one with half a brain uses any of the ATM machines when the nearly 9,000 “attendees” are in town. They’re hacked just for the heckovit! It was here that Aruba wanted to demonstrate the strength of their cryptographic technology and wireless technology by provisioning the two events.  Now that takes … well, you know!

Conference Fun
Seems like everyone took a whack at them, generating:
- 670 rogue attacks
- 191 AP flood attacks
- 489 AP spoofing
- 1,659 hotspot attacks
- 1,700 Block ACK attacks

As Major Kong said, “Shoot, a fella’ could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.” Yeah, there was a lot of fun ‘n games; but a lot of serious business was discussed and I gotta’ tell you, the future isn’t all that bright. The “noise” highlight of the two conferences was McAfee’s report of a five-year global study.

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“A $40 million computer tells you you’re chasing an earthquake, but you don’t believe.” – Capt Mancuso, “The Hunt for Red October,” Paramount Pictures (1990)

One of the toughest jobs in any country, any company is gathering, hoarding, protecting information that may give them an edge against “them.” And we must be doing a helluva’ job because organizations and individuals are accumulating data and meta data at an ever-increasing rate. The sheer volume that’s coming at us is causing us to experience information overload…emails to answer, virtual friends to contact, YouTube videos to watch, games to play, movies to sneak, reports to read/digest, stuff you have to find/do in the virtual world…just in case. Computers, smartphones, tablets are helping to accelerate our hunger for more data and our ability to create new/better information. Does it seem as though there’s so much information, you can’t keep up with it?    Can’t make sense of it? You’re right! As Jack Ryan said, “Welcome to the New World, Captain.”

The Next Big Number
EMC (a world leader in big storage stuff) recently sponsored a report by IDC (international research firm) that says we have finally cracked the Zettabyte barrier.

Piling Up – When it comes to storage capacity a MB isn’t much, a GB is barely tolerable and a TB is almost a necessity for families today.  It wasn’t that long ago that we considered a PB as an amazingly big number; but today, we talk about a Zettabyte without blinking an eye.   Storage requirements are more than doubling every year and there’s no end in sight – as long as we can properly manage it and find the specific information we want and need.  Chart – IDC

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Where do you draw the line between DIY digital content development and using the services of professional digital content developers? It really depends on how engaging you want your content to be and your budget. Today’s budget-conscious, understaffed businesses can purchase cost-effective all-in-one digital signage solutions that include solid-state hardware and software for creating, scheduling, updating and monitoring high-definition displays. Using templates and wizards, they can quickly create looping and multi-zoned displays and be assured that there won’t be any hardware/software compatibility issues. With the best turnkey solutions, the software can even automatically create the playlist file and bundle it with the selected content, ready to drop onto a SD card or distributed via the network for playback.

Designed to be both affordable and easy to use, these all-inclusive solutions have played a key role in levelling the playing field for small businesses. However, the signage industry itself has also grown in all industries from retail to restaurants, hospitality to healthcare and more. In all these applications digital signage has become a primary medium to promote, educate and inform; and audiences have come to expect top-notch visuals to grab their attention and keep their interest. New technologies are also now available to create more visually dynamic and engaging displays ranging from user-driven RFID and barcode readers to multi-screen synchronized displays.

Pro Look, Feel – Consumers expect professional content everywhere, especially in retail such as the Neutra Jeans displays above. Note the moving images on the back wall display that is closely tied to the free-standing and table-top digital image displays.

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“That’s the second biggest… I’ve ever seen.” – Maxwell Smart, “Get Smart,” Talent Assoc., (1965 – 1970)

Anonymous and LulzSec made themselves infamous by hacking highly visible organizations. They thought it was cool to disclose information from private/protected databases. They outed millions of people’s very personal/private data, making them prime identity theft targets. You know, the really bad guys (and gals) who make their living tapping into and “borrowing” your information to supplement their income. For most folks, they were simply huge pains in the behind. But for a few… huge financial problems. Little SOBs! Of course, they got bolder and bolder and took their attacks to government data sites around the globe. In the U.S., the FBI, NSA, DOD; in the U.K., Scotland Yard, Defence Ministry, Parliament; in Germany the Federal Network Agency, Chancellery, Cabinet; in Russia the ministries of defense, justice, internal affairs. You get the picture…all of ‘em. Cyberattacks on government assets aren’t anything new. Heck, every government has hundreds of folks dedicated to tapping into the other guys’ stuff all the time.

Government Attention
The rash of recent high-profile break-ins has led governments to take a hard stance and draw a line in the sand. They made it official…no more of this crap will be tolerated! The Chief made it official when he said, “How can we believe a man who would sell out his friends?” Sure, you can mess over Sony, BofA, Citi, MS, Google, you name ‘em, that’s OK; but mess with the stuff we’ve been gathering on everyone else and that is just aahh…humiliating. Now they know what enterprise IT and security folks feel like every time they log in and check their systems.

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So, you’ve joined Linkedin on the promise that it’s a great business tool and you’ll definitely get clients from it, right? Now what? You know that clients coming from this medium won’t happen on their own, but what should you do next? 

This is such a common question – what should I be doing on Linkedin and more importantly how do I get business out of it? – that I thought it was important that I gave you some tips. 

You see social networking is just like networking at an actual business event. If you attend a business event once and never again and didn’t talk to anyone when you went to that event, how can you expect to get business from it? And yet, this is what many business owners do on Linkedin. 

Like at an actual business event where you would have a one-to-one chat with people, start a discussion, ask a question, recommend someone or simply throw a comment out there and see what comes back, you can do all of these things on-line too. 

Each week in an ideal world, you should be looking to spend roughly half an hour on Linkedin and do at least the following activities: 

• Spend some time going through the connections Linkedin recommends for you. Linkedin finds potential connections based on the people you’re already connected with – it says if you’re connected to x person, maybe you know some of the people x is connected with and recommends them to you. Go through these recommendations and connect with people you know. 
• Post a discussion in the groups you’re a member of – if you post a link back to your site in the discussions, you can automatically share this discussion in all of the other groups you’re connected with. Any replies to these discussions will come into your inbox meaning that you can start to build a relationship with people. 
• Answer a question. Many, many people post questions in Linkedin.

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There are two classifications of books we really enjoy reading/studying – history and business management. But it’s tough to put Jay Elliot’s The Steve Jobs Way into either of those categories, just as it is almost impossible to put Steve himself into a standard business management classification. Lots of people have tried and continue to try because we’ve met academics, scholars, researchers who have spent a good part of their careers examining his companies and him with a telescope (getting up close and personal to do this is almost impossible). Sure, Guy Kawasaki did a pretty good job during his few years with Apple; but getting a first-hand view/analysis from someone who spent years with Steve and the management team is a rarity. One we couldn’t pass up.

We’re not an Apple/Jobs fan boy, but you have to admire the naivety of Steve and Woz to think they could make Apple into something different, something special and …well, achieve it with such awesome global success. Sure, we realize that the image of both Apple and Jobs are carefully cultivated, nurtured and protected; but it’s consistent, it works, it’s backed by substance. It’s an image that you have to simultaneously love/hate and do your darndest to try and figure out how one company, one person can attract and mesmerize mobs of people (customers) even when they stumble. We were anxious to see what was behind the curtain because while the Valley is known for its global contributions, there are also some very interesting, very quirky, very brilliant people who make things happen.

Credible Author
Jay Elliot, now CEO of Nuvel, a multi-product software firm, had the kind of up-close and personal day-to-day relationship with Jobs that gives you that insider’s view. But if you’re expecting to get a bunch of dirty linen secrets, you’re out of luck.

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“When two hunters go after the same prey, they usually end up shooting each other in the back. And we don’t want to shoot each other in the back.” – Col. Douglas Mortimer, “For a Few Dollars More (Per Qualche Dollaro I Piu)”, Constantin Film (1965)

NY Times writer, John Markoff, had just finished his book on the exploits/capture of hacker Kevin Mitnick about the same time we received a call from our boss at CERFnet (one of the first three ISPs in the U.S.) telling us we had to change our password because the fledgling West Coast arm of the Internet had been hacked. We had 10 minutes to give him our new password that would be part of our online identity to access, contact the world. That sucked! We had just gotten rid of the mind-boggling CompuServe numbers and…well, we really liked that password. Monco’s comment came to mind, “Think you people need a new sheriff,” but kept our mouth shut and changed the password. Flash forward 20 plus years and it seems so inconsequential. Sure, Internet security is an oxymoron like homeland security. Security at work or on your own device is important as long as it doesn’t get in your way of doing things like talking with others, getting work done, playing games, watching videos, listening to music. People don’t want to jump over a bunch of hurdles. They want speed, reliability. Anything else and they’re outta’ there!

Big Business
Last year, hacking was big business – more than 3.8 million records compromised. And more than a third of them were held by banks, financial institutions.

Prime Targets – Last year was not one that security experts want to relive, but they know the record number of attacks is only the beginning of even bigger breaches.

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