Mona N.

July, 31 2008: Google Tech Talks. re: Security implications and visions moving forward in consumer driven B2C and B2B markets (Currently running in background while surfing... nothing new, just reinforcement) - Mona N.

The problem is that Enterprise software is asstastic so that consultants / trainers / programmers have job security. It's a policy inherent in the system. It doesn't need to be friendly. If Enterprise apps need friendlier interfaces, and consumer apps need better security modeling - it's heading to the middle. - l0ckergn0me

But where is the line, that would please all parties involved? Sooner or later, this market is going to start resembling the Health Care business model. The question is, how do we or can we (as consumers) prevent that? - Mona N.

Well, it's like the presenter said, people are using "these apps" already - outside of an enterprise environment. That's how it changes - not from decisions handed down from on high, but from a groundswell of support from below. - l0ckergn0me

Right, so how would you propose 'spreading the word' per se, to make the consumer manipulate the flow of the B2C market? - Mona N.

It has to be organic - and that's where we have to be patient. You can't force change down anybody's throats. Not to beat a dead horse (and believe me, mine is just about as dead as dead can be), but look at the iPhone and how Apple is trying to stick its design-centric foot in an overtly-utilitarian arena. Spreading the word comes from using and sharing and talking and learning and... youth. Tomorrow's workforce is not going to put up with government "cheese" when they've been used to eating caviar. - l0ckergn0me

Hell, I wouldn't even *TOUCH* Lotus Notes back in 2000 - despite it being the groupware app for TechTV in the day. I didn't care, as a user, how powerful the backend was - I've always been a software experience connoisseur. Most people, however, are not. They're used to shit, even on their home desktop (Windows - HELLO?!). As their home experiences evolve, so will their expectations - but it takes time. As more apps move to the Web, the more likely enterprise will be FORCED to change. It's a slow crawl... - l0ckergn0me

Ya, but no one gives a crap. People dont' care about prevention, it's all about b*tching about it after the fact.. History keeps repeating itself. Look at Apple. It's slowly moving towards the Microsoft monopoly pattern and no one cares.Heck, we're contributing by labeling ourselves "early adopters" or "that's Apple" and excusing them for releasing unreliable products. - Mona N.

IT systems should be top-down at the server end, bottom up on the client end. Microsoft is/has been making a HUGE mistake with this by not releasing a full featured Outlook for OS X. But ActiveSync/Exchange OTA is on a TON of different mobile devices, and I'm starting to question (but not yet abandon) my BlackBerry for the new Treo (at least for my day job). Enterprises succeed by standardizing at the top, but productivity gets maximized when users at the other end can use what makes them comfortable. - Andrew Feinberg

I'm certainly not excusing Apple about the clusterfuck known as iPhone OS 2.0 (and you know that), but most people are used to blaming themselves - and turning to someone else to help them. "I'm helpless! The software doesn't work! I suck!" And sometimes software is made to make people feel helpless, confused, etc. - this ethos is replete throughout many enterprise-level apps. If software requires training, it should be taken out in the back and shot. We're not early adopters, we're tastemakers. - l0ckergn0me

*waiting for enterprise software apologists to chime in, but they seem to be (a) not on FriendFeed, (b) doing something else this weekend since working with software is likely a job and not a passion* - l0ckergn0me

Andrew: But we (the consumers) haven't had the choices we currently do. The market is shifting so the power can lie in the consumer's hands. Hence, corporations we would have NEVER expected, turning over their source codes. The US mobile market is finally catching up to the rest of the world, and we see how huge of an impact this country has, since the rest of the world is scrambling. ie: Nokia and Symbian merger. We're at a brink of a HUGE technical power shift so IMHO, it's imperative more than ever, for - Mona N.

consumers to take charge... There's no crucial time than NOW, but it's maddening to see no one cares. - Mona N.

You can't make someone care, Mona - they either do, or don't. And the last thing they're likely to "care" about is the software they MUST USE at work. How do we get them to care? We give them comparisons, and that (as you so rightfully pointed out) is exactly what's happening in the marketplace outside the enterprise today. The consumers need more, better, RELEVANT tools. How do you know something sucks? When you find that something else is better. PalmOS < WinMo. WinMo < iPhone. - l0ckergn0me

@chris: how well does the exchange sync on iPhone work? - Andrew Feinberg

Andrew - Exchange sync on the iPhone works astoundingly well. Painless, from setup to usage. It's a *FANTASTIC* user experience that makes the complexity of Exchange *INVISIBLE* to the average user. It doesn't hand me a Swiss Army knife with all the blades extended. Of course, the rest of the iPhone 2.0 OS has been just about anything but painful for me. Ironic? - l0ckergn0me

hmmmm...i'm still hung up keyboard + battery life. Can I have more than one exchange account at once? That'd be a killer implementation for me. - Andrew Feinberg

Chris: Agreed. Well, with mobile browsing increasing, we're seeing everyday sites becoming more mobile friendly, and companies are experimenting, whether it be using two style sheets (mobile view/desktop view ie: Facebook) or redirecting (friendfeed.com/iphone) or plain and simply overhauling (delicio.us).... IMO, sites and services are experimenting, hence my need and sense of urgency to act on this NOW and mold - Mona N.

the future market, as opposed to complaining about it down the road. So my question is.. how? How do we get people to utilize the Social Networking median as a way to get people to care. How do we spread the word so people would actually start caring? - Mona N.

That's a beautiful call-to-action. We have to give "them" direction, not the other way around. It may begin with providing open feedback (raw, unfiltered feedback) - like many bloggers, yourself included, do when a new service / software is released to the world. Given the amount of opinions floating throughout FF, I'm quite surprised that Andrew and I are seemingly the only people interested in this topic. - l0ckergn0me

Very interesting. Enjoyed the part about how hard it is for businesses to get to their customers. Heck, it's difficult to even get to your own employees if your organization is large and decentralized. - Kevin

Chris: So basically 1.blogging 2. utilizing Social Networking outlets such as FriendFeed to re-share 3. repeat the cycle?Is that really going to get people to care? I mean this post is the best example. No one is participating aside from the two of us, and folks that aren't even subscribed to me lol. Oh, the irony. - Mona N. via fftogo

I have been wanting to participate in this but YouTube is being a pain and won't let me watch the vid. So maybe I'm off base here, but I think there's an issue, especially in large enterprises, where they don't let their employees use the "cool, new, better" consumer services as a matter of policy for security or productivity reasons. What they don't realize is that people are often a lot more productive when they can use tools they LIKE. I'm not sure how to deal with the security issue, though. - Lindsay Donaghe

My previous employer, who is a child company of Microsoft, had a technical conference for about 200 of it's top architects/developers. There was a surprise keynote given by a guy from Google's business apps division. Some people were receptive, but he got a lot of hammering on security issues, especially the idea of having a client company store their business-critical data on Google's servers which are subject to search and seizure by the US government. - Lindsay Donaghe

Mona - What gets people to care is incentive and relevance. When you share a perspective on an issue they care about, or a tool they never knew they needed, or didn't realize even existed - you're feeding the cycle. It's why Google will always bring you more traffic than just about any source on the Web today - because people are searching for information, assistance, answers. They only care because they have to care - you care because you just DO. Show them how it could be, get them excited about software. - l0ckergn0me

Lindsay: That's exactly why this topic interests me so much. It's not because of Google or security, or even the word conundrum. It's the mere fact that the market IS changing. We (the consumers) can potentially free ourselves from teh constraints of what the corporations dictate as 'our needs', so software and services are catered TO us, as opposed to AT us. That way, we no longer have to hear about NDA this and even they (internally) aren't aware of developments, and supply and demand, and bla bla bla. The market is shifting towards a consumer driven one, and as a consumer, I definitely want to partake in it... FF is one of the BEST examples, since we see FFers (fftogo, Greasemonkey, Noiseriver etc) giving us what we want, and not the other way around... Imagine if it were like this ALL across the board :) - Mona N.

@Chris: It's not that I care just because... It's more so the power we (consumers) potentially have...? Or maybe it's simply, I'm a control freak...? HA - Mona N.

Any other thoughts? :) - Mona N.

Other thought - What chris said 'bout incentive. I showed Friendfeed to a non-tech friend of mine, and he was totally not impressed. Then I showed him the conversation around Mona being drunk a coupla weeks ago, and then Mona accusing me of not having seen Star Wars, and then Michelle's Brown series of posts, and the reactions to the Earthquake and Mitchell Tsai's shares - - Yuvi (has IRL friends!)

He said 'Dude, these are my kinda people!'. And he's joining up. Had I kept on about powershell and blogging and the A-List - things he doesn't give a shit about, he wouldn't have cared. But, when I showed him things he *already cared about*, but in a new way, it stuck. - Yuvi (has IRL friends!)

No, I didn't make sense. - Yuvi (has IRL friends!)

Yuvi: That makes perfect sense :) Chris is absolutely correct, in saying no one cares w/out relevance to them. Yuvi, as a blogger, do you include Statbot in your main blog? Why or why not? - Mona N.

@Mona - Branding issues? Statbot isn't supposed to remain just a blog forever - it's supposed to be a pseudo-startup - most of the benefits, none of the risks, slower than a snail's pace. I could call it a hobby website, but pseudo-startup is cooler-sounding :P - Yuvi (has IRL friends!)