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Wednesday, August 28, 2002
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 Wednesday, August 28, 2002
started 8/28/2002; 9:25:50 AM - last post 8/30/2002; 3:43:35 AM
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Doc Searls - Wednesday, August 28, 2002 
8/28/2002; 1:25:50 PM (reads: 7661, responses: 2)
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Hm. 
| | This is interesting. Wondering: Would Apple object if you wrote a product for Macs that competes with iDVD and allows the user to burn DVDs on non-Apple hardware? |
Marc his words
| | Marc Canter has been putting together a new blog. It's not done yet (are they ever?) and it's gonna move to someplace a bit more permanent (are they ever?) next week or something. Anway I like it. Lots of meat in it already. And it's good to have his Marc's voice among us. Pun intended. |
Tabula Goza
| | The first thing I noticed about Beth Goza on the plane to Des Moines was her amazing laptop. She was two seats away, and I was pretending not to look. But it was hard not to. It was clearly a tablet/laptop of some sort. The brands I could read were Acer and XP. It looked way cool. |
| | After she mentioned my name (!) to her friend sitting between us, I felt free to jump into the conversation. |
| | I played with it a bit. It's veerrry nice. Much more smooth and intiutive in a GUI way than I'm used to finding stuff from Microsoft. |
| | Hate to give the Beast from Redmond a good idea, but what the hell: One great way to sell this is to seed it among a bunch of bloggers and let nature take its course. |
| | Think of it this way: bloggers are a "major publishing company" too. |
More is more
| | There is a myth that trade secrets and corporate strategies should be kept close to the vest when the reality is that it is not possible or even desireable for most competititors to copy or steal these ideas. |
| | The basic problem any community or industry has with communication is in not communicating enough. |
| | I'm always amazed by people who keep their great ideas secret because they think somebody is going to steal them. |
| | Here's the problem, I tell them. Those people who might steal your secret? They're busy. They don't have time for it. They're not interested, either. They've got enough trouble just trying to make their own crap work. |
| | There are cases where companies really can't talk about their new stuff because they know it'll hurt sales of what they're selling right now. This is the famous Osborne Efffect. |
| | But most great new ideas aren't even close to products being sold now. Dean Kamen's Segway is a perfect example. It would be selling far better today if he hadn't been so damn secretive about it for all those years he was developing it. |
Pickng up where I blogged off
| | "You've found a Blogbabe," she'd scream at me, her pretty face streaked with tears. "It's you and Locke and Doc Searls. At the end of the day, you treat us as sex objects. You're all the same." I've pleaded my case for several months now, but it was only when Shelley and Elaine uncovered the full extent of the shameful blogbabe body parts ring being run by Locke and Doc Searls that she realized I had no part in it. Thinking I'd deserted her, instead of realizing that I thought the same of her, she'd even gone to the extent of coloring her hair to win me back. |
| | All clear now? Thought so. |
Like I sorta said:
| | In her latest (second link above) she begs to differ with the whole Corporate Blogging thing: |
| | Although I'm interested in the development of corporate blogging, which Dave Winer (http://www.scripting.com), Doc Searls (http://doc-weblogs.com), Phil and truckloads of other people are following, I'm not convinced that a CEO's blog is the solution to any particular problem and may be a problem in and of itself... |
| | Public blogging is potentially an enormous risk for corporations. Imagine a Palm employee posting details on the company's color display screwup shortly before the inevitable lawsuit is filed (http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,54727,00.html). Why would a corporation take such a risk? After all, the Coca-Cola folks seem to be doing just fine without a blog strategy. |
| | The biggest problems are legal. We have free speech as individuals outside corporations, but not inside. The speech of corporations is highly regulated by the SEC, the FDA and other toothy bureaucracies. Corporations also make much bigger targets for lawsuits. Prudence alone makes corporate blogging (except entirely inside the firewall) an oxymoron. |
Less Zilla
| | I just replaced Mozilla 1.0 with Mozilla 1.1. It saved none of my settings, and I'm a bit lost here. So I'm wondering: Why does it not accumulate a history (it stays blank, even though it's set to remember 9 days)? How do I repopulate my shortcut bar (or whatever that's called)? How do I restore the retractable pane on the left side of the window? All kinda non-obvious. |
| | I'd also love it if Mozilla did form-filling like IE does it, in addition to its own batch-mode way (which I also like, for some purposes). |
Crossblog flog
Summercide
| | It's August 28. Summer's almost gone. (Today's music: The Doors' song by that same title, from the perfect Strange Days album.) I haven't gone hiking, camping or swimming in the ocean. I bought a bike and rode it nowhere, other than up the street a few times with the kid. |
| | Time flies when you're having fun, yes; but the older you get, the faster it flies. |
| | Well, at least I'm having fun. |
discuss
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gavin long - Re: Wednesday, August 28, 2002
8/28/2002; 5:00:55 PM (reads: 652, responses: 0)
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> I just replaced Mozilla 1.0 with Mozilla 1.1. It saved none of my
> settings, and I'm a bit lost here.
Ouch. Sounds like something went pear-shaped. It's supposed to remember settings and stuff across the uninstall/reinstall process (I must have done it about 50 times, and only got bit once so far)
Your problems with history and the sidebar also suggest that there's something wrong with the install.
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Susan Kitchens - Re: More is More (when a secret is too secret)
8/30/2002; 7:43:35 AM (reads: 774, responses: 0)
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I've another example of the unfortunate consequence of secrecy-unto-paranoia; this one is more ignominious.
It's what happens when the Party With The Trade Secret is so cautious about defending said secret that the Party offends potential business partners.
I happen to know of a certain Party whose trade secret consisted of a dazzling implementation, but it was not software code. This Party wanted to meet another Party I knew. Naturally I was pressed upon to set up an introduction. I obliged, by email.
Party With The Trade Secret visits Sought Out Party (which, incidentally, was on the prowl for brilliant software engineers). The meeting does not go well. Sought Out Party is not charmed by the abruptness of the post-handshake proffering of Legal Documents. The longer this officious "I won't show you until you sign" discussion takes place, the greater the curiousity of Sought Out Party. This must be some wicked-ass code! The NDA is signed.... and.... what's this? it's... it's...only implementation? Only? Say what?! Bah! (I learn what took place by accounts filled with incredulity on the one hand, and bewilderment on the other.)
Paranoid Secrecy and its accompaniments has strained relations with other business partners, too. Mention of the Party results in much rolling of the eyes and sighs of exasperation.
The Moral of this unfortunate story, aside from its gossip value, is that it's possible to be so secret that you are not able to truly vet your idea and learn its worth. And once in a partnership, distrust and paranoia is a symmetric force: what you do comes back to you, and your business partners will treat you poorly.
. . . . Oh, and if you are reading this, my little story is not about you. Surely not you. It's about some other party I know. Feeling paranoid? Look, it's no secret—I'm not out to get you. ; )
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