Zoom, the video conference company, just updated their Terms of Service. Section 10.4 lets them use your meeting content to train machine learning and AI models. They could use this to duplicate your expertise, if you deliver your expertise via Zoom. This could put...
My article on Skype exposing address books to the world has gone mini-viral. Written in 2017, it's gotten dozens of citations in early 2019. A reporter approached me, asking if the problem still exists. After doing some research, here's what I've found. Microsoft’s...
It’s holiday time! My gift today is the story of a recent decision. You may want to try it. It's made life a bit more effortful, but it's produced real results. It has paid off in both expected and unexpected ways. Whoa! I quit Facebook. I quit Facebook. Yeah, it’s...
It's an old adage that "What gets measured, gets managed." I'd like to add, "what gets managed, gets manipulated." That adage is usually used to discuss how people are paid. If you pay a bonus based on quarterly results, some people will manipulate the timing of sales...
Cryptocurrencies and ICOs (initial coin offerings) are hot right now. Entrepreneurs are raising millions with them. But how do they work? How should investors, entrepreneurs, and markets think about them? Here’s what I’ve learned so far about how ICOs and coin-offerings work.
UPDATE: February 14, 2019: Since writing this article in late 2017, Microsoft seems to have made a change that makes it a bit harder to reverse engineer someone's address book, but most of the problem remains. You can read my update on how Skype still...
I believed these lies for most of my life. Recently, the conventional wisdom started seeming suspect. I called several mid-career classmates and asked about their successes and failures. Upon close examination, much of what I had believed to be true about careers did not seem to hold.
SnapChat just revised their privacy policy. I decided to read it. It looked pretty good. Then I got to the section How We Use Your Information. How does SnapChat use the information? To provide services. To communicate with me. To monitor trends. And so on. The final...
Being in the self-help space to some degree, I see an awful lot of products designed to "boost your brainpower." This is an interesting value proposition, but it's incomplete. You need to ask: how will you use the boosted brainpower? What will you expect it to do that...
I just spent a week camping at a festival. We were in a far away place, with no power outlets and only spotty cell phone coverage. It seemed best to put my iPhone away and spend the entire time disconnected. Logging into Facebook, checking my email, and returning to...