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Articles and Blogs of Note – February 2015

January into February are often lean months for good news stories outside of real major world events.  From a technology standpoint, three threads really stood out, security, email etiquette and the effect of mobile devices on our wellbeing.  In the light of the Sony hacking offensive the emphasis on cyber crine and email etiquette is not surprising. Here are our top five articles and blogs of note.

Articles of note

1. Sony hacking saga – the true reputational damage as Amy Pascal steps down.   A summary of events and the cost to personal professional lives when a hacker finds email which should never have been sent in the first place.
2. Being a good diplomat takes more than Ferrero Rocher.  Appalled at the lack of language and social skills, the Foreign Office set up a new Academy to enable its Diplomats to regain their standing overseas.  They will be taught not only languages such as Mandarin but also how to use social media.  Will the courses extend to email etiquette and when its more effective to use pen and paper rather than email?  There is also a very good article in The Times with some tips and hints which might give anyone a competitive advantage during sales negotiation (but you need a subscription to read it).
3. FTSE 350 cyber governance health check tracker report.  Although aimed at larger organisations, it makes excellent reading for every business owner and IT Director.
4. Symantec cyber crime survival guide.  A short video on how to reduce the risk of a cyber attack and manage the after effects.  You can download a handy aid memoir.  Interestingly user education is a key point.
5. Switching on outside office risks relationships. A new study from Surrey University has found that the long hours culture predicated by mobile devices and email overload is increasing levels of stress.

If email security, email etiquette or the impact of email overload on well being are on your agenda for 2015, why not contact Mesmo Consultancy now for a free consultation? Either call us on +44 (0)1202 434340 or email us.

Tags: Articles of note, cyber crime, email etiquette, email overload, email security, Sony hacking, well being

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Books on the bedside table

Books of Note

The last few months have been spent catching up with the backlog from November and December especially the Innovators by Walter Isaacson.   In addition to a digital history lesson, it contains many lessons in how to manage technology innovation and the people associated with it.  This month is a mix of new and old books which warrant mention.

New Books

1.  The Organized Mind by Daniel Levitin.  This is perhaps my book of the year.  Have you found yourself unable to make a decision because of the choice of options, for example buying breakfast cereal, a fibre tip pen etc? Choice is good as it provides a competitive environment, but it is also creating massive information overload. Levitin’s main proposition is that mobile devices are shrinking our brain power because they offer so many distractions.   As a result we find ourselves unable to focus and through acute information overload.  Levitin offers an insight to how our brains function and why email addiction is so prevalent.  Through case histories he offers some practical advise to improve help us regain our power to think strategically and improve our performance.
2. It’s Complicated – the social lives of networked teens by Danah Boyd.  Do you want to understand the digital world  through the eyes of the millenials and for that matter your own children? What attracts them on-line and what turns them off?  This book provides some answers and a useful insight in to the on-line behaviour of the youth of today.

Old Books

For a client assignment, I recently re-read two classics on change management.  Both are short and written over ten years ago.  However, the underlying themes and guidance on why and how to change still resonate.  Indeed they feel even more current in today’s world where the pace of change is now so fast that if you take a month off you might find you need to re-skill or worse still extinct.

1. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson.  Written as a parable – it’s very amusing and thought provoking about the need to let go and move on, otherwise you might find ‘you become extinct’.
2. Our Iceberg Is Melting by John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber.  Similarly written as a fable this time about penguins.  It has a useful eight step change management plan and an underlying theme of reverse mentoring.

Tags: Books of note, Change management, Danah Boyd, Daniel Levitin, email addiction, information overload

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Sony hack – the real reputation damage as Amy Pascal Steps down

Reputational damage always follows a major cyber crime hack.  It was only a matter of time before we saw the real fall out from the recent Sony hacking

Email disasters

offensive, in terms of the damage to personal reputations (and possibly still the business’s reputation).  Today is the start, with Amy Pascal feeling she should resign. It has always been my view that Barclays Bank Libor emails cost the bank and its management team more in reputational damage than the actual fine.  They slipped out of the top 100 most trusted companies.  Had the press not found those damaging emails, they would not have been the focus of such media attention.  After all many other banks were in a similar position.

An unprecedented hack as happened to Sony will be forgiven, but not the vitriolic emails which show the company management culture is such disarray.

The moral is of course to think, think and think again before hitting send.  Ask yourself. ‘what if a hacker found this email’. If you really cannot manage your impulsive behaviour then the solution is slow email and set a rule to delay sending all your email by a few minutes to allow for cooling off.

How well are you managing to reduce the risk to you and your business becoming the stars of the next email-gate media disaster?  Contact us now to hear how we have helped other organisations protect their professional image by more effective email management.

Tags: Amy Pascal, email disasters, email management, Sony hacking 2014, Sony hacking scandal

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Articles of Note – predictions for 2015

With the exception of the Sony cyber crime attack, which has been discussed, all this month’s articles of note relate to technology trends for 2015.

1. TechRepublic offered some excellent tips for any IT department wanting to create a better customer experience.  Click here for more.
2. Many feel wearables and drones will dominate 2015 if the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics show anything to go by.  Click here for more.
3. Cloud and 3D printing feature of Gartner’s list.  Click here for more.
4. For others is ‘the internet of all things’ and data analysis.  Click here for more.
5. For SMEs there was an interesting article from Hiscox on digital media trends. Click here to read more.

What do you feel will dominate 2015 in terms of technological innovations?  Will wearables and drones come of age?

Tags: 2015 predictions, Articles of note

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Email – will it survive 2015?

A year from now, will we still be using email as the prima face business communications tool?  That is the question I am always asked at this time of year.  In a word ‘yes’.  It is not only the most durable technological innovation, but in essence it has changed little in its thirty year life cycle.  It is still a lean and mean messaging system, all be it we have bent it to be all things to all people, (from a channel through which to manage people, make them redundant and invite them for sex tonight).   However, here are five things I do foresee with respect to email which may also help reduce email overload.

The future of email

1. The trend towards pen and paper will continue and especially as upmarket fountain pens and beautiful writing paper become objects of desire.
2. Increasingly people will disconnect whilst on leave and after working hours following the example set in 2014.
3. Pull rather than push information cultures will be more common as organisations switch to using social media and internal discussion forums to replace email conversations and share knowledge quickly.
4. Email software such as Unified Inbox which can aggregate your electronic messages will come of age (from email to social media messages).
5. Standards of email etiquette will improve as organisations seek ways to limit the fall out from cyber crime attacks like the Sony one.

Consequently, email overload may become less of a drain on people’s productivity as we learn to change our email behaviour. However, it will be important not to replace one set of bad behaviours with another.  A change in email behaviour needs to be carefully managed and we at Mesmo Consultancy will be pleased to share how with you how we have helped other organisations make this transition.

Where do you feel we will be with email by the end of 2015?  Will it still be the dominant backbone of  business communications?

Tags: cyber crime, disconnect on leave, Email behaviour, email overload, Mesmo Consultancy, pen and paper, Unified inbox

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