Scott Monty | Timeless Wisdom

"We've Always Done it That Way"

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Have you ever questioned a process that makes no sense to you?<br />
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Maybe you're looking at a colleague struggling with something—or even worse, they're doing it mindlessly—and you ask, "why are you doing it like that?"<br />
<br />
And they shrug and say, "That's the way we've always done it."<br />
<br />
Hey, I get the importance of tradition, particularly in families. There are certain rituals we'll perform because that's what we grew up knowing. It's why some families still serve cranberry sauce as a cylindrical column of semi-solid jelly out of a can on Thanksgiving, or why the green bean casserole is still a thing.<br />
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We've always done it that way.<br />
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There's another aspect to this too: it's <i>easy</i>.<br />
<br />
Of course you'll still buy the same cream of mushroom soup, fried onion straws, and green beans: it's programmed into your memory. Why look up a new method of making your own cranberry sauce that's even tastier? It's too much <i>work</i>.<br />
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If you keep mindlessly following a process without questioning it—without testing newer, better alternatives—you're going to find that your company is ripe for disruption.<br />
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Are you talking to new people? Are you reading different things than your colleagues and bringing them fresh perspectives? Are you listening to customers? Are you observing what successful businesses from outside your industry are doing?<br />
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In short, are you trying to innovate? I mean <i>earnestly </i>trying to innovate?<br />
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Is the way you've always done it the <i>best </i>way?<br />
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If not, you may find that there won't be anyone left to share your easy but tired recipes.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices." </i></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: large;">– William James</span></div>
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Or to put it another way:<br />
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Repetition without rigorous reasoning is ridiculous.<br />
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<br />
<i>Image credit: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronation_of_Napoleon_I#/media/File:Jacques-Louis_David_-_The_Coronation_of_Napoleon_(1805-1807).jpg" target="_blank">Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon I and Coronation of the Empress Josephine in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris on 2 December 1804</a> by Jacques-Louis David (Wikipedia - public domain)</i><br />
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"We've Always Done it That Way"

Have you ever questioned a process that makes no sense to you? Maybe you're looking at a colleague struggling with something—or eve...

The Power of a Letter

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<br />
Bass Reeves didn't know how to read or write. But he understood the power of a handwritten letter.<br />
<br />
Reeves was a slave who escaped from his owner during the U.S. Civil War. He settled in what was called Indian Territory and began to raise a family.<br />
<br />
In 1875, he was called on to help clean up Indian Territory, which was part of the classic Old West, with plenty of outlaws who were running wild. From 1875 to 1907, Bass served as deputy U.S. Marshal, and he was legendary for his strength and invincibility.<br />
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One day, Reeves caught up with a couple of Texas murderers he was after, but they captured him and held him hostage. He didn't tell them who he was, so they planned to ask people along the road if they knew him.<br />
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It was a lonely road, and after a while, they got tired of keeping him in tow, so they forced him to dismount and prepared to execute him. They asked him if he had any last words, and Reeves said he had a letter from his wife in his hat, and since he couldn't read, he wondered if they might read it to him.<br />
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They all got off their horses, and he handed them the letter with shaking hands. Once their attention was off of him, the marshal drew his weapon and captured them both, as they were too surprised to react quickly.<br />
<br />
Bass Reeves said he <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/bass-reeves-wild-west-letter-trick" target="_blank">used this trick a number of times</a> in his career.<br />
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<h2>
<b>The unexpected makes an impact, every time</b></h2>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>“A letter always seemed to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend.” </i></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: large;">– Emily Dickinson</span></div>
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When's the last time you wrote someone a letter?<br />
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I'm not talking about an email or a text message. I mean an honest to goodness, old fashioned, handwritten letter.<br />
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You know, like the kind your grandmother probably wrote to you when you were a kid.<br />
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For personal use? What about for business? It's probably been a while, hasn't it?<br />
<br />
When your customers are out there trying to figure out how to maximize their Snapchat Stories, or how many photos they should put in an Instagram Carousel, or even how many catalogues to send out, it's a great opportunity to step in with your personal notes.<br />
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In other words, zig when everyone else is zagging.<br />
<br />
I see news about people using Facebook less — even the 15 million Millennials that Facebook lost last year. The pendulum is swinging, and people are opting for more private, intimate conversations. Maybe in groups or chat rooms. Texts and DMs. And in that context, they're ready for something that makes them feel special and unique.<br />
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That's what the written word does. It says to the recipient, "You matter. You matter enough for someone to sit down, keep themselves away from a screen, and think about what it is that they're saying to you."<br />
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Back when I was at Ford, I once sent a handwritten note and a Ford lapel pin to someone I met at a conference who said she was a fan. She wrote about the experience on her site and shared how different an experience that was. <a href="https://www.scottmonty.com/2018/11/human-emotions-win-every-time.html" target="_blank">I wrote about it a few months ago</a>.<br />
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Did it take an effort to do that? Sure. But that's what made it treasured.<br />
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The only thing is, you need to pay attention — to your customers, to your employees, to people that matter — if you want to be inspired enough to make a difference.<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>"If you would not be forgotten, as you as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing." </i></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: large;">– Benjamin Franklin</span></div>
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<i>Image credit: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:James_Campbell_-_News_from_My_Lad_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg">News from my Lad</a> by James Campbell, 1859 (Wikimedia Commons - public domain)</i>

The Power of a Letter

Listen to this commentary Bass Reeves didn't know how to read or write. But he understood the power of a handwritten letter. Re...

Tune That Name

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<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<i>"Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;</i></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<i>'Twas mine; 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;</i></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<i>But he that filches from me my good name</i></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<i>Robs me of that which not enriches him,</i></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<i>And makes me poor indeed."</i></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: right;">
– William Shakespeare (<i>Othello</i>)</h4>
<br />
Iago's speech in <i>Othello</i> is about <a href="https://www.scottmonty.com/2019/02/how-much-is-your-reputation-worth.html" target="_blank">reputation</a>, and how it's more valuable than money (which is ironic, given Iago's own manipulative nature).<br />
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But he mentions one's "good name." Your name is your identity. It's what binds you to your family, your friends, and your accomplishments.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>“A person's name is to that person, the sweetest, most important sound in any language.”</i></b> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: large;">– Dale Carnegie </span><span style="font-size: medium;">[<a href="https://ctt.ac/7XJc7" target="_blank">tweet this</a>]</span></div>
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Carnegie was right. After all, he's the self-help guru who wrote How to Win Friends and Influence People, and he helped countless acolytes learn how to deal with people and make themselves welcome anywhere.<br />
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He recounts a story about Theodore Roosevelt visiting the White House one day when President Taft was away. While he was there, he greeted the White House servants by name, right down to the scullery maid. He even asked Alice if she still made corn bread.<br />
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As you might imagine, the staff was tickled. They talked about it for years afterward. Why? Because Roosevelt showed genuine interest in them and engaged them personally.<br />
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<h2>
<b>The Power of the Personal</b></h2>
What's one thing we all have in common? That humans, regardless of gender, race, geography, or even epoch, crave?<br />
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We all want attention.<br />
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Not in the infantile, sociopathic-narcissistic way. But we simply want to be acknowledged. We want to be recognized as individuals.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>"No more fiendish punishment could be devised…than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof." </i></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: large;">– William James</span></div>
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One of the most basic ways of expressing this is to call someone by name. We all recognize the sound of our name, and it sounds even sweeter when spoken by someone we know, respect, or admire.<br />
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Your name is your identity. It's one of the first things you heard from your parents. And in some ways, it carves a path for your future. My friend and fellow marketer David Berkowitz <a href="https://mailchi.mp/8a9f1597de55/1xoh13wl0v-642181?e=31f41658d1" target="_blank">recently opined on names in his Serial Marketer newsletter</a>, musing about whether or not your name predetermines your success. It may very well do so.<br />
<br />
In the realm of the modern marketer, your name is the key to unlocking a relationship with you. With marketing technology being as advanced as it is, there's no reason a brand can't know who you are and address you accordingly. This is the promise of personalization.<br />
<br />
Of course, it goes beyond that: customizing content based on your previous actions, knowing your preferences, etc. But your name — that should be table stakes. Woe betide the email marketer whose algorithm slips up and you receive a Dear {FIRST_NAME} salutation.<br />
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Which brings me to a pet peeve. It's an earwig of sorts, perhaps acquired by virtue of my kids watching countless YouTube videos that begin the same way:<br />
<br />
"Hi guys!"<br />
<br />
But I've also run into this frequently when listening to podcasts.<br />
<br />
My issue is this: when a podcaster (like me) is speaking to you, I'm speaking directly to you — likely directly into your head via earbuds or headphones. Maybe you're commuting. Or perhaps you're at the gym. Or listening at your desk. Or walking down the street.<br />
<br />
Whatever the situation, I'm speaking directly to you. You! Even if you're in car, listening with your family or your fellow commuters. This is meant for you. Now, I can't address you by name in a pre-recorded show (unless there was an audio version of mail merge and I created thousands of different versions and emailed you directly).<br />
<br />
But if I opened with, "Hey guys," you'd immediately sense the difference. It's less personal.<br />
<br />
Because I can't get so personal with you here (a podcast or blog post is too one-sided), here's what I'd like to suggest: I'm inviting you to tell me something about yourself. Tell me about a business challenge you're currently dealing with — a board member, a boss, a colleague, a project, a strategic imperative. I'm interested to hear what's going on with you right now.<br />
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Maybe you just need a sympathetic ear. Or you're looking for some feedback — it's always nice to do a gut check with someone else. Whatever it is, let's turn the tables.<br />
<br />
Send me a note or an mp3 via email at fullmonty AT scottmonty DOT com. Or leave a comment in the comments section of the website.<br />
<br />
By the law of averages, most readers or listeners won't do this.<br />
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But <b><i>you</i></b>? I have a feeling you <b><i>will</i></b>.<br />
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<i>Image credit: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Othello%27s_Lamentation.jpg" target="_blank">Othello's Lamentation</a> by William Salter, 1857 (Wikimedia Commons - public domain)</i>

Tune That Name

Listen to this commentary "Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; 'Twas mine; 'tis his, and h...

The Differences Between Generations Span Centuries

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<br />
We've all heard the expressions before: "Kids these days" / "You don’t know how good you’ve got it" / "In my day…" etc.<br />
<br />
There seems to be a general disdain for the younger generation by the older generations.<br />
<br />
The latest is of course, Millennials, who seem to be everyone's favorite target. Hall of Fame keynote speaker <a href="http://unmarketing.com/" target="_blank">Scott Stratten</a> does an excellent job of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TIN5yMDld0" target="_blank">summing up how we view the next generation</a>:<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>"What we mean when we say 'Millennials' is…people younger than us and we don't like them." </b></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: large;">— Scott Stratten</span></div>
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The fact is, every age experiences a generation gap, where elders don't understand the younger generation. It's a time-honored tradition.<br />
<br />
In the first century B.C., Cicero, in his oration against Verres, a corrupt government official in Rome, lamented about the decay of society when he said <b><i>“O tempora o mores!”</i></b> which translates as <b>"Oh the times! Oh the customs!"</b><br />
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And as we'll see, disagreements between generations over decisions and beliefs are nothing new. If you understand the patterns of inter-generational differences, you'll be better prepared for dealing with where we are today.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<b>Putting it in Context</b></h2>
Cicero wasn't the first to bemoan the changing values of his time. In "<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/985800?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents" target="_blank">The Generation Gap in Antiquity</a>" (in <i>Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society</i>) my old classics professor <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Reinhold" target="_blank">Meyer Reinhold</a> wrote:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"As early as the 25th century B.C., the older generation in authoritarian Egypt had to 'work at it' to mold the younger generation in its own image."</blockquote>
<br />
And the ancient Greeks were familiar with generational strife too. Greek mythology brings us Cronus and his jealousy of the power of his father Uranus that ended with Cronus castrating him. And then Cronus devoured his own children after learning they would eventually overthrow him.<br />
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The Jewish faith tried to codify filial piety with the Ten Commandments that emphasizes "honor thy father and mother."<br />
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And Romans associated the term "youth" with shallowness, foolishness, and ineptitude.<br />
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This kind of view from one generation to the next was something that each generation of elders and youth dealt with, and every society has struggled with it.<br />
<br />
But what are we to do with it, in our own time?<br />
<br />
The historian Robert Green was able to map out a pattern, which he said corresponded to four generations, that makes history move in four acts. (<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Laws-Human-Nature-Robert-Greene/dp/0525428143/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=The+Laws+of+Human+Nature&qid=1553722998&s=gateway&sr=8-1" target="_blank">The Laws of Human Nature</a></i>, Viking: New York, 2018. p. 541)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The first generation is that of the revolutionaries who make a radical break with the past. Often in this generation there are some great leaders of prophets who influence the direction of the revolution and leave their stamp on it. Then along comes a second generation that craves some order. They are still feeling the heat of the revolution itself, having lived through it early age, but they want to stabilize the world, establish some conventions and dogma.<br />
<br />
"Those of the third generation — having little direct connection to the founders of the revolution — feel less passionate about it. They are pragmatists. They want to solve problems and make life as comfortable as possible. Along comes the fourth generation, which feels that society has lost its vitality, but they are not sure what should replace it. They begin to question the values they have inherited, some becoming quite cynical. Nobody knows what to believe in. A crisis of sorts emerges. Then comes the revolutionary generation, which, unified around some new belief, finally tears down the old order, and the cycle continues…"</blockquote>
<br />
Think about where that places us right now. If we go back four generations, we find the Silent Generation, who was born during the Great Depression and came of age during World War II; this group was naturally conservative and hesitant about things, but they valued stability, predictability, and material things. Then the Baby Boomers, who rebelled against the stilted norms of their parents and opted for personal expression and idealism that the 1960s brought.<br />
<br />
Following that period of upheaval, Generation X was practical and confrontational, valuing self-reliance but also addressing hypocrisy and impracticalities of their utopian parents' generation. Then come the Millennials, who lived through terrorism and the financial crisis; they went the opposite direction of Gen X's individualism and instead opted for security and teamwork, and avoided confrontation.<br />
<br />
So here we are in 2019, a product of the preceding generations. It's only natural that the older generation ― in this case the second generation in Greene's summary ― wants to keep things the way they are, while the fourth generation ― Millennials ― wants to disrupt.<br />
<br />
We've seen this play out in recent stories regarding the future of the entertainment industry. In one case, <b>Bob Greenblatt</b>, the CEO of AT&T's direct-to-consumer business and WarnerMedia Entertainment (new home of HBO) <a href="https://bgr.com/2019/03/05/hbo-vs-netflix-interview/" target="_blank">said</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Netflix doesn't have a brand. It's just a place you go to get anything."</blockquote>
Now, I don't know if '<b>HBO and chill</b>' is a thing, but one could argue that Netflix has a very strong brand. But even if it didn't, it's eating the lunch of the traditional media companies. Which, just like Cronus, has them panicked.<br />
<br />
Similarly, <b>Steven Spielberg</b> recently planned to <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/03/steven-spielberg-netflix-oscars-rule-change" target="_blank">propose a rule change</a> that would rule Netflix films ineligible to receive Oscars at an upcoming Academy Board of Governors meeting.<br />
<br />
At the same time, we're familiar with Uber and Airbnb, barging their way into cities, ignoring regulations, and upending traditional modes of doing business.<br />
<br />
Like any generational conflict, there are valid views on each side. But this setup of generation versus generation is nothing new.<br />
<br />
Millennials aren't any different than any other fourth generation of the past.<br />
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The Differences Between Generations Span Centuries

Listen to this commentary We've all heard the expressions before: "Kids these days" / "You don’t know how good you...

Tech Companies Are Ethically Challenged

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<br />
As a subject, ethics has occupied the thought of moral philosophers for over 2,000 years. And it doesn’t appear to get too much easier.<br />
<br />
But there are certain events, certain moments in time that we can point to, where we can see the stark difference between right and wrong. And our behaviors should be guided accordingly. For example, just today, the Chairman of House Homeland Security Committee summoned the chiefs of Twitter, YouTube, Facebook & Microsoft to Capitol Hill over their response to the New Zealand attack.<br />
<br />
The question is: are we holding others accountable for their behavior as well?<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” </i></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: large;">– Edmund Burke</span></div>
<br />
The world saw the impact of a terrorist unleashed in two mosques in New Zealand late last week. Rather than try to describe the situation in my own words, I’ll borrow <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/opinion/new-zealand-shooting.html" target="_blank">from The New York Times</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“On Friday, a gunman strapped on a helmet camera, loaded his car with weapons, drove to a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, and began shooting at anyone who came into his line of vision. The act of mass terror was broadcast live for the world to watch on social media.”</blockquote>
<br />
The original video was removed within the first hour, but by then, the damage was already done. Around the world, people copied and uploaded the horrific video to their own accounts and to additional platforms. And the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/15/tech/new-zealand-shooting-video-facebook-youtube/" target="_blank">tech companies had difficulty in taking them all down</a>.<br />
<br />
The A.I. that they’ve developed was too slow in flagging and shutting down violent videos. Some will say, “That’s just how A.I. works. It’s easier to match to known and expected things.” Maybe so. But share a nipple on Instagram or a copyrighted song on YouTube and it’ll get yanked immediately. Not to mention that <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/facebook-can-now-automatically-detect-revenge-porn" target="_blank">Facebook says it can now detect revenge porn automatically</a>.<br />
<br />
And YouTube is notorious for letting nonsense and conspiracy theories flourish, through its recommendation system. For years, concerned employees raised flags and even demonstrated how popular such videos were. And they were met with the same response: <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-04-02/youtube-executives-ignored-warnings-letting-toxic-videos-run-rampant" target="_blank">don't interfere with our cash cow</a> (more bovine references below). YouTube is powered by ads that run on popular videos.<br />
<br />
The sad reality is this:<br />
<br />
Tech companies don’t care enough about curbing hate speech and violence. If they did, they’d have made this a priority.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>“The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings.”</i></b> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: large;">– Albert Schweitzer</span></div>
<br />
Tech companies have engineered a reality in which conspiracy theories and hate are allowed to fester and then go viral, both online and in real life. The power they have unleashed is beyond their comprehension (or at least their expectation). But hate and anger is what fuels the social web. And that drives clicks. And clicks drive revenue<br />
<br />
We’ve long believed that <a href="https://www.scottmonty.com/2018/05/with-great-power-comes-great.html" target="_blank">with great power comes great responsibility</a>. And yet Mark Zuckerberg— who has operated Facebook by apology — wants to control the encrypted conversations of nearly a third of the world’s population.<br />
<br />
At some point, we need to hold such companies to account — not from a regulatory perspective, but from an ethical and human angle. Where is their moral compass?<br />
<br />
At this point, their True North seems to be profitability and user growth. They worship at the altar of the golden calf. Sadly, the only way they may pay attention is from an exodus of users and advertisers.<br />
<br />
Speaking of exodus, that just happens to be <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Exodus" target="_blank">the book</a> in the Torah and Old Testament that includes a story about the people worshiping a golden calf while waiting for Moses to return with the Ten Commandments.<br />
<br />
<b>Update (4/3/2019):</b> <i>The New York Times</i> agrees that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/opinion/facebook-youtube-disinformation.html" target="_blank">it's all about greed</a>.<br />
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<i>Image credit: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gerrit_de_Wet_-_The_Adoration_of_the_Golden_Calf_-_WGA25563.jpg">The Adoration of the Golden Calf</a> by Gerrit de Wet, first half of the 17th century (Wikimedia Commons - public domain)</i></div>
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Tech Companies Are Ethically Challenged

As a subject, ethics has occupied the thought of moral philosophers for over 2,000 years. And it doesn’t appear to get too much easier. ...

Lessons from The Brain Center at Whipple's

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<br />
What is it about technology that makes us think we're inoculated from the errors, pains, and foibles of what it means to be human?<br />
<br />
I'm a big fan of the old <i>Twilight Zone</i> series, and I was recently watching it on Hulu. One of the episodes in the final season is called "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brain_Center_at_Whipple%27s" target="_blank">The Brain Center at Whipple's</a>," and while it was made in the mid-1960s, it is remarkably timeless.<br />
<br />
The episode opens with Mr. Whipple previewing a film with his Chief Engineer: an update that Whipple is making to the board of directors. He assesses the W.V. Whipple Manufacturing Corporation by the numbers: 283,000 personnel, 13 plants, and 34,827 people in one plant.<br />
<br />
He says, "<i>At Whipple's, we only take forward steps</i>," and proceeds to introduce the X109B14 Automatic Assembly Machine, proudly announcing that it will replace 61,000 jobs, 73 machines, and save the company $4 million in employee insurance, welfare, hospitalization, and profit-sharing. And that the entire company would be automated within six months, running from a so-called "Brain Center" filled with similar machines.<br />
<br />
He says all of this without emotion or regret, much to the chagrin of Hanley, the Chief Engineer, who does not approve of "<i>a lot of men out of work</i>." He cautions Whipple about taking men's livelihood and  reason for being away from them, and about Whipple's lack of goodwill and compassion through his "<i>heartless manipulation of man and metals</i>."<br />
<br />
Whipple's response is one rooted in numbers: "<i>I am here to provide efficiency. That is my only concern</i>." And in Whipple's mind, efficiency only comes from machines.<br />
<br />
The episode ends with the board removing Whipple from his job, due to overexertion and the inability to make sound judgments. Cut to his office, where a robot is now handling all of his duties.<br />
<br />
Rod Serling reminds us that this is "<i>the historical battle between flesh and steel. Between the brain of man and the product of man's brain</i>."<br />
<br />
<h2>
<b>Ethics, Efficiency, and Empathy</b></h2>
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<b><i><br />
</i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">"I think technology really increased human ability. But technology cannot produce compassion." </span></i></b></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: large;">– Dalai Lama</span></div>
<br />
This isn't the first example of humans grappling with technology. The term "robot" was first introduced in the 1920s in the play "<a href="https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/the-origin-of-the-word-robot/" target="_blank">Rossum's Universal Robots</a>" by Czech playwright Karl Čapek. The word robota means "forced labor." And robots were certainly a central theme in Fritz Lang's 1927 silent film <i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/" target="_blank">Metropolis</a></i>. I'll spare you the recap, but it was about the conflict between man and machine and lives lost in the process. The film ended with an interstitial card that read:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4Ovhq09wwGw/XJMC7-e3GkI/AAAAAAABD1Y/nVV84S6XYswxz7lyyHLLov7xjEzsMzCQACLcBGAs/s1600/Metropolis%2B-%2BEpigram.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Final interstitial from Metropolis" border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1440" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4Ovhq09wwGw/XJMC7-e3GkI/AAAAAAABD1Y/nVV84S6XYswxz7lyyHLLov7xjEzsMzCQACLcBGAs/s640/Metropolis%2B-%2BEpigram.png" title="The Mediator Between the Head and the Hands Must be the Heart" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Mediator Between the Head and the Hands Must be the Heart</td></tr>
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In <i>Westworld</i> on HBO, we witness android hosts at an American Old West theme park that are programmed with narratives and interact with each other and guests. Meanwhile, guests can do whatever they want to the robot hosts, including murder and rape.<br />
<br />
What is it about technology that makes us distance ourselves from the laws and customs that have been established for thousands of years?<br />
<br />
Part of the answer lies in the drive within Mr. Whipple, who was only concerned with efficiency. Looking at the history of technology, in every case, tools — however crude they were — allowed humans to be more efficient. Stone-tipped spears were more effective at hunting. The wheel allowed us to move large objects more easily. The machine gun and chemical weapons made warfare much more deadly.<br />
<br />
In every case of technology, it removed us one step or more from the task at hand: we didn't risk being maimed by a wild animal during a hunt, construction became less back-breaking, and we didn't have to murder with our bare hands.<br />
<br />
But that distance created a barrier of sorts. Because we aren't so viscerally connected to those and other instances of the infliction of pain, we're less likely to have the empathy that Whipple's chief engineer noted was missing.<br />
<br />
Fast forward to present-day. With artificial intelligence, mounds of data, the Internet of Things, and autonomous everything, we ostensibly have more technology at our disposal than ever before. As a result, we're experiencing a crisis of ethics that seems to take on a daily drumbeat:<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Elizabeth Holmes</b> ran a massive fraud scheme at <b>Theranos</b>, keeping people in the dark about the true nature of the blood test she supposedly invented. The lie was promulgated such that Walgreen's signed a major deal with them, and investors were blinded by their own greed, seeing their paper worth balloon. Even a board member like George Shultz chose to protect his investment rather than to believe his own grandson, the whistleblower behind the downfall.</li>
<li>The <b>Securities and Exchange Commission</b> is suing the former CEO of <b>Volkswagen </b>for the "massive fraud" behind the diesel emissions scandal. By using a simple bit of software, Volkswagen was able to make emissions cleaner during testing, but left drivers' vehicles as dirty as ever, when they thought they were buying cleaner vehicles.</li>
<li>And <b>Facebook</b>. Oh, Facebook. They've used <a href="https://www.scottmonty.com/2019/03/whens-last-time-you-heard-proper-apology.html" target="_blank">half-hearted apologies</a> as their strategy for too long. And the <b>Cambridge Analytica</b> scandal brought even more focus to them, as did their inability to curtail the Christchurch shooting video. Facebook has made it clear that they continue to <a href="https://medium.com/@scottmonty/a-little-matter-of-ethics-93e92af331ee" target="_blank">worship at the altar of the golden calf</a> rather than try to protect users. As <b>Scott Galloway</b> recently said on the Pivot podcast, "<a href="https://www.iheart.com/podcast/358-pivot-with-kara-swisher-an-29927080/episode/live-from-sxsw-its-kara-and-30695455/" target="_blank">Have any two individuals done more damage while making more money than <b>Mark Zuckerberg</b> and <b>Sheryl Sandberg</b>?</a>"</li>
</ul>
<br />
In every one of these instances, technology is at the core. But here's the thing: the technology isn't to blame. Humans are. In each of those cases, a human made the decision to say, "I have a choice between right and wrong. And I'm choosing wrong."<br />
<br />
The technology just made it easier for them to accept what they thought: that they weren't causing direct harm.<br />
<br />
I don't think it's any coincidence that there are three books that have just been released that all deal with this in one way or another:<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Shiv Singh and Rohini Luthra</b>'s book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Savvy-Navigating-Companies-Leaders-Post-Trust/dp/1940858720" target="_blank"><i>Savvy: Navigating Fake Companies, Fake Leaders, and Fake News in the Post-Trust Era</i></a> addresses this head-on by looking at how technology has isolated us and engendered a dearth of trust in the marketplace.</li>
<li><b>Amy Webb</b>'s latest book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Big-Nine-Thinking-Machines-Humanity/dp/1541773756" target="_blank"><i>The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans & Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity</i></a> deals with the unintended consequences that we're dealing with, following the implementation of vast amounts of online technology and artificial intelligence.</li>
<li>And <b>Kate O'Neill</b>'s <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Tech-Humanist-Technology-Better-Business-ebook/dp/B07GBHTX9K" target="_blank">Tech Humanist: How You Can Make Technology Better for Business and Better for Humans</a></i> gets to the core of what's needed: better-informed decisions based on how people are affected.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Is it any wonder that we're trying to wrap our heads around this lack of humanity in technology right now? The engineers and programmers that have contributed to this phenomenon have been brilliant technologists in their own right.<br />
<br />
But with any undertaking that affects such a mass of humanity — whether it's the 283,000 employees of the Whipple Manufacturing Corporation or the 2.3 billion people who use Facebook's services — needs to have a leader that understands how humanity may be impacted by decisions.<br />
<br />
In case you haven't been following closely, my theme here is Timeless Wisdom: putting things in perspective and reflecting on how similar struggles were met in the past. It's borne from my own degree in classics and from a collection of Great Books of the Western World. And that's what's missing in a technology-heavy culture: the importance of humanities and a fundamental understanding or awareness of how human beings will react to various forms of technology that are introduced to them.<br />
<br />
To study humanities is to understand humans, as flawed as we are. From head to heart. And we need technology that accounts for both.<br />
<br />
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” </span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">– Aristotle</span></div>
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Lessons from The Brain Center at Whipple's

Listen to this commentary What is it about technology that makes us think we're inoculated from the errors, pains, and foibles of...

When's the Last Time You Heard a Proper Apology?

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<br />
I’m sorry.<br />
<br />
How often do you hear those words? I mean hear them applied sincerely. These days, probably not much.<br />
<br />
The journalist <b>Ambrose Bierce</b> lived from 1842 to 1914 and in The Devil's Dictionary, he wrote that to apologize was “<i>to lay the foundation for a future offence</i>.”<br />
<br />
And isn't that what we constantly see from businesses, celebrities, executives, and more? They're only sorry that they got caught. Because if they were truly sorry, they would have caught the slip-up themselves – not waited until they were outed by the media.<br />
<br />
So they offer their meaningless apology, and it typically smooths things over.<br />
<br />
For a while.<br />
<br />
Until the next time they get caught, doing the same thing over again.<br />
<br />
Do we really need apologies? And for those who offer them, what's the art of making a good one?<br />
<br />
<h2>
<b>How to Properly Apologize</b></h2>
As a father with young children, I had to teach them the art of saying sorry.<br />
<br />
Do you know what sorry means? Well, of course you understand it intuitively, but how would you simply describe what sorry means to a two or three year-old? Think about that for a moment.<br />
<br />
It was an interesting exercise for me as a father.  Here’s how I defined sorry to my kids: when you say sorry it means (a) you didn’t mean to do it and (b) you’ll try not to do it again.<br />
<br />
The first part of the phrase is the easy part. It's what we mean when we apologize for bumping into someone, or making a simple error. It's an instinctive proffer.<br />
<br />
But the second part – I'll try not to do it again – that's what takes effort. You really have to give that part some thought, and then commit to acting differently the next time.<br />
<br />
How often to you say sorry and really mean it?<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>“The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.” </b></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: large;">– P.G. Wodehouse </span><span style="font-size: medium;">[<a href="https://ctt.ac/7tVc3" target="_blank">tweet this quote</a>]</span></div>
<br />
Think about companies that have stepped in it in recent memory. Typically these are companies that have experienced data breaches or that have violated the privacy and trust of their customers – and in many cases have done so intentionally.<br />
<br />
Do you think we want apologies for those things?<br />
<br />
I'd say yes – but again, it's the second part of the apology that makes all the difference.<br />
<br />
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<i>Image credit: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Benjamin_West_-_Cleombrotus_Ordered_into_Banishment_by_Leonidas_II,_King_of_Sparta_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" target="_blank">Cleombrotus Ordered into Banishment by Leonidas II, King of Sparta</a> by Benjamin West, 1768 (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)</i><br />
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When's the Last Time You Heard a Proper Apology?

I’m sorry. How often do you hear those words? I mean hear them applied sincerely. These days, probably not much. The journalist Ambro...

[Facebook] Data Is the New [Standard] Oil

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<br />
You've heard the phrase "data is the new oil," right?<br />
<br />
It was <a href="https://www.quora.com/Who-should-get-credit-for-the-quote-data-is-the-new-oil" target="_blank">first used</a> by <b>Clive Humby</b>, a British mathemetician and architect of Tesco’s loyalty program called Clubcard, in 2006. He said, "It’s valuable, but if unrefined it cannot really be used."<br />
<br />
The phrase has been repeated many times since 2006, and most recently, many pundits have taken exception to it. The primary objection is that data is not scarce or in danger of running out, like oil is. In fact, there's a glut of data.<br />
<br />
But let's pause for a moment to reflect on old oil. Or, put in another way, the origins of <b>Big Oil</b>.<br />
<br />
In America, we have a strange way of treating celebrities, whether their business is industrial, tech, or entertainment. We don't have a monarchy in the States, but celebrities are the closest thing we have to royalty.<br />
<br />
We consider them, their children, and those who associate with them, as larger than life. And we've certainly been treated to a whole wave of news recently that indicates that they've got just as many flaws and foibles as mere mortals. Perhaps more.<br />
<br />
In the late 19th and early 20th century, we didn't have kings, but we had captains of industry. Names that are now legendary, many of whom made their mark in their respective industry. <b>Astors</b>, <b>Vanderbilts</b>, <b>Morgans</b>, <b>Carnegies</b>, and <b>Fords </b>were known for furs and real estate, railroads, banking, steel, and automobiles, respectively. For the most part, their names became part of their institutions.<br />
<br />
But there was one other name that became syonymous with "the rich." <b>John D. Rockefeller</b>. Modern citizens will of course connect his name with Rockfeller Center in New York City, but over the last 75 years or so, his business empire has become increasingly obscured. His company, Standard Oil, was broken up, and you probably know some of the companies that sprung from it: ExxonMobil, Chevron, Sunoco, BP, Marathon. Some of the biggest names in the oil and gas industry.<br />
<br />
For decades, Rockefeller ran Standard Oil with a tight grip. From his boyhood in rural New York, he was taught to be careful with money. He had to. His own father was a con man who often cheated his children out of their money. His mother was the thrifty one, and she impressed this upon him:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>"Willful waste makes woeful want."</i></b> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: large;">— Proverb</span></div>
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He had an entrepreneur's spirit, being careful with his resources and tracking his income and his spending.<br />
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When he founded Standard Oil, he was deeply involved in its operations and finances, and remained so for most of his time in the executive suite. When an enterprising journalist by the name of Ida Tarbell came along, she did what no one else had done: she exposed Rockefeller's methods of doing business that made it possible for Standard Oil to corner 90 percent of the oil market.<br />
<br />
Her methods — now known as investigative journalism — exposed business practices that helped to hone and redefine anti-trust laws for the 20th century. From colluding with railroad companies on rates to end-to-end ownership of the oil industry, and an eventual business structure that rolled all of the divisions up to the Standard Oil Trust, Rockfeller did everything he could to dominate the buinesss.<br />
<br />
He was ultimately known as "the single most important figure shaping the oil industry."<br />
<br />
That sounds remarkably like Mark Zuckerberg and the social network industry.<br />
<br />
Let's compare Facebook to Standard Oil:<br />
<br />
<table class="wdn_responsive_table flush-left" id="t416656"><caption></caption> <thead>
<tr>             <th colspan="1" id="t416656_row_0col_0">Standard Oil</th>             <th colspan="1" id="t416656_row_0col_1">Facebook</th>        </tr>
</thead> <tbody>
<tr>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Standard Oil" headers="t416656_row_0col_0">• Made backdoor deals with railroads</td>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Facebook" headers="t416656_row_0col_1">• Made backdoor deals with apps for data</td>        </tr>
<tr>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Standard Oil" headers="t416656_row_0col_0">• Was criticized over price-fixing </td>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Facebook" headers="t416656_row_0col_1">• Was criticized over privacy issues</td>        </tr>
<tr>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Standard Oil" headers="t416656_row_0col_0">• Complete vertical integration: drilling, refining, distribution</td>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Facebook" headers="t416656_row_0col_1">• Control over distribution and holds power over publishers/media</td>        </tr>
<tr>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Standard Oil" headers="t416656_row_0col_0">• Consolidation of 34 entities within Standard Oil Trust</td>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Facebook" headers="t416656_row_0col_1">• Consolidation of messaging apps: Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger</td>        </tr>
<tr>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Standard Oil" headers="t416656_row_0col_0">• Grew by acquisition</td>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Facebook" headers="t416656_row_0col_1">• Facebook has acquired 79 companies</td>        </tr>
<tr>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Standard Oil" headers="t416656_row_0col_0">• Insider deals for shipping rates locked out and strangled those Rockfeller wanted to defeat</td>             <td colspan="1" data-header="Facebook" headers="t416656_row_0col_1">• After Snapchat refused Facebook's acquisition offer, Facebook simply copied many of Snapchat features in Instagram as revenge</td>        </tr>
</tbody> </table>
<br />
But is the call to break up Facebook a realistic one? Size alone is not a crime. Recall a previous post in which I mentioned how <a href="https://www.scottmonty.com/2018/11/dont-stop-innovating-because-youre-big.html" target="_blank">the "Big" descriptor is automatically <span style="color: black;">— </span>and sometimes incorrectly <span style="color: black;">— </span> seen as evil</a>.<br />
<br />
The two giants have done their part to improve our collective experience, and their founders are also known for their philanthropy. Facebook provides a service that has made the world a more connected place, allowed families to stay in touch, old schoolmates to reconnect, and the like. Just as the Standard Oil Trust "made notable strides in improving kerosene, developing by-products, and reducing the cost of packaging, transporting, and distributing petroleum products worldwide." (Chernow, Ron. <i>Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.</i> New York: Random House, 1998. p. 228)<br />
<br />
That doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned, or that their charity washes away the negative. Facebook's (and Google's and Amazon's…) control over so much data gives them extraordinary power. But if we're using anti-trust standards from 100 years ago, we're using outdated modes of thinking. Breaking them up either reduces the network effect that makes them useful, or it simply rearranges things like Standard Oil's 34 subsidiaries did.<br />
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It's painful to say, but better scrutiny should have been applied by regulatory authorities upon the announcement of acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. The purchase prices alone should have indicated there was something up.<br />
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Regulators and trust-busters need to become more data-savvy, just as those of over 100 years ago had to try to get ahead of one of the most able business minds in American history.<br />
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Theodore Roosevelt, the leading proponent of trust-busting, had this to say in 1895:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Too much cannot be said against the men of wealth who sacrifice everything to getting wealth. There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American, insensible to every duty, regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a fortune, and putting his fortune only to the basest uses —whether these uses be to speculate in stocks and wreck railroads himself, or to allow his son to lead a life of foolish and expensive idleness and gross debauchery, or to purchase some scoundrel of high social position, foreign or native, for his daughter. Such a man is only the more dangerous if he occasionally does some deed like founding a college or endowing a church, which makes those good people who are also foolish forget his real iniquity. These men are equally careless of the working men, whom they oppress, and of the State, whose existence they imperil. There are not very many of them, but there is a very great number of men who approach more or less closely to the type, and, just in so far as they do so approach, they are curses to the country."</blockquote>
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True in 1895. True today.</div>
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<i>Image credit: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Libro_Los_Viejos_Abuelos_Foto_68.png">Man at the Crossroads</a> by Diego Rivera (via Gumr51 <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, Wikimedia Commons)</i><br />
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[Facebook] Data Is the New [Standard] Oil

Listen to this commentary You've heard the phrase "data is the new oil," right? It was first used by Clive Humby , a...

Our Post-Privacy Fate

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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OGdmp03lntg/XIe9Q--hDQI/AAAAAAABDsA/vA3YdNb5mQI8BMAzOxqPcfMb5M8f6kWvQCLcBGAs/s1600/Joseph%2BMallord%2BWilliam%2BTurner%2B-%2BThe%2BDecline%2Bof%2Bthe%2BCarthaginian%2BEmpire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="568" data-original-width="800" height="454" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OGdmp03lntg/XIe9Q--hDQI/AAAAAAABDsA/vA3YdNb5mQI8BMAzOxqPcfMb5M8f6kWvQCLcBGAs/s640/Joseph%2BMallord%2BWilliam%2BTurner%2B-%2BThe%2BDecline%2Bof%2Bthe%2BCarthaginian%2BEmpire.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Mark Zuckerberg's <a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/a-privacy-focused-vision-for-social-networking/10156700570096634/" target="_blank">announcement</a> last week that Facebook is throwing its efforts into private, encrypted messaging should have rung alarm bells, despite his plaintive concerns <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-interview-privacy-pivot/" target="_blank">about safety</a>. More on safety in a moment.<br />
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First, it's worth pointing out that the move itself — putting more focus on private messages — is one of self-preservation, pure and simple. It's a move to control the platform where users are and to defend itself against a potential break-up.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<b>Control</b></h2>
When a CEO pens a 3,200 word manifesto-cum-business strategy, it's not a knee-jerk reaction to something happening in the news. You can guarantee that this is something that's been discussed in board meetings and strategic planning sessions.<br />
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Facebook sees user growth numbers before any of us. And they naturally want to shield any negative news for as long as possible. But <b>Edison Research</b> did its own independent research and found that <a href="https://www.edisonresearch.com/facebook-declines-first-time-infinite-dial-history/" target="_blank">the number of Facebook users was shrinking</a> from 2017 to 2018. We know that Facebook was continuing to see growth from Instagram, one of its other properties.<br />
<br />
So what's Facebook to do? Since we're seeing more people flee the always-public updates and seek out more intimate, private places (Facebook Groups, Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, and critically, SMS), Facebook is <a href="https://www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-marketing/facebook-messaging-push-privacy/" target="_blank">positioning itself to own private chat</a>.<br />
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In some ways, it's amazing that it took us this long to get here. It's been about a decade of major public adoption of public social networks. And look what it's gotten us: contentious debates, irredeemable trolls, duplicitous bots, and misinformation. It's the exact opposite of what's needed.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting men free from men."</i></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: large;">— Ayn Rand, <i>The Fountainhead</i></span></div>
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While not explicitly stated in the U.S. Constitution, <a href="https://www.livescience.com/37398-right-to-privacy.html" target="_blank">privacy is a fundamental right</a> that flows throughout a number of Amendments. And despite Facebook's seemingly magnanimous pivot to privacy, there are causes for concern.<br />
<br />
In <a href="https://www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-marketing/facebook-messaging-push-privacy/" target="_blank">a must-read essay</a>, <b>Jay Baer</b> lays out that Facebook's move is all about controlling <i>the</i> communications platform of the future. They have the critical volume: roughly 30 percent of the world's population is on one of Facebook's platforms.<br />
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And by merging the four of them together, Facebook will then have a super-platform that will control the flow of private messages, integrate commerce, and distribute advertising.<br />
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It's unparalleled in scope.<br />
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<h2>
<b>Protect the Firm</b></h2>
At nearly the same time that Facebook published its new strategy, <b>Senator Elizabeth Warren</b> published her own position — a rather wide-reaching and sometimes incorrect one — on <a href="https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big-tech-9ad9e0da324c" target="_blank">the need to break up Big Tech</a>. <b>Ben Thompson</b>, as usual, has <a href="https://stratechery.com/2019/where-warrens-wrong/" target="_blank">thought about this deeply over on Stratechery</a> and deserves a careful read.<br />
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But Facebook's move in advance of any regulatory crackdown, in addition to positioning the company as an unstoppable communications juggernaut, also accomplishes something else. By <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/25/18197228/facebook-instagram-whatsapp-merge-messaging-services-mark-zuckerberg" target="_blank">merging the infrastructure of Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger</a>, it makes it more difficult to extract them from each other, should the government call for a break-up of Facebook.<br />
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Just as Zuckerberg said it's <a href="https://www.recode.net/2019/2/20/18233640/mark-zuckerberg-explains-ad-free-facebook" target="_blank">nearly impossible to make an ad-free version</a> of Facebook, he might make the case that it would be too difficult to separate the messaging systems from one another. So merging the three in advance of regulatory oversight could be a way to protect the firm.<br />
<br />
As an aside, it's worth checking out <b>Planet Money</b>'s three-part series on anti-trust matters: <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/02/15/695131832/antitrust-1-standard-oil" target="_blank">Standard Oil</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/02/20/696342011/antitrust-2-the-paradox" target="_blank">The Paradox</a>, and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/02/22/697170790/antitrust-3-big-tech" target="_blank">Big Tech</a>.<br />
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<h2>
<b>A Word About 'Safety'</b></h2>
Facebook says that it will protect our data in encrypted messages, which will lead to a safer experience on Facebook. There's no question that such moves will protect our data. But what's been happening on the platform in recent years regarding the spread of misinformation and fake news (real fake news, not the kind of news that reflects poorly on a world leader) demands more attention.<br />
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We need our minds and our sensibilities protected from malignant forces, not just our data.<br />
<br />
In this regard, there's no evidence that private conversations will yield more safety. In fact, the opposite may be true: it will drive hate speech, misinformation campaigns, and other dangerous movements underground. It's a potentially insidious development.<br />
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If anything, we need better monitoring of the very public systems we already have in place before doubling down on giving them more life elsewhere.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>"Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman."</b></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: large;">— Louis D. Brandeis</span></div>
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Lest you think that Facebook is making any of these moves for the benefit of society, recall that the company has had every opportunity to do the right thing, to build trust, to develop its own set of standards and ethics before being called out. And at every turn, the company has failed to do so.<br />
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How can we reasonably expect this time to be any different?<br />
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<i>Image credit: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Mallord_William_Turner_-_The_Decline_of_the_Carthaginian_Empire_-_WGA23169.jpg" target="_blank">The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire</a> by Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1817 (Wikimedia Commons - public domain)</i><br />
<br />

Our Post-Privacy Fate

Mark Zuckerberg's announcement last week that Facebook is throwing its efforts into private, encrypted messaging should have rung al...

The Secret of Good Futurists

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<iframe allow="autoplay" frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/585695151&color=%232879af&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/fullmontyshow/the-futility-of-uninformed" target="_blank">Listen to this commentary</a></span></div>
<br />
We all know the tragic story of the <i>Titanic</i>. It's a story that could have written itself: the largest moving object in the world, the most technologically advanced ship ever, and man's hubris flying in the face of God and nature.<br />
<br />
The novel <i>Futility </i>by Morgan Robertson picked up on these very themes. Robertson chronicled all of the workings of the ship:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"She was the largest craft afloat and the greatest of the works of men. In her construction and maintenance were involved every science, profession, and trade known to civilization. On the bridge were officers…being the pick of the Royal Navy. The same professional standard applied to the personnel of the engine-room, and the steward's department was equal to that of a first-class hotel.<br />
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"The bridge, engine room, and a dozen places on her deck the 92 doors of nineteen water-tight compartments could be closed in half a minute by turning a lever. These doors would also close automatically in the presence of water. With nine compartments flooded the ship would still float, and…this steamship was considered practically unsinkable."</blockquote>
He got all of the ship's stats right, or nearly right, as well: 800 feet long, 75,000 horsepower, and on her trial trip had steamed at a rate of 25 knots an hour.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Unsinkable—indestructible, she carried as few boats as would satisfy the laws. These, twenty-four in number were securely covered and lashed down to their chocks on the upper deck, and if launched would hold 500 people. She carried no useless, cumbersome liferafts; but—because the law required it—each of the 3,000 berths in the passengers', officers', and crew's quarters contained a cork jacket, while about twenty circular lifebuoys were strewn along the rails."</blockquote>
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You know how it ends. The ship, on its way from Southampton to New York, collides with an iceberg in the middle of the North Atlantic one starry April night. It then sinks with thousands of souls aboard. It's a morality tale we've all heard, rich in irony and steeped in tragedy.<br />
<br />
Only Robertson's book wasn't an eyewitness account of the sinking of the <i>Titanic</i>. His book, <i>Futility</i>, was originally titled <i><a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Wreck_of_the_Titan.html?id=XUcLAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility</a></i>.<br />
<br />
No, he didn't get the ship's name wrong. You see, he wrote his tragic novel predicting the advances of transporation and warning of the inadequacies of maritime regulations — about a fictional ship called the Titan — nearly identical in every way to the <i>Titanic</i>.<br />
<br />
He wrote this book in 1898. A full fourteen years before the <i>Titanic </i>set sail.<br />
<br />
<h2>
<b>Making Informed Predictions</b></h2>
After the <i>Titanic'</i>s sinking, some people credited Morgan Robertson with clairvoyance. Robertson denied this, claiming that the similarities were explained by his extensive knowledge of shipbuilding and maritime trends.<br />
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Imagine if the <i>Titanic</i>'s shipbuilders Harland and Wolff, its owners the White Star Line, or its captain Edward J. Smith had been aware of Robertson's book. Or if they simply heeded his warnings, rather than thinking they had all the answers.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"My dear fellow, fellow,” said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, “life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ("The Greek Interpreter")</blockquote>
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That's Sherlock Holmes's way of saying truth is stranger than fiction. And in many ways it is — or can be.<br />
<br />
There are so many stories from our collective history — stories of victory and vanquish, of happiness and hopelessness, and of comedy and calamity — that we don't really need to go out of our way to find them or create them.<br />
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"Ripped from the headlines" is an old trope in popular culture. It's most frequently used in the multiple Law and Order shows on TV. It's not only an easier task for the writers, but it also lends credibility to the plot, as we're more likely to connect emotionally with a subject or characters if we believe it could happen to us or someone we know.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i> </i></b><span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>“The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It’s all been done before, and will be again</i></b>.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: large;">– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (<i>The Valley of Fear</i>)</span></div>
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Sherlock Holmes made it his business to study crimes of the past, and Scotland Yard sought his consulting skills because of the work he put in to learn his craft:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"When these fellows are at fault they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right scent. They lay all the evidence before me, and I am generally able, by the help of my knowledge of the history of crime, to set them straight. There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds, and if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger ends, it is odd if you can’t unravel the thousand and first." – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (<i>A Study in Scarlet</i>)</blockquote>
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It would behoove us to study not only business and marketing successes of the past, but to consume some of the <i><a href="https://www.scottmonty.com/2019/03/the-seeds-of-time.html" target="_blank">Great Books</a></i> to understand human nature and motivations, and to save ourselves some time.<br />
<br />
While we may think that the use of Snapchat, Instagram or artificial intelligence puts us at an distinct advantage from any of the leaders who came before us, we should see how we might benefit from their mistakes or successes. Leading with hubris and willful ignorance isn't a good look.<br />
<br />
Just ask Captain Smith how that worked out for him.<br />
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<i>Image credit: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexander_Consulting_the_Oracle_of_Apollo,_Louis_Jean_Francois_Lagren%C3%A9e.jpg">Alexander Consulting the Oracle of Apollo</a> by Louis Jean Francois Lagrenée, 1789 (Wikimedia Commons - public domain)</i>

The Secret of Good Futurists

Listen to this commentary We all know the tragic story of the Titanic . It's a story that could have written itself: the largest ...

The Seeds of Time

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We're all racing toward the future at the same rate.<br />
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No matter what happens, nor when it happens, we'll all experience it at the same time.<br />
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We do want to reach certain solutions before our competition, and increasingly as quickly as customers demand it. Which is why so many companies are racing toward digital transformation.<br />
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You've probably heard a CEO use this quote to motivate employees to think ahead:<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>"Skate to where the puck is going, not to where it has been."</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">— Wayne Gretzky</span></div>
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Not only is it trite and a cliche, but it's flawed. And we should stop throwing it around so freely.<br />
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The problem in business is that the future isn't a sure thing. Futurists are good at flagging big trends, but customers aren't necessarily on the same path. We don't know how things are going to turn out. As the saying goes, <b><i>"Where's my flying car?"</i></b><br />
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In Act 1 Scene 3 of <i>Macbeth</i>, the two generals Macbeth and Banquo visit the three witches, who are gifted with the power of foresight. Banquo requests of them:<br />
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">"If you can look into the seeds of time</span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">And say which grain will grow and which will not,</span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">Speak, then, to me."</span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">— </span><span style="font-size: large;">William Shakespeare</span></div>
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 Most of us aren't witches. And none of us has the power to accurately predict what will happen in the future.<br />
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However, we do have the power to look into the past, which in turn helps us understand human nature, motivations, and decisions made by leaders who may have been in comparable circumstances.<br />
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In 1952, the publishers of the Encyclopedia Britannica put together a collection of works called <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books_of_the_Western_World" target="_blank">Great Books of the Western World</a></i> in a 54-volume set. The idea is that there are certain works in the canon of western culture that deserve exploring. This is referred to as the Great Conversation, or the ongoing process of writers and thinkers referencing, building on, and refining the work of their predecessors.<br />
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"We want them heard again—not because we want to go back to antiquity, or the Middle Ages, or the Renaissance, or the Eighteenth Century. We are quite aware that we do not live in any time but the present, and, distressing as the present is, we would not care to live in any other time if we could. We want the voices of the Great Conversation to be heard again because we think <i><b>they may help us learn to live better </b></i><b><i>now</i></b>." [Emphasis mine - ed.] ("Preface," <i>The Great Conversation</i>, <i>Great Books of the Western World Vol. 1</i>, p. xii)</blockquote>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Great Books</td></tr>
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This may seem academic or esoteric, but when it comes to business, we're dealing with psychology and behavioral economics. In other words, we need to understand human nature, decision making, persuasion, storytelling, and other related factors that can all be found in such Great Books.<br />
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It doesn't matter what your customers have read, because they'll act according to human nature, which is timeless and universal. History is replete with examples.<br />
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All we have to do is study the past if we want to predict the future. Are you with me?<br />
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<i>Image credit: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MacbethAndBanquo-Witches.jpg" target="_blank">Macbeth and Banquo Meeting the Witches on the Heat</a>h by Théodore Chassériau, 1855 (Wikimedia Commons - public domain)</i><br />
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The Seeds of Time

We're all racing toward the future at the same rate. No matter what happens, nor when it happens, we'll all experience it at th...

Shortcut to Success: Learning from the Mistakes of Others

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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/582043596&color=ef773c" width="100%"></iframe><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/fullmontyshow/episode-66-clio-and-the" target="_blank">Listen to this commentary</a></span></div>
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We can find inspiration in many places, if we take the time to look around. <a href="https://www.scottmonty.com/2018/08/what-ceos-do-that-set-them-apart.html" target="_blank">Curiosity</a> is one of the greatest assets that any leader can have — it causes us to question things, find connections, and constantly ask "why?"<br />
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Anyone who takes the time to study history or read the great works of literature and philosophy from our past shares that trait. Which brings me to what recently inspired me.<br />
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I was a classics major. And as a result, I'm always thinking about history, literature, and philosophy — from the ancient to the more recent (let's say mid-20th century) — particularly with respect to business and the world we live in today.<br />
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Everyone has heard of the Muses of Greek mythology: the 9 daughters of Zeus who were inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They are considered the source of the knowledge embodied in poetry, lyric songs, and myths. You've undoubtedly heard some of their names before: Terpsichore, Euterpe, Clio, Calliope. Some of these names have been used to describe objects or even brands — the Clio Awards in advertising, for example.<br />
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In particular, I was inspired by Clio, the muse of history. Her name means "to make famous" and she is often depicted as holding a book or a scroll, and a horn. History is around us every day — either visibly or through the resulting course of events that have followed.<br />
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You've probably frequently walked by statues, bas reliefs over doorways, brass plaques on the sides of buildings  without pausing to acknowledge them. And you're using devices every day that are due to the early and diligent work of people like Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, or Henry Ford.<br />
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If you visit the United States Capitol, there in the National Statuary Hall —which used to be where the House of Representatives met — over the doorway you'll find a sculpture of Clio riding winged chariot called <i><a href="https://www.aoc.gov/blog/car-of-history" target="_blank">The Car of History</a></i>, created by Carlo Franzioni. She's recording history in her book, as a reminder to all in that room that they were part of history and their actions and words mattered.<br />
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But how often do you pause to look at works of art like this, or consider events of the past, or read of the lives and challenges of great men and women?<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>"Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for."</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> – Socrates</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> (<a href="https://ctt.ac/rce27" target="_blank">tweet this</a>)</span></div>
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We seem to be too busy focusing on what's right in front of us, being distraced by notifications and more content online than we can read in 100 lifetimes. And yet, there's this wealth of wisdom just sitting there on shelves, waiting for us to uncover it.<br />
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The problem, according to distinguished historian David McCullough, is that we live our lives like a digital watch. In his speech "Simon Willard's Clock" in <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Spirit-Who-What-Stand/dp/1501174215/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=The+American+Spirit&qid=1551372884&s=gateway&sr=8-1" target="_blank">The American Spirit</a></i>, he explains:<br />
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"I have decided that the digital watch is the perfect symbol of an imbalance in outlook in our day. It tells us only the time it is now, at this instant, as if that were all anyone would wish or need to know." </blockquote>
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<h2>
<b>Hubris and History</b></h2>
Everyone's got a story. We've gotten where we are because of a series of events that have happened to us and that we have caused to happen. In that sense, where you are right now — in your career, with your family and friends — everything has a context to it.<br />
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And yet we tackle problems with great hubris, as if we're the first ones to discover fire. There's rarely a thought to what we can learn from the people who preceded us, as if they weren't quite as savvy or advanced as we are. That's arrogant and ignorant. There's so much we can learn from the past.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>"The farther you look back, the farther you can look ahead."</i></b> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">– Henry Ford </span><span style="font-size: medium;">(<a href="https://ctt.ac/C4ds7" target="_blank">tweet this</a>)</span></div>
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To give this some context, recall that I previously discussed <a href="https://www.scottmonty.com/2018/10/the-future-has-already-been-here.html" target="_blank">the warnings of Dr. Conrad Gessner</a> regarding humanity being overrun with too much information. If you haven't heard that episode or read the essay, I won't spoil it — go back and <a href="https://smonty.co/fullmonty49" target="_blank">take a listen</a>.<br />
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But going back to David McCullough's digital watch analogy, he said it only shows us what time it is now, as if that's all we would wish or need to know. Certainly the Apple Watch can tell us much more, but it's designed to keep us rooted to the present: our heart rate, text messages, news updates, and the like.<br />
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McCullough points out that Clio's <i>Car of History</i> also includes a clock:<br />
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"Its inner workings, cut freehand by Simon Willard, ticked off the minutes and hours through debate over the Gag Rule, the annexation of Texas, the Mexican War, tariffs, postal service, the establishment of the Naval Academy, statehood for Arkansas, Michigan and Wisconsin…and the final hours of John Quincy Adams.<br />
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"It is also a clock with two hands and an old-fashioned face, the kind that shows what time it is now . . . what time it used to be . . . and what time it will become."</blockquote>
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Whether it's customer experience, launching or marketing a new product, digital transformation, team motivation or other modern challenges, we owe it to ourselves to learn about the past to inform the present and shape the future.<br />
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After all, isn't it better to learn from <i>someone else's</i> mistakes?<br />
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<i>Image credit: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Johann_Heinrich_Tischbein_-_The_Nine_Muses_-_Clio_(History),_1780.jpg" target="_blank">The Nine Muses - Clio (History)</a> by Johann Heinrich Tischbein, 1780 (Wikimedia Commons - public domain)</i><br />
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Shortcut to Success: Learning from the Mistakes of Others

Listen to this commentary We can find inspiration in many places, if we take the time to look around. Curiosity is one of the great...

The Wolf Among Us

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The decisions you make today will be with you for years.<br />
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We often determine how we'll handle a project, a product launch, or an event as part of a set of annual or quarterly initiatives. We're driven by immediate needs to show results, whether it's to our boss, a client, or investors.<br />
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And in the heat of those moments, as we're pressured to deliver according to schedule, we may miss longer-term implications because of short-term needs.<br />
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A case in point is Facebook, which is back in the news, due to the Cambridge Analytica data dust-up and the U.K.'s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee. At issue is not only Facebook's questionable decisions about its data policy in past years, but how Facebook representatives "<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-misled-parliament-on-data-misuse-u-k-committee-says/?utm_source=TheFullMonty">deliberately misled</a>" the committee in testimony late last year.<br />
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The committee was so outraged with Facebook that they considered social network to be skirting along the criminal world: “Companies like Facebook should not be allowed to behave like ‘digital gangsters’ in the online world, considering themselves to be <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/17/uk-parliament-calls-for-antitrust-data-abuse-probe-of-facebook/?utm_source=TheFullMonty">ahead of and beyond the law</a>.”<br />
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Even if we can forgive Facebook's decisions in the years leading up to the election and chalk it up as lack of foresight or a result of a lack of coordination internally, it's getting more difficult to overlook the transgressions above. The leadership has been given ample opportunities to come clean, and at every turn, they're guided by their <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia-election-racism.html?utm_source=TheFullMonty">moral compass</a>, which is expressed through a series of delays, denials, and deflections.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>“And those that deceive upon hope of not being observed do commonly deceive themselves, the darkness in which they believe they lie hidden being nothing else but their own blindness and are no wiser than children that think all hid by hiding their eyes.” </b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">– Thomas Hobbes, <i>Leviathan</i></span></div>
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Even as Mark Zuckerberg continually expressed his idealistic desire to make the world a more connected place, the constant hunger for data and profits drove the company forward, ethics be damned.<br />
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This kind of "culture creep" occurs when an original vision is blurred while day-to-day operations consume what people think about and do. The urgent becomes the essential, and can usurp even the most aspirational and high-minded mission in an effort to satisfy different stakeholders.<br />
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An internal group at Facebook called the Analog Research Lab (ARL) is trying to boost morale and provide evidence of a larger meaning of employees' work at Facebook. But even they're having trouble <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90308216/want-a-glimpse-of-facebooks-soul-in-2019-look-at-its-internal-propaganda-lab" target="_blank">staying true to the mission</a>: “There’s a push-and-pull to doing the right thing, and doing the right thing when you have a lot of different things pulling at you is a really difficult task.”<br />
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Well, no. If the things pulling at you are all driving in the same direction, and your company's culture is aligned around the same vision, doing the right thing should be no more difficult than putting on your shoes in the morning.<br />
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If, instead, you're finding that you're being pulled in different ethical directions, then you need to make a decision on what matters most to you.<br />
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It's perfectly illustrated with this old Native American folktale:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
An old man spoke to his grandson: "Inside everyone there is a battle between two wolves. One is Evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, inferiority, lies, and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, and truth."<br />
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The boy thought for a moment. Then he asked, "Which wolf wins?"<br />
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A moment of silence passed before the old man replied. And then he said, "The one you feed."</blockquote>
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Management guru Peter Drucker once said that <b>culture eats strategy for breakfast</b>. Well, Facebook's culture continues to cast a shadow over its strategy. Or perhaps it's a perfect reflection of it.<br />
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When your company's culture pulls you so firmly in one direction that your strategy is compromised, then it's time to take another look at each.<br />
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<i><b>Image credit</b>: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oudry_wolf_%26_lamb.JPG" target="_blank">The Wolf and the Lamb</a> by Jean-Baptiste Oudry (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)</i><br />
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The Wolf Among Us

The decisions you make today will be with you for years. We often determine how we'll handle a project, a product launch, or an eve...

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Our Post-Privacy Fate

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The Seeds of Time

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The Wolf Among Us

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