Dr. Carolyn Turbyfill
TRADITIONAL COMPANIES, THE SOCIAL ERA AND PRIVACY
(A tribute toDr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)
Nilofer Merchant is an Internet champion for Social Era businesses in her blog:
This post is the first in a series on being fast, fluid, and flexible in the social era.
- Part 2: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/02/social_means_freedom_for_bette.html
- Part 3: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/02/why_porters_model_no_longer_wo.html
- Part 4: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/03/why_social_marketing_is_so_har.html
- Part 5: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/03/stop_talking_about_social_and_do_it.html
- Also a more recent post on Strategy:
Traditional Strategy Is Dead. Welcome to the #Social Era
Merchant describes the differences between Traditional and Social Era companies the in her blog and 2 books: The New How and 11 Rules for Creating Value in the Social Era.
- Traditional Companies (aka Moose Lodges) are “big, hierarchical and slow”. Examples are: Bank of America, Sony, Gap, Yahoo, Nokia, Sports Authority, United Airlines, Best Buy and Wal-Mart.
- Social Era companies are “fast, nimble and collaborative”. Examples are: Facebook, KickStarter, Kiva, Twitter. They are the flagships of the “social era” using “freemium models, crowdsourcing, online communities, virtual workforces, social networks”…
The Social Era is a paradigm shift affecting every aspect of a company: strategy, marketing, sales, product and service development, quality, differentiation and security.
As a computer security expert, I see the Social Era a bit differently.
I am all for:
- A flat world, The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman,
- Decentralized organizations and
- Crowdsourcing.
I am utterly opposed to flashing my life on the Internet:
- I’m Mad as Hell and I’m Not Going to Facebook Anymore
- Dr. Big Data and CATananga Exploit Your Data in Unspeakable Ways
To be fair, the Information Revolution has created its share of problems for everyone. Traditional Companies and Governments have had a myriad of problems as they were compelled by market realities to connect their private networks to the Internet. Many of the new Social Era companies have, by necessity, monetized the user data obtained through their free offerings to the detriment of their customers’ privacy. Even companies with the best intentions have been foiled by NSA PRISM subpoenas under Patriot Act gag orders that forbade them to inform customers that the government was collecting customer data: Court Sides with Yahoo in NSA PRISM Data Collection Case
If you are running or starting a business, my question to you is:
How do you exploit the best of the Social Era without compromising your business or your customers?
Bio:
Dr. Turbyfill has been head of engineering organizations and software architect with 20+ years of experience in: Security (Cyber and Physical); Risk Management; SDLC; Development Methodologies; Enterprise Products and Services; Compliance; Database, Strategy and Roadmaps; management of multiple groups in domestic and international locations; startups and turnarounds. Dr. Turbyfill has a consistent track record of delivering quality products within budget and on time and has consistently built leading edge technologies and products including:
- First database benchmark using experimental design techniques, the Wisconsin Benchmark;
- One of the first wireless LAN’s with radio, antenna and IP Layer encryption;
- First Firewall Appliance, SunScreen SPF 100 which also included a certificate authority and one of the first commercial IP Layer VPN’s, SKIP;
- First round-trip email marketing systems with interactive Java applets;
- First Managed Security Service at Counterpane Internet Security;
First virtualized automated test environments for application stacks, the StackSafe Test Center.