Keeping customer data secure

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Some dumb-ass working for the government takes a laptop full of veterans’ records home and it gets stolen. Naw, that doesn’t surprise me. Big accounting firm like Ernst & Young pulls a similar stunt and loses 230,000 records belonging to one of their big clients. Okay, that’s a little hard to imagine… but it happened. Could it happen at a company like Amazon? Not if we can belive Werner Vogels, the company’s chief technology officer:

“…to get to Amazon customer credit cards you will need a small army of Marines. Although recently we have been discussing (how) to place physical and electronic booby-traps such that the servers will self-destruct when compromised, to deal with such full physically attack …”

Now that’s what I call contingency planning. I always to try buy from/through Amazon. Mr. Vogels is one of the discussion leaders at Gnomedex.

If you can’t recall my name…

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One of our affiliate relations reps was calling on a station manager in Burlington, Iowa. The manager –whom I knew many years ago– asked about me but couldn’t remember my name. The best he could come up with was:

“He’s a great guy… he is nuts!”

Our rep immediately responded: Steve Mays

There are a lot of “great guys” at Learfield and many of them are a little nutty. I’m flattered beyond words to think I might be near the top of that list (in anyone’s mind). And of all the ways I might be remembered, I can think of none better.

What will the boss think?

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Seth Godin calls this the most important “marketing pothole”:

Great marketing pleases everyone on the team, sooner or later. But at the beginning, great marketing pleases almost no one. At the beginning, great marketing is counter-intuitive, non-obvious, challenging and apparently risky. Of course your friends, shareholders, stakeholders and bosses won’t like it. But they’re not doing the marketing, you are.

Missouri hospitals moving to ban tobacco

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Missouri’s hospitals are moving quickly to ban tobacco, not just in the building, but anywhere on hospital property. Some patients are so addicted, they drag their I-V bottles, tubes, and cart out to the parking lot of their hospital so they can get a nicotine fix. Those days are numbered. Hospitals and state health officials have worked to change regulations so hospitals can ban tobacco use anywhere on the hospital campus, not just in the building. [Missourinet.com]

Clyde on cover of JC Business Times

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Business TimesThe local Business Journal did a nice piece on Learfield, including a glam shot of Clyde on the cover. The reporter, David Reed, picked up on Clyde’s love of technology:

Lear’s desk gadgets, including a Blackberry, a laptop (from which he posts to his blog on Learfield’s Web site) and an iPod, show how comfortable he is with the latest technologies.

The 62-year-old techie picked up his cell phone and made a pronouncement: “I’ll guarantee you that in 18 months to two years, you’ll be able to watch every Missouri football game right here, watch it live,” he said. “We’re the company that’s going to make that happen. The university is entrusting us to make this happen for them. They don’t want to deal with a company that is going to lag behind. Our job is to be out front of the technology game.”

I might have to upgrade from my Wal-Mart Tracfone. I’d link to the story but, alas, the JCBT does not have a web site.

Twenty-two years and counting

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It’s almost that time again. On June 4th I will have been chained to a Learfield galley oar for 22 years. I am proud to say that Learfield founder and CEO Clyde Lear recruited and hired me and changed my life forever. I’ll resist the usual cult-rant and point you to Clyde’s blog. Everybody whose CEO is blogging with this kind of candor an openess…raise your hand.

Some can remember six years ago when things around here weren’t so rosy. We lost money. All of you took a pay cut for several months; I went six months with no salary at all. Remember what I told you then?

This either makes you real uncomfortable or it gives you goose bumps. I love it, of course. Clyde is a natural blogger. He got it immediately. Many (most) do not.

We met with a prospective client today and in a two-hour meeting, radio came up twice…in passing. When I asked the client to rank their website (with all forms of communication) on a scale of 1 to 10…she gave it a nine and couldn’t think of anything that was more important in getting their message out. She also confided that her website wasn’t very good. When I suggested she consider adding a blog…it was as though I had suggested adding child porn.

It’s really quite amazing. Reactions to blogging are highly polarized. A (very) few know about blogging and are eager to put it to use for their company or organization. Many (most) have no idea what blogging is and –simultaneously– are petrified by the very idea.

We have established this formalized communication made up of press releases, brochures, slick media kits and, yes, Main Stream Media… that is as stiff and structured as a Greek drama. But we all have our parts and know our lines. We have a script. And out of nowhere, come these bloggers and podcasters writing and saying any damn thing and it’s scary as hell. Line, please!

What was I talking about? I remember… 22 years at Camp Learfield. Halfway there.

Final Cut Express HD

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Installed Final Cut Express HD. This is the next step up from iMovie for video editing. As I understand it, “Express” is the Lite version of Final Cut Pro. At first glance, it reminds me of Adobe Premiere in that it’s packed with features and will have a bit of a learning curve. But it comes with an excellent tutorial DVD so, we’ll see. I can see myself running back to Studio 9 (Windows) in a pinch.

Gnomedex 6.0

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I am tingly with anticipation of Gnomedex 6.0, a three-day geek-fest in Seattle at the end of June. I’m just a geek wannabe but my money’s good so they let me in. I won’t even try to describe Gnomedex except to say everyone will be talking about all of the things I find interesting/important. The format of this year’s event is a little different but the line-up of “discussion leaders” is A-List all the way. And this year’s trip will be even a little more fun with Learfield COO Roger Gardner along for the ride. I believe they stream the entire conference live and I’ll try to find/post a link as we get closer.

Kissinger: U.S. okay with communist S. Vietnam

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“Former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger quietly acknowledged to China in 1972 that Washington could accept a communist takeover of South Vietnam if that evolved after a withdrawal of U.S. troops – even as the war to drive back the Communists dragged on with mounting deaths.”

This little nugget (reported by the Associated Press) was discovered in a collection of papers gathered from documents available at the U.S. government’s National Archives.

I only mention it here because it brought back fond memories of those days. I was working hard to keep my draft deferment and stay out of Vietnam. As I recall, it was important that we get on over to Vietnam so we could stop the commies. The deaths of 60 thousand Americans was considered (by our leaders) a small price to pay to “STOP COMMUNISM!”

And then one day someone in Washington decided, “You know what? I think I’m okay with letting the commies have South Vietnam. But see if you can get ’em to wait until we’re outta there.”

And it’s one, two three…what are we fightin’ for?