This year I've been involved at varying levels with some 50 Australian companies across verticals ranging from banking and finance to telecommunications to retail, pharmaceuticals, media, utilities, transport and logistics, and travel and entertainment. And I've talked with executives ranging from the CEO, COO, CMO, CFO, and CIO right through to receptionists and call centre operators. What I've learned is remarkably similar across most, if not all of them.

Continue reading "Customer Strategist Wayne Kingston:
The Six Things Organizations Should Fix in 2011" »

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This may come as a shock, but brokerage houses and banks are using complex, computerized trading mechanisms not just to reduce your transaction costs, but also to line their own pockets without your knowledge. You may think that paying just $5 or $10 per retail stock trade, even for thousands of shares at a time, is a good deal, and it certainly is. But it's not as good as you think it is, because you're only looking at the commission, while the broker doing the trade (could be Scottrade, Fidelity, Ameritrade, or almost any other broker) is looking at the commission and at the possibility of "taking the other side" of your deal for themselves.

Continue reading "Do You Trust Your Broker?" »

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There were two different enablers involved in the current Wikileaks scandal.

First, we have a reckless and destructive enlisted man in the military, one PFC Bradley Manning, who downloaded hundreds of thousands of classified documents in an overt and malicious effort to "out" what he unilaterally decided was pernicious behavior on the part of the US government. Lesson Number One: Manning is the ultimate disengaged employee. Actively disengaged employees like Manning can be even more destructive in today's always-connected society than was possible just a few years ago.

But second, you have the ever-incompetent US government. Why oh why oh why would any "secure" information retrieval system allow ANYONE to download hundreds of thousands of documents in one sitting? Or even in one month? Lesson Number Two: Incompetence is always most evident in hindsight.

Continue reading "Wikileaks and Trustability" »

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