Last night a colleague whined about his malfunctioning Smartphone, which didn’t even ring when his family tried to contact him for handling an emergency. My only comment on that product: Add-on functionality, as built-into today’s devices, is nice, but first of all the core functionality has to work. And today’s state-of-the-art devices typically fail to meet that criteria. I really don’t care very much about my phone directing me through downtown Seattle, while playing the latest top ten tunes, if I can’t use it reliably for making, or receiving, phone calls. At least I could call somebody and ask for directions then.

Today I was exposed to the first completed transaction using the US-version of Amazon.com. Amongst other (new) things I also used the market place. There are some differences between the German and the American web site and processes, but unless one is a computer illiterate there’s no reason to bother. One difference is hipping, which seems to be a little bit more complicated here in the Wild West. An example, just for one item on my order list:

Delivery estimate: September 26, 2008 - October 13, 2008.

That makes planning, e.g. for birthdays, a little bit difficult. And it may also be a little annoying to some people, as the thing is already paid. The other significant difference is customer service, as always when comparing German habits with American habits: Every seller followed the book, and continuously kept me up-to-date on the status of my order. So that helps over the other potential grievances. But wait, there’s one exception: That guy simply delivered my order, through US Postal Service. And consequently I’ve received my first shipment one hour before the last seller had dispatched his automated order-update.

Thank, you, TJ from Revolveraz, and thank you Mr.. Postman, for this refreshing, and absolutely satisfying customer experience.

Some months ago a friend of mine (a computer security expert) explained to me, in complete disbelief, that his family had been affected by skimming. The good part of the story is that he didn’t suffer any financial losses as his bank replaced all damages.  Having insisted on further details, the bank disclosed to my friend that the event eventually originated at the ATM in the headquarters of the bank. And that the credit card affected was his own one. Conclusion: Nobody is safe, nowhere.

Having already suffered from identity theft myself I thought I had taken any possible precaution for making sure that something like this will be unlikely to happen again. And I felt relatively safe. Until last week-end. The surprise hit came from an unexpected source, quoting a letter, potentially affecting me because I’m a share holder of a specific company:

"We are writing to let you know that computer tapes containing some of your personal information were lost while being transported to an off-site facility by our archive services vendor. While we have no reason to believe that this information has been accessed or used inappropriately, we deeply regret that this incident occurred...

"BNY Mellon Shareowner Services provides stock transfer agency, employee plan administration and related services for issuers of securities such as publicly traded corporations. In the delivery of these services, we are required to maintain personal information on a large number of individuals, like you, who own securities, have owned securities in the past, or are participants in or previously have been participants in an organization's equity compensation plan."

"...we are offering you and other impacted individuals a free credit monitoring product... for 24 months... you must activate your credit monitoring membership within 90 days... using your unique single-use activation code..."

Since one box of tapes is missing out of ten boxes - with data on dozens of major corporations - the lost data may well be a random subset. Therefore it is possible that not every shareholder is affected. And, maybe, I’m lucky this time. I haven’t received the letter yet, but given the way the mass postal mailings work, the letter will probably trickle in over the next week.

I admit to have skipped the original story distributed by Associated Press (CNN Money) four weeks ago:

"...When the breach was first disclosed in May, the bank estimated about 4.2 million people were affected... a third-party re-examination of the analysis applied to the lost tapes has revealed that the affected number of individuals is actually about 12 million..."

But how should I have known that this could affect me, since I didn’t have any relationship with the company involved? And some further information on the BNY Mellon website:

"Background Regarding Shareowner Services Incident

"In late February, one of ten boxes of back-up data storage tapes was discovered missing from a third-party archiving vendor responsible for transporting the tapes to an off-site storage facility from BNY Mellon Shareowner Services' facility in New Jersey..."

"Why has it taken this time to notify me?

"...BNY Mellon Shareowner Services re-examined the analysis applied to the lost data tapes.

"This re-review was conducted by a highly-regarded forensic investigation firm whose analysis indentified additional individuals who may have been impacted by the incident. However, because the files contained data in multiple files and formats, and because special scanning tools and software were necessary to examine these files, extracting and analyzing the data was a complex, time-consuming process.

"The Company is in the process of notifying the additional individuals impacted by this regrettable incident, though there continues to be no indication that the data has been accessed or misused in any way...

"What kind of data was on the missing tapes?

"The missing back-up tape from Shareowner Services included shareholder and plan participant account information, such as name, mailing address, Social Security number and transaction activity...

Nice. Anything seems to be there, just the bank account information is missing, isn’t it? I just don’t understand why illiterates still continue to rob physical banks, instead of simply using computers.

And while I’m still trying to manage my temper, I’m musing on how to avoid such mess.

"What air is to the body, is to feel understood to the heart ... and if the heart feels understood, is satisfied, it's open to being influenced by others ... Communications - it's not a function of telling and selling, it's a function of understanding ... Empathic listening is the most important of all skills, of communication, and communication is the number one skill of life." (Dr. Stephen Covey, while explaining the application of the ancient Talking Stick in modern times)

Today's quote is actually a design product that speaks for itself - a nice accessory for my windowless office:

Bright Blind

A lot of people had asked me where I'd been during the last two weeks, so I'm sharing some impressions from the family's vacation in the Evergreen State.

Incredible. Some more time, let's say another four weeks, would have been nice :-)

My discipline owner added multiple elective trainings to my role guide, and one of them had such an interesting title that I wanted to take it. Here are the details:

Availability Now
Assigned By Discipline Owner
Delivery Self-Directed Learning
Length 4 mins
Level 100
Planned Start Date -
Planned End Date -
Competencies
Not Associated To Competencies
Career Stages
Not Associated To Career Stages
Description Six magic words: "Everyone expects to be paid back." Assume everyone is an ally if you know what they value. Align their values with what you control. 

Noticed the duration? Four minutes. Exactly the bandwidth I wanted to invest in such a topic. So I launched the e-course, which actually took me to an external web site, which required login information. Off course no login information was at hand so I thought why not registering, since I'm a first time user. The registration page asked me for a corporate PIN, provided by my company administrator. Unfortunately, that person is as unknown as the discipline owner, so I clicked on the link for requesting the PIN. And that resulted in the following helpful message:

Guess what: In the company I'm working for these kind of processes take weeks, or months. And that's because, normally, at least VP approval is required. Which can only be obtained by the direct reports of the VP, and only after obtaining approval from legal. At least that's what I was told when I tried something similar two years ago. (Haven't obtained the approval yet, "this may take a few days" ...)

Interesting process for delivering a 4-minute training. Cool.

"He understands the details completely, he loves to debate and disagree, yet he'll let you do it. ... As long as you know what's in Appendix 3 of your report as well as he does." (Jes Staley, on Jamie Dimon's leadership style)