Gmail is down. Wow. Looking at Twitterfall, it's a global phenomenon. And because Gmail is a) so widely used; and b) so fundamental an application, the outpouring of feeling is palpable.
Several emotions are evident. Surprise is common. Denial - which is usually associated with the early stages of grief, of course. There's some amazement. A fair smattering of disappointment. Anger isn't too strong a word for some users. Quite a bit of fear. And annoyance, of course.
Interestingly, many of the "annoyed" posts are directed at in-house IT departments (for supposedly limiting access to non-work email), ISPs (coz the problem couldn't be Gmail's) and at themselves - for relying on cloud computing.
The "fear" posts also tap into that nervousness about the cloud (what will do for SaaS sentiment, I wonder... guess it depends how long the outage lasts). But there are also lots of wry people - they seem amused that such an incredible thing could happen.
You know what I imagine this would be like? If aliens invaded Earth. I'd imagine the same set of emotions (for IT depts and ISPs, substitute governments, for example) afflicting us all - equally global, equally stunning.
UPDATE (10.54GMT): Interestingly, it appears I can still access Gmail via my iPhone's Mail application. Good news: both the Gmail back-end and my iPhone are robust and reliable. Bad news: I'd still love to have the Gmail front-end back! Also, IMAP synch from my desktop Mail.app is only partially working. Very odd...
UPDATE (10.59GMT): Mail.app now merrily synching with IMAP, although iPhone now also occasionally can't find the server. I wonder whether Gmail users all over the world are firing up and synching local mail applications, placing a heavy burden on the servers and bandwidth?
UPDATE (middayish): All good. And to all the Gmail haters out there, how fast did your tech support/ISP guys take to fix the last organisation-wide email failure at your domain? Longer than 90 mins, I'll wager...
24 February 2009
19 February 2009
Pop quiz: when did I write this editorial?
A week before we went to press, National Express fired its finance director. As I’ve said before, it seems that a lot of FDs have left their jobs recently in “unfortunate” circumstances, seldom of their own doing.
In this case, FD William Rollason had been filling in as chief exec while CEO Phil White was on protracted sick leave. When White came back, Rollason left. “We need a more operational, hands-on, finance director rather than somebody who has a particular strength in the corporate finance area,” said the CEO.
Am I missing something? An FD who’s been with the company three years steps up to the top job. He sheds the old “bean-counter” image. And he does very well, thank-you very much, as chief executive for months. Then he’s dropped because he’s too versatile?!
I’ve really had it with defensive executives who can’t handle the modern financial manager. Don’t they get it? Once more, with feeling: the FD is one of the few people who can tell you hard facts about what is happening across every facet of the business. A good one, with strategic vision as well as the ability to report on the business and control costs, is worth their weight in gold. And they’re worth a lot more than White’s throwaway quip about his long-term illness: “The doctor said it was an aversion to finance directors.” Ha. Ha.
I’ll concede one point to White. We mustn’t forget to be prudent this year. That’s something the British population at large seems to have forgotten in [LAST YEAR]. Despite all the warnings, last year we borrowed £40bn against our homes and spent it on widescreen TVs and other luxury goods.
I’ve nothing against borrowing against your assets per se. Most FDs, even in this downturn, will be able to find projects that deliver returns above the cost of capital, especially with interest rates so low.
But how many of you would borrow to the extent that you were increasing profits to the tune of six per cent per year, then blow the dough on non-earning assets? That’s how much the national income increased last year thanks to home equity withdrawal, and much of it has gone to fuel the consumer boom.
While you and your fellow directors have been exhorted to apply the highest standards of corporate governance and look at the social and environmental aspects of your financial decisions, the masses are out their doing an Enron (well, almost). Even if house prices stabilise, the consumer boom is definitely over in [THIS YEAR]. There’s precious little equity left to borrow against; the credit cards are maxed out. It’s going to be a challenging year. So companies will need FDs with the *full* range of skills if they’re to exploit to the expected upturn in the last quarter.
In this case, FD William Rollason had been filling in as chief exec while CEO Phil White was on protracted sick leave. When White came back, Rollason left. “We need a more operational, hands-on, finance director rather than somebody who has a particular strength in the corporate finance area,” said the CEO.
Am I missing something? An FD who’s been with the company three years steps up to the top job. He sheds the old “bean-counter” image. And he does very well, thank-you very much, as chief executive for months. Then he’s dropped because he’s too versatile?!
I’ve really had it with defensive executives who can’t handle the modern financial manager. Don’t they get it? Once more, with feeling: the FD is one of the few people who can tell you hard facts about what is happening across every facet of the business. A good one, with strategic vision as well as the ability to report on the business and control costs, is worth their weight in gold. And they’re worth a lot more than White’s throwaway quip about his long-term illness: “The doctor said it was an aversion to finance directors.” Ha. Ha.
I’ll concede one point to White. We mustn’t forget to be prudent this year. That’s something the British population at large seems to have forgotten in [LAST YEAR]. Despite all the warnings, last year we borrowed £40bn against our homes and spent it on widescreen TVs and other luxury goods.
I’ve nothing against borrowing against your assets per se. Most FDs, even in this downturn, will be able to find projects that deliver returns above the cost of capital, especially with interest rates so low.
But how many of you would borrow to the extent that you were increasing profits to the tune of six per cent per year, then blow the dough on non-earning assets? That’s how much the national income increased last year thanks to home equity withdrawal, and much of it has gone to fuel the consumer boom.
While you and your fellow directors have been exhorted to apply the highest standards of corporate governance and look at the social and environmental aspects of your financial decisions, the masses are out their doing an Enron (well, almost). Even if house prices stabilise, the consumer boom is definitely over in [THIS YEAR]. There’s precious little equity left to borrow against; the credit cards are maxed out. It’s going to be a challenging year. So companies will need FDs with the *full* range of skills if they’re to exploit to the expected upturn in the last quarter.
"Twitter ye not"
Just a maintenance post, and a chance to get something off my chest about twitter.
People seem to be using it all wrong.
OK, I know that's hardly fair: there's no "right" way to use something like a messaging service. And I'm following some very inventive feeds using it in clever, non-obvious ways. But it's medium that leads people to become egomaniacal and arrogant (especially as their follower numbers mount - which I think causes a form of Messiah Complex). Let me give an example.
A well-known specialist journalist of my acquaintance is a heavy twitter user. He likes it so much, he's said in the past that it might replace, for him, email and RSS feeds as a means of staying in touch with his interest groups. But subscribing to his twitter feed has been a painful experience. (He's not the only culprit - I've unfollowed lots of people for the same reasons I've ditched his twitter feed.)
There are three huge problems. First, as a twitter fan, he uses an awful lot of twitter shorthand. For those of us not au fait with the jargon, that makes them impenetrable. (New tweet conventions seem to spring up every day - some obvious, others positively runic.) I think that's unforgivable for a journalist. As professional communicators, what we write should be clear, direct and concise. The 140 character limit on twitter rewards directness and conciseness - but it torpedoes clarity in many tweets.
SOLUTION: tweet a lot less. Blog more - where you can write to the right length, then perhaps use clear, plain english tweets to flag up new posts. (Note: this journalist blogs plenty and does tweet new blogs... in between screeds of unintelligible tweets that make my head hurt.)
Second, twitter is a broadcast medium. But it encourages person-to-person communication. The number and proportion of this journalist's tweets directed with the "@" sign to specific individuals is huge - and most of them are utterly uninteresting to me as a result. Because I'm only seeing part of the conversation - and have no interest in following everyone my colleague follows - the signal-to-noise ratio gets even worse.
SOLUTION: tweet a lot less. If the conversation is one-to-one, for god's sake email. If it's a relatively narrow interest group, why not go to a group or chat-room - try using this for hot topics: http://www.tinychat.com/. If you tweet, you tweet to all your followers, and it seems rude not to address them all in that case.
Third, twitter is an over-public medium. Think of the internet cloud as a giant pub. If I want to talk to someone I know quietly in the corner over a beer, I use email or IM. If a small group want to chat about football or politics, hugger-mugger in a booth, it's a chat-room or perhaps a comment thread. If I have something I want people to read, I might leave a flyer on the tables or in the loo - put up blog post or a web page. Twitter, however, is the equivalent of the bloke in the pub who won't leave you alone. He has to tell everyone he's ever met there exactly what he's been up to - IN A RATHER LOUD VOICE. And he'll often bore you with stories about conversations he's had with other people (often people he barely knows). He's slightly shouty and a bit of a boor and he thinks everyone really likes him. (Let's just be clear: I'm not saying my journalist friend is like that - just that heavy twitterers can come across that way.)
SOLUTION: tweet a lot less. Why not do it only when you have a very open question that anyone in the pub might be able to answer? Perhaps use it as an online equivalent of shouting "there's a fight in the street!" - a public service to those in the pub: clear, unambiguous, concise and useful. Then if someone rushes out with you to take a look, you can discuss the brawl one-to-one without annoying anyone else.
In short... tweet a lot less. I'd like to follow more people - I like people, lots of people have interesting things to share - but there's a limit to how many tweets I can plough through in a day. If that limit is, say 200, and everyone puts up 5 tweets, that's 40 people I can keep track of. If two people stink up Tweetdeck with 50 a day each, then my twitter population halves.
I still follow my journalist's blog entries via RSS. He's interesting, well-connected and informed. Articulate, even. But his twitter feed is dead to me. My favourite US political journo, now a White House correspondent, is next... unless she calms the frick down. (Sadly, her blog is less frequently updated.) An expert in global accounting also need to re-learn the value of email, IM and texting (especially when she's being flirtatious) or she's on the block. (Her RSS feed is good, thankfully).
As the late great Frankie Howerd might have said: "Twitter ye not!"
People seem to be using it all wrong.
OK, I know that's hardly fair: there's no "right" way to use something like a messaging service. And I'm following some very inventive feeds using it in clever, non-obvious ways. But it's medium that leads people to become egomaniacal and arrogant (especially as their follower numbers mount - which I think causes a form of Messiah Complex). Let me give an example.
A well-known specialist journalist of my acquaintance is a heavy twitter user. He likes it so much, he's said in the past that it might replace, for him, email and RSS feeds as a means of staying in touch with his interest groups. But subscribing to his twitter feed has been a painful experience. (He's not the only culprit - I've unfollowed lots of people for the same reasons I've ditched his twitter feed.)
There are three huge problems. First, as a twitter fan, he uses an awful lot of twitter shorthand. For those of us not au fait with the jargon, that makes them impenetrable. (New tweet conventions seem to spring up every day - some obvious, others positively runic.) I think that's unforgivable for a journalist. As professional communicators, what we write should be clear, direct and concise. The 140 character limit on twitter rewards directness and conciseness - but it torpedoes clarity in many tweets.
SOLUTION: tweet a lot less. Blog more - where you can write to the right length, then perhaps use clear, plain english tweets to flag up new posts. (Note: this journalist blogs plenty and does tweet new blogs... in between screeds of unintelligible tweets that make my head hurt.)
Second, twitter is a broadcast medium. But it encourages person-to-person communication. The number and proportion of this journalist's tweets directed with the "@" sign to specific individuals is huge - and most of them are utterly uninteresting to me as a result. Because I'm only seeing part of the conversation - and have no interest in following everyone my colleague follows - the signal-to-noise ratio gets even worse.
SOLUTION: tweet a lot less. If the conversation is one-to-one, for god's sake email. If it's a relatively narrow interest group, why not go to a group or chat-room - try using this for hot topics: http://www.tinychat.com/. If you tweet, you tweet to all your followers, and it seems rude not to address them all in that case.
Third, twitter is an over-public medium. Think of the internet cloud as a giant pub. If I want to talk to someone I know quietly in the corner over a beer, I use email or IM. If a small group want to chat about football or politics, hugger-mugger in a booth, it's a chat-room or perhaps a comment thread. If I have something I want people to read, I might leave a flyer on the tables or in the loo - put up blog post or a web page. Twitter, however, is the equivalent of the bloke in the pub who won't leave you alone. He has to tell everyone he's ever met there exactly what he's been up to - IN A RATHER LOUD VOICE. And he'll often bore you with stories about conversations he's had with other people (often people he barely knows). He's slightly shouty and a bit of a boor and he thinks everyone really likes him. (Let's just be clear: I'm not saying my journalist friend is like that - just that heavy twitterers can come across that way.)
SOLUTION: tweet a lot less. Why not do it only when you have a very open question that anyone in the pub might be able to answer? Perhaps use it as an online equivalent of shouting "there's a fight in the street!" - a public service to those in the pub: clear, unambiguous, concise and useful. Then if someone rushes out with you to take a look, you can discuss the brawl one-to-one without annoying anyone else.
In short... tweet a lot less. I'd like to follow more people - I like people, lots of people have interesting things to share - but there's a limit to how many tweets I can plough through in a day. If that limit is, say 200, and everyone puts up 5 tweets, that's 40 people I can keep track of. If two people stink up Tweetdeck with 50 a day each, then my twitter population halves.
I still follow my journalist's blog entries via RSS. He's interesting, well-connected and informed. Articulate, even. But his twitter feed is dead to me. My favourite US political journo, now a White House correspondent, is next... unless she calms the frick down. (Sadly, her blog is less frequently updated.) An expert in global accounting also need to re-learn the value of email, IM and texting (especially when she's being flirtatious) or she's on the block. (Her RSS feed is good, thankfully).
As the late great Frankie Howerd might have said: "Twitter ye not!"
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