Mike Schorah

We've recently become hooked on TV's Homeland . One of the main characters supposedly grew up listening to Miles Davis , though I confess I'd never heard of him or his music before the TV show. However, each episode has included a little snippet of his music. I'd not really noticed it before this week when he got a mention from one of the characters, and I used the Shazam app on my iPhone to listen and tell me which track was playing... Next day I did a Google search and read some online reviews of the album. They were all glowing and, a few buttons later, the album was purchased, downloaded and playing on my iPhone. In years past I'd never have been able to learn about his music so quickly and effortlessly, and I'd probably not have gone out to buy it specially. By making it so easy and "frictionless" to discover and buy the economy has grown as my bank account has shrunk!

Today one of our major clients woke up to no email service. When planning a company merger our client had grabbed and registered a domain name with a hosting company. Some considerable time later we are helping them to rationalise and move to a smaller number of suppliers. Four previous domain name moves went without a hitch, but mostly because they were not being used and no one noticed that the supplier we are moving from has broken processes... Simply, their internal process releases a domain name and deletes the record immediately. They should disconnect those two steps because their record delete should only take place after the new host has taken ownership. By doing the delete prematurely there is no lookup for the domain name on any of the Internet name servers and email, web, etc is not able to work. The problem is that the host we are moving from is being unhelpful, whether out of malice or not. And there is nothing we can do about it. We just have to wait for the new record...

Today I met with a potential client, a director of a private security company. He mentioned how he often tells people not to use computers, phones and the other paraphernalia of modern society if they have stuff they want to keep private. It's a lesson the "bad guys" seem to have learned as they abandon satellite phones that can be tracked and targeted in favour of word-of-mouth couriers and old-fashioned low tech. Then, later, I was brought up short when I saw a post by Jodi Wilkinson about what sites see when you use your Facebook login... Name Hometown Location Email address Gender Work: employer name, location, position title, start date Education: school, location, year, course specialisation Timezone and more... Jodi writes that this is the minimum information that Facebook provides; and most sites request more. She gives an example of how one request for her data released "2,054 lines of data containing gps coordinates of all my check-ins, photos I’ve been t...

Today the team has spent half a day carrying out some internal account planning to work out how best to support a major client, keeping our communications and collaboration tight to hold down costs and maximise our effectiveness. We began with brainstorming and rapidly came up with quite a list of all our business-as-usual, current and future planned activities that we need to coordinate. The problem then become one of how to stay on top of all this activity: OneNote, Excel, SharePoint, Project, or mind-mapping software or one of a host of other tools... Including paper. Yesterday I had a meeting with a client and spent a hour trying to understand his business needs and then helping him to work out the best technology fit that will work for him. Even as private individuals within the household we now have to work out whether to use Google Calendar, the Calendar app on our iPhones that syncs through Apple iCal or some other alternative. Increasingly we all have to know enough about tech...

When people send me an email, especially if it has an attachment, they don't know if I've got it, or if I'm taking action on it, unless I tell them. It's a basic professional courtesy to keep others informed; and you'll get into less trouble with frustrated colleagues if you set expectations about what you'll do, and when you'll do it. Then deliver on those expectations. My rule of thumb is to keep the conversation moving at a reasonable pace. In principle I reply to everything I receive so that the ball is back in the other's court.

Yesterday, Sunday, we got two enquiries on the company website; both from the same person. First time, he gave us his name and email address. Second time, a minute later, he gave us his phone number and the nature of his enquiry, too. Trouble is that his enquiry was simply, "any apprenticeships?" (sic - No capital letters.) As my colleague said, "No there aren't, if that's the best you can do." In our business we are looking for colleagues who'll make the right impression; who'll go the extra mile and be diligent, as well as be fun to work with. That's not an exhaustive list, but the truth is we aren't going to get to explore whether this guy fits the rest of the list because the first impression he made is just so poor.

This week one of our business partners has repeatedly forwarded on the emails he's received from a third party: the other guy just doesn't "get" the 'Reply to All' function, it seems... If Alice, Bob and Charlie are communicating by email then it's rude, naive and unprofessional of Bob just to hit 'Reply' and shut Charlie out of the loop; and it causes extra work for Alice to forward stuff on to Charlie to bring him back to speed. Bob simply learning to use 'Reply All' solves the problem. Of course, 'Reply All' can be misused, and it often is. Some organizations are so political that people add others to the circulation list of emails 'just in case' and to protect their position. In this environment 'Reply All' becomes a serious pain and a drain on productivity. To be an  effective professional in the online world, you have to think hard about these little details of presentation. I don't always get it righ...