New Etiquette for the Always On Observers

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Two recent articles highlight the side effect of "wearable computing" – personal cameras that automatically capture the world around us. First is this piece from a Wired writer describing his year as a Google Glass user:

My Glass experiences have left me a little wary of wearables because I’m never sure where they’re welcome. I’m not wearing my $1,500 face computer on public transit where there’s a good chance it might be yanked from my face. I won’t wear it out to dinner, because it seems as rude as holding a phone in my hand during a meal. I won’t wear it to a bar. I won’t wear it to a movie. I can’t wear it to the playground or my kid’s school because sometimes it scares children.

Next up is a piece in The Wall Street Journal about cameras you can clip to your shirt so they can take pictures automatically throughout the day:

But there's a cost to amassing so much photographic evidence. The tiny cameras made others uncomfortable when they found out they were being recorded. Some friends wouldn't hug me; gossiping colleagues kept asking, "Is that thing on?" These devices upset a fundamental (though arguably flawed) assumption that even in public, you aren't being recorded.

Makes you squirm, doesn't it? One reason I wanted to review these cameras is that this kind of technology isn't going away. "Always on" cameras are becoming popular in home electronics like the Xbox One and a new wave of streaming video security systems. Now you can buy cameras that attach to your wrist, ear, bike helmet and eyeglasses. They're also fast becoming part of the uniforms of cops, soldiers and doctors.

Both articles explore the positive utilities of these devices, but the authors also highlighted the discomfort that these things caused in people around them. It's not surprising when you think about how uncomfortable you'd be if someone were to just start snapping pictures of you with a traditional camera while you're out and about, but it's even more discomfiting when you realize that people can do it without you even knowing it. What this means is that in the very near future we're going to go through a societal learning stage about what will be the appropriate (polite?) way to use these new devices.

What's scary is that we still haven't mastered the etiquette for proper mobile phone usage and those things have been with us for 20 years! Hell, someone was shot and killed in Tampa this month because of dispute over texting in a movie theater, so it's a bit scary to think what we'll be seeing with these always-on cameras. Of course we'll figure it out eventually but there are going to be many uncomfortable moments until we do.

The Week That Spanned a Year: 12/29/13 – 1/4/14

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Current Events – Everything you need to know about Obamacare in one place – Probably the best, most easily understood piece about Obamacare and what it means for you…with video!

Oh Shit! Issue of the Week – Retirement crisis being brought on by aging boomers who didn’t save squat and fewer young workers to fund the retirement system.

Cutest Video of the Week – A dad, his daughter and a pink plastic ukulele.

Stupid Person of the Week – The man who didn’t bring home the beer.

Technology – Year of the Glasshole – Excerpt – “An anecdote: I wanted to wear Google Glass during the birth of our second child. My wife was extremely unreceptive to this idea when I suggested it. Angry, even. But as we got a bit closer to the date, she began to warm to it and eventually landed somewhere in the neighborhood of bemused hostility.”

History – Nattering Nabobs of Negativism Through the Ages – From the printing press to the internet and how pundits of their times thought they’d ruin society.

Marketing – How to make things go viral – A must read for anyone in the business of getting attention, whether for themselves or their business.

Small Business – 10 Bold Predictions for 2014 – #9, that Obamacare will be very popular with super-small businesses, is spot on.

Oy of the Week – Meet the people who think the US is 2014 years old

Quote of the Week – “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” – Albert Einstein

Ripple Effect

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Rex Hammock has 10 Bold Small Business Predictions for 2014 and #9 is dead on:

This is a non-partisan prediction. If you love Obamacare, or hate Obamacare, this prediction doesn’t care. With the bungled launch of the Healthcare.gov online insurance market and the non-stop accusations slinging back and forth between the political parties, it’s been hard for small busines owners to separate fact from vitriol. But here’s one fact: millions of “nonemployee businesses” (a census bureau segment that are independent free lancers, developers, consultants, authors, artisans, etc., who, collectively, account for 4% of all U.S. sales and receipts, but represent the largest number business entities) are now able to obtain healthcare insurance at a competitive price, even if they have pre-existing health condition. Not having access to such insurance has held back lots of employees of lots of big companies from setting up their own shop. Here’s another fact: If a small business has less than 50 employees, the only requirement they have under the Affordable Care Act is to inform employees of the availability of private healthcare insurance sold through marketplaces administered through (depending on the option of a state) federal or state healthcare insurance marketplaces. As Mark Cuban recently told the Wall Street Journal, “As someone who owns chunks of small businesses, the one thing all those companies have in common is [that] buying and providing health care is not a core competency,” he says. “It’s expensive.” By removing the responsibility to provide coverage from these firms and giving it to the government, he says, “You’ve freed up money and time.”

My long-besieged wife has heard me say this for years – if the health care system in the US was fixed there would be an explosion of entrepreneurialism. It's hard to overstate how many people have been tethered to a deadend job because they needed the benefits. Imagine what they would do if that wasn't hanging over their heads and I'm sure that thought is a big motivator in the fight against health care reform.

Hanesbrands vs Hanes Hummus

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Winston-Salem's very own Hanesbrands seems to feel threatened by a tiny Canadian hummus maker and they aren't going to sit back and let those Canuck chickpea smashers get away with riding on their branding coattails:

The difference between underwear and hummus may be as vast as the distance between Hanesbrands' headquarters in Winston-Salem, N.C., and the food business that Yohannes Petros built in the city of Saskatoon, in Saskatchewan, Canada, five years ago.

But earlier this month, the gulf was closed, just like the plastic container sealing his hummus products when Petros received a two-page letter from Hanes' legal department.

The letter said Hanesbrands Inc. objects to Petros' use of the mark Hanes Hummus in his application to register the name in the U.S. and Canada. The company required a response by Dec. 16 in its request to "cease and desist from all use of the mark Hanes Hummus" and withdraw its pending trademark applications.

Petros decided to fight back and retained his own attorney who, thankfully, seems to have a sense of humor:

In response, Petros' attorney, Nathan Dooley, wrote a three-page letter to Hanesbrands with 36 pages of supporting case law saying he disagrees with Hanesbrands' conclusion that consumers will confuse the hummus maker with the apparel brand.

"I was not aware that HBI [Hanesbrands Inc.] was in the business of manufacturing and selling hummus. In fact, I am confident that HBI is not in the food production business at all, let alone the production of fine and tasty hummus of the type manufactured and sold by Hanes Hummus," Dooley writes.

"I was not aware that HBI's T-shirts were edible, made with chick peas, lemon or garlic," Dooley adds…

Dooley holds back no punches, writing to Hanes, "It is safe to assume that you have done no research whatsoever" and "If you had done that research, you would not have sent the letter because, in reality, no rational person who is familiar with Hanes Hummus could possibly allege any confusion between Hanes Hummus and HBI's Mark or HBI's product."

I pity the HBI PR person who caught this one. 

Making a Difference

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The story of Yadkinville native Nathan Harris's ordeal after being wounded in Afghanistan is told very well in this article by Susan Ladd of the Greensboro News & Record. Towards the end of the article you get to hear a little about another remarkable person who I happen to have the privilege of knowing:

His dogs didn’t get along with his mother’s dog, so he couldn’t stay there. By the time, he met Brian Sowers, Harris had moved five times in a month.

Sowers, a member of Greensboro’s Crescent Rotary Club, led the effort to provide a home for Harris through Purple Heart Homes of Statesville. The house was dedicated on Veterans Day.

“I could see from the start that he was a loving guy and appreciative of the opportunity being given him,” Sowers says. “Now, he is so much more upbeat and outgoing than when I first met him, because he knows he has a support system.”…

The Rotary Club also is helping him rebuild an independent life.

He’s gone out with club members twice this month to ring the bell for the Salvation Army. He helped serve the meal for the Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club at Thanksgiving. He hopes to start volunteering soon at one of the stores.

“I’m getting there,” Harris says. “I have to keep working to get mobile enough to get a job. I want to be productive and give back, make a difference in people’s lives.”

I happen to be a member of Crescent Rotary and Brian recruited me to help out with Nathan's project, mainly because I live in Lewisville and by default was usually physically closer to where Nathan was living on a daily basis.  From my vantage point I can tell you that Nathan's new house might never have happened without Brian. The club members and other organizations like TIMCO Aviation Services and Wet 'n Wild definitely stepped up and moved mountains to raise the funds for the project, but without Brian's leadership and direction it would have either never happened or, more likely, the project would have taken twice as long to complete.  

Let me be real clear about one thing here, I didn't do a whole lot on this project other than give Nathan the occasional ride or drop off some materials for him, but even with my minimal involvement I felt privileged to be a front row witness to the difference that one motivated man can make in another's life. I didn't know Brian real well before the project began, but I got to know him over the last year and I can't tell you how proud I am to call him a friend, fellow Crescent Rotarian and a true leader. The world would be a much better place with thousands more like him.

America – Home of Bizarro Health Care

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Bizarro World is a fictional planet introduced by DC Comics where things are the opposite of what you expect, where Superman isn't super. That's an apt description for the health care system in the United States, which is likely the only place on Earth where this story in the Wall Street Journal would not be shocking:

A Better LA, a decade-old Los Angeles nonprofit, said last week it was signing up 50 low-income people for health plans in California's health-insurance marketplace. The charity, which said it has the blessing of the state agency overseeing the marketplace, will pay $50 to $100 a month to cover the share of the people's premiums not already financed by federal subsidies.

Those 50 people are at the vanguard of a push that could shift the balance between hospitals and insurers across the nation. Nonprofits, including some hospitals, say paying premiums would ensure coverage for people currently uninsured who can't afford even a small monthly payment for health insurance.

But insurers say they can't make a profit unless the health-insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act draw a balanced mix of healthy and sicker customers. The law's rocky start, many insurers fear, has already skewed the mix toward people in worse health. Help from nonprofits or hospitals could speed the arrival of less healthy customers into the exchanges, outpacing the arrival of younger, healthier people who might not cross paths with hospitals…

But such plans have drawn criticism. "It is a conflict of interest for hospitals and drug companies to pay patients' premiums and cost-sharing for the sole purpose of increasing utilization of their services and products," said Karen Ignagni, head of America's Health Insurance Plans, the health-insurance industry's trade group.

Jesus.

Ain’t They Cute?

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Let's be blunt: those of us who have survived certain stages in life find it hard not to be condescending to those who have yet to do so. Part of it is simply a function of age, but a much larger part of it is experience. A perfect case in point is children, or more specifically, having children and getting them to the point of launching them into the world.

When our kids were very young I used to HATE the condescending "You just wait" comments from parents of older children. Now that I'm on the other side I totally get where they were coming from although I try not to be condescending in the same way to my friends/coworkers/family members with younger children. I'm not always successful, but I do try.

What prompted this is a piece in Vogue written by a man who was considering the implications of the development of a male version of The Pill. Here's an excerpt:

Later at dinner, she brought it up again. The initial flush of panic had cleared. The idea wasn’t threatening, just amusing. She suggested that putting the male in charge of contraception would just embolden him to have sex with random women, and riskier sex at that; unlike a condom, the pill would do nothing to prevent disease. Could be, I said, but I was lost in thought. Not about that. I was thinking about the strange spot we’re in. We’ve been married a little over a year. She’s 28, and I’m 31. I run a small soccer magazine and she’s a grade-school teacher. We’re paying off her loans from grad school. In other words, this phase of our life together will end when we have a baby—it’s what we’re working up to, the fact that underlies every move we make, what jobs we take, what city we live in, what house we rent. I mean, she recently ordered prenatal vitamins because her sister-in-law said it’s healthy to start a regimen at least a year in advance. That was a surprising trip to the mailbox!

The goal, eventually, is to have a baby, and yet having a baby before we’re ready seems like it would totally derail the plans we’ve laid to achieve the goal. That’s pretty weird. Other thoughts crept in. Hey! Yo, dude! Have you packed for your trip on Thursday? What day is today, anyway?

“Excuse me, darling,” I said. “What day is it?”

She gave me a look. You’ve seen one just like it. Her eyebrows posed the question before she did: “And you want to be in charge of the birth control?”

When I finished the article my reaction was bemusement. Why? Because I wanted to find this guy's number call him up and tell him, "You'll never be 'ready' for kids. It's an impossibility in the same way that you'll never be 'ready' for a tornado. You can prepare – drawing your little life maps and to-do lists – but when the reality of Hurricane Kid reaches your shores you'll be laid bare like every other parent before you."

Yes he and his wife should do everything they can to try and put off the inevitable until they think they're ready, but my advice is for them to not sweat too much about it because no matter how hard they try they'll never be truly ready. 

Oh, and that part about who's best to take control of contraception? Sometimes it doesn't matter because you could defy the odds like yours truly and his significant other and conceive children on two different occassions while she's on the pill. 99% efficacy is great unless you're not in it; believe me that's not the 1% you want to be in.

As a middle-aged dad entering the territory of overtime (kids in college, destined to move back for a while) I merely want to say, "You're so cute with your little worries? You ain't seen nothing yet."

Damnit, it's just impossible not to be a condescening ass in these situations.

Doing Things the Right Way

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College sports, at every level, is about winning. That's particularly true at the highest level for the major-revenue sports like football and basketball. The pressure on the players and coaches to win is tremendous and for the coaches if you don't win then you won't have your job for long. With that kind of environment it's no wonder that programs come under scrutiny for putting the sports above academics and doing whatever it takes, right or wrong, to get talented athletes on the field. And that's why Jim Grobe, who resigned his position yesterday, has been such a remarkable football coach for Wake Forest.

Coach Grobe is a man, so undoubtedly he's made mistakes and surely there are things that have happened in his program that weren't great, but by all accounts he's done things the right way. He's held his players to high expectations, he hasn't run afoul of NCAA regulations and he's built a tremendously positive culture at the second-smallest of all the FBS schools in the country. In the process he also built a win-loss record over 13 seasons that was close to break-even, which to anyone familiar with the history of Wake football knows is damn-near a miracle.

Unfortunately for those of us who hate to see him go Coach Grobe's record was a winning record after eight seasons, but a string of five straight losing seasons took him to a losing overall record at Wake. He inflicted his own judgment on that trend by stepping aside rather than searching for answers for another season or waiting to be pushed out. That should not come as a surprise to anyone who's watched him over the last 13 years.

I'll let Dan Collins, who covered WFU Football for the Winston-Salem Journal, tell you what you need to know:

Over the countless times I've been around Jim Grobe, he's always been the same guy. And he was that guy today while announcing he was stepping down after 13 seasons as the Deacons' head coach…

Emotions did begin to show when Wellman got up to announce Grobe was stepping down. With eyes glistening, Wellman professed not only his admiration and respect for Grobe, but his love as well.

Thankfully, he recognized it as a universal sentiment.

"When you cut through it all, Jim Grobe was a winning football coach but he was a better man,'' Wellman said. "Whenever I talk with anybody, whether it be other athletic directors across the country, whether it be conference personnel, whether it be other head coaches across the country, the first thing they ask me when I talk with them is, `How is Jim? How is he doing?'

"And it's always with a smile. They usually end the conversation by saying `Jim Grobe is one of the best men I know.' I will tell you he's one of the best men I know. He's not only a friend, but he's a tower of a man.''…

But I'll close now by saying that for all the emotions in the room today, there were few present who had more reason than me to be sad over the realization that Grobe has coached his final game at Wake.

Jim Grobe has been good to me every day he's been at Wake. That's not because I'm special. It's because he's special.

Truth is, he's been good to everybody.

Before resigning Coach Grobe was the only FBS coach to have a losing record for five straight years. It's a testament to how he built this program that he was able to stay around for that long. Losing while doing something the right way sure is easier to take than winning while doing something the wrong way and the folks at Wake seemed to realize it. Let's hope Coach Grobe's successor sees things the same way.