Be Careful Who Watches Your Digital Life

Friday, 01. 22. 2010  –  Category: Enversa Companies

The world of social networking sites, like MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook, is not only brilliant but addicting.  For many, these are personal accounts utilized to stay connected with friends and family, share basic updates about their lives, and post photos of their kids.  For others, it is their whole universe and key to their social world.  Daily updates, hourly posts, pictures of every at-home project, night out with friends, and vacations, and new diet ideas are posted for review and feedback.  Like any circle of friends, it can take time to adjust and crack the “shell” of personal inhibition.  To request a friend, to confirm a friend, to share plans for the weekend, to post those vacation photos of you in a swimsuit or with…

Honesty is Indeed the Best Marketing Policy

Tuesday, 12. 8. 2009  –  Category: Enversa Companies

Nobody’s perfect.  Let’s establish that from the outset.  You and your product, no matter how hard you try, will not be everything to everyone.  There will always be limitations or competitors that keep you from being alone at the top.  As a result, it is natural for companies to talk up their competitive advantages and sweep away those unappealing nuances.

With a real-time news cycle and an ever decreasing sense of privacy, it is likely that all of those data points you want to keep hidden will surface eventually.  As a result, many companies (and individuals) are now feeling the pain of not being open and honest up front with their followers.  Before you find yourself in a position of playing catch up to a story…

Are Wireless Phones Really About the Phone Anymore?

Monday, 11. 16. 2009  –  Category: Dial611

On the legal side of telecommunications, the “duck test” is often used to describe how new technologies fit into legacy regulatory policies.  When data companies unveil voice services and claim that they are data and not voice products, the argument is often made by competitors and regulators that “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.”

This test is pertinent to the current state of the wireless phone industry as well.  With all of the enhancements happening, the user experience is getting more and more complex.  As a result, a paradox emerges.  If a phone doesn’t have a key pad, doesn’t require minutes and is rarely used to make calls; is it really a…

The Danger of Being Too Connected

Monday, 09. 14. 2009  –  Category: Dial611

As a society, we are more connected than we have ever been. With social networking platforms like Twitter and Facebook reaching millions of Americans, we have instant access to data. Soon, as I discussed in my previous article, that access will be mobile—making us experts anywhere, anytime. But is all of this connectivity worthwhile?  Do we really need to know each piece of breaking news as it happens?

More importantly, what are we trading away for this instant access?

Deteriorating Interpersonal Communication: Let’s face it–when faced with talking with someone or sending them a message (whether via text, tweets, postings or e-mail), we increasingly choose the latter. And while we like to rationalize that it is out of politeness so as to not intrude, the result is…