Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com - Political Archives

Big News: Marc Andreessen to Support Romney

2012-03-04T16:43:43Z

The biggest issue the US currently faces is a lack of jobs and perversely we have a President who has never actually worked in the private sector. To keep this from becoming a partisan post, President Bush was in the private sector but didn't appear to actually be successful there.

So if the next election has to do with getting Americans back to work, many people believe the best person to achieve this goal is someone who has been successful in business and has hired and fired people in their career.

Contrary to popular belief, a presidential candidate who laid people off is in the best position to understand why businesses lay off and subsequently help foster a climate where less companies consider parting with workers. A candidate who hired overseas instead of in the US is in the best position to understand why the US and US workers in particular are at a disadvantage when it comes to competing internationally.

For these and other reasons, Silicon Valley's Marc Andreessen is endorsing Romney and even if he isn't the most conservative person from a social perspective he understands business, global competition and has the greatest potential to help the US compete against the emerging global powerhouses of India and China.

Ineptocracy Definition

2011-11-03T20:39:14Z

I came across this term ineptocracy this morning while watching CNBC. The hosts had lots of fun with the word saying it is redundant. Here is the definition they quoted and a website with more:

A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

Photo credit: Victorian Traditions / Shutterstock.com

Gary and Mary West: Improving Healthcare Through Disruption

2011-10-19T16:21:27Z

For years, Americans have prospered like people in no other country on earth because our class-free society allowed virtually anyone with a good idea to launch a company, hire, prosper and keep the majority of the fruits of their labor. A competitive entrepreneurial culture further fostered an environment where successful businesspeople went from being entrepreneurs to serial entrepreneurs.

Even more impressive, so many of these successful businesspeople seem to reach a point in their career where they don’t feel satisfied helping society through their inventions and hiring, they want to focus on problems with society and fix them directly.

Such is the case with Gary and Mary West – two legends in the call center space as founders of West Corp. As you may know,in 1982 TMC launched the first magazine in the world in the call center space and at the time we called it Telemarketing (now Customer Interaction Solutions). Believe it or not, The term call center wasn't coined until the late eighties. And one of our areas of focus was on the outsourcing space – which at that time was virtually all done domestically in places like Iowa and Nebraska.

For decades, West Corp constantly placed high on lists of contact center outsourcing companies TMC ranked and currently employs around 35,000 people. This past decade the company evolved by promoting home-agent outsourcing allowing US workers to be more cost-competitive with their international competition from countries like India.

Today, Gary and Mary have announced the formation of West Health Investment Fund, LLC a $100M fund to provide risk capital to lower health care costs and invigorate low cost health care innovation. Specifically, the company explains that the rising healthcare cots are an unsustainable burden on our economy and moreover that the fund will help bring disruptive solutions to market to help solve the problem.

The initial portfolio of the fund is as follows:

Biological Dynamics, whose next-generation diagnostics technology may enable physicians to detect cancer from a simple blood draw and rapidly intervene, increasing patient survivability while driving down the cost of care;

Change Healthcare, whose web-based decision support tool Transparency Messenger™ provides consumers with personalized views of pricing information and alerts on where to save money on routine healthcare services including medical, dental and prescriptions;

goBalto, whose new generation web-based solutions simplify pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device clinical research;

Healthsense, whose in-home monitoring sensors and solutions alert family members and providers of potential health problems before they become acute, enabling seniors to remain healthy and independent;

Humedica, a clinical informatics company whose cutting-edge analytics for health care organizations delivers a truly longitudinal and comprehensive view of patient care; and,

Sotera Wireless, whose new generation of continuous vital signs monitoring improves the safety of patients on the general floor of hospitals, while at the same time reducing costs.

And this announcement comes at an interesting time as there seems to be intense media exposure for a group of a few thousand “occupy” protesters and union members who seem to think that wealthy people and corporations are not contributing enough to society. And when I hear such comments I wonder why the press never asks them – What about the company which invented life-saving cancer treatments or medicines to combat AIDS? What about the company which invented better fertilizers or seeds to help reduce world hunger? Or the technology companies which helped third-world companies rife with poverty more quickly evolve into first world powerhouses? Brazil comes to mind.

So hats off the Gary and Mary – they have been held in the highest esteem here at TMC for many decades and although I didn’t think it possible, they just topped themselves.

Herman Cain Page Views Greater Than Others Combined

2011-10-17T14:16:51Z

As of tomorrow it will be three weeks since I wrote my post regarding Herman Cain Crushing it Online and to see how much staying power he has I went back to Alexa and did some analysis on all the major candidates. As a refresher, this graph below shows Cain's late September ascent with a week's worth of results.

The question on everyone's mind of course is will Cain be a flash in the pan like Perry was. To get an idea of what happened to Perry, check out the graph below where Perry's page views (mustard yellow) spiked for a few days in late August and rapidly descended below Romney whose traffic is represented by the red line below Cain. As you can see, Cain has not only sustained the lead in page views over other candidates but his page views are accelerating and are greater than all other major candidates combined.

To put this in perspective, Newt Gingrich recently released his new 21st Century Contract With America and promoted it on his website. This contract is the second one he proposed - the last one was the basis of the Republican House majority sweep in 1994 during the Clinton presidency mid-term elections. In other words - there should be substantial interest in his plan and website yet his traffic peaked between Sept 26-Oct 3rd and continues to decline.

What shouldn't be discounted however is the rise of Mitt Romney who is not setting the world on fire with page views but seems to be the only candidate besides Cain growing in traffic.

With the election about 13 months away there is obviously a lot that can happen but for now, Herman Cain seems to have captured the imagination of the nation with his no-nonsense plain-spoken solutions to problems and belief in self-reliance as opposed to wealth redistribution induced government dependance.

Herman Cain Crushing it Online

2011-09-27T15:20:56Z

Just a week ago the common wisdom was the Republican nominee would be either Mitt Romney or Rick Perry but when Herman Cain won the Florida straw poll this past weekend it showed that clear cut leaders are not as “clear” as many had thought. In fact the 65 year old Georgian had a resounding victory in last week’s poll winning 37% of the votes. To put this in perspective, this is more than double the number of the runner up Perry at 15.4% or Romney at 14% and a higher percentage than the next two combined.

When I heard the news I went to Herman Cain’s website to contribute and as I mentioned this past weekend the site was down. So I did some digging this morning to learn more and found that Alexa, a website owned by Amazon which tracks the relative ranking of websites shows Cain’s site has seen a tremendous jump in traffic since his excellent performance last week in the Republican debate. This likely explains the outage – in fact I am told Cain himself acknowledged the increased traffic level and outage in one of his recent telecvision interviews.

If you missed the debate, Cain was concise, to the point, passionate and likable. Apparently others agreed because you can see from the chart below that as of September 25^th HermanCain.com went from ranking around the top 100,000 websites to the top 5,000 or so sites. It is worth pointing out that for the last seven days MittRomney.com is ranked 52,061, RickPerry.org is ranked 39,640 and Cain is ranked 24,921. The direction of the traffic growth seen on the chart however tells a more important story. Keep in mind that as the numbers get smaller, they are not only better but really small numbers represent exponentially more traffic as extremely popular sites like Google and Facebook are in the top 10.

It is also worth looking at the relative trends over the past days and weeks. You see that Rick Perry exploded onto the scene with a page view increase in the last three months of 2,550% but in the last month page views decreased only to pick up a bit in the last seven days. Mitt Romney has lost page view momentum in the last seven days and month while Herman Cain has seen an increase of 118% in page views over the past month and 450% over the past week.

What this data means is that Cain is capturing the curiosity of the public and many are likely intrigued by his 9-9-9 plan referring to a simplification of the tax code where businesses, individuals and purchasers pay a 9% tax. It is fairly novel in that it abolishes payroll, death and capital gains tax. As part of the plan, businesses pay a 9% tax on income but this is after they deduct investments and purchases from other businesses.

Herman Cain has incredible momentum as the Alexa page view chart above shows. Whether or not the momentum continues however, remains to be seen. What I can tell you is the majority of business leaders I speak with know the path of massive government with increased taxes and regulations will continue to choke the economy and new employment with it. And perhaps Cain’s message of simplification with actual specifics is enough to help him win not only the party’s nomination but the White House.

Women's Rights: The Next Frontier of Product Marketing

2011-09-26T19:42:24Z

History shows us commoditized markets can be fertile ground for differentiation and pricing power if a product or company is innovative, branded properly and/or connects emotionally with purchasers. In the tech space we think of Apple and Bose, while in the food arena brands like Häagen-Dazs, Grey Poupon and Purdue Chicken show that no sector of the market is immune to establishing high-end merchants.

Ethical Oil

And this is all I could think about when I came across the legal fight between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Ethical Oil Institute an advocacy group whose message involves switching from Saudi oil, a product supporting human rights abuse to Canadian oil sands. Currently the ad is not being shown in Canada as a result of Saudi threats relating to what the kingdom deems is falsehoods in the ad.

The video above explains that Saudi women are not allowed to drive, leave the house or go to work without the permission of a male guardian and that their testimony in court is only equal to half a man’s. It goes on to say, “Why are we paying their bills and funding their oppression?” It continues, saying ethical oil is produced from Canada and says, “It’s a choice we have to make.”

Interestingly while the Saudis complain the ad is inaccurate, they should likely be happy that it doesn’t mention honor killings, a practice in the Middle East, Asia and other areas which could be responsible for deaths of up to 20,000 women a year.

Human Rights Watch defines "honor killings" as follows:

Honor killings are acts of vengeance, usually death, committed by male family members against female family members, who are held to have brought dishonor upon the family. A woman can be targeted by (individuals within) her family for a variety of reasons, including: refusing to enter into an arranged marriage, being the victim of a sexual assault, seeking a divorce—even from an abusive husband—or (allegedly) committing adultery. The mere perception that a woman has behaved in a way that "dishonors" her family is sufficient to trigger an attack on her life.^[7]

According to Wikipedia, in 2008, a woman in Saudi Arabia was killed for chatting to a man on Facebook and a Saudi cleric blamed Facebook for the strife it caused. The Saudis may have been better off not drawing attention to these ads and moreover been thankful they didn’t go farther.

China’s One-Child Problem

This idea of a premium brand with superior pricing power made even more sense as I contemplated China. The country is the largest external manufacturing arm of the US and much of the west yet; Chinese citizens have no access to the uncensored internet, live under an authoritarian regime and have to suffer forced abortions due to the one-child-per family policy of the government.

To mark the 31st anniversary of this policy, the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Human Rights Subcommittee held a hearing last week to highlight the China Democracy Promotion Act of 2011, which would give the president of the U.S. the right to deny entry to people who have committed human rights abuses in China. This would include members of the Family Planning Commission who oversee forced abortions.

This article details the account of Yeqing Ji who received a forced abortion under sedation and the emptiness it has caused in her life. She now lives in the US.

Again, we have another major exporter to the US where American dollars are used to subsidize horrible treatment of women. What is shocking is how many people will get behind a cause like PETA – or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals yet turn a blind eye to the women of the world who are treated in many cases far worse.

My sense is the problem has been under the radar – after all the US didn’t wake up to the fact of how poor women were treated in Afghanistan until after it was attacked on 9/11.

While we are seeing challenges to Saudi Arabian and Chinese treatment of women and they are isolated, it could be a matter of time before the western world alters their purchasing decisions in line with their morals.

Learning from the tuna trade

In 1990, tuna which was a product as commoditized as oil or gasoline started to have the Dolphin Safe label – an indicator that accidental dolphin deaths were kept at a minimum if not eliminated.

Is the next frontier a woman safe label? And if so, how much pressure would this put on countries in the Middle East and elsewhere who export large amounts of commodity products yet have terrible human right’s records?

A girl’s best friend

Conflict diamonds are diamonds that originate from areas controlled by forces or factions opposed to legitimate and internationally recognized governments, and are used to fund military action in opposition to those governments, or in contravention of the decisions of the Security Council. In theory, this designation makes these diamonds less valuable. A number of UN Security Council Resolutions banned purchases of such diamonds and this was coupled with executive orders from both President Clinton and Bush banning the import of these diamonds into the US.

Here is yet another example of a commodity used to facilitate terrible acts and a response from the world was to use financial pressure to bring behavior in-line with acceptable western-value human rights.

There is a trend at work here we should all take note of. One wonders if a global movement will eventually spring up which will push the world into treating not only women but human beings more like individuals who deserve liberty and freedom from tyrannical rule.

And this comes on the day when Apple is reported to have reduced its iPad orders in China by 25% as they ramp up production in Brazil. Will companies like Apple with multiple manufacturing facilities offer products which are specifically sourced from an individual country, allowing consumers to make product purchases based on women’s or human rights? Will gas stations begin to offer pumps which are more expensive but label them as “women friendly?”

To me, this analysis screams new business ideas... Especially in light of the fact that many of us have paid more for food which is organic and/or harvested from sustainable farmland.

What do you think?

Herman Cain Wins Straw Poll and Website Goes Down

2011-09-25T00:21:36Z

I received a news alert from CNN and immediately decided to contribute to the Herman Cain campaign in-part because it seems he is gaining serious traction and I really like what he says and his business background. But when I went to his website it was down. Is this the largest amount of traffic his site has had to deal with? Perhaps so but if his performance in the recent debate this past week keeps up he is going to need to move that website of his into the cloud.

China Repeals Trade Rule Favoring Local Companies

2011-06-30T13:35:11Z

In order to get into Chinese markets companies have to partner with a Chinese firm which in effect means partnering with the Chinese government. In many cases this means signing over your technology as well. But companies look at the Chinese market with over a billion consumers with rising incomes and say the risk is worth it as the market is so vast.

The challenge is many companies have seen Chinese sales far smaller than their expectations. This is in part because it isn't easy to market in the country and also because the Chinese have had trade rules in place favoring local suppliers.

Thankfully, China repealed its technology trade rule favoring local companies meaning there should be more opportunity for outside companies selling into the country.

Telecommuting Tax: Now The States Are Killing Jobs

2011-06-16T15:29:29Z

In August of last year I explained why there are so few jobs – in part the problem revolves around demonizing the successful by our politicians and in-part because of excessive taxation. Part of the support for my post was an opinion piece from Michael Fleischer of Bogen Communications – a company in the telecom space I have followed for over a decade-and-a-half. Some of you may think Fleischer is complaining too much and he needs to give back more of the money he earns to be fair – but you should know that in New Jersey he has to pay $74,000 so a worker can take home $44,000. He doesn’t mention this but I will – if he then is lucky enough to make profit he could pay 50-60+% of that money back out to the government through federal and state tax as well as various fees – real estate taxes, regulatory compliance, etc.

This week Fleischer was on Fox Business and isn’t any happier with the state of the US economy and has nothing for venom to spew at politicians who make it more difficult for his company to succeed. He calls this the second summer of “no recovery” referring to what President Obama and Vice President Biden referred to last year as the “summer of recovery.” In fact he is making no new marketing or sales investments until he has more clarity on the future.

Last September I asked the government to stop helping us – explaining how much damage it is doing to our economy through the words it uses and the actions it takes on a regular basis. As a single example I explained how a very well-intentioned bill with support from both parties to help more handicapped people become employed created a “protected class” which resulted in less handicapped people being employed. Time and time again, politicians make promises and subsequently get voted into office only to enact new policies and spend a fortune in the process to see the opposite result.

But if it wasn’t bad enough that the federal government was doing its best to put undue pressure on businesses at a time when many of them are barely staying afloat – the states have joined in. Specifically, cash-strapped states are going after companies who have telecommuting workers in their jurisdiction explaining such companies are “doing business in their sate” and subsequently must pay corporate tax. Barbara Haislip at The Wall Street Journal refers to this as a telecommuting tax.

One solution to the problem is to have the worker resign, form a corporation and then get paid by the company. But the company would now have to pay even more to make up for lost benefits such as healthcare - which would potentially cost much more without the ability to put the worker in a large corporate pool. Not to mention the added red tape on behalf of everyone involved.

Even worse – and this is an issue rarely discussed – if Obamacare does go into effect it will have disastrous consequences on many businesses that have incredible healthcare plans but don’t have the resources to pay top dollar for employees. Many people work in the healthcare profession for example because they get great healthcare benefits included – now the costs for hospitals and other companies in such a situation will go up and they could subsequently be forced to shut down – meaning even less jobs.

Technology has unleashed massive amounts of productivity and as US companies have to compete with those in India and China where there are far fewer regulations, taxes and lawsuits, the use of IP communications to enable things like telecommuting have allowed many companies to stay in business through the worst economy in many of our lifetimes. Now it seems the party is over and legal costs, fees and taxes from the states will potentially put the nail in the coffin for a number of businesses and in-turn cost the US economy even more jobs.

Which Kills More Jobs - The iPad or US Politicians?

2011-04-18T22:26:48Z

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. recently went on a rant discussing how the iPad is produced in China and is responsible for killing jobs and is responsible for Borders going bankrupt. He continued to rail against universities who have adopted the iPad instead of text books. He went on to wonder what happens to publishing company and librarian jobs in such an environment.

The question on our minds must be why is the iPad the focus of his concern and not the digital camera which caused Kodak to go into a tailspin and local photo shops around the country to close down? Why not target IBM for inventing the mainframe and making it possible to use vacuum tubes and later microprocessors instead of humans using pencil and paper. Somehow Amazon got off without even an honorable mention.

One wonders how many jobs have been killed because of the automobile or the abacus or the steam engine. Why let these technologies off the hook. Closer to home, email is responsible for killing post office jobs and causing huge federal deficits – why not complain about that?

As usual, politicians seem to not comprehend how free markets work or how to equip their constituents to maximize the opportunities they afford. For example – we all know that newspaper and magazine publishers have moved to the web to generate revenue and while the mix of employees needed in media is changing, the constant is people with inadequate education are shed while those with leading-edge education, skills and experience tend to do well.

In the US the days of full employment for those who possess physical strength and little else seem to be over.

In other words, in a world where there is instantaneous communications, you can source your workers in the lowest cost country with the lowest wages and this means the race is on to develop the most highly-skilled workforce possible with the most favorable business climate.

So instead of ranting against the iPad – which at least thankfully was designed by a US company, he should be focusing like a laser on retraining those people who are on government assistance who have the capacity to be retrained. If we want to compete in the new tech world our workforce needs to be the most motivated. And does anyone believe receiving years of unemployment is a motivating agent? Or food stamps or myriad other forms of entitlements which are not only not working but responsible for the creditworthiness of the entire nation to be questioned?

And do they think the massive growth of government under Obama with its countless new regulations is positive for the job market or companies looking to hire?

And we hear constant complaints from politicians about the successful – almost every day. They seem to despise achievement – and without a doubt they seem happy to punish it with higher taxes, more IRS audits and any other weapons they have to reduce incentives to create jobs for other US citizens.

I encourage the Congressman, if he really cares about his district to push for keeping kids in school, increasing education in science and math as well as promoting more programs which bring business and schools together – allowing businesses to dictate which job skills schools should focus on. How about less celebrity meetings in the White House and more meetings with the top people from NASA, scientists, engineers, mathematicians and entrepreneurs who are growing their companies and making a difference in the world?

Moreover, there seems to be a continuing message from a number of politicians that becoming successful is a bad thing. A comment made in the video above is “Steve Jobs is doing pretty well.” It is said as if it is a bad thing to win in business employ hundreds of thousands of people and better the lives of society.

The message it seems – and more misguided it cannot be – is new technology is to be avoided because it eliminates US jobs and creates new jobs overseas.

What he should have said is as long as we want to enjoy free trade in this country meaning we want to be able to get access to the best materials available in the world and generally be free to export worldwide, we need to deal with the fact that the standards of living are lower and regulations are generally nonexistent in some competing countries. And this means streamlining our country so US companies can win in this environment.

At Least Steve Jobs controls Apple (well it’s a public company but you get the idea) but instead – Jackson would suggest we should have a Chinese company design the iPad instead? Does he think no one would invent a tablet if Apple didn’t?

Shouldn’t Steve Jobs be a hero – shouldn’t Obama be bowing – not to foreign leaders but to US business leaders who allow him to travel and live in the utmost of luxury? And the Congress and Senate should be joining him.

What would I do if I were president? I would take a page from Reagan who threatened the Japanese automakers regarding fair trade and as a result many of them set up factories in the US and are now employing hundreds of thousands. I would tell China they can no longer steal – and yes they are stealing US technology every day as a precursor to companies getting access to the Chinese market. I would tell the UN that if we believe in democracy and freedom of expression then Internet censorship is no longer to be tolerated by countries who want to buy and sell on the international market. And I'd enforce these ideas as needed.

I would open up the country to H-1B Visas, allowing a virtually unlimited flow of the best and brightest engineers who are looking to live the American dream – understanding how many jobs are the direct result of immigrants coming to the US and starting new companies.

But sadly the attitude of nonconfrontation which is being shown by President Obama tells us this won’t happen under his leadership and as great as he is at making speeches, he is a spineless leader who would rather appease than help get oil prices to go down. He would prefer to make friends than have a skirmish with a country which steals US jobs and technology without giving much in return.

The point of this post is certainly not to suggest starting a war but listening to Donald Trump speak in the last few weeks about how to solve problems with the Saudis and China has been refreshing and it’s the exact opposite of what we hear from Obama who seems determined to make sure the world sees the United States as a country of 300 million spineless rodents.

The question is – besides Trump, who else has the level of reproductive brass needed to get the job done correctly?

So to Rep. Jackson, I would like to say – the problem isn’t the iPad. The iPad is a shining symbol of American technological leadership which in-part is responsible for you to have the privilege of serving in a position of power. Instead of complaining you should be thanking Steve Jobs daily that we can still afford to allow you to live a great life. The real problem is our lowest skilled workers are way behind in becoming skilled – in part because living on government handouts is easier than being retrained and studying 24x7 for a new career. Moreover, the issues we have as a nation require a leader who takes bold stands and isn’t afraid of his own shadow. Someone who understands that while we live in a global society, each country must pursue its own interests – and the interests of its citizens first – usually at the expense of having nice touchy-feely relationships with China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and others.

All we can do is hope our next president won’t list timidity as an attribute.

President Obama Needs to be at ITEXPO

2011-04-15T22:15:06Z

I recently learned that President Obama isn't happy with the old White House telephone. According to Fox News he said:

The Oval Office, I always thought I was going to have really cool phones and stuff," he said during a small fundraising event at a Chicago restaurant. "I'm like, c'mon guys, I'm the president of the United States. Where's the fancy buttons and stuff and the big screen comes up? It doesn't happen."

So it would make sense to have the president come to the largest event focusing on communications and technology in the US - one which draws virtually the entire ecosystem of companies who provide IP-communications and video-based phones. Also by the way - the third-fastest growing show in the US.

Sure, the President and I don't seem to agree on much - I am a fan of a limited government, low taxes and responsible spending but at least we seem to have common ground on the need to utilize the latest technology to boost productivity.

So, Mr. President - if you do decide to attend ITEXPO West 2011, Sept 13-15, 2011 in Austin, Texas - I promise to bite my tongue about all the spending and keep the conversation to just tech and telecom.

So Google Can Alter its Results Manually?

2011-04-01T20:32:34Z

Recently it was reported that former CEO of Google Eric Schmidt tried to have his political contributions hidden from Google. The news reminded me that a few years back I wrote about the cozy relationship between Schmidt and President Obama and how it could be protecting a Google monopoly. Interestingly, based upon Schmidt's contributions - he seems to be fairly middle of the road - supporting candidates on the left and right. So it does seem his close ties with the Obama administration might have served the purpose of protecting his company from future lawsuits. And as luck and timing would have it, this week Google did have to deal with antitrust allegations in the EU brought on by Microsoft regarding intentional roadblocks the world's leading search provider has erected around YouTube.

But the broader issue here is the fact that the "algorithm only" search results users were led to believe were the only way search results can be organized can be overridden by white lists the company can apply to sites.

This news will likely cause tremendous damage to the search engine as it opens up the possibility that Google is using manual intervention to lower the rankings of competitors. It would be beyond surprising if we don't start to see more light shined on how Google indexes and provides search results to users. And expect teams of lawyers to be convening regarding how to attack and defend Google regarding the objectivity of its results.

The Pros and Cons of Facebook Hiring Robert Gibbs

2011-03-28T13:21:52Z

Photo courtesy of AP

This weekend it was reported by the New York Times that former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs may take a job helping to manage the communications at Facebook. Here are the pros and cons associated with him joining this company as it prepares for an IPO.

Pros

1) Gibbs had an enormously difficult job defending Obama when it came to health care and other areas and yet he did a good job deflecting criticism and is a master of answering the question he wants to answer – not necessarily the one which was asked.

2) He further is able to use what some might call a boyish charm to get his point across.

3) Facebook can expect to be hammered for many years about privacy, security and perhaps antitrust matters. Having a senior White House official on staff to manage the politics of it all can only help.

4) Having a seasoned politician with a high profile adds to the gravitas of a company run by a relatively young CEO.

5) Having closer ties between technology and the government could make the government more sensitive to important issues to tech firms such as increasing the number of H-1B visas.

Cons

1) Gibbs is obviously associated closely with the left meaning independents and conservatives will have a less favorable view of the social networking company.

2) Gibbs was the White House spokesman as the approval ratings of the President plummeted – does he deserve any credit for this fact?

3) When he gets flustered, Gibbs has a tendency to stammer – still, a minor point as there is likely no tougher job that White House press secretary and defending Facebook will be a lot easier than having to defend a President who has such strong left-wing views and policies.

4) The cozy relationship between large business and politics will continue – which encourages crony capitalism.

5) There is a presidential election coming around the corner and we know how important social networking was when getting President Obama elected. Anyone see any issues with such a high ranking Obama team member having an important role at the world’s largest social networking company?

There you have it – the pros and cons are fairly even it seems and if you have any thoughts on the matter be sure to post them below.

How US Immigration Policies Kill Jobs

2011-03-07T14:19:14Z

It isn’t a new idea – I have covered it a few times in the past – but as time goes on, the policies of the US government – in both parties really, has been extremely unfriendly to immigrant entrepreneurs. The argument is that these workers will take away jobs from Americans but the reality is many startups are founded by the best and brightest foreign-born workers who come to the US either to go to college or expressively to get a piece of the American dream.

TechCrunch has more on why Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs are returning home – and at a time when joblessness is so high, forcing job creators to leave the US while so many countries are actively pursuing/recruiting these people makes even less sense.

Electronic Warfare is the Future. Are You Ready?

2011-02-14T15:16:46Z

Stuxnet is Victory at Entebbe 2.0

The Stuxnet worm alleged to be the work of Israel and the US was designed to target and disable Iranian centrifuges by increasing their speeds to dangerous levels while reporting to operators that all was well. The latest report from the New York Times shows this worm has also hit five industrial sites in the land of Ahmadinejad.

It’s no secret most of the world does not want Iran to get nuclear weapons and the best weapon being used to deter the country’s nuclear program was sanctions and if they are working it would be tough to know it as the country are prospering greatly as the price of oil is much higher than what Iran has budgeted.

So electronic warfare is a nice and neat way to disable a portion of the country’s operations without the need to go to war, risk lives, etc.

Because of the nature of this attack some predict the Iranian nuclear program has been set back by two years, making this attack historic in its ingenuity. It is really Victory at Entebbe 2.0. As you may recall, Operation Entebbe was a daring hostage rescue mission pulled off by the Israel Defense Forces in 1976.

Cyberattacks are not new by any means but the level of sophistication and damage created by this attack make it something bad guys everywhere will be trying to emulate. And this means as we interconnect more systems from smart grids to smart homes… From automobiles to transit systems and full cities, we need to understand the stakes are higher than ever. Rogue countries and terrorist organizations have a new standard to try to beat and it is not out of the question to see countries engaging in more frequent cyberwars in the future. This could be in conjunction with conventional wars like when Russia and Georgia had their recent conflict or full out cyberwars like Stuxnet or when Russia targeted Estonian web servers with DDoS attacks.

For the tech industry this means massive new budgets will be allocated to not only defending against such attacks but developing ingenious new ways of disabling enemies.

And while cyberwar sounds less ominous than having bombs dropped on your head, there is no telling what sorts of damage citizens of the future will be facing if cyberterrorism and cyberwar escalates.