Davos Newbies

Today’s Financial Times has, to my mind, a bit of astounding advice. In an article about the “dangers” of unguarded emails in the corporate world, it advocates organizations install “increasingly advanced software” to block embarrassing messages from leaving the corporate system.

“In addition to dirty words you can train software to look for specific trade secrets, or the names of your executives, or research projects or clients or competitors, and block those messages from ever leaving your system,” says Nancy Flynn, executive director of the ePolicy Institute, which conducts research and advises companies.

Ms Flynn says employers should be rushing to deploy this kind of software, and not just for e-mails. Blog posts and instant messages are dangerous as well. [My emphasis added.]

I think this kind of approach is so evidently bonkers, evoking a dystopian corporate world where concepts like trust and maturity are wholly absent, that I was curious to learn about the ePolicy Institute. It’s clearly the invention and device of Flynn and little more. She may well be providing valued advice to her members and customers, but I don’t see why a Financial Times journalist should see her institute as any kind of independent authority. She is a consultant on matters like email policy for companies and, it seems clear, makes her money by selling her brand of advice.

We need a “Law of the Institute” for journalists and bloggers. It’s simplicity itself to stick “institute” on a name. It may sound more impressive than “Inc” or “Associates” or “& Company”. But all too often it is a meaningless designation. Writer beware.

I’ve been a Barack Obama fan for quite some time, so I’d like to think that everything that Richard Greene writes is true. Greene reckons Obama is ready to be president, a conclusion he somewhat rhetorically bases on the impact and success of his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

There are two aspects to Greene’s argument that I find questionable. First is his assertion on the power of oration. “The ability to give a great speech is the most visible and, I argue, one of the most important responsibilities of the individual who leads any nation, and particularly, the most powerful nation on earth… The relationship between great speakers and great leaders is extremely direct.” I think leaders certainly need to be effective communicators, but I am unsure whether great leaders must be great speakers. Many great leaders are great speakers, but not always. And there are certainly great speakers who have no other notable leadership capabilities.

The second part of Greene’s argument is, unfortunately, far more dubious. “Beyond the benefits of seeing a black man in the White House, once the world hears THIS black man speak - even just ONE speech - after 8 years of what they have heard, they will, instantly, regain their respect for our President and our people.” Would that were true. I think Obama and a number of other Democrats do have the potential to repair the damage of the Bush administration. But globally the damage goes far too deep for anyone to repair it in a single speech or a single year or even a single term. Undoing the damage of eight Bush years is going to be a truly long struggle for the US.