The Ubiquitous CellPhone

The above cartoon sent to me by a friend in the US got me thinking about cell phone etiquette. I have been to conferences, where despite pleas from speakers, cell phones go off and people take calls, thinking that there whispering "one second, I am running out of the conference hall," cannot be heard. I have been to weddings where cellphones purr and ring at the height of the ceremony. And of course, funerals in Israel where cell phones eerily ring as they lower the body into the grave, . We don't give our children cell phones so I have no reports of them going off in class, although I am sure they do.

I was thinking of trying to use the blogosphere and get a cell phone etiquette covenant written. It is a bit tricky since there are cultural elements. I think that by providing parameters, each society could maybe define its own rules within them. Fill in the blanks see if you can get people to sign up for it.

1. We will not use/turn on our cellphones in the following places.
2. We will not use/turn on our cellphones at the following events.
3. If I am within ___ feet of a (X number of people), I will not talk on my cell phone.
4. If I am sitting in a meeting with (x number of people), I will not answer my cellphone.
5. Despite all of the above, if (X person) calls, I will definitely answer the phone or else I will be dead meat!

PLease feel free to fill in the blanks in the comments section

The Philadelphi Kidnapping Problem

I pen this post with much sadness and a lump in my throat. Today, Lt. Gilad Shalit, was abducted by Palestinian terrorists from his post just outside the Gaza Strip in the town Kerem Shalom. In a well coordinated and very serious terrorist attack, Palestinian terrorists killed two soldiers, wounded 4 and kidnapped Gilad Shalit.

As we all pray for his release and the Israeli Army works tirelessly to achieve it, I am sure many of us feel an uneasy sense of deja vu with Nachshon Wachsman (pictured Left), who was kidnapped and killed by Palestinian terrorists 11+ years ago. We all hope and pray that this situation ends differently, with Gilad back in the embrace of his family.

What worries me this time is the new geopolitical situation on the Philadelphi Route that separates the Gaza Strip from Egypt. Wachsman was held in the West Bank which is surrounded by Israeli territory but Shalit is held in the Gaza Strip where there is no Israeli presence. Moreover, for years of Palestinian autonomy in the Gaza Strip, Israel maintained security of the Philadelphi route but in the course of the Gaza Pullout (aka disengagement) Israel pulled back from the Philadelphi Route and changed the Camp David Peace Agreement with Egypt as part of that.

At the time MK Yuval Steinitz (Pictured Left) of Likud warned that changing the Camp David accords and bringing Egypt that close to our border militarily was a mistake. Steinitz has been borne out on at least one element of that, the Southern Gaza border is now more porous than Swiss cheese and massive stockpiles of weapons have been smuggled from Egypt into Gaza since disengagement.

However, what worries me more now is will the Palestinian kidnappers use that same porous route to try to smuggle Gilad Shalit out of Gaza, into Egypt, and then to who knows where. With Al Qaeda and Iranian inspired Jihadists crawling all over Gaza since disengagement, this is not an outrageous scenario. It is downright scary.

Let us all pray for Gilad Shalit's speedy release.

Orthodoxy in the Modern Business World

I have thought a lot about this post since someone submitted a request to the comments section of the blog that I write about this topic. I also took note of the pitched discussion between 2 anonymous commenters over the last 10 days and considered my words carefully.

I think that religious practice in the business world is a difficult topic to address in such a public forum like a blog, especially in a blog that has a very varied reader base (religiously, socially, geographically, economically). Frankly, I am taking on this task with quite a bit of trepidation. The topic is too broad to tackle in one post so I plan to intersperse posts on this topic with other posts on my more traditional topics that will appear over the coming weeks or months.

All views contained in these posts should be read as my personal views and not rabbinic sanction, halachik responsa (Jewish Law) or a prescription. My apologies to those who read the blog for Israeli politics, internet or kids stuff but I hope you might find this window into the Orthodox Jewish world interesting as well.

On to our topic: I have a few guiding principles that I try to apply in my life that I will lay out in this post and then I hope to expand on them in upcoming pieces.

1. We can and should feel proud of our religion and beliefs and can feel comfortable displaying it publicly. This is the product of both a positive and negative approach. In the positive, there is much that Judaism has contributed and continues to contribute to the world in all spheres of life and, by setting a positive example, I see no reason why the Jewish people will not continue to make amazing contributions. We should wear that badge proudly. On the negative side, I look around the business world and see Sikhs in turbans, Moslem’s with head coverings and rebels with tattoos and earrings and cannot figure out why Jews would want to hide their religious observance.
2. Always Explain. I find it much easier to explain my religious practices in great detail before I get into any circumstance rather than try to find some lame excuse to avoid an uncomfortable situation thereafter. I find that people, co-workers, partners, competitors etc. are very understanding when you take the time to explain your situation.
3. Consistency is critical. It is sometimes difficult to explain variegated religious observance to our own co-religionists, let alone to people who have not been brought up Jewish. People understand varying levels of observance. It exists in Catholicism, Islam and Hinduism etc. What is difficult to understand is when YOU are not consistent in YOUR observance. This is true for kosher food, yarmulkes (kippa) and a host of other issues.
4. Never insult/embarrass others because of your religious practice. The Torah/Talmud tells us that “someone who embarrasses their fellow man, it is as if they murdered them.” We believe that Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, absolves man of his sins that he committed against the Almighty but it does not absolve man of his sins that he committed between himself and his fellow man. Personally, I think that God will absolve you for a borderline call between man and God in order to avoid insulting someone who does not know or understand your religious practices (caveat: there are obviously some realms of Halacha (Jewish Law) where this does not apply, but broadly and practically speaking I think it is true).
5. Remember that you are not only representing yourself and your company but also the Jewish people. This is a heavy burden and challenge but one that I think bears consideration. The impression you make on others reflects not only on you but also on 13,000,000 other people. This is especially important for business practices and business ethics in the context we are discussing.
6. Maintain priorities all the time and every place. Orthodox Judaism requires a lot of discipline and engagement in all aspects of life. It requires time management to get prayers (davening), learning/studying, family and work into one 24 hour day. That discipline and setting of priorities is required when you are home and when you are traveling (difficult as that is). I find that I need to remind myself of this and set myself up time-wise and practice-wise to achieve all of those goals, especially when I am on the road. This also applies to the reasons we engage in business beyond profit motives.
7. Not every situation is the same. I know that this is a broad statement. However, to illustrate it, I would say that traveling to Pakistan is not the same thing as traveling to New York when it comes to public display. Halacha understands this and it is important to keep it in mind.

As I wrote, this is a starter piece and I plan to expand on all 7 topics in future posts. If you have any comments, questions, criticisms or additions, please feel free to post to the comments section.

The advertising economy

I highly recommend this HBR piece on Avatar based marketing. It really gets to the crux of how companies need to engage users in new modes of entertainment such as MMORGs and Virtual Worlds.

I contrast the HBR piece with Scott Karp's post which is entitled Google is Killing the Economics of Content. There have been a ton of comments on Scott's post which I encourage you to read but I will add my two cents anyway.

I agree with little of what Scott wrote but I will point out two glaring issues:
1. Direct navigation to ad pages is a horrible user experience and few users if any will go back twice to these places. Most users are anyway starting their experience at search engines which do a good job of weeding out these link farms from search results. There may be a short term business to be had from novice users but it will not last long. As an aside, there is a small bulletin board company called Infosearch Media Inc. (Nasdaq ISHM.OB) that provides real content to link farms and other small sites in an attempt to juice the content. That is an interesting way for some of these parked domains to perhaps enhance the user experience.


2. I am not sure it is self evident that contextual ad networks such as Google, Kanoodle or Yahoo should be the business model bar none for internet content sites or so-called web 2.0 companies. Maybe some of these companies can get creative and come up with better monetization strategies than relying on Google and Yahoo.

If you think about the ways that marketers are engaging users in virtual worlds (see HBR article above), I would hope new media content producers of all kinds will also re-examine the business models they have adopted and think what monetization model will work well with their very creative new media.

Timeout and Shabbat Shalom

I have not posted in a few days because I have been thinking about the following request posted as comments to my last note on Broadband.

Anonymous said...

I would like to put in a request for an article in a future blog. Can you address the challenges you face being a frum (Orthodox) Jew in the business world and how you react to them; such as: wearing a yarmulke when overseas, shaking a woman's hand, meetings in non-kosher restaurants... and any tips for young college graduates going into the business world for the first time.

9:59 PM

SInce one of my first posts on writing a torah, I have not done anything on religious issues because they are hard to transmit in a blog format and I fear I may be misunderstood. I am going to think some more about it over Shabbat and probably post something on the topic early next week. In the meantime shabbat shalom

Yozma 2.0

Many readers who know the genesis of the Israeli VC community will understand that the match that lit the VC fire was an Israeli government program called Yozma (check out the presentation - it is worth a read) which seeded venture capital funds. This kick-started the entrepreneurial fervor that is now Israeli lore and was one of the smartest government interventions in Israel and maybe the world at the time.

On my recent post on Gigaom entitled Israel 2.0, I stated:

"Israel 2.0 is all about broadband, and broadband driven innovation.

Despite being a tiny country, Israel ranks ninth in terms of broadband penetration. Although speeds are limited to 2 Mbps, Israel is obsessed with news and connectivity to the outside world, Israelis spend more time online than any other country on a per capita basis (link to Ynet article in Hebrew).

This Broadband penetration is critical to Israel’s continued success in the web infrastructure and content world. Because if you can touch it and experience it, then you can build it. If you can sense what users want as a user then you can develop it. "

I am convinced this is true and my convictions became stronger when I read this Business 2.0 article on Korea's investment in broadband. see this excerpt from the article.

"South Korea has become the world's best laboratory for broadband services - and a place to look to for answers on how the Internet business may evolve.

Smart bet on broadband

How did this come about? In 1995, the South Korean government made what must rank as one of the most shrewd and far-sighted investments in business history. It spent big on a nationwide high-capacity broadband network that any telecom operator could offer service on, and offered subsidies so that 45 million Koreans could buy cheap PC's. Cost: a mere $1.5 billion.

Fast-forward 11 years: Korea is now the most connected and Net-addicted country on Earth. There are a few American companies who have benefited from the South Korean broadband boom: Blizzard, for example, makes a popular online game called Starcraft which is so widely....

...Most importantly, Cyworld is a license to print money. The service itself is free (and available on cellphones as well as online), but to buy all the extras - like ringtones and virtual furnishings - will cost you "acorns," the service's virtual currency. Cyworld sells its users $300,000 in acorns every single day."

This proves the thesis that "if you use it, you can build it" and make money at it. Online businesses are to 2006 what Makolets (corner grocery stores) were in the 1950s. It is where small businesses can start up and many people can earn a better than decent living plying their wares and talents online (see this previous post entitled Broadband is the Solution to unemployment on people earning livings on Secondlife (Benchmark company).

I have suggested previously that the Israeli government needs to invest in broadband in a big way. Like Korea, it should be a national imperative to invest in a super high speed network that connects all Israelis. This will generate jobs at a tiny cost to the taxpayer. Korea invested $1.5 billion for 45 million people to be connected and have a subsidized computer. With only 6 million citizens, Israel should be able to do it for under $200 million.

So what are we waiting for?

Amir Peretz Makes Israel Less Secure

Over the weekend, a Palestinian family was killed on the shores of Gaza. All initial reports pointed to a stray artillery shell that hit them in response to the firing of Kassam rockets from the Gaza Strip on Israel. Israel has been firing artillery rounds on Gaza in response to Kassam rockets for months in an attempt to destroy the launching grounds and ward off the terrorists from those sites. In reality, Israel has severely injured a bunch of sand dunes because the IDF scrupulously avoids attacking civilian areas.

The US rushed to remind Israel that it was accountable (no mention of the collateral damage to civilians after Zarqawi was killed as is correct since they killed a man responsible for killing others) and the Israeli Government apologized. Rookie Defense Minister Amir Peretz then publicly declared that Israel will halt all artillery fire until a special commission he set up found out what really happened even though Israel was able to confirm that 5 of 6 rounds it fired had not come near the Palestinian family. Then, what a surprise, 15 kassam rockets rained down on Israel this morning. And this time it might have been deadly as one resident of the south was severely wounded. Well, if you tell the enemy that you will not use certain weapons, they become emboldened to attack.

Amir Peretz gave up part of our national deterrent which was pretty weak to begin with given our penchant for knocking out sand dunes and our lack of ground forces in Gaza following disengagement. Why would Peretz make such a public declaration even if he wanted to check the incident? He obviously has not internalized that he is not a headline-seeking, rabble-rousing union leader any more and instead is responsible for our country's security. We need more means of deterrence and not less given that the Palestinians know we have strong moral lines we do not cross even as they target Israeli civilians.

And, now what a surprise, after Hamas operatives finished cleaning the beach of evidence where the Israeli artillery supposedly landed, comes a report that this might not have been Israel's fault at all but rather a "Work accident" of Hamas bomb makers. So Israel rushes to apologize and suspends using one of its few deterrents, leading the Palestinians to fire extensive rounds of Kassam rockets and now we will find out that Hamas killed these innocent Palestinians too? Let's send Amir Peretz packing from the defense ministry before his rookie mistakes cost a lot of lives.

The Hard Part of The VC Business

Fred Wilson has a great post today on the need to stay disciplined as a venture capitalist.

"... one of the problems (the kind of problems we all like to have) is that you can't kiss all the pretty girls. I see opportunities every day that I get excited about. I come home and tell my family about this new service, a great idea, some wonderful people I met. They ask me if I am going to invest. And I shrug and say, "we'll see".

If we invested in every idea we liked, every person who we know will make it, every new web service that we can't wait to use, we'd end up with a portfolio of thousands of companies. And that is unmanageable. So we have to pick the ones that make the absolute most sense for a variety of reasons and let all the other ones go."

Personally, I find the hardest part of this business is telling an entrepreneur that we will not invest in his/her business. Entrepreneurs pour their hearts and souls into these companies and pitches and are true believers. I try hard to make sure I add some value to their companies in the due diligence or investment process through an insight or an introduction, although it is not always possible. When saying "no" I get 2 sinking feelings in my stomach:
1. Is this really the right decision? Am I missing something that could be the next big thing?
2. The second is the horrible feeling you know the entrepreneur has after working hard in the diligence process and realizing that he needs to restart a process with another firm or angels. And, in the worst case, will need to give up his dream.

Entrepreneurs, if you have comments on this topic, I would love to hear them.

I highly recommend Fred's entire post.

The Crotch Air Bag - This week's sign that the apocalypse is upn us

This is a must see link.

Guest Column on GigaOm

I have a guest Column on Israel 2.0 posted on Om Malik's Gigaom today. When you go visit my post there, please subscribe to Om's RSS feed. It is the best tech blog on the web.

Privatize NOW!! - Update on previous post

Only hours after I blogged on the incompetence of the Electric Company and its workers and management do I now read online that the airport workers have gone on strike and there are no departures from Israel's only airport. This is a wildcat strike but not an atypical one.

We need to privatize the Electric company and we need to either privatize the airport or the government needs to ban strikes like President Reagan did with air traffic controllers in the United States. These unions and monopolies are causing untold damage to us common citizens and it is time to demand change.

Privatize NOW!! - Update on previous post

Only hours after I blogged on the incompetence of the Electric Company and its workers and management do I now read online that the airport workers have gone on strike and there are no departures from Israel's only airport. This is a wildcat strike but not an atypical one.

We need to privatize the Electric company and we need to either privatize the airport or the government needs to ban strikes like President Reagan did with air traffic controllers in the United States. These unions and monopolies are causing untold damage to us common citizens and it is time to demand change.

Power Plays or Power Outages? Will Heads Ever Roll?

The rolling power outages across Israel over the last 2 days have raised my civic ire to a new level. It is bad enough that we recycle unsuccessful politicians, are subjected to sub-standard municipal services (for those of us that live outside Raanana) and that our education system is falling apart with no hope in sight. What irks me and makes me feel that we are eternally condemned is that there is no accountability in Israel. Hence, nobody responsible for these failures is sent home and we will live to see this horror movie again.

In a terrific editorial in the Jerusalem Post today, the Editor opines:

"The capacity of our providers of essential services to be serially astounded by the change of seasons and conventionally associated phenomena continues to manifest itself unfailingly every few months.

Many a routine winter seems to surprise our health system with the scope of its accompanying upper respiratory infections, while summers are often ushered in with severe power-shortages, as if the Israel Electric Corporation were astonished by the hardly unusual phenomenon of a rush to the air conditioners during the first brief heat waves of June.

Yet even by these parlous standards, the past two days of power outages throughout the country appear unprecedented in their scope, severity and the scandalous nature of the excuses proffered.

Chief among the latter is the suggestion that summer somehow crept up upon us, most inconsiderately, at the very moment that some power stations and sub-stations were being serviced so as to be able to cope with increased summertime demands. Evidently the timing of summer's advent was so shocking - forgive the pun and the sarcasm - that the maintenance schedulers had failed to complete their upkeep work in time...

Even if, due to pitiful planning, some outages had to be deliberately initiated, there is no conceivable reason why effective advance notice could not have been provided to inhabitants of affected locales. There was no reason to allow folks to be trapped in elevators, to dangerously black out traffic lights or to leave patients on life-supporting respirators without time to make alternative emergency arrangements - as in the case of a man in Ofakim who lost consciousness when his respirator shut down at home and is now gravely ill in a hospital.

To display high-handedness and lack of elementary concern for the public is outrageous, and to follow this up by toying with that same public is no better. Yesterday, the IEC put everyone in the Tel Aviv region on notice that selective power cuts were likely anytime between early morning and 6 p.m. Consequently, people in an area packed with high-rises were requested to avoid elevators all day...."

I recommend reading the entire editorial. As citizens we cannot be sanguine about this continuous abuse of our civic trust. At any normal private company, the electricity outages of the last two days and poor preparations would have cost numerous executives their jobs. The Electric Company is a monopoly that is effectively regulated and controlled by the government. So I guess it will be hard to imagine the Government rolling some heads at the Electric Company. But that is exactly what we should demand. First, we should seek out the offenders of civic duty at the Electric Company and they should be fired. No strikes or similar threats should deter the Government, the citizen of Israel will applaud you for decisive action. And when the Electric Company strikes to protest the accountability we would seek to impose on their cushy unionized monopoly then we should move to privatize the production of Energy in Israel. As the Jpost wrote, this competition is what has now reduced the wait time for a telephone line in Israel from weeks to a day.

We should demand this same accountability in all spheres of our publicly-controlled lives. In education, most of the supervisors and bureaucrats in the Education Ministry still occupy their seats. Only the ministers keep changing and our education system continues to deteriorate as it is mired in a constant state of mediocre care.

We should demand the same of our healthcare system where thinking about what medications that cancer patients need should not require a 16 day hunger strike.

Of course, in my view, the answer to many of these ills is privatization but with Bibi on the back benches and Labor Union chief Amir Peretz in Government, I think that will be hard to do now. The least we can ask for at this stage is...ACCOUNTABILITY. If you mess up, you go home. And if the political system can't deliver accountability, well then, "let's throw them bums out as well."

Digital Kids

I wrote in the past about kids and digital media (WikiKids and IM). If you need any more evidence of the power of digital media and what kids will do with it that will change our lives and media consumption and creating habits, check out the picture above. This is a picture of My 10-year-old son taking a video using a $129 PureDigital Point and Shoot Video camera and my niece simultaneously taking a digital photo of the speaker at this engagement party. I bought my son the video camera for his birthday and within 10 minutes we had paparazzi in the house.

Now here is the most interesting part. When we got home from the engagement party, I noticed that my son had filled the 3 minute memory with 36 short clips, the longest of which was 3 minutes. He even chunked 15 minute speeches into small clips. I am sure that he will discard some, edit some on his freely downloaded video editing software and send it around to friends. This is pure User generated content (not ripped off and professional), some of which might find its way to Metacafe (Benchmark company) or Youtube (The speeches will not likely make the top 10 on those sites, scintillating as they were).

We have had a video camera for a while and never did we watch the hours of videos that we shot. They sit dormant on DVDs now and I shudder think how much time I spent figuring out whether I needed a stabilizer on the video camera for the extra hundred bucks. My kids, however, are watching these short clips often over the last week because they are digestible and fun and any kid can shoot them or watch them. No Cords, No wires, no worries about them dropping it in water because at that price and ease of use, it is almost disposable.