The group came up with things like “don’t mistreat people,” “don’t lose focus,” “play hard but keep the puck down (what the heck does that mean?).” At the end of the day, someone said that all the phrases they’d assembled added up to “Don’t be evil.” Voila. Google had their motto.

Don’t be evil. Wow. A motto at one of the largest companies in the world that says, “Don’t be evil.” Remember when corporate mottoes were things such as “The customer is always right” or “Have it your way.” My how times have changed. It’s not about how to act anymore, it’s about how to be. The pressure.

I pictured someone coming into Google’s Human Resources offices and the conversation that ensues.

“You were evil today.”

“I know, I will never be evil again.”

“Two more evils and you are out.”

Always up for a challenge, I spent an entire day yesterday with “Don’t be evil” on my desktop, on a sticky on my office and cell phone, and in my notebook page for the day’s ‘to do.’ It was surrounding me. “Are you normally evil?” I hear you ask. Evil is a strong word, but I am often sarcastic, biting, exasperated, and add them all together and it could be construed as ‘evil.’ Anyway, I spent yesterday going out of my way to leave adjectives behind where someone on the other end might not feel fabulous. I was good to go until noon. Then something happened, and I became the person of biting sarcasm and forceful ‘are you kidding me?’ that is not in the Google motto mold. Looking back over the day, I am not sure it was the right day to practice not being evil. I am going to start over today. I think it could really work today because I have no scheduled calls or appointments.

I’m a Google fan. But, I do have one constructive thought for Google though. (Did you notice how I couched that in a non-evil way?) We are living in a day of positive positioning, so presenting what not to be is not as effective as presenting what you want them to be. A motto that says, “Always be nice” might work even better than the fabulous “Don’t be evil.” Please tell me you noticed how I presented my constructive crticism in a non-evil way. I could have said, “If you guys are so smart you would have known that it’s all about presenting what you want someone to do, not what you don’t want them to do. Sheesh, are you guys idiots?” I only point it out because I had to rewrite the sentence three times for it to come out that nice. I want you to see my efforts.

So, today is a new day, and I’m a new me. No longer an Obama Mini Me, the new goal is to be a Google Mini Me. Wish me luck.

Then there is the problem of forwarding emails so much that the earliest ones which shouldn’t be read by those now in the string of emails is read by them.

Ten years ago the worst thing you could do is lose your temper on someone’s answering machine. Now there are tens of technologies to catch you in the mistake of saying something you wish you hadn’t. It’s exhausting.

The key is to never, ever, ever write down anything in an email, in a text, on a twitter, in Facebook, or on someone’s voicemail that you don’t want to be heard by anyone in the entire technology universe. This is your only hope of sleeping well at night. It really is, and as for pictures, let’s not even go there. I keep telling the younger generation that once you post it on Facebook it’s out there forever. Forever is a long time. I would say to just ask Paris Hilton about that, but she’s not smart enough to realize that tape is still out in cyberspace and will be for her children’s children.

Well, I learned my lesson. Hope you have as well.

So, I sat down to figure it out. Then I went to lunch with a friend from work, and he and I figured it out. I’m sure you will agree with our Email Pet Peeve list.

1. Do not send me emails saying “Thx” after I did something you asked. Does that mean I have to send you an email saying, “You’re welcome?”

2. Think carefully about ‘reply to all.’ Do you really need to tell everyone your response to the person’s question, or can you just respond to the person and leave everyone else out? I hate an email thread where someone has emailed me and ten others and all ten reply to me as well and the initial emailer. Email the original emailer and let them pass on your brilliance.

3. Each email should be about one thing. Do not put numerous questions, etc. in an email. If you have more than one question to ask me, pick up the phone. It really is faster. You remember the phone. It sits on your desk waiting for you to reach out and touch someone.

4. Do not send me things you think are clever. Truth be known, unless you are forwarding my blog, I’m not interested and usually I just wonder why you have so much time to forward stupid things. If, however, you are helping build my blog following by forwarding a particularly clever blog of mine, carry on.

5. Gus Levy, the deceased chair and founder of Goldman Sachs told me two really smart things. He said, “Christine, if a memo is longer than a paragraph, you do not understand the topic.” I have tried all through my business career to remember that. Please keep your emails short. He also told me, in case you were wondering, “Christine, if a meeting is more than a half an hour, the right people aren’t in it.”

6. Think about all the information you want to provide so you can avoid the following,

“Wanna have lunch?”

“Sure, what time?”

“Does 12:30 works?”

“No, how is 1?”

“One is good.”

“Where do you want to go?” And, so on.

Instead consider this.

“Do you want to go to lunch? If so, how is 12:30 at Christine’s In and Out. I will meet you there if it works.”

That takes it from seven or more emails to two. Think it through people.

I know I sound bitter. I actually am. I realize that the Internet which was supposed to simplify my life has complicated it big time.

Here are some interesting statistics to make the point.

If email was a country, its 1.4 billion users would make it the largest in the world. Bigger than China, bigger than the populations of the USA and European Union combined.

Every second, the world’s email users produce messages equivalent in size to over 16,000 copies of the Complete Works of Shakespeare (assuming a 30KB average email size). <Christine’s note: Not loving this stat. Really, Shakespeare? What does he have to do with it?>

In other words, we are all out of email control.

Here are my new rules for myself for email.

1. I will only touch an email once. I will open it and send it on its way, forward, or delete.

2. I will keep a list during the day of questions for the five people I email the most and call them in the afternoon and ask them the questions by phone. I will keep the call down to five minutes unless they have some fabulous gossip that I can’t resist listening to and confirming that which some wise person or other said to be true. ‘”Cutting someone else down is a false way of elevating yourself.” I know that I sometimes elevate myself in this fashion. I am a work in progress.

That’s it. The new Obama Mini Me is back. Lean. Efficient. Never overwhelmed.

Bye.

I might add that I have the same feature in my Audi SUV. Problem is, I sometimes forget to turn the car off. No joke. One night, I left it on all night. It only used a quarter of a tank of gas which I felt was the good news.

So, enjoy Liz’s blog.

By LizNeumark |   July 13, 2009  |

Anyway, I digress. We are on a personal computer learning curve the size of North Dakota. And that learning curve has taken us from a group that was going to use personal computers to enhance, simplify and organize our lives to a group who have allowed ourselves to become obsessed with getting something to work to complicate our lives. 

Anecdote to make the point. (Do notice that I no longer write in complete sentences. This is a direct result of e-mail and the new language that takes away verbs, nouns and, in some unique cases, the subject.) 

I recently spent some time on the phone with a potential client. He wanted our company to recommend a new computer and some software for him to purchase. He was concerned that I understand he didn’t want too much on his machine. He explained to me that he doesn’t like to bundle his technology.

“Bundle your technology?”

“Well, it’s like this. I don’t want to have one of those faxes that also answers the door. I don’t want to have to scan my faxes to my computer to send, and I don’t want my answering machine connected to anything other than itself. Something always goes wrong, and it’s best not to have your life dependent on one machine. That way, something is always working.” 

Stunned, I realize that he made perfect sense. I know don’t want to bundle my technology either. Unfortunately, I have spent thousands over the last years bundling, and it would probably cost a lot more than that to unbundle. (My automatic spell-check tells me that unbundle isn’t a word yet, but I have added it to the dictionary, so now it is. It’s pretty impressive that we are now able to add words to the English language, don’t you think?) 

He went on, gaining in speed as he went, and sounding more and more angry at the thought of the new technology he’d called me to recommend. “Another example of what I don’t want this new computer to do with my life. I was just down in the Dominican Republic for vacation. There isn’t much to do after dinner and there was a computer in the lobby of the hotel. One of the guests, a woman, asked if she could send an e-mail through AOL. For the next hour and fifteen minutes, ten of us men tried to get the e-mail through, but clearly the lines down there aren’t great and we couldn’t log on. Finally this young kid came in, maybe he was fifteen, and stood there for a minute. Then he said, ‘Why don’t you just send a fax?’ That’s what I mean. I don’t want to complicate things.” 

I understand his increasing fear and anger. Why am I tracking all my stocks through three different programs? I log on at least twice a day and download all of them. The stocks always have the same gain or loss, but nonetheless, I still take the time to input all the information three times. I just can’t make up my mind which is best, so I continue with all three at three times the time.

Why is a writer friend of mine using a CEO’s rolodex software program to house her 100 (at the most!) friends instead of Outlook? She got this program a year ago, has downloaded three upgrades, and at the last complaint session, still couldn’t get it to do labels for her Christmas card list. (I didn’t tell her that it’s tacky to send out Christmas cards with labels knowing full well there was no way she’d get it to work before December.) The problem is she can’t download it to Outlook, so now she has Outlook and the CEO rolodex program.

This last thing is the best. I bought a new laptop two years ago. I dropped it on the floor (don’t ask) and the screen went out. I called tech support, where the voice at the other end suggested I send it back to them and not say that I had dropped it so I could get it fixed for free. To gain his respect and admiration, I said I couldn’t do that. I sent it back with the truth written all over it. I was then told that I would be called and told what it would cost for the repair.

Two weeks later, the computer showed up FedEx. I turned it on … nothing. I called tech support and got put on hold for the life span of a monarch butterfly before I finally got a man who believed I was a writer, and only because I might write something bad, he should listen. I always tell tech support that I’m a writer and writing an article about whatever is wrong and the reason for my call. I know it’s lying, but they always forward me to someone else who is usually well versed on things.

 “Well, what did they do to it?”

“Well, I don’t know,” I said. “They were supposed to call and didn’t. But shouldn’t you know what they did? Isn’t it in your computer?”

He didn’t bother to answer me.

“There is just a blank screen?”

“Yep. Is it possible they took out the hard drive and forgot to put it back? I have a lot of stuff on that hard drive!”

“Press down really hard on the ‘L,’ ‘O,’ and ‘K’ keys.”

I swear to God.

“What do you mean hard?”

“Really hard, until you can feel the keyboard pressing in on what’s underneath it.”

“What’s underneath it?”

“The motherboard.”

For those of you not in the know, the motherboard is what you are paying thousands for. It drives the computer.

I pressed down really hard. If you want to know the truth of it, I stood up and put all my  weight on that mother… board.

Poof. (Poof is a word often used in the online forums when you leave an online ‘room.’ You just type it in and then disappear, and everyone smiles.) It worked, the computer began booting up.

“Who did you say you write for?”

“I didn’t. But, The New York Times, places like that.” I lied.

“Look. I don’t believe you feel safe with that computer. I want to send you another brand new one. It will arrive tomorrow, and when it does, you send that one back, ok?” 

It goes on and on from there. I’ll spare you the details, but the end result is that in the end I had two laptops. I have the home phone number of the head of tech support for this company. I have been called by their PR firm, and I have a direct number to call into the number one tech support seat if I ever have a problem. I am sure you think that I am exaggerating, but unfortunately, it’s the truth. The number of hours I have spent accumulating this learning curve is not to be discussed. 

So, get to the point, you say, thinking this has gone on just a bit too long. (Did I mention that someone in publishing told me that manuscripts are 30 percent longer now that people can edit on their computer and not retype each page with every change?) The point is that we should use a computer for things. But, we don’t need to upgrade what works. Don’t replace something that ain’t broke, and we shouldn’t get get more than one program for anything we do. One e-mail address is all we need. One fax program is all we need. One stock tracker (but which one should I dump?) is all that is necessary. And most of all, make the word ‘restraint’ a part of our screen savers. We only need one of those too.

I’m over it. 

Posts like “Diane is going to the pool to lie in sun” give new meaning to the word narcissist. I haven’t seen you in forty years, and I need to know you are lying in the sun today? Is it a public pool? Is it your own pool? To say nothing of the fact that it’s been raining in New York for forty days and forty nights and sun anywhere sends me to my non-Obama Mini Me bitter mode.

Seriously, are we so out of it that we think that type of information is interesting to the 400 individuals who are our ‘friends’ on facebook?

Then there is the “Do you know Christine?” tests that people put up. The way it works is you dream up questions about yourself, offer them in multiple choice questions, and your ‘friends’ take the test to see how well they know you. Seriously, I see you once a year and I should know if you prefer Taco Bell, Burger King or KFC? And, even if one of those choices were your favorite place to eat, why would you admit it to 400+ ‘friends’? If I go to KFC (my personal favorite of the three), I do it in the dead of night when no one is in the car, trust me.

But, then I see how facebook was used in Iran this past week, and I think what an amazing thing. The only form of communication for some individuals risking their lives was their facebook account. But, none of my 400 ‘friends’ are fighting the fight in Iran, or anywhere else for that matter. They are busy heading to the pool for some much needed sun, so the need for communicating if they are safe is really beyond the pale. “Diane is going to the pool for some sun. If you do not hear back from me in two hours, call the police.” Not so much.

So, maybe facebook is for really interesting people who have really amazing lives. Like Obama. I would like to be his friend on facebook. “Barack is going to the oval office to decide whether or not to invade Iran.” Now, that’s an interesting facebook entry. Perhaps it’s just that I have boring friends who do boring things. That’s not true, I have amazing friends who do amazing things, but they don’t put them on facebook.

Then there are the “What kind of dog are you?” questionnaires that people fill out and the answer shows up on their facebook line. “Christine is a basset hound.” While the pictures of the animals are really cute, the whole premise makes me wince. “What city should you be living in?” was one of my personal favorites. What good can come of that question? If you are not living anywhere near where you should be living based on the answers to their questions, are you supposed to leave your jobs and families and move?  

I’m not sure how you ‘quit’ facebook. I could post, “Christine is quitting facebook. Good-bye and Good Luck.” I don’t want to seem hostile. I think that sounds hostile. I have been on facebook for six months, and I have never seen anyone quit facebook. I like to be a leader amongst friends, so I could be the first. Who knows who would follow.

I remember being around George Soros when the Berlin Wall and Russia’s iron hand were crumbling. In 1993, George immediately bought thousands of copy machines and started distributing them throughout Russia and Eastern Germany. “If you want an open society, you have to be able to disseminate information,” he said at dinner while plotting his action. This action, based on his theory of reflexivity (loosely stated it’s about people’s perceptions or experiences and the actions that follow based on them) told him that if you give people a way to pass what they know, things will change. That was just 13 years ago. Those machines cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 million dollars, and the paper? Who knows. And, the time to get them working and executing? Much longer than a tweet. I think of it now, as this unprecedented time unfolds in Iran because what was so clearly innovative and now seems so obsolete and primitive. 

This is how it's done.

Iran. The last few days. 

An election happened where the outcome enraged the country. The people running the country shut down communication lines to try and keep people from doing anything. They cut off cable, email, TV (other than their own message) and telephones. But, they could not control Twitter. They actually tried, but because so many phones are satellite based in Iran, they couldn’t take cell phone access away. People tweeted, “Gather at 10 at the town square.” “Leave town square, forces are coming.” “Here is a picture of what just happened in Main Street, Tehran.”

The outside press was thrown out of Iran to try and quell the flow of information of what was really happening. The news shows started using Tweets from those brave souls in Iran as their source of information. Frankly, I have a feeling it’s going to be a lot more reliable than some of the sources (I’m certainly not bringing Chaney into this conversation about reliable sources of information). 

I assure you that without Twitter, this Iranian phenomena would not be happening. Think about it. This is big. This will change the flow of information, and certainly news that we use, forever.

I was at dinner two nights ago with some friends, and I was mentioning my awe at the power twitter has shown in the events in Iran. “Really?” said one of my friends. “I didn’t know that.” While the story of what is happening in Iran is much more important than how it is happening, I know that this will be looked at down the historical yellow brick road as a moment in time that changed the course of any government’s ability to hold back a people. 

I’d like to quote my blog entry from a few weeks ago (Wow, does this feel good! Quoting myself as if I am really somebody!)

Twitter, as defined in some dictionary or other, is the burst of noise a bird makes when excited. Twittering, as designed by Jack and Biz is the vehicle for following bursts of information from a source you want to follow.

Following sources of information allows us to get concise information that we want to have fast and in the moment. The problem with Twitter now is that we are a very narcissistic nation and feel that everyone has a right to be a source of information that you might want to follow. I do not want to follow Barbara WaWa (who is Twittering), for example, because I don’t care what she thinks about anything. (Frankly, I don’t think she thinks about anything; she merely parrots whatever someone she’s interviewing thinks so they will like her and tell their friends to have her interview them because she won’t ask follow up questions.) And, because this is America and you have the freedom to choose, you don’t have to sign up for those sources not of interest to you.

Yes, you should Twitter. You should decide what information sources you want to follow, and you should sign up to follow those sources of information. Try to discriminate. I think that’s the key. Following Ben & Jerry’s to find out what the next new flavor is as soon as it’s announced is not discriminating.  In my business life, I like to say, “Sometimes more is not better. Sometimes it’s just more.” (The lines comes from the remake of Sabrina - which I loved.) So start out slow and follow one or two sources and see how it goes.

I take a moment here to thank the Twitter founders for inventing what is changing the world, one tweet at a time. And, I have to ask George if he’s going to give the people of Palestine satellite cell phones instead of copy machines.