This week's notable links
This is my regular digest of links and media I found notable over the last week. Did I miss something? Let me know!
Systems: What does a board of directors do?
"I realize that most people who've never been in the boardroom have a lot of questions (and often, anxieties) about what happens on a board, so I wanted to share a very subjective view of what I've seen and learned over the years."
This is great, and jibes with my experiences both being on boards and supporting them as a part of various organizations.
The most functional boards I've seen do what Anil describes here: they're pre-briefed and are ready to have a substantive discussion in a way that pushes the organization forward. Board meetings have a heavy reporting component, for sure, but the discussion and working sessions are always the most meaningful component.
This is also often true, and a challenge:
"I believe in the structure of a board (usually along with some separate advisors) to help an organization reach its fullest potential, in much the same way as I believe in governments having separate branches with separate forms of accountability and appointment. In practice, having nearly all-powerful executives select the membership of the organization that's meant to hold them accountable tends to fail just as badly in business or non-profits as it does in governments."
The board meetings I've attended that are the most robust and open to discussion and genuine debate have also been the ones attached to the most successful companies. I don't think it's quite causation, but rather two things that come from a particularly pragmatic attitude towards running a business: one where outside perspectives and differences of opinion are a strength, not a threat.
[Link]
I Will Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again
"This entire class of person is, to put it simply, abhorrent to right-thinking people. They're an embarrassment to people that are actually making advances in the field, a disgrace to people that know how to sensibly use technology to improve the world, and are also a bunch of tedious know-nothing bastards that should be thrown into Thought Leader Jail until they've learned their lesson, a prison I'm fundraising for."
I enjoyed this very much.
Here's the thing, though: I don't think what Nikhil wants will happen.
I mean, don't get me wrong: it probably should. The author is a leader in his field, and his exasperation at the hype train is well-earned.
But it's not people like Nikhil who actually make the decisions, or invest in the companies, or make the whole industry (or industries) tick over. Again: it should be.
What happens again and again is that people who see that they can make money out of a particularly hyped technology leap onto the bandwagon, and then market the bandwagon within an inch of everybody's lives. Stuff that shouldn't be widespread becomes widespread.
And here we are again with AI.
This is exactly right:
"Unless you are one of a tiny handful of businesses who know exactly what they're going to use AI for, you do not need AI for anything - or rather, you do not need to do anything to reap the benefits. Artificial intelligence, as it exists and is useful now, is probably already baked into your businesses software supply chain."
And this:
"It did not end up being the crazy productivity booster that I thought it would be, because programming is designing and these tools aren't good enough (yet) to assist me with this seriously."
There is work that will be improved with AI, but it's not something that most industries will have to stop everything and leap on top of. The human use cases must come first with any technology: if you have a problem that AI can solve, by all means, use AI. But if you don't, hopping on the hype train is just going to burn you a lot of money and slow your actual core business down.
[Link]
New ALPR Vulnerabilities Prove Mass Surveillance Is a Public Safety Threat
[Dave Maass and Cooper Quintin at EFF]
"When law enforcement uses ALPRs to document the comings and goings of every driver on the road, regardless of a nexus to a crime, it results in gargantuan databases of sensitive information, and few agencies are equipped, staffed, or trained to harden their systems against quickly evolving cybersecurity threats."
As the EFF points out, it's often vulnerable software - and even when it's not, it violates the security principle of only collecting the information you need. Information security and data strategies are not core law enforcement skillsets, and the software they buy is often oversold.
As the EFF explains:
"That partially explains why, more than 125 law enforcement agencies reported a data breach or cyberattacks between 2012 and 2020, according to research by former EFF intern Madison Vialpando. The Motorola Solutions article claims that ransomware attacks "targeting U.S. public safety organizations increased by 142 percent" in 2023."
The use of these tactics seems uncontrolled - perhaps this is one area where legislation could help.
[Link]
Social-Media Influencers Aren’t Getting Rich—They’re Barely Getting By
[Sarah E. Needleman and Ann-Marie Alcántara at the Wall Street Journal]
"Earning a decent, reliable income as a social-media creator is a slog—and it’s getting harder. Platforms are doling out less money for popular posts and brands are being pickier about what they want out of sponsorship deals."
For many kids, becoming an influencer has become the new becoming a sports star: in enormous numbers, it's what they want to be. More broadly, if you dare to say that it's not a real job, you're likely to be drowned out by complaints and contradictions.
But it isn't, and this article makes it clear:
"Last year, 48% of creator-earners made $15,000 or less, according to NeoReach, an influencer marketing agency. Only 13% made more than $100,000."
Of course, some people really did shoot to fame and have been doing really well. But there aren't many Mr Beasts or Carli D'Amelios of this world, and the lure of being famous has trapped less lucky would-be influencers in cycles of debt and mental illness.
This is despite having sometimes enormous followings: hundreds of thousands to millions of people, with hundreds of millions of views a month. The economics of the platforms are such that even at those numbers, you can barely scrape by.
I like the advice that, instead, you should cultivate a genuine expertise and use social media to promote offsite services you provide around that. It might be that a following can land you a better job, or help you build up a consultancy. Trying to make money from ads and brand sponsorships is a losing game - and thousands of people are losing big.
[Link]
Sharing Openly About ShareOpenly
"ShareOpenly breaks the door even wider than sharing to Mastodon, and I intend to be using it to update some of my examples listed above. Thanks Ben for demonstrative and elegant means of sharing."
Thank you, Alan, for sharing!
There's more to come on ShareOpenly - more platforms to add, and some tweaks to the CSS so that the whole thing works better on older devices or smaller phone screens. It's a simple tool, but I'm pleased with how people have reacted to it, and how it's been carried forward.
There are no terms to sign and there's nothing to sign up for; adding a modern "share this" button to your site is as easy as following a few very simple instructions.
[Link]