On Blogging at IBM

Fellow traveler, James Snell, points out IBM's newly published blogging guidelines and policies:

You can read them at length there, they seem fairly reasonable, even if couched in the obligatory corporate PR self-congratulatory bromides about "innovation-based companies". I wonder, are there any companies that claim to be anti-innovation?

Blogging@IBM

IBM blogging policy and guidelines

Responsible Engagement in Innovation and Dialogue

1. Know and follow IBM's Business Conduct Guidelines.
2. Blogs, wikis and other forms of online discourse are individual interactions, not corporate communications. IBMers are personally responsible for their posts. Be mindful that what you write will be public for a long time -- protect your privacy.
   [snip]

Use your best judgment... Ultimately, however, you have sole responsibility for what you choose to post to your blog.

Don't forget your day job. You should make sure that blogging does not interfere with your job or commitments to customers.

The day job injunction is one about focus. When it comes to Freedom of Expression, companies know that they can't control what someone does on their own time and indeed that it can make the workplace a happier one if employees can pursue their muses. My own management chain have worried periodically about my focus. It hasn't been much use telling them that the Technology toli is actually my attempt to gain ideas that feed back into the day job or indeed that I've been blogging about Forms Glue of late. Or even that my education has been all about learning to handle balance and coping with daily insanity of which there is much in large bureacracies. Some just look at the blog and get scared by the veritable outpourings in this land. "How can he possibly write all this they must be asking?" Well I do have weekends, mornings and nights, right? At least I hope I do... Of late the 5am to 7am shift while drinking tea, reading the news and enjoying the early morning sun has been very productive and prolific. Thus at best they can only give a gentle reminder, day job doesn't even get a number in the guidelines.

The good news is that I have only pressed against the spirit of a couple of these guidelines. The one about "Clients, partners or suppliers should not be cited or obviously referenced without their approval" in particular.

And for these I would invoke the "Use your best judgement" plank as a justification.

I like to link. Like the hyphen, the hyperlink is promiscuous, sociable and an assertion of interest. Hyperlinking is the singular power of the web style; a link shares the googlejuice around and often shows that a human has made a judgment. The judgment is value neutral and doesn't imply anything other than interest (or sometimes dissent). The controversies over linking, deep-linking will continue to be fought until this is more widely understood. Links also get spammed but that's another story. A shout out to The Power of the Schwartz or to Sun & Sun (a frequent victim of The Ampersand Curse) is just that: a shout out. I certainly am not going to seek approval to link to these fine folks.

And as far as picking fights goes, it often isn't the wisest thing but sometimes it serves to clear the air (see On The Importance of Biting Satire for example). I've noted:

Sometimes you have to resort to the down and dirty column.

I like my satire savage. It should be vicious, biting and deeply heartfelt. The targets should feel a sharp wound.

Less said on that however.

I would say a similar thing about the "Use a disclaimer" item. This is a weasely concession by overly freaked-out folks to keep lawyers employed. I do recognize that the things I cross-post at the official Inside Lotus blog should have a different tenor, coming as they do from company hosted facilities and presumably, in that respect, I am acting as the public face of Lotus. Thus I take a greater care with my words in the toli that surfaces on that forum.

On the other hand, I think it is obvious that an individual doesn't speak for a company.

In legal terms, and as the son of a lawyer, I can confidently say that a disclaimer adds no value or protection whatsoever. If someone objects to your blog post, website or email, and if they have deep pockets (say the Scientologists for example), they can, and will sue willy-nilly and tie you up in court, protestations of disclaimer notwithstanding. The wonder of the lawyer lobby is that it manages to keep risk aversion and litigation at such a high pitch in the cultural zeitgeist. It is true that oftentimes, the market will tar you with the brush of guilt by association; in economic terms therefore it is wise for companies to worry about such things. But a certain humanity is often lost by blandly avoiding controversy. There are many a company with Strange Bedfellows all over the world (whether it is in the pursuit of oil, gold or blood diamonds, paying bribes to people while later tarring said countries with the brush of corruption. It takes two to do the corruption tango.

If you really did believe (as for example many executives did in the apartheid era) that it was imperative to share in the fruits of the sweat and tears of others - sanctions be damned! like Reagan and Thatcher maintained) then one should indeed expect swift retribution from the marketplace if appropriately sensitized. I remember Barclays Bank paying a heavy price in the 1980s for such an attitude (and it is only 19 years later that they are emboldened to return to South Africa). I can think of many such examples and perhaps you could point me to your favourites e.g. watching a nice liberal mother explain to her 4 year old son why the Del Monte can of peaches from South Africa had to be put back on the shelf and the Waitrose brand peaches (without the colourful logo) substituted, circa 1988 in Brent Cross shopping centre in London.

Now employee blogging is much the same as employee use of any technology, be it phone, email or the web. Oftentimes, the use of said technology can be very productive and useful (in moderation) and indeed it can sometimes save lots of time and keep the employee focused on corporate business. If I'm able to arrange renewal of my license over the phone or the web during my lunch break, I presumably wouldn't have to take an afternoon off work to head to the DMV. I recently joked in passing about how I recently had to respond to an anonymous email from some department or other to justify maintaining my office phone since it had seen relatively little activity in this era of instant messaging and email. It is incidents like that that lead people to talk all too often about "faceless corporations". That legal fiction of personhood is frequently invoked by companies but often conveniently forgotten when the lights go out.

American society is deeply litigious and gets stuck on the notion of explicit adherance to the letter of the law as opposed to the European notion of staying within the spirit of the law and letting an experienced judiciary adjudicate when the boundaries are overstepped. This means that there is a vast industry of tax and accountancy lawyers who specialize in weaseling out of the letter of the law with new tax shelter products every year engaged in an arms race with the IRS.

In this vein I would suggest that if Lotus was Old Europe, that IBM is heartland America, a New World of slightly puritanical rectitude. Coming from a culture that is often reacting to the fights between these two elephants, I would say that each approach has its merits and that perhaps the grass should have some say in these things.

Sometimes of course, this excessive concern for litigation has benefits for society, for the greater good as it were. Cambridge sidewalks tend to get cleared fairly quickly when it snows since people who twist their ankles and fall in front of your house will get their 50 cents and more in legal revenge. In comparison, English and French sidewalks were treacherous in the winter time - it often felt like a tightrope or walking the plank (in my tradition of metaphorical excess). There is also huge innovation in the kinds of cups that are used for coffee to prevent litigation-induced scalding. I don't drink coffee but I am amazed at what I see people holding when they walk out of Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks. It's Nuclear Star Wars leading to good old Teflon all over again.

The 401K account, which is about the only thing other than the plain providential, and literal, lottery, that Americans will have for retirement if Dubya and Cheney have their way with Social Security - what with their continued focused and highly selective war-mongering, and deficit spending like proverbial Palm Wine Drinkards, is just a case in point about this phenomenon. A lawyer took a look at the tax code, found a loophole and now every dinner table conversation is about the 401K. Following up on the same idea, it is plain fact that the Roth IRA is the most popular political and economic innovation of the past decade. Bless you Senator Roth, wherever you are, you citizen you.

On the other hand this is the same tendency that leads to much inhibition. The US has half of the world's supply of lawyers and the world's largest insurance industry and for good reason. I shouldn't even mention the reinsurance industry and the whole stack of derivative products founded on this litigious risk mitigation tendancy.

Playground swings are no longer as fun since manufacturers have shortened the rope to prevent high velocity and now parents will strap you in like a pilot. Where is the thrill of youthful daredevil inventiveness going, I ask? My cousin famously broke his arm as a child on our playground swing and he is much the better for it. He bacame a far more sensitive soul once he had to be confined to a cast and realized his limitations and the wisdom of the repeated warnings of his parents and entire family. Actually it was the traditional healers of his father's village of Taviefe in the Volta region of Ghana who set his arm in place, armed with their inimitable herbs and centuries-old experience. We turned to tradition as opposed to modernity. A great respect for tradition and confidence in his roots was fostered in this experiece. Certainly in family lore we all know better where we come from.

I can't imagine my Auntie Grace filing a lawsuit against the swing manufacturer, or her sister in whose backyard the great swing was to be found, or perhaps even her nephew, me, who was in attendance at the fateful fall and who didn't intervene. That however is the degenerate kind of thing that would happen, and does happen fairly frequently in the US where the ties of family and societal culture are sometimes loosened into anomie.

There are already far too many emails emanating from corporate accounts with noxious disclaimers, clogging up mailing lists everywhere and causing comprehension problems. They are a public nuisance and there is no reason to add further disclaimers to the mix.

As you might have guessed, I dissent on that front, my Blogger profile simply says "Oh, and I work at Lotus/IBM". The Girlfriend Fiancée says that that tag line is "a little unprofessional" but it wasn't chosen without care. This joint is an individual one, this is a someone's voice you are hearing, engaging and thinking aloud in public conversation.

I think that suffices. What do you think?

Update: My friend Justin adds some Mediocre Indian Cuisine to the advertising mix. Join me in welcoming another jaundiced Lotus/IBMer to the blogosphere. He started the blog before these newfangled stamp of approval thingimijigs were published and we are all the better for it.

There is another post lurking about where and how people at IBM blog, but that's another conversation for another early morning, right Tessa?

Soundtrack for this tale: Brooklyn Zoo by ODB


File under: blogging, ibm, policy, culture, Lotus, law, freedom, history, communities, life, politics, economics, business, corporations, ghana, roots, tradition, technology, toli

The Roots - The Tipping Point

I normally wear my musical enthusiasms on my sleeve as anyone who's spent more than an day with me will attest. My tastes and advocacy don't always prove popular; when I used to DJ, 'the girls' would come up wanting Puffy when I would be pushing Gang Starr or requesting Tupac when I wanted some Rare Groove (see Donald Byrd or Lonnie Liston Smith - 1, 2) or the Young Disciples. I make no apologies, I'm into the musician's musician ergo my love for Prince, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder; of course when it comes to hip-hop, The Roots are the original hip-hop band (apologies to Stetsasonic). Like The Duke said of Count Basie and his band, they are "the essence d'essence".

Somehow they have had the critical acclaim, and even got the Grammy for You Got Me with Erykah Badu, Eve and Jill Scott) but seem to be stuck at the platinum mark when it comes to sales when many others far less talented and deserving seemingly mint money simply for hollering, belching and not "saying nuthin'" as the mumbled chorus to Don't Say Nuthin' parodies. Their live reputation is second to none and makes them highly sought after (e.g. backing Jay-Z in his MTV Unplugged set or such disparate artists as the Dave Mathews Band, Eminem and Joss Stone). Live instrumentation is rare in their chosen form (hip hop being very sample/hook driven). When they started out (circa Do You Want More?!!!??!), they were at risk of being pigeonholed as simply a jazz-funk hip-hop act, but they've negotiated that well and have made six albums showing a wide range and considerable musical intelligence. It also helps that they are also the hardest working group in hip hop - essentially touring for two-thirds of the year - something that will ensure that they'll always be treated as gods in London or Tokyo and make money long after others are forgotten.

?uestlove (Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson) is the heart of the band: a virtuosic drummer (in my mind he's so good that he can do anything - perhaps only Karriem Riggins has his range, what with his split personality in hip-hop and jazz drumming) and producer-extraordinaire (see D'Angelo's Voodoo, Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun, Common's Like Water For Chocolate and Electric Circus and all the other SoulQuarian productions with James Poyser). Black Thought is such a versatile MC, technically his breath control allows him to go where few can tread. Kamal, the keyboardist will throw in Ahmad Jamal stylings and lush fender-rhodes, minimalist fills that keep things moving. And Leonard Hubbard is a bassist in the Ron Carter vein (see for example his production on Jaguar's Self Love). On this outing they no longer have those members (the recently departed b-boying Scratch and long-seperated Rahzel) who "made the music with their mouth" but the vocal effects are not missed on the album (we'll see about the tour) since the focus is on the basics, the fundamentals of hip hop. This is why I am so elated with their new album, The Tipping Point.

The album's title is taken from Malcolm Gladwell’s 2002 book of the same name, which argues that ideas, behaviors and products spread in a similar fashion to viruses. Once a small group picks up an idea, their behavior will extend to more and more people until a critical mass, or "Tipping Point", is reached. After 12 years (they are the only band, other than Gangstarr, to have been on a major label for this long - a testament to both their work ethic and the disposability of their peers and lack of attention record companies pay to building careers in their genre) and lots of paid dues it is time for them to emerge everywhere as it were.

For example, here's a video clip of Stay Cool (realplayer) live on the Conan O'Brien show. Note the horn section and the ethereal feel. This is a band in the pocket. They used the same sample, Al Hirt's Harlem Hendoo, that De La Soul used on Ego trippin (Part 2) but freaked it in a lilting way (more details here). And of course Black Thought lays it down lyrically. A perfect pop song.

It's a short album (10 tracks with a couple of hidden tracks). The aim is to get down to basics with the peaks and valleys of those other short albums we all love: Marvin Gaye's What's Going On?, Michael Jackson's Thriller, Stevie Wonder's Innervisions etc.

A few highlights:

Star - almost a duet with Sly and the Family Stone's Everybody is a Star (ala Unforgettable with Nat and Natalie Cole but done right). This may well go down as the song they'll be remembered for.

Black Thought's mumbled chorus on Don't Say Nuthin' castigating said vapid rappers.

Guns are Drawn - politics with a reggae-tinged groove that wouldn't be out of place in Kingston, Jamaica. (Les Nubians El son reggae from last year is also in that vein but with no message).

Stay Cool as mentioned above.

The centerpiece in my mind are the two old school homages: Web and then Boom!. It's a one-two punch of adrenaline and raw agression. These have very pared-down instrumentation essentially just featuring drum, bass and vocals, like the rawest of early hip hop. Web is a one verse extravaganza in which Black Thought's frenetic braggadocio is akin to hyperventilation. The lyrical dexterity, the allusions, the puns, the speed of delivery, and the enunciation are phenomenal. It starts fast and keeps getting faster and more ferocious. As a Big Daddy Kane fiend, in my mind I was putting the performance in song on a par to Raw or Wrath of Kane. And then the magic happens, the music pauses for 3 seconds, a voice asks 'bring the beat back', and then "Boom!".

As I listen to Boom!, the first verse if even more rugged and boastful than Web, and for the second verse, Black Thought transforms his voice and spits out a verse from the Wrath of Kane, as done by the Big Daddy. I actually believed it was a sample until he threw in a few tweaks to the lyrics and then I realized that this madman had just done the impossible. And then to top it off, the next verse is done as a perfect clone of Kool G. Rap (complete with the lisp). A lyrical monster. Mimicry of voice, intonation and flow (see Common in Heat) has been done before, but never like this or with such intensity or lyrical dexterity. This is a Hall of Fame performance.

Din daa daa is a reworking of George Kranz's 1980 one-of-a-kind creation and is the hidden track for the dance clubs. The elements are scat, drums, and humming building to a mad climax. Again Questlove's drumming is in the pocket as he exchanges with the scatting Black Thought.

I Don't Care is a fun club jam

Braggadocio is not the only thing on this album and social commentary is prominent throughout and especially on tracks like Why? (what's Going On) which declaim the ills of life in George W. Bush's America.

Dave Chappelle and even Old Dirty Bastard(!!!) show up on the bonus The Mic. The only slack on the album is perhaps Duck Down! or at a stretch Somebody's Gotta Do It but that's only because anything following Boom wil suffer in comparison and they are fast growing on me.

Clearly Black Thought takes the center stage on the album, the band step back a little, reserving their all-out game for the tour; but he seems to be ready for the task, the lyrical gymnastics on this album have served notice, he is one of the greatest MCs alive. And this is not to mention the social commentary, I can't wait for the tour.

The only pity is that the US release doesn't contain the instrumental track, The Melting Point, which shows off their jazz-funk chops.

Run to your record store, or fire up iTunes as the case may be; The Roots have reached the tipping point.

Summary: 9 out of 10

A snippet about the process of making the album.
Some conversations about the Tipping Point
Other reviews of the The Tipping Point.

See also: The Roots + Floetry = Virtuosity (for the live review).


File under: music, hip-hop, review, virtuosity, roots, The Roots, toli

On Dub, Roots and Rockers

I've always been partial to reggae; it wasn't your garden-variety dilettante appreciation (ergo start with Bob Marley's Legend, stir in some Jimmy Cliff, a few scoops of maybe UB40's Red, Red Wine) but my love wasn't as informed as others. Sure, I knew about the importance of ska, Rastafarinism, Peter Tosh, the influence of say Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions (see One Love/People Get Ready), that it was producer-driven, that the Riddim was the thing, that the soundclash and dancehall were what mattered... But that's because I'm a music junkie - digression: Nick Hornby's High Fidelity was written for people like me - digression on digression: the movie version didn't grab me as much as the novel, I thought the whole point was the incongruity of the British boy/man in love with 'black' soul music who would go back and forth with you about Alexander O'Neal's Hearsay album and the Minneapolis sound; John Cusack transplanting the movie to Seattle is ok but having the music taste be grunge and standard Elvis Costello, Velvet Underground fare lost me (the complexity of the character came from the fact that his taste was 'complicated' thus justifying his snobbishness).

Back when I was "comping" for WHRB, Phillipe headed up the reggae department. He gave the lecture - a full afternoon worth, almost 5 hours of crate digging for the most obscure Desmond Dekkers, Lee Perry or King Tubby track and a whole historical lesson about reggae, its various trends, adaptability in short. He had a theory about the acceptability of reggae to the mainstream i.e. Bob Marley being picked up/marketed by the record labels instead of Peter Tosh who he thought was more vital.

Hmmn.. Anyway, I listened to the lecture and was able to pass the comp, not because I had absorbed anything he laid out, but mainly because I happened to have been playing KRS-One's The Bridge Is Over and a Sly and Robbie track he hadn't heard before when he had come in to the Radio station (the dank basment of Memorial Hall). He thought I knew my reggae for some reason.

At the time, I was more interested in the soul side of things (Isley Brothers, Teddy Pendergrass, The O'Jays, Marvin Gaye), and seemed to be spending most of my money on the Swingbeat men (Guy and Teddy Riley's various projects, Keith Sweat, Al B. Sure, New Edition etc) and of course on hip-hop (Native Tongues, Kool Moe Dee, Public Enemy) like everyone else. I did follow reggae/dancehall but I comped more for the club classics angle and Street Beat (the hip-hop show that spawned The Source magazine).

Back then (1991-5), the first sustained incursions of Dancehall were hitting clubs in the US and so Shabba Ranks, Buju Banton, Supercat (especially Supercat) were my main things. Like everyone else, I loved Dancehall but I could only stand it in moderation ("DJ, half and hour of dancehall is enough, give me some hip-hop or soul classic"). Phillipe believed that you needed a good couple of hours to really appreciate the music and the message... I think commented about the influence of Ganja in Jamaica on this aspect of the reggae culture. I'm sure marijuana mellows and slows you down...

In any case for some reason, I've gotten into a reggae phase of late and have been buying up a bunch of Dub, Roots and Rockers. Walking around London last week, this was my soundtrack/playlist:


Burning Spear - Chant Down Babylon - The Island Anthology

I only knew Burning Spear from "Mi Gi Dem" from 1992, which I played a lot on my show. I know that he was very influential in Jamaica: his consciousness, talk about Marcus Garvey, Rastafari, and the old 'Slavery Days' and that his concerts were almost religious experiences. I clearly missed out on him; this is such a strong compilation. He certainly took the mantle from Bob in the late 70s. He takes his time and does a slow burn. It's hard to pick highlights since almost everything is a classic, here goes though: all the tracks from the various Marcus Garvey albums ('no one remember old Marcus Garvey"), Nyah Keith, Make We Dweet. Social Living is now certified as my favourite dub song. I need to get the original albums.

Dennis Brown - Crown Prince of Reggae, The Best of Dennis Brown

Dennis had so many grooves, this compilation only covers his Island years so I'm going to be buying a lot more of him. There are so many songs that he graced. I'm reminded that Finlay Quaye Massive Attack covered Man Next Door which I loved. Dennis's original is simply perfect I can't say much than that: the groove, the voice, the melody, the strange effects in the background, the social commentary about the neighbour from hell:

he gets in so late at night
always a-fuss and fight
all through the night
I've got to get away from here
This is not a place for me to stay
I've got to take my family
and find a quiet place

Beres Hammond - Can't stop a man - The Ultimate Collection

I remember seeing Beres with Nana Twum-Danso at the Roxy in Boston. One of the few times I joined her and Phillippe on their reggae expeditions. I had fairly low expectations (Lovers' Rock wasn't quite my thing) but his show made me a believer. The best part was towareds the end, around 1am the lame people at the Roxy wanted to shut down the concert (Boston is lame like that) but then Beres went into a zone and refused to stop. The thing to note is that he's going blind and so no one was going to drag him off the stage. He kept a groove up for the next 70 minutes bringing out not just all his hits but also throwing in the odd curveball those old songs that you loved. It reminded me of how A.B. Crentsil would throw a verse of English nursery rhyme (say 'london bridge is falling down') in the middle of a long highlife jam and it would make perfect sense.

His voice is a weapon, borne of experience, it's slightly brassy with just enough to make you feel his pain or let him into the door, or bed. A great compilation showing why he is the ultimate loverman of rockers.


Third World - Ultimate Collection

Conscious roots by the stongest and longest lived reggae band, I'll just mention that 'Satta Massagana', 'Jah Glory' hit the spot. Their version of The O'Jays' Now that we found love was their breakout international hit, pretty much the prototype for the Heavy D's cover in the 90s. I would have liked more of their early work however, there's a little too much of their overpolished 80s stuff.


Steel Pulse - Ultimate Collection

Their impact on reggae is that of Caribbean immigrants to the UK. Their riddims were not exactly nostalgic of the Jamaica some of them had left, it was hinted at but reinterpreted. It's the exile theory I guess; the epitomy of Rastafari - once removed (first they have to return to the Caribbean, before they return to the promised land on Africa). I think of them as the precursors to UB40. A solid collection.


Black Uhuru - Liberation The Island Anthology

The Dub band par excellence. With Sly and Robbie as your rhythm section, you can't go wrong what with all their skewering of the sounds (gunshots as your percussion, car horns for your chorus). They were the first reggae band to win a Grammy which says it all. This double album captures their essence. The strong lyrics and blend of voices (they almost sound like family) I think it was important to have the female voice in the mix. All the tracks from the Dub Factor and Chill Out are dub as its best.


Gregory Issacs - Ultimate Collection

Along with Dennis Brown, the voice of reggae for the past 30 years. There was a lot of craft in his songs (see Black a Kill Black, Mr Cop or Rough Neck). For some reason, I first heard the Kruder and Dorfmeister remix of Night Nurse, 20 years after the original, which stands as as one of the great bedroom come-ons of all time with the plaintive voice:

tell her try her best just to make it quick
woman tend to the sick
for there must be something she can do
this heart is broken in two
tell her it's a case of emergency
there's a patient by the name of Gregory

Night Nurse
only you alone can quench this here thirst

About the comp

WHRB, Harvard's radio station, has a very long and involved process--they call it a "comp"--that involves extensive training, music "assignments" (e.g., listen to the Germs' first album until you love it), and music history "tests" (e.g., "How much heroin was in the Germs' Darby Crash at his time of death?). Four months after this sort of hoop-jumping, you are most likely rejected by fiat anyway, because the old music director decided he didn't like you. But if you should pass the test, becoming the next music director is a long process of connections, self-aggrandizement, and self-proclaimed non-conformity.

File under: music, reggae, dub, roots, soul, rockers, radio, WHRB, Harvard, obsession, toli