July 2017 archive

FIR #98: We Really Hate Those Toilet Paper Bears

Jen Phillips and Doug Haslam joined host Shel Holtz for conversations about these topics:

  • Twitter lost $116 million and 1 million U.S. users in its last quarter. Can a $99 subscription service help it rebound?
  • The top-rated social network in the American Customer Satisfaction Index’s e-business report was Google+. Yes, really. Google+.
  • Procter & Gamble cut somewhere between $100 and $140 million in digital advertising spending and didn’t notice any impact on sales.
  • Volkswagen has taken some extraordinary steps to rebuild the confidence of employees in the company and its culture in the wake of its emissions scandal.
  • A study from MWWPR finds that one-third of Americans are brand activists — or “CorpSumers” — who determine what they’ll buy, whom they’ll do business with, and whom they’ll work for based on the company’s demonstration of its values.
  • Augmented Reality could change the way we make decisions and lead to a fundamental shift in the retail experience. And it’ll probably connect nicely to smart audio.
  • Dan York reports on Adobe’s announcement that it will put the final nail in Flash’s coffin, Russia’s impending ban on VPNs, news that the Indian government will track social media posts to ensure they are collecting enough taxes, and PRX’s “Podcast Garage” in Boston enabling more people to create podcasts.

Connect with our guests via Twitter at @dough and @jenzings.

Doug’s Pan-Mass Challenge page is at https://bit.ly/pmcdoug.

Links to the source material for this episode are on Contentle.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

FIR is recorded using Zencastr.

About today’s guest co-hosts:

Doug Haslam’s  career has spanned a variety of disciplines within the communications field: radio technology, editorial production, public relations, marketing, social media and digital. Currently a senior consultant with Stone Temple Consulting, Doug began with public radio, producing news and thoughtful sports programs, moving into technology public relations, and currently to social media and content strategy for brands of all sizes and industries. Doug’s love of media has come full circle, as his most recent positions have seen him taking full advantage of his content creation skills, managing social media and brand publishing programs for a wide variety of clients.

Jennifer Zingsheim Phillips is the principal at 4L Strategies, consulting and providing content development for a variety of industries. She has worked in communications and public affairs for 20 years. Her background includes work in electoral politics, government, lobbying, and public affairs PR work.

The post FIR #98: We Really Hate Those Toilet Paper Bears appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

For Immediate Release #97: Welcome to Manhood, Ma’am

Shonali Burke and Olivier Blanchard joined host Shel Holtz for conversations about these topics:

  • Gillette’s practice of mailing a razor to young men turning 18 to welcome them to manhood occasionally winds up sending the package to women and older men. Their responses on social media aren’t hurting the company a bit.
  • Marketers are embracing chatbots, a trend that will only continue to grow and evolve as AI and smart audio become more common.
  • Unconscious bias in the workplace can have an impact on productivity and innovation, among other things. If it’s unconscious, what can be done to stop it?
  • Millennials have made sustainability and the environment their top issue, but oil companies still need to hire them. Is advertising to make them look cool enough?
  • Political provocateur Ann Coulter erupted into a Twitter tirade when the seat she had paid for was given to another passenger. Delta gave back as good as it got. Should companies engage in these kinds of circumstances?

Connect with our guest via Twitter at @shonali and @OABlanchard.

Links to the source material for this episode are on Contentle.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

FIR is recorded using Zencastr.

About today’s guest co-hosts:

Olivier Blanchard is a French-born, American-based Brand Management and Digital Marketing consultant, the author of two best-selling books, and an acclaimed keynote speaker. As a Senior Analyst with Futurum Research, Olivier helps organizations better understand the crucial ole that emerging technologies like Cloud computing, Big Data, Virtualization, Augmented Reality, Smart Automation, IoT and AI will play their industries and markets over the next 10 to 20 years. Though based in the US, his geographic range extends beyond North America to Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. Olivier is the author of the best-selling #1 social business desk reference for digital managers and business executives: Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts In Your Organization (Que/Pearson). Olivier is also a sought-after subject-matter expert and corporate trainer.

A veteran of small and large PR agencies, Shonali Burke is the award-winning president & CEO of her eponymous social PR consulting firm, Shonali Burke Consulting, Inc., where she and her team(s) help for- and non-profit organizations small and large reach business goals by taking their communications “from corporate codswallop to community cool.” Shonali also serves on the Adjunct Faculty at Johns Hopkins University in its M.A. /Communication program, as well as the Rutgers University School of Communication and Information.  Before launching her own consultancy, Shonali worked as Vice President of Digital Media and marketing for MSL Group, and as Vice President of Media and Communications for the ASPCA.

The post FIR #97: Welcome to Manhood, Ma’am appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

For Immediate Release #96: The Crisis That Keeps On Giving

In the July installment of The Hobson & Holtz Report, Neville and Shel talked about these topics:

  • A 15-year-old participating in a Work Experience program took over the Twitter account of the beleaguered Southern Rail in the U.K. The response was undoubtedly a welcome break for Southern Rail’s social media team, but what did it ultimately accomplish?
  • The online publication Quartz experiments with display-type ads in the text of stories that let users ask an Artificial Intelligence-based chatbot named Hugo for more information about just the stuff you’re interested in.
  • Will Artificial Intelligence eventually take over the creative side of content marketing?
  • Takata’s air bag crisis is in its second decade, leading ultimately to the once-mighty company’s bankruptcy. The tale is filled with intrigue and drama.
  • The limitations and restrictions of social media channels have led brands and publishers to employ sneaky workarounds to game the systems.
  • One company has put a price on the cost of a recent ransomware attack, but the underlying reasons companies were vulnerable to the attack in the first place means there’s work for communicators to do.
  • Dan York’s Tech Report looks at Microsoft’s new LinkedIn app for Windows 10, issues with the Skype app rollouts for iOS and Android and the changes those issues prompted, and why some publishers are abandoning Snapchat for Instagram.

Connect with Neville at @jangles. Listen to his podcast, The Small Data Forum.

Links to the source material for this episode are on Contentle.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

FIR is recorded using Zencastr.

About Neville Hobson:

Neville Hobson was co-host of The Hobson & Holtz Report for over 10 years. For over 15 years, Neville has been a voice of experience and influence when it comes to speaking about digital technologies, disruptive change in workplaces and marketplaces, relevant trends to pay close attention to, and what it all means for your business. His experiences embrace deep understanding and subject-matter expertise in contemporary business issues that include social, digital and cognitive technologies, connecting that with a career in traditional public relations, marketing communication, employee, compensation and benefits communication, and investor relations. Based in the Thames Valley some 30 miles west of London, Neville works either from his home office, or from a client’s location; or from wherever he has a good network connection.

The post FIR #96: The Crisis That Keeps On Giving appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

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Rough Guide to IETF 99: DNS Privacy and Security, including DNSSEC

There's a good bit of DNS secrurity and privacy activity happening at IETF 99 next week in Prague, although not all of that is in working groups. Here is a view of what is going on.

IETF 99 Hackathon

Once again there will be a good-sized "DNS team" at the IETF 99 Hackathon over the weekend (15-16 July). The IETF 99 Hackathon wiki outlines the work (scroll down to see it). From a security point of view, major projects include:

Dan York

Rough Guide to IETF 99: DNS Privacy and Security, including DNSSEC

There’s a good bit of DNS secrurity and privacy activity happening at IETF 99 next week in Prague, although not all of that is in working groups. Here is a view of what is going on.

IETF 99 Hackathon

Once again there will be a good-sized “DNS team” at the IETF 99 Hackathon over the weekend (15-16 July). The IETF 99 Hackathon wiki outlines the work (scroll down to see it). From a security point of view, major projects include:

  • Continuing work on how DNS implementations deal with the impending KSK rollover in October 2017.
  • RFC 5011 compliance testing (related to the KSK rollover)
  • Implementation of the new elliptic curve crypto algorithm, Ed25519, defined in RFC 8080.

There is also work on multiple other DNS records and tools, including a new packet capture format focused on DNS. Anyone is welcome to join us for part or all of that event.

DNS Privacy Tutorial

On Sunday, July 16, there will be a “DNSPRIV Tutorial” from 12:30-13:30 CEST (UTC+2). This will explain the work of the DPRIVE working group to add a layer of confidentiality to DNS queries. Much of this involves sending DNS queries over TLS.

It is possible (and I’ll update the post if it is) that this tutorial may be streamed out over the IETF YouTube channel and recorded. The www.ietf.org/live page doesn’t have it listed yet, but I would check there to see closer to the date.

DNS PRIVate Exchange (DPRIVE)

On the same theme, the DPRIVE working group meets Tuesday morning from 9:30-12:00 CEST.  The draft agenda shows their should be good discussion on several of the current working group drafts. I am also looking forward to the discussion about DNS over the QUIC protocol. The group will also discuss measuring the usage of DNS-over-TLS and talk about what comes next.

DNS Operations (DNSOP)

The DNS Operations (DNSOP) Working Group meets twice in Prague. First on Tuesday, July 18, from 15:50-17:50 CEST, and then on Thursday, July 20, from 18:10-19:10.

The agenda isn’t out yet, but two drafts related to DNSSEC that might be up for discussion include:

There are a range of the other documents related to DNS security or privacy – or that can have impacts on those topics. We’ll have to see what gets onto the agenda.

DNSSEC Coordination informal breakfast meeting

Finally, on Friday morning before the sessions start we are planning an informal gathering of people involved with DNSSEC. We’ve done this at many of the IETF meetings over the past few years and it’s been a good way to connect and talk about various projects. True to the “informal” nature, we’re not sure of the location and time yet (and we are not sure if it will involve food or just be a meeting). If you would like to join us, please drop me an email or join the dnssec-coord mailing list.

Other Working Groups

The DNS-SD working group will also have a brief discussion of DNS-SD Privacy drafts. Agendas aren’t posted yet, but the Using TLS in Applications (UTA) working group often has drafts of interest, as does the Security Area Open Meeting (SAAG). The thing about DNS is that it is so critical to every service that it often shows up in many different groups.

P.S. For more information about DNSSEC and DANE and how you can get them deployed for your networks and domains, please see our Deploy360 site:

Relevant Working Groups at IETF 99:

DPRIVE (DNS PRIVate Exchange) WG 
Tuesday, 18 July 2017, 09:30-12:00 CEST (UTC+2), Congress Hall III
Agenda: https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/99/agenda/dprive/ 
Documents: https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/dprive/ 
Charter: http://tools.ietf.org/wg/dprive/charters/

DNSOP (DNS Operations) WG 
Tuesday, 18 July 2017, 15:50-17:50 CEST (UTC+2), Congress Hall II
Agenda: https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/99/agenda/dnsop/ 
Documents: https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/dnsop/ 
Charter: http://tools.ietf.org/wg/dnsop/charters/

DNSSD (Extensions for Scalable DNS Service Discovery) WG 
Wednesday, 19 July 2017, 15:20 – 16:50 CEST (UTC+2), Athens/Barcelona
Agenda: https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/99/agenda/dnssd/ 
Documents: https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/dnssd/ 
Charter: http://tools.ietf.org/wg/dnssd/charters/

Follow Us

There’s a lot going on in Prague, and whether you plan to be there or join remotely, there’s much to monitor. To follow along as we dole out this series of Rough Guide to IETF blog posts, follow us on the Internet Technology Matters blogTwitterFacebookGoogle+, via RSS, or see http://www.internetsociety.org/rough-guide-ietf99.

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