RonAmok!

While driving home last fall, I noticed that a company called Microsemi had moved into the area. I was pretty excited because Microsemi is a world-wide semiconductor manufacturer whose product-line falls into the sweet-spot of my technical knowledge as an analog/mixed-signal circuit designer.

I went online to learn that the building that I saw represented their new corporate headquarters. I learned that they were growing, having acquired twelve additional semiconductor companies over the past three years–who each brought some pretty cool technologies with them. After a few more mouse-clicks, I also noticed that the company had a very small social media presence. Thinking that this might be Kismet (like how many analog/mixed signal companies with cool new technologies yet very little social media presence can I expect to move into the area?), I decided to write a report, on spec, complete with specific recommendations on how the company might use its online properties to better communicate with its customers–electrical engineers.

I wrote the report and snail-mailed a hardcopy to a Microsemi contact with whom I’d been introduced through a mutual colleague. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. No complaints. Such are the risks of spec research.

However, as I shared the report with a few friends, it occurred to me that independent of the subject-company’s name on the report, the document contained relevant information for any high-tech, B2B company who is considering the use of online publishing platforms. So, rather than having this report remain lost forever on my hard-drive, I decided to share it with my readers.

If you work for a B2B company in a high-tech industry, you should read this report: Microsemi Corporation: Online Properties Analysis and Recommendations. Perhaps it’ll help provide a new perspective by which to evaluate your own online properties.

Yesterday, my Twitter feed brimmed with news of SOPA, the so-called “Stop Online Piracy Act” that was being discussed in a House Judiciary Committee hearing. Scathing comments streamed by, concerned with freedom of speech, punishment without due process, and a fear that if passed into law, the bill would move the United States toward becoming a repressive regime.

Although it’s tempting to dogpile, instead of commenting on the commentary, I wanted to read the bill myself. So, I slogged my way through all 78 pages of H.R. 3261 to arrive at my own conclusions.

Although most of the bill’s criticism comes from a civil liberties perspective, I have a more fundamental problem with it–the bill’s details, or specifically the lack thereof. The bill describes a detailed process–from the moment a property rights holder makes a copyright claim all the way through how to stop the offense–yet it does nothing to clarify what an infraction is. Therefore, with a clearly defined punitive process and no clear definition of a violation, a deep-pockets plaintiff can wreak havoc on a shallow-pockets defendant. Considering the present economic climate, where advances in digital media technologies have allowed David to go toe-to-toe Goliath, this bill–as written–opens dark new competitive options for Goliath.

I’m a staunch supporter of the intellectual rights of content creators. I’m also a staunch supporter of innovation. If the goal of this bill is truly “To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the the theft of US Property…” then shouldn’t it be able to define what constitutes an actual theft? The bill references our present copyright laws as a start, but those still do nothing to clear up the murky issue of fair use.

Let’s take two very simple cases:

1) A website owner rips a copy of “Star Wars” from their DVD and puts it on their server for anyone to download.

2) One author quotes another author, with full attribution according the the Chicago Manual of Style.

Most people will agree that case #1 is a clear violation. By the same token, case #2 demonstrates a generally accepted writing practice.

But case #2 gets foggy when we step out of the text domain and into that of rich media, where no concept of an acceptable excerpt exists. For example, what constitutes fair use for a song? A few notes? A phrase? A hook? The entire chorus? Or what about a feature length film?

A 90 minute film shot at 24 fps consists of 129,600 frames. Is it acceptable to use one frame with full attribution, without asking for permission, or could the film’s copyright owner claim a violation through the Stop Online Piracy Act? For the sake of argument, let’s assume that a single frame is acceptable. If so, at what point do we cross the violation line?

Take this example. If one book author attributes 100 words of another book author’s 75,000 word work, 0.13% of that book is being used under fair use. If 0.13% is an acceptable for a text-based work, couldn’t an argument be made that 7.14 seconds of a feature length movie could be used in a similar way?

The problem is that H.R. 3261 contains a long list of punishments for a crime that the government has still yet to define.

Or can it?

The last few pages of the bill describes a responsibility to train property attachés, those agents who are tasked with defending U.S. intellectual property rights abroad.

“The Secretary of State and the Secretary of Commerce shall ensure that each intellectual property attaché appointed…is fully trained for the responsibilities of the position before assuming the duties at the United States embassy or diplomatic mission to which the attache is assigned.” (74:13-18)

“Such training and technical assistance programs shall be carried out in consultation with the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator.” (75:11-14)

So, if I’m reading this correctly, the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator is responsible to train these property right defenders. If so, shouldn’t training guidelines exist? What are they? Where are they? Is this training available to the public? If not, why not? Content creators would fill these classes in droves.

My problem with H.R. 3261 is that it can’t “…protect the creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation…” of new works without defining what parts of the old works are allowed to be used legally.

Until such a definition exists, the bill will hang like the sword of Damocles over those who seek to innovate through legally building upon the works of others.

Photo Credit (CC): bulletproofbra

Recently, I’ve found myself hooked on the Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch, the reality television show that features fishing crews working the Bering Sea to find Alaska King crab. While enjoying my new-found vice, I’m struck by the parallels between crab fishing and the business of creating online content.

Crab boat captains are responsible for catching their legal quota of crab within a small window of time. Through the use of sophisticated GPS technology, experience, superstition and a little luck, captains decide where to drop their crab pots–800 pound steel and mesh baited crab-traps. Sometimes, they’ll “set a string” of over one hundred pots, which will lie on the ocean floor awaiting crabs to crawl into them. After several hours “soaking,” the pots are retrieved and the crabs are harvested.

The first pot in a string is an indicator of what the rest will contain. That’s when the producers of the show capture the most dramatic moments, because the first pot sets the morale of the entire crew. Sometimes it’s full of crab. Other times it isn’t. Low crab-counts mean longer times out at sea, and longer times at sea means both increased danger and lower prices at the dock.

*  *  *

Many similarities exist between crab fishing and creating compelling content for our companies. As corporate storytellers, our goal is to create content that attracts audiences in the form of prospects and customers. Sometimes prospects and customers flock to our content. At other times, we pull-up our own empty pots.  When audiences don’t resonate with the content that we’ve spent so much time creating, our morale may wane. We question our actions, defend them to upper management, and question whether or not we’re doing the right thing.

It’s at times like these that we need to learn from the fishing crews of the Cornelia Marie, Northwestern, Time Bandit, Seabrooke, Ramblin’ Rose, Wizard, and Kodiak. Just because one particular blog post, podcast episode, or video piece doesn’t gather the audience that we expected, we can’t stop fishing. Just as crab boat crews re-bait and return empty pots to the ocean floor, we must continue to punch those keyboards, speak into those microphones, and look into those video cameras. Just as the crab boat captains learn from each set-and-retrieve cycle, so must we. With each piece of content, whether it is popular or not, our job is to learn something that we can apply to the next story.

The creation of serial content is hard work. Sometimes it draws prospects and customers to us, and sometimes it doesn’t. The trick is to keep on fishin’. Without doing so, we’ll never meet our quotas.

Photo Credit: Slightlynorth