Comments on: Musing about the Whose Data Is It question

By: Blogs that ooze wisdom.

Blogs that ooze wisdom. — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:45:00 +0000

[...] he writes about data ownership. So when you give me your private mobile phone number, you trust me with that information. I am not [...]

By: ConorwithoneN

ConorwithoneN — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:27:59 +0000

Interesting points raised by Rhys above. I would also expect each employer to assess the background to the employee leaving the organisation.
If they were let go because they were genuinely sub-standard, why care if the contact information goes with the incompetent?
In all other cases – including if they left because of some better opportunity elsewhere, what can be learnt and done to restore/improve the home advantage so that clients and employees will stay with (or be attracted to) the organisation?
I rank this behaviour along with enforced garden leave periods (which often achieve little in terms of client satisfaction and retention despite great cost) as rather irrational.

By: Red Links 19/06/08 : Alexia Golez

Red Links 19/06/08 : Alexia Golez — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:13:54 +0000

[...] JP muses on Whose Data is it Anyway? [...]

By: Gregory Y

Gregory Y — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:23:30 +0000

I also agree that the value is in relationship and not in contact data. However I wonder if in this particularly case the fact that the employee’s behavior was of questionable ethics, soliciting your current employer’s clients while on payroll, that caused the reaction. This whole affair seem to be meaningless.

I am familiar, through my CRM exploits (www.evolutionofbpr.com), with a “normal” practice of monitoring network activities of departing employees to prevent them from downloading customer/contact related data from corporate data bases.

By: Rhys Jones

Rhys Jones — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:20:46 +0000

Theres a very protective streak that runs through many big companies’ DNA. The company thinks anything related to something of value is also of inherently of value and therefore its’ property. So the logic goes, it’s the company’s relationship not the person’s, therefore any information about the company’s clients is the company’s, even if this is really public domain or shared between individuals.

How many vendors or customers have you had a social beer with in your career? and how many contacts do you stay in touch with between companys?. A lot, I bet. When you were last hired, it might have been a lot to do with things you have worked on previously.

Theres a line between taking and reproducing a design for a secret product from its original documentation and taking the experience and lessons learbnt with you. The same way there is a line between taking news of a sensitive deal to a competitor and taking your customer’s phone number so you can call him again and start a new relationship from your next company.

This is where trust and stewardship needs to work throughoput the chain, and that chain is longer than company – emloyee – client. Employees may one day be clients, ex-employees may become employees again. Creating artificial boundaries around the procedures, channels, tools and data supporting the conversations between people is a technology and litigation based way of saying “Frankly, we don’t trust you, we don’t value you, and you are only able to operate as a professional because we are here to let you”. None of these things are true in a world with ubiquitous communication.

People will find a way to communicate and stay in touch and increasingly in ways that their employers can’t control. The employees will ultimately win the arms race against the employers trying to control communications. They have a substantial numbers numbers on their side. Even though the company’s have more expensive lawyers, you can’t push uphill forever.

By: Stephen Lewis

Stephen Lewis — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:00:23 +0000

I agree: the value is in the relationship, this not only in terms of the absurdity of the order to hand over the data but also in terms of the quantitative amassing of facebook “friends” and linked-in “contacts.” For the value of two words for friend (one persian in origin and the other turkic) as friendship-filters and litmus tests of relationship, see this recent musing ( http://tinyurl.com/6n4nz2 ) on one of my weblogs.

By: Chris Swan

Chris Swan — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:15:19 +0000

Another thought – a physical world analogy…

When I leave my job am I expected to leave behind the cards in the rolodex on my desk, or just the rolodex itself (which is company property)?

What happens if I never put the cards into my office rolodex, but scanned them at home and threw them into a box?

By: Chris Swan

Chris Swan — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:07:31 +0000

The most bizzare thing about the court case is that the plaintiff clearly already has a copy of the data that ended up in the social network of the defendant. So the act of ‘handing over’ is about destruction rather than copy/move. I can’t see how such an order would be enforcable, as it would be like proving a negative.

By: crc

crc — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 06:02:07 +0000

“…I am a trustee of that information
…the value is not in the data but in the relationship…”: very true.
Is discretion the better half of a relationship?