You shouldn’t post private data on the web. Or should you?

If you have been tuned into the news feed for past couple of weeks, you know about the privacy debate around facebook. But that’s not what this post is about. It is about the argument I often hear from supporters of facebook is – “You shouldn’t post private data on the web” – plain and simple.

Well, let’s think about it for a moment. Over the past few years, the world has started moving towards cloud. It still has ways to go; however, the signs are definitely there. For example in my case, just two years ago all my key documents used to live on my physical hard disk, with multiple backups. However, I have made a complete switch and now everything I care about lives in the cloud. My photos are stored on flickr, my documents are on dropbox, my bookmarks are on xmarks, and I don’t have to worry about backups anymore. I am sure the list will grow bigger over the next few years (though personally I would like to see it get smaller, but that’s a topic for another post). And I really like this new model. Now, I don’t have to worry keeping track of the computer which has my visa documents, or having backups etc. The data I care about is now available to me on every computer I use even when I am offline (well at least the data stored in dropbox and xmarks is). It’s exactly the way I like it.

The key reason I felt comfortable moving my data into cloud is because I was able to keep the data private and hidden from the eyes of the world. If this single piece of functionality was not there, I would have never moved to the cloud.

I believe the cloud is here to stay. However, in order for the cloud to replace local hard disks, it cannot be a step back. It will have to provide support for everything that’s possible today with local storage, while enabling the scenarios which were not possible previously or were too clunky. It can’t be a disjointed solution either. Cloud based solutions will have to figure out how to enable the new and richer scenarios without compromising on the existing scenarios. Sharing data is a perfect example. The approach to sharing that will win will be the one which will seamlessly bring together the desire to share some pieces of data, while at the same time keeping some of the data private, and will do so in a simple way.

And this brings us to the statement “You shouldn’t post private data on the web”. Well, I believe this statement is fundamentally wrong. The web will definitely evolve and will become the place where all the data lives. The evolution is already in progress. However, the statement will hold true for players who fail to understand that cloud can’t be a compromise. So if company X fails to build a good solution, the statement “You shouldn’t post private data on X” will come true.

We have lift off! (Once again)

We have lift off one more time! So what happened the first time, well in short the stars were not aligned and thus the saga ended.

And to jumpstart the blog, I am going to talk about something I originally blogged few years back. Follow me on twitter to get updates about new posts.

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The other day I was having a discussion with one of my friends about what is the most important thing you need to do in order to make sure you get to the finish line. Lot of things comes to mind – passion, determination, discipline, courage, confidence – you can go on and on. But we both agreed that the most important thing is to have a clear idea of where the finishing line is and what it looks like. If you don’t know that, then you are on your way to a disaster.

We both have come across so many incidents where the folks involved had no clue about the finish line that it is almost funny.  You would think that in team you won’t see this problem. After all someone in the team must be smart enough to realize that they need a clear idea of what is it that they are trying to do (the destination if you will) in order to accomplish it. Turns out you are right. In all the teams, everyone (or at least almost everyone) knows what the destination is. Just that it’s not the same destination. Yeah, I can see how they will get there

What does it mean to have a clear idea of what is it that you are trying to do. I think the answer is simple; you need to be able to describe in a minute or two whatever it is that you are trying to accomplish. And if what you described makes sense to at least someone, then you are good to go! But if you can’t do that well you better get back to drawing boards and figure it out or else you are doomed.

Adios

Himanshu Vasishth