Carman Pirie blogs how an memo from Verizon marked “Proprietary & Confidential. For Internal Use Only.” inevitably got published. The memo’s about how to counter the iPhone. As Carman says, why couldn’t Verizon just write something for public consumption and be done with it.
I’m fond of showing a picture of InternalMemos.com during presentations, and asking the rhetorical question: can we meaningfully talk about an “Internal Memo” any more?
It seems to me that the old hard lines between organisations and the rest of us are getting more and more porous. The people I meet these days at big organisations are typically dressed more casually, on Facebook, don’t really love music companies, and don’t pretend ritualistic loyalty to the organisation. That doesn’t mean they aren’t loyal or responsible, just that what keeps them there is not hypnotism. They’re not deserters, they’re volunteers, and who wants an army of conscripts these days?
And sure, there are those who don’t feel so good about all this. I don’t want to spend too much time trying to push or persuade them that they’re wrong. I’m much happier working with the volunteers, there seem to be enough of them.
