Disqus - Latest Comments for barryhurd

Re: In 2020, Two Thirds of Google Searches Ended Without a Click

barryhurd — Thu, 25 Mar 2021 12:05:43 -0000

I have always operated in the SEO game that all search engines operate under the premise of 'value extraction' - Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin (or any large site with high search volume) is fundamentally driven by market forces to retain that search intent by providing a level of result equal to the monetization model of the site.

When you consider personalization and search history combined with a multi-tier advertising system, Google 'had you searching' before you actually hit the search button. This is part of the before/during/after and LTV models that giant search engines represent on the machine learning side for optimization. In Google's case they want to increase the multi-click opportunities created with the Google ecosystem, which obviously includes advertisers and strategic partners but it also includes maintaining your browser session as you potentially wander through the variety of Google ecosystems players.

Even with 1/3 of searches resulting in a click to a external site, I think the real question is more of how Google manipulates a person to search.

I.E. Was the intent of search originated by you or were you gently pushed to a new search by Google itself?

Re: Emerald City Comic Con organizers say Seattle convention will go ahead as scheduled

barryhurd — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 14:40:14 -0000

This isn't a bit crazy, just corporate greed in action. As a trade show host/vendor ReedPop basically has to hold onto *every last expo* till the bitter end when city councils and federal regulators step in and force the event to close.

Re: Seattle startup SkyKick ‘pleased’ with ruling in EU trademark dispute with broadcast giant Sky

barryhurd — Thu, 30 Jan 2020 13:22:55 -0000

Glad to see Todd and Evan came out with a positive outcome and fought the good fight. This type of legal cost kills many startups both locally and internationally.

Re: No poop required: Researchers devise blood test for gut microbiome diversity using data from defunct startup Arivale

barryhurd — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 16:17:49 -0000

As a data and privacy guy this is so problematic it falls under 'you can't make this *@#$ up.'

This is exactly why people are scared to trust health startups. Exploring the data behind our lives and making up new business models without the full consent AND understanding of a user is entirely full of landmines and pitfalls.

I can hear the law firms taking numbers: a startup collects data, puts blanket research disclaimer on clients, processes data, gets $52M in investments, fails to have a business model, goes bankrupt, releases data to co-founder doing 'research' at another firm, then announces more projects with a medical group where the same guy is SVP?

It also leads to questions about who paid for the data and who owns it? Investors of Arivale, the roughly 5,000 customers who subscribed, the team members who tireless worked and got laid off?

Isn't a more interesting story that the previous co-founder of Arivale, the co-founder of ISB, and is the SVP of St. Joseph Health medical group doing new projects is the same person?

Talk about a legal powder keg.

Re: True story: Fake news generator created by neural network researchers aims to fight disinformation

barryhurd — Thu, 13 Jun 2019 12:22:04 -0000

I think this is where words matter. An article written by AI is not necessarily fake news, it is an article written by AI. To combat 'fake news' - it does not really matter if a human or AI wrote it.

In the future many, many words will be touched by AI. Resumes and Word docs are already touched by computerized grammar/spell check and are edging toward rewrite and structure systems.

I could argue that most of the articles on Geekwire and many other sites are already machine written based on the types of search engine optimization tools on each site.

Re: Indeed job search engine scoops up big new Seattle space, doubling presence with major office deal

barryhurd — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 15:10:01 -0000

Great to see a recruiting leader take a more serious stake in Seattle. I don't know if competing for tech talent in downtown is the best move, but as a regional 'development hub' I'm sure there are a lot of talented devs who would love to give a shot at a new industry category.

Re: Tech Moves: REI names tech vet as first chief digital officer; new CEO at Element Data; and more

barryhurd — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 14:31:09 -0000

While I think it is awesome that REI is getting a Chief Data Officer (there needs to be more of us) - the role should directly report to the CEO / COO. Nestling data under a customer officer means that you've already created a lens for the data you can never clean. Data Officers need the ability to move from internal, external, market, vendor, and parallel audiences without contamination.

Re: Green Bay Packers and Microsoft win domain name fight after family sought cash, tickets and tablets

barryhurd — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 14:23:33 -0000

Having gone through this process hundreds of times for different clients: this is one of those times that both corporate entities failed to plan accordingly. Unless you are a novice at domain name transactions you can't back out of an agreement to sell (unless the agreement didn't really exist.)

The plan to secure and protect domains should have happened 3 to 12 months beforehand. Failing to secure the proper web destinations (domains, accounts, etc) is a quick way to lose $$$ and pay inflated prices. If the primary brand names are reserved already they should have had multiple backup plans for a multi-million dollar partnership.

If they had planned accordingly they would have paid $8 to register it.

Re: MassRoots Meltdown: 7 Warning Signs Investors Should Have Heeded

barryhurd — Tue, 26 Dec 2017 18:52:35 -0000

This is just an example of how the various digital cannabis ventures are fairly unsophisticated and don't have solid revenue models.

Even without digging into my tools and reports to look at the data, Massroots was a ticking time bomb if you simply went through a few basic investment questions such as does the company stay A) on-target B) have customer experience C) a scaling model D) a razor, a blade - or both a E) an expert team?

Leafly and Weedmaps are just bigger versions of the bomb. The first 'bubble burst' of the cannabis market is starting. The audience dealing with the various current digital services is disgruntled with customer service and high prices. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that we will see more of these catastrophic meltdowns.

Re: Why Online Reputation Management for Recruiters is Important

barryhurd — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 15:14:34 -0000

This happens more than one would think - recruiting and HR just hasn't caught up to it. Over the year I've worked with a lot of executives and investors/board members who were systematically executed online and were relatively clueless about the millions of dollars in damage it caused.

In a way this is really just a pattern of failure in understanding content and search: companies need to own the funnel from A to Z. Recruits, employees, executives, and stakeholders are all funnels into the ecosystem.

Except for individuals (which it is OK for) - I wouldn't use BrandYourself for a team environment on search protection. If you have a large enough team to justify it you should really be thinking about the overall content structure of your org and how each team member can support it (and also what data can be competitively risked by doing so.)

Several tools are out there that plug into quarterly review and employee screening on the topic of longtail search queries, either the CHRO or CMO should be paying attention to those details before it bites them.

Re: Seattle Police end use of Twitch video game channel after controversy over shooting discussion

barryhurd — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 14:58:19 -0000

As someone who works with several law enforcement groups on digital outreach strategies and community engagement, I can't imagine recommending Twitch as a place to engage community users for law enforcement.

Beyond the topic being discussed in this specific thread: a first person shooter game combined with a variety of entertainment minded users (often underage) in an unrestricted and impossible to moderate environment is not a place to have a law enforcement brand. Throw on top of that the casual risk of engaging in video game play conversation that is now part of public record and you have a pretty awesome recipe for brand disaster.

Re: Was the presidential vote hacked? Questions raised, without firm evidence

barryhurd — Fri, 25 Nov 2016 14:43:30 -0000

I'm with you there. The fact that three different states are at question means there are several machine types involved and that some trace or probable cause should exist in some technical audit (not a recount.)

I think this is being more pushed by the media instead of a party. The false hope of a math error or a cyber hack sells a whole lot of newspapers.

Re: Alexa in a drone: Amazon wins patent for voice-controlled ‘unmanned aerial vehicle assistant’

barryhurd — Tue, 18 Oct 2016 15:17:03 -0000

I was just reading this thinking "Great, a patent for something that has already been done..."

So many drone controllers have the ability to do voice control (if it has an app... you can pretty much use a voice command...)

Re: Salesforce to ask to investigate Microsoft-LinkedIn over antitrust concerns

barryhurd — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 17:41:24 -0000

So Salesforce is complaining that Microsoft wanted to buy a huge database and use it to build product?

It made a lot of sense for Microsoft to buy a B2B social network that it hasn't been able to build itself. The combination of powering Office users with social data on other Office users is pretty straight-forward.

I'm not aware of any court ruling that prevents a company from keeping community data to itself or preferred vendors- else Salesforce, Facebook, Google, Amazon and Microsoft wouldn't have proprietary data resources for varying levels of partner/vendors.

Re: Q&A: Cybersecurity expert explains the DNC email hack

barryhurd — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 02:25:12 -0000

The DNC hack doesn't correlate very well to Russian hackers anymore than a hundred other nation state cyber groups. Any decent cyber security person can dig through a few dark web conversations and leave a few fingerprints behind.

The fact that someone left signs of an intrusion is more of an indicator that the Russians didn't do it. So many groups would rather raise a smokescreen and leave someone else to deal with the fall out.

In the case of spear phishing as a possible method of intrusion, breaching the DNC wouldn't be the hardest thing to do on many levels. Our government officials and most politicians have disregard a huge number of security practices.

But if we go down the list of assumptions that could have led to a hack and some malware being loaded, we may as well just blame DNC officials for checking emails while logging in to insecure WIFI networks at Starbucks or for buying cheap wireless keyboards at Best Buy.

Re: Dan Price, the ‘$70k CEO,’ prevails in suit filed by his brother and Gravity Payments co-owner

barryhurd — Sat, 09 Jul 2016 13:33:11 -0000

I'm happy that Dan ended up with a good decision, but on the one point you cited the Judge saying “salary decisions are a management level decision, not a Board decision.”

That demonstrates the Judge really doesn't understand the difference between an individuals salary and a complete rewrite of the HR/talent department. I don't expert a law expert to understand corporate structures, but since the decision also affected executive salaries it should have definitely been a board decision.

Re: AI2 CEO calls for ‘full disclosure’ in artificial intelligence after students learn their TA is really a bot

barryhurd — Mon, 09 May 2016 16:09:19 -0000

Funny thing is - that out of all the questions about A.I. interacting with a class to answer questions is how any reasonable person can expect an expert to respond to a class of 300.

With an average 45 minute teaching session the elite instructors of the world are given a whole 9 seconds per student per class.

How can a machine do any worse? At least it gives an answer. It may even remember your name.

Re: Unusual Ploy in Anthem Breach Case Fails - BankInfoSecurity

barryhurd — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 14:32:16 -0000

This is purely a 'blame the victim' tactic.

The overall ramifications of even making that argument in court is a horrible PR blunder on the part of Anthem as technically it isn't even possible.

Whatever security / IT firm recommended it didn't (and couldn't) produce a systematic way to image 100+ plaintiff's personal computers, tablets, laptops, routers AND all of the business computers, tablets, laptops, routers they interact with.

On a forensic level one would have to assume that most of these systems have long passed any forensic window after having multiple software installs, system updates, and full hardware changes.

In addition to that sheer technical hurdles, a consumer or business would be under an impossible hardship to grant access to potentially dozens of cloud services that store and transmit data on behalf on just a single device.

As a professional who digs deep into data breaches every day... I'm woefully unimpressed with the expert council Anthem has received and the horrible precedence it could lead us down. Thankfully the court was alert and wake on this one.

Re: Caught Fibbing About FMLA Leave? It Might Be the Vacation Photos That Did It

barryhurd — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 16:31:20 -0000

Firing someone for Facebook posts better have an incredible amount of thought put into it. As someone who went through a prolonged leave myself, I was incapable of performing my work duties and still *had a life* and some of the things I did were indeed fun and distracting to get my mind off of things.

Taking care of yourself includes body, mind, and spirit. Most employees and work peers will not have any idea what an FMLA leave is for. In my case most of my direct and indirect supervisors had no idea what it was for, while my immediate peers only knew I was out on prolonged leave.

After reading the mentioned court papers it actually looks like his legal council was completely unaware of proper defense techniques around his employment and failed to properly identify / argue what the organizations social media policy actually defined. Specifically he should have filed his case around rights to employee monitoring, data access, privacy, and/or possible discrimination of the activities as compared to the organizations published (and agreed upon) social media policy.

Re: Social Network Monitoring in Background Investigations

barryhurd — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 17:00:26 -0000

I have few different viewpoints on the matter - Since one of my clients is in the space of background checks/investigations and a number are in the HR big data space, the functional conversation begs the question: is it public data, meta data, or private?

Once that question is kicked around the next stage for me is whether or not the social data conflicts with discrimination laws or creates bias in the candidate selection, possibly causing isolation of candidates that have undesirable social networking connections.

We also have to think about direct data gathered about you or that was created by the individual in question as opposed to conversational responses to secondary sources of information.

From a security perspective I believe it is critical to monitor employees to understand what is being generated by the organization and if there are intellectual property, security, or talent assets being exposed. If an employer doesn't understand what signals are being broadcast they can't properly secure those assets against competitive, criminal and state aggressors. The ability to protect the organization, employees, stakeholders, customers, partners and vendors is critically tied to social data.

Re: Falling drone nearly crushes champion skier at World Cup race

barryhurd — Wed, 23 Dec 2015 15:41:06 -0000

Just goes to show that some video crew with a 'cool technology' is flying a drone exactly where one shouldn't be flown (dense crowd, lots of RF interference, bad / cold weather environment)

They are lucky they hit the open ground in that environment. If it had hit the skier he would have suffered a pretty bad tumble at that speed and a few meters in either direction it could have taken out several folks on the spectator line.

There are numerous ways to capture that type of event without risking severe injuries.

Outside of the accident itself - I wouldn't want to be a competitor that has a drone floating around me while trying to compete. They have enough distractions to deal with already.

Re: Uber gives drivers color-coded windshield LEDs to help riders find the right vehicle

barryhurd — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 14:38:35 -0000

I understand that, but the law doesn't say neon tube lights or cold cathode gas-discharge light. It says neon light, which means the term can be applied to the color range as well.

Go into any car shop that does customized lighting setups and they can tell you about a whole range of lights that are not street legal. Most 3rd party lights can only be used when the car is off the street and not in motion.

or better yet, just ask your local police officer.

Re: Uber gives drivers color-coded windshield LEDs to help riders find the right vehicle

barryhurd — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 03:42:05 -0000

I guess this is another Uber effort to blatantly go against a state law about neon lights?

WAC 204-21-230
http://app.leg.wa.gov/wac/d...

They could do another type of sign, but neon is specifically prohibited (and all the example shots show only neon colors...)

Are they trying to get Uber drivers ticketed?

Re: Social Network Analysis reveals the alternative list of global power elite

barryhurd — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 20:38:19 -0000

Interesting analysis. I generally find a good weighing factor is the number of years and age of relationship as expressed in a cluster of relationships. I don't know off hand if LittleSis provides that data, but it would be an interesting addition to your work.

Re: Groupon acquires Seattle startup Venuelabs to help local merchants monitor social media feedback

barryhurd — Thu, 18 Jun 2015 15:29:17 -0000

I always love hearing about friends who go through a successful acquisition (Congrats Neil!)

It will be interesting to see how Groupon tries to encompass the ideas/platform of Venuelabs into the fabric of what Groupon does. From my former career at Superpages I'm thinking we'll see a few 'nuggets' appear from the acquisition, but that a majority of ingredients are going to be lost within the larger organizational mission of Groupon.

Having watched Groupon grow and then plateau over the years with stock price I'm wondering if a few technology/leadership acquisitions will be enough to get Groupon back on track as an innovative competitor.