techdirt

I recently came across a new blog called techdirt. The blog "offers insight into news stories about changes in government policy, technology and legal issues that affect companies' ability to innovate and grow".

The blog basically looks at the impact of new technology and new culture in how companies conduct business. It regularly calls out companies which don't adapt to new trends and offers insightful and useful ideas/opinions on better ways that these companies could do business. As a nerd in the business world, you can probably already see why I love this blog so much!

Another reason I love this blog is that so many of their opinions resonate very clearly with my own (and even when they don't, their viewpoint is still considered and well argued). Just a couple of recent articles by way of example.

Auditor liability
This article actually talks about the liability of a security auditor. However, the issue itself is identical to the issue faced by financial auditors - at which point does the auditor become liable for a breakdown in the audited company?

Too often in the current litigious environment that we are in, any failure is automatically pinned on the auditor (in some cases, simply because the auditor has deep pockets). Even when legal action isn't taken, the general public view is that it is the auditors fault because they signed off and should have spotted any irregularity or fraud or whatever the hell caused the company to fail. Bullshit.

The last line in the article sums up my view perfectly:

"It seems like in the absence of clear negligence on the part of the auditor, that it's a bit extreme to put any liability on the auditor."

Thriving in the new digital age
As you can expect for a blog about "technology" and "companies' ability to innovate and grow", there are a lot of articles about how companies can survive in the new digital age (and also about what companies are currently doing wrong). I've linked to several articles below which illustrate this below but there are loads more at the site:

Newspapers colluding over paywall?
Making money from music

And a couple of other links just because I hate the copyright lobby:
Copyright is to protect innovation - not to restrict it
These are "copyright defenders"?

The overall gist of the articles is that the world has changed. The problem is that the old companies, who were previously highly successful, are now in deep trouble because they haven't changed with the world. Instead of trying to come up with a new business model that works, they instead focus their efforts on trying to protect their old business model which invariably ends up alienating their fans.

Again, I couldn't help but marvel at how much I was nodding my head as I was reading these articles. Maybe its because I (kinda) have a consulting background but this just seems so obvious to me. One of the big things we always talk about in our company is that the world is changing and we have to change as well in order to understand and meet the needs of our clients otherwise we become irrelevant (followed soon after by company closure etc).

In short, the cheese has moved and its time to get with the program!