#BAMF Award 3 -- Peter Biddle

Peter Biddle is nothing short of brilliant -- with roots tied to the beginnings of American Independence, Peter carries the torch of independent and future-thinking to his work in technology. Currently, Peter is General Manager, Cloud Services Platform at Intel Corporation and describes himself as a guy who enjoys “building kick-ass products and platforms with wicked smart people.”

Our BAMF Q&A with Peter:

gfx - Facebook or Instagram?                                                                                             

PB - Both! although I use Flickr for pics as well.

gfx - Twitter or Text?                                                                                                            


PB - Twitter for people, txt for persons.

gfx - Your favorite person to follow online?
                                                                       

PB - I don't have just one favorite. But I want to shout out to @PokitDok - I've known Lisa & Ted since forever & they are doing really cool stuff in personal health.

gfx - Biggest risk you have ever taken?                                                                            

PB - Oh god, only one? When it was under construction I climbed the iron work for the Seattle convention center, at night & in the rain, suspended above the I5 freeway. Stupid risky.

gfx - Most exciting thing you are working on?
                                                                  

PB - I can't tell you that yet. But it's awesome. My people are kick ass.


gfx - Next event you are attending?
                                                                                 

PB - I do 10-12 events a year but we are in a bit of a lull right now. IDF in September might actually be my next one.

gfx - Best burger joint? 
                                                                                                     

PB - Zippys Burgers in White Center, WA - number 11, tots, vanilla malted shake.

gfx - Truth or Dare? 
                                                                                                            

PB - truth, unless I'm trying to game out a specific dare, in which case dare.

gfx - What is the strangest thing you own? 
                                                                      

PB - I own a potato picker's harness. No matter how shitty my day is going,
whomever wore that professionally probably had shittier days than mine.

gfx - What do you think Smurf meat tastes like?                                                               

PB - Back in high school Smurfette used to say to me "once you've tried blue,
you'll never be through!". I obviously can't comment directly but I also
 won't call her a liar.

NSA and Data -- A Starting Point for Change

This post has been contributed by Josh Ag, a software engineer in Silicon Valley who sincerely wishes he had donated more to the EFF and the ACLU the past few years. He can be reached at josh.ag@hushmail.com.

After following the NSA leaks closely for the past few weeks, I've yet to see many specific plans for fixing the issue of the government's excessive data collection policies brought to light most recently by Edward Snowden, but also by Thomas Drake, William Binney, and J. Kirk Wiebe. In the interest of keeping this short, I do not provide any reasoning or explanation behind the proposed changes, but if there is enough interest I can write those up in a followup post.  This is not meant to be an unchangable manifesto, but rather a starting point for a discussion of how practically protect individuals' privacy in the 21st century.

First, we need to clarify and extend the 4th amendment to cover data and metadata, since it is clear that the 4th amendment as it is currently interpreted is not good enough.
Specifically, we should:
a) Extend the definition of data to include all forms of metadata as well as all forms of the data itself.
b) Extend the definition of a person's papers and effects to include any data generated by, given to, stored by, or about the person or his/her possessions in any form, anywhere, at any time, and any physical device that stores the data regardless of how long the data is stored, how much data is stored, how it is stored, where it is stored, or who owns the physical devices storing the data.
c) Extend the reasonable expectation of privacy to include any data that is encrypted by something stronger than rot-26 or password/phrase/code protected, regardless of who encrypted it, where it was encrypted, who is storing it, or when it was encrypted. Require that all second parties who store another person's data or data about them, regardless of how it was generated, who generated it, when it was generated, or how much of it there is, to securely store/encrypt all of this data, keep it private, and delete all of it when a person asks for it to be deleted. If a second-party wishes to share any of a person's data, then they must explicitly get permission before sharing it, must allow for the person to view all of this shared data at any time, and must tell (and get confirmation that deletion occurred) from the third party to delete any data regarding a person if a person tells the second party to delete data about them. This should not affect the government's ability to acquire unencrypted data without the help of a third party, or limit the ability of what the government can collect using a search warrant.
d) Extend all 4th amendment protections to any and all data transiting through the US regardless of who owns the data, who is holding or transferring the data, who the data is being transferred to, how the data is being transferred, when the data is being transferred, or how the data is encrypted.
e) Extend the definition of an unreasonable search to include any data collected from a warrant that searches for other data or for evidence of a different crime, for both the subject of the warrant and anyone else.
f) Clarify that when someone is indicted for any crime, they have the right to know as part of their defense whether the government has collected any of their data or data about them, all of this data the government has collected, and why the government collected the data it did.
g) If there is any overlap between the data collected as part of a different investigation/warrant and a crime for which a person has been indicted, then the default assumption is that each case/investigation/warrant interfered with the other and improperly tainted the evidence. If the government wishes to use any of the overlapping data or data gathered with or after any of overlapping data, then it must show beyond a reasonable doubt that no interference, even incidental or unintentional, occured, otherwise the data cannot be used.
h) Since this could require the government to release information before it would otherwise do so as part of another case/trial, the government can request information remain sealed, however, the judge, entire jury, prosecution, and the accused's lawyers must be allowed to see any and all relevant data. If the government does not wish to let the accused's lawyers see the relevent evidence, then it must petition the court where the accused is being tried for another lawyer (mutually agreed upon by the accused, his lawyers, and the government) who will have full access to all relevant sealed information to become part of the accused's legal team for the entirity of the trial and any and all appeals. If the relevent evidence is unsealed during the course of any trial or appeal, the appointed lawyer must remain part of the accused's legal team just as if the information remained sealed until all trials and appeals ended. The costs associated with this extra attorney are to be paid for solely by the government, regardless of the outcome of any trials or appeals.

Second, we need to make courts and investigations more transparent with regard to data collected by the government.
Specifically, we should:
a) Allow the subject of an investigation (regardless of citizenship or visa status) and any data collected as part of an investigation to remain sealed only until the investigation is closed.
b) Allow the means of acquiring the data collected to remain sealed only until the investigation is closed.
c) Require all warrants to be reviewed every 6 months by the court that granted the warrant for overly broad searching or collecting of data.
d) Require all investigations that remain open after a warrant has expired to be reviewed every 6 months by the court which granted the warrant to determine whether the investigation should be closed.
e) Require the investigating agency to notify anyone (regardless of citizenship or visa status) whose data is collected as part of an investigation what data about or belonging to them was collected, how it was collected, and why it was collected after the investigation is closed, but not release the person's data to anyone else without the person's explicit permission.
f) Require all warrants to be publicly available and unsealed once an investigation closes or once the warrant expires.

Corporate FTE? No, Thank You.

The very first thing I did as I drove out of the parking garage after getting fired from my position as the Vice President of Social Media at Live Nation was -- exhale. And I mean, the longest, deepest exhale of my life. It was so deep, it struck me. And in that moment, I realized this experience was a very, very good thing for me.

I was getting a clean slate, a chance to hit the reset button. I didn't owe anyone my time, ideas, or lifeblood. It was all mine again. 

After a brief stint partying my face-off in Miami-stylee (as one does in these situations), I came home and began a four-day digital detox and cleanse -- no phone, no internet, no TV, no alcohol, strict diet, etc. It was my intention to discover exactly what I wanted to do with my life next. I focused on meditation, listening to the universe, walking and appreciating beauty and grace, and writing volumes. I also painted. It was the second night of intense quiet, when I painted a bolt of lightening. And out of that bolt of lightening, sprang a  bird. A beautiful bird. A blue bird. And that bird flew confidently away from a city skyline and towards a giant heart. And, so then, I knew, looking at that painting -- there would be no corporate full time employment for me. I would use this lightening-bolt of a catalyst to fly into new territory -- and only work with companies with a heart. Let me explain.

It doesn't make sense for me to plug into an infrastructure designed 100 years ago. The silos and power struggles as a way of doing business is a broken and outdated model. Most importantly, I don't believe the full vision of social can be reached within it.

The full vision (described in this post)  requires an entirely different business architecture -- one that either requires a complete reconfiguration of a traditional business or one built from scratch in the case of a startup. Both are only possible as a top-down initiative. Without exception.

The architecture of a social organization requires social to be at the heart of the organization -- not tacked onto the side like a sad little tail pinned onto a donkey at a four-year-old's birthday party.

Because of social  media, every company has a voice. Which means, it has a mouth. Which means, it is expected to talk. And when it does talk, it is expected to do so with honesty and compassion -- or it is distrusted and resented. It is, therefore, expected to have a heart. Having a heart means authentically valuing and caring for your customers, employees, and partners. And displaying that value and concern through every single action, every communication -- every experience with the company.

Any company that has not figured this out, will at some point. Up until that point, it is not possible to reach the full opportunity of social. And I have no inclination to work within a system where I know I can't help the company reach the full opportunity of social before I even start. Half-ass is not in my DNA.

Don't get me wrong -- I am more than happy to audit, consult, and do project work for these companies. I just refuse to get mired in the political battles of the world of silos -- this effort does not create real change, IMHO. 

Cut to:

Startups are being launched in LA every 40 hours right now. And so many entrepreneurs get it. I mean really! Recently, I had a CEO draw me a diagram of the org chart he is designing with a hub-and-spoke model and he carefully wrote "social" in the middle circle -- Yes! Thank You.

And then I have a 20something CEO of a startup client who understands social is so important to his business that he rolls his eyes so hard I think they're going to bounce off onto the floor whenever I say anything about social being important. I can tell he is thinking, "I know, I know, just tell me how to do it." Beautiful!!

So, no ... I won't come tuck under your digital marketing "guy" in your big corporation so I can make a bunch of PowerPoint decks to convince him he needs to be doing more social. No more convincing. I'm over it. It's been too many years and if you don't get it by now, I'm not your woman. I only want to work with people who are ready to transform their business into the living, breathing, talking, participatory community member it can be. The type of business that wants to be head-and-shoulders above the competition -- in every way -- not just financially. A well-rounded company. A company that looks to create value constantly and is eager to explore the richness the social experience can provide.

I love lighting up the creative, inventive, and driven minds of people who already have their values in place. Those who are primed to take the orb and run. These are my dream clients and I've decided these are the only ones I'll be accepting.

So, unless your major corporation has the CEO call me him or herself to explain he/she understands social is the future of the entire business -- the answer is No. Thank you. I'm ready to make magic.

By Gretchen Fox, Social Architect at grtchnfx