Information Control and Zasbots Part One

[S.I. Sheehan]

It can be difficult to find words that convey exactly what we mean. This is especially true of emotional and passionate topics. This is what makes for great poetry, a great story, a great drama. Characters and situations that are believable can give us insight into our own lives and thoughts. Even allowing us to see into areas hidden by our cultural and personal biases. The other aspect of a great story is the stage upon which it is enacted. A small private club encourages intimacy and virtually unlimited freedoms of expression. A larger venue may require adherence to vulgarity or nudity norms effectively limiting the freedom of expression available to the story teller.

We write to our audience. Each word intended to move the reader toward some goal or endpoint. Whether it is poetry or business writing, failing to recognize and appreciate the audience often results in works that fail to move the reader. The expression of words might be brilliant but meaningless, the storyline real but unbelievable, the stage uncommon but commonplace. It is not enough to have the facts, the storyline, and characters. We all have facts. We all are characters and we all have a story.

There is something, lets call it zasbots, that is the one ingredient that can transform any story into a great story, any character into a great character, and of course a great stage as well. Zasbots is tricky stuff, it can be bought but only if you have virtually unlimited funds. It can be stolen but this is not recommended for a variety of reasons however, it occurs more frequently than anyone would imagine. You can't make it. You can make a close approximation however.

So, knowing your audience and having some zasbots is all that is needed. What exactly is zasbots?

Lets consider email. Some years ago, a system administrator often made quite articulate and very sophisticated points about system architecture, performance and deployment strategies almost exclusively through email. He was in his twenties at the time and as seemed typical of those twenty-somethings, vulgarity and profanity could be found in most every email. However, if you ever angered him by disagreeing with his opinion, you would be treated to emails sent to everyone, containing foul and demeaning language intended to embarrass and denigrate you and your lack of knowledge. Sometime others would feel sorry for the person being blasted and would summon some defense. This could be dangerous as such acts were generally spun to "So what? Fred is to dumb/weak/lazy.r{}* to defend himself" and "Who are you to suggest Fred doesn't deserve the blasting?" This is very similar to what can happen defending a kid being bullied at school or a gang member being harassed. The email today makes for a great story. The characters are real and believable. The stage was technology and the sterile communication medium of email. Face to face encounters were seldom possible and never desired by the administrator. By recognizing his need to express and win, I was able to leverage his arrogance and merely had to wait for him to say "its either Tom or me" The company welcomed his departure. Arrogance can generate great zasbots but not for the arrogant. Email although very sterile and perhaps confidential has similar restrictions as physical mail and phone calls, unless privacy is explicitly expressed, the message can be forwarded and copied. Of course ethics may be involved as well as integrity.

To be continued