If you’ve been following what’s been going on in the world of technology, politics, and international travel over the last few years you’ll know that, if you want to enter the US, border patrol agents are allowed to search your laptop, mobile phone, or MP3 player without limitation and without telling you why. Meanwhile, if you want to enter the UK and you have some encrypted stuff on your hard drive, the UK government can demand that you hand over your encryption keys or face jail time.

In light of all this, both CNET and the EFF have come up with ways in which you can keep your data both safe and private when crossing the border. Before reading that, though, check out Computerworld’s Jaikumar Vijayan’s article on Five Things to Know About U.S. Border Laptop Searches.

Then read these:

• For a quick overview of how to secure your data, read CNET’s Chris Soghoian’s article Keep Your Data Safe at the Border.
• For a much more in-depth discussion, read CNET’s Declan McCullagh’s Security Guide to Customs-Proofing Your Laptop.
• And, for a more legal perspective, read EFF’s Jennifer Granick’s article on Protecting Yourself From Suspicionless Searches While Travelling.

Most important of all: be careful. Your really don’t want to suffer Maher Arar’s fate.

Awesome (but very long) article by CIO magazine’s Sue Bushell called Enterprise 2.0 – What is it good for?:

Canberra-based knowledge economy and social computing evangelist Stephen Collins heard a quote earlier this year that perfectly describes the Enterprise 2.0 dilemma: “If you want to find out what tools your staff are finding most useful at the moment, just go and see what your IT department is blocking.”

I don’t know who wrote this but a friend sent it to me some years ago. I figured it was worth posting here :)

Keeping Things in Perspective

An American businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna.

The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied that it only took a little while. The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish. The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.

The American then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?” The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life, senor.”

The American scoffed, “I am a Stanford MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But senor, how long will this all take?” To which the American replied, “15-20 years.”

“But what then, senor?” said the Mexican.

The American laughed and said: “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”

“Millions, senor? Then what?”

The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

I’m posting this a few weeks after it was published but, in case you haven’t see it yet, make sure you take a look at the speech Al Gore gave at a TED conference in March:

In Al Gore‘s brand-new slideshow (premiering exclusively on TED.com), he presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists were recently predicting, and challenges us to act with a sense of “generational mission” — the kind of feeling that brought forth the civil rights movement — to set it right. Gore’s stirring presentation is followed by a brief Q&A in which he is asked for his verdict on the current political candidates’ climate policies and on what role he himself might play in future.

Having just taken a course on sustainable development I know what Gore is talking about — i.e. about how things are worse than we thought they’d be — and it’s getting scarier as time goes by but not much seems to be happening at the global level to fix this problem.

Which is the point of the presentation: unless we collectively raise a ruckus about this issue, not much is going to happen. The speech is American-centric, of course, but is nonetheless very inspiring.

Since I’ve been busy these last few weeks, I’ve missed writing about a couple of good blog posts that I recently read.

First we have Chris Brogan who wrote an excellent post on what a community manager does:

Depending on the organization, I imagine the role of a community manager would be different, so I’m going to walk through what the role might entail for a media and events company (like mine), and see what comes to mind.

And second we have Tac Anderson who writes about the razor’s edge that social media people have to walk every day:

Social media workers walk a dangerous line everyday. Everyday they walk into a battlefield not knowing what fate awaits them. One wrong word, one misinterpreted email, a delayed response to a blog comment; any of these things can start a fire storm that could ruin the reputation of the company or the social media worker.

Both are interesting and I highly recommend you read them.

And I’m done with my MBA. Actually, I was done on Friday but I took it easy over the weekend :)

This now concludes 20 months of hard work, late nights, early mornings, essays, individual assignments, syndicate assignments, case studies, class discussions, research, and exams. During this period I met a lot of great people who taught me a lot of different things. I also formally learnt a heck of a lot about many different subjects. Specifically, I took these courses during my four study terms:

1. World of Management
2. Data & Decisions
3. Managing Processes
4. Accounting for Managers
5. Financial Management
6. Corporate Finance
7. Managerial Economics
8. Economics and Public Policy
9. Business Strategy
10. Corporate Strategy
11. Implementation of Strategy
12. Managing People for High Performance *
13. Leadership & Change
14. Negotiations *
15. Marketing
16. Brand Management
17. Consumer Behaviour
18. E-Commerce *
19. Information Strategy
20. Business & Sustainable Development (half subject)
21. Strategic Management of Intellectual Property (half subject)

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Actually, it really was.

And now it winds to a close. All that’s left is my graduation on the 17th and then I can officially say that, yes, I am an MBA from Melbourne Business School, thank you very much :)

Now to find a job so I can start my next adventure…

Speaking of jobs, by the way, I received the nicest job application rejection phone call today. It was from the job I mentioned a few weeks earlier (the one I was most excited about) and, though I’m terribly disappointed that I didn’t get it, I understand that the company needed to choose the best person for the role who, in this case, was unfortunately not me. Still, out of the 200 applications they received I was one of the four people they interviewed and that’s a really good feeling. Oh well. Next time, then.

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* I received commendations from the Dean for my participation and academic achievement in these subjects. Woo hoo! :)