mmhobbyist

It is not dumb, naive, or wrong to ask this, it is an important question facing all of us for quite sometime to come.

Here's a potential example that might show the limits of privacy-- online or otherwise. It was an anecdote provided by Charles Duhigg from his new book "The Power of Habit" (excerpt here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.h...). The story is that a father discovered that his teenage daughter was pregnant because Target sent selected coupons to their home, addressed to the daughter. You can read how Target figured that one out-- very fascinating data and statistical analysis -- but the point is this. A guy such as yourself, who follows the law and has nothing to be embarrassed about, might still feel a little uneasy about how much others know about you and the people in your life, and the purchasing decisions you all make. At the very least, I think most people would say that they would rather hear the truth about something as personal as their daughter's pregnancy from the daughter, rather than from a corporation analyzing your data.

Having said all that, we have benefited greatly from Google, Facebook, etc. So I am also conflicted about this issue.

An interesting new development on this issue is called a “B-Corp.” It stands for benefit corporation, and basically it is a legal designation when a company organizes to have a social mission (things like environmental impact, community involvement, etc.) as part of their fiduciary duty. The result is that a B-Corp can be legally held to its social mission.

Relating back to your question, looking for a B-Corp can be helpful for someone looking at the ethics of a business model because a B-Corp is required to have a third party certify that they are actually pursuing their original social mission.

If you are evaluating companies in SV, California is one of the states that allow B-Corps, so you should check with the company. Other states (including New York, Maryland, and Virginia) also have allowed B-Corps.

Because this idea is so new, it’s hard to say how effective it will be. But hopefully it will be another way to better evaluate a company’s ethics.

I use plaxo.com because it is free and will merge your contacts from Outlook, Gmail, and others automatically. I use the notes section to record when I last contacted the person, some stuff about their interests, etc.

The problem with this method is there is no built in way to remind me to make contact with someone who I have lost touch with. Also, the notes section is not searchable-- kind of annoying.

I recently heard of contactually.com that provides a notification system for reaching out to old contacts. I have not tried it yet.