Digital Disciples: Transforming church for future generations

Reader alert: This is a look at how the church model is changing, so it comes from a distinctly Christian perspective.

By Stan Johnston

“We’ve seen two years of digital transformation in two months,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in April. Many Christian leaders have seen decades of technological change in recent months, thanks to the global pandemic. But we all face the same core challenge – how to adapt while continuing to operate.

Several pastors and friends asked my thoughts about the “next normal” for churches, because I have written extensively on digital transformation over the past 15 years in Silicon Valley communications roles. I cannot address all the issues — including entire volunteer teams with nothing to do – but I believe this will force a thorough reinvention of the local church.

The good news: Rapid change can produce fresh ideas and growth, albeit painful at times. Every organization in my career had to navigate change driven by technology. My first industry, newspapers, refused to adapt until too late. I left in 2000 for enterprise tech companies, including Hewlett Packard and NetApp. That industry thrives on change because it fuels innovation. They must anticipate the future or fall behind. Churches now must do the same.

The stakes are high. This is a battle for future generations. Millennials and Gen Zers are encountering worldwide disruption on a scope few generations have had to face. The coming period of severe economic hardship and despair will force many to their knees. Fortunately, we offer hope — a real God who cares about them, wants to reveal himself, wants to help, and has proven it.

The gospel of Jesus is timeless, but how we communicate it evolves continually.

Emerging generations are digital natives and intuitively use interactive channels, so we must engage them in relationships, not just teacher-student roles. We will reach them by being in conversations they care about with stories of true hope – especially examples of how God has been ever-present in times of trouble, both now and in the Bible. Those stories will prompt them to ask questions and engage in two-way dialogue. That will build connection, with other people and with God.

Few churches planned for this crisis, but we can anticipate many of the challenges and opportunities ahead, adapt, and come out stronger. The biggest issues I see:

Expectations
When watching Sunday services online, many people anticipated the same experience they had in their building. That is difficult when watching at home in your pajamas. So managing expectations has become an important part of navigating through this. When people do attend on-site again, they will find limited seating, with strict cleaning guidelines via local codes that will change frequently. As a result, group video chats will replace many target ministries, such as youth and women. The leaders of those teams will need training on how to do that effectively. Start now.

Audience
Many older and younger people will never return to your physical facility except for key events, either out of fear or convenience. Engagement will shift to virtual and social formats, which will require staff restructuring and training. Look for transferable skills; for example, ushers with a heart for hospitality can be taught to monitor social media. In the coming years of hardship, the draw for hurting people will not be your praise band or 4K video. They will be seeking the Lord – for help, hope, and peace.

In hard times, nothing trumps secularism like a real God.

Message
In the post-virus economic depression to come, people will not attend church for enlightenment or personal growth; they will be crying out with desperate hearts for a real God to save their families. Long expository teaching will be supplanted by stories of hope amplified in social conversations. Our most important tool for evangelism is still the message of Jesus, not the platform we use to communicate. In hard times, nothing trumps secularism like a real God.

Partnerships
Most corporations figured out long ago that nobody makes it alone in the digital era. Churches, governments and businesses must work together, or the needs of people will overwhelm us all. The most immediate challenge we must solve together is our growing Digital Divide. Our education systems are facing the same issues: For someone to attend, they need internet access, a device and training, plus a quiet place where they can focus. Many Smart City initiatives are years behind. Churches can help make this shift by partnering with local schools, agencies, service providers and tech vendors to transform communities. Think of it as your virtual bus program.

Platforms
Large campuses with arena seating, open areas, and buffet lines may never return. Micro churches connected virtually will sprout — home groups on steroids, with the sanctuary increasingly feeling like a live-audience broadcast studio. The danger will be over-rotating, with churches pouring everything into technology while making people a low priority.

Worship
Music will look and feel different for some time. We have enjoyed an extended period of inspired worship that has been poetic and emotionally powerful. However, the coming move of God, especially in Millennials, will be driven by a desperate need for tangible help in the aftermath of COVID-19. Large conferences will be slow to return, so gatherings will be much smaller, streaming audiences will be bigger, prayer will grow in importance, and Sunday worship will become less experiential. Going forward, people will have to experience the presence of God through small-group settings and personal worship, which we will embrace because the Holy Spirit will show up. It also will spawn lyrics that teach essential truths in song.

Social Media
Digital disciples will gravitate toward interactive, transmedia storytelling because it will be familiar from their new hybrid education system. Amplifying those stories on social media will be a major challenge – and opportunity – for the church. Streaming and archiving services will be important. But building relationships through social media will bring the most value, for both the church and hurting people.

To be effective in social media, the church must:

• Be in the right conversations – Engage in topical conversations while they are trending, with stories of hope.
• With the right voices – Use the most appropriate and approachable people to engage in those conversations.
• And the right content – Plan chapters of a consistent story line you feel matters most to your people and tell it across all your media channels.
• At the right time – Discuss the Resurrection in early spring, not on July 4 weekend.

The greatest transformation is still a heart that encounters God.

Just remember social media is a toolkit, not our objective. Many organizations get so wrapped up in platforms they do not think about the audience or what to say. The result: multiple irrelevant, mediocre, and disjointed messages told many places. We can never lose sight of our core message – a unique and compelling story of hope found only in God. The greatest transformation is still a heart that encounters him.

My biggest caution: A hidden cost of digital transformation is depression and burnout among those who must implement organizational change. In the war for hearts, we cannot leave our own wounded on the battlefield. Churches already are laying off staff while beefing up tech crews and sidelining large portions of their volunteer teams – from ushers and parking attendants to children’s workers and cafe staff. Helping your own people through this change should be your leadership’s top priority.

A hidden cost of digital transformation is depression and burnout among those who must implement organizational change. 

Beyond that, run in such a way as to win the prize. The Lord has always enabled his church to reach future generations, so this should be our prayer:

“Even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.” (Psalm 71:18, ESV)

— May 2020

Net Neutrality: Could we set the bar any lower for digital rights?

By Stan Johnston

I have long been puzzled by all the fuss over net neutrality, which is set to expire on June 11. Some see it as the defining issue of our time. But the promise of a connected global community goes far beyond my right not to be throttled by an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Could we set the bar any lower? What about the right to access itself? What about data privacy, Internet tools, protection from predators, and connections beyond your country’s borders?

We have regressed to 1215 AD, when the barons of England rebelled against King John and pressured him to sign a document reducing his power over them. Today’s Digital Barons in America have temporarily forced the government to limit its power over how they operate. But the full rights of ordinary citizens are an afterthought, again.

Of the Magna Carta’s 63 clauses, “many concerned the various property rights of barons and other powerful citizens,” says history.com. “The benefits of the charter were for centuries reserved for only the elite classes, while the majority of English citizens still lacked a voice.”

Like the Magna Carta, net neutrality only deals with the rights of barons and kings.

The rights of ordinary citizens in England weren’t addressed for another 400 years. It won’t take that long for broader digital rights to catch up, but law has struggled to keep pace with technology since the First Industrial Revolution.

In fact, the legal system itself remains one of the core challenges. National laws vary significantly when it comes to digital rights – and sometimes basic human rights. In addition, most are steeped in a tradition of precedence. That means changes in law come slowly while the rest of the world is accelerating.

Nowhere is that gap more clear than in net neutrality, the principle that governments should force ISPs to treat all data and customers the same. Under net neutrality, Internet providers cannot block content, slow down data, or charge money for specific websites and content. One for all, and all for one.

Problem is, it is not our biggest problem. While I appreciate the passion of net neutrality advocates, I urge you not to settle for the single topic of access quality. First, it is primarily a U.S. perspective that assumes everyone is connected already. Second, it isn’t the most important issue globally or morally.

Many people in the world are denied basic digital rights. To them net neutrality is a peripheral issue. If you don’t have access, never feel safe, or can’t reach customers outside your country, the connection speed is irrelevant. Ordinary citizens of medieval England were less than impressed with the Magna Carta Libertatum (Great Charter of the Liberties) for the same reason – a lot of noise with little real change for most.

Are we at a Magna Carta moment in the Information Age? Net neutrality is an iconic and powerful symbol, but it is not a Bill of Rights. On the other hand, we probably will settle for it. And it will be years before full digital rights for every human can be addressed. Why? Barons and kings continually get distracted by squabbles over power, property, and justice. For example, less than three months after the Magna Carta was signed civil war broke out in England. Who had time to worry about commoners then?

We must think outside the nation-state box and beyond America’s ISPs. An Internet that crosses national boundaries and derives value from pooled virtual resources brings tremendous opportunity for good worldwide. It also requires a new kind of governance that overlays and rises above the competing interests of nations and their baronies. This week’s example of the need:

“A free and open Internet is critical to New York, and to our democracy,” said acting New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood. “The repeal of net neutrality would allow Internet Service Providers to put their profits before the consumers they serve and control what we see, do, and say online.”

Translation by Stanley: “The Barony of Comcast will pillage your way of life if the Crown cannot prevail.” A bit melodramatic for my taste. Also, how fast my video file downloads feels like a small part of the free speech conversation.

Once again, it is barons versus kings. And once again, we will accept a Magna Carta but should insist on a Bill of Rights. When it comes to Internet equality, we tend to be more concerned about that annoying buffering icon we got while playing Fortnite with friends. After June 11, we will believe it choked because our ISP gave the bandwidth to somebody with deeper pockets.

Of course, that assumes we have Internet access at all. If you need help with that, don’t call the king or barons today. They are busy playing an online Game of Thrones.

How should you respond when a co-worker loses a loved one?

By Stan Johnston

“Dad’s gone.” My mind registered the words from my brother on the phone, but I couldn’t let the reality of my father’s death incapacitate me. In five minutes I had to leave my Los Angeles hotel room, meet co-workers, and give a crucial presentation to about 5,000 people. Sometimes the overlap of personal and work life is out of your control. In those times, the love of co-workers can be the difference.

Yes, I said love. More on that later, because we should start with why love is needed in times of loss. If you work side-by-side with someone for years, your lives become entwined. And if you are a decent human being, you care about what hurts your friends. Nothing is more painful than the loss of a loved one. When it happens to a co-worker, it can impact your team – and you – on a deeply emotional level.

Barbara Bush

I thought about that as I read the tributes to former First Lady Barbara Bush, who passed away last week at age 92. Recognition and appreciation came from heads of state, family, legislators, religious leaders, friends, and many others. But tucked among the responses was a poignant account from Jean Becker, a longtime co-worker of both Barbara Bush and her husband George H.W. Bush.

Becker served as deputy press secretary for Mrs. Bush from 1989 to 1992 and helped to edit her two books. She has been chief of staff for Mr. Bush since 1994 and helped him write a book, too. Most of us knew H.W. as our president, so we grieve the loss of his wife of 73 years from a distance. But after 30 years of working with both closely, Becker cannot. She was deeply moved by Barbara’s loss, recounting for us the couple’s final hours:

Jean Becker

“He held her hand all day today and was at her side when (she) left this good earth. Obviously, this is a very challenging time. It will not surprise all of you who know and love him, that he also is being stoic and strong, and is being lifted up by his large and supportive family.”

It had to be a tough time for Becker, too. That’s why these comments are insightful:

• “He of course is brokenhearted.”
• “He is determined to be there for them as well.”
• “He appreciates all the well wishes and support.”

While personally grieving, people need to feel both useful and supported. Here are some thoughts on how:

Don’t pressure people to stay away from work.

Most people need to be needed, so don’t isolate them more than they already feel in times of loss. Peter CaJacob, former VP of Human Resources at McClatchy, was a longtime boss and remains a friend. When my father died, he advised me to keep giving my mom things to do for our family. He told me how his family had responded to the death of his mother by taking pretty much everything off his father’s plate. The intentions were good, but Pete was convinced his dad passed away soon after because he simply didn’t feel useful anymore.

Don’t take so much off your co-worker’s plate that they feel insecure and unimportant. Let them know you’re filling the gap but miss and appreciate them. For me, it was important to get back to work quickly and get my mind on something else. But it also helped that my co-workers were sensitive and patient when I got distracted.

H.W. Bush shifted his focus to supporting the people around him. After my father died, I found solace in helping people around me get things done at home and work. It was healthy for all of us, and co-workers allowed me to do it.

Express that you care – it matters.

Dave Kamp

For almost four years, I worked daily at Hewlett-Packard in a cube across from Dave Kamp, one of the most delightful human beings I ever met. We shared increasingly intimate details about our lives, which is natural as you become friends. Dave was always encouraging — about personal life, not just business.

After he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, many current and former colleagues rallied to his support. When he died last year, Dave had so willingly invested in workplace friendships that many tears were shed over his loss, yet there were few outlets for expressing it.

The last time we talked, in Las Vegas a few months before he died, Dave recounted how the support of former co-workers had hugely lifted his spirits in the darkest time of his life. He just regretted he didn’t have a chance to tell everyone.

Don’t take it personally if a thank-you card is months later, or not at all. But send one. Grief is a process, not an event. People go through denial, isolation, anger, bargaining, and depression before coming to accept their loss. They appreciate support even when they don’t (or can’t) express it. Recently I found some sympathy cards from colleagues after my father died. I probably never thanked people for sending them. But they mattered then and now.

Know when you need to grieve, too.

H.W. Bush was open that he was brokenhearted. So was Becker, and she remained close to her longtime friends to the end. Helping others through loss when you are hurting can be a profound human experience.

A very public example of that came five years ago, when actor Cory Monteith died of a drug overdose at age 31. He played popular character Finn Hudson on the TV show Glee. His girlfriend on screen and in real life, Lea Michele, was devastated. But she returned to work three weeks later and sang a tearful farewell on-air as character Rachel Berry — performing “Make You Feel My Love” by Bob Dylan (and made famous by Adele).

Lea Michele

By returning to her job and expressing her deep feelings through music, Michele helped millions of fans work through their grief. Her authentic expression of love also was cathartic to grieving co-workers, on and off screen. Love has that kind of impact on the healing process.

We rarely discuss love in the workplace apart from romantic relationships. But we neglect it at great risk. I truly loved Dave Kamp as a friend, and I will hold his memory forever with great affection.

In the era of the Multi-National Enterprise and distributed teams, sorrow is amplified in isolation and peace is elusive in an open office. Because of that, maybe my best advice to handling workplace loss comes from “Make You Feel My Love”:@byStanley

I’ve been working on the railroad: My summers of real education

By Stan Johnston

Many fellow college students spent their summers as interns for major news outlets. I drove rail spikes. It was hard work that taught me invaluable lessons daily.

The old man approached waving a gun and dragging his dog. About eight of us were repairing railroad tracks in a St. Louis switching yard, but the man singled out my twin brother. What happened next was part of an unexpected education for college students working summers at N&W Railroad.

St. Louis was racially volatile in the 1970s (surprise) despite being integrated in many ways. My brother, best friend and I grew up in the area, so we knew the hot spots to avoid. But that changed our first summer after graduating from high school. Steve Johnston, Ron York and I got jobs working for the now-defunct Norfolk & Western Railroad. N&W was expanding its labor pool to build a new rail yard in the heart of downtown blight. However, instead of the construction crew, we somehow were put on the traveling “section crew.” It ensured five summers of great pay for a seasonal job.

The crew was about half inner city African-American men, with the other half a mix of illegal laborers from Mexico, poor urban white men, and a few of us middle-class white college students. The first summer, we were painfully naïve. By the fifth summer, we could spot undercover drug agents and swear in Spanish. The man with the gun was one of those lessons along the way.

He was an older black man who slurred his words, smelled like cheap vodka, staggered over the tracks directly toward Steve, and then pointed his weapon at my brother’s face. Suddenly, there was a flurry of activity. Two of our black co-workers stepped between the man and my brother and immediately started a jovial conversation. The other workers swept us out of harm’s way behind a boxcar before I could even process what was happening.

In the end, the old man and his dog simply melted away. Later I heard he was escorted to a local shelter by my friends. No word on his .38 revolver. I have no doubt those co-workers saved my brother’s life. Their selfless actions crossed boundaries of race, socio-economic background or place of origin. These guys didn’t stop to discuss whether to do the right thing. They just acted.

If you are a “gandy dancer” – a slang term for railroad track maintenance workers – respect is earned. It is physical and dirty work, especially in St. Louis summers that are gauged by the “heat index” instead of just temperature because of oppressively high humidity. We worked hard enough to get hired back, but the first day was a disaster. All three of us were exhausted before lunch. We were in great shape for tennis, but this was a different kind of hurt.

About midway through the afternoon, the crusty foreman had seen enough of our lame performance. He was about 6-foot-2 with a fat-free frame, in his 50s yet tougher than the nails we were trying to pound.

The foreman walked over to us, took off his white hard hat and said: “What’s the matter, boys? Did your daddy tell you this was going to be an easy job? You won’t last a week.”

Ouch. I remember we mustered enough bravado to tell him we could handle it and somehow made it through the day. And the next. And for two months until our breakthrough in August. That’s when two Goliath-class co-workers challenged my brother and I to a “spiking” contest, where you “race” down the rail driving spikes into ties, with one man on each side of the rail alternating hits. First team to finish wins. Steve and I finished the 10th and final tie while the big boys were around #6.

It was more technique than strength, and we were smart enough to know it mattered. Men like that remember things like that. Most were trying to support families they loved while living in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. The railroad offered good wages compared with anything else (legal) out there – especially if you commuted from across the river in East St. Louis. These workers were intensely loyal to the labor union as a result, and they expected every man to carry his weight.

Two of our summers were spent on traveling crews, working across upper rural Missouri repairing sections of track. We would show up on Sunday night and leave on Friday afternoon (usually several hours from St. Louis). The crew train had sleeping cars, shower and bath cars, a cafe car with terrific cooks who served three hot meals daily, a social car with couches and TVs, and locked equipment cars for our gear.

This was a Mobile Man Cave with a 3,300-hp engine. Within an hour of pulling into most towns, a parade of pickup trucks would cruise by. Within two hours of getting off work, we would be at the local bar having a cold beer. Still, small-town squares were a long way from urban St. Louis, so we watched each other’s back.

That bond of trust came in handy when N&W detectives (“railroad dicks”) suspected our crew of harboring a major drug dealer one summer. They were wrong, but they assigned an undercover DEA agent to check us out. He drove up in a Shelby Cobra Mustang and wore designer boots on the job, which wasn’t exactly discreet. Within a week, someone caught him filling out federal employee forms in his car. Soon after he had a discussion with a dozen angry men who had surrounded him. I didn’t hear all they said, but the next day they said he had “quit.”

We never quit. Despite long and difficult days laboring in hot and dirty conditions, after late nights of drinking too much and getting lost trying to find our way home, we learned that people of all kinds can make a permanent impact on your life.

For example, one colleague almost blew us all up lighting an acetylene torch while leaning against a box car full of explosives. An assistant foreman saved a co-worker from being crushed in an accident but permanently injured his back in the process. Another shoved a friend off the track just ahead of a runaway rail car in the yard, called “the silent death” because no engine is attached. After nine months of college academics, N&W was a three-month reality check.

I learned how to write and edit at the University of Missouri and while working in media. I learned about marketing and communications at Fortune 500 technology companies and while working a few Comic-Cons. But I learned about real people and real work on the railroad.

Maybe that’s why I know the woman who cleans our break room is named Marta.

This blog originally appeared on LinkedIn. See early comments there.

6 Historic Battles Where Data Made the Difference

By Stan Johnston

Monday is Memorial Day in the US, followed a week later by the anniversary of D-Day. As we remember those who sacrificed, let’s also not forget those who served away from the field of battle. Data scientists of every generation made a difference in war.

The largest invasion in history was won by information – and misinformation. When Allied forces landed in France on June 6, 1944, control of data prepared their way.

Allies misled Germans on the location and date. They flooded airways with fake radio traffic full of misinformation. They re-routed radio signals via landlines to mask troop locations. They learned German defensive plans and troop locations by eavesdropping on conversations. Naval forces conducted diversionary maneuvers to draw attention from Normandy. And much of that was possible because data scientists at Bletchley Park broke the complex code of Germany’s famous Enigma machine.

In war, information can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Tactical data about your enemy’s location, numbers, strengths, weaknesses, firepower and supplies are critical in decision-making. Equally important is understanding opposing leaders. Their personalities and tendencies can be used to advantage in battle.

You win by getting the right information in the right hands at the right time. It made a difference then, and it makes a difference today. D-Day is among many historic battles in which data played a key role. Here are five more:

The Spanish Armada (1588)

While King Philip II of Spain was spending lavishly to build an imposing fleet of 130 warships, Queen Elizabeth I put her modest budget into building the most sophisticated spy network in Europe. Her investment paid off; his ended up in flames.

The Spanish king had decided to crush Tudor Protestantism by sending the Armada to escort an invasion army. However, Elizabeth’s spies fed her rich details, which she used to craft a counter-attack. At Calais, the Armada was met by British fire ships, which scattered the fleet. Then nature stepped in. During the Armada’s retreat, more than a third of the ships were lost in severe storms.

Battle of Ulm (1805)

Using information from a well-placed spy, Napoleon trapped the Austrian army with minimal losses. The victory let Napoleon capture Vienna, where he installed the spy as the city’s chief of police.

French agent Charles Schulmeister so convincingly infiltrated Austria’s military that he was designated Chief of Intelligence by Napoleon’s rival, General Karl von Mack. The gullible Austrian general even invited the spy into his social circle. Schulmeister relayed Mack’s plans to Napoleon and gave false information to Austrian commanders. Believing French troops were retreating, Mack pursued – until he found his army surrounded by unexpected points of data.

Battle of The Trebia (218 BC)

Sometimes the most important intelligence is about people. Hannibal, commander of the Carthage army, was a master at interpreting data on opposing leaders. After famously leading forces that included elephants over the Alps into Italy, he won his first major victory by luring impetuous Roman general Tiberius Sempronius Longus into a trap.

The warring armies had camped on opposite sides of the Trebia River. From Gallic spies, Hannibal not only had details of the Roman plans, but he also learned Sempronius was temperamental. So Hannibal sent out raiding parties – provoking the Roman general into an angry response. Hannibal easily repelled the assault and got the insight he needed: This enemy could be baited into defeat.

He was right. When the overconfident Romans mounted a direct frontal attack during a cold and snowy December morning, their soldiers could barely hold weapons by the time they crossed the freezing river. Hannibal’s men had eaten, rubbed themselves with oil in front of fires and were ready for a classic pincer movement. It was an historic rout — though 10,000 Romans valiantly fought their way home. It could have been avoided were it not for one man’s pride. That data point made the difference in Trebia.

Tet Offensive (1968)

In late January 1968, the North Vietnamese launched an unexpected campaign against South Vietnamese and American forces. A key target in the campaign was a fortress called The Citadel, in the South Vietnamese city of Hue. The Citadel has thick and high walls surrounded on all sides by water. But the North Vietnamese took the fort with ease, held it for weeks, and then vanished after a massive U.S. counterattack.

Their ability to control information within a large network made the difference. Months earlier, North Vietnamese soldiers had infiltrated Hue to organize sympathizers. They acquired intricate data about the fort and its defenses, dug tunnels under its walls, and left stockpiles of weapons at key spots. During the Tet holiday, fighters slipped into the city dressed as peasants. Inside the Citadel, they helped to overrun guard posts, open the gates, take over the command center, and create mass confusion. The defense of the Citadel collapsed quickly.

Vietnamese call this the “blooming lotus” strategy because it focuses on the soft and vulnerable center instead of a formidable front. To pull off such a complex and coordinated attack, they needed a reliable and accurate flow of information from a large network of informants. That made the difference.

Battle of Midway (1942)

Military historian John Keegan called Midway “the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare.” The surprise U.S. victory changed the trajectory of World War II in the Pacific, and much credit goes to an information advantage.

Six months after Pearl Harbor, Japan’s strategy shifted to securing a forward base for an invasion of Hawaii. It planned a diversionary attack on the Aleutian Islands first. But the real goal was eliminating Midway’s air power, which would leave the remaining U.S. fleet exposed. Japan was so confident that it sent the largest naval force ever assembled in the Pacific.

However, American cryptographers used a ruse to confirm the real target was Midway and the date of the attack. That data enabled the U.S. Navy to prepare an ambush and rush two extra carriers into the mix. In the end, all four of Japan’s large aircraft carriers and a heavy cruiser were sunk. Its fleet never fully recovered. And information was the difference.

Data held hostage: Digital kidnapping has opened Pandora’s Box

By Stan Johnston

In the movie “XXX: Return of Xander Cage,” villains use a device called Pandora’s Box to turn satellites into deadly weapons – crashing them into cities. Last week’s ransomware attacks worldwide showed us the digital Pandora’s Box already is open, and it is attracting a new generation of virtual criminals.

The digitization of our world continues at a relentless pace. Physical and analog formats such as ledgers, vinyl records and videotapes no longer are standard. Instead, we use online spreadsheets and stream our audio and video files. We control them with voice commands and broadcast them via microwave technologies to our mobile phones at the beach, where we listen on Bluetooth headphones. That is achieved by moving data across multiple locations using a common transport platform – the Internet. Unfortunately, each new data connection also represents a break-in point.

Most in this new generation of cyber-criminals are just cat burglars. They climb into the second-story bathroom window you left open and steal your jewelry while on a weekend trip. However, criminals generally are like gamblers – greed and arrogance inevitably drive up the stakes. So some started slipping into houses, kidnapping occupants and demanding untraceable money for their release. Unfortunately, even that hasn’t been enough.

The only way to get bigger ransoms is to go after higher-profile targets. That requires a virtual home invasion, which happened last week – especially in Britain. These cyber-criminals targeted hospitals, academic institutions, large companies, and businesses like movie theater chains. The UK’s National Health System (NHS) had to cancel thousands of operations and appointments. Spain’s Telefónica, FedEx, Deutsche Bahn, and LATAM Airlines also were hit, along with many other countries and companies worldwide.

How did they do it? At its essence, ransomware is data held hostage. For example, a group demands $50,000 in untraceable bitcoins or they will release your studio’s blockbuster movie online two weeks early. How should you respond? What if your accounting team tells you it could mean $50 million in lost revenue? With that kind of trade-off, there can be a significant cost to standing your ground against extortion – with little time to decide. Worse, it puts IT departments in the de facto role of being hostage negotiator.

In this case, the “WannaCry” software – reportedly stolen from the National Security Agency (NSA) – invaded more than 200,000 computers across 150 countries using a flaw in the code for the Windows operating system. Though it was contained relatively quickly, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s President and Chief Legal Officer, was right when he said “the governments of the world should treat this attack as a wake-up call.”

Consider some potential escalating scenarios:

• You get a phone call from someone who claims to have trapped your company’s CEO in an elevator between the 20th and 21st floor. Pay a ransom in 30 minutes or she has a long fall ahead.
• During the height of flood season, an email threatens to open every gate of every dam on your region’s major river system at once. Pay a ransom in 30 minutes or tens of thousands of homes are at risk.
• An eco-terrorist group announces it has remote control of the cooling system at a nuclear power plant. Pay a ransom in 30 minutes or it will be shut down and millions of people could be affected.
• And one of our greatest fears, political terrorists announce they control the silo of a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile. Pay a ransom in 30 minutes or they launch to an unnamed location.

The growing ability to use connected devices for harm is called the Weaponization of Everything, and it’s the dark side of the broader Internet of Things (IoT) galaxy. IT industry analyst Gartner predicts that 8.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide this year, up 31 percent from 2016, and will reach 20.4 billion by 2020. That means the IoT galaxy is expanding exponentially.

So is the opportunity for crime. Every wireless sensor and controller on every device is vulnerable. Also, these criminals are hard to track because they can pick your lock from thousands of miles away. Some are even sponsored by rogue nation-states. Once they have remote access to a data center’s command-and-control infrastructure, they have the potential to disrupt pretty much everything.

The growing ability to use connected devices for harm is called the Weaponization of Everything, and it’s the dark side of the broader Internet of Things (IoT) galaxy.

The good news: Most ransomware is relatively simple to combat. Prevention is best, of course. But if infected, you simply delete everything affected and replace it with data from the moment before the infection. Of course, that means you already invested in the ability to back up your data and recover it quickly. Even then the impact can be significant. Gartner estimates the average cost of IT system downtime for a company is $42,000 per hour. Don’t be surprised if data ransom insurance becomes a cottage industry going forward.

In Greek mythology, The Pandora’s Box was a large jar that contained all the evils of the world. Pandora opened the jar, and all the evils flew out – leaving only “Hope” inside. Pessimists see the Internet as our Pandora’s Box, releasing all kinds of evil things now that we’ve opened it.

The way I see it, the promise of a connected world will overcome those evils. Remember, the most powerful spirit is yet to be released: Hope.

How a principal of principles turned my writing failure into a career

By Stan Johnston

When your principal takes away your locker and moves you into his office, you’ve made a serious blunder. When it changes the direction of your life, it becomes a blessing.

That happened during my senior year of high school. The principal was Dr. Al Burr, a champion for three generations of students in St. Louis – and my friend. He influenced my life more than anyone except my parents, especially during the inaugural year of Parkway West. It was a brand-new school, and Dr. Burr had earned the privilege of opening it. Throughout that year he roamed the campus engaging students.

For some, that wasn’t always easy. Al was tall, athletic and shaved his head completely bald in his 30s, way before it was cool. Running into Dr. Burr was like hitting a bulkhead. He came from the mining communities of southeast Missouri and attended what then was called the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy. Dr. Burr was planning to work in mines until he took his first tour underground after his junior year of college. He came up and said “no way.”

Al became a teacher instead – but also very much more. Dr. Burr was a father, advocate, mentor, role model and inspiration to thousands of students and parents. In the world of educators, he is still highly esteemed in his 80s. Not just because of his rich intellect, but because he viewed every student as a personal mission – even decades later.

For 30 years during summers, Dr. Burr memorized homemade flash cards with the names and faces of incoming freshmen and transfers so the first day of school he could greet every student by name. Seriously. Education wasn’t just a job to Al. He actively cared for his students.

But he also was no push-over. I witnessed that first-hand.

The first quarter of my senior year, I somehow never found time to make it to my class in Creative Writing. (The new weight room was fun!) Trouble is, the writing class was honors level and … well, I hadn’t been close to qualifying. However, Dr. Burr had personally asked the teacher to make an exception for me.

That’s why the “F” on my report card evoked Al’s stoic silence and set jaw, followed by my renewed understanding of his authority. He never yelled or got angry. He just sent me home to think about it. The next day he called me into his office, pointed to a small circular table in the back corner of his office and informed me it was my new home. He had taken away my locker, and I could hang my coat on the back of his door, thank you. In addition, I would retake the class – and would pass with honors. He would personally make sure I got the homework done, and done well. In fact, we would have lunch together to go over it. Every day. And we did.

I got an “A” the second time. Who knew attending class and doing the work made that big of a difference? But the greatest lessons came from months of daily interaction with a man of incredible depth and honor. Al loved a passionate debate, and he was a fierce competitor (a collegiate tennis player). Yet he advocated internationally for a balance between competition and participation in high-school sports. (In 2000, Dr. Burr was inducted into the U.S. National High School Sports Hall of Fame.)

Al challenged students to think about deep things. I remember him telling me the most important thing in my life besides family would be my values. “You have to value values,” he said. How many principals say things like that to 17-year-olds?

“You have to value values,” he said. How many principals say things like that to 17-year-olds?

With his help, I became active in the craft of communicating with words. It matured into a career as a newspaper reporter and editor, and later as a marketing and digital content manager for Fortune 500 technology companies. Through it all, writing has been my first love – a seed planted by my mother, and cultivated by Al Burr.

A blog isn’t the most elegant way to thank a man for being a principal of principles, but he won’t care. He’ll just be glad to hear from me.

This blog originally appeared on LinkedIn. See early comments there.

Emerging Digital Despots: The Apple battle isn’t over yet

We are at risk of leaving the golden age of our Digital Revolution and entering an age of Digital Tyranny.

Imagine if the O.J. Simpson case had played out differently. What if police went to search O.J.’s mansion but couldn’t find a key to get in? What if instead of a subpoena to enter his home prosecutor Marcia Clark then asked for a master key to gain access to every house in America? Sound audacious? That is virtually what the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was seeking in its case against Apple. And I don’t believe the battle is over.

The FBI didn’t get access to one phone. They got access to your phone. The request was wrapped in a noble theme – a desire for justice in a horrific terrorist attack – and appeared to be a reasonable request on the surface. In fact, after this week’s attacks in Belgium, public opinion pulled away from privacy concerns out of sheer fear. But the closer I look, the more the Apple case doesn’t fit.

At first the U.S. Department of Justice claimed only Apple could access the iPhone of shooting suspect Syed Farook, accused of helping to kill 14 people and wound another 22 in San Bernardino, Calif., last December. So the FBI sought access to Apple’s encryption technology. The company fought back and pushed for a showdown. However, this week the government postponed its hearing and said it may have found an “outside party” to unlock the phone and search for evidence. Then the FBI announced it had retrieved the data and dropped its request. Really?

If Apple were able to offer access to only one phone, it would have done so long ago (this is their 10th request from a federal court). The fact that at the last minute the government dug up an anonymous expert witness (rumored to be Israeli company Cellebrite) who was able to break a code that protects millions of consumers doesn’t sit well with me. It’s time to face the fact that the U.S. government expects unfettered access to every device within its borders, and not just Apple products or phones.

The pursuit of Apple access will renew again like a slow-moving freeway chase. Why? Apple has a right to know how the FBI did it and will go back to court to find out; the government will balk. At the same time, Apple surely will invent a new way to block access.

This isn’t just about technology and doesn’t impact just the tech industry. For the past 30 years we have been digitizing information at an accelerating rate. The result is what U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzkerrecently called “one of the most remarkable economic and societal transformations in history, and it is being driven by technology.” More specifically, it is being driven by data.

If police search a suspect’s home today, they are less likely to cart out file cabinets from the garage than a thumb drive with enough information to fill the entire house. And that is where we enter new turf. The sheer scope of this request was unprecedented. The FBI wanted the virtual keys to every iPhone. But they promised to use that master key only for one phone – and to keep anyone else from using it, losing or stealing it. And of course nobody would think of planting false evidence.

I completely understand why Apple was uncomfortable giving that key away. The stakes are too high. Data has become our new currency, and access to digital information will become the defining human rights issue of the 21st Century. If you think this will stop with Apple, you’re missing the fact that every tech company is bolstering its encryption technology in anticipation of the next wave of challenges – from the government and hackers-for-hire.

Data has become our new currency, and access to digital information will become the defining human rights issue of the 21st Century.

Despots have discovered the importance of data, and other governments have used similar tactics or worse to control it. Two U.S. senators already are introducing legislation to impose civil penalties on tech companies that don’t grant access to encrypted data when ordered. That would further impede Americans doing business in Europe, a continent already suspicious thanks to Edward Snowden.

One definition of tyranny is the “arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power.” The Apple case seemed arbitrary and heavy-handed to me from the start. Part of my skepticism came from wondering why they couldn’t solve such a public case any other way. Just saying.

Abuse of authority is taking on new forms. That’s why the global community must define Digital Era boundaries soon and resist nation-state pressures. Why here and now? The U.S. judicial system quickly gets entrenched in precedent, so once you let them cross this bridge they will own it. And I believe this is a bridge too far.

Despite my sincere desire to see justice for the victims of San Bernardino, I also want it done in a just way. Clearly there is a need for device-specific solutions that balance privacy and public safety. Humans will solve that problem eventually. Until then, the U.S. case against Apple was too broad – and worth battling in the court of public opinion.

It wasn’t O.J.’s “Trial of the Century,” but it may end up being far more important in this century. Thank you, Apple and CEO Tim Cook.

This blog originally appeared on LinkedIn. See early comments there.