A new high in readership!

By John Gallant, Network World
January 23, 2004 03:04 PM ET

The sigh of midnight trains in empty stations
Silk stockings thrown aside, dance invitations
Oh, how the ghost of you clings
These foolish things
Remind me of you.
- "These Foolish Things," lyrics by Holt Marvell

Dear Vorticians,

This is a red-letter week and I have you to thank for it. I'm told by the powers that be that Vortex Digest has surpassed the 5,000 subscriber mark - 5,181, specifically - and I'm thrilled to have so many people reading each week. More important, I'm ecstatic about the continuous stream of feedback I receive from you on the topics discussed in this newsletter. (Some more of that feedback is included at the end of this week's missive.)

Vortex Digest readers include executives who've attended past Vortex conferences, as well as others who signed up after you forwarded them an e-mail or recommended this newsletter to your colleagues. We do very little active marketing of the Digest so my sincere thanks for your word-of-mouth support.

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I was torn this week about what to cover - not because I lack for intellectual grist, but because so many things demand reportage. For example, I hope to share some of the insights gleaned from a recent debate I hosted among four leading security vendors about the future of security and the evolution of the threats. I also want to give you a scary look into the mind of one of the nation's leading spammers, er…online marketers, who I interviewed during a recent Webcast. That discussion will leave you feeling pretty hopeless and helpless about the spam problem.

I'll get to those in upcoming editions. But this week, I want to ask you a question that was posed to readers of the Sunday edition of the New York Times: Are we addicted to data?

The story, by reporter Matt Richtel, who attended Vortex 2003, cites the example of Vortician - and VC - Charles Lax who, while listening to the speakers on the Vortex podium, was also wirelessly surfing the Web and checking for e-mail on another device.

Vortician Lax, as the article relates, is illustrative of an Always On subculture of executives and others who are constantly connected and constantly juggling information from a variety of sources - something that leads to "a brewing tension between productivity and freneticism." The productivity gains from our connectivity are offset by the loss of family and personal time - indeed, just quiet time for the brain to digest all the data.

As the executive producer of Vortex, I'm conflicted about offering wireless access at the event. Some show producers have banned it, some have allowed it but only for interaction between those on stage and in the audience. I've got great speakers and content - I want people's undivided attention. But most attendees want to be able to look up information about speakers' and their companies during the presentations, and the ability to keep an eye on critical messages makes them more comfortable about being out of the office for an extended period.

Case in point: During a discussion with Jim Ramo, CEO of the Movielink service - movies delivered to PCs over broadband links - one Vortician went to the Movielink site, and didn't like what he saw. He raised concerns about the quality of the video and what he perceived to be a kludgy experience.