BankerVision

Its the users, stupid

Last night, when I was at this event, I met a couple of people who are involved in helping start-ups turn ideas into reality. These were quite senior people, working for a large software vendor, one that makes it’s revenue mainly from licences.

One comment from a particular individual struck me. He was saying that he sees a lot of start-ups who have no IP, nothing at all they can protect. Nothing, in fact, that makes their idea valuable. “They are interesting ideas for a websites”, I think he said.

Never have I heard a more telling statement from the old school. The ones who think that building new technology – technology that can be protected with patents and then licensed – is the only way to build successful businesses.

Actually, you see this all the time in lots of industries. Banking went through this phase (and some banks are still doing it) of trying to protect their processes and products with patents some time ago. It didn’t really result in much.

Anyway, the point was, he said, a good idea has to be supported by something you can put a moat around. Otherwise, it’s not a good idea.

Apparently, he hasn’t noticed Facebook or LinkedIn. Neither have much defensible intellectual property in them. They’re just good websites.

Or Twitter. If that had any IP in it at all, I’d be surprised. Its a service that lets you record 140 characters! What do you need for that? A web server and a database?

What about Threadless? They make t-Shirts, with designs open-sourced from users. Apparently, quite successful thank you very much. OR MoonPig, who make greeting cards?

Or Mint? Just sold to Intuit for millions, and all they have is a user interface on top of the bank website scraping software from Yodlee. I suppose there could be some defensible IP in Yodlee, but how on earth does that justify the valuation of Mint?

These sites are all quite easily replicable. I think I could build myself a Twitter-thing in about 2 days using MS Access if I wanted. They are replicable, yet they are valuable.

In the end, a new idea doesn’t need a lot of patentable IP to be successful, it just needs users. Why is this fact not inherently obvious to everyone?

I kept my mouth shut, because when you are confronted with “licence thinking”, there’s really nothing you can do to convince anyone they’re wrong. With several decades of success behind them, its hard to argue with history.

So we then we went on to discussions of “business models”. The argument here, from the same individual, was that so many “nice web sites” didn’t have any clue how to monetise themselves. Apparently, this is a cardinal sin.

Firstly, I’d suggest that anyone that’s worked for a large corporate has no clue how to monetise anything. Big successful corporations got that way because of clever people at the start. Once the model is in place, the product developed, and the users recruited, what’s left? Yes, operations. Doing the same thing, day after day, following a template that someone else has defined. Most big software companies, populated with licence-thinkers, work that way.

I know, because I used to work for Microsoft. I loved working there, but everything is a template you just fill in within very narrow parameters of accountability.

But it seems to me the sin of failing to have a monetisation strategy is much less terrible when you have millions of users who like your “nice website” and use it regularly. Having millions of users is a high quality problem with lots of monetisation solutions available to it. 

Having a website with no users, but a great monetisation strategy, on the other hand, is only nice for licence-thinkers who need to see the money before they can see the money.

The upshot of all this was I had an interesting conversation. But it illuminated the growing divide between those who were successful yesterday, and those likely to be so tomorrow.

Microsoft responds

My post the other day has resulted in a response from a David McGhee, an employee of Microsoft Australia, in which he makes several points about my conversion to the status of "Apple FanBoy". In it, he clearly reveals his own Microsoftie Fanboyism as he makes statements which go the whole point I was making about the Apple experience:

"A new machine always runs faster than one that has been running for a while… fresh, it can be without bloat-ware, over-installations and configuration".

I cringed when I read this, because it is only Windows that exhibits this kind of behaviour. It doesn't happen on Linux, nor on OS X. It certainly doesn't happen on any of the thousands of high end servers and mainframes we run at the bank. Only Windows. And going to my point about engineering for rudeness, since when did actually using a computer (over-installation and over-configuration, in David's typology) mean that it should stop working? If that's not engineered for rudeness, I don't really know what it is. Unless its engineered incompetence. I prefer the former, since I worked at Microsoft earlier in my career, and I know that Microsofties are almost all very smart people.

He then proceeds to say this:

"…if you have been around technology for a while you will appreciate how Microsoft has commoditised and taken the user experience, devices and network beyond the black screen, the mainframe and point to point.  And at the same time software is now more accessible, cheaper and better than when it was a mass of small disconnected applications"

Firstly, I wouldn't really credit Microsoft with taking the user experience beyond the black screen and the mainframe. I think that honour goes initially, to Xerox and then, um, Apple. But whether that point is conceded or not, I can't argue with the fact that Microsoft has, in fact, made software more accessible and cheaper. It may even be better than before. Microsoft has changed the world, and for the most part, the changes have been good.

The thing about the "mass of small disconnected applications" is that engineering for politeness in the base operating system is one way of making sure that, overall, we as users get a decent experience. On iPhone, for example, what you have is a mass of small, disconnected applications, and I suspect the success of AppStore has proved that a decent user experience is the result when you make the operating system polite.

But the final argument from David is really the one that really drills home the point for me:

"No-one designs software to be rude… but old software can be frustrating…. My suggestion [for frustration] is to keep current".

As a current Vista users, a current XP user, an evaluator of Windows 7, an ex-user of Windows Mobile, and lots of other Microsoft products besides, I've got to tell you David, that just having your latest stuff does not fix the underlying problem of engineered rudeness.

Engineered rudeness is a cultural problem at Microsoft. It's the result of a feature-centricity, and needing to shove more code into the tin in every release to justify upgrades. It's about what Robert Scoble calls a "strategy tax" – the engineered dependence between multiple products (whether that makes sense or not) so that your company can expand its share in aligned markets.

Ultimately, it is the result of focusing first on what can be sold, rather than what we might like to buy.

The reason I'm a convert to Apple is they do exactly the opposite.

Microsoft engineers for rudeness, Apple designs for polite

Last week, I reported that I'd lost my iPhone on a train. Because it is impossible to actually do any meaningful work without a phone, I found I was forced to resort to my old Windows Mobile device, and just assumed that I'd make do for a while.

Now this was a quite late-model, latest version of operating system, all singing, all dancing handset.

And it was appalling.

The problem, you see, is that you get so used to the intuitive design centricity of iPhone that using anything else reminds you of going back to the dark ages. By no means am I an Apple fan-boy, by the way. That iPhone was the only Apple thing I own.

But losing it, and being forced to go back to what I thought was the ultimate mobile device makes me see just how programmed my thinking had been about Microsoft. Once you get into a habit, you just don't see the flaws in what you're doing. For example, I really noticed the fact that at least 25% of calls just aren't even received on Windows Mobile. It fails to notice, apparently, that someone is ringing. Before, I accepted that. Now, I can't tolerate it under any circumstances.

So I've gone out and bought a new iPhone, one of those 3GS versions. It is an incremental improvement on the old version, but I don't care. I'm back.

Here is the experience: get new phone. Plug it into iTunes. iTunes notices it is new hardware and asks me if I want to restore everything to the way it was on the old phone. I say yes, and voila, the phone is exactly the way it was before I lost it.

Emboldened by this experience, I then decided that I'd really better just try out OS X, the Macintosh operating system as well. Those who've been reading here for a while know that I spent some time experimenting with various flavours of Linux, and waxed lyrical about the performance and stability of those systems. In the end, though I was forced back to Microsoft because I had to use some remote connection software I just couldn't get to work on Linux.

Anyway, so I loaded the Mac OX X on a netbook (yes, I made a Hackintosh), and oh-my-god. Intuitive design centricity again. It just feels like its been designed with the user in mind. It makes you want to load apps and exit them just to play with the little dock thing. I love the way the little icons bounce up and down to let you know that something needs attention, rather than the approach in Windows which is to steal the focus away and throw a dialogue box in my face. Of course there are no freezes, or crashes, or anything else like that either. Bliss.

Now these experiences have taught me something.

Apple designs things to be polite. Like asking me if it might help me bring my phone back to life.

Microsoft engineers things to be rude. Like phone that can't be bothered to answer calls, or dialogs that demand my attention right now.

I'm sitting here writing this on my work XP machine, and wishing I had my netbook instead. It has about 25% of the power, mind you, but runs at least twice as fast. Let me have snappy over laggy any day. XP reminds me of that surly waiter in a restaurant who strolls over the second before you get up and leave. Engineered rudeness again.

Is it possible that Microsoft don't get this? Or perhaps their engineers and designers are too arrogant to think it matters. Either way, the comparison between the experience on Apple compared to Microsoft is extremely unfavourable to the latter.

Oh, ok, I'll admit it. The whole iPhone loss thing has made me an Apple FanBoy. Not one of those tragic ones that queue up to hear a Steve speech or waits outside an Apple store to be the first to get the new iPhone. But I am eyeing off a new MacBook Air. I will keep it in my briefcase next to my klunkarama XP machine and use it for everything possible from now on.

PS: To those Microsofties who will no doubt rush to regale me with stories of the miracle of Windows 7, I make this commitment: I will try it, when you release it, and evaluate with my recently opened mind. I might do so first inside a virtual machine on my MacBook Air, but I will give it a good go at least.

You have to work in a bank to know how to work a bank

I've think I've learned a very valuable lesson: no matter how specialised in financial services you are, you have to have worked in a bank – as an employee – before you have any idea of how to "work" a bank.

I write this, because it has struck me recently (and especially on the vendor side) that there is often a lack of understanding some core things we have to go through to make anything happen. I'm so regularly asked why banks aren't innovative, for example, to which my response is that I don't believe we are either more or less innovative than anyone else. We may look less innovative, but that's a function of internal configuration rather than any lack of basic creativity.

So let me give you some examples of popular misconceptions I've had from vendors.

"You can implement this quickly and get a payback this year".

We can't implement anything quickly. There are too many moving parts in a bank for anyone to be anything but deliberate with what we do. There is testing, testing, testing. We need back-out plans. We have to implement the right processes and systems to support whatever it is. And, of course, we have to schedule the change in against all other changes from everyone else. Fast and dirty only works when what you have around you are people who regularly perform individual heroics to make something work. You might have that luxury in a small start-up, but you don't in a bank. Neither do you want it. Everything has to work despite individuals.

" The productivity improvements here will pay for themselves"

Productivity improvements hardly ever pay for themselves, because in order to make them do so, you'd have to reduce the number of workers you have. Or else give them way more work than they were doing before. Agreements with the labour market make both complicated, though not impossible, of course. But frankly, the problem is not so much that people can do more work, but that you can't quantify how much more work they can do. Social media internally? You know that it has a benefits case, but trying to put a number of it, one that will stick, is pretty hard.

"We have shown you a real business case and the numbers stack up. But you still say no"

Something that lots of people don't get is that no matter how good a business case is from a numbers perspective, we still might not be able to do anything. There are several reasons. The first is financial. We have limited investment budgets, and you can only spend what you have. Even if you have the most amazing numbers anywhere, if there is no money, there is no money. I sometimes wonder if people imagine that a bank is different to any other business in this regard. But we might not do something with good numbers and money in the budget for another reason: we might not be able to absorb the amount of change it entails. This is a big problem for most institutions.

The amount of change we can accept in any given period is finite if we want to preserve the stability of our services to customers. You can't just have people "doing things" to systems. I mean, lets face it, we are entrusted with people's financial lives in a bank, and stuff just has to work. So we have a limited number of change slots, and there is often significant contention for them. There is also a prioritisation applied: if your change is regulatory or critical to service, you'll get a slot. If your change is anything else, you can wait in the queue.

"All I have to do is get a meeting with <C-suite executive> to unblock this deal".

The reality of those kinds of meetings is that C-Suite executives are not stupid. They realise that with their big responsibilities, they can't possibly have every detail of their operations in their heads. So they ask for advice. The idea that they make critical decisions in isolation is really quite bizarre. On the other hand, if despite everything someone goes and sets up one of those meetings in order to "unblock" something, you can guarantee that everyone else will be very annoyed. Annoyed enough, in fact, to probably never take a meeting again.

"I will only meet with <insert senior management level> due to <status/time/preference>"

You'd be amazed at how often deals go south because someone with a year or two of experience – apparently far away from decisions – has decided that something is too hard to do. The fact of the matter is that as in any organisation, the people at the coalface have significant influence on what goes on. Projects can run late, over budget and get cancelled altogether if the coalface people don't like what is happening. Then too, their line managers are likely to be someone removed from the day-to-day tech anyway, so guess who it is they go to get their advice? You got it: the apparently junior people working at the coalface.

I suppose, when you think about it, all of this seems relatively obvious. Still it is amazing to me how many people sail through our bank with notions that the quality of their solution can overcome these kinds of barriers. Practically speaking, technical competence is no longer the differentiator it once was anyway.

Hire people that have worked in a bank to work the bank. Not individuals that have worked "for" the bank as part of a contract. Ones that have had to deal with the realities day to day from the inside.

I'd be surprised if the sales success rate didn't jump quite a bit, if nothing else because stuff that would never get up will simply not get presented.

Lost my iPhone

No doubt, my friends at Microsoft will be ever so delighted to hear that I have misplaced my iPhone and am forced back to Windows Mobile temporarily. This probably happened when I was out with them last night, so no doubt it is a conspiracy.

Lorraine, my ever indispensible assistant, is calling everyone madly to try and find it, however. Since her investigatory powers rival those of the legendary Sherlock, I am certain the iPhone will resurface.

But in the meantime, I am experiencing an 80s style level of disconnection. No mail, and certainly no calls, when on the move.

Not that that's a bad thing, but takes some getting used to.

Update: The phone has been found. The colleague I was with in the cab last night found it after I got out and has returned it to me this morning.

What is this “disruption”?

After "innovation", the next most divisive word you can use in the context of doing new things is "disruptive". I hate this word, and avoid it myself like the plague. My problem is that practically everyone I talk to thinks it means something different.

I borrow my definition from Christensen, who, I think, offers the most cogent definition and explanation of disruptive processes in business generally. Disruptive innovations, in that typology, are ones which address currently over served customers (providing a better value proposition) or which target new customers that incumbents can't reach (for cost or other reasons). I won't go further into the details of that definition here, because I suspect many people who follow here will at least have read "The Innovators Dilemma" and are well versed in the theory.

But let me give you some other examples of the use of the word "disruption".

In one meeting I was at, a consultant in the propositions development area suggested that "disruptive" was really code for doing something brand new, something that competitors weren't yet doing. The key aspect of this kind of disruptive, it seems, would be that competitors would be forced to react. In that definition, of course, you can classify banks doing Twitter as disruptive, since at least the first ones got quite a bit of attention and lots of other rushed in to copy.

The same consultant said, when I asked what he thought of my definition of disruption ("Hey! Yeah, let's double-click on that for a moment, James" – ugh!) that theories of "company killers" were hardly likely to affect a bank. Well, it was a year and a half ago.

More recently, I was in another meeting, this time with a vendor. They were talking about their desire to work with the bank to create "disruptive" new things that would grow our business. All very laudable, of course, but what they were actually talking about was giving us new stuff that would enable us to better serve a particular customer segment we have. Of course that's interesting, but its also extremely replicable by other competitors. In the customer service and experience space, we are, in fact, in an arms race with everyone else in the market. Every little improvement one makes, we all copy. When this particular vendor offers us an improvement of this kind, you know you have a few months, or perhaps a year, before the residual competitive advantage is eroded.

So not much disruption there.

The most challenging use of the word "disruptive", however, comes from the technologists, especially the ones in innovation groups. What typically happens is that someone spots a new gadget – which may have been disruptive in its own market – and assumes it will instantly disrupt our own.

There are few better examples than the iPhone. Depending on your point of view, that device has changed the way mobile phones are designed and used. It is disruptive because it serves a new customer segment (mobile phone users who previously weren't tech-savvy enough to use a Smartphone) and has taken a dominant market position as a result. Everyone wants an iPhone, and people are talking about features which were pure geekery before. Answer this question: who ever knew how to install new applications on a mobile before iPhone?

So perhaps the iPhone is disruptive to current handset manufacturers. That does not mean it is disruptive to banks.

Does anyone really think now that having an iPhone internet banking application first is going to have a major bottom line implication? Or that having such an app is going to do anything significant at all to damage competitors? Of course not, because let's face it, iPhone apps are as replicable as improving customer service. As replicable as starting a Twitter account.

The thing is the technologists clouded the judgement of their colleagues by pointing out how "disruptive" the iPhone was to mobile phone manufacturers. But disruption does not often industry boundaries cross.

These days, when anyone uses the "disruption" word, I instantly ask them what they mean, and the answer is always along the lines of the three examples I've just given. In other words, disruption equals distracting competitors, or it equals beating competitors for a little while, or it means copying real disruption from somewhere else and hoping for a usable translation.

All three are pretty short term from an advantage perspective (and the last offers no advantage at all most of the time).

Wouldn't you expect long term differences in the playing field if something was truly "disruptive"?

Innovation consultants

Over at Innovate on Purpose, Jeffrey Phillps is engaged in telling stories about his life as an innovation consultant. Typifying the innovator as a gangsteresque private detective, he wraps up his post with the comment:

I left and entered the first cheap speakeasy I could find. The look of panic and the smell of fear of change clung to me like mud on my shoes. A stiff drink and a glance at Christensen brought me back to my senses. Building a safe innovation program, I said to myself, the definition of an oxymoron.

This is typical of an innovation consultant. They always need to show you a big bang solution to a big problem. In so doing, of course, they are able to justify their fees, and be sufficiently visible that they're likely to get more work from the firm involved.

Practically speaking, it does seem helpful to call in an innovation specialist when you have a big problem to solve. Theirs is an external view, tempered by experience with lots of firms. Its pretty difficult to get that when you're doing innovation from the inside.

But what Jeffrey, and most innovation consultants, seem to ignore is the very significant upside available to firms that concentrate on improving what they're doing right now. In the same post, he writes this about the response of his fictional firm to the suggestion that they do radical, business model disrupting innovation:

"What if we gave you one or two people, for a week or so, for a few hours a day. Could you come up with something interesting, even radical, but safe and within our current business model? We want the big payoff, but the risk and the change to our business models are too difficult."

This is typical of most companies. But just because it is typical does not mean that you'd abandon the innovation agenda altogether. All that's being said here is that this firm wants to Play not to Lose, rather than Play to Win.

It is the less glamorous side of an innovators work, but as important none-the-less. By typifing firms that don't want to be radical as uninnovative, Phillip and other innovation consultants miss a massive opportunity.

The opportunity is to show these companies how to build scalable processes that can take a large number of incremental improvements, and move them through to completion at volume.

I recognise that innovation consultants are less interested in this kind of work. Instead of selling one big idea, they may have to sell hundreds of small ones. And instead of focussing their time and intelligence on making a big-bang visible change, their results will likely come incrementally, and over a much greater period of time.

But I think the most interesting thing here is that the same processes that work for incremental innovation also scale up to breakthrough and disruptive innovation as well. So from the perspective of the innovation consultant, showing a customer how to do incrementalism well leads, eventually, to them doing the kind of high visibility, big bang work they wanted to do in the first place.

Of course, that's a much longer engagement, in terms of revenue hours, than just showing up for the initial big-bang thing.

Nothing a consultant would be interested in, right?

The lack of Powerpoint

I've sat through a series of vendor meetings in the past few days, and the concentration of these discussions has let me see something: so very few meetings I attend with vendors these days use Powerpoint.

Actually, I went to a vendor meeting the other day, and Powerpoint was used, and it felt like I'd been teleported back through time. So caught up was I in the marvel of seeing a Powerpoint that I didn't bother to actually listen to the meeting.

In this instance, the time-warp was triggered by the fact that the vendor launched first of all into a description of their company, which I didn't care about, then their personal CV's, which I cared about even less, and then into a product pitch. By then, I can assure you, I didn't really care about anything at all.

For years, we've all been complaining about the misuse of Powerpoint, but until now, I hadn't realised how irregularly you see it any more – at least in small meetings. It is a sign, I think, of much greater sophistication in presentations.

Anyone can put together a few slides and read them off.

But not anyone can sit in a meeting without supporting materials and get their message across. A meeting without props is generally far more memorable than one with. I suppose we all spend our time playing with the pieces of paper, or dreaming about the slides or thinking about what we might be doing the second the meeting ends. I know I do.

Clever presenters don't bother with props any more, and therefore force you to look at them and interact. Its fascinating to watch, actually, especially when the presenter is pitching the message in a custom way to respond directly to audience reaction.

This, of course, is pretty much impossible when you use Powerpoint, which forces messages to appear in a pre-determined, sequential order.

Practically speaking, a meeting without props means either that the presenter is way, way, more prepared, or is much more intelligent. He or she thinks fast, and can come up with decent responses to any question on the spot.

And that's the most interesting point, and one that leads me to my next question: where did all these smart people come from, since I'm certain there isn't an inverse relationship between the economy and the intelligence of the workforce?

Another confession

Last night, I had a meeting with our Microsoft account director. After we talked about the state of the industry, and the state of the bank, and the state of everything else (a rather gloomy set of musings, if I may say so), we moved swiftly to a discussion of my present position with respect to Linux. Readers are probably aware that some months ago, I'd finally lost patience with Windows, and eliminated it from everything.

Linux replaced Windows Media Centre for all the televisions at home, all our ordinary computers were converted over, and my work laptop ran Linux just perfectly.

For a while, I was in heaven. There is nothing more delightful than having a laptop go to sleep when you tell it to do so. And come back up in a few seconds, also without bother.

But, everything is not as blissful as you might imagine, even if you can make the computer work as it was designed.

You see, the fact of the matter is that no matter how hard you try, with Linux you can't do everything you can with Windows. This, mainly, comes down to the fact that some software only works on Windows and there is no available substitute.

I travel a fair amount, and one thing I rely on is iPass, which enables me to access most wifi access points around the world on the corporate account. It doesn't work on Linux.

I also need to use our Cisco VPN solution, which is barely operative on Linux.

For my television network at home, the drivers for the TV cards are less stable in Linux. Under Windows, they receive television better.

And on our home laptops, there were constant complaints because things worked differently.

With Linux, I got a lot of stability and perfect uptime. I also got a lot of inconvenience.

So now, having been reminded by my Microsoft colleague I was vocal here when I switched Microsoft out, I thought it best to 'fess up that I'm back on Microsoft.

I am still of the view that you want Linux on the server, especially for mission critical workloads, and most especially when you have to scale things out. The economics of Linux definitely beat Microsoft for those kinds of workloads. But, right now, stability and uptime are less important than convenience for me on the desktop.

Microsoft have not converted me back completely, though. I will not return to my Windows Mobile phone, giving up my iPhone. Not only is the user experience better on iPhone, but I can't find a Windows Mobile phone which takes every call perfectly 100% of the time.

Still life seems better now we are a Microsoft home again. Because at least the technology in the household isn't causing fights any more.

Transparency about the current market

I've often wondered, as I sit here on my train every morning writing a blog post or doing email, whether readers find my lack of comment on the current financial situation surprising. Obviously, there are few things more important at present than the happenings in the market, yet not once have I made any substantive statement on the matter. You'd think, since I am relatively outspoken on other matters, such as the business practice of analysts, or the various antics of vendors, that I might, at least, make some effort to offer critical insight or commentary from the perspective of a bank.

I thought it might be appropriate, at this point, to clarify the reasons why I've been reticent on this subject. Obviously I have my own very strong views, and Isometimes I sit on my hands when I read what else people say in the blogosphere on this subject in order to prevent myself throwing caution aside.

But those of you who work in banks will know how very difficult it is for an employee to be seen, and heard in public. My own bank allows me very great latitude in this regard. But I doubt that would continue if I added to the public debate on various subjects presently at the fore. We are presently not at the stage where unbridled comment on sensitive matters would be seen as a positive contribution to the debate, and I doubt very many bank employees anywhere are in such a position.

That's why you don't see much comment from the few bankers who have blogs and can be traced back to their institutions.

Now, there is nothing much wrong with this. As I've said before, we are on a social media journey, all of us in the financial services industry. The kinds of openness about corporate affairs pioneered by Robert Scoble at Microsoft might be an aspirational place to get to one day, but I can assure you we are a long way from that place right now. One can't change cultures overnight. Indeed, the traditionalists in banks would be horrified to discover anyone had such aspirations at all.

The key question is whether opening up a public debate via social media at this particular difficult time from the perspective of an insider – which I have no doubt at all would be lively, interesting, and good reading – would actually be worth the risk of putting social media in banks back years or not. My own view is that it is not.

This, of course, is frustrating. I don't like the fact that I can't share what I'd like. But I also know that there will be plenty of corporate-relations type things in the future to comment on, and I am patient. I am confident that caution now provides a solid platform for other more revealing posts in the future.

In the meantime, I am interested in the experiences of others. Colin Henderson, who writes BankWatch, used to be a banker and is a source of very critical insight into the current situation. Colin – would you have been so forward were you still with your former institution?

Over at Bank of America, the Future Banking blog has lots to say about the work of the innovators there, but I'm not seeing a great deal of commentary or analysis of our market conditions at present. Jeff and Co, do you feel, as I do, that its inadvisable for bankers to get into the public arena on these subjects right now if we want to keep blogging?

About the closest I've seen anyone associated with a bank come close to commentary on this stuff is Rob Findlay at NAB in his BankChannel blog. But even he is reserved? Any comments Rob?

I think, in the end, that banks will get to complete transparency in the medium term. The current crisis may even speed that along. But in the meantime, I'm quite certain that small, careful, baby steps towards that goal are much, much better than an all out race to the finish line.