I am often asked what makes a good password, and my answer is the same every time: The best passwords are the ones that neither a person nor a computer would ever be able to guess.

Good passwords are important here, as a breach could mean someone from the outside stealing trade secrets and intellectual property — even if it’s not the assets themselves but emails and calendar events that reference them. I’ve worked with a few vendors and agencies that are comfortable sharing their passwords, which allows us to exchange artwork for projects. Yet, by giving me their level of access, they are probably giving me too much access.  That doesn’t fly at Go East.

Secure passwords are just as important for employees that have limited access. If hackers gain privileges to a company directory or internal procedures, it could help them gain control of another account with higher access.

For many agencies, and small- to mid-sized organizations that don’t have large IT departments, this kind of organization-wide security is often overlooked, but when you’re working with Fortune 500 companies, your security needs to be just as good as their security.

I think one of the least secure aspects of online accounts is the use of “security questions” in addition to your password. Yesterday I was quoted by WCCO’s Jason DeRusha on his “Good Question” segment:

Aaron Landry, IT Manager for Go East in St. Paul, said “I argue that those ’security questions’ actually make accounts less secure. I mean, what’s the point of having a super secure password if all you need to know is someone’s birth date, the name of their dog and their mother’s maiden name?” 

He also suggests making up answers to those questions. 

Landry has several password tips he said he shares with his company’s employees.

“A good way to make passwords is to mix two separate things together. For example, use your spouse’s middle name spelled backwards with your zip code — or your child’s birth date mixed with the street you grew up on,” he suggested. 

Also, “Avoid using dictionary words — try swapping out some of the letters with numbers.” 

DeRusha interviews others with good advice as well.

One last bit of advice: The best passwords are completely random strings of letters and numbers, which most people are able to memorize in a couple days … oh yeah, and don’t tell anyone what your password is!

When looking to leverage mobile messaging services and microblogging platforms such as Twitter, the Minneapolis-Saint Paul media serves up some examples worth checking out:

Twitter feeds from Fox 9 News and the Star Tribune are fully automatic streams of almost every news story they publish. I personally don’t think most people want that kind of a stream in Twitter, but it works for some. WCCO posts breaking news stories on Twitter almost exclusively, which is similar to CNN’s Twitter feed. Minnesota Independent, The UpTake and MinnPost post to their own stories, but also maintain a news dialog with others. The Saint Paul Pioneer Press’ feed is very conversational.

There are Twitter accounts for individual reporters, journalists and other media professionals as well. The advantage for the news consumer is being able to listen to what reporters are talking about before it’s reported, but the disadvantage is hearing everything else they may be doing or talking about that’s unrelated to the news. MinnPost’s David Brauer, Minnesota Independent’s Paul Schmelzer, Pioneer Press’ Julio Ojeda-Zapata, WCCO’s Jason DeRusha and MPR’s Bob Collins frequently converse about news as it happens and before their respective organizations publish about it. MPR has a number of Twitter users including Tim Post, Julia Schrenkler, Tom Scheck and Michael Caputo. WCCO’s Terri Gruca will sometimes poll Twitter for help on stories and American Public Media’s Jon Gordon uses Twitter to ask his followers for help on “Future Tense” segments.

The media’s Twitter use runs the gamut from straight news feeds to news conversation to stalking journalists, so it isn’t easy to figure out what’s the most effective to implement Twitter for your business or organization.

Do you want to communicate with a straight feed of your press releases or do you want to engage people with conversation? Do you want to respond to people that Twitter about you or do you think subscribers will be bothered by conversations involving your organization on their mobile phones? Does it make sense to have an individual representing you or an account named after your business?

Point being, figuring out if using Twitter is right for your business or organization isn’t as simple as signing up for an account and using it, it’s finding the right Twitter “voice” and usage that augments your brand. Either way, you’re no one if you’re not on Twitter:

Photo by Landform Minneapolis

Tomorrow is PARK(ing) Day, a worldwide event that claims parking spots and turns them into temporary public parks. Paul Schmelzer with Walker’s “Off Center”:

I got in touch with Shanai Matteson, who’s organizing the event locally. She says she’s asked people to look for (or ask the city to put hoods on meters, for a fee) parking spaces in downtown Minneapolis. She’ll be greening up a pavement swath on Nicollet Mall and another one outside the Community Design Group on 3rd Avenue. While it all sounds so guerrilla, each team will be responsible for plugging the meters the entire time they’re there. For maximum exposure of the parking/parks idea, most participants are keeping their spots at least through the lunch hour.

Twin Cities Streets For People has more:

From 5-8pm you are welcome to stop by the new office of Community Design Group at 212 3rd Avenue North, Suite 515. A Park(ing) Spot will be up for folks to enjoy, as well as drinks and a slide show of images from Park(ing) Days past.

Solutions Twin Cities and Community Design Group are co-sponsoring this get together, which will be a chance to learn more about Park(ing) Day and to talk with other folks who are interested in reclaiming streets for people.

This summer, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety started the transition to “digital” license plates (DLP). I’ve just started seeing more of these on the road in the last few weeks. They aren’t exactly digital, per se, but the new features are purely technical and, in my opinion, leave aesthetics behind. The license registration month is now part of the plate instead of a sticker and the emboss is gone. The most noticeable change is that the type is now black instead of blue. The argument on the color change is for contrast and visibility, but I find the black type on a predominately blue and green plate a bit jarring. The new Sesquicentennial plates are all DLPs and also feature black type on a predominately blue plate, but they have a special serif typeface.

I wish they would have spent time to make the “Support Our Troops” plates more readable, especially as the blue type over a red and blue flag, for me, give the plates the readability of a captcha.

Either way, the DLPs are certainly more “green” friendly as well as cost effective, despite my perceived appearance shortcomings. I’m also glad we don’t have a smiling sunrise or the new design of the plates in Texas. Whew.

There’s more information on Minnesota’s Driver and Vehicle Services site, including a listing of the specialty plates and how many are out in the wild (PDF). For example, there are under 100 people riding around with Disabled / Handicapped Motorcycle plates, only one Minnesotan with a Medal of Honor plate — and zero drivers with a World War I Veteran plate. Unsurprising, since any WWI veterans are now well over 100 years old.

Four months of blogging about the Ampersand. As John Gruber writes, “now this is a focused weblog.”

Blake Whitman from online video host Vimeo recently had a seemingly unsolicited “fix” to their logo submitted to him:

Ha. How many times have you wanted to fix other people’s logos?