There are two of me. There's the me who gets up, changes my son's diaper and puts on my 17-year-old shoes that I know need to be replaced at some point but can't seem to get around to replacing. And then there's the me who lives in Los Angeles and gets my email. And I get his.

We're both named David Silverman and we both work for the same company. Despite attempts to dispel confusion on the internal email system — I am David S. Silverman and he is David R. Silverman — things still go wrong because people type "David Silverman" into Outlook and press send, blithely relying on autocomplete to find their intended David.

What's amazing and terrifying is the contents of the messages I get. Suffice it to say that my doppelganger is involved in matters of far more sensitivity to the firm than I. And because people are incautious before clicking "send" I get all kinds of documents I shouldn't.

I also get his physical mail. The other day I got a confidential CD intended for "him." And yesterday I got an envelope from a law firm that had been stamped by our internal compliance group. It was, of course, for David Silverman. I called the company, worried that I was about to be drawn into some North-by-Northwest web of mistaken identities. It turned out to be about some other, hitherto unknown, third version of me who has overseas bank accounts. Good for him, I suppose, but what if I tried to use his account numbers which had just slipped into my hands?

The problem is also not limited to email or to snail mail or to David Silvermans. My desk phone also has a split identity with the former occupant of my office who, judging by the messages I get, has an important role to play in the world of international criminal trials and a robust social schedule.

But he has nothing on the former owner of my BlackBerry's phone number. That guy is some sort of mysterious Latin playboy who frequently gets calls from intoxicated revelers who appear to be calling from capitals of East African nations and exhorting him to "come out and join the party and meet the ladies we've got for you." As you may imagine, it has proven difficult to explain these 4am calls to my wife.

On the opposite side, my own mail has taken its own circuitous routes, some known, some unknown. One item that recently bit me was a five-figure bill for back taxes from from my failed company. They were not prepared to accept my valid excuse that I did not live at the place they'd mailed the notice to, and that my lack of response was due to my not living there. While "Dave's not here" was the reality, it seems that interest and penalties accrue regardless.

Add this to the account statements I get at home for the former occupants, the occasional email that confuses me with the most successful David Silverman, and the unknown quantity of my own email and mail that is distributed to random people who live where I lived, and we have quite a mess.

Even without identity fraud, it seems that we are cursed to live in a world where the expectation of perfect information-delivery renders the hapless recipient of a wrong number or email as "assumed guilty." (There have been several occasions where exactly that happened to me. "Hey Steve." "This isn't Steve." "Then why do you have his phone?")

What to do about confusion? My suggestion is as follows.

1. Try your best to let people (and tax authorities) know when you've moved. Fill out the information with your postal service. Email everyone. Put it on Facebook, LinkedIn, and wherever else your identity resides.
2. Leave a note along with postage and envelopes at your former residence asking them nicely to forward anything that slips through and looks important.
3. Put your name on your voicemail. Enough already with "You have reached 333-4200." Save us all some errors and let us know who we've called.
4. Be kind to others so that they may be kind to you. If you get something that isn't yours, pay it forward — literally — by forwarding it.
5. As the sender, remember that your message may not get through to your intended recipient. Matter-of-factly follow up (rather than assuming that they're avoiding you) and be careful with sensitive information (duh).

What do you think? Have you been mistaken online or offline? Do random people run up to you and think you're their bald friend Steve? (Happens to me at least once a month. Who is this Steve?) What have lengths have you gone to to ensure you get your own correspondence?

The United States, my beloved home country, has become the General Motors of nations in its lethargy and complacency. This is ironic, because the US (and Canada) own a majority share of GM, but I am focused more on economic similarity rather than ownership.

The height of complacency for GM was probably about 2004. In that year the automaker still had the title as the world's largest maker of cars, a title it relinquished in 2007. GM was still profitable in 2004 — but not very much so — and it was losing market share in many of its major markets. That was the year that GM abandoned the Oldsmobile brand, but it didn't seem worried about its future overall.

(Announcing the decision to phase out Olds, GM stated in a press release issued in late 2000 that the move would "accelerate GM's effort to focus resources on strengthening its market position and growth opportunities" and "further streamlines GM's product portfolio, focusing engineering and marketing resources more sharply on the company's most successful products and brands. It will also facilitate the development of more innovative products with shorter life cycles.")

Optimism is great, but obviously that didn't work out terribly well; by 2009 GM was in bankruptcy and is about to shed a lot more brands. It's now a shadow of its former self, but in 2004 its managers didn't seem to grasp that the company had a serious problem.

Compare GM's situation to that of the United States, where the complacency peak was probably about 2007. In that year my country continued its long, slow economic and social decline; it ranked 13th (down from 12th the year before), for example, in the United Nations Development Program Human Development Index, which combines GDP per capita, education, and life expectancy (Norway, Australia, and Iceland held the top 3 positions. Yet the then-CEO of the US, George W. Bush, was sanguine about the economy in the 2007 State of the Union address:

A future of hope and opportunity begins with a growing economy, and that is what we have. We are now in the 41st month of uninterrupted job growth, a recovery that has created 7.2 million new jobs so far. Unemployment is low, inflation is low, wages are rising. This economy is on the move. And our job is to keep it that way — not with more government but with more enterprise.

Apparently the near future of the US economy wasn't quite as bright as Bush suggested.

Both GM and the US government seemed unable to grasp the extent of their problems and failed to do much about them. Both had insufficient innovation, overly high health-care costs, undereducated populations, unwillingness to face environmental issues, and an inability to make tough decisions and take tough actions. And why should they make the hard calls, when it was all too common to hear within both institutions that they are the greatest of their kind in the world?

Are there bright spots in both organizations? Absolutely. But touting them, as opposed to calling attention to problems, only leads to further apathy and decline. I believe that it's diligent and serious self-criticism that identifies the need to change and drives action.

Compare the attitudes of the U.S. in 2007 and GM in 2004 to that of Akio Toyoda, the new CEO of Toyota (and a graduate of my school, Babson). Instead of patting the company on the back, Toyoda addressed its recent problems with sharp, pointed criticism, according to a New York Times account of his remarks at the Japan National Press Club:

Mr. Toyoda said his company was shamefully unprepared for the global economic crisis that has devastated the auto industry, and is a step away from "capitulation to irrelevance or death." The company, he added, is "grasping for salvation."

Even adjusting for the usual Japanese tendency to self-criticize, this is an amazing statement. It suggests that Toyota and Toyoda aren't remotely content with business as usual and plan to face the company's problems. It may exaggerate a bit, but isn't it more constructive to exaggerate problems than to exaggerate success?

As many have noted, Toyoda borrowed the language for his company's situation from Jim Collins' book How the Mighty Fall. One might suggest that Collins's framework for economic decline applies to countries as well as companies, although that wasn't his focus in the book.

So where is the U.S. in his five-stage model? We have clearly exhibited Stage 3, "denial of risk and peril," for many years. I don't think that Toyota is truly at Stage 4, "grasping for salvation," but the U.S. probably is. And we aren't that far from "capitulation to irrelevance or death," Collins's fifth and final stage.

Barack Obama hasn't sounded the alarm quite to the degree that Akio Toyoda did, but he clearly knew we were in big trouble well before the latest economic crisis. His administration is trying to work along multiple fronts — health care, the enormously costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, climate change, education, financial mismanagement, and many others — to address the sad state we're in. He may not succeed, but I give him substantial credit for trying.

It's typical of our situation that his strongest detractors allege that he's taking on too much and having government play too large a role. If we're verging on "capitulation to irrelevance and death," the implication is that, if anything, he's moving us too slowly.

I love my country, but right now the kind of love it needs most is tough love.

Campaigner has shared some findings from its State of the Small Business Online Marketing Survey. The firm says that while the economic climate has challenged businesses of all sizes, many small business owners are seeing the beginnings of a turnaround and are positioning for stronger growth in 2010 through the use of web-based marketing tools.

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Thanks to Google, three small businesses are going to receive a rather significant of national exposure.  Amazing Gates, Owners.com, and ZAGG.com have been declared the winners of Google's TV for All contest.

The contest began about two months ago when small businesses were asked to submit 30- or 60-second promotional videos.  Some judges narrowed down the list of entries ten finalists, and then YouTube users were allowed to vote for three winners.

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After several months of twists and turns in an effort to avoid bankruptcy, on Sunday CIT Group put an end to its ongoing saga and indeed filed for a prepackaged bankruptcy plan. Under the plan, the 101-year-old lender will end the year out of court protection and under the control of its debt holders.

The company released a statement that said, in part: “Under the plan, CIT expects to reduce total debt by approximately $10 billion, significantly reduce its liquidity needs over the next three years, enhance its capital ratios and accelerate its return to profitability.”

CIT’s latest move comes after the firm attempted to find any avenue but bankruptcy that would keep it afloat. In July, the company was denied a second federal bailout after it had already received $2.3 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Funds (TARP). The government’s lifeline was given in the form of preferred stock – and as a result of CIT’s bankruptcy proceedings, the government is expected to take a bath on that $2.3 billion.

To date, CIT has been the biggest player in factoring – a form of debt financing used by those businesses that are unable to secure traditional loans or credit lines. This allows companies to sell their receivables at a discount in return for cash. A number of suppliers and manufacturers such as apparel makers deploy factoring as way to hold them over until retailers pay.

One of the biggest questions now is how CIT’s own considerable problems will impact the retail sector -- particularly with the crucial holiday season just around the corner. Last July, when the company announced that it had failed in its bid to secure a second government rescue retailers were girding themselves for the possible fallout. However, the worst-case scenario appears to have passed.

Craig Shearman, the vice president for government affairs at the National Retail Federation, a trade group, says that the timing of CIT’s bankruptcy has actually boded well for retailers. “We think we dodged a bullet for the holiday season,” he says. “If there had been a collapse in September it could have created a hole in the retail supply chain big enough for Santa Claus to drive his sleigh through. At this point, most merchandise is either in distribution centers or already on store shelves.”

So for now, CIT will be added to the growing list of taxpayer agonies. And as one of the largest corporate bankruptcies, it has demonstrated that it was certainly not too big too fail.

Promises, promises. Are you still waiting for flu shots after making an appointment, then learning that the vaccine is not available?

The Obama administration announced that more vaccine was coming when it wasn't. US HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explained why to an Associated Press reporter, "We were relying on the manufacturers to give us their numbers and as soon as we got numbers we put them out to the public. It does appear now that those numbers were overly rosy."

Where have we heard that before?

Overly rosy promises are regularly offered by politicians, manufacturers, car salespeople, real estate agents, and nearly anyone trying to influence anyone else. Promises are the stuff of courtship or reassurance, particularly when people would rather deny the downside. Entrepreneurs urged to sell to a large corporation are often told that the big company wants to learn from them, a promise that dissolves after the deal is done. Bernard Madoff victims apparently preferred illusion to digging for facts.

This human tendency is exacerbated by systemic complexity. Economists know that forecasting is a dangerous occupation, especially about the future — which is funny but not a joke. In complex systems, inherent uncertainty joins with volatility to increase the likelihood that forecasts fall short. Boeing learned this at the cost of lost customer orders for its much-delayed Dreamliner aircraft. It is a common experience that new products often take longer and cost more.

Related to the difficulties of delivering on time and on budget are other promises that should never be taken at face value:

"We want you to be a change agent and shake things up."

Bosses and boards often espouse change as a desirable goal but less often embrace its implications — e.g., firing old hands, closing or selling historically-core assets, or challenging organizational assumptions. Officials generally like things stirred but not shaken (unlike James Bond's martini). So if you are told that you've been hired or assigned to shake things up in the interests of change, don't believe it — even if it's clear that a turnaround is necessary.

This promise tastes dust the minute controversy surfaces. Controversy is embarrassing, time-consuming, and takes eyes off the situation needing change and onto the personality of the change agent. Carly Fiorina and Larry Summers experienced this during their days as short-lived agents of change at HP and Harvard, respectively. The Anne Mulcahy route is better: first win people over by applauding (not trashing) tradition. At Xerox, Mulcahy solidified relationships and honored history before making dramatic change.

"The check is in the mail."

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Odds are that it goes into the mail after the check-receiver asks the check-issuer where it is. In a world of overload, deadlines and due dates can easily become occasions for starting the action, not completing it. CEOs know that they are more likely to get the report they request several times than the report committed to verbally but without follow up.

Delay is common when trying to get that promised check, even when resources have been set aside. As change agents know, just because the funding or information or meeting has been promised doesn't mean that it will be delivered on time. Try buying a product that promises a rebate, and see how many hoops you have to go through to get on the list for the rebate and request it in cash rather than future-purchase credits. It's not much easier for people trying to get something done inside an organization.

Promises, promises. Change requires patience and long-term systemic thinking, seasoned with a grain of salt.

But lest we turn into a nation of cynics, promises should be kept realistic from the start. Leaders should be courageous about revealing that they don't control everything and don't know exactly how the future will unfold. The one promise they can reliably keep is to communicate often, with alternative scenarios in mind. In general, under-promising and over-delivering produces much more delight than over-promising and under-delivering. We are so braced for disappointment that a happy surprise stands out.

A dose of reality can be healthy. Although maybe not as healthy as a flu shot. So tell me again, Secretary Sebelius: Just when will that vaccine be ready?