An Alaskan Dossier

I would greatly appreciate your help in determining the future of this blog. I’ve created a short 7-question survey that shouldn’t take longer than 2-3 minutes of your time.

This link should go straight to the survey without any weirdness: Where should I take my blog next year?

So, because I’m “in between things” right now, I’m going to make an attempt to be a productive member of society. How will I do that? A quick summary of the big scuffles in the blogs that I track.

First up-

You don’t want to see Rep. Bob Etheridge when he’s angry
Blogs in the Googlesphere tracking this: 22,500 (up 7,600 since I started writing this)
Blogs in the Joshsphere: 6

So, Congressman Bob Etheridge (D-NC, and no relation to Melissa, so far as I can tell) recently attended a Democratic fundraiser in D.C. hosted by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. As is prone to happen at partisan events, some folks with video cameras from the other side of the aisle were there to antagonize Rep. Etheridge as he walked in. Rather than not engaging, Rep. Etheridge decided to go old-school beltway paranoid on the young budding, right-wing Michael Moores, by grabbing one of the interviewers by the wrist, while swatting at the camera, and asking “Who are you?”.

Opposition research seems to be standard at public party functions like this. I once went to a World Trade Center luncheon where still-Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) delivered the address, while being filmed by a staffer for Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY). He just casually referenced the staffer periodically through his speech (e.g. “Why don’t you go home and tell your boss how Alaskans do it”) but never went Hulk on him. I really don’t know why Rep. Etheridge went Nixon on these kids’ wrists, but, hey, I’d be paranoid too.

Watch for yourself, and if the video doesn’t embed visit: Rep. Bob Etheridge ambushed by anonymous video-bloggers.

Second-

When I flip, you flip, China flips.
Blogs in the Googlesphere tracking this: 15,700
Blogs in the Joshsphere: 2 (Kottke, Joe.My.God)

Everyone has been going gaga over the recently leaked or released architectural renderings of a proposed bridge design that would flip the traffic directions going from Hong Kong to China. The design itself is a complicated, three-dimensional exercise in traffic re-routing that looks like a page from a Boy Scout knot contest.

While the picture is being bandied about as a “This is going to happen, WTFOMG, can you believe how crazy the world is getting” image, it turns out that this was one architecture firm’s entry into the “Hong Kong Boundary Crossing Facilities (HKBCF) International Design Ideas Competition“. Even less scintillating, is the fact that, this freakishly awesome feat of engineering won’t be happening as it didn’t even earn an Honorable Mention.

Check out Wikipedia to learn about the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge and the border crossing project.

Third-

Take a sip from the World Cup, my pretty.
Blogs in the Googlesphere tracking this: 53,800
Blogs in the Joshsphere: 0

So, I’ve never been one for watching sports, and while I really like soccer (compared to American football), I just never bought into the hype to watch an annual sporting fest (unless, of course, there’s something in it for me). It appears, that there’s some kind of global soccer contest going on right now called the World Cup, and if it weren’t for Annie Leibovitz’ Vanity Fair photo shoot, I wouldn’t know that it was happening.

To attempt to summarize what’s hot in the Googlesphere right now, I’m just going to repeat what I read at the BBC (via Vanity Fair). Spectators who dream of a peaceful, quiet, tournament between equally matched teams have that dream shattered everytime another enthusiastic fan fires off one of those horns. Apparently, they’ve never been to a high school graduation in Alaska. It turns out, that despite the complaints from whining idealists, the World Cup officials will not be banning the vuvuzela horns.

Who knew?

1. I am sick of loading screens. It’s not a price I’m willing to pay for what generally turns out to be subpar content.
2. I’m tired of having my CPU occupied to the point that I can’t hear over the noise of the fan.
3. It’ll force me to learn a set of open, standard web languages (e.g. JavaScript, CSS, HTML5)

(OK, I’m not really crazy about the last item, but maybe someone will come up with a clean, code-less web developing environment.)

How’s this for derivative inspiration? This post is a reaction to John Gruber’s summary of the New York Times’ preview of the new Apple “Device”

Apple seems to serve the will of its customers. It recognizes that customers will find a way to get desired content with the least amount of friction possible. With music they adopted the download behavior of their customers, but monetized it in a fashion that replaced existing illegal and non-monetized methods.

Usually industry execs in the “media sphere” tend to come from that world, and see things only through that lens. They view their customers as criminals always trying to find a way to steal from them. Apple views their customers as Gods, because for a very long time they had so few.

This isn’t to say that Apple pulls a Microsoft or HP and focus groups the hell out of a product. Apple makes products they and their families would like to use and be proud of—that’s a focus group with accountability.

Sure Jobs has a bit of a diva complex and an RDF, but in some weird cosmic way, his pride is actually one of his best assets, contagious but not at all toxic. Think about Pixar. Jobs bought the company from George Lucas and hired people who had a passion for telling stories they could be proud of. Pride in the Jobsian sense is something for which you’re willing to put your name on the line and share it with those close to you. I mean, there’s a reason why Pixar ends their credits with a list of “production babies”; Pixar movies are a family affair from conception to completion to consumption.

If only normal CEO pride was this burdened with humility, and not ego[1]. Bill Gates is probably the only other industry exec that gets it. Sadly it didn’t happen with Microsoft (too big to fail?), but you see it every day in Gates’ foundation work. He’s proud of his work, of his team, and the legacy he’s leaving behind.

Simply, pride for these two men can be distilled into the question: “have I helped make the world a better place?”

1. – This, again, is not to say Jobs or Gates lack ego. They have plenty to go around. It’s just used appropriately: to do well by their customers and by their legacy.

This is a response to Grant McCracken’s post “The Problem of Forced Fun” found at the Harvard Business Review.

I think the word Grant McCracken is searching for is Trust. Leaders need to Trust the people they work with, and everything else falls in to place. If you trust that your teammates will make the best decision, and that it’s their reputation on the line (as well as the org’s), chances are they’ll err towards authenticity.

The lack of trust leads to corporate mandates: the minimum flair, the customer service guidelines, the… failed decisions of an executive body out of touch with their audience.

I think we can get back to trust when we shrink the size of the organization. Large organizational bodies trend toward mandates, SOPs, memos, and bureaucratic bullshit. Smaller organizations have to trust everyone on board, also removing anonymity. Mediocre people thrive on the anonymity of a large organization; the ability to do the bare minimum, follow and blame the rules, and clock out at the end of the day appeals to those of us who don’t want to deal.

As a customer, I’ll trust the employee who rolls her eye at the corporate “bon homie” and makes a decision on my behalf, before the employee who flashes his Cheshire smile.

Who would you trust?