Category — Opinion

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?

On Friday, I read an article on Poynter about how the FTC intends to start monitoring blogs for conflict of interest violations, or pay-for-play reviews. This has long been in place for magazines, newspapers, and broadcast media.

Have you ever seen an “advertorial” in print that looks like an article, but is clearly shilling exercise equipment or Shamwows? Usually, such an advertorial is accompanied by small print indicating that it is an “ADVERTISEMENT” or “SPECIAL ADVERTISEMENT INSERT”. This is because advertising is regulated by the FTC, with the interest of the consumer and with the intent of protecting against misleading claims.

Blogs are new territory, living on the frontier of the internet and Web 2.0. Like the Wild West’s cowboy law, interactions are often governed by implied codes of ethics, or unspoken tradition. Bloggers have posted several variations of the Ten Commandments or Declaration of Independence in an attempt to codify what has long been practiced. My favorite is still Aliza Sherman’s “10 Golden Rules of Social Media”, which I have in front of me every time I open WordPress. What’s missing, however, is some kind of regulatory body to enforce and protect us (the consumer public) from misleading snake oil salesmen.

Here are three reasons why I’m in favor of the FTC monitoring “sponsored conversations” for misconduct:

1. Sponsored posts are dishonest and manipulative. Consumers have now begun to rely on search engines and blogs for warnings of lemons and bad deals, or praise about the next greatest widget. This implicit trust is what undisclosed “sponsored conversations” preys on.
2. Sponsored posts are nothing short of blog spam. While Google’s Gmail gobbles spam for fun, there are no similar “spam filters” for blog posts that clog search engine results like they would our inbox. This is Payola 2.0.
3. If Alan Greenspan discovered that the “market cannot self-regulate”, we shouldn’t assume that bloggers will either. This is where the FTC should step in, if anything enforcing the long practiced tradition of respect on the web.

One day, in “Somedayland”, the media will elevate the discourse of the candidates.

One day, the candidates will elevate the discourse of the electoral population.

One day, we’ll move beyond whisper campaigns that play off fears and destroying national hope.

One day, politicians will hold themselves to their public promises, and to the ethical standards of most normal people.

One day, my turds could be used as renewable fuel in the Delorians we’ll all fly.

Until then, we’ll have to deal with this bullshit that political candidates and the media throw at each other, for their personal amusement.

(via the Slog: Why is Clinton Still Running? “White Americans.”)

Originally written: February 24, 2008. Revised: March 12, 2008.

I’m confused, aren’t you?

It seems as though by 2008, we as a human race should have figured things out. Yet, it seems as though what was expected of this era, isn’t so.

Instead, humans have become insane. Insanity, being that we do the same tired things over and over again, only to expect different results.

We seem to have lost sight of what makes us who we are; stopped attributing value to those things that are most tangible to us. Instead, as humans, we seem to have given our identity to someone else to assess; making something that was once tangible to us, intangible to someone who has no proximity.

We as Bozemanites, Americans, and humans are experiencing something of a cultural identity crisis.

As a possible prescription for this ailment, I offer my Manifesto Confundum (in five points).
[Read more →]

“A long Democratic battle doesn’t automatically help the Republicans. In fact, it hurts the Republicans in certain ways. Mr McCain becomes less interesting to the media. Stories about him move off page one and grow smaller. TV coverage becomes spotty and short. There are not yet big and deep and unbridgeable differences between the two Democrats and there is plenty of time to heal most wounds (except, perhaps among the young if Mrs Clinton were to win). Continuing to build a profile and lay the predicate for the short fall campaign against either Democrat becomes the challenge for Mr McCain while the Democrats battle it out.” — Karl Rove

Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama know this. Which is why most of the debates focus on the minutia (e.g. campaign strategies, traditional vs. non-traditional experience), and exaggerating how the Republicans have damaged this nation.

The fact that the DNC finally has a solid and agreed upon platform before going into primaries says a lot. And you see it in the coverage. Television news networks who play this as a “America’s Next Top President” enjoy the gridlock, because it provides all the tension, drama, and glitz of reality TV that they’ve wanted.

I saw this on Tuesday at our watch party. MSNBC and CNN both had a majority of clips that were not Huckabee/McCain, but rather Clinton/Obama. The networks aren’t going to desert something that has mobilized so many people to vote; it has already become a story they don’t have to sell.

What this means in terms of the “storyline” of the nomination bids, is McCain might engender more desperate tactics to attract news attention. However, Rove is right when he says that the young Dems will feel extremely wounded if Clinton secures the nomination. On an apathetic, semi-rural college campus of 12,000+, I’ve seen more people interested in elections than in the past. I’ve also heard from a lot of people who felt betrayed by the 2004 election, that if Clinton secures the DNC bid, they’re jumping ship to McCain.

Karl Rove’s resumé suggests that he knows what he’s talking about, and is more right than progressives would like to admit.

• Alive! – WSJ.com (via BBC’s Justin Webb which was found via the Slog)