connecting*the*dots

Back in July, I found myself following one of my usual late night routines; browsing flickr late at night, hopping from one intense image to the next, pulling myself farther and farther into the late hours of the evening. The image that ended my discovery scenario that night was one which framed a masked protester holding a sign reading, "Dictatorial Democracy!" The composition and message created an extremely striking and provocative statement. I dropped into the discussion thread, left a comment, marked it as a favorite and retired for the evening.

Fast forward two weeks; I’m in the midst of some serious self-transformation—from a corporate design lead to a full-time freelance information architect and blogger actively participating in the information revolution. I had too many thoughts bouncing about my head and needed to get them down as an explicit, lasting statement. I began crafting a post about what had led me to begin my dedicated contribution to political and cultural discourse. The visceral image of the protester jumped into my mind as a perfect visual cue, so I hopped over to flickr, grabbed it (CC licensed) and included it within the post.

When QOOP partnered with flickr to provide printing capabilities a few weeks back, I found myself creating a poster of the protect image before the application could even cool off. Within a week, the print arrived at my door and I was blown away by the quality.

Now, when I glance at the image on my wall, I not only visualize the thought process of the photographer as he composed the shot, but the philosophical drivers of both Stewart Butterfield and the flickr team as well. True, this is a physical remainder of one man’s passionate expression, but the implicit philosophies of an open business model resonates just as much in the tactile form of a print, one that didn’t belong to me but was "let go into the ether" to be used and reused. Both the photographer and flickr share numerous traits: a deep seeded passion, the desire for open participation and the use of technology as a vehicle for change. The end result is that one man’s political perspective—without the benefits of a political platform—is now a tangible, refined component of my home experience.

That’s extremely powerful stuff.

But with this one print in particular, if I don’t deconstruct the message further, I’d be guilty of simply adorning eye-candy on my wall. For as much as I love the image and the powerful message it delivers, after thinking about it for a few months, there’s a very romantic naivety to the whole scene.

Back To Reality

Our government isn’t structured for any administration to listen to the explicit desires resonating from the free speech of Americans. The Executive branch works with Congress, whose members have been elected by the constituents of each state. Free speech can move, motivate, challenge and change individuals, but it will never influence the Executive branch. Only polls of the American people have that power and the resulting moves by an administration are placating at best. If you want to elicit change through the actions of an elected official, you have to start on a local level—blog, call your congressman, volunteer in a campaign, meet with like-minded folk, organize unions, etc. Ranting alone will not make change occur.

Take old school corporate structure as a metaphor to government. How often do you think C-levels base their policy on the voice of employees or individual consumers? Sure, it may happen at times due to sheer coincidence, but policies are primarily based on:

1. Shareholder desires and concerns
2. Advertiser desire and concerns (if applicable)
3. The domain experience and agendas of executives
4. Client/user/customer desires and concerns
5. The input of employees

To a user experience designer like myself, this is in the very least ill-balanced, but it’s the common DNA of present day big money capitalism; first serve the desires of your investors, then serve the desires of the common folk—even the ones who use your products or services. Would Michael Dell listen to a bunch of individual customers over his shareholders or retail customers?

Probably not.

So, back to our current administration — considered by many to be the most secretive administration ever—the problem isn’t that Bush, Chaney and the rest of the gang aren’t listening to the people; the problem is that they’ve lied to Congress, creating false evidence to go to war, while simultaneously placing social reformations on the back burner. We don’t need to completely reinvent the wheel of our government and the constitution; we need to hold public officials (and corporate lobbyists) accountable to working within the legal parameters currently set forth. We need to remove the cries of a dictatorial democracy, and instead, hold ourselves accountable to participate within a collaborative republic.

Maybe I’ll create a re-mashed version of my new poster reflecting these sentiments and shoot it up to flickr. Who knows whose home it’ll live in next?