connecting*the*dots

Terrance—over at The Republic of T—asks a simple, yet provocative question in preparation of the 2006 elections: What’s Your Platform?

Okay, I’m game. Here are my most imperative policy reforms, in no particular order.

1) 2.0 the hell out of government
Congress was only able to see "finished" intelligence before voting to give the Bush administration power to go to war (as a last resort). In my world, anything that the Executive branch sees, the Legislative branch sees. My voice is represented by my state officials, not the president. This one example of a non-transparent government directly led to the deaths of more than 30,000 human beings.

The most applicable 2.0 philosophy for reforming government is the philosophy of openness. From open source to open content, imagine the possibilities of employing a government that makes all de-classified government documents, congressional voting records, appointee resumes, etc. instantly available in a relational database with open APIs for public use. All of this information is available now, but it’s not prepped for accessibility and reuse. This is the future of accountability. Up communication and transparency, reduce the "Fuck You!" noise of the left vs. the right blogosphere to constructive collaboration… that is until government tries to pull something, and then we get back on them like white on rice.

2) Create a nominal tax to directly supplement teacher salaries
Great teachers are few and far between nowadays. Why? Well, you try dealing with kids, administrators and parents all day, adhere to and circumvent the red-tape and legalities of this age with the grace of a seasoned politician and pull in ~$45k per year.

I’m talking about, say, a .1% tax that goes directly towards teacher salaries. I gotta admit, I got the idea from Mini-Me when he appeared as a genius teacher on an episode of Boston Public a few years back. His thesis was that the degree to which students are prepared by their public school years directly impacts their earning potential, so reward their hometown education system with a nominal, flat tax return to impact teacher salaries. Tell ‘em. Verne!

3) Rip up the Patriot Act
As alluded to in the first part of my platform, transparency of government will lead to politicians being held accountable to create humane national and global policies. It’ll also foster the innovation of extremely real-time and smart communication user experiences, which can then be applied by government in the authenticated realm of classified material.

This edict of transparency cannot be applied to individuals. Our individual right of privacy is what has distinguished us from the rest of the world for centuries. The Patriot Act is legislation with language that allows for the control, intimidation and investigation of Americans through the guise of terrorism. It’s like the old censorship debate; who defines what is terrorism? The abuse of American rights have already begun.

4) Election reforms
First, all television campaigns are free. Each major candidate (there would have to be some way to determine "major," possibly something akin to the BSC polls/stats via past political progress made) is provided a set amount of credits to apply to the "purchase" of air time. This opens up the playing field to a diverse class of politicians who can focus on the issues, not their fund raising. I bet Tom Delay would even go for this.

Second, ensure that voting is both easy to access and secure. All voting systems could easily be tied together into one database, while creating alternative voting options, such as over the internet and by phone. We’ve been to the moon people…

5) National health care for everyone… Yes, you too
Riddle me this: Large corporations get major discounts on health care coverage due to the amount of employees they staff, right? Okay, then why not treat congressional districts as semantic equivalents of large pools of employees (citizen residents) by submitting them as huge groups into the bidding process?

C’mon, try to tell me why that doesn’t make any sense.

6) Incentivize industry to reduce our dependency on oil and clean up the environment
I know, the oil industry has major power claws dug deep into our political system, but this is my platform, so I’ll risk the blunt gas nozzle to the back of my head. This current administration gave tax breaks to manufacturers who create hybrid vehicles, but capped the production of cars to 60,000 that qualify for the break. Yeah.

First, we create California-like emmission standards and apply it nationally. Second, we apply money to develop alternative forms of fuel instead of planning a fucking trip to Mars or building that damn bridge to nowhere in Alaska. Third… well, I’m not that smart, but these people are.

Well, that’s my platform. God knows there are other extremely important issues (like getting out of Iraq, impeaching Bush, etc.), but that’s all the brainpower I have for tonight. I’m sure many of you want to label me as a liberal communist or some other "sticks and stones" nomenclature, and if I just described your take on me, my message to you is grow the fuck up. These are serious times, calling for serious people. The longer you avoid engaging in honest discussions along these lines, the easier it becomes to spot your agenda.

To the rest of you, let’s work together to get these bozos out of office in 2006.

Those crazy kids at Mozilla (or some crazy fan) just put together the switch site of all switch sites: Kill Bill’s Browser.

If people thought Apple poked and prodded Microsoft Windows users during their switch campaign, Mozilla (or the aforementioned fan) is pimp slapping Microsoft IE. They’re even leveraging the Google AdSense program to reward bloggers for promoting (or forcing) IE users to make the move.

Pimp hand in play.

But seriously, out of the 13 reasons they list to make the move, #5 is by far the one that keeps me up at night:

I’m not in SF, but I’ve come close enough to leaping into the Hudson over this same frustration (believe me, that skank water is just as dangerous). Hopefully, heads of corporate procurement and InfoSec departments are reached by this site too as they represent the majority of IE users. Although, I don’t think a site talking frankly about porn is going to convince them. They’re in too happy a relationship with the Microsoft empire to pause for self-pleasure minus the pop-ups.

And while we’re schmoozing Microsoft, let’s end this post on a great note and pause to reflect upon why we dislike them so much.

Just where did their purple Nike’s and jugs of Kool-Aid disappear to?

I noticed something the other day about my online shopping pattern: I don’t browse and I hardly ever buy on a whim.

After contemplating such startling, introspective findings for awhile (uhm… finished), I started to wonder whether this could be the case with most people that shop online? That got me to thinking more, so I mosied on over to Amazon.com to perform an off the cuff user interview/usability study of myself and my tendencies, comparing them to the holistic user experience of the site.

I admit it wasn’t very scientific, but what I discovered was interesting.

• When I shop at Amazon, 99 times of 100 (I multiplied this session by 99) go directly to the search field and enter a product attribute.
• After landing on a results page, I choose a product description page.
• 4 out of 10 times (ballpark figures folks), I’ll review a few user comment reviews on the product as a the final check before deciding to make a purchase or not.
• If it’s a go, then WHAM! I’m in the cart experience and out the virtual door.

What I just described is the Amazon shopping experience from 1996-97. It’s a utilitarian approach and it fits me when it comes to shopping, especially in the real world (but that’s a whole other conversation.)

Online shopping, for me, is about keeping your recommendations to yourself, don’t clutter the page with collaborative filtered data such as ‘purchase circles’ or ‘listmania,’ and just let me find what I’m looking for and get me out of the store… fast.

My assumption is that this is how most people use Amazon. I could be wrong. I’ve been known to be… often. But if that were the case, even if the numbers were only 30% that followed my shopping pattern, wouldn’t the overall user experience be a bit too much? Wouldn’t Amazon be relying too much on quirky collaborative filtering techniques to become the next generation shopping experience?

I mean, first there’s a welcome page, then the Sean store, then a trailing history of what I’ve viewed, then recommendations built dynamically based on those views and presented throughout the UI. On top of all of this there is untargeted and targeted marketing messaging (hmm, sometimes in the form of recommendations?) presented to me at each turn…

Who’s handling the UXdesign here? How many marketing MBA’s are in a room with a cornered IA or DBA hatching plots to create cross-pollination of product silos? Come on, do I really care that people who bought my book also wear clean underwear from Target? Is this the smartest Amazon can be?

Amazon deserves credit for recently removing some of the superfluous features of the site from the main experience and placing them into the well hidden ‘explore’ category on a secret page somewhere in their navigation scheme. But the powerful information that this site could provide the customer should be generated at the customer’s whim.

Please, Mr. Bezos, we’re living in the realm of customization. Allow us to create our own product page. Let us choose if we want these extra features and how we want to view them. I understand there’s a fine line between satisfying the needs of your retail partners and pushing product, but when in doubt, bite the bullet and go with the us, the people, the customers.

Amazon is now six years old, the ancient mother of e-commerce sites. Now would be the time to design an experience for individual shoppers. Create a completely personalized shopping experience through customizable interaction design. It’s the next step in online shopping, and you know how the saying goes in the retail world: the customer is always right.