My Type of Politician

By nature I'm not a political being (I'm in advertising) but it occurred to me just the other day that our politicians could use a little creative thinking (like our designers provide us) when it comes to their jobs and the performance of their required duties. Hypothetically speaking, if I ran for office, I'd use a lot more common sense than I'm seeing exhibited by our current gang of elected officials. Now, before I tell you what I'd do to correct the situation let's begin with some basic assumptions:

1. That our elected officials are there to represent US as citizens. That's their job description, period.

2. That our elected officials are citizens of the United States, just like those they are chosen to represent (again, US common folk).

Now, as I told my wife the other day if I ran for elected office in Washington I'd go for one term and do two things. The first thing that I'd do is run on a platform of COMPLETE REPRESENTATION. Meaning that my political views would be, should be, and are otherwise irrelevant. What I think or believe would not matter in the least. My understanding of representative government is that I'm NOT being put in place to further my own personal or ideological agenda, and therefore, what I believe should NOT count. Instead of staffers manning phones and taking down messages that our current representatives never see and/or pay attention to, I'd set up a website that would contain the following:

a. Every bill on which I would be voting

b. The official language of that bill

c. Lay person language/interpretation of that bill (for those non-lawyers out there)

d. What that bill means to the people I represent (both upside and down)

e. A set of buttons: vote - [] yes [] no

With this straight forward (and very easy to implement) approach every voter's voice could and would be heard. We have the technology to do this now, unlike even a mere decade ago. Oh, and for those of you saying "what about those without computers?" Guess what, Internet Cafe's, Public Libraries,etc... all have computers with Internet access for the public. Access is not an issue. And as a representative I would then cast my official vote "yes" or "no" based off of the direct response from the people in my district. No middle man so to speak...just the unbridled will of the people being conveyed directly and unfiltered to their chosen representative. And yet another benefit...there's a record so I could be held accountable. Did the number of yes or no votes from the website log correspond with my voting record? Holy cow...you mean my constituents could hold me "ACCOUNTABLE?" Say it ain't so! (Oh and by the way, there would be another staffer or two to verify the addresses of the people responding so no "stuffing the ballot box" so to speak). Politicians who employed this would NEVER have to defend their decisions on voting. It would be a simple matter of votes, one way or the other...very binary!

Secondly...I would go to Washington to officially bring to the membership a motion for the 28th Amendment of the Constitution. This amendment would read something like this:

The Congressional and Executive Branches of the United States government shall pass no law, binding upon the citizenry of the United States, that shall not be equally binding to all members and staff of Congressional, Executive, and Judicial branches of the United States government.

It would pass folks...I'd love to see the politician face his or her district voters and try to explain WHY they did not vote for a Constitutional Amendment that made them equal to us. It simply would not happen.

Now I've mentioned these two items to several dozen people over the past few weeks...both Democrat and Republican alike, and not one of them said "that's a bad idea Dave...as a matter of fact most of them said, "Run Dave...I'd vote for you on those platforms." Now if someone as mentally challenged as I am can come up with a solid idea for both absolute representation and equality between government and citizens why aren't others? Have you heard one politician espouse either of these ideas...if so, please let me know. I want to support him or her.

Best Always,
Dave J.

AMAZING ARTICLE

I had the following article sent to me by a friend who is also in the advertising business. He looked it over and with what's being reported came to the same conclusion as me...that if indeed we will be able to see the various "real time" importance and/or relevance of one social topic compared to another we and our clients can adjust strategies "on the fly" with greater accuracy and results.

Enjoy
Best Always,
Dave J.

Watching the Internet Think
By John Brandon
- FOXNews.com



The Web is an organism, and science can graph it. Through mesmerizing, flowing images and pulsing charts, new Web sites show who’s talking about which topics and how the Internet is connected -- even which colors are popular this season.

It's literally the pulse of the Web. Want to try it for yourself? Here's the best sites to visit.

Digg Labs
No one can match Digg for monitoring the hysteria of the moment -- links can soar to 5,000 Diggs in just a few days, and no one really knows why. Digg Labs helps you get a visual handle on the hoopla.

There are six labs, but each one taps into real-time Digg information. It's not experimental -- these are real Diggs from actual users, but the method of showing the data is unusual. Stack drops small tiles onto a graph that slowly builds into popular Diggs. Swarm is like a beehive where actual digg topics latch onto one another, following the progression of anonymous users.

Arc is - as you can guess - a group of Diggs that move around a circle. Larger text sizes means hotter topics. Big Spy -- perhaps the least useful tool -- shows larger text sizes for the most popular topics. And Pics is all about popular photos and graphics. (Be careful with this one at work, it can show you pornography on rare

Knowing that these tools can drain your Internet connection of all life and vitality, Digg Labs will pause automatically if you leave them open in your browser for too long.

Google Trends
Google Trends lets you compare terms such as "Barack Obama" and "Sarah Palin" to see who is more popular on the Web, and there's an interesting way to visualize the answers: When you search, you can view a bar chart with spikes that shows not only search topics (such as "Tiger Woods") but commentary from real posters on the Web, what Google calls real-time search. These comments include blog posts, social networking updates, and Twitter status.

"As the amount of information on the Web grows, the need for new ways to parse that information grows too," said Dylan Casey, product manager at Google. Casey explained that graphing tools give you the big picture, just as a ski resort might report on average monthly our yearly snowfall levels. The averages help you plan your ski trip beyond just knowing how much it snowed in the last week.

Using Google Trends, it's possible to see a graph over a historical period too -- say, for three years -- to see if the topic is becoming more popular. This could help a golf club manufacture plan a new product -- or a new advertising campaign boost interest.

Microsoft Pivot
Presented at the TED conference recently, Microsoft Pivot is a remarkable tool that lets you research Web information in real-time with a simple bar chart -- and it's a great way to watch Wikipedia.

Normally, Wikipedia entries are self-contained -- you can look up Barack Obama and read his biography, for example. But what if you wanted to research his accolades? Pivot shows you he was the Time Magazine person-of-the-year. You can then "pivot" this data and see every person-of-the-year, or click filters to see only African-Americans. This type of data exploration just isn't possible otherwise.

"Anything visual is more immersive," explains Brett Brewer, the Microsoft general manager in charge of Pivot, which is part of the Live Labs project. Pivot presents data in a way that makes exploration easier and leads to amazing discoveries. This kind of visualization uses a stock set of data -- say, Sports Illustrated covers or Wikipedia posts -- but could be used for any live data on the Web, such as accident reports. Pivot can show mortality rates, for example, letting you pivot the data to see in real-time that young men die in more car accidents than women.

Trendistic
Twitter.com has become a news outlet of sorts -- people tweet on topics almost immediately after they occur, and sometimes during the event itself. That's what makes Trendistic.com so valuable: the site shows the pulse of the Internet, including the most popular celebs, news topics, and gadgets. Are people talking more about the NBA or MLB?

Sociologists study these patterns by performing surveys and interviewing people (read any of Malcolm Gladwell's books, including his latest) but Trendistic is a picture into the soul of the Web. For any term, you can also see real tweets and start following what they say from your own Twitter account.

Cosmic 140
Another chart that shows Twitter trends, Cosmic 140 is the creation of Information Architects a Web design firm. The map -- which has not been officially released -- is amazingly complex, showing a "cosmological" chart that shows the most important Twitter users and how they are all connected to each other, starting with the three Twitter founders.

Explains founder Oliver Reichenstein, "We chose Twitter because (unlike Facebook) it allows us to access specific data and it features a lot of high profile people that define the new nodes based on tweets per day, number of tweets, and tweet content."

Trendrr.com
Trendrr.com, like Google Trends, shows topics as trends on the Internet, but goes a few steps farther. For example, the service can shows trends in how people are commenting on YouTube videos or track individual terms and phrases on Twitter. Broadcasters might use it to find out what people are saying about a new TV show, based on Facebook updates, Twitter comments, and actual usage data. In some ways, this is better than Nielsen Ratings system because it tracks real-time posts and commentary.

"People can use graphed Web info as a tool for business intelligence, to gain deeper market insights, for research or to keep tabs on an industry, product, and term," says Mark Ghuneim, the CEO at Wiredset, the marketing and strategic planning company that created Trendrr. "By visualizing Web data in graphical ways we can glean more important insights, faster."

It's not over yet!!

Good morning everyone. (all one of you that's following this blog *snicker*)
Normally I get on here just to hear/see myself think and there's something that I just have to put down...if, for no other reason than to help me think through it...Namely where I believe that economy is going. I hear so many pundits speak of "happy days" being here again, but I'm just not seeing it. (I know that this doesn't necessarily have to do with advertising, but it does affect our clients) I'm seeing some tentative job growth but as most of my life was spent in the financial services sector I'm not seeing the real rebound that's been expected. Certainly not a rebound that would be indicative of a stimulus package of just under a $ trillion dollars. Here's what I believe is happening. I believe that companies have gotten "lean and mean" out of necessity (I know we have) and I believe that those with necessary services and/or products have been making quite a bit of money in recent quarters. Now, do I believe that that will translate to job? Yes, but not immediately. I believe that those companies will spend that money on greater efficiencies brought about by software and equipment upgrades, which, in some cases, will eliminate the need to bring back certain types of employees. Sorry, but it's the truth. I believe that only after that spending cycle has come to a slow will companies then be able to determine what (if any) spaces they have to fill. Look for the always needed sales person, IT person, and customer service folks. Don't look too hard for anything middle management, or even lower "C" level management for that matter unless you're terribly specialized. Even then you might be better off hanging out your own shingle. Oh, and if you're going to do that, become a sole proprietor and contract out help as you don't want to get caught (as so many small businesses will) paying for increased employee health care costs. Not a terribly rosy scenario, but I was never good at the whole "up with people" thing. And this doesn't even include the debacle that is "COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE." That's another story for another day, but just consider that most small business' fixed capital expenses come from salaries, raw materials and what? OVERHEAD...one of the efficiencies they'll be looking hardest at is unloading that expensive office space. And who is in a position to come in and pick up the leases...even with modest job growth. There's just not the appetite (even among contrarians) to pick up such assets, no matter how cheap. Not when they can create better and more efficient means of production, sales, distribution, marketing, etc., which leads directly to a better bottom line. If this turns quickly, look for just as quick a reversal...and this time the government won't be able to offer a bail out...Why? Because the American people just don't have the money (because as we all learned in our early civics classes, the government has no money except for what is given to it by the people) AND WE'RE BROKE!
I hate to sign off as usual with such a dour entry, but I do sincerely wish anyone reading this...

Best Always,
Dave J.