Wasteful Marketing in Politics

Tired of your mailbox full of political junk mail?  I am sure am.  Fortunately, there is only a few days left in this election process.   

Today I received 6 pieces of political mail, and I am sure there are people who received much more.    As I walked up to the house all I did was toss them directly into the recycle bin.  No I did not read them, not even a glance.   Why bother?  These oversized postcards never have anything of substance.    "Vote for me, joe smoe, I will save the economy, or I will say something else that everyone wants'.   OR,.... don't vote for my opponent because he is a bad man........

blah, blah, blah.   I am sorrry but (no, I am not) that type of message will not sway me to your candidate.  What I am concerned about though, is the the competence of the individual who is swayed.   Pretty shallow.  

As with all problem situations you should not just tell what is wrong, but also suggest alternatives and solutions.    So, here is one thought ---- >

Why not place all energies and moneys into efforts to share in-depth beliefs of what you are going to do once in office.  Then promote where your information can be found,  invite voters to share their thoughts and enhance your stand. 

I want to know what you really are going to do.   I could care less on simple meaningless sound bite messages on postcards.     I will vote for a smart individual, not one who dumbs down his message. 

Alternatives to Traditional Communications

Tired of lengthy and wordy status reports? PowerPoints that are difficult to follow, or too much information, or take too long to prepare? Too many sources of information need to be brought together?


I have contemplated these questions and other similar factors for several years. One my solutions has been the development of simplistic templates, focusing only on core summary information.

Another area that has had my curiosity for over 3 years is mind mapping. Mind Mapping tools are growing, especially in the initial needs and requirements gathering areas. I believe that there is great potential for alternative presentation approaches using the underlying concepts of these tools --- it may be time for PowerPoint to die. Mindjet is a leader in the commercial product world but is pricy. FreeMind is a commonly recognized leader in the open source, free world but is not necessarily the easiest to use.

Traditional methods of sharing a document or presentation can be very painful as well. Many corporations are still bound to hardcopy. Or even email attachments which then fill up email queues and require the recipient to spend time and energy to save the file and address reading, printing, and reviewing. I have utilized collaboration solutions in The-Web-Cloud arena, such as Google Docs, BaseCamp, and Central Desktop, and have been exposed to SlideShare (.net). There are many others surfacing as well.

If we dig deep enough, have the latitude in the corporate environment to pursue non-traditional options, and push ourselves outside our of comfort box, we can be leaders into new and better communications.

What are you using and doing to improve your communications?

Atanasoff - THE builder of the 1st computer

Jane Smiley has just recently completed the writing of a good biography of John Atanasoff.   While there have been other claimants of the creation of the very 1st computer (and possibly one of the most important inventions of modern times)  Atanasoff was indeed the 1st.   A tangled web of confusion was delays in the patent process, which was finally settled in the the courts in the 1970s.     One of the hidden gems of the story is that this all occurred in the midwest, at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.  Additionaly, I, an alum of ISU, took computer science classes in the building named after him many years ago.

Check out the BusinessWeek story on this at: http://bit.ly/8ZsHG4

A John Atanasoff website: http://www.johnatanasoff.com/

Find the book at Amazon.  It is now on my need-to-read book list: http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Invented-Computer-Biography/dp/0385527136

Question the Question

I recently read a blog which focused upon "Changing the Question".  The context related to a self analysis of life quandries.  Some self reflection should always look at WHY, the foundations of the question, and even WHY NOT.   

While well written, I found myself believing that this applies to a wider range of topics, such as daily business challenges, serious strategy sessions, and also project business requirements and project scope.   Too often we take a statement at face value.  While still respecting the original statement or dilemma, we owe it to be thorough.   Ask the tough questions --- Why, Why Not, what are your assumptions --- are they necessary or absoluty true, whose truths, what happens if we don't do anything, what happens if action is delayed, what are the costs, are there alternatives?  Simply put -- we need to challenge (question) the question.   

Laptops and Screws

We all know we live in such an amazing fast paced world. Technology is moving at such dramatic paces around us that we are now just taking it for granted. However...

Just a few days ago, a few critical keys on the keyboard of my laptop began to not function, or function erratically. It is amazing that 3 keys --- Backspace, Enter, and Spacebar, are so critical to overall functionality. I placed a call to the manufactor's Technical Support, and they assured me that a replacement keyboard would be ordered and available in just a few days. FYI -- warrantee coverage took care of the whole matter.

The technician arrived early this afternoon and replaced the keyboard in a timely manner. However, in order to do so, he more or less had to disassemble most of the laptop to get to the keyboard area. I'm sure he removed at least 60 or more screws, many of which of which appeared to me microscopic. Of course all components need to be held in place, but it struck me very odd that such a critical technological devise would have so many SCREWS!

My vision turned to the do it yourself assembly packages that we all have addressed.   Can you see the inventory packing list for a laptop:   1 hard drive, 1 monitor screen, 1 integration board, 1 shell casing, 1 keyboard, 1 power cord, and oh yes, 60 million-zillion screws.