David W. Boles' WordPunk

Lapel Semiotics: The Problem with Obama Buttons

2008-08-19T12:38:55Z

Barack Obama, in an attempt to appeal to as many niche political groups as possible, has splintered his support so much that -- in the end -- there is no single coalition of minds that leads to results instead of mere yearning. Here is one of the lapel buttons for sale on his website:

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Here's the button for African Americans:

This "Asian Americans Pacific Islanders" button seems like an overdone, politically correct, joke -- until you realize each button costs a serious $3.00USD:

If you're Latino -- here's your button!

If you fought in a war, Obama has a button for you:

Female? Button? Youbetcha!

Independent? Not any longer... if you're with Obama!

Obama Republicans? Uh... sure... as if...

I don't understand why one button can't be used to unite all of us.

What's the point in this splintering and "niching" of American political interests?

If you stand for everything -- then you mean nothing -- and all these buttons speak to a scatter-shot philosophy of uniting and that's bad for America and really bad for Barack in November if we don't all cast away out self-interested buttons in favor of a single semiotic.

Here's my favorite Obama Button. It unites. It speaks to everyone in a single image:

Unfortunately, that great button is the last button on the last page of Barack buttons for buying -- and that's precisely what Barack Obama needs to fix within himself before he can even begin to fix us as a nation.

Bring us together.

Don't separate us by lapel semiotics.

What, and Who You Know: Take Two

2008-08-14T15:43:28Z

Indexed makes the following argument concerning the X and Y rise of what you know and who you know in Web 2.0:

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Is the idea too simple or is it overwhelmingly complex?

Are we redefining the meaning of "internetworking" every day?

The Order of Money

2008-08-12T14:08:41Z

Let's get one thing straight: There is one -- and ONLY ONE -- way to manage your money in your pocket or wallet.

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Rule One:
The faces of all denominations must be right side up with their eyes locking on yours.

Rule Two:
The lowest denomination is closest to you, followed by the next highest denomination and so on and so on and so on.

Those two simple rules may seem easy to extend, but you will be surprised how many people just jumble their money into pockets and purses without any reason or plan.

Money in disorder is harder to find when you want to spend it and tougher to manage when you want to count it.

Disordered money creates chaos.

The world is built on context and meaning and if you allow your money to wander undefined -- you will never really know how much money you have or how much money you have to owe.

sosASL.com for the Deaf

2008-08-07T12:13:13Z

Sometimes technology expands just enough to cogently clear the way for expanded communication opportunities.

When Janna and I created sosASL.com as a portal for emergency communication between the Deaf and fire, police and EMT first responders, we realized it would not have been possible to create the site without the rise of technology and its seeping into every niche of the American psyche.

]]> sosASL.com on any computer with an internet connection. That includes an iPhone, a Blackberry and many other internet-enabled cellular phones.

sosASL.com is clickable and steps you through an urgent conversation with the Deaf in an instant.

First responders can use the site to initiate a conversation with the Deaf, or a Deaf person can use the portal to facilitate emergency communication until a certified interpreter arrives on scene.

We invite you to visit sosASL.com and link it up to your site and then let your local emergency responders know the site exists to help ease cultural communication barriers that can quickly become the final terms for living or dying.

Minds On a Wire Reflect a Young Future

2008-08-05T15:29:06Z

We are all tethered to each other via pipes and wires -- but every growing day detaches us from deeper connections with the outside world -- and our mind-body dyad begins to melt in the soup of technology.

]]> Miracle Myth Memes" -- I wondered this in the comments stream:

I think communication will be "wirelessly mindless" in that bodies and hands won't matter -- from birth, we'll just telepathically communicate with each other which then means we won't need legs or arms to live and multiply. We'll just "think things" done and they will be done.

So the infirm elderly we see inactive, dead, and prone in bed are actually reflections from our young future.

We meet our ends through our present and that journey can be filled with hope and learning, or it can be dark and treacherous.

Technology is not a salve nor a savior -- but it can more quickly condemn than coddle -- and that is the hard lesson for us all in an expanding world: We are always vulnerable and never in control and to fail to accept that decaying of our immortal tenacity is the start of building a community for the thousand-year reign instead of the 250-year moment.

Online ASL: Learn It to Earn It

2008-07-31T17:48:50Z

Learning on the internet is a sensation that is growing every day. To meet the needs of new virtual learners the world over, Janna and I have created seven levels for studying American Sign Language online via our HardcoreASL.com portal.

]]> textbook and DVD, and one-on-one private teaching ratio, you can learn ASL in 21 weeks!

Compare 21 weeks to the 3.5 years most traditional "in-person" students would take to learn the same information -- and you can see you're getting a great value in a compressed bargain.

Our classes are not easy.

We challenge you to complete each level in 3 weeks -- other traditional students take 12 weeks to learn the same things.

We understand you are busy and we value your time and resources.

We look forward to working with you to learn American Sign Language as a foreign language and we are always here to serve your needs and to patronize your yearning for knowledge.

Bait and Switch: Google Makes Infants Cry

2008-07-24T11:44:46Z

Is the era of Google as the fresh-faced new kid on the block now over as it becomes more Evil Empire than Free Love?

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Parents who had been paying $1,425 a month for infant care would see their costs rise to nearly $2,500 -- well above the market rate. For parents with toddlers and preschoolers, who were charged less, the price increases were equally eye-popping. Under the new plan, parents with two kids in Google day care would most likely see their annual day care bill grow to more than $57,000 from around $33,000.

At the first of the three focus groups, parents wept openly. As word leaked out about the company's plan, the Google parents began to fight back. They came up with ideas to save money, used the company's T.G.I.F. sessions -- a weekly meeting for anyone who wanted to ask questions of Google's top executives -- to plead their case, and conducted surveys showing that most parents with children in Google day care would have to leave Google's facilities and find less expensive child care.

Do you think Google owes is current employees a large discount on child care if that perk is what lured them to the company?

Or is Google allowed, by the trenchant demands of a volatile marketplace, to practice bait-and-switch ploys to keep the bottom line committed to profitability against any higher human price?

If what once made Google super-special in the first place is replaced with ordinariness and dulled expectation, is Google able to remain the hot, wanna-work-there, oasis in a dark and dank world?

The Community of Citizenry and City Censorship

2008-07-22T10:32:40Z

Should cities be in the business of drawing lines in the sand between what is free speech and what is not? Or should the public -- the community of citizenry -- be the overlord of deciding what is and what is not acceptable conduct in the public square?

]]> Does Assassination Art Hate or Heal? -- I wondered on the topic of the New York Police Department shutting down a public expression of True Art that was decidedly unpopular and, perhaps, even craven and in bad taste.

Must True Art be acceptable to the mainstream in order to be heard?

Here's what I argued in the comments for that article:

To preempt the necessary voice of the people only makes the people more suspicious of the strong fist of the government instead of the open hand of the misguided artist.

What do you think?

Does the City own the right to mandate what is and is not to be heard and tolerated in the public square as free speech or not?

What is the danger of letting the citizenry decide what is and is not acceptable for expression within the urban core?

Year One on Google Apps

2008-07-15T12:24:40Z

I was recently charged for a second year's subscription to the Premier Edition of Google Apps and that event brought me to a meandering consideration if the punch is still worth the purchase price.

]]> big fan of Google Apps, but business and expectation must always move forward and in looking back at year one on Google Apps, there are some stinging disappointments and some hoped-for future fixes.

My biggest complaint is sometimes email goes missing. I know I sent a reply but it never shows up on the other end. Sometimes people send me important documents that never arrive. Those messages are not caught in my severe Spam filters -- I check and clean them daily -- they just never arrive. Since email is the basis of my Boles University enterprise, it stings when silence fills niches instead of sent information.

I also live by -- and die for -- the Calendar App and it regularly barfs on me with error messages. I have lost days of work and appointments due to timeouts and "loading" times that can take all day. One day my calendar server completely died and when I contacted Google for a fix, they fixed it, but they didn't explain why they didn't catch the server failure until my data was forever lost. The arrogance of the Google support reply left a bitter aftertaste because the person I was trying to convince of my point: If Google monitors server health and sees a server is failing, they should proactively move that server out of live rotation instead of waiting for it to irreparably fail -- was purposefully misconstruing my argument. Experiences like that breed hatred and despise for a product.

Google Docs is also unreliable. It is tempting to move all your local Docs to the Google cloud, but I often get timeouts and errors that make serious use of the product an exercise in whimsy and not one of business practicality. There's nothing worse then working on deadline and having an unpredictable and unreliable product like Google Docs deciding if you sink or swim based on the behavior of their servers. I have one Doc I edited "offline" and even thought I've edited it several times "online" the file is still pocked with the "edited offline" label that just won't go away. If that is a design choice -- it makes no sense. If it's a mistake, it needs to be fixed.

Finally, the Sites product is entirely wanting. It could be a great collaboration competitor for Basecamp but it is really only built for children and ponies and not serious business work. Sites is not a comprehensive Wiki product even though it could be based on its provenance. The promise is there, but entirely undelivered.

Google Apps is still a great idea, but it must begin to exponentially grow with the ongoing needs of an expanding business community.

We should also get much more specialized features on the Premier Edition than we do because we pay so much more but get so little in exchange. We should have 100% more features than the .EDU or free versions. We do not. That basic fact must change if Google ever hopes to rope us in to future years of paid service.

Investing in Key People, Not in Pet Projects

2008-06-26T18:34:19Z

Why do so many large businesses forget that people are the key to creating projects that find success and resonance in the marketplace?

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The failure of the manager's pet is never the manager's fault -- the blame is always spread around to affect each of those living under the manager's thumb.

That false blaming becomes a virus that negatively affects the entire workforce and the only way to remedy the cause is to cure the body politic with the death of the infected manager.

Few upper-level managers are able to see -- let alone act -- upon the necessary, surgical, removal of the failed manager, and that leads to a creeping, gangrenous death oozing puss that taints the workplace and poisons the marketplace.

Key people are smart by definition and they see this stench of death before it begins to fester and they quickly turn and race for the nearest exit.

As Justice Must Be Done

2008-06-24T14:13:34Z

Is there such a thing as "Justice" in the world? Or is justice just the excuse we use to impel our will on the world?

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We become metered in a cyclone that rotates between misdeed, misjudgment and corporal teaching that bleeds before scarring.

We use the robes of justice to veil our eyes to the indiscriminate prejudice against those not in power -- but who are forever useful to the powerful -- and we wrap our wishes in the flag and tie in evergreen glad tidings to make us feel less barbaric and to excuse, while condoning, the revulsion of our mythical memes against the damnation of our undivine efforts.

Are We Required to Kill Our Children?

2008-06-19T13:33:50Z

As socialized people -- are we required by the laws of man and by our covenant with the Gods -- to kill our children in order to prove we are willing to preserve the greater good?

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There will always the insane that seek revenge in the blood of innocents -- but what if your child had a severe infection that would kill the entire community and the only way to heal the city and clean the earth was to cleave your child's head from the body?

We sacrifice our children every day.

We offer them to drug lords for monetizing.

We offer them to predators for sexual satisfaction.

We offer our children to ignorance and truculence -- and their ultimate slaughter -- by limiting their minds to predestiny dogma and by instilling in them irrational fears of ethereal forces.

Even if those children aren't your children - they are still your congenital, community, offspring.

So the only possible answer to the question, "Will you kill your children to save the rest of us?" is, "Of course, I will kill my children, because I am a loving member of the state and my child is not above the best interests of the society that sustains me."

Is that vow we are required to make to each other somewhat dimmed with the bright news of cloned children? "Yes, I'll kill this kid and have a duplicate made."

Have science and technology -- once again -- trumped the will of the ultimate human gesture by dulling the dangerous wager we are required to seal with each other that no one is above the wants of the community whole?

Can Capitalism Survive Us?

2008-06-17T14:30:58Z

Are we able to survive the perils of Capitalism?

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Too many people over the last generation or two believe Capitalism means survival without pain, progress without retribution and longing without damaging aftereffect.

True Capitalism is only earned in scars and the loss of blood.

If we are to sustain a vibrant economy, we must be aware of, and accept, the pendulum swinging above us like the hangman's axe.

Capitalism coerces the worst in us to provide a spiteful profit -- and the suffering of the many for the benefit of a few is the escape clause we all signed at birth with a forward footprint - but none of us really understood in the forbearance of the mature mind.

How to Kill a Joke: Did You Bring a Towel?

2008-06-10T15:16:31Z

Today I will give you a perfect example of: "How to Kill a Joke."

Bring a towel.

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There were the usual producer crises and daily hatreds between creative elements.

One person who had been hired to "get the word out" about the show was not doing her job.

There was a massive meeting called in the theatre for all the behind-the-scenes power people to directly confront her and address her inadequacies and to try to find a resolution that would help her keep her job.

The meeting was not expected to go well.

Early the next morning, the woman, surrounded by men, tried to defend her behavior, but it wasn't going well and even from my distant vantage point a the back of the theatre lobby I could see her taking invisible -- but deserved -- body blows.

One of the many young producers' assistants entered the theatre and stood next to me in the lobby. His boss hadn't arrived at the meeting yet, so he decided to stand with me to wait for him. We always a good laugh together based on our humble stations.

My friend asked me how it was going and, and men often do, I tried to crack a joke -- by answering him with a question:

ME: Did you bring a towel?

FRIEND: Why would I bring a towel?

ME: To wipe up the blood.

He laughed. I laughed. He punched me in the arm. I pushed him in the shoulder. It was a great bonding moment between boys.

Then his producer boss walked in the theatre.

My friend raced to his boss, still tethered in giggles, and said, "Boles wants us to bring a towel to wipe up her blood!"

He continued to laugh.

His boss shot me a deadly look.

My alleged friend stopped giggling.

His boss motioned for him to follow him into the meeting.

My former friend shot me a barely-wounding look as he tried to imitate his boss' effective Glare-of-Death.

It was then I learned to preface all private joke attempts with the phrase -- "This is between us..." -- so I would at least have a tiny moral tether for hanging onto above the nasty fray that happens when a joke poorly re-told bleeds all of your earned goodwill to death.

Books are Written for Buying

2008-06-05T13:45:40Z

Books are written for purchasing and forever saving.

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We must avoid "book renter" websites at all costs. While they claim to save us money, they actually diminish us as a culture of connections.

Do not sell your books. You cannot place a value on associated learning.

Buy your books, be them on paper, or in a Kindle or of an electronic file -- and cherish them always near you by centering them forever between your mind and gut in the middle of your heart.