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JOHO Mojo Dr. Weinberger left the country on a well-deserved vacation, but not before putting up another JOHO. Among his current mini-essays, this item puts into words some of the many creepy feelings I've had about Brands as expressions of Corporate Authenticity: As companies try to get past their habit of lying to their customers in the guise of marketing, some are struggling towards a notion of authentic conversation. But then they stub their authentic toe on the question of brands. A brand is, after all, an attempt to strangulate the conversation between customer and company. It attempts to reduce the conversation to a few words that we are supposed to associate with the product. We hear Volvo and we think safety. We hear Kodacolor and we think high quality film. We hear Charmin and we think of Mr. Whipple running his soft, supple hands across our naked bums. Or maybe that's just me. Worse, companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars to keep us from thinking of their product the way we want to. For example, when we hear "Kodacolor," we're actually supposed to think, "Warm, memorable family times," not "Chemical-soaked, light-sensitive cartridges for our cameras." And when we hear "Jell-O" we're supposed to think "Cute kids having fun," not "Gelatinous substance made from hooves and eaten by the sick and the toothless." Dig it. Lessons Just finished giving the opening keynote at the Pacific Northwest Digital Government Summit in Seattle. I wasn't sure I could offer much to government folks, but I really got into it. By the time I gave the talk, I was convinced that we're getting ready to see real democracy for the first time. To conference attendees visiting here to see what weblogs are all about (I talked up weblogs), welcome. And please check out the great Mother Lode of Weblogs that surround Dave Winer's Scripting.com and explore from there. Like I said in the keynote, I think Weblogs can do as much for the public sector — and civic life — as they are for publishing and other private businesses. I was invited to this event by Alan Cox of Government Technology. By searching for Alan by a misspelling ("Allen") I found that he had been involved (with both spellings) in the Doug Englebart Colloquium that I had helped plan (playing a regretably minor role) early this year. Turns out Doug used to work for Alan's dad at SRI. Lots of great stories there. Alan and I got talking about education. Turns out we agree about the social pathologies of compulsory schooling. (All that stuff we say about ancient markets in Cluetrain applies to education as well, I think.) Meditating on this possibility (here at United's Red Carpet Club at Sea-Tac airport), I just decided to look up John Taylor Gatto on the Web. Gatto is an educational pariah. I love him. A former New York State Teacher of the Year, he The sixth lesson I teach is provisional self-esteem. If you've ever tried to wrestle a kid into line whose parents have convinced him to believe they'll love him in spite of anything, you know how impossible it is to make self-confident spirits conform. Our world wouldn't survive a flood of confident people very long so I teach tha your self-respect should depend on expert opinion. My kids are constantly evaluated and judged. A monthly report, impressive in its precision, is sent into students' homes to signal approval or to mark exactly down to a single percentage point how dissatisfied with their children parents should be. The ecology of good schooling depends upon perpetuating dissatisfaction just as much as commercial economy depends on the same fertilizer. Although some people might be surprised how little time or reflection goes into making up these mathematical records, the cumulative weight of the objective-seeming documents establishes a profile of defect which compels a child to arrive at certain decisions about himself and his future based on the casual judgment of strangers. Self-evaluation, the staple of every major philosophical syste that ever appeared on the planet, is never a factor in these things. The lesson of report cards, grades, and tests is that children should not trust themselves or their parents, but need to rely on the evaluation of certified officials. People need to be told what they are worth. Strong stuff. I was never worth much to schools, so this stuff hits home with me. In fact, I was one of those kids who were convinced that my parents would love me in spite of anything; and I gave them many opportunities to prove it. Bravo for them. What kind of 'ster is this one? Following up on the July 2nd and 15th 'logs, Bruce Steinberg writes: I'm puzzled why there doesn't yet seem to be any apparent mention (let alone discussion) hereabouts on the AppleSoup announcement earlier this week regarding their development of a Napster-like system that proactively involves the artists in the control of (and compensation for) their music and other IP. Seems like a highly significant move and an inevitable balanced direction for the online distribution of music. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-2271387.html Thoughts, anyone? I'll hold mine until I have some. Meanwhile, it was interesting that to see a Macworld on the magazine stand a few minutes ago that invites — in big print — readers to stop bying CDs and "steal" (their word) music with Napster (a relatively recent Macintosh competence, apparently), with some lip-servicey small print about responsibly using the software. Ah, hype.
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