I was watching CNN Europe's election coverage. And one of the two anchors mentioned the fact that only one third of Americans eligible to vote, registered and voted, in the election just passed. And thinking that over, that strikes me as the most salient point about the last two elections, and the condition of American democracy. It no longer exists—-even if it does in principal! It is only a facade. Let’s face it, a one-party country can no longer be called a democracy.
The real fact is, America has developed a new hybrid system, a cross between Democracy and Corpocracy. The politicians of both parties do a better and more effective job representing the interest of large corporations then they do the interest of the people at large.
Two thirds of American citizens, obviously feel their vote is meaningless and no matter how they cast it, it will only serve to elect public servants serving other masters then themselves.
The perceptual reality for those politically disenfranchised Americans is that both parties— for all purposes—are the same party; whether, the candidates call themselves Democrats or Republicans. Candidates from either party, though they may wear different hats and party buttons are all serving the interest of their masters the Corporate/Financial/Industrial troika who pay the biggest share for them to be elected. And for that, they serve their masters well.
However when public outrage becomes too great, the politicians step in to mediate some issues, between their pay masters (the troika) and their purported constituents who voted for them. The outcome always seems to be a compromise, but is usually so full of loop holes and amendments, that the pay masters, not the people, end up reaping even greater benefits, than before.
It's all a virtual political drama woven around a virtual two party system. Do you think that's crazy description? Do you think that is just leftist noodle head malarkey? Well, I'll bet you, at least two thirds of the two thirds, of those eligible to vote, dropped out from voting because they see it that way!
So what's obvious from this distance, is that the difference in choices offered by both parties is so minimal and cosmetic that pragmatically America has one party with two branches.
The Democrats are the centralist right branch of the Corpratic Party, and the Republicans are right of the centralist right, with some members of both branches overlapping both in the centralist right direction, all the way to the far, far, right direction. True liberals, are almost non existent anymore in the Democratic branch, and if they exist in the Republican branch they must be invisible persons.
In both branches it is difficult if not impossible to be both a philosophical humanist and a fiscal conservative. Pragmatically they contradict each other. For, so much of the tax payers' money is being allocated for welfare payments to the super rich, and corporations, that their seems to be little left over for social services that benefit the average American citizen, who are getting poorer and poorer with each ensuing generation.
One can't help but wonder if the 21 century, with its brutal downsizing solutions to poor corporate management, is heralding in the creation of an overworked working class , and a new servant class American version of Upstairs Downstairs in service to the upper economic class of the American Empire.
Good Guy—Bad Guy?
It’s like a psychedelic version of good guy—bad guy, with blurry morphing boundaries. The Democrats play the good guys, compassionate and caring for the underdogs, their emphasis is on the fair society, with a kinder and wider distribution of the bounties springing out of a capitalistic economy. The Republican branch vies for votes by playing to greed, fear, self-righteousness, desire for order, hunger for security, the macho (why shouldn’t you play with guns boys and girls, gun are not the serial killers out there, madmen are). They represent the unfortunate, abused rich who are being stolen from by lazy, whining, discontents who are always busy trying to wheedle money out of the government, as if the corporations are not.
The Politicians
Our politicians in general are drawn from the pool of people qualified for being included in a book titled Profiles in Cowardice. They talk in circumlocutions sprinkled with key words like “pro-life”, or “women’s right to chose.” However they are terrified of freaking out, or even disturbing the thirty three percent of the population that do vote. So they end up trying to win office by slandering each other, accumulating enough money to overcome their opponents in the race to get their non-messages across.
Those who do vote seemed to be a totally polarized of group of nearly even numbers. To win a race you have to garner some votes out of the other guys party, while keeping your votes. So the name of the game becomes getting out your vote.That takes organization, and organizers are by nature cautious and non-visionary.
If this sounds cynical to you it is! But the cynicism is not mine it springs forth from the politician's own actions and their their parties, the two branches of the Corpocratic Party.
So the democrats present themselves as reform humanist, and fiscal conservatives, and the Republican’s present themselves as compassionate conservatives. Strangely enough both images give credence to the portrayals of each party by the other, but suggest, those days are over, we have learned our lessons. Anyway the point is there are only minor differences in their platforms; therefore, both sides try to wheedle votes by pointing out that those minor differences will have a major effect on peoples lives
Two Thirds of the Voters see The Emperor’s are Naked—or Vapid
No choice! Why vote? People pained by always having to choose between the lesser of two evils, have dropped out of voting. Are all Sixty Six and a Third Percent, lazy, uninformed, disinterested, irresponsible, as the politicians and the media paint them, or are they just actualizing the powerlessness of their true situation.
The Cowardly Democratic Branch of the Corpratic Party only validated the decision of the non-voters in the last election. It wasn’t the coattails of the president, his magnificent oratory style, and his popularity that created the coup d'état on the part of the Republican bloc of the unified Corpratic Party. It was the exaggerated lack of courage, shown by the Democratic candidates.
Let’s face it; any Democrat who either wasn’t a little coward or sycophant had a fantastic chance to bring home the bacon last Friday but they blew it.
They had a whole range of topics to bring to the attention of the public which they could promise to take on if elected: The weakening of the economy, the coming war with Iraq, the difficulty of young working families to buy homes caused by over inflated real estate prices, the rising cost of rentals leading to a whole new group of homeless, corporate corruption, regulatory agencies helping to cover up corporate corruption by appointing a regulator who has loyalty ties to one of the major disclosed corrupt corporations, hunger increasing in America, an energy policy constructed by the oil industry, unnecessary down sizing of companies, the enormous cost of drugs, health insurance and on, and on. Where did the give them hell Democrat go to? Those are issues many of those two thirds who don’t vote want to hear about. They hunger to hear from candidates who really represent the interest of ordinary individuals and families rather than powerful lobbies.
Those who think they have political savy say tackling those issues, honestly, with passion, and flat out honesty, can’t get you elected. That was disproved by Jesse Ventura, and the late Senator Paul Wellstone.
One last note, I have lived in the Netherlands the last fifteen years, and never in that fifteen year was I disparaged for being an American. Post Bush Jr., stating my nationality causes distaste if not out and out scorn to be heaped on me and my fellow expatriates, that is truly tragic. And it was with foreign policy issues; security and post Sept. 11th fear mongering, that Bush upstaged the cowardly Democrats. Those play-it-safe candidates let Dick Cheney's front-manGeorge W. distract them from the real issues the public is more concerned with.
So why don’t all you cowardly Democrats join the Republican Party, and make the situation manifest. Then maybe some brave souls who truly want to represent the American people, will form a real second party, and will give those Corpocrats hell.
Otherwise you Democrats, the Republican are planning to use post September 11th, for the remainder of the century to keep you cowardly souls off balance. Why not really take up the mantle of the good guys; you have seen what you have to lose if you don’t. And you might even get way over a majority of eligible voters to vote if you do.
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I’m going to try to make this a five day a week column, but I might miss a day now and then. If you are smart or not so smart you will solicit my advice—it’s free… You are also invited to send me your criticism, or you can contribute your own material for publication--just post it above in the Forum Box. Tune in tomorrow…and check out Marvel Place http://www.marvelplace.20fr.com and if you would like to link up to either Marvel Place or http://HodgepodgeBlog.blogspot.com Also, you can now link to this website by using my new quick redirect URL: http://clik.to/BernardDovWisser I sure appreciate your interest and would love your participation..
And don't ask me how the subject of this column came to mind because that I don't want to tell you. However, I will tell you that once upon a time in the Grooving 60's, I was a psychotherapist, and taught an undergraduate course titled the Psychology of Adjustment at the University of Florida as a teaching assistant. But that was before I turned on, tuned in and dropped out; which did not make my mother overjoyed.
Anyway, around that time after moving to NYC I had a patient who was a major account director at one of the largest international Ad Agencies in the World. She was such a hot-shot that the Advertising Club gave her an award and a testimonial for the work she did for a large Airline Account.
And that was a fabulous accomplishment, considering the year before she had a nervous breakdown, and had been committed to a stay in a ‘therapeutic community,’ after running down Madison Avenue stark naked, donned only in a sable stole. Before being released she spent six months as an inpatient there, and was put on a anti-depressive drug regime. Finally, after learning to say, what her therapist rewarded her for saying, with his nods and excited eye gleams when she mouthed the right phrases she was discharged.
I don't remember the circumstance, but one of my ex-clients told her she knew of this fantastic alternative, hippy therapist (me) who was a miracle worker. By-the-way when she was my client, the women who referred me to her friend had been delusional. Anyway the account director became a client of mine. My brother Jack says only people who weren’t in there right mind would have made me their therapist. I think he's only kidding when he says that..
Back to the Testimonial…
Well, came the night of the testimonial dinner, my client froze just short of catatonic (look it up). Her husband, a well known person in his own right, had to select something for her to wear, because she had been standing in front of her evening clothes closet for an hour, totally perplexed and unable to make a choice.
At the event, she couldn’t answer questions, or hold a conversation with anyone. Lucky they had arrived late, missing the dinner, and showed up just in time for the presentation. Therefore, there was not much time for greetings.You see, she had been so frozen at home that her poor husband not only had to dress her, he practically had to carry her down to their limousine.
Anyway, when her name was called out, she got up from her chair on the stage, and stood stifflly in place for a minute (that seemed like an eternity) as if someone had shut her switch down. Everyone in the audience— according to her husband—seemed both touched and taken aback by that. Suddenly, she walked to the podium and took the proffered statue from the master of ceremony.
The usual ritual was for the awardees to make a speech thanking the club for their recognition, and emphasizing the award really should have gone to their whole creative team; followed, by thanking each of them individually. However, my client looked at the audience with a blank look on her face and said, “Thank You!” Then she did an about face walked to her chair on the stage, sat down and just stared at statue.
The audience was stunned, until some longhaired yuppie stood up, cried out, Wow! Far Out! He started applauding and bravo-ing in a slow cadence. It was then the whole audience-- at once--seemed to grasp the young man’s meaning as being, the strange behavior they had all just witnessed, came just part and parcel, along with her genius. Awed, they all joined the young man in standing up and yelling bravo.
Apologizing profusely, that his kid sister was in the process of delivering a baby in the local maternity ward, and he and his wife had given their solemn oath to be there, my client’s husband scooped her away from the admiring and terrifying throng, saving her from going through the after-presentation ritual, and totally giving away her condition.
A week later after intensive crisis therapy with me, my client stopped talking with a thick tongue and moving like she had been shot up with a Smack and Thorazine cocktail; however, she still could not bring herself to go to work at the agency.
Seating us down, I initiated the session with, “You really freaked out about having that dinner and award presented to you—how come?
She said she was embarrassed to face the audience because she knew she wasn’t "worthy" of their respect.’ I asked her to specify why she wasn’t worthy. That really seemed to throw her.
She struggled to find a reason why she was unworthy, and finally squeaked out, “because I ran down Madison Avenue in my birthday suit.” I asked her if she had thought she was unworthy before running down the avenue with her boobies bobbing along. Puzzled she hesitated a long time as if trying to remember, then said the reason she removed her clothes was that she feel unworthy of wearing such finery.
I removed a piece of white paper from my Epson Printer, and wrote on the top “Reasons I am unworthy (Bad).” “Okay,” I said, “write down, "I am unworthy because I ran down Madison Avenue Naked and that was because I felt too unworthy to wear clothes. She laughed and kept laughing as she wrote that. I made the observation that was not only a circular statement; it sounded a little like a double jeopardy situation. "Will you tell me some more reasons you are unworthy?" I continued. Again she struggled mentally to find a reason, Finally she blurted out, “I make boring speeches”. Feigning surprise I said, “You mean you went into a near catatonic panic, and felt unworthy of being awarded a prize because you make boring speeches—write that one down.” Again she wrote it down laughing the whole time, and observing that it sounded ridiculous.
Then I listed a bunch of negative qualities, one at a time: e.g. being a thief, hostile, mean, etc…and asked her if any of them described her. She said no to all of them. “So only those two things make you unworthwhile?” She started Laughing and actually beamed. So I said, “you can’t list one good reason for feeling unworthy, but you have been feeling that for a long time is that right? She was startled and said yes she had been feeling that way a very long time.
I then asked her, if in the past when attending a friend’s award dinner, did she have any reservations about attending it because she thought her friend an unworthy person. “Of course not,” she responded and again broke out laughing. She then said she had thought many of those coming to the testimonial came to be a support to her and that’s why she was also awarded the prize, and for her that was terrible because she felt unworthy of such kindness.
I asked. What would make you a worthy person, worthy of their respect?"
"Are you creative?"
She hardly could get the words out, but said, "...not all the time.." but she had a good creative team.'' I asked if she was a good team leader. She said she let them down by running down the avenue naked and by getting sick. I asked if she was considerate of the members of her team and other people also. And she answered maybe not enough. Are you generous? "What’s generous," she asked. I said it was something like, giving her ex-husband money for a few months to hold him over until he could readjust things to his new economic situation. She said yes but maybe I caused him pain and possibly that angered him. I asked her if she was kind, and her answer was something like not all the time.
I asked her if she was altruistic, often putting the interest of others above her own. She stammered, that maybe, she did not do that enough…and so on.
I asked her then to write down a list of worthy human qualities. I asked her if I had done the same thing that you did for your husband with my ex-wife and was glad to do it, volunteered to do it, would she think I was generous. She said of course. I went down that list and turned it around to me and in each instant she gave me an affirmative answer about myself without hesitation.
I pointed out that when I applied those things to myself she could firmly say I possessed all those qualities without reservation or hesitation, and she couldn’t with herself, yet she couldn’t give me one realistic reason why she was unworthy and yet still applied that description to herself. I aknowledged, I thought that was strange, and wondered why. A long period passed and she sat there looking befuddled but admitted she also thought it strange.
A Very Strange Insight!
I told my client that the situation reminded of an insight I had years ago and it was some thing I wanted to share with her. Moreover it is something I want to share with ALL OF YOU.
THE INSIGHT!
So now I will tell it to you! Years ago when I was a student I read something by Carl Rodgers, the client-centered therapist, and theorist in which he happened to note that once when conducting a clinical research project, he asked his clients if he could tape a session with each of them, for a research project, that would be heard by other psychologist. All of his patients had consented.
On hearing the ensuing tapes Roger was struck by the fact each of his patients had spilled out much more pathology in the taped session, than any previous sessions and talked more about what they thought were their negative qualities than they ever did in a normal session. However, Rodgers did not form any hypothesis about that observation, he just left it at reporting it.
I found that very strange. For it hit me when being overheard by strangers, what Rodgers clients were strangely less defensive about, was their negative qualities, and pathology rather than their healthy behavior, normality, and positive qualities. In fact it was almost as if they were using their pathology to distract their own and other people’s attention away from their healthy selves.
It hit me, if that was the case, maybe people’s suffer more pain, anxiety, fear, etc, about content linked with their positive sides, their healthy self, and positive qualities than their pathological behavior and negative characteristics.
One certainly wouldn’t expect that, but if that was the case what could be its cause I wondered?
The answer popped into my mind out of the blue, in sort of an Aha-Experience! A universe in which you can get punished, brutalized, assaulted, molested, raped, rejected or isolated for being a sinner, bad, inept, stupid, insensitive, disobedient, is pretty frightening but a heck of a lot less frightening then one in which those types of suffering could be inflicted upon you, if you acted like an angel, was compassionate, kind, generous, cooperative, trustworthy, sensitive, bright, enthusiastic, self confident, etc. So much more frightening, in fact, that we would rather focus our attention on what’s sick in us and sinful in us, for fear of having to realize we live in a world where we can be terribly punished even being good, or while being innocent, harmless, and a source of joy to others. Get it? That would hurt even more!
And that’s right. It is a true fact about our universe. It’s one side of Reality. Many innocents are made to suffer terribly as are many other wonderful human beings. But if that causes us to focus on the negative sides of our selves, makes us feel fearful we're going to get it, because we are unworthy, than we lose all the beauty, and joy, and regenerating effects, our wonderful characteristics offer us when we put that type of positive energy out into the world. If fear of being a victim causes us to distract ourselves from our goodness, than we amplify that real negative fact about Reality, and the world we live in.
As soon as I finished stating that idea, my client jumped up and said I want to write that down. I have to remember that! I believe somehow, that insight contributed to the breakthrough that ensued for my client who now feels like a worthwhile human being and woman. I hope it may do the same for some of you out there,
Blessings from me.
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I’m going to try to make this a five day a week column, but I might miss a day now and then. If you are smart or not so smart you will solicit my advice—it’s free… You are also invited to send me your criticism, or you can contribute your own material for publication--just post it above in the Forum Box. Tune in tomorrow…and check out Marvel Place http://www.marvelplace.20fr.com and if you would like to link up to either Marvel Place or http://HodgepodgeBlog.blogspot.com Also, you can now link to this website by using my new quick redirect URL: http://clik.to/BernardDovWisser I sure appreciate your interest and would love your participation..
SUGGESTIONS FOR NEW WAVE PRODUCTS YOU CAN WORK WITHOUT HAVING TO GO TO THE HANDBOOK TO PROGRAM!
"They're crazy, kooky, out of their heads--they have scrambled oatmeal in their craniums," I said to someone (don’t ask me who) upon hearing and reading articles on 3G (third generation mobile phones) a couple of years ago. Ask yourself do you really want a new mobile phone that will cost you 3 times as much as yours and cost a lot more per minute just because it is a cool idea?
Check this out, last year Motorola showed a 3G phone called the A820. It was like "Clark Kent Phone," after spinning around at the speed of light and becoming Superphone!. No doubt it wasn’t only cool--it was super cool. Catch this, it even made phone calls while doing loads of super other thing like: connecting to the internet; sending videos and still photos via a multi-media messenger; and with it, you could Animate Graphics, and customize its apps and games, which I am sure you would want to do while in a business conference, board meeting, or having a romantic lunch with a luscious partner, who gets sexually excited by dates who can afford a Motorola A820. Salivation time—The A820 even had a MP3 player that could download assortments of sounds for your feedback tones. However, here’s what really brought it up to Mount Olympus tech levels: it had its own video camera and a Global Positioning System that I guess--in case you forgot on what part of the bulky phone the video camera was attached to—allowed you to request the GPS to find its location.
And gee whiz, with no added software, you could send those videos (if you could find any friend who had a 3G to receive them) at the rate of 2.4 megabits per seconds. Boy! The nerd team that worked on that must have been having virtual orgasms daily and in the early morning hours when working to make it into a real product.
The only problem was there was no market out there to make it profitable to mass-produce. And dig this, three G companies like Nokia and others paid out billions to purchase frequencies to use in each industrial country before they ascertained there was a market for the gadget. Hence they did not have the capital or the chutzpa necessary to build the huge networks and infrastructure the gold plated frequencies required.
Remember I said bulky well, theA820 was definitely larger at 5.3 x 2.1 x .95 in., and 5.5 ounces than the predecessors.
DUMB, DUMB, DUMB, DUMB, DUMB!
But if you think that’s dumb let’s switch to insane!
About three ago ears ago, a lovely female friend of mine, gave me her Sony Sound System which was a high quality one with great speakers, a tuner, CD player, cassette player, and a turntable. By the way they were all separate units jacked into each other. Her stated reason for laying that prize acquisition on me was her CD player had stopped working; but, I suspect the fact that its appearance was no longer modish had a bit to do with her decision to replace it. So, she replaced my gift with a new sleek small and light digital music system all integrated into one light weight plastic unit. Alas, my hand-me-down was still enveloped in strong outdated metal cases.
With her new system my friend also acquired a thick handbook that was full of errors. After spending hours circumventing the errors, after figuring out they must be erroneous instructions, and then tripping her way into the correct proceedures, my friend succeeded in programming her system. She then inserted a CD in the player and had to spend another couple of hour trying to figure out the book’s instructions on how to program a CD to play the numbers you wished to play, and the order you wished to play them in--finally, she was able to play a CD. To tell you the truth I preferred the sound on my hand-me-down Sony. Still, the sound on her system was very good and in some indescribable way had more dimensionality than her old one, while sounding more synthetic. I could tell my friend wasn’t blown away by its quality but was overjoyed that she could play CD’s once again.
Back at my placed I messed around with her old CD for a couple days and couldn’t get it to work anymore. So I bought a very inexpensive “box”; which I sure couldn’t call it a “sound blaster.” But it had a CD player which I jacked into her into her tuner and lo and behold incredible CD sound. I still thank you my dear.
Shortly after that, the lady in question who in the interim period brought her deathly sick father into her home to nurse and take care of him, was relieved from her Daddy-Sitting chores by her younger kind but zany sister just so my friend could get away a few hours to walk in nature. Before leaving, my friend told her sister to leave the CD player alone, because it was really complex and she could foul it up. The Sister promised not to touch it. Good luck, that was like telling a child not to play with matches while you are away from home.
Two days later while I was present she tried to play a CD, and couldn’t do it. It wouldn’t play it. We immediately figured her sister had tried to work it. With much effort time we got it to play. But it would play only one number at a time and stop. My friend, her two grown sons and myself, tried to get her CD program on track again. Each of us checked out the handbook time and time again to no avail. So now, my friend is once again stuck with a sound system with a broken CD player, which she purchased to replace the sound system she gave to me because it had a broken CD player.
PHEWY, PHEWY, PHEWY, PHEWY, PHEWY,
Another Horror Story!
Last February while visiting my nephew in Florida he asked me if I would like to have a Palm m100 Handheld Series personal assistant or secretary or whatever the current term for those devices are. It seems he read their 42-page handbook on how to set it up and configure it and couldn’t complete even the first required step of setting the time and date, after laboring at it for three days. Since it was given him as an added bonus (they should have said boner) for buying another digital device of some sort there was no returning the Palm. Since he had only started playing with computers a month earlier, I the battle-scarred veteran of seven years said I would set it up for him. After losing a half a day of my vacation attempting what now appears to have been the impossible, I said I would bring it home to Holland with me and do it. He told me to keep it—don’t bother sending it back. Again, back home again, over a 3 day period I tried and tried to complete the first step in configuring the darn thing. I tried following the instructions, which seemed to be translated from the 11th dimension version of Nerd World Martian, so you can understand why they were no help.
No success! Then I read the instructions on how to interface the Palm with my computer which in my mind was a completely irrational step to attempt. Therefore I decided to do it. For, it has been my experience with those rational devices that the irrational solution is often that one that works; and, you never know why. Unfortunately, in that case I was wrong. I crashed my whole system, and had to reformat my hard disc and reinstall my Operating system before I could get my good old PC working again. No more will be said about that fiasco.
Maybe I’m getting old, but I cannot for the life of me understand why a company of that reputation upon completing a handbook for a new product, cannot spend a few pennies to round up 100 people of all sorts, of ages, education etc., put the book in front of them and then note whether they can complete each task in the instruction book And then pinpointing the instructions that have a low scores rewrite them until each task can be performed by (let’s say) 90% of people who read the book.
Bah, digital!
FINALLY! AFFIRMATION—IT’S NOT JUST US DUMMIES…
Call me a plagiarist, “Bernard the plagiarist” because I think I read about this in an article appearing in the New York Times, a few months ago, and I sure can’t remember who the author is. I looked in the Times’ archive, and all over the web but I can’t find the article—so sue me! If you are the author, mucho gracias for your swell article, and please post yourself a credit on the bottom of this page in the forum and get me off the plagiarist’s hook.
Okay, so this article told a horror story about a woman who bought the latest high grade state of the art very expensive digital oven. I don’t know if it ironed her clothes or not, or took videos which could be uploaded over the web; but, it did about any you can think of an oven doing, with the proper programming of course. Unfortunately—and you will see why I say unfortunately, in a second—her guarantee had just run out.
Get ready for this. This is like a ludicrous bad dream. She was throwing a dinner party , and while her guests were sitting around the table she went to warm something up or prepare a dish in her Super Oven and accidentally pushed the wrong finger-tip control while programming it. Well that little mistake threw the program completely off track and she couldn’t get her high priced, honey of an oven to work at all. Although it was a state of the art oven, there was no “undo last action” button to be seen anywhere on the appliances shell.
No problem; for, sitting around this woman’s table was her hubby an electronic engineer and computer scientist, with a bunch of his colleagues, all engineers or computer scientists and all grand master nerds.
Embarrassed, she entered the dining room, and spilled out her tale of woe to her convenient troubleshooters. They all laughed confidently, in a patronizing manner and asked to see the owner’s manual. After going over the schematics in the manual and scanning the instructions they were ready for action. Enthusiastically they stormed en masse into the kitchen to correct the mishap, hours later, having failed, the guest shamefully bid, their equally shamed host, and his distraught wife, goodnight. Moreover, at the time I read the article the oven had never worked again.
And the IT Digital sector of the marketplace, wonders why the high tech junk they produce aren’t glutting them in profits, rather than losses.
So Do You Want To Become Another Bill Gates? ITS SIMPLE!
I’m giving it away FREE, mainly because I will never do it myself, and If I wanted to I wouldn’t even know how to go about it. Here it is--start a company called SIMPLE: Then simply hire a group of engineers to design a bunch of simple appliances that just do the most basic things that type of appliance is expected to do. Keep the programming down to a minimum. And make sure within a few practice sessions, the buyer could do any of the programming the appliance requires without having to follow the owner’s manual step by step with each usage.
A great example of that is my Canon Ixus digital camera—it is really simple to operate and takes high quality pictures, once you understand how to do each step from the owners manual you will probably never have to go back to it. Unfortunately the manual is much harder to understand than working the camera, but not nearly as bad as most other manuals I have had to use. But it didn't matter to me, because the icons and the whole camera design is highly intuitive, except for the insane Zoom Browser upload to your PC program provided with my Ixon—it can be suicidal to use, I advise avoid using the Zoom Browser.
So that is the second part of the picture. Make sure your instruction manuals are easy to follow. And three make sure peripheral programs you provide are as simple as your product and its manual. Simple guys and gal like myself loved it when you could turn your car radio dial to a station you liked, pull one of the button outward and then push it all the way in. Amazing, From then on it was programmed to that station—but that was in the good old analog days….I have news for you the market for that type of product is bigger than for products that do ten zillion things other than its basic purpose.
That’s it kids…MAKE YOURSELF BILLIONS—and I’ll start consuming again; instead of, keeping the products I figured out how to use, until they fall apart. Oh yeah, when you do market research skip the teens and the nerds unless you want to make a product only for that market. There are more of us then them
Adios from simple Bernard
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I’m going to try to make this a five day a week column, but I might miss a day now and then. If you are smart or not so smart you will solicit my advice—it’s free… You are also invited to send me your criticism, or you can contribute your own material for publication--just post it above in the Forum Box. Tune in tomorrow…and check out Marvel Place http://www.marvelplace.20fr.com and if you would like to link up to either Marvel Place or http://HodgepodgeBlog.blogspot.com Also, you can now link to this website by using my new quick redirect URL: http://clik.to/BernardDovWisser I sure appreciate your interest and would love your participation..
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