a democratic republic -- a federal or constitutional republic. there's nothing democratic about the USA.
On Friday, January 22, 2016 at 11:44:20 AM UTC-6, Travis wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > https://medium.com/@cjoh/the-law-everyone-should-hate-f9dd8cc16fc7#.45kazvyfk > The Law Everyone Should Hate > > Let’s say you ran one of the Fortune 10 companies. And for some reason, > you wanted to ensure that this business would be hated by its customers, > forever. What would you do? > > Now the obvious thing to do would be to do something poisonous to your > product — to somehow make it dangerous or deadly. Add lead to the toys. Put > the spark plugs next to the gas tank. Put mercury in the sausage. But > that’s the stuff that makes for short term catastrophes that could end your > business, not long term contempt that’ll keep your business hated, but > still keep you in business. You want to run this like a cable company, not > ValueJet. > > No, for long term contempt, you need stuff that nobody notices. Stuff that > can stick around in your organization forever and not be corrected because > it’s long been forgotten. This is a problem that can’t be solved with such > sophomoric thinking as just accidentally running over some children with > your trucking business. You need to bring in the experts at this: the > “corporate policy” people. > > What I’d do is create a policy that makes it really hard for my company’s > employees to ask questions of my company’s customers. I’d make it a > struggle to collect feedback. In order to collect any form of feedback, I’d > make it so that you had to first ask for permission from an underfunded and > understaffed component of the central office of my corporation. > > Of course I’d also make it take at least six months to get this approval. > That way, most of the people who wanted to ask my customers a question were > immediately discouraged from doing so. And of course, the people that I’d > put in this underfunded understaffed component of my central office — I > wouldn’t make them professional question askers. They wouldn’t be language > experts or people obsessed with the “customer experience.” Instead — just > to make sure that whatever questions to customers came out of my office > were terrible — I’d staff this office with economists and lawyers. > > Then, just to be especially perverse, what I’d do is encourage my company > to use social media. I’d create policies around it, pushing my company to > go online on Facebook and Twitter and stuff, and to have “authentic > conversations” with our customers. I’d tell them that it was totally cool > to use social media to informally do whatever they wanted, except to use > that information inform product or service decisions. > > This way, my employees will be completely cut off from their customers > needs. And the only employees that actually make it to the customers are > the people who know how to talk to the economists. That’ll make it so > whatever inputs and outputs of my business are so incomprehensible that > they’ll just create more frustration rather than solve problems. And making > people go out in social media? That’s just the icing that makes it so > people *think* they’re giving input to the company without that input > actually making it anywhere useful. That’ll make the customers *nuts!* > > It’s a machievellian scenario that, sadly, I didn’t make up. This > “corporate policy” is actually a law that makes your government act like > this, and it’s nefariously named the “Paperwork Reduction Act > <http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/laws/paperwork-reduction/3501.html>.” > > It was the last bill signed into law by Jimmy Carter in 1980. > > I don’t know whether this outcome was Carter’s intent. During my > presidential innovation fellowship, I spent two out of the six months I > had, simply trying to figure out the *legal* way for our project > <http://rfpez.sba.gov> to ask a question. Not writing code, not talking > to customers — just filling out the paperwork and seeking approval to put a > 5 question form on the Internet. And that’s as a high-level appointee with > air cover coming from the White House. Can you imagine what the people who > dedicate their lives to this have to go through to talk to customers? > > Did you know that when this president took office, it was illegal for the > President to end a tweet with a question mark without a six month approval > process from the economists across the street at the “Office of Information > and Regulatory Affairs.” No seriously — they seriously had to give > guidance > <http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/inforeg/SocialMediaGuidance_04072010.pdf> > > to the rest of the federal agencies in 2009 that gave them permission to > ask questions over the internet. It basically says: Sure, you can ask > people questions, as long as you don’t ask for structured feedback > (feedback you can do anything with). Thus it became ok to end sentences on > twitter with a question mark. I can’t make this stuff up! > > The Paperwork Reduction Act is a terrible law. It doesn’t need to be > revisited or revamped. It needs to be removed. In 1980, I’m sure collecting > information cost government a lot of money. Forms had to be made. They > needed to be proofread. It needed the mail or the telephone. It was > expensive to key in the data collections. It was worth taking the time. > > But today, it’s a disaster. There’s nothing I can think of that’s more > antithetical to democracy than prohibiting government from asking for > feedback from its citizens besides, maybe, prohibiting them from actually > voting. Though there’s a case to be made that citizens providing feedback > on actual policy is just as important than who they elect. > > This law doesn’t govern over “forms” it governs over “information > collections.” From tweets to RFPs to Facebook posts, to regulatory > questions. Want to make a form that asks developers to report bugs in > datasets? Forget it. Inside of your government it empowers the “culture of > no.” After just a few months of working on the inside, it kills your > ambition to actually talk to customers, and instead encourages your > government to operate blindly. > Why You should care > > If you want to know why you don’t feel like you’re being listened to, or > why government is flunking at social media > <http://www.dailydot.com/politics/cory-booker-sxsw-social-media-government/> > it’s not because of a lack of will. It’s because of the Paperwork Reduction > Act that’s actively prohibiting your voice from making it to the right > people in Washington. There’s no other country on the planet with a law > like this, And that’s something Congress has to fix. > > Whether you sit to the right or to the left, a democratic republic should > be *great* at asking questions and getting answers from the people it’s > intended to serve. If it can’t do that, it can’t serve anybody. > > *Originally published at **www.informationdiet.com* > <http://www.informationdiet.com/blog/read/the-law-everyone-should-hate>*.* > > > > __._,_.___ > ------------------------------ > Posted by: "Beowulf" <[email protected] <javascript:>> > ------------------------------ > > > Visit Your Group > <https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/grendelreport/info;_ylc=X3oDMTJmc2VjMTZrBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzIwMTk0ODA2BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTMyMzY2NwRzZWMDdnRsBHNsawN2Z2hwBHN0aW1lAzE0NTM0NzkxNTk-> > > > > [image: Yahoo! Groups] > <https://groups.yahoo.com/neo;_ylc=X3oDMTJlYm1tNXQ0BF9TAzk3NDc2NTkwBGdycElkAzIwMTk0ODA2BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTMyMzY2NwRzZWMDZnRyBHNsawNnZnAEc3RpbWUDMTQ1MzQ3OTE2MA--> > > • Privacy <https://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/groups/details.html> • > Unsubscribe <javascript:> • Terms of Use > <https://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/terms/> > > __,_._,___ > > > -- -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. 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