Scott Porad

Following up on yesterday’s post about consumption archeology, Louis CK on how everything is amazing, and nobody’s happy:

My wife and I try to put most expenses on our credit card, so we can get the miles/points.  It works out fairly well for us.

I mention this because for a little project recently I’ve had to go back through an entire year worth of my credit card receipts.  While tedious, it’s kind of cool because it’s like taking a little tour of my life for the last year.  I don’t remember every single transaction, but I remember a lot of them, and each is a little reminder of some amount of living live in the last year.

A few years ago, we moved and I had a similar experience.  While packing up, I came across a random box where, apparently, I had just dumped a bunch of papers, mail, receipts, etc.  As I started to go through and clean it out, I realized that it was from right around the time that I got married which was about 8 years prior.  Amongst other things was the receipt from the hotel where we stayed on our honeymoon.  It was neat…sort of a walk down memory lane via means of financial transactions.

Of course, this time around it’s all be online which makes it easier…I suppose, if you were looking for a fun way to spend an hour or two, it would be easy enough for you too!

This video from Coke illustrates a genuinely delightful experience.  Obviously, it’s not sustainable, but it raises the question: are you intentionally designing your product to deliver happiness?

Eight thoughts on Designing for Emotion from Dave McClure:

1. Be Different, Take Risk!!!
2. Stand 4 SOMEthing. (or u stand 4 NOthing.)
3. Tap Into Humanity: Fear, SEX, Power, etc.
4. Be a Hero, or a Villain. (just don’t fucking BORE me.)
5. Pictures, Text, Music: they all say 1000 words.
6. When It Works, Double Down.
7. Be Yourself… Only More So
8. KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Lisa and I dined with our friend Stephanie last night.  Naturally, the topic of the Occupation came up.

Stephanie’s point was simple: there are millions of people who support the Occupy Movement, but it’s simply impractical for them to pause their lives and setup camp in a park.  For the movement to move to it’s next phase, it needs to find a way to become accessible to ordinary Americans.

I am one of these people.  With a family, kids in school, a job, and other responsibilities, it’s just not feasible for me to drop out of my life.  I am not alone, and we need to find a way where people like me can have an impact.

Although poorly articulated, I believe that the essence of the movement is that, through our government bailouts, our society was very generous with the banking industry.  Through poor decision making, the industry had dug themselves into a very deep hole, and we helped them out.

However, the crux of the discontent is that our government is not showing the same generosity to ordinary citizens who find themselves is difficult situations as a result of the crisis brought on by the banks.  In other words, the government bailed out Wall Street, but has neglected to bailout Main Street.

The movement isnt about anarchy.  It isn’t about ending capitalism, banks and corporations.  I don’t support that kind of crazy talk—banks and corporations play a vital role in creating and sustaining the high quality of life we enjoy in this country.

Simply put, the Occupy Movement is about fairness.  Fairness means having the government treat citizens with the same comapassion that it treats corporations.

The span of history is a never-ending conflict between the haves and the have-nots:

…the Department of Homeland Security had participated in an 18-city mayor conference call advising mayors on “how to suppress” Occupy protests…when you connect the dots, properly understood, what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war; a civil war in which, for now, only one side is choosing violence.

This article from which this quote comes is worth the read…it presents the Occupy Movement in rather clarifying terms.

Ugh! The fucking fascists are at again. When will it stop!?  Never, unless we stop them first.

Please, please, please…go to this link and tell your elected representatives that you do not want censorship on the Internet. The Internet is the Voice of the People, and we do not want the government and big business to silence us!

Also, please, please, please: share, like, favorite, comment…all of the things…so that this message is passed along to others.

From Occupy Protesters and the Police Clash in Lower Manhattan: Bloomberg backs the police in Occupy violence.

I thought Bloomberg was The Great Independent. The Benevelont Billionaire.

Are his true colors starting to show? Is he really just an ordinary oligharch…using the police and state to protect his interests?

Time will tell. He has two, or three a most, more moves to play before we know who’s side he’s on.

I read today that Google has opened up a competitor to iTunes called Google Music.

My 2c: in the face of Google+, Google Music, Android, and the Motorola acquisition, my point of view is that it would be strategically wise for Apple and Facebook to more tightly align.

Google is thinking very long-term with it’s strategy. Android is going to become the mass-market solution (vs. Apple’s high-end solution), and over-time that will erode Facebook’s position due to integration with Google products.

Naturally, they won’t block Facebook from either an end-user adoption or anti-trust point of view, which is why I chose the phrases “erode” and “over-time” intentionally.

Not sure how Amazon fits into all of this. My Kindle Fire is in the mail, and I think they have a strong position (and maybe the strongest outside of Apple) for tablet-consumable media.

Microsoft, of course, is on the outside looking in at all of this. That’s disappointing to me because I hate to see wasted potential–with the Xbox they actually have the position to beat out everyone, but they suffer from the Innovator’s Dilemma.

(Full disclosure: I own stock in AAPL, GOOG, and AMZN. I do not own MSFT, in part for reasons mentioned above, and in part because I live in Seattle, so my fortunes, figuratively speaking, are highly affected by Microsoft. In other words, you could say I’m “geographically invested” in MSFT as opposed to “financially invested”.)

What, you don’t believe me about the revolution?

Look, the politics, the laws, the courts, the financial markets…the rules of the game…they’re rigged and corrupt and we all know it.  Unfortunately, most of us are just comfortable enough to be numb to the crime.  Or, at least numb enough to look the other way.

If you don’t believe me, then let’s just look at some data…over the last several decades, the rich have gotten richer, while the poor have gotten poorer.