Creativity Lost

The excerpt from Lawrence Lessig’s Future of Ideas is startling, and if true, tremendously sad. But I wonder how much creative impediments are more a creation of lawyers looking to be paid as opposed to actual law.

I am no expert on copyright law, but the examples Lessig sites seem extreme. For instance,

The movie Batman Forever was threatened because the Batmobile drove through an allegedly copyrighted courtyard and the original architect demanded money before the film could be released.

Last I checked, anyone with a video camera can shoot footage in a public space. It’s the reason the paparazzi can stalk celebrities and why television correspondents can report from outside any building they choose (national security concerns exempted, of course).
Tom Cruise can shoot a boat chase on Rome’s Tiber River.

As for chairs, art, etc., lots of companies pay good money for product placements. Think of all the not-so-subtle Pepsi cans that appear in movies or the episode of Friends about Pottery Barn’s apothecary table. Won’t companies benefit if their products are associated with Hollywood?

Based on Lessig’s examples it seems that individual artists, architects and the like are the ones who are litigious. Yet individuals probably have a lot more to gain from the exposure than Coca-Cola, which everyone on the planet already knows.

It’s truly ironic if creative professionals are hindering the creativity of their fellow artists.

Influencing the Apathetic

It’s easy to think the world is full of political “influentials,” or the people who influence and shape the political attitudes and behaviors of others, when you live in Washington, D.C. A disproportionate number of political influentials are naturally attracted to the area.

According to Carol C. Darr, director of GWU's Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet, who has conducted studies on the subject, about five percent of the population are political influentials. As someone who doesn’t really come from a political background, I find that hard to believe.

About 10 percent of the population are believed to be influentials, according to Jim Berry and Ed Keller (and the Roper studies they cite), authors of the 2003 book The Influentials. Influentials are the people on the leading edge of trends. They tell us “to do, what to buy, where to eat, who to vote for and have the answer to every question or know someone who does.”

In my world, influentials are not political. There is my sister, the fashionista. She gets these “visions” of what would make a perfect outfit and shops high and low for the necessary elements. Months later tons of people are wearing the style and my sister has already moved onto something else. Imitators and people begging for fashion advice plague my sister, but she doesn’t know the name of the governor of her state.

Then there is Cheryl. Cheryl knows everyone. If you have a question and don’t know the answer, she’s the lady you want. She may not know, but she knows somebody who does. What’s the best Broadway show? Where can you hold a rehearsal dinner for 30 finicky eaters in northern New Jersey? Ask Cheryl. But don’t ask her about the Senate race because she really couldn’t care less.

Americans aren’t into news and politics. Studies show that only 21 percent of the population follow the news “very closely.” Among the people reporting an interest in news, how many of those people consider Tom Cruise’s relationship with Katie Holmes news?

With only 10 percent of the population labeled as influentials and so few people taking an active interest in politics and news, the number of political influentials seems high.

After all, can you really influence someone who doesn’t care?

Persuasion 101

Despite the emotionally resonant demonstration by disabled students of what its like to use a website not designed to be handicapped accessible, I think the host makes a poor argument at the end of the segment.

The host argues that websites should be made handicapped accessible because “it is the right thing to do.” Sadly, in a world like ours, that’s a really naïve statement. Stopping global warming is the right thing to do, but the polar ice caps are still melting.

Instead, the host would be better off citing research from Jakob Neilsen, which shows that handicapped accessible design is smart design. Studies have shown all demographic benefit from pages designed to be used by the disable.

My favorite example is using bigger print. So many websites use tiny, tiny print. Although I’m in my mid twenties, small type gives me a headache so much that even in Microsoft Windows my standard setting is for large print. Lots of people need reading glasses, and even people who don’t need them appreciate readable fonts.

Why focus on moral arguments, when there are arguments sure to win over people’s pocketbooks and visitor statistics? The host’s preachy ending takes away from an otherwise excellent lesson in the digital divide.

More Gaps in the Digital Divide

Past discussions of the digital divide always centered on poverty. The difference between the have and have-nots was access to technology in the most basic sense of the word. In essence, did you have the technology?

Jakob Neilsen’s guidelines have really broadened that perception. Being a have doesn’t mean just having a computer with Internet access.

It means having a computer with the kind of Internet capabilities that allow the user to experience all the Internet has to offer, including movie and music downloads. It means having the cognitive skills and literacy to be able to absorb the information presented in a timely fashion. It means having both software and good web design that allows disabled people, such as the blind, deaf and paralyzed, to use the Internet.

When you are fortunate enough to be a have in the fullest sense of the word and spend your days around fellow haves, it’s easy to forget that not everyone is as fortunate.

As we look abroad and marvel at the steps third world nations are making in adopting technologies that increase communication, we also need to take a second look at home and remember that the definition of have-nots is not limited to economics.

Mail man

My brother opens mail – all day long.

He’s an intern for a congressman and when he isn’t giving tours, answering the phone or getting lost in all those tunnels under the Capitol complex, he’s opening letters from constituents. Lots of them.

Some are from crackpots, such as the fellow who sends a letter every week asking for a $500,000 grant (plus $50,000 weekly) because he got into a car accident and can’t work. Some are from the pathetic, like the sad little trekie who beseeched the congressman to save Star Trek: Voyager when it was recently cancelled.

And then there are the normal people. Believe it or not, they send most of the mail.

Which leads me to the staggering amounts of mail congressmen receive. Hundreds of letters combine with thousands of e-mails to create a massive amount of correspondence, Dennis Johnson was so thoughtful to point out in "Congress Online: Bridging the Gap Between Citizens and Their Representatives."

With suffocating volume like that, letters to congress are not getting the TLC they deserve. In my brother’s office, provided the letter is not from a whacko, the main theme from every letter is added into a topic column. Each letter is like a little vote to see how constituents feel: a no to poverty, a yes to gay rights or a no to illegal immigration. Interns then send a form letter on that topic back to the constituent.

But with volume like that, does a letter really matter? Is my little brother reading your letter going to make an impact on the congressman (who my brother is so star struck by that he has get to gather the courage to say hello)?

Probably not.

To the moon...or Mars

Emi mentioned in class Dennis Johnson’s comment in Congress Online: Bridging the Gap Between Citizens and Their Representatives that the web sites of larger government agencies are often inferior to those of smaller agencies.

I mentioned this to my husband the software engineer for a defense contractor, and he just laughed. I think it would be more appropriate to cry.

Imagine you’d like to buy a spaceship. You don’t know a ton about spaceships, but everyone else has one, so you better get one, too. Your spouse usually handles hiring contractors, so out he goes into the wide world and hires the guy who will do it the cheapest. We’ll call this company Cheapest.

Someone from Cheapest is assigned to oversee the building of your spaceship. He’ll be the Manager. Someone else is assigned with building your spaceship. We’ll call him Builder.

Builder needs specs. He needs to know what you want your spaceship to do. Is it flying to the moon, Mars or deep outer space? How many people will be on the spaceship? Is there a certain ship you’d like your spaceship to be?

It seems simple enough. Except you will never talk to Bob. Builder will talk to Manager who will talk to your spouse who may or may not remember to ask you what you’d like. And then relay that message back to Builder.

All the while Builder has X number of dollars to build your spaceship, a tight schedule to follow although he’s not sure what he’s supposed to be doing and no requirements and so he’s guessing what you might like your spaceship to be like. But he doesn’t really know. And he’s feeling pretty frustrated.

But Manager doesn’t care because he gets to bill you and your spouse for every hour of frustration.

From talking to my husband, I conjecture this is how many large government agency web sites are built. If someone has some insight into what actually happens, please let me know.

More Thoughts on Web Design

Reading the most recent issue of Association Publishing magazine, I came across a Poynter Institute study that offers many suggestions for home page design. The study, dubbed Eyetrack III, involved observing 46 people for one hour as their eyes followed mock news websites and real multimedia content.

Among the key findings:

-Most often, people's eyes fixated first on the upper left of the page, hovering in that area befor emoving left to right.

- A higher percentage of survey participants looked at the navigation bar when it appeared at the top of the site (under a logo) rather than down the left side.

- People typically scanned down a list of headlines, spending less than a second on each one.

- Headlines that are underlined or larger than the accompanying blurb discouraged people from reading the blurb's text.

- Survey participants looked more at shorter paragraphs (one or two sentences) compared to longer ones.

- Text ads caught the attention of readers for 7 seconds, on average; display ads averaged 1.6 seconds.

- The bigger the ad, or the closer it was to popular editorial content, the more likely it was to be seen.

- Most people did not look first at images. When they did turn to images, larger ones held their attention better. About 10 percent of survey participants bothered to look at a photo sized like a postage stamp.

Of course, I knew our old buddy Jakob Nielsen was bound to have some thoughts on the study. According to Neilsen:

"Having users spend more time on a task is not an indication of a better design, it's an indication of a worse design. Since people are used to finding the navigation on the left or the top, that's where it should stay. Instead of forcing users to spend more time on deconstructing your page layout and navigation features, it's better to have them spend the time on engaging with your content."

I've Seen Better, I've Seen Worse

The incumbent page for Congressman Tom Davis is a perfectly fine web page. While it’s not cutting edge and doesn’t make a wow impression, the design is professional, clean and easy to navigate.

It’s clear Davis’s intern is not responsible for designing the site. A subdued gray palette gives the page an elegant look compared to many of Davis’s Technicolor and amateurish peers in the House of Representatives. Almost all of the homepage fits onto a single screen with a task bar on the left providing easy access to information. A few well-placed icons on the right side allow visitor’s to access other areas of special interest. The latest news from Davis’s office is front and center.

Yet there is room for improvement on the homepage. While news takes up the most space on the homepage, showing visitors that Davis is an engaged congressman, and it is updated frequently, the news is just press releases. With so many media outlets in the region, there shouldn’t be any shortage of real news stories to draw from. Using press releases makes it seem (at least to a professional journalist) that what’s going on in Davis’s world isn’t really newsworthy.

Also, while almost all the stories on the page were from this month, the lead and largest story “Davis Secures Millions of Federal Dollars for Important Local Projects in Transportation Equity Act” is dated March 11th. Obviously Davis believes this accomplishment will please his constituents, but anyone who clicks on it will find out it’s a bit stale.

Though the gray on the homepage offers sophistication, a little more color would be a valuable addition. The only two color photos on the page are a not particularly flattering headshot of Davis and a faded photo of the Occoquan River that doesn’t tie into any of the adjacent news stories. The four icons on the right side transform from grayscale to color when scrolled over, but those too seem faded and dull.

When it comes to signing up for Davis’s e-mail newsletter, the box asking for visitor’s e-mail address is given a prime position on the top right corner. But once an address is entered and the submit button is pressed, visitors are whisked away to another page where they are required to enter their first and last names and complete address in order to become subscribers. Not only is this annoying, it makes me skeptical of the site’s privacy policy.

Like any good website, Davis’s page has a link to a privacy policy at the bottom of every page. The policy says Davis is a “strong supporter of individual privacy of the Internet,” and the policy is just 163 words long. The part that raises my eye brows is the promise that “No information collected on this website will be sold to others or used for the purpose of political campaigning.” So if Davis isn’t going to use the information for campaigning, and he isn’t selling it, why does he need it? Maybe it’s the journalist in me, but something smells fishy.

Of the eight items in the task bar (Home, the 11th District, Constituent Center, Committee on Government Reform, About Tom Davis, News, Virginia Facts and Links and Resources), the most play is given to Constituent Center, which displays the subcategories Contact Us, E-mail Me, Internships, Flag Requests, Tours, Service Academy Information and Immigration/Visa Questions. This is a wise move on Davis’s part. Since his incumbent page cannot be used for active campaigning, it’s smart to emphasize the value Davis brings constituents. This element is something I don’t remember seeing as prominently when I first began studying this site a month ago and suggested such an effort in my strategic plan. But maybe I am imagining the change.

The Constituent Center can also be reached by a labeled photo link on the right side of the page. Both links lead to the same constituent center, which includes even more useful options than the task bar lists.

The 11th District link provided a collection of random information, including 11th district schools and towns and a map that was so difficult to download that it almost crashed my computer. This area needs improvement. A good first step would be to give the page of focus. The hodgepodge isn’t effective.

The Committee on Government Reform is an outside link to the Committee’s official web page. Again, this is wise as Davis is chair of the committee and both he and the committee’s accomplishments are featured prominently.

About Tom Davis isn’t moving and would be better if it used the top-down pyramid structure of a newspaper story. The bio is too long for most people to read, yet all of Davis’s recent accomplishments are at the bottom of the story. A shorter read that starts off with some warm, fuzzy personal details and then quickly moves through a brief narrative of Davis’s career highlights would help.

The News section could seriously benefit from some archiving. A laundry list of headlines all the way back to March 2003 overwhelm the reader, especially since the man seems overly fond of press releases. As I mentioned earlier in my blog, his Virginia Facts section is a joke.

Among the three remaining picture links on the right side, the OPM Emergency guide is a useful resource for constituents living in an area where residents have legitimate concerns about terrorism. The kid’s page provides outside links to kid-friendly web sites, but doesn’t really add much to the page and does not deserve the prominence it receives.

The photos page has some issues. While the shots are recent and have good captions, they are often grainy and not particularly flattering to the congressman. For instance, in the shot with Fenwick Gilroy, the congressman looks really sweaty and shiny. If he refuses to be powdered before the photo op, then touch him up in Photoshop. He doesn’t look stately.

All in all, Davis’s incumbent web site is relatively decent. It’s not going to win any awards, but the design is clean (with the exception of the gargantuan map) and features a lot of useful information.

Declaring Independence

Terry Schiavo Isn't the Only One Who Died

I don’t think many people read web site’s privacy policies. They are long. They are boring. And they often don’t seem relevant.

Yet, they are in a sense a legal agreement – one that makes it so George Bush can pass on his list of downers and e-mail newsletter subscribers to the Republican Party while John Kerry cannot do the same for the Democrats.

It’s with this knowledge and a squishy feeling from having read The New York Times’ story the sale of information about donors to the Schiavo family’s legal fight that I logged onto The Terry Schindler-Schiavo Foundation web site to find out the site’s policy.

The funny thing is, both links labeled “Your Privacy” are dead. (In their defense, so too in the “Donate” link.

I suppose it is only appropriate since the sale of detailed personal data has essentially killed privacy anyway.

No comparison; Just contrast

The Salon article “It’s the Incompetence, Stupid,” offering first-hand insights into the staggering disorganization campaign, offers a striking contrast with the 527’s supporting Kerry, most notably America Coming Together.

While a bunch of college-aged interns stumbled around with too little information, direction and organization over at Kerry’s campaign, ACT’s volunteers were technologically connected and used that technology to match the organization and knowledge of the Bush campaign.

Unfortunately for Kerry, though, is that ACT could not mention his name due to FEC regulations.

Though 20/20 hindsight makes it easier to Monday morning quarter back the election, I can’t help but wonder if Kerry had taken better advantage of mobile technologies, narrow casting and organizational tools, could it have made a big enough difference in Ohio?

Now That's What I Call an Unfair Comparison

In the article Now That’s What I Call Democracy, in The Guardian the author argues that campaigning in Great Britain is closer to the ideals set by Rousseau than the campaigns in America. British campaigns are cozier, reaching into small towns, and candidates are less concerned about image.

While the article is interesting for what it reveals of a different culture, comparing the U.S. and Great Britain is like comparing apples and oranges. Great Britain is 244,820 square kilometers and has a population of about 60 million people. On the other hand, the U.S. has a landmass of 3,794,083 square kilometers and almost 300 million residents.

What works in reaching a smaller, more manageable sum, isn’t effective when dealing with the scale of the U.S. as a whole. American candidates do reach out to small towns in Vermont and Iowa before when the primaries make it worth the effort to reach out to what would otherwise be small impact areas. Once the primary is won, candidates have less incentive to visit small towns in non-battleground states.

I'm unaware of the extent to which the British use new media in campaigning, but it's pretty obvious that Internet and mobile technologies become more of a must-have when reaching out to 300 million people.