I'm Fed Up With Political Ads

The November elections are but days away, and while I know how I'm going to vote, I also know I'll be entering the voting booth with tense shoulders, a headache, and a sneer on my face. The reason? Political ads. They're everywhere.

They show up in my mailbox, as printed multi-color cardstock ads. They appear as pre-recorded messages on my answering machine, from people who I think I'm supposed to relate to, or otherwise trust the opinion of. They appear on television, with large red titles, slow-motion video, and voice overs more appropriate for thriller film previews than anything else. They appear as signage on the side of the road. They even appear online, when I browse to local sites like the Seattle Times, ironically while reading an article about online political ads.

It's sad that there's a drag-race of sorts in the arena of political advertisements. Clearly campaigners must have evidence that these ads work, so they're pouring bucketfuls of money into all these channels, in an effort to sway the handful percent of undecided voters. And, most of the ads lately are much more in the "mudsling" camp, spreading fear, doubt, and uncertainty over anything else.

All I see in the ads is fear: fear that social security will be taken away, fear that terrorists will attack us, fear that immigrants will steal our jobs, fear that the economy will head south, fear that liberties we enjoy today will be gone tomorrow, fear of change, and fear of no change. Yes, we elect people to do certain things, and take certain stands that we want them to. But, I'm hard-pressed to find another job that someone has to apply for that depends so much on spreading fear about what would happen if the candidate was not elected.

So, until election day rolls around, I'll be shutting my eyes and plugging my ears next time I see or hear one of these ads. I've made up my mind as to how I'll vote, and I've done so without these multi-million dollar ad campaigns.

To Seattle's Metronatural, I "Say Wa?"

Not long ago I commented on Washington State's Dept. of Trade and Economic Development's Say Wa? Slogan. You know, I thought that would have been the only stuff about bad slogans I would have had to post. I guess I was wrong.

The geniuses at the Seattle Convention and Visitor's Bureau have spent $200,000 on Exclaim and 16 months to come up with an attractive slogan, to convince tourists and conventions to come and visit Seattle and spend their dollars here. The result?

Seattle: Metronatural

Oh my...

Plastered all over the Visit Seattle web site, the new slogan aims to elicit the combination of urban metropolis and natural beauty that exists in our city. I can't help but think of "Metrosexual" when I hear the word. And I'm sure a lot of others can't, either.

OK, great, fine...but what was wrong with Emerald City to do that? "Seattle: The Emerald City". Emerald, you know: green, for trees and plants and such. Perfect, right?

Here are some other fine ideas:

• Seattle: Please don't hate us because we're beautiful
• Seattle: Not as close to North Korea as you might think
• Seattle: Also a gateway to California!
• Seattle's awesome! It has lots of coffee!! OMG!
• Seattle: We still care about parks and stuff
• Seattle: Safer than Detroit, prettier than Des Moines

One positive note in all this naming mess: according to an article, Seattle's old travel-friendly name was Sea@L. Um, yeah, that one's pretty bad, too.

Seattle Fire Department Ignores Web Accessibility

For a while now, the Seattle Fire Department has been hosting a service that shows you real-time calls that are coming in. Well, recently they switched their "latest calls" view to be an image. John Eberly writes up the before and after and talks about the consequences.

"What's the big deal?" you may be wondering. Well, for starters, images are harder to process than text. You can use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology to convert the textual information in the image to actual text, but that's a bother and not guaranteed to be 100% accurate.

But there's a worse consequence: images with information, without text alternatives, aren't accessible. In other words, blind or low-vision people can't read this information anymore.

Yes, we have laws and regulations to prevent this. I'm surprised that the SFD decided to ignore these precedents when changing to an image. It's a change that is very easy for someone to workaround who really wants the information in a computer-processable way, but penalizes those that browse with screen readers who are simply after the information.

On John's advice, I've sent mail to the Seattle City Council and the SFD chief. We'll see what their response is.

The KUOW Fundraisers Are On Drugs

Let me explain.

Wait, first let me share that I'm a member of KUOW, which means I give them money because I think they provide a great resource of news, information, conversation, and entertainment. I totally understand the need to do fundraisers, as half of the station's money comes from individuals and foundations. So, yeay to KUOW and yeay to raising money.

Now, let me explain what I mean by "on drugs". In the span of a couple of days, I've heard the following:

• John Moe singing the music from Marketplace that they play when they "do the numbers", to signify that they're raising money. Then, transitioning to a fellow fundraiser singing while John pretends to "do the numbers" and report how the donations are going for that hour.
  
• Stories about how the pledge "premiums" have special magical powers. For example, the knit cap traps your thoughts and prevents them from leaving the vicinity of your head.
• Getting really really excited about pledge gifts' innate abilities. The adjustability of the messenger bag shoulder strap was mentioned with glee and feigned disbelief (aka "Shut Up!").
  
• Hyperactive reactions to phone calls being made to the pledge line while the fundraisers are on-air, such as "...and call in [phone rings], just like that person, yeah!, and donate to..."
• Goal math gone bad. I heard John today say something like, "If one person donates $5,260 dollars, we'll make our goal for the hour!"
  

More often than not, the on-air pledge drive sounds like it's reported by over-energetic, ADD people who are quick to go on a tangent on any old topic that crosses their minds. I'm sure the on-air fundraising isn't very fun, and hats off for sticking with it. But why does it have to sound like everyone's always high?

How We Ship Office and Windows

The New York Times has an article on how the Windows and Office teams at Microsoft are spending their last weeks in the product cycle getting their respective products ready for customers. While it's only a slice of the work the teams do here, it is a fairly accurate picture of the "endgame" of a software product cycle, at least in my experience.

Plus, it's fun to read articles which name people that you know, or get emails from, or both.

Always Documenting, Never Reading

I'm impressed by the number of ways there are to catalog one's experiences. There's Flickr for the photos of the recent party you visited last night. There's YouTube for posting videos of your pets doing funny things. Then, there's plenty of sites with user review sections like CitySearch where you can write a review of the new Thai restaurant you visited last week. There's forums like Craigslist where you can discuss the ins and outs of your hobby. And, you can journal your day-by-day life on your weblog, your video blog, and via podcasts. Heck, there's even ways to quickly record every thing you do in your waking life, with a mobile device and a service like Waymarkr.

With all of these cataloging options, where or when do you stop and read the information, not just your own but from others? I don't consider myself a proficient poster, yet I'm perpetually behind in reading the feeds I'm subscribed to in Bloglines (much like the stack of New Yorkers that taunts me from my bedside nightstand). With a handful of proficient posters' accounts, I don't see how someone who regularly records their thoughts, pictures, and videos online has time to read and view them all, and still have time to live the very life worth cataloging.

A big thing in the business world these days is roll-ups, or dashboards. Quick summaries of lots and lots of business data (sales, earnings, traffic, feedback) in easy to consume charts, graphs, and green/yellow/red key performance indicator displays. This approach (with the right heuristics behind it) can tell you which region is suffering with low sales, or which the most efficient factories are, or what the highest-reviewed product is, at a glance.

The world of blogging could take a page out of this book, and produce a way to view someone's collective blog/picture/video/audio output in one view. The idea isn't to zoom out to the point of seeing detail-less thumbnails and abstracts of what people are posting on their blogs, but instead to help me quickly see the salient bits of what someone is thinking, doing, and cataloging, and to help me focus in on what I want to read.

Not a month goes by without some newspaper, magazine, or blog writing about information overload and information management. Typically, solutions are along the lines of partitioning time and information, in order to see and deal with less at one time. I'm of the opposite belief; more information is great. Just give me a zoom slider so I can spend less time figuring out what to read or view, and more time reading and viewing it.

The Red Line Is No More

While driving by the corner of Olive and Denny recently, my eye spotted something different inside The Red Line, those purveyors of tasty sandwiches and pizzas. Sure enough, the place was undergoing some interior decoration changes, and a sign was up on the window:

Coming soon: Amante Pizza & Pasta

Immediately, scary thoughts crossed my mind. No more Red Line? No more coffee, pizza, and espresso within walking distance? No more Oscar parties? No more friendly staff and customers that you recognize from visits past?

In doing a little research, the Seattle PI seems to have the scoop. Apparently owner Katy Carroll has decided to call it quits (her partner, Derrick Aiona, left some time ago). Amante Pizza & Pasta is a local chain, which, as the name implies, is mainly focused on the pizza/pasta trade.

Now, that's the bad part. There is a good part. According to the PI article:

• This particular Amante will continue to serve Red Line's sandwiches, coffee, and free wi-fi.
• The place will be open 24 hours.
• A bar will be added.

Well, I'm now down from "severely disappointed" to "hopeful". Katy had a great thing going with The Red Line, and I'm sad to see her go. But Amante seems to be catering to local preference in keeping some of Red Line's signature dishes and coffee-shop-feel in place.

I'm anxious to see who wins: local preference (assuming people still dig Red Line's sandwiches and coffee) versus chain uniformity (repeat after me in a monotone: "Everyone must serve the same. We must conform"). I'll report back once we visit the place, but if someone beats us to it, let me know how it was.