Proof! M$ Doesn't Care About Customers.

Computerworld's online editorial director, Scot Finnie recently opined that the basic problem with Microsoft's new operating system Vista is Microsoft's changing focus. Finnie said, "one thing Microsoft had going for it during its rise was its exceptional customer focus. It listened to end users, as well as the press and analysts who represented them. It made decisions based on the needs of small and midtier businesses, instead of just its thousand or so largest enterprise customers...Microsoft wanted to be the very best at serving users, and its employees believed in that goal."

Finnie goes on to say it seems Microsoft now makes many of its decisions based on two things:

"1. Avoiding negative publicity (especially about security and software quality)

2. Making sure the largest enterprise customers are happy"

By way of proof, he points to such Vista "features" as its heavy-handed security features, brilliantly spoofed in Apple's recent Mac/PC commercial with the Allow/Cancel security guy, its new restrictions on installing Vista as an upgrade and its DRM implementation that was clearly implemented for the benefit of the movie studios rather than the needs or convenience of Vista users.

This morning, CNET carried an interview with MS Entertainment and Devices unit President Robbie Bach. In the interview, Bach basically what Finnie wrote in his column. CNET asked Bach about Steve Jobs' recent call for the record companies to do away with requiring DRM for online music sales. Here's a snippet from the interview:

CNET: I'd be remiss if I didn't ask your thoughts about Steve Jobs' letter. Is it time for an end to digital rights management?
Bach: "Our job really is to provide the tools and the technology that we get requested from our operator partners and from our media and content partners. I don't have a strong view about DRM, other than when people ask for it, we're going to do a great job implementing it and driving it.

The only people who ultimately get to opine on that are the people who are the content owners themselves. We're huge believers and will always be believers in protecting intellectual property. DRM is certainly one of those ways to protect that intellectual property. You are going to see us continue to do great work on DRM, because we think it is going to be a part of the landscape going forward."

The italics are mine. Notice, he didn't say anything about providing tools and technology requested by their customers. Their "operator partners" and "media and content partners" are driving their offerings and how they are implemented. It seems to be part of the accelerating trend in the U.S. to turn Americans into consumers. The Corporatocracy that the U.S. has become isn't satisfied to just have the greatest consumer culture that has ever existed on the planet. They want to dictate how consumers use the products they purchase. And they're succeeding.

Ben Mack Wants to Help You!

Ben Mack's latest book, Think Two Products Ahead was published at the end of January. This book reveals branding secrets that major corporations pay big bucks for. For years, Ben worked on major corporate advertising accounts for some well-known ad agencies, imparting these secrets and how to leverage them to the agencies' corporate clients.

But Ben was torn. While Ben believes capitalism has proven to be the best economic system man has yet devised, compensating a person in direct relation to their own abilities and ambitions and efforts, he has also believed that the corporate version of capitalism currently practiced in the U.S. is the cause of many of the major challenges facing humanity today. Corporate capitalism has tended to disdain considerations other than the bottom line. Worse, the bottom line that is considered is generally, only for the latest quarter. Long-term results or consequences of current practices are ignored, or at best, inserted as a caveat in an Annual Report to Shareholders.

Ben thinks we'd be better served if individuals and small businesses dominated the landscape rather than the current situation we find ourselves in with giant corporations. The money that the huge corporations can throw around tends to corrupt democratic processes and they don't have the local focus and concerns that most small businesses or individual entrepreneurs have. But small businesses have a difficult time competing with corporations for business. They can't enjoy the economies of scale available to corporations that move large quantities of goods, and they can't afford the major advertising agencies and the marketing research and knowledge they bring with them.

That's why Ben wrote Think Two Products Ahead. He wants to make the branding secrets the "big boys" spend big money for, available to everyone. These are the things Ben learned in his years working for big agencies and managing major accounts. He used these techniques when he was the brand manager for Cingular. Of course he tailored them for Cingular's aims, but in this book, he reveals the fundamentals behind branding and gives exercises and techniques, as well as real world examples, that will teach you how to adapt and apply these powerful principles to your own unique situation.

I was lucky enough to get a pre-publication manuscript of this book from Ben, and I think reading it would benefit virtually anyone. Even if you don't run a business or have entrepreneurial plans, understanding how marketing works will be to your advantage. A short, modern history of brands is covered and then, importantly, Ben tells you what a brand really is. Not the common concept most people hold, where a brand is essentially synonymous with a product or a logo, but the way successful marketers and entrepreneurs understand and use them. A brand is more than a product or even a company. A brand is a relationship between a company and its customers and in this book, Ben helps you understand that concept and how to put it to work.

In Memorium: Robert Anton Wilson

Novelist, philosopher, psychologist, anarchist/libertarian, Subgenius saint, and eternal optimist, Robert Anton Wilson died about three weeks ago on January 11. Several well-written tributes appeared on the internet in the week after Wilson's death and I'm sure I can't improve on them. However, Dr. Wilson's work had a profound influence on my perception of reality and thus, my life so I feel a need to acknowledge the importance of his life and his writing in the world today.

I read a review of Illuminatus! in Creem Magazine around 1976. The novel sounded like nothing I had ever encountered before and I knew I had to read it.

I quickly devoured the three books that make up Illuminatus! and became a Robert Anton Wilson fan for life. In the 30 years since then, I've been fortunate enough to have aquired and read almost every book of Wilson's that was published. After Illuminatus!, I read Cosmic Trigger, a semi-autobiographical work that covers a lot of the basic themes that Wilson explored throughout his life. Consciousness, human evolution, the occult, drugs, conspiracy and human/higher intelligence contact are all treated in Cosmic Trigger. By the time I finished it, I had decided that Robert Anton Wilson was one of the most brilliant minds on the planet.

Wilson introduced me to several ideas and themes that have shaped my thinking and approach to belief systems. Perhaps the most central one is Alfred Korbyzky's general semantics. Very briefly, general semantics states that "human beings are limited in what they know by (1) the structure of their nervous systems, and (2) the structure of their languages. Human beings cannot experience the world directly, but only through their "abstractions" (nonverbal impressions or "gleanings" derived from the nervous system, and verbal indicators expressed and derived from language). Sometimes our perceptions and our languages actually mislead us as to the "facts" with which we must deal."

Really grasping that concept leads to a less dogmatic view of what we know to be "true"; perhaps even an understanding that we can never make completely "objective" statements, because all our perceptions are necessarily subjective. Wilson held that, if more people would embrace those ideas, conflict in the world would lessen, and the art of compromise would become the preferred method for settling conflict.

If you've never read any of Robert Anton Wilson's work, may I suggest starting with the Historical Illuminatus Chronicles, consisting of The Earth Will Shake, The Widow's Son and Nature's God as a good introduction to him.

A list of Robert Anton Wilson's books that I've read (many of them, more than once):

Illuminatus! --

1. The Eye in the Pyramid
2. The Golden Apple
3. Leviathan

Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati

Schrodinger's Cat --

1. The Universe Next Door
2. The Trick Top Hat
3. The Homing Pigeons

The Illuminati Papers

Sex and Drugs: A Journey Beyond Limits

Ishtar Rising (originally published as The Book of the Breast)

Masks of the Illuminati

Right Where You Are Sitting Now

The Historical Illuminati Chronicle --

1. The Earth Will Shake
2. The Widow's Son
3. Nature's God

Prometheus Rising

The New Inquisition

Wilhem Reich in Hell

Natural Law or Don't Put a Rubber on Your Willie

Coincidence

Quantum Psychology

Cosmic Trigger II

Cosmic Trigger III

Reality is What You Can Get Away With

Everything is Under Control

The Walls Came Tumbling Down