I was reminded of this thought today about the role of Google to our lives, as I posted a comment on Forum Oxford, the expert community discussing the future of mobile telecoms.
At Forum Oxford I was going to quote from a colleague of mine, who has a name that I always find tricky to spell. I was sitting at my desk, and had my business cards easily within reach. But how did I check on the spelling, as I was already online, I went to Google of course. I typed in the name of the company, his title, and his first name, and googled it. I got several hundred hits immediately, all confirming the correct spelling of his name. While I sat at my business cards, I didn't think of reaching for them and try to find his card, to check on the spelling. Google has infiltrated my brain.. I honestly cannot imagine doing valuable work, without having instant access to Google. I use it at least a dozen times on a typical sitting at my PC on a daily basis.
So I was reminded of US presidential politics. That until very recently - earlier this year - Senator McCain said he did not use a computer, and since then has tried to get to learn it, and is obviously now at best only a novice user.
But I want to examine a bit, what does that tell us of the person wishing to be the boss of the most powerful nation on earth? Or equally, there are still many in the business world, top level executives who are computer-illiterate and not online. What does that mean?
I don't mean this as a political commentary as such. There are far more important issues to consider in the US elections, and as I'm a citizen of Finland, I am obviously not able to vote in that election, and my view should be not considered on what Americans think are their big issues this election cycle (although, I am an interested observer of the process and its outcome).
But apart from McCain's lack of Googling competence, this hits to many managements in companies, who are more removed from the high tech end of industry. And there are very strong parallels for those managements.
What does it tell us, if the executive (or President-wannabe) does not use Google (or another search engine). It tells us that the person has not discovered the personal power of information. They cannot function without information. If they do not have personal access (to "all" information via the web) then how do they get the info to make decisions?
Ha-ha, here it gets interesting. If an executive is not familiar with search engines on the web, the executive is totally dependent on others to supply all information. Lets stop here. Totally dependent. Yes, an executive of any major corporation - and certainly of a major country - has no time to devote to personally studying an issue. Dependent on others. So suddenly the executive - who makes decisions - is not able to act independently. Those who feed the information, will automatically have to filter it, the executive does not have time for all trivia info. Always the higher up the message goes in an organization, the executive will tend to want it in less length. Something complex in a report, gets simplired in the executive summary, and then up the ladder, that is summarized in to a memo, which then is turned into a powerpoint slide for top management. Complex issues summarized into single slides.. That is the life of executives. They have to rely on others for info. It is the nature of being an executive. It is frustrating, because all of those subordinates are human beings, and they have personal agendas. Business executives know this, and have multiple ways to address the biases of delivering info, such as having a trusted outside consultant for consultation on important issues.
This gets more dangerous in the bipartisan politics in heavily politically polarized America. Like George W Bush likes to say, you're either with us or against us. So now those within the organization, supplying information to top managers, are tempted to favour biased information. That is even more so today, after all the scandals of the Bush administration making bureacrat appointments such as in the Justice Department based on political views. (Previously the US bureaucracy was seen as very independent of political bias, which is why so often we see a department issue a statement that is opposite of what the President might say that same day). So a ring of group-think evolves. And then add to that a secretive Vice President in Cheney, who himself divorces himself from full coverage of daily news, by insisting on only watching Fox News (the openly right-wing biased news source). How can you get honest information passing through in this kind of environment.
But then the last point, dependeng on others.. for all information. Ouch. This means not only is it "not" the truth, and not nothing but the truth, it is even not the whole truth. If we know the system that supplies all info is inherently broken (biases), and knows the exec does not have independent access to info, then the temptation is overwhelming to deny countering facts and supply only biased views supporting the view you want the executive to follow.
So, George W Bush for example, who has said he does not use email (does not want the evidence trail). Who talked of the "internets" and of "the google" etc. He is clearly not online. He is very "easy" to fool into any false sense of security, on any matter. To be very literally "out of touch" with the real world. Exactly as countless books about his presidency have chronicled; and that his information management has been very much the domain of a certain VP Cheney, behind the scenes, pulling the strings.
A person who knows how to Google does not magically have more time - but - if the sources who give the information know that this person also can Google - and does go online regularly to spot-check on urgent matters - they will not be tempted to hide facts or distort the story.. It would very quickly discred the information source, if the executive asks about an obvious side of the issue, that the information source had neglected to mention a vital element. Any competent executive would fire that information source on the spot. When the executive is dependent on filtered information (ie not complete info) to begin with, then the executive must have total trust that the information sources are not adding any bias to the information flow..
Lets take McCain's selection of Governor Sarah Palin for example. It now is reported in the news that McCain met with Palin only twice before selecting her as VP. So obviously McCain did not know her personally, at all. He is dependent on what info he has on her, from McCain's VP selection committee. Because McCain does not Google, he did not have an independent source to study Palin. As he is in Washington and she is the Governor of Alaska, there was almost no other "local" information about her in the local Washington media for example, ie TV or newspapers etc (prior to her announcement, now we seem to be unable to watch any TV without her every 20 minutes ha-ha)
It now appears that Palin was not "vetted" (her background checked) very well. Or certainly, by his own words, its clear that McCain did not know of Palin's background, correctly. For example, for many days after the Republican convention, McCain was in events together with Palin, and touting her credentials, that Palin has supposedly sold the Alaska Governor's jet for profit on eBay (she didn't; she put the jet on eBay, but it didn't sell; she sold it at a loss to political friend in Alaska); or that she had visited with troops in Iraq (actually she was only to the border) or that she said no to the Bridge to Nowhere and sent back the money (she was first for the bridge, then when the money was allocated to Alaska, she took the money but said they won't build the bridge afterall) etc etc etc.
Because of McCain's very long career as a "straight-talker", I am totally willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, that McCain honestly believed all those stories he said about Palin. (I am bewildered by Palin's ethics, in standing next to McCain making these gross exaggerations of the facts, and not correcting McCain at the very next bus trip to the next town an hour later, rather than letting these falsehoods be told by her running mate about her, for days.) But yes, I believe McCain honestly felt these were truths. And as McCain was so eager to repeat these stories, I am certain McCain also had assigned a high value to these supposed "truths" in his selection of Palin as the VP candidate.
Now, how did he get those misconceptions into his head?
He - McCain - never Googled Palin ! I would not think of hiring any colleague for any project (of a person I did not know personally) without starting the decision process with a Google search (and reading the Linked In profile). McCain was totally dependent on a (biased, filtered, incomplete) summary of Palin's background. A small distortion or minor omission turned into a significant falsehood. Yes, jet was on eBay but didn't seel (nor at a profit). Yes, Bridge to Nowhere was cancelled, but Palin kept the money in Alaska ! Yes, she was in the Middle East and did meet troops there, but was only on the border of Iraq and didn't meet US troops serving in Iraq, etc etc etc.
First, I am 100% certain, that as these "corrections" to Palin's biography, are revealed, one-by-one to McCain, he must feel he was hoodwinked, he has been fooled, and he must be livid. If most of what he thought were her best attributes, were actually distorted from the truth, then who is Palin, and is she at all what McCain wanted to hire. Did he make a mistake? (I am sure this is angering him inside, while no doubt he is happy that the public reception of Palin has been so positive and his campaign has rebounded very strongly)
This - McCain that is - is now the potential next President of the USA. Someone who is so "blind" to facts, that he is clearly being "handled" by his staff; who feed him clearly untruths. McCain enjoys a big popularity among the independents, because he is such as straight-shooter, tells the truth - even to the point of admitting he is not literate on the computer. But.. Isn't the George W Bush presidency already enough proof that a President should not be allowed to become so isolated from reality.
And now, the Palin selection - in my mind (regardless of the political merits of either party and their candidates) - the selection process itself, paints a frightening image of how helpless McCain is in the modern world.
He is a former military man. Is he aware, that the next military campaign may be fought on digital battlegrounds? That the next terrorist attack is more likely to come on the web than on a plane. He should go back to class with the generals of Desert Storm, and pay attention to why it was information technology - instant messaging for example - that allowed US tanks to mass firepower with helicopters and destroy the Iraq army so overwhelmingly. What kind of executive in today's world expects to be competent, who cannot Google?
And I hope this blog is not taken as something against old people. I am 48 years old (not young anymore, ha-ha) and my step dad, who passed away at age 84 a couple of years ago - and was happily emailing me almost weekly, and most eagerly googling topics on a wide range.. He loved the search engine ability of his personal computer, almost as much as he loved the games on it ha-ha.. its not an age thing, its an attitude thing. And observing how much information has been deliberately abused by the current administration, systematically, I really do think the next President should know how to Google..
And as to top managements at companies. There is certainly a "time to retire" moment for those who do not want to go online. All businesses (and organizations) in the Industrialized World, absolutely all of them, will need to work online in some way or another. And all businesses will benefit from direct contact with customers online. A top executive who is not personally online, is a dinosaur. And its time to put those executives to pasture, give them the golden handshake but let them go. This world is far faster and more interconnected and intense, that if you're not able to be online, you are obsolete.
Tomi - I know this isn't really the point of your post, but I think it's an interesting twist to it...
As you undoubtedly know, John McCain was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. He was considered a war hero for his selfless service to his country and to his fellow prisoners. You probably also know that he was tortured while he was a prisoner. I won't go into all the details, I'm sure you can Google them. :) However, one of the results of this torture is that he's unable to perform many tasks that are easy for you and me - such as tie his shoelaces and, yes, type on a keyboard. In short, he is disabled, and that disability creates a barrier to him using computers and the Internet that, up til now, he has found a way to be successful without seeking to overcome those barriers.
The interesting twist is to generalize this, just as you've generalized your observations of John McCain. Should we look down on disabled people, as you look down on Senator McCain, if their disabilities lead them towards different ways of interacting with the world than you and I have been led to do? You used the word "blind" in your post, but you put it in quotes. Do you think we should automatically eliminate a candidate for public office who is physically blind if they choose to spend their time interacting with the world in ways other than struggling with today's screen reader technologies?
Just curious...
Posted by: Russ | September 15, 2008 at 07:58 PM
Hi Russ
Very good posting, thank you. I think there are two main issues here.
First, should we look down on disabled people, whatever their disability. I certainly feel strongly that no, absolutely not. And I know Alan feels the same way, and I believe from your posting that you too Russ think that way. I would expect most would tend to think so.
But the second issue is specifically McCain and a disability to using the internet? This I don't buy at all. I've done a considerable amount of research into the ergonomics, the haptics, the user interfaces and controls of high tech, earlier around the personal computer (For example, I was the egonomics consultant among my many duties for my employer when working for New Yorks' first internet service provider at the start of the last decade) and obviously more recently around the mobile phone. I was just hosting the global guru on phone handset design, my old friend and ex Nokia colleague Christian Lindholm who was on his first Hong Kong visit last week. We spent two days together discussing the industry - and related UI issues and its development. Christian even spoke on these matters at our Mobile Monday Hong Kong event a week ago.
So I do know quite a lot about this issue. And so, lets return to Senator McCain, and his injuries to his arms, and using a personal computer to access the internet. It is actually the personal computer, that is most suited for overcoming almost any disability - far more so even than the mobile phone for example. The PC is by far the most flexible technology to allow use and access by people of almost any disability, from fingers, hands, limbs, to even overcoming blindness ie braille readers - you can read and send emails, and yes, do google research, even if you're blind. You cannot drive a car, or read the time on most watches, or watch TV (yes you can listen to it) but on the personal computer, almost every disability has been solved.
It is much because of the modular nature of the technology, its set interfaces (and/or de-facto standards). So for example, again the specifics of McCain. I am not his doctor, and obviously do not know what specifically he can and cannot do. But he need not use a standard keyboard (and mouse). There are split keyboards, folding keyboards, unconventional keyboards; even more limited keypads that allow full text entry. There are cordless and wireless mice. There even are more extreme input methods all the way to using your toes or a pointer on your head or using the movement of the pupils of the eyes etc (this technology was adopted from US military aircraft, and as McCain has been involved in airforce procurement discussions in the Senate, he should know well about these developments).
There is NO excuse, whatsoever, for McCain not to be connected to the internet, due to his disabilities. Maybe he cannot fly a plane anymore or drive a car or salute a flag (the ultimate irony for such a war hero). But to say he didn't get online because of a disability, is certainly rejecting reality. In fact all over the world, the internet has had more rapid adoption by disabled people than the population at large, specifically, because it is that much more friendly to those with disabilities, than any other major technology on the planet, from the car to the TV set to the mobile phone to the wristwatch..
Good point, Russ, but totally not applicable to McCain. There are over 200 million Americans online. At the start of 2008, while running to be president of the USA, Senator McCain was one of the small minority still not online. He is very literally out of touch with America. As the world moves into an information age, he is truly a dinosaur. He is not qualified to lead the country where the information tech industry was created and where most of the IT tech leadership still lies.
Now, this is a view of a technologist, and obviously I cannot vote, and I greatly respect his heroic service to his country, his long career in the Senate, his maverick reputation, and - most of all - I respect his incredible forgiveness, that after all the years of torture, he was leading the fight to restore US relations with Vietnam. A true hero in every sense of the word. But being a hero does not make one inherently competent to be President of America. And if the world is having its next contest for global hegemony in the areas of the virtual worlds of the web, America cannot afford a dinosaur who did not even use the internet at the start of this year.
Note the differences. Lets use an analogy relevant to McCain's past as a fighter pilot. Before airplanes, there were military aircraft in the form of balloons, mostly used for artillery spotting, used even in the US civil war. Since the second world war, The predominant weapon of war to win wars, is the airplane (recalling that the nuclear bomb was delivered by airplane, and that nuclear missiles can also be counted in the advanced fields of aeronautics).
I say weapon of war, as one can reasonably argue, that information tech - from spying on the enemy to disrupting his systems, to efficiently managing our own troops - is the new top "weapon" (ie key to the rapid victory in Desert Storm). But information tech is not seen as a weapon, but rather a battlefield "force multiplier". Useful yes, but a satellite photo does not kill the enemy. A gun or tank or bomb dropped from a plane, kills the enemy.
So, aircraft. Imagine McCain's "army" for the future. He said he used no aircraft at the start of this year, but he is now adopting some balloons for his army. This is the analogy of the personal computer and the internet.
But Barack Obama's "army" is already fluent in using balloons in his army, and he is not only deploying fighter planes (ie mobile phones, the seventh of the mass media, by far faster and more far-reaching than the internet), he has fully trained his army to utilize fighter planes. Which army wins? If the ruling weapon today is the warplane, and one side has them (Obama) and the other side has none - this is a bloodbath.
Note, I am not talking about the Presidential campaign, I am talking about ruling the country after the election. Obama not only uses the older technology fluently - collecting names, mailing lists and interacting with blogs, Facebook and MySpace and YouTube etc; - that is the old way (balloons). He is also FLUENT in the newest and most powerful communication technology, mobile, from SMS texting to Twitter.
I think this is a "strategic" issue in the election. Its not covered much in the press, as its so techie-geeky side of the matter. But I was horrified to learn how unconnected Pres Bush was, after all he was a young President. But now, McCain.. he is a dinosaur, I'm sorry. And its not that he can point to a disability and say, but I am unable to use a PC...
Oh, just a minor personal angle. McCain was a fighter jockey. I am certain he misses the cockpit, in particular as he was shot down early in his career, as a young man. Had he bothered to learn to use a personal computer, he could have experienced very close virtual representation of flight, using PC based flight simulators. A real fighter pilot simulator has all the flight controls in the equivalent locations in the mock cockpit as on the real jet, so if McCain is unable to reach the controls of the real plane, he is unable also to use (normal) flight simulators. But a PC based flight simulator can have the controls set anywhere (moving the keyboard, joystick, etc) and he could have actually experienced the nearest thing to flying his A4 Skyhawk again.. But if he is not computer-literate, he will not even discover these delights.
This was something my step-father experienced as he showed me how he was flying a plane about a decade ago, after he had just bought (yet another) new game to his PC.. And like I said, my stepdad was a decade older than McCain. Its just attitude, not ability. McCain had decided he did not need to become connected. There was ZERO technical limitation due to physical disability, to him being able to connect to the web. He decided it was not important for him. Sorry, in my book, that means he is a dinosaur (just like any business exec who is not connected)
Its my view, and I hope very sincerely, that I did not offend any people with disabilities with that original posting (or this reply).
Thanks for writing Russ.
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | September 16, 2008 at 05:55 AM
"Its just attitude, not ability." True. Some in the ability challenged community avoid situations or experiences where they would be labeled disabled. Also, while using a computer is more accessible than ever, it was not always so nor was it designed to be. Advances improve everyday but if one has implemented other forms of information gathering that meet their needs, who am I to say they are wrong? I still read newspapers and magazines with my blogs.
Your posts are offensive because you state there must be a reason outside of a disability for not being proficient with computers from your limited knowledge of not possessing any challenge or community background. With the ease of information at our fingertips, you seem the dinosaur in attitude over ability.
Posted by: FeFe | September 17, 2008 at 01:44 AM
I really enjoyed this post! i think you hit the nail on the head.
Posted by: Kathie | September 17, 2008 at 05:11 AM
Hi FeFe and Kathie
Thank you for your comments. I'll answer both separately.
FeFe. I am somewhat puzzled by your posting. Clearly you are offended, and I apologize for that. I did not mean to offend, but I am certain there must be many others who also feel like you do.
Let me try to see if we can find some commmon ground.
McCain (and Obama) are running to be President. They are not trying to become a cattle handler for example (Cowboy) or some other manual labor job, where arguably you really don't need much computer skills..
So the two candidates are intending to become the executive managers (the President) of the world's most powerful country, the biggest economy, and by coincidence also of the country that happens to be the current leader in the biggest efficiency gain in both power and economy - the IT industry.
An executive of any organization has to make decisions on imperfect information. The bigger the organization, the more that information gets filtered. I hoped to make that clear in my original posting. I am an MBA, trained in this. I worked as an executive at Nokia's HQ in Finland, I've seen it first hand for years. I now am a consultant, advising mostly business executives (Presidents, CEOs, Chairmen, Board Members) but many of my customers have been with various goverments around the world (about digital technology matters, obviously, not in the top national or international political matters). And I have spoken in public for over a decade, and written six books, and lecture at Oxford - so its not like my views are a hidden bizarre quirky extremist blogger somewhere, I'm very widely quoted and visible. With a considered view. And very much a respected authority on the digital future, how high technology changes our lives - including government - and about how to educate and re-educate to get those skills.
I don't mean to suggest that means I am right. I do mean to suggest, that my views are long term considered, widely respected, and perhaps deserve the benefit-of-the-doubt, with this background.
But even so, I totally understand, that it is possible to be factually right, and still be offensive in how the point is delivered. So I am not in any way denying, that my blog offended you, and very likely thus many others. I am truly sorry, that was not my intention.
I hope your view is not colored by a bias in the election and perhaps your preference of McCain over Obama? If so, are you certain, that you can remain neutral in considering this matter - perhaps a critical matter if this crazy Ahonen happens to be right - in how effective McCain could be as the Chief Executive of your country, and/or if he might be duped and misled and fed untruths (as clearly seemed to have happened in the rapid vetting and appointment of Governor Palin for VP)
With all that, let me go to your points. I hope we can find common ground.
You said you agree with the point that it is "attitude not ability". Then you point out that some will avoid situations that might expose their disability. I understand that and appreciate that. You then suggest that any given person should be able to select which method(s) they use to gather their information. That a newspaper or magazine is still valid today. You don't need to read blogs to be informed.
That is all true, I do not dispute that. You and I are not involved in a by-the-minute changing world where a Russia invades a Georgia one day, a bomb explodes in Yemen a moment later, an investment bank goes bankrupt while a giant insurance company needs to be financially rescued. All while a North Korean dictator has gone missing, nuclear bombers fly into hostile Venezuela, and Iran continues developing its bomb and genocide continues in Darfur and an uneasy political truce seems to hold in Zimbabwe. And a famed 9/11 terrorist continues to hide and issue new statements.
That world of the US President, is by every measure, the most demanding executive position, in terms of global impact, and how that relates to the US citizens - in anything from the interest rates paid to China on loans to pay the enormous deficits, to the price of oil, all while nature tosses Texas-sized storms from the Atlantic, one after another.
That President cannot - I repeat - cannot survive by reading a newspaper. That news is yesterday's headline. That President has to have 24 hour TV news on in the White House, every channel, What is CNN reporting and the other big news organzations, what is happening in the markets ie Bloomberg or CNBC, and the various international 24 hour news feeds - including Europe ie BBC News, Euronews etc; what is in Asia ie Channel News Asia - and even what is happening in the Muslim world, ie Al Jazeera etc.
A US President cannot be effective if he relies on outdated information gathering. I don't mean that the Wall Street Journal or NY Times or Washinton Post (or Time, Newsweek, Economist etc) do not break news or provide valid analysis, yes, there of course is staff to cover all the main news sources.
But the President cannot react in a global economy to a sudden crisis, if he reads about it tomorrow, in the newspaper.
I am sure you agree. That yes, 24 hour news is obviously a must-follow in the White House, to get earliest warning of breaking news, to give the President maximum time to gather his advisors and take some time to consider, before making executive decisions (when necessary) and/or ignore matters if that is the prudent thing to do.
Now, please hold that thought.
That 24 hour TV news concept is 25 years old, when CNN went live in the beginning of the 1980s.
The internet is only half that age, and broke to the mass market only in 1994, when Time and Newsweek put it on their covers that year.
I have been advocating this technology (and obviously mobile after that) ever since then, when I was employed by the first Internet Service Provider of New York City at that time. I have argued for a long time - including at this blog for three years and in my six books - that the COMMUNICATION ability that these new technologies provide, give a massive efficiency gain in any communication situations.
Imagine if the new President came to the White House, and said, he does not believe in using the telephone. His first act is to disconnect the telephone and he would force his administration to communciate with letters and carrier pidgeons and semaphore flag signals.
The President would promptly be impeached as demonstratibly insane.
The telephone was NOT initially a communciation system. The first use of the telephone was an alarm system - fire alarms for wealthy people. Then it became an alert system (think of your SMS text messaging or Blackberry emails today, or of beepers and pagers in the past). Only after those, gradually, as the mass market started to afford telephones, they became instruments for conversations - and people started to learn to chat on a phone, to "reach out and touch" as the old AT&T commercial used to go.
That was NOT the initial intention of the telephone. But today, nobody considers buying a first time phone for fire alarm use.. The technology has changed over time.
Yet today, the telephone is one of the most vital communciation systems of any reasonably "normal" person (ie excepting some very hermit-like people who hate to interact with anyone). Certainly in politics - where the job is to serve others of that political community - a communication technology - like the telephone - is vital.
Now. Please stay with me. The telephone has been with us for over 100 years. The internet only became viable as a mass market technology in the last decade. John McCain was in Congress when the internet became viable as a communciation platform ie through email (and later also a media platform).
When he went to serve in Washington, as part of Reagan's foot soldiers, the PC was very geeky, difficult, and needed hours of professional training just to be able to be used. I remember, I was an authorized trainer for PCs at the time, helping many people understand how to get form the "DOS Prompt" into Wordperfect of Lotus 1-2-3 etc. How to print etc. This was when we did not use a mouse, the screen did not provide links for us, and there was no worldwide web for the internet.
Had McCain been a "normal person" and not in Washington, and changed his military career into say a university professorship in Arizona, or working say as a mid manager with a small aviation company or whatever would suit his naval aviation background; he would normally and naturally have picked up computing skills, as a formality of being a normal American at the time. Four in five Americans are online (total, across the population, so most who are not, are so young they can't read or write yet)
But McCain went to Washington just when the Internet emerged. He then has been involved in the daily politics of that circus. He has had staff from then on. And he has thus had younger people working for him - who have been online long ago - his younger wife is online and connected obviously - but he never felt it was necessary for him to learn.
Now. That is his right and his decision. There are people who make the decision to not watch TV, and I respect that too and probably there are people somewhere who refuse to use the telephone out of princple (I don't mean the Amish who do so out of religious dogma, which I also respect). But if you made a conscious decision not to ever watch TV, then that pretty well kills your chances of elected national office (in a modern country like the USA, I am not talking of some developing country countries).
So - the long story. There is a communication technology which is inherently better than a telephone, a letter or a telegraph; which can in fact conveniently supplant and supercede all those with similar but superior variants (Skype calls, email etc) in the efficiency of communciation. That is the internet. It is ALSO a superior mass media - blogs report news (and falsehoods) faster than the 24 hour broadcast news in almost all breaking news cases.
This change came in the last dozen years. Obama was on the outside of Washington and saw it happen when he was in Chicago. He learned of its power because he was forced to use it himself. McCain was isolated when the change came, and he didn't see the need to get to terms with it.
I totally admit that its McCain's prerogative to select which media he personally selects to follow for his news. And that its his prerogative to select which methods of communication he uses. His (younger) staff will automatically gear to the most efficient as it is, simply due to the pressures of the job, and managing the enormous information flows and communication requests. They all are armed with Blackberries and they all do use SMS texting etc.
But McCain does not. As I explained in the original blog, he does not google. That puts McCain at an ENORMOUS disadvantage to anyone who does. At a disadvantage to .. Ahmadinajad ! At a disadvantage to .. Kim Jong Il (if he is still alive).. At a disadvantage to .. Putin (and the new guy, Medvedev). These all are online.
YOU use the internet, obviously, you found us here. You use google. You can witness to the power of search, and can at a mere eleven keystrokes type in my name and google Tomi Ahonen and see if I am a total weirdo, or perhaps I do have some merit to what I say and perhaps others refer to me (and whether that is on issues of digital communciation and digital media, or perhaps my fame is based on my other blog about Formula One racing ha-ha)
But your prospective President is denied this power?
That DOES disqualify him in my book. Not eight years ago when this President Bush was first elected, when I believed passionately in the internet and mobile, but less than half of Americans were online. But today, yes, there is no excuse for McCain.
And like I wrote, there are keypads, keyboard, speech recognition, joysticks, modems, etc that allow efficient use of the internet by FAR more disabled people than McCain. FAR more disabled..
Its a question of his attitude. He decided this was not worth his while. He delegated this to his staff, and now is captive of that decision.
I hope I made my point, sorry it was long, but again, this is a hobby blog and I do have a day job to get to.. Thank you for writing FeFe, and I hope you might return to continue to dialogue.
Kathie - thank you. Yeah.. you and I see this in the same way. Cheers.. :-)
Thank you both for writing
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | September 17, 2008 at 12:20 PM
Haha, great post, I'm just afraid that this valuable skill will be lost in the political spin that will doubtlessly dominate the airwaves untill election day.
Lets hope the mobilised politcal "sleeper" i.e. young people are sufficiently motivated by the breath of fresh air one of the candidates demonstrates ;)
Br
Posted by: Kai S | September 19, 2008 at 12:48 PM
Hi Kai
Thanks. Yeah, but we're in quite a geeky area anyway, with mobile messaging as a marketing vehicle still today, so even small steps, mostly in the background, will help. But we'll keep our eyes on this story, if any stats come out, we'll report on them..
Cheers
Tomi :-)
Posted by: Tomi Ahonen | September 29, 2008 at 03:34 PM