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So, I’m involved in a process at work in which we are reviewing some mobile strategy presentations put together by Gartner. One of the big things that they keep hammering away at is that in this “new world”, user experience is really important. They talk about how it’s suddenly important to make user applications useful and meet your user expectations, even if (gasp!) the users are internal corporate users! OMG!

This has, of course, always been true with every piece of software ever built. Designing a craptacular user interface that hinders productivity, increases learning curves, or requires complex workaround to overcome system flaws has always been a problem. It’s always been important. What has changed? App Store ratings! For the first time ever, users get to read what other users think of your app before they try it and it radically impacts your adoption and support in a visible way! Suddenly the bitching about how bad the application is exists in a written, visible, public, form, instead of taking place over beer after work or inside the head of the users. This means that suddenly management is saying, “oh my, for mobile apps we actually need to think about user experience or we’ll get one star reviews!”

This is what it took? Decades of usability studies and UX research and it isn’t until your users have a publicly visible place to give you a black eye that you listen to what they’ve always said?

In short, usability matters. It has ALWAYS mattered. The mobile space isn’t special or different. They are just tiny computers with touch screens. A good app is a good app. A bad app is a bad app. The difference is not that the devices are mobile, it’s that there is a high visibility feedback mechanism.

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Today is the first day of my 39th year of post-uterine life on this planet.  This means that it’s 365 days until I hit 40.  Yikes.

It is common, I suppose, to start looking backwards at this time in a persons life.  I suppose this because it is something I find myself more and more tempted to do.  This is, in my opinion, a mistake.  It I were to summarize each decade of my life according to my overall impression of what happened to me during that time, I would say this:

First Decade (0-10):  Formation of core identity and interests.

Second Decade (11-20):  Transformation into immature, nascent adult.

Third Decade (21-30):  School of hard knocks, transformation into actual adult.

Fourth Decade (31-40):  Establishment of stable, functional, adult life.

I now know who I am, what I believe, and what I’m doing.  I know my strengths and weaknesses and I know how to leverage the former and have systems to attempt to compensate for the latter.  This is a good place to be in.  It took, perhaps, more time than it ought to have taken.  I believe that this is in large part due to the negative influence of my religious upbringing, as it shunted me down life paths that I would not have ventured down otherwise and kept me from things I could have benefited from.  But, such is life.  I am still young, I am still strong, and if my personal development was somewhat unusual, there is nothing I can do about it now but shrug and carry on.  Which is precisely what I intend to do.

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President Obama has done a lot in his time in office. Whether you love him, like him, are neutral on him, or hate him with the fires of a million suns is not germane in the context of what I’m here to write about. Set aside for a moment any of the political, legislative, strategic, ideological, economic, or policy decisions he has made. That’s not what I’m interested in posting about. I want to talk about something he has done that is entirely unprecedented and may long outlast his tenure in the oval office. I want to talk about his software and new media strategy and what it means for the future of the presidency.

Today the White House released an iOS/Android mobile application. The presidency? There’s an app for that. (Sorry, had to be done.)

Now, there are tons of apps available for mobile devices. Every company these days has one. That is not particularly new. One could even argue that they are late to the party. BUT. The interesting thing here to me is whether or not the next administration (whenever that happens and whomever that happens to be) will feel that they need to continue the digital policies of this administration and, if not, how they will change them.

It takes IT workers, software developers, QA people, project managers, to create and publish web sites and mobile applications. Presumably these jobs are actually performed by contract software houses (they could be government employees, I don’t really know), but even so, the budget allocation and the interest to create things like the White House App, Data.gov, a Twitter feed, a video podcast, and all the other new media efforts this administration has pursued will either need to be adopted and modified to fit the message of future administrations or abandoned in favor of less open access.

The reasons put forward by the Obama administration for taking this tech-savvy approach to government communication are many. First, there is a stated commitment to openness and transparency in government. Every visitor to the White House is a matter of public record. The White House website has become a trove of interesting information giving an apparently unprecedented view into the day to day operations of the government. Via the Twitter feed and video podcast and other outlets, there has been, since day one, a communications strategy intended to reach individual citizens directly instead of utilizing the 24-hour cable news networks and the filtered media. It is a strategy, IMO, has actually contributed to the dramatically different views people have on this particular president. People who were initially inclined against him have probably not subscribed to his video podcast, or downloaded the White House app, or spent much time accessing either the data or news coming directly from the executive branch (likely missing out on the White House beer recipe… sad…). They are more likely to spend their time consuming biased second hand media sources doing the traditional editing and spinning of news events and therefore getting a significantly different perspective on Obama and his policies and actions than people who follow the day to day operations of his administration via first-hand social media. Why pay attention to what is actually happening in the White House when you can listen to a bunch of uninformed television pundits earning a living by giving their highly subjective opinions out on the air on whatever soundbite happens to be sexiest on any given day?

When I wonder what Obama has been up to, I go look at the first hand sources. This is something that was not possible with previous presidents and I don’t think that the more conservative portion of our population (even if they have managed to find their way to a Facebook account and learned how to use a computer) has yet adapted to the idea that pundits and talking heads and media outlets are, by their very nature, a filtered outlet of second hand, prepackaged, information.

Now, this isn’t to say that the “official” channels can not be abused. Obviously, things like the White House video podcast and website are potentially propaganda tools. They could be used to paint a glorious, sanitized, artificial, dishonest, picture of how things are. As somebody who has followed these media streams, and also monitored the traditional media, I have found this not to be the case with this administration. Obama has not attempted to hide unpleasant truths, he has spoken about them, at length, and candidly. I have often disagreed with the man and his policies, there is much he has done that I would have done significantly differently, but I cannot fault him for the fact that that for three years now he has directly addressed the American people as if we are reasonable adults capable of mature and rational discussion, even as the country at large has given him little or no reason to believe that.

So what happens to these channels when Obama leaves office? This may be the first presidency that has not only so directly addressed the population through personal media channels, but also the first one to consistently brand that message. The White House website and media have a consistent color scheme, font choices, and aesthetic. It’s a little like what would happen if Steve Jobs was president. Let’s say for the sake of argument that Mitt Romney wins this fall. Will there still be an iPhone app? A blog? A White House home brewing recipe? Will the color scheme change from blue to red to reflect the new administration? Will there even be branding? Perhaps most importantly, will the new administration talk to us like we’re a bunch of idiots the way the last one did or will they at least attempt to continue the kind of frank, mature, dialog that Obama has made central to his governing style?

At the risk of being one of those opinionated media idiots (hah, I’m not in the media, so I’m just an opinionated normal citizen, you can tell because I’m mostly bald), I believe that the media channels of the White House (including the Android app) are not the property of this administration. They are the property of We the People (which also happens to be the name of a public petition website set up by the Obama Administration). The President and his staff are our employees. They work for us. When a company hires me and I go to my first day of orientation, I am presented with a computer and a bunch of software that is licensed and operated by the corporation, including official communications channels like Outlook email and some sort of “blessed” instant messaging system. I am expected to use these tools to do my job. If I am CEO of the company, I could theoretically come in and demand that we remove the email system or I could ban telephones or change the address of our corporate web site, all of which would have a pretty adverse impact on my company. You might initially think, “hey, he’s the boss, he can do that” but then you realize that even the CEO reports to the shareholders. I can make those changes, but if they negatively impact the operation of the company, if they cause the company to regress, the stock price will tank and I will generate a lot of ill will. Ultimately, I will lose my job.

Since the elected officials theoretically work for us, we are the ones who bought the software, we are the ones who own the code, we are the ones who can expect that if the White House has a Twitter feed, it continues to operate even when somebody else is in the White House. If there is an online petition site today, there should be one tomorrow. They work for us. I think we have the right to expect them to stay open and technically in the 21st century.

If there is one thing Obama understood in order to get into office, if was that we live in the 21st century and it is multi-cultural, complex, and far removed from the 1950’s. We are all interconnected both digitally and economically. We cannot go back to that earlier time. His policies will (I hope) have lasting positive ramifications in the future, but it is possible that his approach to direct engagement, to building an IT communication infrastructure around his administration, his approach to branding the White House as an open, transparent, accessible, entity mark him as the first truly 21st century president. He has established a precedent that it will be difficult to undo without appearing to be insular, paranoid, and closed-minded. I am fairly certain that if John McCain had won, this tech revolution in the executive branch would have had to wait another election cycle or two. A man born in 1936 would have been unlikely to create White House 2.0. Neither, if I think about it, would a man like Mitt Romney (born in 1947). It took somebody on the early edge of Generation X to come into the Oval Office with a Blackberry in his hand. Even if a Republican administration were to come into office and rebrand the White House communications from the blue to red it would strike a radically different chord in the minds of citizens who have come to rely on the Web 2.0 social media channels that the executive branch offers as a source of information. Perhaps they wouldn’t even understand the value of what Obama has done by providing a modernized communications infrastructure and would treat it like just another outlet for soundbites and meaningless, sanitized, drivel. They might even, GASP, discontinue the mobile app.

Someday, hopefully not for at least another four years, there will be a new administration. It could even be Republican. Will my iPhone app still provide me with insight into it’s operation? Will the We The People petition web site still run? Will engaged citizens who adopted these technologies because they were supporters of Obama, abandon them when it’s Mitt Romney behind the wheel? Time will tell, but I for one hope that the openness stays, and we all stay along for the ride. Administrations come and go, but legacy code is forever. At least, I hope so.

What do you think? Is the open, tech-driven, social media presidency the way of the future? If the Republicans win, will they keep it around? If they do, will you tune in?

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Two interesting things happened today. Thing #1: I started my new job at Capella University as a Senior Technical Architect in the content authoring software department. Thing #2: I saw the movie Prometheus.

I don’t have a whole lot to say about Thing #1 at the moment because very little has happened at this point. I went to Capella, met HR people, filled out paperwork, the usual new employee orientation stuff. A little over three years ago I was doing the same thing at HealthPartners, but at that time I was already pretty familiar with HP, having worked there as a contractor for some time prior. Capella is all new, a blank slate. I am thrilled to find that they have toasters and sinks in their common food areas and it is oddly exhilarating that I, having never previously attended a full-fledged accredited university, am now employed by one and have a shiny new .edu address. The strangeness of it all is about the only thing I can say about it.

Thing #2, Ridley Scott’s odd new prequel to Alien, is another thing entirely. As a film, in terms of visuals and pacing, and horror/shock value, I enjoyed the whole thing. As a story, in terms of logic, and development of a story arc, I can say no such thing. Prometheus felt really familiar throughout the movie. It was like watching a movie I had already seen many times. It was well crafted, but that’s about all I can say of it. I certainly liked it more than Alien 3 or 4.

Looks like I don’t really have all that much to say after all. Hey, at least I did a little writing. Let’s feel good about that and tuck ourselves into bed, eh?

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In 1989 I had my first experience with online bulletin board systems.  I was house-sitting for a couple I knew from my local Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses and they were the owners of an IBM PC.  My friend Stacy Jackson showed me how to dial up to a BBS and partake in online discussions.  I found the experience to be moderately interesting but hardly compelling.  Yippee, I could talk to strangers.  Alert the media.

A few years later (1994) I was in the work force writing software at my first real job.  I was the only person in the company with a modem attached to his computer and before too long I had access to the Compuserve Information Service to look up information I might need in order to learn more about emerging trends in technology.  This was the first time I really interacted in real-time chat rooms and bulletin boards.  This time I was given enough time and opportunity to see first-hand the power of this new networked communication medium.  I could download source code (and, of course, very slowly downloaded nekkid pics), post questions I had about writing software, and interact with people from all over the world.  A few months later I was asked to connect to something called an “Internet service provider” and download the software necessary to get “attached to this new Internet thing everybody is talking about.”  I used a DOS-based communications app I had written to dial into a shell account, download Trumpet Winsock for Windows 3.1 and the Mosaic 0.98 web browser, and surfed the web for the very first time.  I’ve basically been hooked ever since.  My digital footprints go back a long way.

My first website, my adoption of the Java development language, my education in HTML and LiveScript (better known today as JavaScript), and all that followed after that first connection to the Internet shaped my life in more ways than I can quantify.  I got into Usenet and met and argued with all sorts of people about all sorts of things.  I surfed and surfed, watching the nascent Web transform from a few web pages into what it is today.  I remember the first time I saw an animated GIF, the first time I encountered an HTML form, the dreaded <BLINK> tag, the controversies about background images, and release of Netscape Navigator 1.0, the battle for client neutrality between the Open Standards brigade and Microsoft, the abandonment of both the DOS tools I started my career with, then the client-server paradigm that had supplanted it, and the ultimate demise of the online services as the Internet became more and more powerful and rendered them more and more irrelevant.  AOL diskettes, then CD-ROMs, the pre-Google world of search engines like AltaVista, I’ve been there making noise and having fun at every step of the way.

I am, in every way that counts, a product of the Internet as much as the generation that is following mine.  Oh, sure, I had a life before the Internet, but I can barely remember how it worked anymore.  I have an iPhone, a MacBook, and more domains than I know what to do with.  I was a dot-com bust.  I have had my music online for 16 years.  Hell, as far as I know, my band was the first one to have a full-length album available for immediate streaming online back in 1994.

I consider this all to have been a Very Good Thing.  I have a great career.  I didn’t miss a day of work through the entire financial crisis of the last few years.  And yet…  and yet…  Two years ago I decided to get out of it.  I had had enough.  I shut down my Facebook account.  Closed my blog.  Axed my Twitter feed.   Unsubbed from my RSS feeds and podcasts.  I essentially withdrew from the cyber-sphere.

I had begun to feel, thanks to various unpleasant personal situations in my life, that maybe all this “ambient intimacy” was having a negative overall effect on my life.  While the Internet was awesome as a way to amuse or educate myself, it was also a place where almost all interactions were a kind of pornography.  Instead of getting involved in politics, anybody with an opinion could “like” a couple Facebook groups, engage in some flame-wars, and get it out of their system without having to really risk anything or change anything.  Where real issues were concerned, the Internet allowed emotional itches to be scratched without any of the repercussions of real engagement.  It was not so bad, even kind of fun, when it was strangers interacting mostly with strangers but more and more it had become the norm for communication even between friends.  Friends could use tweets and status updates in lieu of phone calls or face to face interactions.  The convenience of asynchronous and unfiltered communication had won out over the sometimes messy and inconvenient realities of meeting with people, hugging them, smiling at them, hearing their voices.

I still loved the geekiness, but I wanted reality, not the Interwebs.  In reality there was less posing, less flippancy, more care, more thought.  The novelty had worn off for me.

Of course I continued to use the web as a resource.  I stayed on LinkedIn for professional connections.  I kept my music on the sites it lived on in case anybody wanted it.  But I was more interested in building a boat, hiking a trail, or planting a garden than I was in hearing yet another argument or clever quip.

This still holds true.  And yet I have decided to re-engage, and I’m trying to articulate to myself precisely why this is so.  I can honestly say I haven’t missed the online community.  I have spent more time with people in the real world and that has certainly been more satisfying.  I have more time.  I have learned things I never thought I even wanted to know.  But this world, the blogosphere, the world of ideas and arguments, does offer something.  It does have it’s charms.  It does have it’s role.  It is as important in the history of human development as any other form of communication that has preceded it.  I feel like I can’t be a complete person living in the time I live in without at least finding a way to participate fully in the culture in which I live.  So, here I am again.  I don’t intend to write about religion or politics.  I don’t intend to let ambient intimacy short-circuit real affection and engagement.  I do, however, intend to listen to and hopefully engage with, people I would not encounter in my day to day life.  I intend to use this tool to learn more about the people I know in the real-world, their passions and interests, and hopefully leverage that awareness into richer relationships.  I haven’t given up hope on the Internet and the virtual community it creates as a tool for a deeper, more informed, and more active life.

I ask then, whoever you are reading this, if you can empathize with my feelings about the Internet.  Have you ever wanted to disengage?  Have you?  What changes do you think it would have in your life if you did?