Re: Potential from The Phoenix...

Rather, "Given dancing bears, why would anyone dance with anything  
other than a bear?"

"Bears are employed. Don't knock it."

Just because corporations own people's work, does not mean that  
corporations in ANY way enable that work. In fact, the opposite is  
true: Corporatism prevents ALL work, unless that work has been  
approved by whoever in the corporation grants it for the corporation  
to own. (No one sends a resume to himself.)

In reality, people perform work--even work efficiently, if accountable  
to their own actions. When people are NOT accountable to their own  
actions, instead shunt their actions to the corporate strawman, the  
only possibility is that of unaccountability, thereby blaming others  
for any problems. For example, Exxon/Valdez, Enron, The Louisiana Oil  
Spill, and the San Bruno Firestorm all produced corporate executives  
who shunted blame, pointing their fingers at one another, their  
subcontractors, the public, the market, etc.

However, problems are actually opportunities for growth, if owned by  
individuals who learn from them. Moreover, if problems are not  
accountable to the actions of the individuals who render them, then no  
motivation exists for individuals to grow from the problems that  
arise; "not my yob, man," is the only rational outcome of not owning  
one's own actions.

Reciprocally, statements, such as, "Not my yob," is NOT likely to come  
from self-employed sole proprietors, since liability is still  
accountable to their ownership.

Therefore, the ploy that "corporatism creates jobs" is a lie.

One underlying premise of the information age: That information is  
based in truth.

Greg

On Apr 10, 2011, at 1:57 PM, Ralph Hyre wrote:

> >Under no circumstances are corporatism and usability analysis/
> >usability development compatible
>
> So how do "design firms" stay employed, then generally?  The  
> corporate client wanting somebody to sue?  I've heard similar things  
> about "IT" not being a core function of many firms, and IT employees  
> being unhappy with their career prospects at many firms.
>
> This leads to the "outsourcing/offshoring" firms being able to offer  
> them a long-term career path where they can stay technical and still  
> grow in experience and salary.
>
> - Ralph
>
> On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 12:14 AM, Greg Austin  
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> Eric Schaffer concurs that under today's corporatism, the first step
> in any usability implementation is to identify the executive to
> champion the effort, and to rely on the authoritarianism of this
> individual to motivate group actions toward efficient communication
> output. Under today's top-down authoritarianism, usability effort is
> useless without first establishing an executive champion. However,
> since executive champions are also humans, reliance on their
> subjectivity, authority, and human bias is anything but scientific;
> the method is, in fact, political.
>
> If strict objectives are the means by which to establish scientific
> methods and reliable data upon which to draw valid conclusions and to
> establish more valid research, then the top-down model is no longer
> viable in information science. This is, in part, because
> authoritarianism misappropriates the problem-solving method that is
> the very basis for the objective science; Do it, "because The Boss
> says so" undermines the investigation process that would otherwise
> render valid development specifications.
>
> Further, the ONLY possible means a corporate executive champion posses
> to motivate individuals intent on implementing a user-centered project
> is that of fear--not of desire. The establishment has come first; the
> executive champion has been established, and team members know from
> where their paychecks come. Yet, motivation via fear is neither a
> cultivator of honest, open-minded willingness to collaborate, nor is
> it a creative force, as is the willing desire to create something of
> beauty. Moreover, fear might be a good motivator for a war effort, but
> it is completely out of context for peaceful healthcare
> administration, since healthcare is the antithesis of war. As the
> result, motivating healthcare and its information management via fear,
> is actually a form of politics--therefore, war by other means.
>
> Under no circumstances are corporatism and usability analysis/
> usability development compatible. Since corporatism must serve
> authority rather than the cooperative collaborative effort, it MUST
> continue to produce dancing bears of novelty to sell--efficient,
> usable tools only by chance. Willing cooperative collaboration through
> direct, accountable responsibility of ownership of one's actions and
> liabilities, is the underlying truth to be coded into user-centered
> healthcare informatics projects. Healthcare informatics projects that
> do not employ users as sole proprietary methods to achieve
> interactivity specifications are inexact in goals, since they do not
> serve users--they serve authorities.
>
> Therefore, false hierarchy has neither place in hardcoding healthcare
> information management projects, nor in healthcare in general.
> Instead, conflict resolution between individuals engaged in user-
> centered projects and healthcare must rely on moderated, unbiased
> socratic methods to unanimously adjudicate ultimate authority that
> leads group efforts.
>
> Expect the old Industrial-Age paradigm of top-down--that which has
> even been applied to software development--to go the way of the
> dinosaur. With its demise, the Truthful Information Age has a
> possibility of being born--with healthcare informatics leading the  
> way.
>
> Greg Austin
> [email protected]
> _______________________________________________
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>

Greg Austin
[email protected]
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