Help Wanted: Must be willing to go by a number

In a strange synchronicity, it turns out that the new 007 has been selected to take over Pierce Brosnan's license to kill. At the same time, the real MI6 is apparently looking for more numbers: An overview of operational careers in the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). While this hardly ranks in humour value to a full-page ad I once saw in The Economist, place by the CIA, looking for operational talent accustomed to and comfortable with "ambiguity," still pretty funny.

Just to make this an identity post, think about the nature of personna, identity, credential, etc. in this -- admittedly unusual -- case.

The word "Identity" may not be the problem . . .

P.T. Ong has come out of his corner swinging with some excellent questions of Phil Windley and the industry, hoping to point out and clarify the definitional challenges he, Dave Kearns, and I have been flogging mercilessly over the past weeks (If a tree falls . . .). It's worth looking at the questions, regardless of which side of the debate you're on, because they put into bold relief the challenge of the language and any attempts to move forward effectively. I think Phil's post (On the word 'Identity' which he comes to via Johannes Ernst's support for Phil's position that there is a challenge in defining identity: Phil Windley puts his finger on why defining "Digital Identity" is hard.) is merely the catalyst for these questions, because by reading through the post itself, Phil is showing concern for the ontology of our developing industry. And that is half the battle.

The next stop is Kim Cameron's Digital Identity Weblog. Kim is critical to this part of the debate for various reasons, not the least of which are:

He's very smart (and Canadian -- but that's redundant, I think).

He's respected, having led the writing and distribution of "The Laws of Identity" and infiltrated the top echelons of pretty much every group of identity activists and developers.

He's influential, noting in a recent post that c|net has ranked his blog as one of the top 100.

He's at the centre of the developmental storm -- toiling at Microsoft, the most likely contender to extend digital identity to the masses.

He's a genuinely nice guy (and Canadian -- but that's redundant, I think) based on what little I know of him.

He's made a post on his blog (Digital toys CAN have digital identities) that is the most significant and obvious indication of where and how this lexical problem comes from.

My post that triggered (or at least way synchronous with Phil's navel gazing about the language of identity) is just below: The living language of identity. In it I crassly begged the technologists -- naming Kim and Phil as exemplars -- to choose other language and leave the loaded words like identity outside the technical sphere. David Kearns, almost simultaneously found a bizarre use of the term "digital identity" on an XBox game, and "screamed" out that this was a perfect example of why and how the term digital identity was getting fucked up beyond recognition and value. (Well, he didn't actually say that, but that's how I read it.) In any event, Kim's post referred to in the last bullet above is an apology for the use of the term "digital identity" in a game. He says,"

"***** Top Spin 2
"One of the top Xbox sports games, in both sales and popularity returns for another victory on Xbox 360. Everything you loved about Top Spin is back and made even better. The peerless player-creator is reborn with the powerful DigitalIdentity that truly puts you in the game. Experience the pro tour in venues that are alive and dynamic with environmental elements that react to your play. Characters are even more stunning with the addition of HD technology and the inclusion of the top players in the world like Maria Sharapova, Venus Williams, Andy Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt and Roger Federer. Put it all online and you once again have the greatest tennis game ever created.

"Digital Identity - Create realistic player models and customize them with the highest level of details. Hairstyles, shirts, shorts, shoes, etc. allow you to create a player with your look and your style. Coupled with the ability to taunt your opponents with different attitudes, Top Spin 2 truly gives your player his own Digital Identity ()

I'm fascinated by the line, "Coupled with the ability to taunt your opponents with different attitudes". Could this technology have broad applicability to a number of professional uses???

Anyway, I think these player models - and all other virtual entities - are, in fact, examples of digital identities.

People learn a lot about the world by playing with toys. And its not just kids who learn this way.

The emergence of digital identity toys tell us that we are using the right name, not the wrong one. They represent an important step forward on the road to Craig Burton's "ubiquity".

I'll deal below with Burton's "ubiquity" and why it's a red herring in this discussion right now. More significantly is the obvious and diametrically opposed views that Kim and I hold viz. digital identity. (And, I should note, that I just read David Kearn's response to Kim's post. You should too, here: Identity is my racket.) Let me be clear:

Kim takes a technologist's point of view on this which lets him assess the fantasy world virtual entity creations as a valid digital identities. That may way well be so. They are, these players in the games, certainly entities within their games and would have identities. They are given, as the promotional copy suggests, various quirks and features that make them unique in the game. I agree completely. As constructs within a fantasy game (have I italicized enough to make my point?) which are apparently unique and characterized by defining attributes, "digital" identities manifest digitally. No problem. But the god that created them and endowed them with their features (i.e., the player) and the government (i.e., the players that accept that unique entity and its identity) have determined that one unique game "entity" for the sake of the game. There is no further mention about that entity determining that it can have various other identities -- inside or outside the game -- to present itself to the game and its players. I don't play online games, but I would suspect that regardless of the hairstyle the player gives to the "entity" in the game, in order to keep the score for that entity, it can not change from its singular, unique "being." Ergo, my point gets made: doesn't matter about the context (and I agree that toys and models are an excellent way to learn about reality), an identity or whatever word is chosen, there has to be ONE; whatever personna (or whatever word you chose to indicate a role or partial view of an identity (a unique being)), they must tie to that one identity for game integrity.

The world I'm concerned about may be significantly larger than the one that Kim is focused on. And that is not meant to be diminishing or otherwise condescending. Kim, as a technologist and architect of an identity structure and solution has to be primarily concerned not to "boil the ocean." That is, the field of view that he and others building the foundation for a workable technology platform that can expand, be standardized, and reach user ubiquity must restrict themselves to are those workable chunks that allow for progress. This reality is why for the past several years, solutions have focused substantially on the enterprise view of roles, etc. and assumed away the nastiness of contractual relations, liability, etc., etc. It has to be done that way or everything would stall for want of how to begin. I, on the other hand, being a little dumber and not building a workable technical capability (am I repeating myself again?), have the luxury of looking further ahead and beyond the immediate context. I don't solve intractable challenges of how systems will communicate and present claims, etc. That gives me a lot more time to think about the implications of (digital) identity within a system that is not purely online, but is, in fact, integrally integrated with our real world (as opposed to the simulated xBox world ;-) that is at the heart of this relief). That freedom to philosophize puts me -- like Kearns, Ong, et al -- into a questioning of the language that is framing the development. If the language arrogantly appropriated by us -- by which I mean 'you' ;-) -- developers of (digital) identity is inconsistent with the accepted meaning in common usage within the broader context (i.e., real life) into which digital identity will eventually fall, then we do a great disservice to the future.

For some reason Kim feels that "the emergence of digital identity toys tell us that we are using the right name, not the wrong one." There is nothing in the logic to support that conclusion in my view. If what Kim means is that the emergence of toys that accept the creation of representative digital "identity" (whatever that is) for online use (which I interpret to mean the creation of little avatars in the game that are pale shadows of their game-playing dweebs), OK. I agree. We are collectively on the right track. There is nothing in the game or the marketing language used to promote it, including "digital identity," that suggests that the words and phrasing is being used to anything but great ultimate disadvantage for human identity itself.

As for Craig Burton's crying "ubiquity," I don't think anyone could argue with the (brief) position and logic. Of course open, standardized identity architectures and protocols, and so forth, are essential to reach ubiquitous of an identity system. And only a ubiquitious identity system will release all the potential capability and value of the system. Look around you today at what exists for identity in the "real world." How much of a stretch is Craig's position. [Admission: I have no idea from a technology perspective just what a leap this might be. So, maybe it is revelation, I don't know.] I'm going to presume that Craig Burton is a very smart guy and if this seems like something wise and revealing to him, I'll accept it.

In this context, discussing the language of identity in the exchanges among all those usual suspects linked to here, it's a red herring. It doesn't mean anything at all. But now I too have linked to Craig Burton and hopefully he'll look at the Technorati trackback and read this post. And, more hopefully, he'll link back with a scathing flame -- and my readership will go up and the Identirati will be forced to no longer simply ignore any of this.

Maybe not.

Posted by Grayson at 03:13 PM

To thine own self be . . . partial

The following is an HTML version of an essay I just finished. It runs about 2,700 words. I would gladly accept feedback and comment.

What happened to the "moral core?" What happened to the civility of doing the "right" thing as part of a larger community? Why is it that so many people strain to castigate others for not being "part of the team," speaking in the royal plural, while incapable of acting except for their own good? Where, above all else, are the people who stand for something -- anything, really -- and won’t twist like human windsocks when the next big wind(bag) blows in? I wasn’t there, but it seems that as recently as the 1950s things were different. What happened? I have a theory, and that theory puts the cause squarely on . . . business. Not that business is bad, but that it is so good at what it is and does, and so influential.

Since the 1980s anyway, a disproportionate number of people in North America have been educated for and joined management ranks. MBAs are pumped out the shipping doors of maquiladora management schools like branded merchandise made in the third world. Everybody is in business. Young tech turks to high-priced investment bankers, megalomaniacal property developers to emperors of energy, and venture capitalists are all glorified in popular culture: movies, television, the nightly news. In our consumerist, money culture there is precious little room for anything that doesn’t hold the immediate promise of riches. In this context then, a good place to look for answers is in business or, more specifically, in the structure of today's business world.

The Corporation is a book and documentary film by Joel Bakan that chronicles the creation and ascendancy of the limited-liability share capital corporation as the world's primary form of business structure. Bakan analyzes and opines on the corporation's morality, coming to conclusions would be debated hotly if they were noticed at all and not discounted instantly. You can't label the corporate institution a "psychopath" and not raise some objections. It's an interesting read and relevant to this exploration in one particular way. Bakan quotes corporate lawyer Robert Hinkley, who says:

. . . [The law] dedicates the corporation to the pursuit of its own self-interest (and equates corporate self-interest with shareholder self-interest). No mention is made of responsibility to the public interest. . . .”

So the predominant form of business structure today, the corporation, is bound by law -- as a "person" -- to serve its self-interest to the absolute exclusion of any and all other motives. And, we’ve established that "business" is a predominant part of the (Western) zeitgeist. That should lead nicely to a business-as-cause hypothesis.

Given that all-encompassing fascination with business today, how could we not be influenced by our creation? Who among us could withstand the sensibility and certainty that self-interest is an over-riding, exclusionary driving force after drinking it in for so long? Very few people, I suspect, because we've all been conditioned by education, acculturation, and discipline to accept and catechize the truths manifest in business and the body corporate.

This essay's title derives from the words of Shakespeare's character, Polonius, in the tragedy Hamlet: This above all: to thine own self be true. As are many of the Bard's words, these have been appropriated widely as personal mottos. I even know someone who's affixed it permanently to his body in ink. My twist speaks not to the appropriation of a statement about living one's life with courage and conviction, but to its decontextualized bastardization and relationship to corporatist self-interest.

To thine own self be true is generally accepted to recommend one know oneself and serve that purpose; no one else's. This outward-looking view carries several implicit assumptions, not the least of which are:

one "knows" one's purpose; and

one "knows" what is true to that purpose.

Let's never mind for now the fact that most people have no idea who they are or what purpose they serve. When we read or recommend Polonius's counsel, we assume that a "self" conforms to some understood social standard. We expect people to be and act consistently within a romantic notion of how that type of person would behave. For instance, there may be an expectation of community spirit and support, love of freedom, desire to pursue the American dream, or aspiration to win at all costs. We fit one and all into neat buckets informed mostly by definitions of types generated over a lifetime -- often set in childhood. And, guess what? We apply the same process to defining ourselves: we choose a type that is in come way comfortable, perhaps because it's popular. These types exist, and for the most part it's a good thing if for no other reason than because it's easier for most people to be readily "true" to an off-the-rack type.

But in order to achieve "trueness," so far we've dodged the underlying need for a belief system. That is, it would take a sociopath or an actor to not believe in what they're being true to, even if it is only a stereotype. Generally, we tend to believe in who we are and moreso what we do: the thief believes in the value of larceny (and, if Robin Hood, of justice); the doctor believes in saving lives; the businessman believes in making money; the soldier, policewoman, and fireman all believe in serving and protecting. I could go on, but the short of it is that underlying a choice of "self" is a belief system.

What happens when a belief system is hollowed out? To what can one be true then? In response to a colleague's request for affirmation that he is trusted, I could only respond, "Yes. But don't think that makes you trustworthy. I trust you to consistently, shamelessly act solely in your own interest, period." In other words: you are true to yourself, but that "self" is doesn't have much substance.

It's not my place or desire to judge belief systems and changes in belief. But that is precisely what's happened. Why now is another question entirely. One I don't feel fit to address. But, there appears to be abundant evidence to suggest that many people have assimilated the amoral belief system of the body corporate. If so, what these people are dutifully "true" to is unworthy of a human.

Remember that there was a time not so long ago when religion and then science provided the foundations for belief sets about what was, why, and what will/should be. These moral systems, such as they were (and are), created constructs by which lives were lived. They were shared. One simple example is the laws of Moses. In these 10 rules are the belief system that guided a mass of people for thousands of years. In the past three hundred years or so, philosophers and scientists have put tremendous pressure on the underpinnings of those beliefs. More recently the mixing and mingling of social systems and religions as a function of emigration, multi-culturalism, and globalization has had an adverse effect on simple belief systems as well.

I would contend that the overwhelming emphasis on things commercial, the consumerist culture, and the glorified prevalence of the corporation have had an immeasurable effect on who we are. We -- many of us -- have taken on the attributes of a business corporation in act and philosophy. Here are a few examples:

The personal corporation -- I am guilty here. As a result of years working on my own, I have a corporation that is substantially me. It holds assets (intellectual property) I've created and was the legal entity that conducted business with my clients. It earned money and paid expenses, and -- critically -- paid less tax than I might have on my own. More than that it took on the responsibility for my work, providing me with a modest liability shield. North America is full of these entities designed to play within rules defined to make these legal "persons" the fall guy and beat the rules that apply to the average human.

Mission statements -- Achievers occupying the ranks of the business world no longer consider life goals and aspirations, family legacy, or providence as fulfilling a life's purpose. Now we have "missions" presented within "mission statements" to define our place and purpose. It's best, of course, if the mission statement's one to three sentences can capture the essence of desired purpose and phrase it in the form of a "value proposition" that satisfies a compelling need for the relevant audience (market). Sometimes that market includes primarily one's family or community or society at large. Often the market is an employer for which we define ourselves like services to be consumed.

Leverage and debt -- The corporate capital structure uses debt as "leverage" to create the potential for higher return on equity. This is a rational, mathematical choice with relatively limited downside because nobody really loses if the lever gets out of control. The body corporate can refinance, shed costs (labour), get more equity, or any other number of things even prior to a "restructuring" (read: bankruptcy). The price of doing so is small for a corporate business organization. Not so much for a person -- yet the accumulation of debt to satisfy immediate, consumable, personal desires is epic. Personal savings rates are at an all-time low, and credit card late payments have last month reached an unprecendented level.

Brand -- A small cottage industry of advice has arisen on the wave of personal marketing that presumes a core similarity between the personal reputation of ability and character, and the notion of corporate brand reputation of value propositions going so far as to refer to it as "brand you" or some such.

More insidiously, however, we seem to have internalized many of the characteristics not just actions of the corporate business institution. By which I mean, too many people have become wickedly self-interested, particularly on an economic measure. What we value has changed to reflect what business corporations value. Our language even frames the belief that we are corporations (e.g., “his stock is up”). Here are a few corporate character traits showing up in people.

No character -- Character is who you are when nobody's looking. Instead we're about brand, spin, and pre-fabricated "positioning'; we deny responsibility and pass blame to "externalize" costs and liabilities.

No purpose -- Too many people see nothing beyond economic self-interest and the complementary status and position power.

No community -- The best deal wins: it's all about ROI and economics. When you no longer serve a (financially) valuable purpose to me, "Goodbye."

Hollow words -- We know that we have to at least present humanly, so expedience demands the presentation of a façade of belief, purpose, etc. Like businesses though, we don't care that our actions contradict our words because attention spans are short and critical assessment rare. Besides, there'll be a better story tomorrow.

Opportunistic -- A business corporation must, to fulfill its mandate, act opportunistically and rationally without humanity or any sense of history. See "No community" above.

Scorekeeping on narrow metrics -- Status, financial worth, and consumer toys are the markers. Other values such as strength of family, contribution to community or to humanity at large, and so forth are scorned, ridiculed, or simply co-opted as tactics for achieving on the primary scales.

In his book, Bakan and the people he interviews take great care to distinguish the moral people from the amoral corporations that employ them. They paint a picture of people who compartmentalize their lives to be corporatists at work but moral publicly-concerned citizens when they leave the office. I'm not so sure. First off, how much can one compartmentalize? We carry everything everywhere: it's a function of the human condition. Second, even if we accept the compartmentalization apology, my contention is that what these people shift to is but a soft reflection of the corporate mentality anyway. So the shift, even if it exists, is a shift to nothing better.

What about the self-indulgent entitlement attitude that so pervades North American life that even Dr. Phil has scorned it on his program? Whether in parenting or in accumulating so much personal debt that self-sufficiency becomes not an option, we have an epidemic of corporatist mentality. The limited liability corporation was constructed to ensure that personal responsibility for corporate business losses would not accrue to owners, and certainly employees -- if not malfeasant -- could not be held liable for corporate debts. Is there not a striking parallel between the corporate structure and this self-interest which, if all works out, creates personal wealth and success (in the self-interested sense) but if it doesn't becomes nobody's responsibility?

That's all well and good, and far be it from me to rain on anyone’s parade, but the differences between corporate and corporeal persons have a critical impact on how effective we humans can be as corporate bodies. For instance, you and I can't go back to the market for more money by issuing new rounds of equity. We aren't limited-liability structures in the eyes of the law and no matter how hard and how effectively we try to avoid responsibility, society puts (at least some of) it back on us. Sarbanes-Oxley is legislation designed to put responsibility back on people's shoulders, and Kozlowski, Lay, Ebbers, and others are feeling the pinch of that pressure despite tremendous efforts to avoid both corporate and personal responsibility. We and our legacies ultimately have to live with our actions, not deny and disavow them to some abstraction. Rewriting personal histories (e.g., resume inflation) has become rampant under the rubric of "spin," but even it has its limits when fact-checking is enforced.

So back to Shakespeare. Polonius's advice to his son ought to be read in full:

Yet here, Laertes! Aboard, aboard for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay'd for.
There . . . my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor an unproportion'd thought his act
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to they soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware
Of entrance to quarrel but, being in,
Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgement.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow as the day the night,
Thou canst not be false to any man
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!

In reading the entire speech, two things become readily apparent. First, the full breadth of advice to Laertes was to not be swayed nor to lose his character as he voyaged into the wilds of the continent far from his father's protective embrace. It was a valediction of a sort and its counsel wide-ranging. Second, and perhaps more important: it presumes with Polonius that Laertes has a character to which to be true. The father did not counsel his son on what to become but rather not to attempt becoming something that he was not -- either by coercion or fleeting self-interest.

Morality is the issue. Those who are imbued with the corporate credo, who have its self-interest woven into their adult fabric as the result of indoctrination, education, and experience appropriate the Bard's words but not the moral lesson. The corporate creed and Shakespeare's lessons are, in fact, at odds and can be reconciled only by adjusting the value of the meaning to accommodate the morality of the business corporation. Rather than an admonishment to stay true to one's character it becomes a rally cry to stay true to one's self-interest. Quoting Shakespeare again: "And there's the rub."

Posted by Grayson at 08:13 AM

The living language of identity

"Sanity may be madness but the maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be." Cervantes

As promised last week, Quixote and I are saddled up and off to tilt again at the language problem in the developing digital identity space. Dave Kearns and P.T. Ong, and I, have been on a tear lately about the willful abuse of the word "identity" among other inflammatory words. So, once more into the breach.

We break for a message from our sponsor.

My thoughts on the words and other things Identity, are documented in the various papers that I've posted on my identity page. I encourage reading them, but understand that nobody really wants to dedicate time to 3,000 - 8,000 words at a go.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Language is not a peripheral little pedantic matter. It cuts to the core of the discontent and perpetuates friction for many reasons not the least of which is that language frames discussion. And, at the risk of being drummed out of the top 3,582,082 bloggers -- or being publicly flamed -- I suggest that, unfortunately, the technologists gallantly contributing to the development of (digital) identity solutions have taken control of the language. That is a problem because the technical propriety of the words "identity," "role," "personna," etc., etc. as descriptors of factors and features of the space is immaterial. Within the technical realm, we could just as easily use the words "rabbit," "beeblebrox," and "egg" as any others for specific things, concepts, and actions. The only real condition is that the terms be standardized so that everyone understands what everyone else is doing. Please accept that I am not recommending some weird Orwellian double-speak (there's plenty of that already). I am, however, suggesting a sorting out needs to happen soon.

In the business of identity, particularly as it touches "people," be they the business people "doing" identity, organizations with people and things to identify for specific purposes or roles, consumers and others using and relying on identity credentials to interact using some chosen personna, or anyone else for that matter, the words are more significant. First of all, the words chosen by marketers and business people typically come fully "loaded" to provide the benefit of communications shorthand. Moreover, there are a lot more, different characters in this group and teaching them a new common language from scratch will be much too difficult. (We are, collectively and individually, not nearly as high-ranking on the IQ scale as most coders, architects, and engineers.) It is essential then that we help ourselves by helping the less fortunate to skip up along the learning curve by assigning familiar words in a ready-to-use lexicon.

P.T. is concerned that we've lost this battle because the technologists have, in fact, already appropriated the language and it's too late to change. David (and I) can't disagree, but commisserate that it's a shame to toss away perfectly good words just because somebody else didn't plan far enough ahead in this respect. I'll take that one step further and suggest that the technologists, led by the especially intelligent of the lot (Yes, I'm talking to you, Kim, Phil, et al.), need to put their formidable grey matter to considering and evaluating this situation and the third move beyond.

Technologists working on identity are smarter and more adaptable than are the rest of us . . . boneheads.

The words "identity," "role," "personna," "credential," etc., etc. have loaded meanings in the wider world that will help -- if they are codified in accordance with say . . . dictionary definitions -- make all this identity stuff more palatable to that wider world.

The technical descriptive language is still eminently mouldable and could be changed because the pre-loaded words don't have the same value or impact within the technical milieu as they do in the world of us common business and marketing (let alone) consumer folk.

Making sure that some aspects of identity are easily understandable by the thicker parts of the world (us) will help it develop faster and generate more revenue/profit/value for all and sundry.

Really cool words that nobody else either understands or can make guesses about provides an excellent shibboleth for the "Identirati."

So, on behalf of all us dumb, pedantic, non-technical language purists, I bend on one knee and ask you thrice to give up the words you have appropriated and let us use those words as the (English-speaking) world expects and understands them.

What ho! Is that an army or a herd of sheep, boss?

Posted by Grayson at 07:56 AM

Who's in control? Nobody, that's who. Get over it.

Each time I hear somebody say or see someone has written that, "The consumer is in control," I sense an aneurysm developing. This is particularly troubling to me since I too spent the better part of a year repeating that same mantra to anyone who would listen. Besides, it fits so nicely with the Web's democratic mythos, regardless of release version (i.e., Web 1.0 or 2.0). What makes my temples throb is, however, this patently ridiculous non sequitur being used to rationalize everything from Interactive advertising to select-channel media to increased market research budgets to nonsensical business plans.

The trouble is that it's crap. Well, not total crap. But like any good crap with a chance of sticking to the wall, it's got enough real parts to be plausible, but mostly it's gelatinous fluid tenuously holding those chunks together. One key characteristic of the fluid is that it's, well, fluid. It changes to accommodate pressure, constraint, obstruction, or opening. "The consumer is in control," fits this description.

Scatological metaphor be damned, the problem is the word "control." Maybe consumers do, in fact, have control. But the phrase is used with abandon because nobody ever says, "Hey, now that's just crap," to force some precision what it means. So, the implications are extended well beyond whatever control the consumer may have. I don't want to be (more) tedious, so the following paragraphs will quickly summarize my headaches.

The first issue is: control of what? Can any one side truly be in control of a communication -- particularly one that requires response? The idea behind mass communication and propaganda is that the message is dripped down on an audience over a long period of time with the intent of changing an opinion or perception (hmmm.... brand positioning?). Be that as it may, propaganda depends upon an accepting, probably gullible audience: one that does not critically evaluate messages being pushed at it. This may well be the broad state of affairs in the world. But, it that does not put the propagandist in control in any specific way, except perhaps in controlling the content it is putting forth. If one were imprisoned or set apart from the normal context of life in some way and tortured with a incongruous message (e.g., Jonestown, "Clockwork Orange," any sitting of the House of Commons or Congress), it is possible that the sender of the message has some extreme control over the content and the form of the communication. But, as my parents always said,

"You don't have to listen." And this may be what all those people who chant that "the consumer is in control" really mean. Consumers -- people, if you will -- are exercising their right to not listen, or read, or watch commercials. There are new technologies that facilitate that choice. But -- and here's the important part -- that right has always existed, and technologies to aid in exercising it have also been prevalent (at the prevailing state of technological development). Critically, many or most consumers have not exercised that right to ignore commercial messages. Oh yes, we've complained about bad or misleading advertising, and even about overtly ridiculous public relations spin. But, by and large, people have been and are complaisant about the whole affair. They (we) have chosen to listen and watch and engage and change our opinions and beliefs -- and engage.

What makes anyone think that a legacy human character trait that follows this description above -- admittedly only in the context of commercial mass communications, but throw in political communications, etc., etc., and there is hundreds if not thousands of years -- is radically changing because PVRs and iPods now exist and because "Do Not Call" registries have been formed? As long as you opt to listen, you are susceptible to succumb.

So consumers have always had some control over the communications process, but have persistently given up that control to the marketer. Listen, watch, change your mind based on uncritical assessment of what's shouted at you and, frankly, you deserve to be taken advantage of. Turn it off and decide how and when you're going to accept messages, and you're in control. But the whole notion of control is suspect because there is no real control in this environment.

All of this speaks to the idea of "conversation" in the commercial world if only because a conversation -- regardless of subject or content -- has no controller. An inquisition or interrogations does. A lecture does (in a way, since the audience chooses first to attend and then to listen). But, a conversation -- an interaction -- does not. It is a negotiated communication. And, in my humble view, that is and always has been the state of commercial communication.

The marketer has negotiated well, with clever advertising and misdirection (spin, if you must) with us as consumers. The marketer has convinced us to abandon our negotiating position. Of course, culturally we are predisposed to engage rather than disengage because what each marketer offers a consumer (like new sugar-coated cereal) may be valuable. But that's another matter. Based on this precedent of consumer intertness, the marketer has progressively gotten more sloppy and more overbearing. Dumber and more obviously "wrong" content coupled to more and louder volume of ads has turned the whole environment into a ghetto of communications crap.

So, with the advent of a few technologies and the desire to stand up and shout, "I'm mad as hell and not going to take it any more," consumers are allegedly doing something to force the issue and clean up the communications neighbourhood. Thus some people with an (economic) interest in consumer power start braying loudly that the consumer is in control. Nonsense. The consumer is merely claiming the negotiating position that was hers all along. She is not in control any more than before. She is simply exercising a right to demand that if she is to participate with the marketer, then what she gets out of the interaction/communication had better be worth what she's putting in. The communication process remains a negotiation. And it always will be.

"The consumer is in control." Bollocks.