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IBA thanks Intellectual
Capital.com for permission to include Dana Blankenhorn's column.
Over the next few months, politicians
will offer many positions concerning the Internet.
As we will detail at the VoxCap.com
(IC's sister site) many Internet issues are worth addressing. Encryption,
privacy, mandated use of filtering software, the banning of hate speech,
gambling and pornography -- all these (and more) are worthy subjects for debate.
There are also a host of new Internet millionaires and billionaires to solicit
for campaign contributions, a sure incentive to spirited political discourse.
One thing that will likely be absent, however, will be any clue as to the
lessons of the Internet and how they might be applied to existing policy issues.
Candidates are not asking what the Internet can do, in other words, just what
they should do to the Internet.
We can use the Internet
to improve our lives |
The fact is, the Internet is just
beginning to affect our society, and in unexpected ways. We can use these
lessons to improve our lives, or we can ignore these lessons and miss
opportunities.
The new assembly line
Let's start with the example of our most intractable political issue: education.
U.S. education quality today is an inverted Bell curve. We are great at
kindergarten through third grade, and our colleges are the best in the world.
Between the extremes we are terrible, and the test scores prove it.
Middle-school and high-school students are warehoused in huge compounds where
they have some of the rights of prisoners "for their own protection."
These schools -- call them
education factories -- were built for sound industrial reasons. A big building
can efficiently share functions -- there is one gym for 3,000 children, one
principal, one cafeteria and one insurance risk. With 3,000 children clustered
together, you also can hire teachers for unusual subjects like Russian and the
oboe.
This was logical in Henry Ford's time. It is not logical in Michael Dell's.
Dell's computer factory is an example of "mass customization." There
is one production line, but each unit is made to a customer's exact
specifications. This is made possible by networked computers that can pull
orders off the Web, order parts for just-in-time delivery, instruct the workers
on exactly what parts or software the customer requires, and organize the whole
enterprise with minimal human intervention.
Schools can do the same thing. The
Internet brings all the world's knowledge to every desktop. Networked software
lets teachers know students' exact capabilities (and problems). Distance
learning lets schools share the cost of teaching unusual disciplines. The
curriculum can be customized for everyone and adapted to each student's specific
learning style.
Unfortunately, all we will hear on the subject of education are
one-size-fits-all, "top down" approaches. Whether it is a call for
discipline, or phonics, for changes in curricula, or for local control of each
pyramid, it is all about re-ordering
the factory school, not starting from scratch based on what we know works. There
are reformers
who know the truth and how to implement "Dell" schools, but they are
not being heard.
Smart cards ... and people
The same thing applies to health
care. You will hear some speeches
about programs, about moving money around or changing priorities. You will not
hear much about applying the lessons of the Internet to the problem.
The day-to-day problems of health care are system-integration problems. The
databases of hospitals, pharmacies and insurance carriers are incompatible,
resulting in adsurd administrative waste. Every time you see a new doctor, you
fill out a new form. It is worse in the doctor's back room, still worse in the
hospital, and when insurance companies get garbage in, it is going to be garbage
out.
There is also no universal method for accessing medical databases. What we need
are standards, imposed from above, and a way for you to carry necessary security
and important records with you.
We need smart cards
for universal access and a team run by a veteran computer-industry executive
such as H.
Ross Perot or IBM Chairman Lou
Gerstner to integrate the databases. Instead of demanding that insurance
companies cover specific procedures or face lawsuits, we should demand that they
integrate their databases. This would save 10% to 20% on the national
health-care budget, and have a starting point for the real debate.
The key to campaign and governance success
Finally, there is the art of political campaigning itself. The buzzword
permission marketing
can cut through all the crap.
Permission marketing uses databases to develop personal relationships. Instead
of treating people as markets or subgroups, permission marketing treats them as
individuals.
It is not about getting permission to "spam" people, bombarding them
with e-mail messages as you would bombard them with 30-second spots. It turns
strangers into friends and friends into customers by learning their individual
concerns and having that information at hand when anyone calls on them.
The idea is to steadily increase the level of permission you have with each
individual. The ultimate permission is that given your power company. You are
buying its product now.
The first step is getting permission to market. Most private companies do this
with coupons and contest entries, but affinity
marketing works, too. Of course, that is just a first step. You cannot just
have a list. The list must be a database. You then must use that database
correctly, never over-stepping your permission to raise money or sell
merchandise.
Before you start worrying about candidate databases as a threat to liberty,
please remember the key to permission marketing. Permission belongs to the
customer, it can be withheld, it must be renewed, and the best permission
marketers always pay people for their attention, with free samples, contest
entries and other premiums.
With networked computers, knowing people and communicating with friends never
has been easier. The first candidate to take this lesson from the Internet and
apply it to his campaign probably will win, definitely will deserve to win and
will have an incredible tool for governing well.
Copyright © 1999 Intellectual Capital.com
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