“It’s time for a new social contract,” Francis Pedraza writes via O’Reilly Radar. “Can you remember the last time government made you happy?”
“Thought not,” Pedraza writes. “Can you remember the last time government made you angry or sad?”
“Oh, your last pay check,” Pedraza writes. “Where’s all that money going? When will you ever see a return on that investment?”
Let’s imagine Steve Jobs as President of the United States:
Three things would change. I’d bet a round of drinks he would…
1. Frame everything around the user experience: Since World War II, the basic framework of our bureaucracy hasn’t changed, just grown on rotting foundations. Now it’s a tangled, clumsy, wobbling mass of weeds. President Jobs would restore a sense of purpose by reorienting the whole thing around people.
2. Less is more:President Jobs would be good at saying “no.” The biggest priority is restoring priorities, the government tries to do too much… There are only a very few things the private sector can’t do better than the public, so that’s what all the tax dollars should go toward. Simple is best.
3. Design for sustainable innovation: President Jobs would be so unpopular in DC. A bureaucrat’s worst nightmare: playing hack-and-slash with programs and departments, eliminating waste and fixing strategic mis-allocations of the people’s resources. With federal employees getting laid off, congressmen losing pet projects, and lobbyists losing their client’s pet privileges and special deals, there would be a bi-partisan outcry. No big deal, because a great communicator would know how to win the crowd and sell the vision. The State of the Union address, with all its obsolete television-era pomp and circumstance, would be replaced by a quarterly keynote presentation. President Jobs would never, ever come empty-handed. Empty rhetoric isn’t his thing. He’s always got a fundamental innovation to unveil or big news to announce, and he never leaves without leaving an extra surprise.
Pedraza writes, “Our society is waiting, and our political landscape is ripe, for a political figure to speak the new language. The premises outlined above form the basis of a platform for a small, focused, innovative, and human-centered government. It’s time for a new social contract. Demand it.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Francis Pedraza runs The DoBand Campaign, an action-oriented social network. Before starting DoBand, he oversaw the design and commercialization of a revenue-generating ad product for Google’s Double-Click Ad Exchange in New York City, helped launch professional networking startup Nova Global as a consultant to Swedish venture firm UVentures , ran business development and client relationship management for design firm Renascent Media , and served for three years in Army ROTC.
Thought the idea of Jobs as president would be awesome, and I’d vote for him, I think it would be maybe better if he was the presidents right hand man… or shall I say.. his intelligence contact. If he wants to really make a “change” ask Jobs, I’m sure he’d lay down some insight. And think about it, Jobs would only want to better the economy which would in turn get more people to buy apple. Some want Apple but cant afford the products so they settle for windows crap.. or make a hackintosh…. but if the economy was good.. they’d pay up for quality since we all know… “you get what you pay for”
A time when government made me happy?…
Hmmm… Back in the Nineties, when it was forced to shut down! That made me happy.
Congressional recess, that makes me happy too!
And like during a snowstorm, the government asks all non-essential people to either go home or don’t come in… It doesn’t make me happy or not, but it does make me ask if they are non-essential, why are they there in the first place?!
Apparently you are unclear on the concepts of “essential” and of “happy”.
Is your name Dick?
He would run as a Democrat and the F-Tards here (that includes you, little boy who runs MDN from his mommy’s basement) would hate him.
He’s got my vote!
It’s not the government’s job to make you happy. The government needs to say out of the way so you can pursue your happiness.
“And one more thing” during his state-of-the-union address.
Steve Jobs is not a politician and thankfully, neither are the writer and commentators, including myself. We have too many politicians- Donald Trump? I’m nauseous just thinking about it.
Yeah, let the US disarm, let Chine become the world’s super power and focus all resources on building out Homeland GESTAPO, disarm the population and pave the way for a good dictatorship. Great plan.
Don’t tease me like that.
And I know he’d streamline the IRS to a flat tax too.
Yes, actually, I can remember the last time the government made me happy. In actual fact it happens all the time, albeit less often now that we (Britain) voted the Tories in. I’m betting in happens to you all the time as well, you just didn’t realise it at the time.