Typophile

Populist Demagoguery or Brilliant Branding?

designpuck

US congressman Mike Honda (D), whose constituents are largely Silicon Valley folks, is having his website designed through a crowdsourcing “contest” site — but the BEST part? He’s having his constituents vote to decide the winning entry...

http://www.crowdspring.com/projects/website_design/small_website_uncoded...

Design demagoguery?

A recipe for ensuring a craptastic mediocrity of a site?

Or a clever way of creating authentic buy-in, social engagement, constituency-building, & innovating the “Mike Honda” brand? Can’t wait to see what bedazzles us from this...

All he needs is a Tribal council and then he can vote them off the island :-)

ChrisL

Crowd Spring is a great way to over pay for poor quality. But you get a lot of it. So, yea, it’s like Wal-Mart.

“Design demagoguery?”

Of course not. It’s design socialism... nobody gets paid what they are worth, mediocrity rules and the fool gets reelected. Why doesn’t he just keep building lawn mower engines and motorcycles : )

Michael

I think he’s just managed to tick off a huge swath of his constituents. How will he display his ignorance of the “working man” next? Visit a farmer’s market and declare Walmart is the only place he’ll shop? Perhaps he’ll go to a music festival and give out thousands of duplicated CDs of the musicians as they’re playing live?

Now, about those “T” logos...

“It’s design socialism... nobody gets paid what they are worth, mediocrity rules and the fool gets reelected.”

Lol! Looks a lot like democracy and capitalism to me...

Wrong x-y! In capitalism everyone gets paid too much(and hides their wealth in a Swiss bank account : ) ), planned obsolescence rules and the fool gets thrown out after he gets caught in a scandal.

Michael

“How will he display his ignorance of the “working man” next?”
Indeed. I find it pretty scary how he (= his advisors, I guess) seems to see this move as a democratic one, in favor of “transparency” – hello?!
Maybe if that is so, he should crowdsource his own job first.

*

“In capitalism everyone gets paid too much”
Wow, I must be living in Socialism then. Amazing – I never realized that.
Not to deny I have a Swiss bank account…

...he should crowdsource his own job..

LOL.
Actually, anyone (well, most citizens) can put their name on the ballot, but it helps to have a lot of money to spend on your campaign, and to represent a political party with a possibility of forming a government. So that severely reduces the size of the crowd to, well, not really a crowd at all.

“Wow, I must be living in Socialism then”

No. In socialism you at least get health care.

Not to deny I have a Swiss bank account…

LOL

“In capitalism everyone gets paid too much”

excepting the majority of those who work for a living.

Oh - and it most certainly is not “brilliant branding”.

-=®=-

“Not to deny I have a Swiss bank account…”

Best post of the year :-)

ChrisL

Vee haf ower iz on u Nina undt ur bank acownt : )

Michael

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