The Massachusetts special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy had a twist of an ending — Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat (and current State Attorney General) Martha Coakley.

In moves reminiscent of a call to “round up the usual suspects,” Democrats are pointing fingers and conjuring conspiracies while Republicans cite the one-state result as evidence that the nation has rejected the policies of President Obama.

Sadly, it is not important which, if either, has a leg to stand on.  What matters is that politics, the way it is practiced in the United States, has again played its trump card over policy.

The status quo may need to change, but change is unsettling to the special interests who benefit from holding it at bay.  Worse, it may be that those who need the status quo changed the most had a hand in maintaining it.

Newly minted Senator Brown won the election with about 1.17 million votes.  Combined with the 1.06 million cast for Ms. Coakley, the total represents just 54 percent of Massachusetts’ registered voters (and only about 45 percent of people in the state eligible to vote).  Where the heck was everyone?

In November ‘08, 72 percent of registered voters went to the polls to elect President Barack Obama.  The 18 percent difference in registered voter turnout between then and now represents 750,000 votes.  Brown beat Coakley by 110,000 votes.

The Presidential and special Senate elections suggest there is a positive relationship between the number of people who vote and the responsiveness of our politics.

As more people vote, the contributions of special interests hold less sway.  As more people vote, politicians are caused to listen more closely to constituents so as to keep elected office.  As more people vote, there is a premium put on leadership. These seem like good outcomes.

So, why don’t we vote?  Where were the good people of Massachusetts who turned out at the end of 2008, but stayed home in early 2010?  Maybe they did not think they had a reason to vote. This is not a political problem but a communications challenge.

Perhaps they felt the race was over days in advance as media reports persisted in reporting on the race, not its reasons.  Perhaps they thought their cause was lost, having learned of the U.S. Senate’s new math where 41 is a majority.  Perhaps they resented the way each candidate was foisted on them, wishing a pox on both their houses.

Here is a thought.  Presidential advisor Rahm Emanuel has said “change requires a crisis.”  If he is right, when it comes to elections the best kind of change might be the anarchy that would arise if everyone voted.

If all 4.2 million registered Massachusetts voters had gone to the polls, it would have created havoc for those who benefit from the status quo.  If all 5 million who could vote, did vote, it would instigate just the kind of uncertainty that leads to anarchy.  And if that became the norm, well, now we’re talking real change.

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A report today from Information Week supposes that Microsoft will introduce its own slate-type tablet computer.  The key bit in the story had nothing to do with the quality of the product, but the lack of enthusiasm it has so far engendered.  “Microsoft has not officially confirmed the (New York) Times’ report, and investors largely shrugged at the news. Microsoft shares were up .16%, to $31.01, in early trading Wednesday on the NASDAQ.”

True, this is the company’s second bite at the tablet apple (pun intended) and so naturally would not create the “shock of the new.” But it is more likely a response rooted deeply in the minds of consumers who more comfortably categorize Microsoft within the four software walls of Office, than among untethered consumer-focused devices.  It is a matter of context.

We make sense of a noisy world by applying context created at the point we first encounter a company or product and is then reinforced by performance.  This makes it really hard to expand or pivot a company’s reputation.  If Apple is a design company, what isn’t it?  If Dell is a manufacturing company, what isn’t it?  If Microsoft is a desktop software company, what isn’t it?

Google, with its introduction of the Nexus One “smartphone” has demonstrated one way to break away.  Afterall, if Google is an advertising-driven search service, what isn’t it?  It is not so much advertising-driven as it is advertising-disruptive.  It has taken the market’s acknowledgment  of these qualities — shaking up the stodgy for the benefit of consumers — to add new services (like gMail), buy other companies (like YouTube) and enter new markets in need of disruption (like mobile phones).   Microsoft has no such market permission.

It can get it, though.  The early reports on its new operating system suggest the kind of exceptional performance in a core business that is required for acceptance in adjacent ones.  This is what helps the success of the company’s market leading Xbox game console.  Think of it as a desktop for the home.

Increasing market demand for wireless devices will earn Microsoft a second look for its software-driven smartphones and tablets.  Turning consideration into market leadership will depend on the company’s ability to reveal how it has been looking out for our interests all along.

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There is nothing like the excess of Las Vegas to focus the mind.  And, as the consumer electronics industry gathers in the Nevada desert this week, it is only fitting that a product no one really knows exists is on the minds of  most.

The so far mythical Apple tablet has turned a lot of e-ink and burned even more cycles among those who hope the Cupertino company can again bring some clarity to a market segment in chaos.  As consumers and business users continue to seek a single device that can satisfy the need to text, talk, watch, play, create, edit, find and report, the task is getting harder even as the stakes get higher.

In a report in the Financial Times, the countervailing forces of hope and hype are on display with regard to the introduction of smartbooks — a computing device for people who “don’t necessarily need the full PC functionality of a laptop or netbook all the time, but they do desire a device that can give them a rich web and media experience on the go with a stylish and cool design…”

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The landing of the Android-driven smart phone has fomented a frenzy of  “it will” and “it won’t” kill the iPhone commentary.  This persistent portrayal of the market as a zero-sum game distracts from the real benefit of the competition for share.  Computing devices are going to emulate more of our behavior.

The disconnect between they way computers have worked and the way we live was best captured in a snarky back-and-forth between Microsoft and General Motors about 10 years ago.  Bill Gates suggested that if the car company had kept up with technology, its vehicles would be more efficient and less costly.  The response from GM was along these lines:  yeah, but would you want to crash a couple times a day?

Both companies are a bit different today but GM has come further than Microsoft.  It is hard to imagine cars with more computing power and software applications than have today and as for Microsoft, well, let’s hope 7 really is a lucky number.  But now that devices have come untethered, it is the smart phone, e-book reader, tablet that are setting the pace for human-style computing.

Credit Motorola and its clam-shell cell phone, kudos to Palm and its hand-sized design and add a shout-out to companies like NCR who took touch screens from science fiction and added them to automatic teller machines.  The career achievement award for making computers more like us, though, has to go to Apple.  Which brings us to the iPhone.

Much like the ATM changed an industry and the way we interact with it, the iPhone is making ease-of-use and value — two relatively new concepts in computing — essential to success.  The new black.  Looked at in this way — from our perspective — the competition won’t be based so much on the number of applications, but the way the apps work, not so much on the power of the network, but if the connection is reliable.

There is early evidence of success, but what comes next will be the real test of how competition can shape a market to look more like the customers is says it serves.

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MediaPost “Online Spin” columnist and President of Social Vibe Joe Marchese had this to say about the bright year ahead for mobile marketing:

“This is it.  2010 will be the year mobile marketing begins to realize the promise marketers have imagined for so long.  What’s different in 2010?  The phones are smarter, the networks are faster, an open development ecosystem is leading to faster innovation, and specialty mobile agencies have built up a solid knowledge base of what works.”

He is right that the tools for making mobile marketing real are in mass production.  You can count me as voting in favor of mobile in 2010, but the platform’s capabilities will shine a light on features that could be a drag on marketing — privacy and permission.  Just because someone downloaded an app doesn’t mean they knew all it did and weeks or months down the road they will likely remember even less.  Just look at the recent Sears settlement.

And being aware that our devices know where we are is not the same as permission to tell people.  I mean, we grant Google the right to read our email, but getting an ad tied too tightly to the conversation we are having at the moment can be creepy.  The reign of “notice and choice” has given online consumers little of either.  Advertisers are looking at notice in context and choice at the point of real decision.

Even the most zealous pro-mobile-advocates appreciate the concern/problem/speed bump.

A MobileMarketer column looking at the major trends for mobile in 2010 adds this to the list of those you have heard before:

“Mobile will be called to task on privacy in 2010. Reputable mobile ad networks will follow guidelines set by industry trade associations and standard bodies.  Offering opt-out capabilities to protect personal identification information will be an imperative and will propel the roll-out of more contextual and behavioral consumer ad targeting via mobile.”

Opt-in and opt-out, though, are so desktop.  There is a chance, though, in 2010 for this last hurdle to be cleared is new ways.  Our “persistent contact” with our smart phones, the speed of their browsers and advertisers use of short codes and 2-D barcodes stand to remake privacy and permission in real-time.

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In the New York Times Magazine’s annual look at the year in ideas was this bit of business about adding sound to silence:

“Nothing seemed to herald the end of the internal combustion engine more than the ability of hybrid cars to leap suddenly to life without the slightest sound. Unfortunately, it turns out that the sweet silence of 21st-century technology has a serious downside: pedestrians and bicyclists are less likely to hear hybrids and electric cars coming their way and are more likely to be clipped or run over. That has prompted a back-to-the-future solution: fake car noise that will alert the unwary.”

This is the latest in a long line of retrofits for safety.  The most important and well-smelled may be the addition of that bad egg smell to natural gas which is odorless.  This was prompted more than 70 years ago when a Texas high school was destroyed by a build-up of natural gas that no one noticed.  300 people died and a law was passed making the retrofit mandatory.

Not all such safety moves are well-received by those the rules seek to protect.  In 2007, USA Track and Field, the governing body for long-distance running events, decided headphones or ear buds should not be used during races.  The runners objected but the motivation was not dissimilar to dealing with the dangers of silent cars and odorless gas.  We have a better chance to avoid danger when it announces its presence.

The problem, as we are discovering, is that we are moving from spending most of our time in the real world to investing more and more in the online world where danger — whether identity theft, malware, sniffer programs and the rest — doesn’t make much of a sound.  And the rules we rely on out there — speed limits and stop signs for cars, building codes for gas lines and a courteous “on your left” while running — don’t apply in here.

It brings to mind “Marathon Man,” a 1976 film with Dustin Hoffman who falls prey to Laurence Olivier.  In a scene set in a dentist’s chair, Olivier wants to know, “Is it safe?”

How can you know if you cannot hear it or smell it or feel it?

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Apple’s plans for bringing iTunes to the Web was big news, but it was a simple, apositive phrase, late in the story in the Wall Street Journal, that carried greater import.   In talking about how Apple will give users access to their accounts via any web browser, the Journal said, “That approach, known in technology circles as cloud computing, could…”

In technology circles? It is easy to think that the ubiquity of technology — smart phones, GPS devices, payment fobs, Fast Passes and the rest — has not only made it a part of our lives, but also a part of our vernacular.  Not so.  Companies promoting products and services to the market need to heard and understood.

The burden is even greater for technologies that don’t make an obvious impression.  The iPhone is a complex and powerful computer, but it is so darn cute and easy to use.  That’s easy to get and accrues to Apple’s benefit.  Nearly 20 years ago, computer chip maker Intel was able to break out of the box with its significant “Intel inside” branding and advertising campaign.

But multi-million-dollar ad campaigns don’t have the same effect today and customer skepticism undercuts “because I said so.”  So what is a technology company to do?

For one, they should use the language of the market they seek to serve and not fall back on the jargon of their own.     A column by a CEO from a deep technology company in Fortune makes the point.

When Neustar’s Jeff Ganek links his company’s deep technology of network hub directory services to edge services like Web browsing, texting and keeping the same phone number when you leave AT&T for Verizon in a fit of pique, he goes a long way in speaking the market’s language.

It is a good model for others.

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If you want to get people talking, ask them about their kids.  If you want to get reporters talking, ask them about the future.

At the annual Media Predicts dinner hosted by the PRSA of Silicon Valley, six Bay Area reporters stood for this version of “question time” with results that were predictable (”Apple is good,” “Facebook will IPO” and “The big will get bigger”), arguable (”Twitter is Pointcast” or “Twitter unlocks something in us”) and insightful.

It is this last list that ought to be most remembered from the discussion.  For a company hopeful of earning a reporter’s or blogger’s attention, they are the most helpful.

First, every company depends on others for its success.  As Wired’s Steve Levy said, “crappy cell coverage will hold back the mobile market.”  The snappiest devices are dependent on the service(s) to which they are tethered.  It suggests that communications ought to be collaborative.

Second, leading companies are those, as defined by GigaOm’s Om Malik, who are playing offense and setting the agenda.  This demands that a company’s communications ought to focus not just on its product and services, but on its aspirations.

Third, the best companies are those whose success leads to the advance of an entire market.  As Brad Stone of the New York Times said, ” the iPhone is an extraordinary platform” and USA Today’s Byron Acohido added that
“owning the platform is key.”  Promoting the increasing value of your ecosystem is an essential element in corporate communication.

Fourth, companies that are solving big problems ought to let people know.  Matt Marshall of VentureBeat touted technology that “makes us more efficient.”  Who can’t see the value of that?

Most of the predictions made last night will fall flat in the year ahead.  But what will remain constant is the value of creating corporate communications programs that respond to the guidance we heard.

The food was pretty good, too.

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There is more than a scramble for hotel space in Vancouver for the upcoming Olympic Games there.  The Wall Street Journal reports today that Canada itself is scrambling its image.  No more Mr. Nice Guy.

Here is a bit of the story: “Dominick Gauthier, a former Olympian now coaching two of the country’s top medal prospects, describes the country’s new Olympic philosophy this way: ‘Canada,’ he says, ‘is finally more concerned with winning than being nice.’”

Like any good rebranding, the effort promotes a snappy tag-line, too:  “Own the Podium.” Holy Poutine, Batman, we are not in Halifax anymore!

All this is a bit jarring to someone introduced to the Canadian spirit by Benton Fraser of the Mounties (as in “Due South”), described by his Chicago cop sponsor as “the nicest man on the planet.”  Bennie, how did you lose your way?

Or did you?

It may be a natural evolution of the culture as the systems that have sustained it (and the rest of us, too) have disappeared or changed.  Borders are less meaningful, distance is less meaningful, climate is less forbidding and it is easier to now know what we could ever hardly have conceived.

In the midst of such change, if you don’t speak for yourself, who will?   Start there — concerned more about yourself — and it is a short jump to a more self-centered brand.

So, despite what Robert Hughes might call “the shock of the new” in the rebranding of Canada, I hope they do get to “own the podium.”  Otherwise there will be disappointment on a scale the formerly even-keeled folks never had to confront.  But that is progress.

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Let’s start small.  A recent article on the national health care debate posted to the trade website, www.insurancejournal.com, included this eye-catching bit of business:  “The 2,074-page health care bill includes a range of items that some say could be time bombs in waiting for some agencies – or new opportunities” for insurance agents and brokers.

The non-attribution attribution (as in, who the heck is the some who said?) is a useful tool for jamming a lot of meaning into a small phrase.  But it is also a way to veil intent and, ultimately, undermine credibility.  That may not be too much of a problem for a journal targeting a single trade, but “some say” is getting a lot of airtime on a bigger stage.

In fact, if you asked Google to search for the two phrases “some say” and “White House press” you’d get 242,000 results.  It is a phrase and its variations that are in particularly active rotation at the daily briefings held by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.  Note this bit from the November 6 session:

“Q:  The President in the Rose Garden said that the unexpectedly big jump in unemployment past the 10 percent mark was sobering, and he also listed some ideas that he said his economic team was considering for further job creation. The question that some economists are asking is, is this really enough? And some say it’s not, but there needs to be a second stimulus program of some sort. Is there any consideration going to be given to a second stimulus package, or is the President ruling that out?”

How much credence should we give the question?  The answer?  And what of the ultimate report?  Without attribution, it is hard to confidently know if the problem is real and the report meaningful.

Ten years ago, author, editor and media lightning rod Steven Brill tried to shine a light on the name and nature of journalism’s sources when he launched “Brill’s Content.” Three years later, after creating a stir over the unsavory use of agenda-driven, off-the-record interviews, the magazine died and the practice lived on…and on.

Visit the New York Times and you’ll find this in a story about health care costs and small business:  “Some say the threat of an overhaul may be at least part of the reason.”

Go to The Economist and you’ll find this in a story about the Muslim finance market:  “Some say Paris could take 10% of the global market by 2020.”

Then swing by Fox News and you’ll find this in a story about President Obama’s Afghanistan war deliberations:  “As President Obama and his war council search for the most effective military and political strategy in Afghanistan, some are questioning whether the lengthy process is playing right into the hands of the Taliban.”

In the end, whether left, right or middle, the use of “some say” doesn’t inform, it only reinforces what we already thought.  That’s not news, it’s advocacy.

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