Customers and Product. Government and Business

What kind of blind luck is this?

Having just read Cathy O'Neil's post at this link "Your are not Google's Customer" on who is the customer and who is the product that blows all the smoke away with clarity of math thinking I stumble on this link here: "A Secret Plan to Shut Down Social Security’s Offices and Outsource Its Work".  The report it cites is at this link.

1.  "Death by Jargon" is the first insight on the report made by Richard Eskow.  Absolutely!  More full of euphemisms than a politician.  But those are the kind of reports that politicians love.  Maybe it came out of a boilerplate manipulation algorithm?

Look at what else that boiler plate jargon algorithm produces at this link sample. Same words, different order.  Everybody must be using the same software jargon generating program.  Tip of the hat to ScienceGeek.net for that.  If you liked theirs then here is another.  People pay for this stuff!

Read the report and laugh.  The jargon generators are a joke but this is directly taken from the National Academy report:

4. We simplify programmatic, administrative, and operational policies in order to facilitate customers’ applications for benefits and our processing of them. 
   
   
   

Google that collection of words and get this as a result.  Maybe it is all just a joke?
Right up front in the National Academy report and just after the problem statement is this and it is the connection to what Cathy clarifies:

"Long-term Strategic Vision: We anticipate and respond to customers’ changing needs, delivering high quality services anywhere, anytime."

So, Cathy, who is the customer here?  Thanks for your clarification between customer an product.  I love the comparison to cows in the feed lot.  You are brilliant as well as being good with numbers.

The customer is business.  The business sector.  Free private enterprise.  The product is people served up to them.  The customer has changing needs.  More business is one, taking it from the government is another and as a bonus, eviscerating public services.

What kind of software did they use to produce the report?  A cliche generator?  It needs a translator program.  Maybe put it through Google translate?  


Richard Eskow does a good translation.  He seems to be fluent in translating BS.  Oh, I see, he was a former Wall Street Executive come over from the Dark Side.  No wonder he knows the language so well.  Death by Jargon!  More about him here at this link. 

The rest of his points

2. The SSA isn’t resisting congress’ brutal cuts.  
3. They intend to do more outsourcing, too.
4. They expect people to do everything on the Internet – and their website is terrible.
5. They’re downsizing just as demand grows.

Well done, Richard Eskow.

This looks like the business model of buying a company and then breaking it up for its value.  Is that vulture capitalism.  However there is something added:  An ideological motive to shrink and drown government.

The best way to rob a bank is to own it.

The best way to own the people as product is to steal government services that serve people as customers.

Thanks to Cathy and Richard.

The National Academy of Public Administration that produced the report could monetize it by changing a few words and sell it to the Feed Lot and Slaughter House sector as a vision for future customer service and product management.