Blog of Much Holding

Yes, I was out at 4 AM on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, in order to get some of the “door-buster” sale items retailers were offering to shoppers who hit the stores early. Yes, sometimes I am not terribly bright.

I bring this up because, besides the opportunity to let my readers know I am often lacking in common sense, this sojourn into Retail Hell allowed me to observe how different retailers and on-line merchants approached this first milestone of the holiday shopping season, and how (as I have stated ad nauseum) that experience matters.

First, an observation… in previous years big retailers like Wal-Mart sent cease and desist letters to sites such as bfads.net when those sites previewed their post-Thanksgiving ads weeks before they were “released.” This year, Wal-Mart not only allowed the sites to promote their sales but even partnered with them, finally realizing that those sites were free promotional vehicles. Lesson #1: If users aren’t aware of what you are offering, they will not have any interest in acquiring it.

Speaking of the 800-lb. gorilla of retail, Wal-Mart very smartly provided maps through their web site that allowed users to lookup their local stores to locate where the 10 big “door-buster” sales items were located. In previous years users had no idea where to go to get these special items, and this idea (combined with store workers who have printouts of where all the other sale items were located) helped with crowd control. Lesson #2: Be available to help your customers find what they are looking for.

Wal-Mart also made sure that most of their big discounted items were also offered online, allowing users who did not want to fight crowds to order online. Target, however, did not court much favor with shoppers as many of their door busters were not available on their website for purchase. Comments on deal sites such as fatwallet.com were near-unanimous in their criticism of the Target site. Lesson #3: A shopper is a shopper, no matter if they are on-line or off-line – offer the same sale items in both places.

In some instances e-commerce web sites crumbled under the weight of the traffic. Newegg.com was non-responsive under the intense server load of thousands of users hitting the site to get the specials they were offering. Lesson #4: your on-line experience is only as good as your web servers allow it to be.

Finally, item availability was key: if you do a “bait-and-switch” with customers, and only have three of the big sale items available, these customers will leave bitter and angry and you may lose their “good faith” forever. The smart retailers had enough stock to deal with demand, though it is never an exact science. Lesson #5. Be up-front about how many sale items you have to level-set expectations and hopes.

One last thought: I went shopping to primarily pick up deeply discounted DVDs and blu-ray movies, to pad my already-extensive collection. I was able to get many movies for as low as $2, and some recent new releases for $9. This, and other extensive mark-downs, were great for me and others who took advantage of such sales, but I think that many retails may learn to regret these discounts.

In a down economy, retailers have lowered their prices in order to get as many of the available purchasing dollars as they can. But, just as experience matters, expectations matter as well, and I think that deep discounts set a new price “baseline” that many consumers will now expect to get all the time. I know that in the future I will think twice about buying a new video release the week it comes out… if there is any likelihood that I can pick it up weeks later for half-off.

I grew impatient over this past week and decided to cut right to the chase – rewatching the last two episodes. Here’s my thoughts on the series finale, and if I have time I will post additional thoughts on the remaining episodes.

“Fall Out”

This episode is not intended for All Audiences – any viewer who needs things Spelled Out For Them need not apply.

One thing I love about The Prisoner is how it resets viewers expectations at almost every turn. Think that the hero will win? Nope. Think that the show will follow conventional narratives? Uh… no. Think that the bad guy will be revealed in typical James Bond spy fashion, like finally seeing Blofeld in You Only Live Twice? Well…

As many reading this may know, the reaction of viewers when this episode was first aired in the UK was… let’s just use the word “unhappy” as a catch-all. People were pissed off. McGoohan was assaulted on the street by viewers the month following the episode’s airing. I can only imagine what was screamed at him during the incident.

“What was all that? You call that an ending? What the hell did it MEAN?”

Quite a lot, actually, and McGoohan famously never tried to explain it to anyone for the rest of his days on earth… though he did use one phrase in describing Number I that is descriptive in its simplicity:

“Number Six’ alter-ego”

That in the end is what I think is the point of all of it – that the rebels ultimately become the leaders, and that individuals are drawn, ultimately, to become members of the collective – often, to lead them. “Lead us, show us the way” the judge says in the finale, playing to the ego we see on display in so many episodes before. McGoohan accepts… and then rejects, violently, which in turn brings us back to square one – the last shot of the series is the same as one of the first shots of the series – McGoohan driving his car through a desert, defiant and about to resign, again… and so it goes, forever.

“You accepted”
“I rejected!”
You accepted before you rejected!”

- dialogue from “Once Upon a Time”

The independent man rebels, conforms…. and then rebels again… Because he needs society as much as society needs him. As much as he resists, he eventually conforms… but sometimes it is not without a fight.

“The lone wolf belongs in the wilderness!” – Number Two, Once Upon a Time

Who is Number I? well, it’s McGoohan – the free man, who became the leader of the very thing he rebelled against – the establishment. The power of control was too tempting, so he accepted.. then he rejected… Like a moebius strip, the show folds into its own self… he was rebelling against his own ego, his own prison, all the time. The ego of self.

I.

The being we observed through all 17 of these episodes was a leader – and we all crave leadership. That is the secret of the Village – that to some extent all of us want someone to take charge and be in control – it’s EASIER than being responsible to your own self. Being free comes with its own burdens… if you fail, no one helps you. You are all alone. Wouldn’t it be easier if someone took care of things for you? That is what the Village represented. That is what many people wants our world’s government to provide.

That is what I am afraid we have become: Children who want someone else to to take Control for us. So we can enjoy our bread and circuses – read our cheesy novels like Twilight, watch American Idol… A world where we can have all of our needs attended to.

Like healthcare, for example.

“So, what’s it all about?!” - McGoohan, “Arrival”

What does it mean? Well, it means what it is, as McGoohan stated in the episode “Chimes of Big Ben”. It is an epic of imagination and a singular vision, a series that spoke to the need of individuals to be individual, no matter what the consequences. It is a series that in alternating episodes rejects violence and then embraces it, as a necessary part of revolution. It is a show that will be remembered and referenced decades from now (unlike the recent AMC remake).

It is. Like all art, it needs to be interpreted and understood on its own merit. Is the Mona Lisa smiling? And why? We bring our own answer – and my answer to what The Prisoner means is as legitimate as anyone who approaches the series with any degree of seriousness.

So, did he escape? Yes and no… but as Patrick McGoohan is no longer with us, we can at least say with some degree of confidence that he’s on parole.

Be seeing you.

In celebration of AMC’s re-imagined The Prisoner and of the recent blu-ray release, I’m re-watching all 17 classic episodes. Join me, won’t you?

“Hammer Into Anvil”

Another great episode, with (not surprisingly) a New Number Two, who starts the episode by forcing a female prisoner into suicide (he was going to read her sections from the Twilight novels to make to conform, apparently). McGoohan does not take kindly to this and decides he is going to take his revenge upon this new harsh Number Two.

The way he does it is brilliant – he decides to play on Number Two’s paranoia, by pretending to be a double-agent who is investigating the management of the Village. Knowing he is being watched, he listens to multiple copies of the same record to get a “secret message”, he leaves messages and calls other Villagers… he even buys a coo-coo clock which Number Two thinks is a bomb.

In the end, McGoohan confronts Number Two and makes him resign his post – a “failure of command.” It is an absolute victory by McGoohan against his warders, and a very entertaining episode. It is also one of the few victories we see him have in The Village…

Here’s Prisoner-in-a-minute:

As you may have seen from many of my other posts here, I’m a big Star Trek fan. Big Big fan. When I got the DVD of the new Trek movie last week, I immediately dived into the extras to see how the producers had pulled the rabbit out of the hat and saved the franchise. One of my favorite special features was on Ben Burtt (formerly of Lucasfilm) and his sound design for the movie. This segment repeatedly emphasized how important sound was to add subtext and reinforce key moments of the film.

Burtt also noted that the churps and beeps in the original series when the characters did something (like open a communicator or lay in a course) were always friendly and musical in tone and that alerts and warnings were almost always guttural and sharp tones. So, of course, being a user experience guy, I started thinking out applying this to my own work.

Even though I design applications for the web, I see there is obvious value in using sounds to add a layer of alerting and/or confirmation for the users. And, interestingly, the major computer operating systems follow the same design principles that Burtt noted that the original Star Trek did.

Both Windows and Macintosh operating systems have audio cues and alerts, but it is interesting to see how different the designer’s approaches are. Microsoft is much more aggressive in their use of sound, while the UI designers at Apple tend to be more minimalistic about sound design. Also, Apple’s sounds tend to be more melodic in tone and Microsoft’s more… well, the best word I can think of is “guttural” with harsh DONK sounds accompanying errors.

No judging, just observing.

I noted previously the future has already arrived, it’s just not the future we expected. If you look at the future of experience design, I think that music and sound is an important thing that we should begin to consider part of our responsibilities. In other words, when designing experiences, we need to think beyond the screen and keep sound in mind.

In celebration of AMC’s re-imagined The Prisoner and of the recent blu-ray release, I’m re-watching all 17 classic episodes. Join me, won’t you?

“Checkmate”

Now this is another great episode, with McGoohan leading a mini-rebellion against The Village… one that is thwarted when his own leadership abilities and charisma makes one of his co-conspirators think he was not a prisoner but a warder… Hmm, like in “Free For All”, McGoohan leading members of The Village… Another theme that will have a big pay-off in the final episode.

Two major highlights of this episode – first is the chess game that starts the episode, that uses Villagers as living pieces. When one pawn decides to move himself, there are severe repercussions, and of course the game itself is an obvious metaphor for The Village itself… obvious, but perfect. The second highlight is Peter Wyngarde as the New Number Two – his performance is one of the better ones in the series, and many think of him as the “best” Number Two. He, like McGoohan, had a great run as a TV spy in the shows Department S and his character’s spinoff show Jason King (some say Austin Powers is his direct descendant). He is also well known as Klytus in the cult classic Flash Gordon.

Not a “must-watch” episode of the show, but this, like the previous episode, is one of the seven episodes that “count” according to Patrick McGoohan – so there is that. Up next is one of my favorite episodes, but before then. here is Prisoner-in-a-minute:

Today is the 46th anniversary of Doctor Who’s first airing (yes it debuted the day after Kennedy’ assassination), and to celebrate here be a fan-made trailer for the next two-part Who adventure that reveals a rumored SPOILER:

“It is returning, it is returning through fire and blood, they are returning, he is returning.”