And NOT just wrong – a hilarious, remarkable, complete and utter failure.

Tomorrow at 1pm ET $JPM Vice Chairman Jimmy Lee takes over @JPMorgan to answer your questions for 1 hour. Tweet your Q early using #AskJPM

Matt Taibbi in the Rolling Stone: Chase’s Twitter Gambit Devolves into All-Time PR Fiasco Link

Only on Wall Street would a bank that’s about to pay out the biggest settlement in the history of settlements unironically engage the public, expecting ordinary people to sincerely ask one of their top-decision makers for career advice.

The responses were instantaneous, amazing and vicious:

Does the sleaze wash off with a regular shower, or do you have to use something special like babies tears?

Do your clothes fit better since you don’t have the added weight of a soul?

As a white male, with no real skills, but a COMPLETE lack of ethics, how quickly would I be fast tracked up the corporate ladder?

What’s it like working with Mexican drug cartels? Do they tip?

I have Mortgage Fraud, Market  Manipulation, Credit Card Abuse, Libor Rigging and Predatory Lending… AM I DIVERSIFIED?

Did you have a specific number of people’s lives you needed to ruin before you considered your business model a success?

In very short order – the Twitter Q&A was cancelled.

Matt Taibbi also had a “Chase Twitter Fail” Haiku Contest. Link People can be pretty creative – when they’re pissed off. He got a lot of entry’s, here’s a couple that are safe for work. (Most are not!)

My mom wants to know
How you like her house, her porch,
Her climbing roses.

Parasite bankers
With unbridled arrogance
Solicit questions

A couple of related stories, here and here.

I guess what’s most amazing is the huge glass bubble these jerks live in, and the total lack of acknowledgement of the chaos and damage they created.

With JPG glitch.

Cleverly – and humorously – stated: How Not to Suck Online. I read the first two sentences of the first topic and I immediately lol’d. The very first four topics, Clear Language, Simplicity, Visual Priority, and Create Intrigue are excellently stated. Well done.

So simply stated – but so hard to communicate, and so hard for people to grasp and understand. To wit:

Clear Language

Talk to people like they’re people. People love that shit. What they’re less fond of is being talked at like they’re a demographic being sold something. Clarity of language is also really important – remove sesquipedalian superfluities of verbosity.

Visual Priority

Let imagery and negative space dominate. Don’t make everything compete – create a clear hierarchy of simple elements. Invest in good photography and professional art directors and designers (you can’t replace the 10,000 hours it takes to be a master).

And several more… Link

Sure wish they woulda used a phrase marker though—instead of a hyphen.

The crew at 37signals – the makers of Basecamp – all work remotely. (Video Link)

Meet some of the people that make working remotely for 37signals such a success. Remote, Office Not Required is the new book from the authors of New York Times bestseller, Rework.

I seriously don’t know how we’d function without Basecamp. Thanks again, Isaac.

Great article/lecture by author Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming. Link

I was once in New York, and I listened to a talk about the building of private prisons – a huge growth industry in America. The prison industry needs to plan its future growth – how many cells are they going to need? How many prisoners are there going to be, 15 years from now? And they found they could predict it very easily, using a pretty simple algorithm, based on asking what percentage of 10 and 11-year-olds couldn’t read. And certainly couldn’t read for pleasure.

J. Allard, head of Microsoft’s Xbox team required everyone in his crew to read Neal Stevenson’s Snow Crash. Ever wonder why? The next quote pretty well explains it.

I was in China in 2007, at the first party-approved science fiction and fantasy convention in Chinese history. And at one point I took a top official aside and asked him Why? SF had been disapproved of for a long time. What had changed?

It’s simple, he told me. The Chinese were brilliant at making things if other people brought them the plans. But they did not innovate and they did not invent. They did not imagine. So they sent a delegation to the US, to Apple, to Microsoft, to Google, and they asked the people there who were inventing the future about themselves. And they found that all of them had read science fiction when they were boys or girls.

Regarding “escapist” fiction.

If you were trapped in an impossible situation, in an unpleasant place, with people who meant you ill, and someone offered you a temporary escape, why wouldn’t you take it? And escapist fiction is just that: fiction that opens a door, shows the sunlight outside, gives you a place to go where you are in control, are with people you want to be with (and books are real places, make no mistake about that); and more importantly, during your escape, books can also give you knowledge about the world and your predicament, give you weapons, give you armour: real things you can take back into your prison. Skills and knowledge and tools you can use to escape for real.

Artifact nov tu’ maH!