Part one — in verse

Manifesto scribbling probably comes naturally to some people. Like Luddite serial killers. But I have no idea how to write one. So I’ll start mine like a children’s story.

Once there was a project called Bluefin,
a code name for sure to keep truth in
to thwart any copycats early
and dampen the cynical, surly,
for Bluefin had no work in progress
despite such significant largesse
at TunaTech Incorporated
where talent was easily baited
(by missions so oft overstated).

“The work must commence now apace!
The Tuna must win this great race!
Ideas and designs are required,
or someone shall surely be fired!”
cry directors and VPs aplenty.
So everyone scurries for twenty-
four hours with serious focus.
But reader, you know what the joke is?
That a sole, single person or two peeps
Might best many cor-por-ate who-creeps.

Meeting one is for mass ideation.
Ten attendees, they each take their station.
With Post-Its and markers galore,
competing for top ideas whore.
They riff and they joke; it gets laughy.
They smile and clap — (Is this Raffi?!)
while some in the group are reserved,
not feeling their ideas deserved.

Meeting two is collective brainstorming.
Such great pains are taken for norming.
And though it is slow to begin,
ideas come again and again.
But peer through ensuing sublimeness,
and witness the one-at-a-timeness
of ideas torn from intricate webs,
a pipeline of linear ebbs
with occasional flows into logical places,
and inherent collapse of solutional spaces.

Meeting three is for ranking and pruning,
but by now this process is ruining
the boundless vigor of Sue,
strapped dutifully into her pew,
who could swamp the field with no contest
with as many ideas as thou wantest
but joins the same game as the asses,
reduced to the mean of the masses.

Somewhere dead Bastiat’s rolling,
the seen and the unseen extolling.