The app even won Best Design at LAUNCH 2011.

If you need more detail, here’s the deal.

Once, when I was 17, I picked up a girl and took her out on what I hoped was a date (in case you’re wondering, it wasn’t). About ten minutes into the evening, as we drove down the highway, a police officer pulled us over.

I was speeding. 10 MPH over the limit.

It cost me $134.

Being 17, the lesson I learned wasn’t “Hey, maybe I shouldn’t speed.” Instead, I decided “I need to figure out how to get away with it next time.”

And I did. Reading many sources, talking to a cop who worked with me at Best Buy, and trying things out later, I figured out what to do. In the eight years since my first ticket, no one has given me another one. It helps I don’t drive like an idiot anymore. But even the best drivers can lose track of the speed limit.

The following guide assumes that you’ve been pulled over by the police and the maximum extent of your crime is a traffic infraction. Maybe your stop could have been more complete, maybe you lost track of your speed. This may not help you if you’ve done anything worse than that. Driving drunk? Got some pot in your car? Illegal weapons? Involved in anything else that the police won’t be impressed with? If any of those is a yes, this probably isn’t the guide for you.

Let’s also be clear: I am not a lawyer and the following is not legal advice.

Still with me? Okay, you’re otherwise law-abiding but you did something naughty in traffic and the police noticed:

Take a Deep Breath

You’re about to enter a situation with a distinct asymmetry of power. If you’re not used to that, you might be nervous or intimidated. Don’t be. In the grand scheme of things, you’ve done very little wrong. Take a very deep breath, relax and gather yourself.

Regardless of how lopsided this interaction is going to be, remember one thing: the police officer is a human being, just like you. Your cop might be mean, might be nice, might be a mom, might be nuts about astronomy, might be going through a divorce. Each is their own person, so discard your preconceptions and do your best to understand the challenges they’re facing.

Pick a Safe Place to Pull Over

The police want to talk to you. They’re going to need a few minutes to do it. Make sure you give them a good spot to work with. If you put them in a place where they’re on edge because of unsafe traffic conditions, you’re already on their shitlist.

Surrender

Being a cop is hard, scary shit. They don’t know if you’re speeding because you’re oblivious or because you’re on the run. As an officer emerges from their car, they have to prepare themselves for trouble. You could be a desperate criminal, ready to kill or maim them to secure your own freedom. Imagine it from their perspective: this is not a fun moment for you but it’s worse for them because they have a lot more uncertainty to grapple with. At least you know what’s about to happen.

Roll down every automatic window in your car. Especially if you have tinted windows, this lets the police see exactly what’s going on inside the vehicle. A backpack, an In-N-Out cup, a water bottle, say. Okay. No big deal. Not scary. Much better than a dufflebag full of drugs, a weapon, or worst of all, an unexpected group of armed bad guys.

You have nothing to hide, so show instead of tell.

As the police approach, make sure you and your passengers rest their hands on the rim of the car’s windows, in plain view of the police. If they can see your hands from several feet away, you’ve spared them several seconds of adrenal windup. They’re more likely to be relaxed, which means they’re more likely to be friendly.

Turn off your car. For bonus points, place your keys on the dash. A car can be a dreadful weapon all on its own.

The goal during the approach is to make sure your cop knows that there is absolutely no reason to be tense or concerned about what’s about to happen. You’re harmless.

Now it’s time to talk.

Don’t Be an Asshole

Remember you’re about to talk to someone who has one of the hardest, most thankless jobs in the world. You enter the conversation worried about points on your license and paying a ticket. They’re worried about never seeing their families again.

Keep your hands on your window ledge and greet the officer as they approach. A cheerful “Good evening, officer” is all you need. Do not be terse, do not be curt, do not be rude. Just say hi.

Follow the officer’s lead. If they want to talk to you about why they pulled you over, they will. You’ll get nowhere by being demandy about the reason. Many times, they’ll just start by asking you for your papers – “license and registration.” Sometimes they want to see insurance instead of registration. I don’t know what influences this. Wherever the conversation goes, be polite and courteous. Show, through your behavior, you’re just a normal person who missed a road sign.

If asked why you’re behaving this way, tell the truth: “You have a hard job, officer. I do, too, so I’m just doing my best to make this easy on you.” Cops deal with a lot of inconsiderate people, so you don’t have to do much to stand out.

It’s very likely that you’re going to have to reach into your pocket or the glove box to comply with an officer’s requests. Announce your intention to do this before moving your hand. “If it’s all right with you, I’m going to move my right hand to the glovebox. My registration is in there.”

While one hand digs around, keep the other firmly planted on the steering wheel, in clear view. After you’ve retrieved whatever you were asked for, hand it over slowly and make sure your hands return to the dashboard or the window ledge. If you forget, your cop will remind you.

The police may ask you if you know why you were pulled over. Many people will tell you that it’s in your interest to play dumb here. I don’t work that way.

See, I don’t like to lie. It’s a pain in the ass. When, for example, two Texas Highway Patrolmen pulled me over a few summers ago, I knew why I was speeding. When asked, I told them.

“I’ll be honest with you, gentlemen. There was a feedlot back there. Thousands of cows! It smelled terrible, honestly. So yeah, I hit the gas because it was making me ill and I needed to get out of there.”

So yes, I waived my fifth amendment right not to incriminate myself. I also made myself a human being. By being direct and honest about what’s going on, I’m hopefully sticking out as different from the sort of person they would usually ticket.

After a conversation, they sent me on my way with a warning. Let’s be clear: I’m hispanic. I didn’t look even remotely like the guys who pulled me over. I was about as thoroughly other as you can get while still speaking english. But I was considerate of the the patrolmen, I talked to them like human beings and they returned the favor by not screwing me with a ticket. I even pitched one of them on the company I was working for at the time.

A little empathy can go a long way. This has application in many other interactions unrelated to traffic violations or law enforcement, but I learned it here first thanks to the financial incentives involved.

Know why?

No one is going to let you get away with it anymore.

Today, whether you’re an individual or a large business, you need to treat people exactly the way you want to be treated. Better than that, even. A force has emerged that encourages the golden rule and punishes transgressions against it better than any social or religious system previously devised.

As usual, I’m talking about the internet.

Let’s step back in time to January of this year. Mass Effect, one of the best and most successful gaming titles of 2007, trickled back out into the awareness of ignorant people who don’t actually play video games. This, of course, means that Fox News had to get a piece of this action.

To discuss Mass Effect, they invited pop psychologist Cooper Lawrence to appear on-air. She villified the game, indicating that its overt sexuality would train boys to view women as sexual objects.

The only problem is that Mass Effect doesn’t contain any overt sexual themes or even nudity. The game includes an optional side-plot that culminates in a less-than-racy sexual encounter. That didn’t stop Cooper from running her mouth. Speaking after the appearance, Cooper said,

Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had heard, and they had said it’s like pornography. But it’s not like pornography. I’ve seen episodes of ‘Lost’ that are more sexually explicit.

Oops.

But it was too late. I’ve written before about how passionate constituencies carry powerful messages online. There is perhaps no more passionate a group than those who play video games. Long misunderstood and unfairly stereotyped for their interests, gamers have built vast communities for themselves on the internet. Trumpeting the call to battle against Cooper Lawrence, the gamer response was swift, vicious and very public.

Hundreds of negative reviews poured into the Amazon page for her latest book. Discussion forums, news aggregators like Digg, and every tech-savvy blog under the sun buzzed with indignation. This was, gamers felt, an unjustified attack on a supremely talented game developer who had provided tens of millions of hours of enjoyment to so many.

Cooper recanted and expressed regret for her remarks. Shitstorm over.

Yet there are longer lasting effects. Nearly half a year later, scars still cover Cooper’s online presence.

Although hundreds of obviously abusive 1-star reviews were purged by Amazon, 68 still remain on her book’s page. Amazon is as much a product research tool as it is a sales channel. Cooper has lost countless opportunities to sell her book thanks to this gaffe.

The more telling after effects come when searching “cooper lawrence” on Google. Her third search result is the above Game Politics article that dryly reports that Cooper Lawrence is someone who is not too particular about speaking without first knowing her facts. She says so herself. Below that is a charmingly-titled YouTube video, Cooper Lawrence is a Bitch. Counting her Amazon book, her first page of search results contains seven negative entries. That first search engine impression is 70% negative.

Think about that.

Now, being a firebrand and stirring up controversy thanks to genuine, well-considered opinions can be good for one’s career. There’s plenty of negative response that can come from that online. That’s not what we’re talking about here. This is someone being very publicly and brazenly ignorant, pretending to be an authority and then getting caught without a fact to stand on. That hurts your credibility, which hurts your ability to sell yourself.

Mass Effect is a good game and a proud achievement. Over a hundred people worked very long hours for a very long time to ship it. Millions more people bought it and loved it and felt a debt of gratitude to the developers whose toil had so enriched their lives. Then Cooper Lawrence showed up and very publicly slurred it.

And she’ll never do it again.

If you do things that are unkind to others and you do them publicly, just remember that the internet is watching.

It never forgets.

We’re going to suspend ourselves in elevated surfaces approximately three to four feet above the ground. In front of us will be a platform constructed from wood with metal fasteners, covered with laundered cotton. Glass vessels will be filled with liquid so that we’ll have a reason to move the vessels to and fro. Meanwhile, ceramic disks will be placed on the table. We’ll pass metal tools back and forth above the ceramic for about an hour while we make conversation.

Sound like a good time?

Of course not. It sounds absurd. But this is what comes to mind as I hear people talk about social media. The entire conversation is about tools and platforms,  forgetting completely about the heart of the matter: people!

It’s not unlike describing a nice meal while leaving out, you know, the food. Even smart, savvy people can easily fall into this trap. They can be forgiven, as the press has (unsurprisingly)  failed to expose the value of today’s web philosophies and the companies themselves play along. By not talking about the users, except as abstract components of their vague business models, companies and their rock star principals get more time in the spotlight. Social web is about people, not technologies, corporate celebrities or glassy logos.

The emergence of today’s interactive, cooperative online experience came from a primal desire for interaction. Fancy widgets and platforms served an existing need rather than creating that need from scratch.

How to escape the trap:

Plenty of companies screw up their social presence online because they me-too their way into using tools that are popular with other people. They see the tools as popular, rather than the unique value of interaction that users get from using those tools. Me-tooism is a popular argument against social strategies for the very same reason: seeing the tools rather than the interaction.

Many companies place an emphasis on paying attention to their customers’ concerns and making things right when possible. Is a company that adopts such a practice being a copycat? Absolutely not. It’s just an obviously -good idea.

The same applies here. The notion that people enjoy the opportunity to share their thoughts and ideas easily is, well, a new one, despite all the hints dropped by the invention of the printing press. A company that creates opportunities for its customers to have a public conversation featuring the company isn’t being unoriginal. It’s giving people what they want.

No one ever went out of business for giving people what they want.

Instead of seeing social media as tools to be exploited, ask yourself what you can do to make your customers, your fans, your public, work for you while making themselves happy. People want to create, they want to talk, they want to believe. Ask yourself how to provoke these passions in the audience that is important to you. When you have an answer to that idea, you’ll know which tools to use.

At that point, feel free to knock yourself out with AJAX and rounded corners.

First, some history.

Coinciding with the release of an unauthorized biography of Tom Cruise, an internal Scientology video featuring the actor was leaked to YouTube. The Religious Technology Center, one of many Scientology-controlled groups, sent a DMCA takedown request. Google/YouTube complied immediately.

Not one to miss out on some fun, celebrity gossip site Gawker hosted a mirror of the offending video. The RTC sent Gawker a takedown request. Gawker refused.

Spurred by what they perceived to be Scientology’s bullying, a group calling itself Anonymous emerged and declared war on the religion (via YouTube, natch).

Step 1: Tap into passionate constituencies.

Of all the subjects to arouse the passion or ire of the masses, none seems more effective than religion. Religion has a history longer than civilization itself, inspiring uncountable treatises and even more copious wars.

Even spicier, Scientology is especially rife with controversy. Its late entry into world beliefs, its profit-seeking methods of worship, its truly bizarre celebrity representation plus many other oddities make it a popular subject of internet conversation. Scientology also has a long history of suppressing the words of its critics online by using copyright law as a cudgel.

This all provided perfect leverage to initiate a social web strategy. In order to create a groundswell on the social web, you must begin with a passionate constituency. Using social media is all about finding people willing to do the work of spreading your message. Unless you can find a way to tie your message into a subject that is deeply significant to some group of people, no one is going to bother spending their free time talking for you.

Step 2: See the whole board.

You can’t succeed with a “YouTube strategy” or a “blog strategy.” As in chess, you must see the entire board. Social media does not exist in isolation — it thrives on its interconnectedness.

The drama began with a video posted on YouTube and celebrity gossip bloggers talking about Tom Cruise. It escalated as Digg, Reddit and more blogs linked to the video. It exploded as the video was suppressed. Gawker hosted the video on its own servers, with Digg and other blogs now pointing to Gawker. Further reacting to the news, people began posting to YouTube with reactions and commentary — which prompted more Diggs.

See the pattern? Each element of the social web resonates upon another. When integrated, a powerful conversation can brew between many different sites.

Step 3: Encourage contribution.

Sitting on the sidelines and watching the game can only entertain for so long. People will want to get involved if they feel strongly about your message.

Anonymous encouraged and directed this by opening a wiki for their “insurgency.” The wiki allowed people to share their strategies for harassing Scientology, post their thoughts about progress and even armed the followers of Anonymous with cyber weapons. Detailed instructions and tools were posted allowing anyone to contribute to the DDoS of Scientology servers that kept the church’s websites offline for over a week. The wiki was also successful in tying up Scientology’s toll-free Dianetics hotline over the same period.

It’s not that hard.

On paper, it’s simple. Start with passionate people, use the entire spectrum of communications tools at your disposal and empower your audience to contribute directly to your efforts. Passionate people are energized and carry your message. Diversifying your message outlets lets you reach people in different ways while stoking the flames elsewhere on the web. Finally, you reward your enthusiasts by letting them contribute directly to your efforts. Easy, right?

Not at all. But completely doable. Getting thousands of people to work together for a common goal is difficult under the best of circumstances. It becomes near impossible without some sort of central command and control. But the Anonymous group pulled it off and left a shiner on Scientology, all by understanding and leveraging the social web. Take their lesson and you’ll be able to spread your own message the same way.