
This is quite possibly the coolest holiday card of the season...not only is it clever and fun - it's interactive and allows the user to make their own greeting and send it to their friends ... :)
www.rga.com/holiday
my meanderings through a digital world
The power of ME
Time Magazine just named me the person of the year. How fantastic to have my power as a digital agent (professionally and personally) validated! How equally frightening since marketers have already begun to conspire to turn this back around to bite us in the arse (think Lonely Girl and the less public deceptions of fake consumer feedback).
Still, I revel in this acknowledgement…how’s them apples Chray?
My friend recently revealed that he plays Uno online…via his Xbox. (“Uno on Xbox?” I asked perplexed. “It’s not just for killing things,” he replied). I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this. One, because it seems almost unmanly (not killing things and all); and two, because of my experience with Uno traveling through
It strikes me how much of our interactions are social, yet not in person. Doesn’t this inherently make them unsocial?? With the blow up of possible interactions – isn’t it ironic that we use these avenues to actually NOT deal with people.
I have been remiss in my blogging. This has entirely stressed me out over the last couple of weeks, especially as my nemesis, Chray, was so quick to point this out.
In any case, as I stressed about this this morning, it struck me that as the proliferation of all our communication gear has exploded – communication itself has actually become poorer. Meaning the means to get the message out is there…only the messaging itself it totally lost. Perhaps not lost, but not necessarily thoughtfully executed. I’ve touched on this before in the discussion of Bill Joy and it’s been an idea at the core of Chray’s incessant soap boxing about blogger writing quality.
As the means to get the message out has become easier and easier, we’ve slowly but surely taken for granted what we’re actually saying. We see this across all mediums, TV in particular (do I need to get into a discussion here over Fox news?). We have become a society of throwing out messages without thought of consequence…as if to say communication for the sake of communication – and I realize you’re following me down a rabbit hole – but is that communication at all?
Truth is I began thinking about this not on a societal, lofty plain this morning, but on a personal one. How the rapidness of today’s communication means has diminished the ability to truly relate to and understand what we are thinking and feeling. Example – how easy it is to fire off an email vs. the time it takes to patiently hand write a letter. Following this line of thinking, I realized that I have a dear friend whose handwriting I have never seen…following that thought, I asked myself, do I really know this person at all?
Bloody hell they have cool gadgets. Where do they find the time?
Drama, Turtle, E: Last month I gave Abby Lou a Turtle – this month I give her a resounding E for taking her show on the road:
Drama—To Chray for at least thinking about his resume…and for always trying to solve our differences by showing up with sporting equipment.
Best iPod Morning Shuffle: This month it’s going to Wed 19 Sep when I had the privilege of iPod-ing for the dept. Yea, I rocked it.
Jayner’s LOL: Altruistic Deshelling Really anytime Jayner’s parents make it into the blog – you can be sure it will be mentioned as a best of:At this point, Mom jumps in: "Have dad tell you why we have 78 containers of unshelled peanuts in the cupboard."
[Camera pans back to me.]
"Uh, dad, why do we have 78 thingies of whatever on the shelf?"
Dad: "Oh. Mom and I have a one-armed squirrel that comes to the door."
Fran of the month: Fran’s been behaving herself lately…mostly, cause I’ve been busy. Never fear…she’s off to
(Although – and I pause here with an irony of tangentative thought: the true age of DIY – the kind that was a lot more gritty then a myspace page, born truly great music and an ethos of questioning and challenging the status quo that I worry we will not see in this our culture anytime soon).
Where am I going with this – ah, yes, Pandora.com is the kind of Internet radio that develops its playlist based on what you already like: you tell it Death Cab for Cutie and Radiohead are your favorite bands, it plays Nada Surf and Broken Social Scene. Fantastic! When I first played with Pandora a year or so ago, not only did I love the music, but the technology of it was yummy. A big music brain playing before me.
Reading about the growing number of similar sites popping up in the paper today, I was challenged with the idea: is this good – or bad? Is it good to keep listening to music similar to music you already know? Or does that pigeon-hold you into a pattern of dullness? That is to say – by listening to things – ideas, music, words, do we prevent our brains from expanding into something new and learned? Sometimes I fear our new world has created so many silos that the experience of the big picture -we are incapable of hearing, seeing, feeling.
Quality and access
Bill Joy, the cofounder of Sun Microsystems, is quoted in Atlantic Monthly this month dismissing the idea that online communities could provide an educational boost for
[T]he real problem is, by democratizing speech and the ability to post, we’ve lost the gradation for quality. The gradation of quality was always based on the fact that words had weight—it cost money to move them around. So there was back pressure against … junk …
Yes. I have trouble wrapping my head around the idea that everyone gets to throw their two cents into the mix and some cents, for reasons beyond my comprehension, rise to the top. There isn’t a filter for quality. And it is troubling that much of what gets posted is taken as the truth without considerable discretion.
Where is the truth and who has it?
I came across an article on the film “Loose Change” this weekend. Self-funded and produced by 22-year old Dylan Avery, the film began as a screenplay about the fictional account of he and a group of friends discovering that September 11th was not a terrorist act of violence, but rather a
As Avery explains on his site, upon researching for the movie it became apparent to him that the premise may not have been fiction. Thus, he creates the documentary – which gets picked up virally and is now one of the most watched videos on the Web. From his site:
"Loose Change 2nd Edition" is the follow-up to the most provocative 9-11 documentary on the market today. This film shows direct connection between the attacks of
Truth be told, I have not seen the film. And I’m not sure I want to…I have a mental block on all films related to September 11th. But the premise got me thinking about the power of the web to spread information – all information – correct and incorrect and how it frightens me that the line shifts so often and so easily.
I don’t claim that Avery’s film is a lie. But it is disturbing me that with the vast amount of information that is disseminated each day, it is becoming harder and harder to ascertain what the truth is.
In my mind, if there was an inch of truth the film, wouldn’t major newspapers such as The New York Times be picking it up and running with it? Or would they be too scared to act on anything given the chill the FCC has spread across our media?
The Internet is a glorious thing – and content generated by ordinary people is a phenomenal infoscape of experiences. (It is also one of the first things a good marketing agency leads with on a pitch – which really needs to give you pause). What is troubling to me is that ordinary people don’t subscribe to the same code of ethics as a journalist. It’s like when a cop becomes a private eye and doesn’t have to follow the law anymore…sometimes a good thing, sometimes scary.
As you can tell by the tangential narration of this article – I’m still trying to figure this out.
Over drinks the other night, Katie shared with me her lesson to her 9th graders – Humanities v. Science. She explained to her class that the humanities were subjects related to ideas and culture – more of the gray matter. Whereas the sciences dealt with fact and trying to get to the truth of the matter. This was her example:
Maybe it was the cadence with which she spoke, or maybe the very beautiful simplicity with which she explained – but that phrase hit me. It started to transcend so much more than what she was relaying. It began to permeate into my recent thinking on reality v. virtual life. The virtual life, for all its magnificent imagination and creativity – it does not equal six. It will always be five just by its nature of being virtual.
Madden NFL 2007 recently came out – with a whole lotta hoopla in the gaming world. Jeff MacGregor, wrote a fantastic column on this in SI 21 August 2006:
“Take the violence out of football, erase the pain given and taken, reduce the grunt and the struggle to the push of a button, eliminate the magnificent inconsistencies of the human heart and it’s capacity for courage or cowardice, and the game, the war, is no more than fast-twitch exercise – a battle fought without personal cost. It is cause without effect, a victory only for technology and opposable thumbs.”
You can win at Madden 2007 – but you’ll never feel the beating, you’ll never taste the blood and you’ll never sweat the win.
That’s a whole lot less than six.
This translates on a personal level with me. I seem to continually be in a pattern of making a case for five. I can whip you up a fantastic story of love and romance – I can write words that will make you quiver and blush – but my words do not make a relationship come alive.
Still, truth be told, I am the Atticus Finch of number 5.
To answer the late night over a few beers question – if you were a superhero who would you be? Check out the SciFi chanel’s HeroMachine, where you can “create your very own champion of justice.”
Built to promote the new Stan Lee reality show, Who Wants to Be a Superhero? Users choose a body and head type and then add clothing and accessories to design their alter-ego. Disappointing is that the body type is only Barbie and Ken…how blasĂ©. I started going for a cat theme - but then got girl and thought the blue would look nicer.
It didn’t matter whether they were there or not (was it being streamed in?) Ben’s transfixing stare proved that such a question was moot. What was painfully apparent to me was that being in a mash-up world of virtual spring break and nascar tailgating is just not a place you want to be unless you have many margaritas and some good friends.
Entering a virtual world that is actually reality...always uncomfortable.
July’s [ LI ]
My montly list of best ofs and eceteras.
Best site: http://www.marmitesqueezy.com/ Live in
Followed by the exchange:
“What do you Wiffiti?”
“ I wish my friends knew my name”
Fran of the month: (because I need a place to record this stuff)
Growing tired of replacing her kitchen screen, and fuming from the idea that a squirrel would get the better of her (it’s like Bill Murray v. the groundhog in Martha Stewart’s world – no exaggeration), Fran decided that she would trap the devious squirrel and move him to another neighborhood. I scoffed at this plan, as the undercurrents had surely not been thought through – clearly there were egos at play. But she forged on. Within 48 hours she had caught 9 squirrels. NINE. Despite my, enough already, you are getting greedy – you are the step-mother nature and this will not end well – she hmmphed and said "well, we’ll see.”
And then she caught a skunk.
That put an end to operation critter-transplant.
Ever feel like technology is effing with you? Personal gadgets know what you are thinking in some sort of AI gone awry episode?
I am convinced that my iPod is in tune (no pun intended) with my moods and mental ticks. To test this, I’ve switched it from my NPR podcast to music shuffle when I get out of the T each morning. Since I am on my way to work, it’s the magic 8-ball for how my day will go.
I have been very impressed with how many times it has decided that Madonna’s Confessions on a Dance Floor is an appropriate album to pick from. A highlight also included The Magnetic Fields, I Need a New Heart (which makes me do the snoopy dance inside).
This morning, however, it convinced me that it is somehow sucking in my mental vibes while sitting in my pocket. It played a rock block of The National. Now this may not seem like a big deal to you until I admit the following: I have a mad crush on a boy. (The kind where it's an anomoly to not be thinking about him.) And just the other night we were talking about The National. And last night I was planning on getting him one of their albums but got caught at work until after
I mean really, imagine it.
Not one song – TWO.
I’m just saying.
Part of the problem of reinventing yourself is the reinvention always involves some amount of baggage…what if I did away with that by changing my personal company. Here’s what Cybele means, here’s her tagline here’s her methodology, here I am. Would I be better able to accept and get behind her?? OK, I know we’re talking in Sybil tones here…and yes, Cybele is close in name to that – but let that go and think about it. To think of yourself as a new company – well, it’s kinda freeing. I mean on a daily basis I think about how to offer companies a new brand – how to re-launch themselves into the marketplace. But despite the fact that I do this on a daily basis – I rarely apply it to me.
It just got me thinking…what would that re-launch be? How would it be communicated? What ROI would it offer?