Let me define what I mean by “disconnecting.” I’m attempting to completely detach from e-mail, Twitter, tech news, and other similar haunts and habits.

Since it acts as the window into my world and is with me at all times, my plan starts with my iPhone. I’ve removed about 35 applications and particularly my boatload of  Twitter clients and push notification services like iTweetReply and App Notifications. I’ve also moved my Mail and Safari icons to the last springboard page and turned off my mail accounts.

Using Steven Degutis‘  Docks (from his now closed Thoughtful Tree Software), I’ve also turned on my “offline” dock for my MacBook.  While I’m typically a Firefox guy, I’ll being using Safari through the holidays (when on my computer) because I have no customizations or bookmarks to distract me there.

Of course, my mind won’t shut off during this time. In fact, I’m betting it might be more active and fresh. That’s why I have on and offline tools like WriteRoom, TaskPaper, Things, ShareFeed, Evernote, a paper notebook, and other means to capture my ideas and thoughts.

Much of what you’ve read above is part of how I typically stay focused. For example, I have about 4-5 different docks saved for different scenarios including writing, product management, and “morning.” I’ve taken it a step further this holiday in an effort and hope to relax, reflect, and recharge for the coming year.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The problem, however, is that in many ways when it comes to linking, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. If an unknown blogger is first to break a story but has no traffic or visitors, do they break it? The answer is plainly ‘no’ – they reap no benefit whatsoever.

All bloggers who are not part of the upper class blogosphere fall into the same trap – they almost always link to those who are on the ‘A-list’. At the same time, those who are on the A-list also link to each other…because many of them are friends or at least have a blogosphere relationship.

What if there was a more horizontal approach to linking, meaning that bloggers sought to reference those in their “peer groups” (or below) instead of vertically to those with 3 gazillion links? Could a long tail approach to linking significantly improve readership, comments, traffic, etc.? Could the sum total of crosslinks from middle class bloggers be more significant than one link from a big blogging player?

After attending TWTRCON this past week and feeling the same feelings of every conference — people talk to you when they believe you can do something or offer something to them — I was reminded that the long tail of linking not only never materialized but that the classic power broker syndrome has entrenched itself firmly in the world of Twitter.

As usual, attendees @ each other at the end of the conference…writing their “nice to meet you’s” but they often do so only for those they find most important and with the largest followers.

To be fair, I need to catch myself from doing the same. The larger issue, however, is that it’s just a said state of affairs and of the human condition to operate with such a mindset. We are continually self-motivated and often unmoved by those we think are unimportant. I am reminded of a passage from the Bible, which reads:

3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Whether we are on or offline, the concept of the “long tail of linking” and of considering others better than ourselves should be part of our daily practice. Not because of what it will do for us but because it is the right thing to do.

Through the years, other tech companies have mustered the strength to rise to the level of Microsoft fame. The definitive Internet company derived its unofficial slogan, almost as a below-the-belt punch to the PC giant, “Don’t be evil.” But even Google faltered and failed at upholding this value…according to the digerati.

The target’s now been shifted again. This time to a company that seemed off limits even though it has, in many ways, had a much stronger grip and reign than the big bad Google and Microsoft. Apple has, after all, been the company that continually produces consumer electronics with the highest prices, with the least amount of ways to diagnose or repair its devices (i.e., Apple parts for Apple devices), and a penchant for locking consumers in to the proprietary Apple way (e.g., iTunes).

Consumers have been fine with that. They willfully submitted to this closed world because they wanted simpler, more beautiful products. For years, they’ve traded away their rights to have shiny Apple hardware and polished Mac software.

So, why, oh why, have they suddenly had an epiphany that their beloved Apple is, dare I write, the most evil of them all (at least, in their opinion)?

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the evilest of them all?

Maybe it’s their lovefest with the iPhone and anger towards not getting a couple of apps (but really one) they wanted. Maybe because Bing has made Microsoft cool again (“Do you Bing?”). Maybe they just need someone new to be mad at for awhile.

What’s just silly though, is to think that after the digerati has essentially helped build the Apple empire — on very clearly known closed, proprietary policies — that some ranting and raving is somehow going to shift Apple’s approach to the market. Would Apple be impacted if it lost all of its early adopters? Sure. Is Apple going to lose all of its early adopters? No. Is Apple going to lose some of its early adopters? Probably…or rather, possibly.

To those who are doing more than complaining and actually going to put their money where their mouth is, I’d like to wish you luck on Windows.

First of all, be honest, you are going to use Windows and not Ubuntu or another Linux platform. Secondly, you probably will wait for Windows 7, which in many ways is a service pack for Vista.

OK, that might not be fair. But having just left Windows and the PC world in the last several months, Vista was not only one of the most frustrating operating systems in terms of usability, it also was one of the worst performing. Everyday I’d deal with slower than molasses performance, hanging apps, or sluggish startups when moving from location to location. In fact, the main reason I left Windows, after not caring about Macs for the entirety of my adult life, was because I was tired of all the time I wasted rebooting my machine or waiting for it to start or restart.

I’m obsessive about keeping my system tuned, so I’ve seen much worse Vista situations than mine. For those PC friends that now call me a Mac fanboy, I also see them eyeing me when I roll in, pop up my MacBook and quickly go to work. Meanwhile, 15-20 minutes later, they are still trying to get connected to the network.

The hardware and OS performance is nice but Mac software is what “Apple was so yesterday, back to Microsoft” converts are really going to miss. I do believe that Mac software actually makes you more productive. For example, there’s just nothing as well designed or as useful as Things, 1Password, or Tweetie on Windows. Believe me, I’ve tried everything. Even cross platform apps like Evernote are better on the Mac.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Windows or Microsoft hater. In fact, I think Windows Live and technologies like Live Mesh are going to be big for them. And I’ve heard good things about Windows 7, in terms of stability improvements. But will Windows 7 suddenly compete with Mac OS X on performance and stability? Will it suddenly usher in a new era of cleanly designed, easy to use, shiny software, like on the Mac? I think you know the answer.

Who knows how long the digerati will be down on Apple. They make some good points about what they consider unfair…but they should have been making those points years ago.

Good luck on Windows.

There is a whole list of ways we get measured — publicly measured — including subscriber counts, followers, mentions, links, diggs, comments, RT’s, and more. Were these particular measurements of popularity or success what initially pushed us to become bloggers, that compelled us to join Twitter, or use social news sites?

Of course not.

It is time to get back to the roots of our motivations and re-assess how we define success. It is time for us to clearly recognize that the technology we find fun, entertaining, and lucrative, cannot be the end in itself.

Each of our particular motivations and particular successes metrics might not look the same. But they need to be deeper than follower counts and more significant than dollars in the bank or new client work. These are not intrinsically wrong but when they become what drives us — being heard, being important, being recognized — we’ve devalued ourselves. Ironically, such superficial motivation will never push us to produce our best work, leaving us stuck in a frustrated and depressing cycle.

Our roles, as early adopters, is to ultimately vet technology and make it more useful for the masses. By being on the cutting edge and by being people that once understood how to program a VCR and now understand a message that looks like,

“@crzhandle yeah that’s true #ftw RT @obnxpers Twitter is no longer #fail and stuff http://sh.pr/4Twr9″

we have a responsibility to not get lost in the blogosphere, Twitterverse, or in technogadgetry obsession. If we cocoon ourselves in these worlds, then we lose out — because without the voices outside these places, we only hear our own.

]]> http://kenyarmosh.com/understanding-motivations-and-defining-success/feed/ 0 http://kenyarmosh.com/is-free-a-choice-anderson-godin-and-gladwell-debate/ http://kenyarmosh.com/is-free-a-choice-anderson-godin-and-gladwell-debate/#comments Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:52:27 +0000 Ken Yarmosh http://www.technosight.com/is-free-a-choice-anderson-godin-and-gladwell-debate/ Yesterday, Seth Godin countered Malcom Gladwell’s review of Chris Anderson’s Free. Say that three times fast. In it, Godin writes that Gladwell is wrong about his perspective of Free:

The first argument that makes no sense is, “should we want free to be the future?”

Who cares if we want it? It is.

The second argument that makes no sense is, “how will this new business model support the world as we know it today?”

Who cares if it does? It is. It’s happening. The world will change around it, because the world has no choice. I’m sorry if that’s inconvenient, but it’s true.

Having read Gladwell’s piece, he never asks the first question. What Gladwell first questions is if the concept of “free” is indeed a law of the digital economy:

And then there is [Anderson's] insistence that the relentless downward pressure on prices represents an iron law of the digital economy. Why is it a law? Free is just another price, and prices are set by individual actors, in accordance with the aggregated particulars of marketplace power. “Information wants to be free,” Anderson tells us, “in the same way that life wants to spread and water wants to run downhill.” But information can’t actually want anything, can it? Amazon wants the information in the Dallas paper to be free, because that way Amazon makes more money. Why are the self-interested motives of powerful companies being elevated to a philosophical principle? But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

From the start, Godin is working off an assumption that “free” is the future whereas Gladwell views it as a condition imposed by powerful interests. Would Godin support the idea that the future is “free” because those interests will make it so? Based on his definitiveness I would think not.

Unfortunately, Godin doesn’t get the second question right either. Here, Gladwell’s argument was not about “how will this [free] business model support the world as we know it today.” Instead, Galdwell focused on rebutting Anderson’s claim that “free” is the only business model of the digital age:

The only problem is that in the middle of laying out what he sees as the new business model of the digital age Anderson is forced to admit that one of his main case studies, YouTube, “has so far failed to make any money for Google.”

…

And there’s plenty of other information out there that has chosen to run in the opposite direction from Free. The Times gives away its content on its Web site. But the Wall Street Journal has found that more than a million subscribers are quite happy to pay for the privilege of reading online. Broadcast television—the original practitioner of Free—is struggling. But premium cable, with its stiff monthly charges for specialty content, is doing just fine. Apple may soon make more money selling iPhone downloads (ideas) than it does from the iPhone itself (stuff). The company could one day give away the iPhone to boost downloads; it could give away the downloads to boost iPhone sales; or it could continue to do what it does now, and charge for both. Who knows? The only iron law here is the one too obvious to write a book about, which is that the digital age has so transformed the ways in which things are made and sold that there are no iron laws.

As these paragraphs indicate, Gladwell’s focus is not really about if the principles of Anderson’s Free have merit. For example, Gladwell points to the Times as a company operating by the philosophy of “free.” Rather, from the start, he investigates the absoluteness of “free” and quickly shows by Anderson’s own case study and several other examples, that “free” is not an “iron law.”

The remainder of Godin’s post are all fair points in examining how digital technology is changing the world. Sure, people don’t want to pay for stale news to be delivered to their homes. Yes, a digital world means more people “get to play” because scarcity is not a factor. But those points do not support that “free” will become the only business model of the future.

As Godin notes the irony that he “read Malcolm’s review for free” while Anderson’s “arguments [are read] most cogently by paying for them” it’s equally as ironic that Godin writes, “[o]f course, it’s ironic that sometimes people pay money for my books.” In that sentence, Godin shows that “free” can be a choice. And that’s exactly Gladwell’s point.

Despite the fact that Wikipedia is now a household name and the definitive source of homework answers around the globe, it really doesn’t compare to the multimedia environment of the software version of Encarta. Encarta brought the encyclopedia to life. Most features are interactive and include audio, video, and animations.

Encarta, in part, was ahead of its time. Wikipedia defaulted back to a mainly text-based encyclopedia, with the primary benefits being that it’s free, “always” current, and editable by any number of people. Of course, the last point is what provided Wikipedia its explosive growth.

With the demise of both Encarta and Wikkia Search, Wikipedia appears set to be the world’s encyclopedia. The reasons might be that Wikipedia has the “right model” but they also relate to the Web’s failings.

More than a decade after Encarta was released, modern browsers still cannot replicate the type of experience created by a 1990s software program. Yes, there is audio and video on the Web but many online multimedia experiences are cobbled together. HTML is still a language that is focused around displaying text. Consider that compared to Microsoft developing a multimedia markup language for use in Encarta and other software back in the late 1980s.

Clearly, Encarta has been an alternative to consumers. But it was a choice that required Encarta not to be around when it was most needed. Who wants to fire up a program when researching on the Web? More to the point, who wants to fire up a paid program when researching on the Web?

Even if the software version (not the Web version) of Encarta, could be ported into the browser with all its multimedia glory (which it can’t), unless it was free, there’s a good chance it still would lose to Wikipedia. For example, Wikkia Search’s death is about it not having the traction needed to continue. Is that fallout because it does not have the breadth of Wikipedia content, that people don’t want ads in their encyclopedia, or both?

The “freeness” of Wikipedia suffocated Encarta, as well as Wikkia Search. That, in many ways, leaves us with an inferior product not in terms of the content but in terms of the possibilities. People will continue to settle for some version of granddad’s text-based encyclopedia, just a webinized version of it. Unfortunately, this case is only one small example of how the Web’s democratization and open nature compels people to choose free over better.

The software version Encarta will be on sale through June 2009 and is available on the Encarta site. Buy a copy so you can show future generations, “We gave up Encarta for Wikipedia….Why? Because it was free!”

“When I was a boy, there was no such thing as Google. I used to write my homework on paper. It took several hours for photographs to be developed…if you were lucky.

…

I’m serious. You once had to go to a library to do research. Written communication occurred through what you now call ‘snail mail.’ Many people did not have the Internet.”

If my memory serves me well, I’ll detail the early days of the Internet and especially the brave new world that blogs, social networks, and video sharing sites were.

“Yep. I was one of the early bloggers and received an earful for it from my less technically savvy friends who just didn’t ‘get it.’ Back then, you needed to sort of be a geek to be on the Web.

Being a geek helped though. Those who got online in those days had a good chance of being ‘heard.’ It was actually possible to put a website up and become a success in a relatively short period of time.”

I’ll unfortunately need to be nostalgic, just as I am now about the cartoons of my childhood.

That changed over time. There was just too much of…everything. The Web stopped being the voice of the individual and started becoming the noise of people. The ones who yelled the loudest got the most attention.

…

We just couldn’t figure out how to save the good parts of the old ‘atom-based’ systems. The objective journalism of newspapers was replaced by citizen punditry, in part because people stopped reading. Bands stop caring as much about albums in search of their one hit top downloaded wonders.

…

The variety experienced in the early days of the Web faded over time. Small ventures either died or were sucked into vast digital empires, which dwarfed the decried physical monopolies of the 20th century.”

While I’ll want to continue, I imagine I’ll have them sleeping by then or telling their parents, “Grandpa’s boring us with his Internet stories again. ‘Back when I was a kid, I used dial-up to connect to the Internet.’”

Now, to put the necessity of Facebook in context, it is essential to understand that Facebook is symbolic. It is the current face of social networking technology. It is Friendster v3. It appears to be a technology necessity but it may only represent it. Nonetheless, it will serve this discussion, if only it is a placeholder.

Even after technological necessities are integrated into everyday life, they are not necessarily embraced. Today, for example, people both love and hate email. Email overload is a constant complaint but an email outage is a horrible, life threatening experience. Without email, business simply would not function or even exist for many in the workplace. Some that now must use it daily, at one time, never cared for it, thought it was dumb, or just a fad. Those ideas were destined to die with the CDs that propagated the sweet, sweet sound of “you’ve got mail.”

To be fair, the early days of email, like a lot of technology, was dumb. For whatever reason, the paradigm of the day was to create ridiculous email addresses like brightsprkles13@aol.com or fisherguy0414@excite.com. There were not too many rules, as long as the handle had at least an age, birth date, or a particular interest like a hobby or sports team as part of it. Bonus points were scored if alternate spellings were used for common words, all to ensure that a person was destined to unsuccessfully send email to friends like krazyankee17@hotmail.com.

It took some maturing but email became the Web’s killer app. The second coming of the Web –- Web 2.0 — included technology like blogs, wikis, RSS, and podcasts; they haven’t fully materialized. Important? Certainly. Necessity? Definitely not. They had little chance though. After all, their names are “blog,” “wiki,” “RSS,” and “podcast.”

The reality is that while simplified over the past several years, these awkwardly named technologies in no way became as accessible as email. At its most fundamental level, email requires a login, password, and knowing a person’s email address goes in the “To” field. Even technophobes have (mostly) mastered email.

It was its accessibility that helped email flourish. Accessibility prevents technical know-how from limiting adoption to only tech savvy individuals. It is the wider adoption that produces the network effects required for explosive growth. In nerdier circles, this latter concept is embodied by Metcalfe’s Law, which states that the value of a network grows as the square of its number of users.

Facebook has realized Metcalfe’s Law unknown times over. It learned from its less sophisticated social networking predecessors and innovated around simplicity and accessibility. For example, instead of allowing screen names, Facebook forced people to use real identities, with actual names tied to a legitimate email address. It placed people in “networks,” helping them find their college peers and eventually, friends from geographic areas.

By some accounts, it is now ranked as the top social network. Since then, the stats have been constantly paraded even though they didn’t need to be. Getting that Facebook invite from grandma was the only “stat” required.

Is “everyone” being on Facebook enough to join it? Are the mind numbing elements of Facebook enough to not? Could Facebook be surpassed by an Internet giant, fledgling, or some future unknown entrant? Have you completed your “25 Random Things about Me” yet? These are all questions to be answered. The answers, in order, are: no, no, yes, and who cares.

The “social utility” that is Facebook has come into its own. Yes, it has critical mass but more significantly, it is changing the way people view, understand, and consume the Web. Yes, it facilitates inanity, as does the Internet as a whole, but it is also providing ways for people to engage each other online. Not users. Not screen names. But people…with their true, known identities.

Perhaps most importantly, is that, for better or worse, Facebook and other social networks, define the Web for an entire generation. This same generation does not use email, watches most of its TV online, and is constantly connected. Facebook is their world of fun and world of work. They send messages to friends but also organize fundraisers. They discover where both the weekend parties and study groups are. 

Facebook may not be the final manifestation of the technological necessity of social networking. There may not be one single “social network to rule them all.” But the writing is on the wall. At the very least, Facebook presents a glimpse of a piece of the Web that will be part of any Internet users experience. Abstainers, those who choose not to participate, will have coins for their calls, only to discover that pay phones no longer exist.

There is a two pronged strategy behind the iPhone version of the Kindle:

1) Strengthen Kindle Loyalty

Kindle owners are thrilled with the iPhone app announcement…because most of them own iPhones. I’ve heard many Kindle owners state, “I can now leave my Kindle at home. I’ll use my iPhone to read on the bus or train.” The iPhone app increases their satisfaction and builds their loyalty to the Kindle.

2) Entice Kindle Purchases from Likely Kindle Buyers

After using the Kindle app on my iPhone pretty extensively post-launch, there’s just no way it would become a main reading device. It is very convenient, however, to read a couple of pages while standing in a line or waiting for a friend. The app would be considerably more valuable, however, if I had an extensive library at my fingertips.

As an iPhone-only Kindle “owner,” I’m not that interested in making many Kindle purchases without owning an actual Kindle. I don’t want to read a 400+ page book on an iPhone-sized screen. Being a gadget hungry iPhone owning consumer though, my Kindle app entices me to think about a Kindle purchase. Amazon knows the number of iPhones in the market; it also knows that iPhone owners are likely Kindle buyers.

Concluding Thought

I’ve used every iPhone book reader, most recently including Shortcovers. They each have their strengths and weaknesses. Apps like Stanza offer better reading experiences, while others like Shortcovers offer innovative features like purchasing individual chapters. The Kindle for iPhone as a standalone app is nothing special. But with the Amazon Kindle library behind it, whispersync, and an actual reading device (i.e., Kindle or Kindle 2), it’s a strong sell.

It’s exciting to see this space innovating (a little). Google Book Search, Shortcovers, Plastic Logic, Amazon, and others are looking at bringing books, periodicals, out-of-print works still under copyright, etc. into the world of 0’s and 1’s.

If I had to guess, what you really couldn’t live without in 2009 has less to do with these products and more to do about the data they have:

You probably couldn’t live without your cell phone in 2009. Or maybe you just couldn’t live without having your phone book with you at all times.

You probably couldn’t live without your e-mail in 2009. Or maybe you just couldn’t live without the contents of your e-mail inbox.

You probably couldn’t live without Amazon.com in 2009. Or maybe you just couldn’t live without your wishlist of books to buy.

You probably couldn’t live without search in 2009. Or maybe you just couldn’t live without getting movie times, finding directions, or looking something up in an encyclopedia instantly.

You probably couldn’t live without your blogging software in 2009. Or maybe you just couldn’t live without all the posts you’ve written as a blogger .

You probably couldn’t live without Facebook in 2009. Or maybe you just couldn’t live without all the contact information you have available in it.

For all the usefulness of the Internet and digital technology, entrusting so much confidence in 1’s and 0’s can be exceptionally detrimental to our personal and professional lives.

The reality is that we, as users of many free Web products, are completely at the mercy of these oddly named companies. They owe nothing to us. In fact, many of their Terms of Service make no guarantees about their future existence or abruptness of a possible demise. And why should they? After all, many of them are free.

Data is the real “must have” of 2009. Anyone that has our data knows that…and should feel comfortable amidst trying economic times.

1. Stop texting / playing with your cell phone when you are with out with friends or family, eating with anyone, or engaged in any real world face-to-face conversation.

Or just go hang out with the people you are texting since they are apparently more important / interesting.

2. Stop hiding behind text messaging / e-mail / IM to do your “dirty work.”

Don’t use text / e-mail / IM to break-up with people, have extended conversations, or do anything where you should either pick up the phone or meet face-to-face.

3. Stop relying on Facebook or other social networks as the record of life.

Don’t try to interpret messages, photos, or status updates to make conclusions about people and their relationships.

4. Stop blogging / tweeting about Twitter.

In the end, it really doesn’t matter how many followers you have, how many times someone retweets your tweet, or to have a public log of everything you do each day.

5. Stop having public person-to-person conversations on the Internet.

There is simply no reason to write more than one message on a “wall” or blog, that is specific to a person. No one cares about your personal exchanges and you likely are going to get burned by having extended private discussions indexed on the public Internet.

6. Stop blogging / FriendFeeding about FriendFeed.

Friends don’t let friends FriendFeed about FriendFeed.

7. Stop TiVo’ing / DVR’ing the same old tired TV shows.

Imagine this…you TiVo a show that will actually teach you something.

8. Stop thinking the Internet is all about YOU.

It’s actually not just about your tweets, your “personal brand,” your authority, your blog, your expertise, your links, the number of your followers, etc.

9. Stop spending so much time in your virtual world.

Facebook, e-mail, MySpace, FriendFeed, cell phones, Twitter, DVR, iPhone apps, etc…go meet your neighbors!

The Obama campaign’s use of the Web has been ambitious. BarackObama.com was a sharply designed website but beyond that, the campaign used social networking, text messaging, and even an iPhone-specific application to push their message and keep supporters involved.

Thus, it was no surprise that Change.gov was launched almost immediately after the Obama campaign win. Requesting “Change.gov” was bold. It was an obvious message to tell supporters and more generally Americans that change was not just a slogan. It was now somewhat legitimatized by the highly regulated GSA domain “.gov.”

The initial government sanctioning of the Obama change mantra and the era of his administration was birthed at Change.gov. Yet soon after that birthing, observers noticed that the big ideas of President-elect Obama went missing. His agenda items were removed. Speculations ran wild – were their legal issues related to copying the BarackObama.com agenda to Change.gov or did the future administration already have a change of heart?

Perhaps the more important sentiment expressed during this particular change to Change.gov was that supporters didn’t really understand what was happening to the site. Some digital commentators suggested that the Change.gov site require a change history, similar to a Wikipedia entry, chronicling anything added, removed, or updated.

While asking for that sort of visibility may seem excessive, it is not unrealistic considering the tone of Change.gov. The content of the site contains appealing phrases like "open government" and "it’s your America" that link to contact forms where visitors can share their vision and ideas for America to the forthcoming administration.

The problem is that Change.gov is not Change.org and it never can be. It has been suggested that elements of Change.org – a non-government website – would have been a better model for Change.gov. Herein lays the temptation of “open government” in a country that has existed as a representative democracy. Change.org is a non-government site run by the people. Change.gov is a government site that exists for the people. It is a subtle distinction yet one that should be clearly articulated by the impending Obama administration.

President-elect Obama not only faces tremendous known challenges in America, he embarks on a new journey as the first YouTube President. The ideas of Change.gov will likely soon become the realities of WhiteHouse.gov. With all the benefits of the Web, the Obama administration must have a strategy for balancing how to hear the voices of Americans through his “open government” initiative without being overrun by the tyranny of the mob.

In a recent Wired article, Chris Anderson explores the data intensive world of the Internet, through the lens of Google. His thesis is that the Petabyte Age, the age of what appears to be infinite data, represents the end of models:

There is now a better way. Petabytes allow us to say: “Correlation is enough.” We can stop looking for models. We can analyze the data without hypotheses about what it might show. We can throw the numbers into the biggest computing clusters the world has ever seen and let statistical algorithms find patterns where science cannot.

Google represents the ultimate data-driven company. Not only does it use tools like its own Google Website Optimizer to constantly tune and improve customer interaction with its sites, over the years it has produced one of the best pulses on culture – the Google Zeitgeist – has recently upgraded its trends tool, continues to buy or innovate in the online media space, and has more servers than McDonalds has hamburgers. They’ve got a lot of data and that’s just the public face of the company.

Anderson notes that the humble beginnings of the Stanford dropouts was really just about math applied to data:

For instance, Google conquered the advertising world with nothing more than applied mathematics. It didn’t pretend to know anything about the culture and conventions of advertising — it just assumed that better data, with better analytical tools, would win the day. And Google was right.

Later, he writes:

Out with every theory of human behavior, from linguistics to sociology. Forget taxonomy, ontology, and psychology. Who knows why people do what they do? The point is they do it, and we can track and measure it with unprecedented fidelity. With enough data, the numbers speak for themselves.

Anderson believes the Google philosophy is “poised to go mainstream.” Google’s data-driven, computer-intensive approach will have significant impacts on science and will offer “a whole new way of understanding the world.”

I agree. The concepts in the Petabyte Age are only beginning to surface. Google is the model and the far surpassing leader. Those that follow their model, at some level, will survive. Those that fail to understand the importance of this paradigm will become obsolete.

The same view, decades ago, would have been very different. I wonder if the view alone is what would have been the most significant difference. I wonder if the absence of the T.V. was simply satisfied by the radio and if not the radio the evening paper – or if the difference would be something much more profound.

There’s no doubt that there is comfort and convenience in our modern lives. We no longer have to plan social outing details because we can call friends via our cell phones when we get to venues. We can easily find our ways in unfamiliar places without having a map because of the GPS technology that sits on our car dashboards. And of course, as the glowing lights shown across the street indicate, we can keep up with breaking news from around the world, check tomorrow’s weather, and watch any of hundreds of movies, all by clicking a button.

Technology can make life easier. We know its benefits. But do we know its costs? Do we know the implication of millions of people sitting in front of their televisions several hours a day? Or if not there, browsing the Internet, talking/texting on their cell phones, gaming, and the like?

Surely, arguments can be made to say that media like movies, for example, simply are evolutions of books. Skeptics might say that all of the gizmos and gadgetry around us are modern day reincarnations of elements that humans have experienced for quite some time.

Yet It feels different. It feels like we are living in a unique time, with distinct circumstances, allowing us to be better, faster, and smarter.

Are we?

Are we smarter or do we just have easier access to information via the Internet? Are we faster or do we just have less patience and satisfy for lower quality? Are we better or have we just convinced ourselves of the necessity of our always-on connected world?

Sometimes I think that we are no better off being on. It’s not technology’s fault. It’s ours. We’ve opted to be lazier by watching more T.V. and reading less. We’ve preferred mindless hours on insipid websites over ones of substance. We’ve habituated ourselves to checking e-mail on mobile phones during unoccupied moments instead of pausing for reflection or even, dare I write, enjoying silence and non-stimulation.

There’s hope to be better off being on – but we have to want it. We have to purpose towards it. We have to break our digital addictions. We have to reduce the number of glowing screens – or at least ensure that they are not just numbing our minds.

Consider, for example, the Scobleizer. Do a search on his last name — “Scoble” — and you will notice dozens and dozens of search result pages about “Robert Scoble.” You’ll find a similar, although not as overwhelming trend, for other well-known web personalities by querying a last name only.

These individuals, of course, are not the only people who have these surnames. It is debatable whether they are the most important. Yet Google and other search engines, by far and away, claim them as the most relevant results for their last names.

That’s mainly because they are technology savvy. They, unlike their relatives, were knowledgeable enough to start a blog. They, unlike others with their last name, have a peer group of connected individuals constantly linking to them. They, unlike their ancestors, have occupations that exist because of the web.

The impact is significant. It would take considerable effort to re-write Scoble’s dominance of the “Scoble” search query. The consequence is that Robert Scoble has essentially eradicated the web’s history of the Scoble name and presently defines all references to it. Anyone trying to learn about the history behind the Scoble surname via the web, which again, is now a primary resource for research, would be hard-pressed to do so. Even this search (i.e., scoble last name meaning) does not return helpful information.

Is Scoble an extreme case? Sure. But there are plenty of similar scenarios. My last name, for example, yields a dominance of results for “Yarmosh.” I can assure you I am not the most important Yarmosh ever. I’m certain many in my family would argue this point.

Search results evolve over time but it is not clear how they will change from generation to generation. Will Robert Scoble forever be the “most important” Scoble? Will I always be the “most important” Yarmosh? We are still at the outset of a first generation shaping the web and subsequently, search results. It remains to be seen if our first-mover advantage allows us to forever maintain digital dominance and re-shape/shape the history of our families.

Bauerlein’s The Dumbest Generation – How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future* (*Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30) details a daunting truth about the unintellectual youth of America:

…in sum, while the world world has provided [teens and young adults] extraordinary chances to gain knowledge and improve their reading/writing skills, not to mention offering financial incentives to do so, young Americans today are no more learned or skillful than their predecessors, no more knowledgeable, fluent, up-to-date, or inquisitive, except in the materials of youth culture.

While savvy technology consumers, DotNets mainly view the Internet and digital technology as a playground or a “social joy” as Bauerlein describes it. I have written in the past that for the DotNets, “their cognizance of the Internet has always been directly related to its social implications.” So, although they have the most amazing opportunity to explore what seems like an infinite amount of subjects with the click of a button, Bauerlein writes that they actively cocoon themselves in the superficial realities of youth culture via IM, text messages, social networks, and other similar technology.

A theme of Bauerlein’s book is the me-centric world that Gen Yers create and in which they exist.  The you, me, and I trend is a well documented Digital Age  phenomenon. We have YouTube, MySpace, and the iPod. Time magazine even told us that — YOU — were the Person of the Year in 2006. Hopefully, someone was fired for that.

It is tempting to blame the narcissism of Gen Y solely on digital technology. Others like Dr. Jean Twenge, author of Generation Me, note that, what she calls “GenMe,” is the first to develop in a you can do anything, follow your dreams, be happy society focused on the individual’s needs and desires. It is therefore arguable that digital technology is not the underlying reason for DotNet’s self-consumed existence but a rather serious enabler of a societal approved attitude.

The recipe for the Dumbest Generation then, seems to be the mixture of a mindset (e.g., “you can be anything you want to be”) and a facilitator (e.g., “YouTube – Broadcast Yourself.”). Neither are completely to blame. Society did not only teach the “you” mentality to DotNets. For at least the oldest Gen Yers, there was Reading Rainbow, Mister Rogers, and a host of other cultural influences that fostered a love for learning. Similarly, Facebook and other sites like it are just pockets, although popular ones, of the vast World Wide Web.

Unfortunately, the interplay of these two forces have been utterly detrimental. Bauerlein writes about Gen Yers apathy towards reading (both on and offline), their lack of basic knowledge (e.g., Jaywalking), and more generally, their disinterest in the world outside of their digital realities.

One could criticize Bauerlein for not providing enough solutions in his book. His suggestions to combat the dumbification of America’s youth seem to be an afterthought to the siren he sounds. But there are solutions — and there doesn’t need to be. Bauerlein’s warnings and fact based analysis are significant in and of themselves, hopefully rallying parents, teachers, policymakers, and many others to fight for the future of America. After all, as he writes, “[i]t takes a home, and a schoolhouse, and a village, and a market to make a great public intellectual…”

Note: This post is not meant to be a review of Bauerlein’s book. There is far too much research, important ideas, and poignancy to capture it all here.

In recent times, the Digital Age, has ushered its own transformation. It is now possible to nearly carry the sum of human knowledge in the palm of a hand. Global correspondence happens instantaneously — from a device in the same hand. The news cycle no longer is a cycle. Connectivity is a constant. Information has become a commodity.

The commodization of information has had serious consequences. Many are now overwhelmed by the sheer volume and constancy of information bombarding them from every angle. In his book, How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci, published in 1998, Michael J. Gelb has incredible foresight into the ever increasing commoditization of information:

Perhaps, like many of my friends, you feel that your greatest challenge is living a balanced, fulfilling life in the face of increasing stress from every direction…[i]n the Middle Ages, information was unavailable to the average person and the few books that existed were in Latin…[n]ow we are awash in an unprecedented, unrelenting overflow of data…

One of the most famous men of the Renaissance, and the primary focus of Gelb’s book, is Leonardo da Vinci. The painter behind The Last Supper and the mysterious Mona Lisa, da Vinci didn’t stop with the brush nor the arts. Da Vinci the scientist dissected cadavers to understand the anatomy of the body. Da Vinci the innovator was obsessed with flight and sketched a flying machine. That’s only scratching the surface.

Da Vinci was not solely interested in these subjects and occupations. He desired mastery. Dubbed in Italian Uomo Universale (literally, “universal man”), da Vinci is described as the epitome of a Renaissance Man, a man dedicated to expanding and perfecting his abilities and knowledge across multiple subjects. A Renaissance Man determined to be a life long learner, a scholar, and a gentleman.

Most people neither have the resolve nor aptitude to be a Leonardo da Vinci. More importantly is that in today’s world, they would need to find a way to fight hyperconnectivity and the overflow of information to protect their intellectual pursuits. As Gelb writes:

We have more possibilities, more freedom, more options than any people who have ever lived. Yet there is more junk, more mediocrity, more garbage to sort through than ever too.

In the buzzing, ringing, dinging, chiming, beeping world that exists today, could a da Vinci or can a Renaissance Man even exist? Some conclude that a connected world leads to more occupational specialization, niche focus, and a progressive demise of the Renaissance Man.

The problem with such perspectives is twofold. The first lies in the idea that being a Renaissance Man is somehow tied to one’s occupation. Put in another way, being a Renaissance Man today has negative career implications because of the diversification of occupations and thus the specialization required to succeed. The idea starts with a false assumption. Namely, a Renaissance Man was never an occupation but rather a way of living.

True, some given the label of “Renaissance Man” received wages for their various interests and occupations. Yet it was their desire of mastery that compelled them. They did not labor to receive the title of “Renaissance Man.” It was because they labored as such that history rewarded them with this title.

There is a second issue with linking innovations like the Internet with the extinction of the Renaissance Man. Placing unequal blame on technology over the consumer of technology.

One cannot deny the temptation of digital technology. The temptation to only search for agreeable opinions. The temptation to only listen to preferred music. The temptation to only watch favorite programming. The temptation to engage in distraction. Although perhaps worse today, the temptations of technology have always existed in some form or another.

Digital technology is not all about fighting temptation. Realizing the good, the benefits, and the hope it offers while still acknowledging its temptation is the start to seeing how it is possible to be a Renaissance Man in the Digital Age.

Gelb was on the right track when he wrote, “Yet there is more junk, more mediocrity, more garbage to sort through than ever too.” He did not go far enough. To embrace the Renaissance Man mentality in the Digital Age requires more than filtering and even more than shielding. It demands disengagement.

Being a Renaissance Man does not mean that someone knows everything. It does not mean that someone has mastered all skills and abilities in the world. It does mean dedication to some number of disciplines and a commitment to mastering them.

That is where disengagement becomes applicable.

To be a Renaissance Man in the Digital Age requires disengagement from the inane, from the futile, from the time wasters, from the tyranny of the urgent, from the noise, and even from the signal. Tim Ferriss, perhaps a modern day Renaissance Man of sorts and author of the best selling 4-Hour Work Week, describes this practice as “selective ignorance.” Ignore not just what is irrelevant. Ignore anything that is irrelevant to achieving one’s goals. Does it work? Ask the tango record holding, Chinese kickboxing champion, multilingual, best selling author Ferriss.

In the Digital Age, if information is a commodity, time is a precious treasure and one that must be guarded and focused. Technology does not prevent the allowance of a Renaissance Man. It is man that must embrace the Renaissance Man mindset, using the advancements of technology to his benefit, in achieving the mastery of his pursuits.

At first glance, the answer to the question, if it’s worth addressing at all, is a definite “maybe,” depending on how we define the word “dumb”:

In a week when the mainstream press was focused on Iraq and the debate over immigration, the three leading user-news sites—Reddit, Digg and Del.icio.us—were more focused on stories like the release of Apple’s new iphone and that Nintendo had surpassed Sony in net worth, according to the study.

Ask those following these sites a question about the iPhone and you’ll receive a relatively well informed response. Ask them about immigration and you might get a blank stare. No, they’re likely not dumb, just narrowly focused on what they like.

The question I submit about “social media” — put in quotes because I don’t agree with the way it’s defined or used in this case (e.g., a newspaper columnist could have a blog, is this “social media,” user-generated content or simply a publishing tool) — is whether it creates the iPod effect. Does “social media” lock us into a personalized echo chamber, where we are surrounded only with the opinions, ideas, news, music, and an onslaught of other media that we agree with and prefer?

It doesn’t have to but it surely encourages this trend in such a way that is stronger than traditional mainstream media. “Social media” empowers filtering, time shifting, mobility, and dozens of other means of individualization and personalization.

Like many other challenges with technology, the solution may not be found in the technology itself but rather in the way we use it. Are we willing to allow the convenience of “social media” box us into a homogenous world full of people we like and opinions that are the same as ours? Should that occur, perhaps the original question stands as valid and the answer becomes glaringly apparent.

[via Ryan Moede]

David Weinberger calls this hierarchy the first order of order in his book Everything is Miscellaneous. The first order of order deals with putting objects in places. The map of the museum might classify as his second order of order. The second order of order is information about first order objects; it is essentially meta data or information about information. The second order or order includes things like maps, catalogs, and other indices.

With the advent of digital technology, however, Weinberger describes a third order, which paradoxically, ushers in no order at all. The third order represents a shift from atoms to bits, from the physical to the virtual and according to Weinberger, from order to the miscellaneous.

Throughout his book, Weinberger weaves what often appears to be a miscellaneous web of arguments to challenge what he sees as the presumptuous nature of order. He looks at everything from the structure of the Dewey Decimal System to how celestial bodies are (or are not) classified as planets to question established notions of order. He makes a bold conclusion: the third order not only changes how the world is organized, it challenges the authority of those who do the organizing.

Weinberger’s world praises the individual’s view of “order” over that of experts. He believes the advantage of the “digital opportunity” is to destroy “the idea that there’s a best way of organizing the world.”

Whether looking at atoms or bits, the concept of the miscellaneous holds some value. After all, not everyone organizes his linen closets the same way. Given a hundred sock draws, you’d probably find a significant number of different combinations.

The point is that the individual has some say in the organization of first order objects and second and third order information. Well, that at least works in the cases where the individual owns the objects or information. The individual’s “order” might only make sense to him. But can the individual’s or even groups of individuals’ miscellany continually prove relevant in the public forum? The answer to that question is critical to Weinberger’s claims; the third order does not always exist.

For example, how does the third order apply to the physical Museum of Natural History? Even a virtual museum would need some sort or first order of order. Before an object could appear in the virtual museum, it would need to be qualified. A curator, someone trained and knowledgeable in a particular element of natural history, would be required to inform the process of choosing what should be included in the virtual tour of the museum. That’s the first order of order at work; putting objects in places. Yielding to miscellany, to individuals or groups of individuals, could create a natural history museum filled with everything from Walt Disney DVDs to empty plastic bottles of water.

In a truly miscellaneous world, there would be little to no common experience to understand existence. First and second orders are responsible for everything from language and currency to menus and encyclopedias. Are they perfect? No. But they do establish a basis to communicate and even to disagree. And that is something that’s difficult to do with Weinberger’s ideas about everything being miscellaneous.