It's a Guy, Guy, Guy, Guy, World

I love Guy Kawasaki's blog. He may be best known in his role as "chief evangelist" for Apple, but he has also written several books, and now runs a very appealing blog site that runs the gamut from business advice, 'cool stuff' and the banality of evil. Also, I just found out that he's a third level connection to me in LinkedIn! I know, cheap thrills.

But I was suprised by his most recent post, a visit to the Threadless offices in Chicago. Threadless manufacturers very cool T-shirts, and their offices are the epitome of hipster/slacker chic: graffiti on the walls, an Airstream trailer dedicated to podcast production, stickers, stickers, stickers. Also, lots of motor vehicles, a skull and crossbones flag, a pool table, equipment strewn about, the legs of a female mannequin.

In other words, it's a guy's playpen.

In all the pictures, I didn't see anything particularly gendered female. I'm not sure what I was expecting -- a Tori Amos poster? Oprah on the TV, Better Homes and Gardens on the coffee table? But maybe some general indication that this business was more than a glorified boys' club.





Is this the kind of work environment any talented individual would feel welcome at? What if you're a woman? What if you're over forty? Meet the new economy: same as the old economy.

And what is it with the valorization of these 'hip' places to work? Why is Guy even writing about this place? If I towed an Airstream into my yard and spray painted my walls, would he write about my blog?

Now there's a thought...

A Bout of Technological Dystopia

This week, I experienced the typical technological nightmare -- my beautiful Apple computer crashed and burned. Not literally. And not even obviously. But there I was, working on an important report, and whenever I'd save the document in MSWord, the document would be saved, but a good portion of it had devolved into freaky ASCII text code. It was sneaky, this ASCII creep. It started devouring the top of my document, and work its way down. I didn't even realize it was happening until I happened to scroll to the top of the document.

This didn't used to happen when I wrote with pen and paper, I can tell you that much.

So my work computer is still in sickbay. The very bright technologist at work can't figure out what's wrong with it, other than it's severe, and the culprit not identifiable through standard channels. The virus or system breakdown or whatever's the cause not only started chomping on my annual Project Summary, it corrupted the preferences of other crucial apps, such as Firefox and iTunes. (Yes, 'crucial' is relative). It was then I realized how dependent I'd become upon my customized iGoogle homepage. It contains RSS feeds from my favorite blogs -- Brazen Careerist, Boing Boing, How to Change the World, Trendsspotting.

Oh, I have other feeds, but those are my main beloved Google feeds. I also have a direct link to my Gmail, my GoogleDocs, you name it. Suddenly, with my preferences gone, I'd lost contact with feeds I'd come to rely upon. I felt lost. I also lost all of my Bookmarks, bookmarks that I'd cultivated for years. Ooops.

In other technological dystopian news, I'm one of the beleaguered who use iSync to sync my Palm TX with iCalendar. Palm is more PC friendly, but Apple has a complicated workaround. Thing is, it works about half the time, with the other half of the time iSync chocking on the message "Synchronizing iSync." Not in my lifetime it syncs. I tried to get a fresh copy of iSync. Ha ha. Although Apple will cleverly bundle new versions into automatic software updates, woe to anyone trying to download just a single program. Believe me, I tried. I ended up reloading an entire System update, keeping my fingers crossed the whole time.

And then I wonder. I used to have no problem with my paper and pencil calendar. Why am I doing this again? At this point, I think it's for the Palm's Solitaire program, which makes waiting for buses and subway trains more palatable.

Mobile Media vs Reality

I usually don't blog this frequently, but there's just been too many interesting pieces crying out for discussion lately. Or it could be that my brain has finally woken up from a prolonged spring slumber. (Most bears (and bloggers) are up and about at this time of the season already).

In any case, I first read this most excellent piece, "Can You Hear Me Now?", by Sherry Turkle of MIT. I suspect I'll be referring to this piece a lot in the coming days, it's that good -- a thoughtful reflection on digital media and potential impacts on society as a whole that transcends the usual 'videogames rot your brain' argument. One point she makes is about the tradeoff being made when we come to depend upon devices as a mediator between the self and what we used to call reality, but even that point is up for grabs now:

The self that grows up with multitasking and rapid response measures success by calls made, e-mails answered and messages responded to. Self-esteem is calibrated by what the technology proposes, by what it makes easy. We live a contradiction: Insisting that our world is increasingly complex, we nevertheless have created a communications culture that has decreased the time available for us to sit and think, uninterrupted. We are primed to receive a quick message to which we are expected to give a rapid response. Children growing up with this may never know another way. Their experience raises a question for us all: Are we leaving enough time to take our time on the things that matter?

Things that matter, such as experiencing a world-class symphony concert? An article in today's Boston Globe tells the sordid tale of a symphony goer who can't relinquish her communicative ties to either companions or her cellphone during the concert.

Split attention is a recent development; in some circles, it's perfectly acceptable to email during meetings, for instance. Others valorize audience participation. But what Chatty Woman X was doing at the BSO was not audience participation in any real sense, but bad manners at best and an inability to truly engage with the performance at the worst, treating the experience as the same as a TV show at home, or a website. One that is experienced often alone, one that can be turned off and returned to again, one that can be shared with others with the casual drop of a twitter text. Another Turkle observation is the lack of respect for the real versus the virtual; those used to robots who perform in a certain (boring, reliable) way can be disappointed when the real thing comes along and it's not half as performative as its electronic double:

When Animal Kingdom opened in Orlando, populated by breathing animals, its first visitors complained they were not as "realistic" as the animatronic creatures in other parts of Disney World. The robotic crocodiles slapped their tails and rolled their eyes; the biological ones, like the Galápagos tortoises, pretty much kept to themselves.

I ask another question of the museumgoers: "If you put in a robot instead of the live turtle, do you think people should be told that the turtle is not alive?" Not really, say several of the children. Data on "aliveness" can be shared on a "need to know" basis, for a purpose. But what are the purposes of living things?

Perhaps to serve as a model for its replicant?

On Crowdsourcing and Labor, Part I

Who's not for more participation? Who wants to go back to the dark ages when the networks and programmers decided what we'd see, when today the crowd not only gets to pick the best, they get to produce it as well? Hello, anyone?

At the recent MiT5 conference (subtitled "creativity, ownership and collaboration in the digital age"), panel after panel explored the connections between this new bottom-up, crowd-powered 'web 2.0' world we live in. Beyond American Idol, beyond online voting, viewers are now producing their own digital work for fun and profit.

OK, maybe not their profit. A recent article on crowdsourcing in the Boston Globe talks about how companies such as MTV have online 'incubators' where their audience can produce content and upload it. You know, as a market research tool NO! as an expression of viewer's creativity!

For MTVu, its crowdsourcing strategy, called the Digital Incubator, is a way of staying in tune with the site's young customer base.

"College students are so far ahead of us, in consuming media and using it in different ways, that we wanted to figure out how we could partner with them," says Stephen Friedman, general manager of MTVu. "We said, there are no rules. Tell us what your idea of the digital future is."

Wow, it's like you can spend a lot of time and energy to produce your film/podcast/what have you, upload it to MTVu, and then marketers get to analyze producers' taste patterns! What a deal! For the marketers!

Increasingly, notions of labor and material costs, those square old pre-Web economic indicators, are ignored or dismissed in the new 2.0 paradigm. Essentially, with this approach to participatory culture, we are talking about younger producers with the time and materials to produce content... lots of time, and lots of access to materials. We are talking about middle class kids with time on their hands, computers at home, and involvement with an online network where status is the new currency, not actual currency.

In other cases, a cash prize is dangled as inspiration. From the article "The Rise of Crowdsourcing", Wired magazine:

Technological advances in everything from product design software to digital video cameras are breaking down the cost barriers that once separated amateurs from professionals. Hobbyists, part-timers, and dabblers suddenly have a market for their efforts, as smart companies in industries as disparate as pharmaceuticals and television discover ways to tap the latent talent of the crowd. The labor isn’t always free, but it costs a lot less than paying traditional employees (italics added>. It’s not outsourcing; it’s crowdsourcing.

A Second Look at Second Life

I don't spend time in Second Life, mostly because my First Life takes up so much of my time, and because I have enough trouble dressing myself and walking around as it is without having to deal with avatar design and flying. I also confess to being a bit daunted by what seems to be a steep learning curve. But I applaud those who have the time and energy to invest in this intriguing alternative world.

One persistent question that crops up in relation to digital games and engagement is, how much of the experiences in the digital realm transfers to life offline? Does gameplay really engender a whole new realm of 21st century skills, or is this just so much talk from highly educated fanboys and gamers? This argument isn't going to be resolved soon; we're still wondering if TV rots our brains, after all.

Half the challenge is asking the right questions (just ask Alek Trebeck). An MFA student (male, from an unidentified university) submitted a documentary on social activism in Second Life, Much of the documentary is comprised of clips of his SL experiences, and it's fascinating how his behavior online is influenced by technical and aesthetic considerations. At one point he says to a fellow avatar, "I'm going to fly -- more cinematic".

Perhaps more compelling are the questions he asks; over the course of five QuickTime chapters, he wonders whether SL is a help or a hindrance to real-world activism. SL's "Darfur Village" is like a living field trip, with factoids and compelling photographs at every turn. (Field trips, though, usually don't solicit you for money on the way). "Will a visitor's visceral experience, standing next to these images, propel someone to act?" he muses? Does a field trip? In another chapter, he visits The Center for Water Studies and gets to travel 'undersea' and ride a whale. Later, he wonders whether the fantastic spectacle of possibilities might get in the way of engaging with the lesson around marine ecology.

On Networks and Narrowcasting

Sitcoms have apparently run their course. Audiences are seriously down. No one cares about Lost anymore, or the Sopranos, or 24, shows that once captivated audiences. Even reality TV show viewership is in decline. The King of Queens just ended a historic 12-year run. Does anyone care? ABC has optioned a sitcom based on the Geico caveman, proving that the well of creativity has just run dry.

Or is it just a matter of data? There are new ways of watching TV, but no way to record these new habits. Tivo watching, for instance, flies under the radar. Anything circulating on YouTube also escapes the records. So is it that we are bemoaning the end of TV or the end of TV habits? It's tough to tell.

One point to watch (ha ha), however, is whether or not these habits suggest a new 'narrowcasting', a self-selection of channels and programs that confirm habits rather than extend experience. You can watch The Daily Show, read DailyKos and other left leading blogs and completely avoid O'Reilly and Christopher Hitchens, and vice versa. No need to mingle, no need to see the world from another perspective. Move along.
In this curious article, the author claims that theatre audiences are about the only place where truly diverse audiences come together. That's a big naive; theatre audiences are just as exclusionary and self-selecting as anyone else.

Network Entertainment

Sitcoms have apparently run their course. Audiences are seriously down. No one cares about Lost anymore, or the Sopranos, or 24, shows that once captivated audiences. Even reality TV show viewership is in decline. The King of Queens just ended a historic 12-year run. Does anyone care? ABC has optioned a sitcom based on the Geico caveman, proving that the well of creativity has just run dry.

Or is it just a matter of data? There are new ways of watching TV, but no way to record these new habits. Tivo watching, for instance, flies under the radar. Anything circulating on YouTube also escapes the records. So is it that we are bemoaning the end of TV or the end of TV habits? It's tough to tell.

One point to watch (ha ha), however, is whether or not these habits suggest a new 'narrowcasting', a self-selection of channels and programs that confirm habits rather than extend experience. You can watch The Daily Show, read DailyKos and other left leading blogs and completely avoid O'Reilly and Christopher Hitchens, and vice versa. No need to mingle, no need to see the world from another perspective. Move along.
In this curious article, the author claims that theatre audiences are about the only place where truly diverse audiences come together. That's a big naive; theatre audiences are just as exclusionary and self-selecting as anyone else.

Your Brain on Gaming

"Next Generation Toys Read Brainwaves" starts a recent article in the Houston Chronicle:

Behind the [Darth Vader] mask is a sensor that touches the user's forehead and reads the brain's electrical signals, then sends them to a wireless receiver inside the saber, which lights up when the user is concentrating. The player maintains focus by channeling thoughts on any fixed mental image, or thinking specifically about keeping the light sword on. When the mind wanders, the wand goes dark.

This application, the producers admit, is a little cheesy. But in the future,

Adding biofeedback to Tiger Woods PGA Tour, for instance, could mean that only those players who muster Zen-like concentration could nail a put. In the popular game series Grand Theft Auto, players who become nervous or frightened would have worse aim than those who remain relaxed and focused.

You know, kinda like real life.

But all sarcasm aside, the notion of a player interacting with a video game on this level is intriguing. Instead of mastering crude controls meant to be an extension of a player's hands and body, now the mind of the player would become that much more critical. We all play games with our minds already, and various applications of our bodies. But how would this technology engage our minds? Would skills be learned -- focus, concentration, mood control -- that could be applied to non-game situation? No one knows yet.

But scientific research is scant. Even if the devices work as promised, some question whether people who use biofeedback devices will be able to replicate their relaxed or focused states in real life, when they're not attached to equipment in front of their television or computer.

Elkhonon Goldberg, clinical professor of neurology at New York University, said the toys might catch on in a society obsessed with optimizing performance — but he was skeptical they'd reduce the severity of major behavioral disorders...It's also unclear whether consumers, particularly American kids, want mentally taxing games.

It is well-documented that we in fact don't behave the same way in front of a computer as we behave away from it. And most games are varying degrees of taxing already, though. Another question is who is the audience for these games?

World Without Oil, part ii

You may be wondering what's up with that odd post below. Well, it's part of a new alternate reality game by <Jane McGonigal, a superstar in the world of Big Games. World Without Oil is essentially a contest where you contribute your best blog, video clip, what have you, that reflects a future world where the price of oil has risen out of control.

So you could say it is an exercise in imagination. What is the power of several thousand participants' creative output collected in one place imagining a mostly dystopian future? How can an ARG address a more socially conscious topic? Is hosting sad stories of the future really bad karma, or will this somehow help us to collectively experience a future we'd rather avoid in a powerful way, and engender action? Stay tuned.

A world without oil, part i

I was once so broke that I'd try to save money by only using candlelight at night around my apartment. It gave my cruddy little flat a romantic, bohemian glow, and it made me laugh that I was so cheap. The heat for the apt came from two heaters -- a beat up old furnace-type thing in the bedroom in one end of the apt, and a built-in heater on the side of my gas stove. Having the two of them blazing kept the place plenty warm. In fact, the bedroom heater, even on low, was too hot. So at night I'd pile all my blankets, my pea coat and a few assorted bits onto the bed, turn off the heater and then crawl into bed fully dressed (though no shoes).

I thought those days were temporary. Well, they were for awhile. I finished grad school, got a decent job and finally had money for luxuries like heat and fresh snow peas and shoes from Zappo's. Life was pretty good, I see that now.

Then the oil crisis came along. My boyfriend and I alwsys joked that should such a thing come to pass, we'd be OK because I could cook and was learning how to garden, and we could live off the land. And he was really good at fixing things, a quaint antique skill not so long ago in the land of disposables. But then when it happened, it happened quickly. Gone were the low-priced goods from overseas -- there wasn't enough oil to transport them. Gone were my kitchy finger puppets and Kindereggs and yes even the snow peas. We are back to using candles at night, and sleeping under a mountain of blankets. But at least this time there is a 'we'.

When we bought this house, I insisted we live near public transportation. What a gift that decision turned to be, excpet half the time we end up pushing the buses. The buses are always overcrowded, too, no special credit for those of us who rode on them Before. And the yard that I tried to grow begonias on before, and cursed the weeding and plantin and mulching hell. We've been able to subdivide the land, which was small to start with, and lease it out to hungry condo dwellers. Thankfully, we get a lot of extra veggies in the summer, tomatoes and zucchini and pole beans, which I'm able to can, if not grow.

The sun's setting, and the generator's about to give out, so more tomorrow.

Look out! It's the Death of Reading!!

There have been several articles in recent memory about the death of the book review in national newspapers. Papers are in hot water, with readers opting for online, free versions of their paper, and publishers are trying to maximize every bit of available space they've got. For book readers, the downsizing or disappearance of the book section is a loss, to be sure.

But does it signal the beginning of the slow death of reading? An op-ed contributor at the LA Times thinks so:

The truth is that the book and newspaper businesses share the same dreadful fear: that people will stop reading. And the fear may be well-founded. Across the country, newspaper circulations are down — and this is clearly part of the reason for the cuts to book sections. At the same time, the book business increasingly relies on an aging customer base that may not be refueling itself with enough new readers.

In the past, newspaper executives understood the symbiotic relationship between their product and books. People who read books also read newspapers. From that basic tenet came a philosophy: If you foster books, you foster reading. If you foster reading, you foster newspapers. That loss-leader ends up helping you build and keep your base.

It should be clarified that the panicky op-ed contributor here is author Michael Connelly, he of the "17 mysteries, most of them featuring LAPD Det. Harry Bosch. His next book, "The Overlook," will be out next month."

A few things here. One, newspapers and books aren't the only ones who are interested in ensuring we all keep reading. In fact, I can't think of any significant anti-reading lobby that's making any headway. Proponents of digital media, for instance, understand that the web depends on traditional reading skills. Blogs rely on reading and writing skills, trumping old media delivery systems by one and engaging with the "learning by doing" paradigm. Businesses need literate workers, as does every other industry.

Two, just because book reviews are disappearing from the paper doesn't mean they don't exist elsewhere. It would be a loss if the habit of curling up with the most recent New York Review of Books disappeared completely. But now there are reviews online, and even more reviews than Connelly's newspaper could accommodate as professionals and amateurs alike opine about their favorite new offerings. After all, I'm reading his review online.

Three, Connelly's hyperbole does not do him or newspapers justice. The genie which is digital media is out of the bottle and both authors and newspapers need to adjust -- perhaps dramatically -- to changing habits of information distribution.

p.s. I apologize for my two week hiatus. Life sometimes gets in the way of blogging.