Only Dead Fish

Goodbye 2008

One year in 40 seconds from Eirik Solheim on Vimeo.
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Happy Christmas

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Well, it's been quite a year. Over the past 12 months the traffic to this blog has doubled, the number of subscribers has trebled, and I met some amazing people through it. Somewhere along the line I passed a few markers: two years blogging...600 posts...1000 comments. So I'd just like to say thanks for reading and thanks for participating. It's been a blast. Roll on 2009.

The Evolution Of The Internet

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Pew Research have surveyed over 500 leading internet experts, activists and commentators about the impact of networked technologies on society over the next decade or so. There's quite a bit you'd expect - mobile as the primary connection tool, improvements in the architecture of the internet, prevalence of voice recognition and touch interfaces, a continuing arms race around intellectual property and copyright, and even more blurring between personal and work, physical and virtual.

But the really interesting bit is what they describe as  "the strong undercurrent of anxiety" that runs through these experts' answers. The picture they paint is of a future where technology will empower people in political and economic society, "but that won't necessarily make it a kinder, gentler world."

Take these quotes:

"Sharing, interacting, and being exposed to ideas is great and all, but saying the internet will eventually make human beings more tolerant is like saying that the Prius will reverse global warming; a little too much of an idealistic leap in logic. People are people are people. And people are terrible."
- Matt Gallivan, senior research analyst for National Public Radio

"Tribes will be defined by social enclaves on the internet, rather than by geography or kinship, but the world will be more fragmented and less tolerant, since one's real-world surroundings will not have the homogeneity of one's online clan."
- Jim Horning, chief scientist for information security at SPARTA Inc. and a founder of InterTrust's Strategic Technologies and Architectural Research Laboratory

"Viciousness will prevail over civility, fraternity, and tolerance as a general rule, despite the build-up of pockets or groups ruled by these virtues. Software will be unable to stop deeper and more hard-hitting intrusions into intimacy and privacy, and these will continue to happen."
- Alejandro Pisanty, ICANN and Internet Society leader and director of computer services at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico

"By 2020, the internet will have enabled the monitoring and manipulation of people by businesses and governments on a scale never before imaginable. Most people will have happily traded their privacy -- consciously or unconsciously -- for consumer benefits such as increased convenience and lower prices. As a result, the line between marketing and manipulation will have largely disappeared."
- Nicholas Carr, author of the Rough Type blog and "The Big Switch"

I couldn't quite believe what I was reading. Do these 'experts' not have more faith in humanity than this? Is not the internet a reflection of all human life, good and bad? Surely greater transparency will be positive for tolerance and understanding? Personally, I prefer this prognosis:

"The Web must still be a messy, fabulous, exciting, dangerous, poetic, depressing, elating place .. akin to life; which is not a bad thing."
- Luis Santos, Universidade do Minho-Braga, Portugal

Flow Charts

From the ever insightful XKCD.

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People First (2)

Great comment from Mark on the People First post below:

"This has been my mantra for ages.That's what the Herd is all about: other people are far more important in shaping individual behaviour than marketing or advertising activity. To paraphrase Thomas Schelling, most of human life is made up of our responses to other people.

Of course, if you do ads (or make tech stuff), or sit a long way away from people in an executive office, then you don't want to believe this at all: it makes your obsession (and you) seem rather less important than you would like it to be...

And of course you're caught up with other folk who also think this way. Advertising has to learn to help people do their thing with each other, rather than send messages to the world in the hope of making an impact."

Amen.

People First

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Dan has linked to a great call to action from Richard Millington. His Online Community Manifesto expresses the view that we know a lot about technology but relatively little about communities - how they form, how they interact, the talents needed to facilitate them. Learning technology, says Richard, is easier than learning people, but we've forgotten that "technology exists to make communication easier. It doesn't exist to let us do things we wouldn't have bothered to do anyway". I like this people-first approach.

I met Adam Tinworth yesterday. Adam is one of those people who is driving significant cultural and operational change in his organisation. The kind of change that will enable his company to adapt to the new world and quite possibly ensure it's survival. His recent post on "Saving B2B Publishing By Loving People" makes a great point - that the shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 was the shift from topic-focus to person-focus:

"We need to shift the balance from topic first, person second, to person first and topic second in every element of our publishing process"

People first. Sounds easy when you say it like that. This kind of change is at one level very subtle, but at another wholly transformational. It speaks of not only the myriad smaller changes that need to run through a business but also the huge shift in mindset that needs to be adopted.

Perhaps advertising's version of this is the shift from message first, person second, to person first, message second. Thoughts?

Obvious

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I've read a few things recently questioning the value of involvement in social technologies: how recession means retrenchment back to more 'traditional' models...meanwhile the big social networks continue to struggle to find a model that works...how the vast majority of blogs are dormant so that means that blogging is on the wane...

I think this kind of perspective misses a huge point. The internet is one big social network. All media streams will become social. As Charlene Li once said, social networking will be like air, ubiquitous, all around us. It is irrelevant whether people prefer writing a blog, posting their pictures on flickr, or Facebook, or their passing thoughts on twitter, or whether they do all or any combination of the above - the point is is that they are doing it at all. It doesn't matter whether they have a blog or a Bebo profile, the point is is that they have a place on the web which gives them a platform. Dammit, people are social. And the internet is about people, not technology.

Selling Ideas

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Selling is a real life skill. Everyone sells. We sell things, we sell who we are, we sell our ideas. We're always selling. Which is why it's so strange that the biggest mistake made in the business of selling (even by salespeople) is so universal. Lack of empathy. The understanding that what might seem important to you is not necessarily important to the person you are selling to.

I say this because, as Seth says, selling ideas is a fundamentally different business than having ideas, and in the current climate selling the right ideas matters like never before. Ideas are one thing, action quite another. Right now there are people sat inside organisations trying to sell in new ways of doing things. Trying to convince people to take a leap of faith. And that's not easy because faith is a very personal thing and so in order to have it, people have to get there themselves. So if you're one of these people, the best thing you can do is to recognise that not everyone has been on the same journey as you. It's easy to forget this, get frustrated, lose your passion. But if you believe in an idea strongly enough, then don't give up. Reframe it, repackage it, keep going. Because now is when we really need the great ideas.

Wallpaper Graduate Directory 2009

I can hardly believe that it's been a whole year since I posted about The Wallpaper Graduate Directory 2008 but there you go, it's upon us again. Wallpaper is one of my favourite magazines and this one of my favourite things that they do. The 2009 directory features their pick of "the raw and the revolutionary who might just change your world forever". Here's some of my favourites from this years...

Photography - Cassanda Eeftink Schattenkerk:

Architecture - The Flotsam Project:

 

Graphics - Alex Weis:

 

Transportation - Sergio Loureiro:

 

More here

Post Of The Month - November '08 - Winner

I'm delighted to announce that the winner of Post of the Month for November 2008 is Charles with his excellent post on rewiring it all. There was a great shortlist of posts this month, but happy that Mr Frith won it (he's been on a roll recently), so well done - you get the reflected glory of props from your blogging peers and to join Dino and Jonathan in the Think Tank Hall of Fame. Thanks again to everyone for nominating and voting. Nominations will open again in early Jan for posts that ran in December so start thinking about the good 'uns.