September 14, 2013
Talebearing and Other Trivialities
Your family (and close friends)--health and wellbeing, your finances, your job, your soul...
If you're a little more social and aware, perhaps you care about the environment, the dangers of WMD, human rights, our national debt, and more.
Yet as Rebecca Greenfield points out in The Atlantic (5 Sept 2013) "the dumbest topics [on the Internet] get the most attention." She uses the example of all the chatter about Yahoo's new logo, which mind you, looks awfully a lot like their old logo.
The reason she says people focus on so much b.s. on the web--or derivatively at work or in social gatherings--is that it's sort of the lowest common denominator that people can get their minds around that get talked about.
Like in the "old country," when gossipers and talebearers where scorned, but also widely listened to, there has always been an issue with people making noise about silly, mindless, and mind-your-own-business topics.
Remember the Jerry Springer show--and so many other daytime TV talk shows--and now the reality shows like the Kardashians, where who is sleeping with whom, how often, and what their latest emotional and mental problems are with themselves and each other make for great interest, fanfare, and discussion.
Greenfield points out Parkinsons's Law of Triviality (I actually take offense at the name given that Parkinson's is also a very serious and horrible disease and it makes it sounds as if the disease is trivial), but this principle is that "the amount of discussion is inversely proportional to the complexity of a topic." (Source: Producing Open Source Software, p. 91)
Hence, even in technical fields like software development, "soft topics" where everyone has an opinion, can invoke almost endless discussion and debate, while more technical topics can be more readily resolved by the limited number of subject matter experts.
This principle of triviality is also called a bikeshed event, which I had heard of before, but honestly didn't really know what it was. Apparently, it's another way of saying that people get wrapped around the pole with trivialities like what color to paint a bikeshed, but often can't hold more meaningful debates about how to solve the national debt or get rid of Al Qaeda.
We may care about ourselves and significant others first, but most of us do also care about the bigger picture problems.
Not everyone may feel they can solve them, but usually I find they at least have an opinion.
The question is how we focus attention and progress people's discussion from the selfish and lame to the greater good and potentially earth-shattering.
I recently had a conversation with my wife about some social media sites where the discussion posts seem to have hit new rock bottom, but people still seem to go on there to either have their say or get some attention.
I say elevate the discussion or change sites, we can't afford to worry about Yahoo's logo and the Kardashians' every coming and going--except as a social diversion, to get a good laugh, or for some needed downtime dealing with all the heavy stuff. ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
August 10, 2013
Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Cell Phone?
This guy in the Wall Street Journal today boasts how he is one of the last 9% of American society that goes without a cell phone (let alone a smartphone).
At 40 and as a managing director of an investment firm, he says if he needs to make a call he uses one of the 30 working remaining payphones in Manhattan or borrows his wife or a strangers phone--so much for personal independence and self-sufficiency. Does this guy (and wife) live at home with his mommy too?
He calls himself a "technology holdout" and actually goes on to says that he is scared of getting a cell phone because he is afraid of losing himself.
While admittedly, many people do go overboard with technology, social media, and gaming to the point of addiction, I am not sure that getting a cell phone is alone a major risk factor.
Sernovtiz says he adheres to Henry David Thoreau's philosophy of simplicity--and that inventions "are but improved means to an unimproved end."
Thoreau went to live in the woods to "live deliberately" and focus on "only the essential facts of life," perhaps like many ascetics and spiritual guides before him have. And as such, this is not a bad thing when done for the right reasons.
But Sernovitz's one-sided message is a negative one, because technology as any tool is not bad in and of itself--it's how we exert control over the tool and ourselves, balancing productive use from misuse and abuse.
If Sernovitz is so afraid of using technology, perhaps he should question himself as an investment manager and disavow use of money--which can be used for many evils from greed, hoarding, and selfishness to financing terrorism--and instead go back to bartering forest lumber and chicken eggs?
When I asked my 16-year old daughter what she thought of Sernovitz's article, she said he can't differentiate "simpler from easier."
Don't mind me if I pass on this guy's book, "The Contrarians." ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Cell Phone?
April 15, 2012
Beating Social Media Isolation
I think it is actually a bit of both as we are connected to more people with time and space virtually no impediment any longer; however, those connections are often more shallow and less fulfilling.
There is an important article in The Atlantic (May 2012) called "Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?" that lends tremendous perspective on information technology, social media and our relationships.
The premise is that "for all this [new] connectivity, new research suggests that we have never been lonelier."
The article is very absolute that despite all the technology and communication at our fingertips, we are experiencing unbelievable loneliness that is making people miserable, and the author calls out our almost incessant feelings of unprecedented alienation, an epidemic of loneliness, and social disintegration.
Of course, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that almost everyone can share, but there are also numerous studies supporting this, including:
1) Study on Confidants (2004)--showed that our average number of confidants shrunk by almost 50% from approximately 3 people in 1985 to 2 people in 2004; moreover, in 1985 only 10% of Americans said they had no one to talk to, but this number jumped 1.5 times to 25% by 2004.
2) AARP Study (2010)--that showed that the percentage of adults over 45 that were chronically lonely had almost doubled from 20% in 2000 to 35% in 2010.
Some important takeaways from the research:
- Married people are less lonely than singles, if their spouses are confidants.
- "Active believers" in G-d were less lonely, but not for those "with mere belief in G-d."
- People are going to mental professionals (psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, therapists, and counselors) as "replacement confidants."
- Loneliness is "extremely bad for your health."
- Our appetite for independence, self-reliance, self-determination, and individualism can lead to the very loneliness that can makes people miserable.
- Using social media, we are compelled to assert our constant happiness and curate our exhibitionism of the self--"we are imprison[ed] in the business of self-presenting."
- Technology tools can lead to more integration or more isolation, depending on what we do with them--do we practice "passive consumption and broadcasting" or do we cultivate deeper personal interactions from our social networks?
Personally, I like social media and find it an important tool to connect, build and maintain relationships, share, and also relax and have fun online.
But I realize that technology is not a substitute for other forms of human interaction that can go much deeper such as when looking into someone's eyes or holding their hand, sharing life events, laughing and crying together, and confiding in each other.
In January 2011, CNBC ran a special called "The Facebook Obsession," the name of which represents the almost 1 billion people globally that use it. To me though, the real Facebook obsession is how preoccupied people get with it, practically forgetting that virtual reality, online, is not the same as physical, emotional, and spiritual reality that we experience offline.
At times, offline, real-world relationships can be particularly tough--challenging and painful to work out our differences--but also where we find some of the deepest meaning of anything we can do in this life.
Facebook and other social media's biggest challenge is to break the trend of isolation that people are feeling and make the experience one that is truly satisfying and can be taken to many different levels online and off--so that we do not end up a society of social media zombies dying of loneliness.
Social media companies can do this not just for altruistic reasons, but because if they offer a more integrated solution for relationships, they will also be more profitable in the end.
(Source Photo: here with attribution to h.koppdelaney)
Beating Social Media Isolation
February 3, 2012
Online Presence, Your Calling Card
Whether or not their apprehensions about their privacy being compromised is justified or whether they feel that "it's simply a waste of time" or that they "just don't get it," the impetus for us to all establish and nurture our online presence is getting more important than ever.
In the competition for the best jobs, schools, even mates, and other opportunities, our online credentials are becoming key.
We've heard previously about jobs checking candidates backgrounds on the Internet and even bypassing candidates or even firing employees for their activities online.
Numerous examples of people badmouthing their companies or bosses have been profiled in the media and even some politicians have been forced out of office--remember "Weinergate" not too long ago?
Now, not only can negative activities online get you in trouble, but positive presence and contributions can get you ahead.
The Wall Street Journal (24 January 2012) reports in an article titled No More Resumes, Say Some Firms that companies are not only checking up on people online, but they are actually asking "applicants to send links representing their web presence" in lieu of resumes altogether.
What are they looking for:
- Twitter Accounts
- Blogs
- Short Videos
- Online Surveys/Challenges
The idea is that you can learn a lot more about someone--how they think and what they are like--from their history online, then from a resume snapshot.
Of course, many companies still rely on the resume to screen applicants, but even then LinkedIn with over 135 million members is sometimes the first stop for recruiters looking for applicants.
Is everything you do and say online appropriate or "fair game" for people screening or is this going over some sacred line that says that we all have professional lives and personal lives and what we do "when we're off the clock" (as long as your not breaking any laws or doing something unethical) is no one's darn business.
The problem is that when you post something online--publicly--for the world to see, can you really blame someone for looking?
In the end, we have to be responsible for what we disclose about ourselves and demonstrate prudence, maturity, respect, and diplomacy, perhaps that itself is a valid area for others to take into account when they are making judgments about us.
When it comes to children--parents-beware; the Internet has a long memory and Facebook now has a "timeline", so don't assume everyone will be as understanding or forgiving for "letting kids be kids."
One last thought, even if we are responsible online, what happens when others such as hackers, identity thieves, slanderers, those with grudges, and others--mess with your online identity--can you ever really be secure?
Being online is no longer an option, but it is certainly a double-edged sword.
(Source Photo: here; Image credit to L Hollis Photography)
Online Presence, Your Calling Card
December 25, 2011
Swarming For Social Order and Disorder
Swarms are powerful forces that we see in our society today in everything from the worldwide riots of 2011 to crowdsourcing on the Internet--to put it simply as they say, "there is power in numbers."
And swarms and their immense power dates back to the Bible, where the 8th plague sent on Egypt in Deuteronomy 10:14-15 was the plague of locusts:
"And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt...for they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees..."
This past year, we saw the power of swarms in the riots around the globe--from Tahir Square to Occupy Wall Street. In the case of Egypt, Mubarak was deposed after ruling for 30 years and in the case of Wall Street, the Occupy movement sparked protests around the globe lasting for many months.
Similarly, swarms are being put to the test in multiple military applications from the Army's Future Combat System (since renamed) that envision brigades of manned and unmanned combat vehicles linked via an ultra-fast network creating a highly coordinated and maneuverable fighting force to DARPA's iRobot Swarm Project creating a mesh network of mobile robots with sensors that can coordinate and perform surveillance and reconnaissance gaining dominance over the battlefield.
The power of the swarm is not just a physical phenomenon, but also a virtual one where crowdsourcing is used online to do everything from building incredible sources of knowledge like Wikipedia to soliciting citizens ideas for solving national problems such as on Challenge.gov.
Traditionally, the power behind the swarm (in nature whether bees, ants, or locusts) was the collective behavior of so many to attack an enemy, build a colony, or ravage the landscape. Today however, the swarm is powerful because of its collective intelligence--whether in pooling information, vetting ideas, or just coordinating activities with such sophistication that the group can outwit and outmaneuver its opponents.
Wired Magazine has an article for the new year (January 2012) called "Crowd Control" in which the riots of 2011 are viewed as both "dangerous and magnificent"--they represent a disconnected group getting connected, a mega-underground casting off its invisibility to embody itself, formidably, in physical space."
"Today's protest, revolts, and riots are self-organizing [and] hyper-networked"--and just like a swarm, individuals deindividuate and base their ideas and actions on the shared identify of the group and therein, a social psychology takes hold and with basic communication and social technology today, they can spontaneously form potent flash mobs, "flash robs," or worse.
The age old phenomenon of swarming behavior is intersecting with the 21st century technology such as smartphones and social media to create the ability of individuals to gather, act decisively, disperse into the crowds, and then reconvene elsewhere to act again.
The power of this modern swarm is no longer about "sheer numbers," but about being interconnected through messaging, tweets, videos,and more.
Many today are finding the power of the swarm with both friends and foes. Friends are using swarming to try to accomplish new social and scientific feats. While foes such as Al Qaeda are utilizing swarming for hit and run terrorism--moving agilely between safe havens and targeting their victims with tools of terror such as IEDs, car bombs, and other flash attacks.
Swarming is not just a behavior found in the animal kingdom any longer, today it is a fundamental source for both social order and disorder.
Swarming is now a strategy and a tactic--we need to wise up and gain the edge with social swarming behavior and technology to "outwit, outlast, and outplay" those who want to threaten society, and instead use it to improve and secure it.
(Source Photo: here)
Swarming For Social Order and Disorder
December 17, 2011
Modesty In A Social Media World
This one is not for the modest or privacy-conscious.
The app is available for download for both the iPhone and Android.
Essentially, people are going out and using location-based services (i.e. GPS) and self-identifying their love-making--act by act. We're up to 194,000+ already!
Not to be gross, but the app lets people not only report on doing the act and where, but also using check boxes with icons, you can identify the details such as the context: couch, indoor and outdoor, as well as how: 5 top positions--which is way more information than I care to hear about.
In our often hedonistic society, there are of course, other services such as Four-Square that lets you broadcast where you fulfill other bodily pleasures like eating, drinking, and shopping.
Personally, I don't care to know what people are doing or where--too intrusive for my liking. But I can see why others may want to use FourSquare type apps (not IJML or who knows) with friends and family who may want to connect in this way--like to meet for Happy Hour at Old Town.
And certainly, marketers are interested in capturing valuable personal information on what you are doing, where and with whom, and using it to drive their sales and profits. Maybe you get a coupon out of it. :-)
With the love app, it seems like some people want to brag, appear the Don Juan, raise their "macho" social status, or just perhaps enjoy being exhibitionists.
From my perspective, the main pro of this app is to promote the concept (not the act itself) of love over things like war, hate, discrimination, etc.
Even with that being said, it seems like some things are just better off left as intimate moments between you and your special other.
Interesting to me, this topic of disclosure came up big time in the Orthodox Jewish world with the publication in the Yeshiva University Beacon (5 December 2011) of a much written-about article entitled "How Do I Even Begin To Explain This," where a frum Jewish girl from Stern College discloses her story of illicit rendezvous in a hotel room with a gentlemen and at the same time the "walk of shame the day after."
The dichotomy between her "Orthodox" beliefs and her "secular" actions and her publication of this article in a Yeshiva newspaper and her explicit description of sexual deeds is a perfect example of the tear in our society between privacy and social probity on one hand, and the desire or need to share and be "free" of all constraints on the other.
As a social commentary, we are at a point where it seems that nothing is real unless we share it with others, and that can be good or bad--it can lead to greater wisdom and societal advancement or it can lead us to do things we shouldn't do, are sorry we did, and where we feel shame afterwards.
Modesty In A Social Media World
December 11, 2011
This Man's A Real Magician
One more very impressive act on this Sunday afternoon.
10 illusions in less than 5 minutes.
Hans Klok is amazing--especially impressive to me is how he does the following:
1) Moves so fast--more than 1 illusion every 30 seconds!
2) Actually remembers all 10 illusions--I can't remember what I ate for breakfast this morning ;-)
3) Pulls all the illusions off without a single glitch
4) Changes positions with the roaring lady with his hand sticking out of a locked box at :30.
5) Has the women's legs (just her legs!) pushing a cart across the stage at 2:40--are those legs robotic?
6) Moves the guys head from his shoulders to his belly and back again at 2:50--the guys head falls almost like from a guillotine!
While I am not usually terribly wowed by magic acts, this one has quite a lot going for it including speed, action, humor, and some pretty good accompanying music.
Thank G-d for the Internet and Youtube, which enables us to share and enjoy all this great stuff--anytime, anywhere.
(Also, thanks Cousin Betty for sharing this.)
This Man's A Real Magician
November 26, 2011
Espionage, Social Media Style
Good guys and bad guys are tracking your movements, rants and raves, photos, and more online.
For example, The Atlantic reported on 4 November 2011 in an article titled How the CIA Uses Social Media to Track How People Feel that "analysts are tracking millions of tweets, blog posts, and Facebook updates around the world."
Further, in January 2009, "DHS established a Social Networking Monitoring Center (SNMC) to monitor social networking sites for 'items of interest.'"
And even more recently in August 2011, DARPA invited proposals for "memetracking" to identify themes and sentiments online and potentially use this for predictive analysis.
The thinking is that if you can use online information to predict stock market movements as some have attempted, why not criminal and terrorist activity?
Similarly, The Guardian reported on 16 March 2010 FBI using Facebook in fight against crime and cautions that "criminals dumb enough to brag about their exploits on social networking sites have now been warned: the next Facebook 'friend' who contacts you may be an FBI agent."
This is reminescent of the work of private sector, Dateline NBC in using Internet chat rooms to catch sexual predators online by luring them to a house where the predators believed they were going to meet up with a underage girl for a tryst.
While these efforts are notable and even praiseworthy by the good guys--assuming you can get over the privacy implications in favor of the potential to have a safer society to live in--these activities should be carefully safeguarded, so as not to infringe on the rights and freedoms of those who behave legally and ethically.
But the good guys are not the only ones using the tools of the trade for monitoring and analyzing social networking activities--the bad guys too recognize the implicit information treasure trove available and have you in their crosshairs.
For example, in the last years Arab Spring, we have nation states tracking their citizens political activities and using their power over the Internet to shut off access and otherwise surpress democracy and human rights. Further, we have seen their use for cyberspying and testing offensive cyber attack capabilities--only the most recent of which was the alleged infiltration of a SCADA system for a Illinois water plant.
Moreover, this past week, Forbes (21 November 2011) reported in The Spy Who Liked Me that "your social network friends might not be all that friendly."
From corporate espionage to market intelligence, there are those online who "steadfastly follows competitors' executives and employees on Twitter and LinkedIn."
In fact, the notion of online monitoring is so strong now that the article openly states that "if you're not monitoring your competitors activity on social media, you may be missing out on delicious tidbits" and warns that "it's easy to forget that some may not have your best intersts at heart."
Additionally, while you may not think your posts online give that much away, when your information is aggregated with other peoples posts as well as public information, it's possible to put together a pretty good sketch of what organizations and individuals are doing.
Forbes lists the following sites as examples of the "Web Spy Manual" with lots of information to pull from: Slideshare, Glassdoor.com, Quora, iSpionage, Youtube as well as job postings and customer support forums.
When you are on your computer in what you believe to be the privacy of your own home, office, or wherever, do not be deceived, when you are logged on, you are basically as open book for all the world to see--good guys and bad guys alike.
Espionage, Social Media Style
November 12, 2011
Dale Carnegie's Advice In The Age of Social Media
Dale Carnegie's Advice In The Age of Social Media
November 5, 2011
Dilbert Shows The Way to User-Centric Government
Dilbert Shows The Way to User-Centric Government
October 29, 2011
PwC Leading Like Idol
PwC Leading Like Idol
September 24, 2011
Have Your Voice Heard
Have Your Voice Heard
September 2, 2011
Vizualize Yourself
I tried out this new visual resume online called Vizualize Me.
Vizualize Yourself
August 27, 2011
Social Media, Fulfilling Our Every Need?
Social Media, Fulfilling Our Every Need?
August 26, 2011
Get Me Some Privacy
We all need some privacy at one time or another--that's actually one reason to love blogging (ah, some peace at last!)
Get Me Some Privacy
August 20, 2011
Social Media: Closer Together or Further Apart?
Social Media: Closer Together or Further Apart?
August 4, 2011
Google+ And A History of Social Media
Bloomberg Business (25-31 July 2011) tells in biblical terms the history of social media leading up to the recent release of Google+:
Google+ And A History of Social Media
July 15, 2011
An Infographics Treasure Trove
An Infographics Treasure Trove
June 9, 2011
Misappropriating Twitter
By now we are all familiar with the news story regarding a prominent lawmaker, recently married, who admitted to a longstanding pattern of inappropriate sexual exploits via Twitter.
As The Wall Street Journal (9 June 2011) notes, the individual got caught when he “mistakenly sent the photo to tens of thousands of Twitter followers,” rather than as a private message.
As a public servant who is a proponent of social media technology used appropriately, I was very concerned when I saw this in the news (note: all opinions my own).
The government needs social media tools like Twitter. It is an important tool for sharing information and alerts. It is obviously not for “sexting” your followers, especially with a Twitter handle that is apparently coming from someone in the government.
Twitter is an important means of engaging the public in important ways, moving this great country forward on policy issues and a vision that is noble, righteous, and for the betterment of our world. What a shame when these tools are misappropriated!
So while I cannot say “with certitude” what exactly this person was thinking, I am certain that we need social media in government and that there are numerous positive ways for it to be applied. With the caveat that the basis for social media by anyone in government has to be truth, transparency and genuine outreach on issues of importance to the people.
A lot of government people and agencies are doing a good job with Twitter and other social media tools. Let's go back to focusing on the positive work that we can do with them, even as we note with caution how badly they can be misused.
Misappropriating Twitter
February 15, 2011
Social Media--The Train Has Left The Station
Social Media--The Train Has Left The Station