When Malcolm Gladwell wrote Blink, it changed the way that we think. It made us realise that first impressions really do count – and in fact, we only have the blink of an eye before our conditioning, our prejudices and our expectations kick in.
So it is hardly surprising then that a site like Chatroulette is generating a lot of buzz and, in the process, generating as much fear as excitement. It is a site that works on the level of the blink – randomly selecting two participants and allowing them to share their webcams. If you see something that you don’t wish to, you can click the Next button and skip to another, anonymous webcam.
When I first heard about it, there were various reports of voyeurism, exhibitionism and so on. It sounded like the early days of the internet – but with video. However, just weeks later, there is a certain level of “gaming” starting to take place – with participants seeking to surprise, confuse and even challenge others.
Take a look at this video. Think about the experience of the participants. What are they expecting? What are they hoping for? Is there a power relationship at play? What are the participants exchanging?
What we are seeing, already, is a maturing not necessarily of the TECHNOLOGY but of the PARTICIPANTS. Our capacity to work with and then transform the relationship we have with technology is accelerating (at least in pockets) – and those who are socially savvy on the web are engaging and challenging other participants. This is a trend that is not likely to end anytime soon.
The important thing to think about is not what the technology is doing, but which behaviours are these technologies enabling? Then you need to think about your business and whether there is a connection with your brands, opportunities for your products/marketing or a thin slice of innovation that you can apply to the way you do business. Platforms like Chatroulette may not not appear to have much value at first glance, but then neither did email 20 years ago. The challenge for us all is to find the value that lies underneath. It’s there. You just need to look below the surface.
What happens when the cultural references of one generation echo into nothingness? What happens when a younger generation misinterprets an off-handed quip? Or tweet?
It’s not simply a few words that disappear into the ether. There are legions of stories, anecdotes and shared experiences that are erased.
So when I say, “I’m a little bit country”, what does it mean to you?
Monty Hamilton pointed out that comments have been disabled on the Commonwealth Bank’s 2013 Vision video. Yet they allowed the embed code. So I thought I’d drop the video in here and get your feedback.
I was immediately struck by how little social interaction took place in the lives of the featured couple. I was amazed that there was no understanding of the way that technology is being used not for its own sake (or for economic/transactional productivity), but to connect with others, to exercise social judgement (especially around purchasing decisions) or to coordinate and maximise the social time we have available to us in our otherwise busy lives. There were some nice touches, and perhaps the best use of a Microsoft Surface that I have seen.
But how does this map to your vision of the future three years from now?
The iPad seems to turn its back on the creative classes which populate Apple's fan base. But this is the next step in a strategy from Apple which seeks to embrace a wide consumer base.
I have been watching the unfolding conversations around the new Apple iPad with disinterest. You see, I have never been a huge fan of Apple. Sure I have an iPod, and the iPhone looks great and seems to work well – but they have never been must have devices for me. And my flirtation with their computers has only ever ended in disappointment.
However, I often find myself recommending Apple products. Why? I am a firm believer that ease of use drives consumption – so if a non-tech person (such as my mother) wants a computer, I am going to suggest a Mac. If an uncle wants to get the internet on his phone, then I’m going to suggest an iPhone. It’s easier for them to use (and I get fewer questions later). This philosophy also provides a path for users of technology – who can start with a simple, relatively “dumb” device, and graduate to more powerful devices as their skill and confidence grows.
So I was wondering why there was so much noise around the iPad. It’s a poorly chosen name, certainly. And it elicited broad (and vocal) disappointment with the early adopters – but there seemed to be something more personal in the response to the iPad launch. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
At a recent Coffee Morning, I was discussing this with Tim Longhurst who seemed to nail it for me. I have paraphrased and consolidated our conversation:
The iPod transformed Apple. It gave it mass appeal. It pumped up the share price and rebuilt the company in its present shape. But there is a marked shift in the focus of the company and its products from the iPod forward. While Apple built its following and fan base by empowering the producers – the creators of content – the iPod was firmly targeted at the consumers of that content.
The iPhone is a hybrid – but the iPad boldly pushes further into the consumer space. There are no bells and whistles for the producers. No cameras. No inputs. Instead, Apple applies its design flourishes to the non-geek user – the mums and dads of the internet world. The silver surfers and retired baby boomers who can happily read their favourite websites while on extended holiday.
Why is this significant?
Alvin Toffler coined the term “prosumer” back in the 80s, and Joseph Jaffe extended this in his Join the Conversation. As Joseph explained (p 38):
The prosumers help us understand phenomena like consumer generated content, blogs, podcasting, social networking, wikis and so on. And it is only by understanding both generation i and its prosumer class that we will ever be able to figure out what to do next.
When David Armano visualised our changing sense of identity in a Web 2.0 world, it seemed obvious that we were becoming increasingly comfortable with our multi-skilled roles.
Yet while use of social technologies continues to grow, there are a significant number of people who do not engage in social technologies – or who are limited in their use (and therefore their behaviour) of these social tools. For example, we may BUY something using eBay, but are unlikely to SELL. We are happy to look at family photos on Facebook but unwilling (or wary about) uploading our own.
In this case, the iPad may turn out to be the perfect device. It’s a device that allows people to CONSUME social technologies and services – but not contribute to them. In a way, Apple are simply targeting the largest customer niche – the non-producing consumer. And while the NY Times trumpets Apple’s elitist approach to innovation – I have a feeling that the iPad may very well be the most egalitarian of products. And if that drives greater (and deeper) interest in social technologies, then all the better.
One of the things that most excited me about the World Wide Web was the way it crushed the distance between an idea and its reality.
The mere fact that I could, with a few spare hours and a scrapper’s knowledge of HTML, create a website – a “place” on the internet where nothing was before – seemed to me, a revelation.
Over the last 20 years we have seen a dramatic transformation in the media landscape. The promise of the early web has been delivered. Now, you or I can produce web pages and whole sites without the need of complex programming or large scale resources. We can produce “media” or what largely passes for media, using a $50 webcam, a microphone borrowed in the downtime between Singstar sessions, and a point of view all held together with a dash of passion.
The easy availability of technology and the digital publishing platforms sent waves of transformation through all forms of publishing – from books, magazines and newspapers to radio, TV and beyond. The full effect of this slow moving tsunami is yet to be seen or accounted for – but the lasting transformation is in the nature of power.
In the wake of these changes, the power that was once centralised in the hands of the publishers and broadcasters has been fragmented – tossed like so many pins into a new global haystack of content, opinion and conjecture. As Ben Shepherd points out, the winner here has been the search engines and content organisers like Google:
Google came in and created a tool that allowed internet users to find what they needed quickly and easily. It reinvented search and has allowed consumers to get anything they want, whenever they want, and for the price they want – generally for free.
But we are now experiencing another wave of transformation. Where the first wave shifted the base of power away from the broadcasters towards the content organisers, this next wave of disintermediation is moving information – and recommendation – away from the search engines. As a result we are seeing people powered networks (best characterised by sites like Twitter and Facebook) benefitting from this new shift in the locus of power. Tom Ewing describes it simply:
This shift is best interested, I think, in thinking about the difference between corporate brands and ‘personal brands’. The corporate brand entering social media is urged to give up control, to surrender some of its autonomy. But Twitter’s most popular users – its A-Listers, the celebrities – are using it to regain a level of control over their presentation and perception, through disintermediation.
This trend, while still small, will have Google worried, for while they seem to struggle with the human dimension of the social web, they certainly understand the power principles inherent in social network design and its resulting viral expansion loop. Interestingly, however, most social media participants, once they reach a certain scale, invest in the creation of what can best be termed “old-school media properties” – turning what little influence they do hold into a business modelled around advertising, sponsorship and editorial.
This seems to be a zero sum game to me – properties built on new foundations seem to sit uncomfortably within business models that they themselves, helped discredit. But what has been missing is a way to re-intermediate the new media – bridging the gap between business, brands, advertising, media buying and planning, and these long tail publishers. In the last few weeks two new players have stepped into this space. MediaScope, the brainchild of Denise Shrivell is “an online directory connecting advertisers, marketers and small business to 'alternative' media opportunities in niche, below the line, emerging and independant platforms.” It is due to launch in the coming days.
Media Cafe is also staking a claim in this space – but bringing perhaps a fuller community based publishing model to market. Currently in pre-release mode, Media Cafe is also open for the population of data ahead of a launch. Interestingly, Media Cafe appears to be putting new social properties on the same footing as traditional media properties. This aspect alone is likely to raise eyebrows, but will it unleash a new wave of innovation and transformation. No doubt both MediaScope and Media Cafe are banking on it.
Years ago I taught Postmodern Studies at the University of Western Sydney. It covered a whole lot of basic theory – but also focused on creativity as a discipline. We got a great deal of push-back from the students who felt that the course was not practical enough and not focused on helping them get a job. Yet despite these protestations, many found the course difficult, challenging – and a lot of work. It was. It was meant to be. It wasn’t about training – it was about education. It was designed to enable students to LEARN.
A couple of years later I was working at IBM and hiring a large number of new graduates into my team. I was looking for spark, creativity, imagination and problem solving. I had plenty of jobs open and a willingness to train an eager employee. But I found it hard. Hard to find people who didn’t need to be spoon fed. Hard to find people willing to work hard and learn fast. Hard to find people who could step beyond TALKING and get to the hard task of DOING.
You see, the systems of education were not conducive to the type of employee that I needed. And the user pays system seemed to have bred a sense of entitlement rather than a curiosity for learning. Many graduates find the transition from study to work very confronting – there are professional responsibilities, rock-hard deadlines and a raft of rules, restrictions and expectations that are sometimes unspoken. What we need is to look again at our education systems and think about the type of citizenry we want and NEED into 2050. We need to prepare AND challenge our students, teachers and the systems within which they operate. And we need to do it now. We need what Denise Caron calls an Education Revolution.
There was a time when I loved Flash. It was a darling. It made my life easy. It did things easily that I could only ever dream of. It wowed my boss, made my clients gasp and made me look like a hero.
But over the last couple of years my love affair has diminished.
In the hands of a skilled and creative programmer, Flash can again, amaze us. In this video, Mrinal Wadhwa shows how a bitmap can be “read” by a webcam and interpreted as a 3D object by Flash.
Now, imagine how this can transform our perception, use and behaviour. Think about the way that we live our lives in public – and our fascination with technology. Consider the products that we love and that make our accelerated lives more manageable – and then think about how virtual transformation like this could be applied to your offerings – to your digital products and services.
For me, this sort of work taps into our imagination – reminds me of what it is to be astounded (nb: it is the future of your brand). Something that is all too easily forgotten in a spoon-fed, digital world. Long live creativity in all its forms.
The most pervasive aspect of living in an online, socially connected world is not identity –- but the traces of our identity that we leave with every click of the mouse. For every time we visit a website, download a PDF, leave a comment, buy a song or write a blog post, we leave something of ourselves behind.
In the 1960s, Jacques Derrida described a trace as the “mark of the absence of a presence” – which is precisely what happens to our digital “selves”. We are socially connected, operate in a sense-and-respond mode, exercise social judgement and all the while, leave our presence in places where “we” no longer exist. For all intents and purposes, the social web is Deconstruction made manifest.
I touched on this idea in The Evanescence of Social Media, but it also permeates much of my thinking here around social media, branding and identity. For whether we realise it or not, we increasingly live our lives in public –- over-exposed, unwittingly open, unknowingly tagged, tracked and accounted for -– our fragmented digital identities playing out a larger, uncontrolled version of our selves in a digital Pythagorean twist. You see, in the same way that social media demonstrates that businesses no longer have control over their BRANDS – it also shows that WE no longer have control over our own representations.
One of the uncomfortable truths that social media is hoisting upon us is that the clear separation between our personal and professional lives that most of our parents enjoyed during their careers is now nothing more than an illusion
The problem is not so much that WE inhabit these online networks, but that our traces can be interpreted out of context -– taking on newer realities, being reconstituted and recombined in ways that we did not anticipate. But this also has benefits, even if the risks may be random and powerful. For one thing, it allows for ambient intimacy (a term coined by Leisa Reichelt) – where the reader of a blog post, a Twitter message, Facebook update (or viewer of a Flickr photo or YouTube video) etc interprets this communication as a real-time, in the moment emotional connection. This fosters a sense of knowing and understanding in the reader -– creating the bonds of relationship:
Ambient intimacy is about being able to keep in touch with people with a level of regularity and intimacy that you wouldn’t usually have access to, because time and space conspire to make it impossible. Flickr lets me see what friends are eating for lunch, how they’ve redecorated their bedroom, their latest haircut. Twitter tells me when they’re hungry, what technology is currently frustrating them, who they’re having drinks with tonight.
And while this can be seen as “too much information”, for others it can provide a real window into the lives of those that we care about. The big difference of course, is that this ambient relationship is completely opt-in –- it is information that is pulled, not pushed. If we choose to, we can “unsubscribe” from our friends’ updates with the click of a mouse.
So, does this mean that online friends aren’t really friends? This has been (at least) partly blurred by Facebook’s appropriation of the term Friend as a form of membership status – but in an effort to bring some consistency of thinking around this, Mike Arauz has developed the spectrum of online friendship. This spectrum feels quite linear but it does capture the essence of the progressive nature of online interactions and relationships.
However, the traces of our identities left behind by various cultural productions (whether writing, image or video based) add a level of complexity. What this means is that you may find someone moving from passive interest to active interest by reading and interacting with content that you produced two or three years ago. “You” may no longer BE the same person that you were in 2006 -– and yet, the immediacy of your cultural artefacts continue to tell the story of “your self” as though it was hermetically sealed and protected from the ravages of time.
The consequence of this could well be the impetus to constantly pro-create ourselves in the instant by updating our status, sharing our thoughts and ideas and advocating for our communities. So paradoxically, tools such as Twitter which were developed as a way of handling the speed of life, contribute to the sense of acceleration. It may well be that we are barrelling head-long into a future where the very nature (and rules) of friendship requires revision. We may well end up in a world that looks
It may well be that this life of delays, rewrites and echoes is closer to the dystopia shown in Josh Harris’ movie, We Live in Public. As Faris Yakob points out, while disconcerting, this vision of the future has become reality – at least for some parts of ourselves.
UPDATE: In an almost textbook illustration, John Johnston points out this post by Nicholas Carr from March 2007. I would have commented on it, but his blog no longer takes comments.
Kris Hoet shares this video from Microsoft's Office Labs group showing what the business world might be like in 2019. There are plenty of ideas jammed into two minutes.
While you are watching it, I would suggest asking yourself "what does this mean for my customers". Think about what these types of changes mean for the way that we interact with one another. You might be suprised at what springs to mind!
. As Joseph explained (p 38):
