Tag: Social Network

Lonely crowd

Back in the 60’s , David Riesman already concluded that “the more might not be the merrier”.

Social network researchers have come up with diverse conclusions about Facebook and Internet use.

Passive vs active participation makes a difference whether we are happier or less happy when using social media.

We have yet fully exploited this new social platform (democratized, groundswell stuff).

Social media and digital content not only have width (geographically), but also depth (time irrelevant).

THIS PLATFORM FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HUMAN HISTORY, ALLOWS US TO MAKE KNOWN OUR EXISTENCE ACROSS TIME AND SPACE.

Right now, these platforms are monetized, politicized and socialized.

But in time, they will also be memorialized and multiplied.

People of all races, creeds and generations can access and translate someone’s blogs and tweets into their languages,

and to understand what made someone react and respond at a particular time in history.

In other words, open platform.

Yes, if we passively participate (just browsing) in social network, we might feel lonelier. And vice versa.

Riesman’s Lonely Crowd again, even with Smart Phone and Wi-Fi (wireless on the beach).

Social Network is not a utility (Application layer, not Physical Layer). It allows each of us to create and share content i.e. collective cognition, not dumbing down.

Sort of what I am doing and have experimented with Liking, Blogging and Commenting (hopefully filming and video someday).

My Warhol‘s “15 minutes of fame”.

Neither Warhol nor Orwell could have predicted the rise of the Internet. Or else, they wouldn’t have staked their claims on

limited fame or state control, respectively.

Turns out that Riesman has been ahead of his time: we are social animal subjected to existential loneliness, a fate from which we can not escape with or without Facebook.

 

Socially connected

The inner ring then the outer ones.

We learn to trust, to collaborate.

Great things cannot be achieved alone.

That’s why the President tweets. That’s why we tweet.

Do you know someone who needs our services?

Or some place who is hiring so our students can apply.

We need those links and those leads.

People need people.

On LinkedIn, we keep seeing so and so is now connected with so and so.

The social graph keeps getting denser. Pretty soon, the net (shaped in our image) will be big enough to carry us to safety *unlike our social safety net which is in need of mending).

New world order, fashioned after our image and likings.

I have come across issues and images I would never have come across on my own.

Thanks to the net economy and taxonomy; yes, I can.

Let’s see if Twitter will tip the election (Kennedy election was a close call as well).

I suspect that it will.

We are not back in 2000. We are in 2012.

Apocalyptic year.

And we have made it thus far pass Labor Day.

Penn State lost 2 games out of the gate.

And the economy, especially in Europe, is still puttering.

Hard times. Like those Post Recession black and white phoros (migrant Madonna).

Something is to be done but then everything has been done.

Together we can. Can’t we.

More than ever before, we are socially connected.

More than ever before, we are doing worse.

What paradox!

What predicament!

All the tools in the world All the help in the world.

Yet still stuck in lower gear.

If we apply the five stages of grief  to the situation, we are now somewhere pass Anger and Denial.

We are in Compromise and Depression.

When people compromised, they ask for less  in return.

And when they are in depression, nothing gets done. Hitting the blank wall. Everything shuts down.

Socially connected or not, let’s remind one another to quickly Accept (acknowledge the Elephant in the room), and move one. Get out and vote . Get some fresh air. Go travel and spend money. Fall is a good time to catch up on some spending and yes, reading (Tom Wolfe is coming out with his voluminous piece again). Turn the chapter to “your life 2.o”.

Learn from Penn State, even with its first two losses. Ouch!

Leaders as human

We miss those towering figures from WWII (remember the canes, the hats? and the saying  e.g.”Never never give up”).

It’s a different landscape now  (Apple, Facebook etc… with CEOs without a tie).

So it goes. New world order.  New icons. New  profiles and preferences.

Still, they are human. Supposedly connected with their people.

Leaders of common people.

Know how you feel.

It’s been tough.

We shall overcome.

Let’s tap into that which is best in each of us.

Arouse the spirits of sacrifice. Go beyond the call of duty.

Be the better version of you.

The spirit needs some workout just  like the body. Zumba for the soul.

Go and prevail. Stand tall and stand your ground.

Yes. It’s a new world order, with more participation and information.

BRIC and PIGS. Men and women, in bedroom and boardroom, on the playground and in the background.

Different world. More colorful world. More participation and equality. The future is calling.

Fallible leadership

Former Google CEO, in a recent interview, admitted that he was too busy to see Social Network coming.

Former Microsoft CEO, at the turn of the century, admitted he too missed the significance of the Internet.

The Vatican, after years of floundering, decided to settle sexual abuse cases ( as of this edit, Pope Francis now personifies simplicity and humility).

In Japan, the advisor to the Prime Minister on nuclear issues resigned, saying “there is no reason for me to be here”.

Leadership fails too, as we do.  It’s just harder to publicly acknowledge it.

(yet in NY and S Carolina, politicians are trying to give their career a second life, with Clinton as role model).

There are forces at work, no matter who is in charge: innovator’s dilemma, creative destruction, perfect storm.  Mike Malone speaks about a new organizational model (core leadership team, and boundary-less around the edges) in ” The Future Arrived Yesterday”. Essentially, he speaks of being nimble, adaptive with a core group as curators of company experience and memories.

I would add to that: even within a core leadership team, I wouldn’t surround myself with a team of Yes men.

Look at Nixon. They had said Yes for a while, until they were asked to testify before Congress.

Then, we know what happened from there. Colson was conveniently born again while others went on to publish best sellers.

I’d rather agree to disagree, or went so far to appoint an office of “Devil’s advocate” within the organization.

Organization development often expounds the homogeneous unit principle (HUP) i.e. organizations grow best when members are ethnically alike. But when it comes to business, especially in current global climate, customers are found in every corner of the Earth 24/7. They are just a click away from your virtual doorstep. Who would you like to be your “receptionist” then? (SI model a few years back came from Russia, while Miss America a Muslim American).

Even Buddha himself , purported to be born in King’s Palace, walked among commoners to compare what’s on the ground vs what’s in the blueprint. Seeing so much “reality”, he turned inward, examined himself and found Enlightenment. Conversely, not everyone is on the path to Nirvana: dictators in the Middle East stay on and continue their personal enrichment.

Gaddafi not only surrounded himself with Yes men and his sons, he added an entourage of female bodyguards.

Talking about busy!

MCI taught me one lesson well: Reorganize even while the going is good.

I remembered management meetings on the East coast, right after I had just finished up a series of successful festival events on the West coast. No rest for the weary. And we discussed splitting up into three regions (instead of organizing along ethnic niche). Just to shake things up and cross-train our leadership team.

That same team now went on to do us proud: we were graced with meetings held all over the country, so all of us got exposed to the nuances of geography and zip code life styles. After all, we were a Mass Market organization: diversity, energy and can-do attitude.

I respect Eric Schmidt‘s forthrightness. Only it’s so ironic that I read his interview on LinkedIn Headlines, his competitor par excellence. Now only if LinkedIn Jeff Weiner would watch his rear view mirror. It’s not what you do that hurts you, it’s what you know you should do, but didn’t.

Use it

Safeway doesn’t feel safe. Desert is now full of people ( from the media to law enforcement).

Last weekend Arizona shooting reminds me of “Under The Banner of Heaven” which revealed the intersect of religious occult and gun culture in the region.

It also highlights young people’s plight to make a name for themselves (in this case, committed a high-profile act of violence). On the contrary, it brought to mind an already high-profile figure trying to go the way of Buddha.

At least, Prince William tried to go rough even just for one night (to draw our attention to the plight of homelessness a year ago).

http://abcnews.go.com/International/prince-william-sleeps-streets/story?id=9401023

Whatever makes you sleepless at night, use it.

In “Unwanted”, a Vietnamese-American dentist-turned-author recounted his plight as a half-breed coming of age in post-war Vietnam. He turned tragedy into triumph (instead of having the raw stuff floating around day in and day out at his dental practice), rejection to acceptance.

We have heard of constructive criticism, tough love etc….

Now we hear about civilized discourse.

Immediately after a crisis, American went shopping, this time, for the same gun (sales went through the roof).

Hello? we each have our own hangup. Use it!

After being dropped cold-turkey into the 76 winter storm at Penn State, and got added into a Journalism class, I was told I would never make it (thanks prof!). Use it!

The closing shot for “the Social Network” (the movie) shows our protagonist press

“Send request” to friend his own girl friend. He built Facebook hoping to sign up just that person.

With all the energy (boosted by Energy Drink), the cheering at Superbowl

(and toilet Bowl), we as a nation have a lot of pent-up passion. Use it.

And for the 15%, mostly men,  the majority of whom in the now over-saturated construction sector, we can use the muscle. We have read about floods in Haiti, Australia, Vietnam, Brazil … which need infrastructure rebuilding. Can we put 2 and 2 together: we buy your stuff, but you hire our men.

Use them. Was it just me who see dots unconnected, and people unlinked?. I will turn on the TV to hear what President Obama has to say at the memorial service for the victims. I hope to hear his constructive ideas on how to turn tragedy into triumph, hopelessness into helpfulness. Tragedy? Use it.

Edit 1: The President concluded with “in the child’s eyes” inverse pyramid speech structure. He helped the nation to visualize a possible America, a new American Century, worthy of our children’s expectations. For me, it just seemed like yesterday that I watched the Twin Towers collapse live, on TV. Today they are burying a 9/11 baby. What a waste! Unless we all conspire to “use it”.  At least, we had a precedent in Mothers Against Drunk Driving movement (remember exhibition of  what’s left of a DUI car wreck?) That’s the power of visualization. The transforming power of “use it”.

Facebook prosumerism

We have put in long hours, uploading, editing, “friending”, texting, in-mailing, posting, commenting, searching and even reading up on and seeing a movie about Facebook.

A recession distraction? or tip of the iceberg in what is finally Personal Computing and Networking? At least, computer finally “think” out of its “computing” box.

Now, it’s about lifestyle exchange (what he had for breakfast, what photo compelled her to share etc…).

I still remember the post cards, send between North and South Vietnam. It is today’s equivalence of  “Status” on Facebook. Except that those post cards traveled across the DMZ, much like North and South Korea today.

So, we have evolved, from tin cans to tablets, from post card to Facebook.

The Tofflers were right. Today’s Revolutionary Wealth takes on new forms, the principal one is prosumerism (whereby we take part in the making of the products and services we consume e.g. Stuff a bear, or submit your T-shirt design).

Facebook not only provides the platform for sharing, advertising, but also, a chance to jump-start this economy.

Let the game begin, again.

The rush, the drive. There will be blood.

Facebook’s own status: Alive and well. Still with the CEO in T-shirt and jeans.

Coding away or traveling to China.

I can’t wait to see what happens at the Oscars. Will they come on stage on roller blades? Tuxedo with T-shirt inside? Meanwhile, I have to log on to my Facebook.

It’s a daily ritual  borderline addiction. And I am glad Tina Tequila’s fans don’t follow her over to Facebook  from  MySpace. There was too much prosumerism in her eroticism. Mam, just the Face, Mam.

 

Third life

As recent as 60 years ago, a businessman could let his hair down (or hat off) at home, smoke a cigarette or pipe, and watch the news

(in black and white). In fact, at the U of TX Austin museum, an exhibition is underway to show you just that: witness to a century.

Now, we spend a considerable amount of time online, commenting, following, blogging, liking and…venting.

Welcome to modernity i.e. jet plane, mobile devices, fast food and “social” sans borders.

It will either be misinformation or disinformation about us, and certainly, easy access (Snowden’s alert).

(at least, on LinkedIn, they let you reverse look up people who looked you up).

Some people even advocate cyber abstinence or cyber sabbatical.

The idea is to rearrange our priorities so face time can take precedence over screen time.

Twitter is so prescient in mobile connectivity. “Where are you now” has been one of the most asked questions in mobile conversation.

Now, with Twitter, we can proactively let “followers” know our where-about (In transit at a Korean airport, for instance).

Next and last frontier would be cloud-based computing (dropbox).

One exception: college students still prefer to haul around heavy textbooks over digital readers. Masochist?

Or just the last streak of rebellion?

In case you haven’t noticed, we now know more about Facebook friends of friends who posted regularly on-line, than our closest relatives who live far away.

So back to our businessman in the 50’s, who wore suspenders like Larry King‘s. Only now that our Happy Days dad comes home from work (first life) skips over his second life (wife, kids and supper time) to go online (third life), where he keeps taps intimate details of his “friends”, while his wife, perhaps is doing so on her mobile, while out shopping for a bargain on groupons.

And what about the kids? They have already got their daily dose of  100 SMS messages before seamlessly continue their virtual existence on multi-screen. The truth hit home to me, when, upon staying at a friend’s house last week, I discovered a stool in the toilet. Asked what it’s for. Guess what, the kids surfed the internet while using the bathroom. That stool was his lap top stand.

Welcome to our 21st century, when we not only have public and private life, as in the 50’s, but also, virtual life.

If unchecked, this technology-aided life (Third Life) will take a larger chunk of our 24-hour pie, even bathroom time. Amuse ourselves to death.

My first day at school

Everyone remembers that dreadful day.

I did.

My mom was a teacher herself, but at a different school.

So my sister, 19 years my senior, had to grudgingly play surrogate parent.

She dropped me off to join a bunch of babies whose cries were contagious.

The French school was two blocks away.

It required students to wear blue uniforms and  proper shoes. They checked our finger nails every day, a fear that takes me to manicure shop to this day.

Bonjour Madam. Bonjour Monsieur.

So I joined the crowd, moving from one lesson to the next, from private to public school (in Vietnam, back then, it’s an elite thing).

A lot have happened since.

I still remember walking to school with Pierre,  a fat half-breed.

We discussed the assassination of President Kennedy (cool? They have barely released the suppressed document on the second Tonkin incident).

And later, I eye-witnessed the self-burning monk.

I even played a woman in our annual school skit, and gave the student body a wholesome laugh (Tootsie).

And to this day, I could only recall two kids from my Elementary school.

Pierre was one of the two. He pulled the lever at the traffic post and somehow,

got traffic to stand still for hours.

Vietnamese literature has a famous passage.

It goes like this: “these routes I have taken everyday, but somehow, today it’s different.

The difference is, today is my first day at school.”

Because of that first day at school, I look at that intersection of Cao Thang and Nguyen Dinh Chieu in a different light.

The traffic post is still there, with faded white umbrella. (as of this edit, that was finally taken down, leaving a chunk of square concrete blocking the sidewalk).

Many pass by but few notice it. But to me, it’s special.

Because, it bears witness to my fun childhood albeit in war-time. People I interacted with then were of Indian descent, French half-breed, French (principles), GI teachers etc…

Later, I spotted a transferred student to my jr high. Over recess,  on his first day at school,

I approached him to include him in our group “Hi, would you like to join our volley ball team?”.

He remains my friend, if not best friend, since.

You’ll never know who will click and stay on with you.

But one thing for sure, you have to take that first step.

School or life, there will always be that first awkward, and sometimes, dreadful first day.

Even when it’s in your old neighborhood. The difference is, now, you see it with  different lens.

I cried hard on that first day. I realize now that I shouldn’t have. School has been fun, and I can’t get enough of it.

The only constant is change. So we must embrace it, and learn from it. For instance, the new battery in Volt

costs about $10,000. And GM promises that it will last 8 years, or 100,000 miles. Good luck with lithium.

No smog, no noise. But when it makes a stop at the intersection where my Elementary school is, watch out for Pierre, the Devil.

There will never be my last day at school. Learning has taken on a different form for me. It could be a pearl of wisdom on LinkedIn

discussion board. Or a stranger on the bus. People are willing to share hard-earned lessons for free. Embrace the new, the hidden gem in every day’s encounter, with capacity to surprise us.

(Coronado could have found gold in the SW territories of the US, but he went looking specifically for a city made of gold, thus missed out on a great opportunity). Learn all you can learn from those acres of diamond.

It’s not what you know that will save you. It’s what you don’t (see my other blog, Chief Learning Officer). The same with Social Network.

It’s not who you know, but it’s who knows whom you know. The network effect (more on that on other blogs as well).

Teilhard de Chardin predicted the Omega point sometimes between 2030-2040 ” when for the second time in the history of the world, mankind will have discovered fire”.

That “fire” which he refers to was “the energies of love”, among them should be the love for learning i.e. self-advancement (even if we come in full circle,  the journey is well worth it). I would cry harder than I did on that first day of school if today were my last day of learning.

 

Introspect, retrospect and reflect

Books started to come out, dissecting the effects of the Net. A new one, entitled “The Shallows, What the Internet is doing to our brains” by Nicholas Carr.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6523DV20100603?feedType=nl&feedName=ustechnology

In retrospect, it brings to mind Neil Postman‘s “Amusing ourselves to death“, a classic critique about effects of television.

(He argues that the sheer quantity of content piped into our living room – our 20th century camp fire – distracts us and anesthetizes our senses).

Now, another author took a serious look at the effects of the Internet.

And how it will, by sheer size, divert us from utilizing our cognitive skills such as introspection and reflection.

In other words, both Neil and Nick ( and Marshall McLuhan) recognize the weight of ” the Medium is the Message“.

Data-rich, yet context-poor.

We will turn to be a civilization of multi-taskers, with up-to-the-minute news flashes and mash-ups, short bursts of data (140 characters plus headers). As of this edit, the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) have just taken down the Times and Twitter sites, our electronic “Twin-Towers”.

Vietnamese government begins its ban on sharing on social media starting this weekend. We might have to revert to raising pigeons and save empty bottles (message in the bottle).

The President himself used to carry a Blackberry besides the Pentagon football codes.

N Korea, for instance, says “war could burst out any minute”. BP says the pipe was cut, but not as planned.

So on and so forth.

We know a lot of disparage facts.

But very few of us knew the background, context and historical twist and turn (Korean has experienced a few close-calls since 1950 partition,

or that before the Gulf spill, there had been another off shore explosion in Mexico).

In other words, we are a wiki society with massive of free information, yet no version is the final draft.

Yet the author (Nicholas) goes on saying that we are a nation of Librarians (like Bill Gates’ mother).

I would argue that librarians wouldn’t exactly have access to the millions of YouTube downloads until now.

And that internet adopters seem to be on the young side, the jury is still out on them, to see if the Millenium Generation will fully develop their cognitive faculties.

I do know that they are more environmentally conscious, use more SMS (cheaper that way) and show the same youthful tendencies (rebellion for one) . I hope they pick up on earlier generations’ aspiration of “sharing the land” and preserving Mother Earth.  (If you hear the song I sing, you’ll understand – Youngbloods).

And maybe they will get closer to the truth as opposed to facts on Twitter ( fact-checking professor’s lecture, for instance).

Nothing wrong with the cult of amateurism. In broadcasting, shaky camera shots used to be edited out. Now, in the age of Twitter, YouTube and CNN, any cell phone user could be our eyes and ears. Through them, we learned about NIDA of Iran, the Israel commandos at Gaza seas and the chemical abuse in Syria .

Then it’s up to us to dig deeper, on Wikipedia,. In my opinion, the internet triggers our curiosity which leads to further discovering, learning,  thinking, categorizing ( pattern recognition), and finally, reflection (about the nature of man, for instance, as Augustine and Rousseau once did, contrarily.) The worst case scenario is to be inundated by it to the point of stop thinking.

Facebook and YouTube take that one step further, by showing us faces and music. So there we have it: the visual, auditory and of course, tactile (click away). Amuse yourself to death. There are too many of us anyway. “All my sorrows, feel I am dying…”