Tag: World Wide Web

Becoming yourself

Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Prize Winner, told a story (in the Black Book) about a writer

whose wife left him for no reason at all. Restless and sleepless (and perhaps facing writer’s block) he imagined living out his former single self ( the status he now found himself in ). After a while, the mind played trick and he got used to being single. Until one day, his wife returned to him for no particular reason at all. He again found himself in a situation precaire.  Would you once again imagine yourself  being married so you can get used to it?

I am not sure what the moral of the story is, except that we are not  content with who we are. I guess once we figured out our boundaries, our strengths and weaknesses (painful), we are on the way of becoming ourselves.

Not the kind of person our families wish us to be, nor who we thought we were.

Just is.

After millions of encounters, negotiating and coordinating, including navigating the Wild Wild West  (wow! they did that) and World Wide Web (wow! they are doing that?)  we are on the way to becoming.

With one new revelation, one turn of event, one special encounter, our lives take on a new shape and contour. Dramatic events tend to dominate and serve as bookends to our otherwise uneventful lives. But most lives are lived in “quiet desperation”.  Having said that, what looks like boring to us might be very peculiar and interesting to others (if not for people in other place and time). From future vantage point, our action and inaction during this Housing Bubble  make interesting historical studies (the same as we study the Dutch Tulip Bubble – now with hindsight, we can see it as bubble. But to them, at the time, not jumping in was akin to suicide. The same with the Chicago World Fair, and how for the first time, attendees saw electricity. They simply thought they were in Heaven).

I guess part of the fun in living is discovering. Not so much about places and people, but about how we give and take, turned on and off by a certain place or people. Then we learn about our chemistry as well as our social identity.

Orhan Pamuk moves back and forth on the East-West continuum, so he is more attuned on the subject of identity e.g. women who put on veil or unveiled in Snow, his other novel.

We too in some small way, assumed multiple identities every day. Even if we don’t want to, people still put us in a box, a number and a place in line. NEXT.

Now serving G24 at window number 9.

Please punch in your last 4 digits.

Don’t stand too close to the vehicle etc….

So many web sites, so many log on ID‘s.

Avatars and photos. Inner and outer circles.

No wonder at times, we feel neurotic.

Split identities. Being one thing online and another off-line.

And yet another when we are utterly alone, with a clock or a cross on the wall.

Who are you? Who am I? The color of my skin? The pronunciation of my name?

Or the size of my bank account? If it makes you happy, why the hell are you so sad (sings Cheryl Crow). I hope tonight I don’t have to wish I were my former self. It had its own set of problems back then. Just as now. So just live out the present self. I like it. I like my becoming self. Who else can put up with me besides myself? Wife comes and goes, for no reason at all. It’s me who has to negotiate with my restless self (and muscles) to get some sleep. In restless dream I walk alone,..

Your story

During the 60’s, when computers were too limited for personal use, Andy Warhol had already predicted that in the future (which is NOW) each of us would have 15 minutes of fame (just like his signature Campbell soup ).

Naturally, he couldn’t have predicted the rise of social media  which upend traditional broadcast media, turning it around from one-to-many (old) to many-to-many (new) forever and free (Cloud computing + mobile + social media).

Unrestricted and unleashed i.e. texting while driving (we have yet come up with an acronym similar to DUI).

We “Like”.  We “tag”. We “tweet”. Yahoo now bets big on Mobile.

We prepare to lay ourselves exposed: photos (even pictures when we were babies), home-recorded songs and secret sauce.

We learn the art of filmography and biography e.g. story board and story line, scripting and screen playing (Youtube).

We share lessons on sewing and  selling.

It’s quite an open world and open society.

It used to be that the only time someone asked “tell us about yourself” was at a job interview.

Now, we tell them about ourselves even when not asked. “They” here means the World Wide Web:

Facebook, Google + and more.

A narrative was supposed to have a beginning, middle and end. Since we keep discovering and reinventing ourselves, our personal narrative evolves. Every day, we put on make-ups off line and  make-over on line. Some even called this “the start-up of you”.

The more interaction on-line, the more detailed our social graph, the richer our narrative. Fresh content generates higher Search Engine Optimization. This process also creates Digital Addicts or DigitAl-holics  who cross-comment  and follow each other. A band of brothers, only more inclusive and extensive (coincides with austerity).

This domain used to be exclusive for professionals e.g. product improvement and placement now laid bare for all (design your T-shirt contest etc…).

Now, people are the product (sold to advertisers). Their tweet or post could go viral, to the tune of a million hits.

Self-branding.

Self-aggrandizement is in. Self-effacing is out.

The modesty of Asian mystique faces serious challenges, perhaps more so than last century’s cultural invasion of the West e.g. China and Japan with men eventually do away with braided hair or Samurai tradition. This time around, the invasion is technology-enabled, a spontaneous explosion of personal freedom and expression second to none (including the 60’s Flower Power. This time, it’s trans-cultural and trans-continental in nature.)

As a result, we need to put up personal “firewalls” to protect our privacy and safeguard our brand.

To trade ourselves up. Tier-One (as in Premium LinkedIn accounts etc..).

Sort of like LV who refused to offshore the manufacturing of its handbags. Planned scarcity.

We first expand, then contract our circle over time.

This retrenching was mentioned in The Tipping Point (maximum 120 in your circle to have a meaningful conversation and community).

In the early days of Social Media,, we enjoyed new-toy stage (friending everyone).

Then Google + came out. By then, we became social-media fatigue.

Once  you lost that first-mover’s advantage, it’s hard to play catch-up,

Good luck yahoo, with revamping.

Yahoo was late in Search, and Social.

I wonder whatever else it could do to innovate and leapfrog competition. Perhaps with the yCloud? or Ymobile.

Meanwhile, we still want to find new ways to connect, to share and to show off.

We are members of a digital country club, where strangers suddenly become intimate i.e. know more about our personal stories, or at least, more quickly, than family members . These are our intimate strangers.

So, if you share, learn to show and tell properly. Learn the 2-minute summary like our presidential candidates just did tonight. Tell them what you are all about, your hopes, fears and dreams, all scripted and rehearsed (elevator speech). And maybe, someone out there, can identify with your vulnerability, your shortcomings and your humanity. Maybe they will endorse you, adopt you as family member, and you then become  “famous” for 15 minutes. Warhol would have never guessed someday (today) we would be showing off our secret sauce, while he, could only photocopy the (Campbell) Soup he touted as arts.

Web and Cable experience

In the early days of the Web,  I asked my friend what he did online.

The answer: ” I just browse from one magazine to the next (static), and listen to ethnic radio channels “.

This was pre-YouTube era.

We have spent an enormous amount of time curating content that is put out there: radio signals, spam mail, junk mail, DMs (Direct Messages), mobile spam, cable programs and channel surfing.

Clearly, whoever can invent a multi-platform  TiVo-like device will rule.

From Death of Distance to Death of Device (cloud computing and

“thin client” booths).

Of course, the counter argument will be, “but it ‘s the Googlization of everything” (including restaurant review and flight search).

The filter bubble! (seeing and hearing  only what we want to see and hear).

Forever “being there” inside an echo chamber, without a specter of  contesting or challenging view  points.

Can’t handle the truth, in my time or in your time.

Sink or swim in a digital deluge (the computer revolution has been diffused to the mass via trial-and-error). At least, before Cable, we got the big Three networks and a mass media audience for  Super Bowl, the Evening News and the Oscars.

Now, like my friend said, “just browse, from one paper to the next, and listen to one station after another”.

Quantity trumps quality.

Television finally faces serious competition from online media.

ABC World News got a new boss while Yahoo is looking for one (as of this edit, M Mayer is now a CEO).

Disney Channel replaces its CEO, while BoA is contemplating the same. James Carville advised the President to look for a new team.

Reshuffling the deck.

Rearranging our priorities (as new entrants alter existing choice architecture).

24/7 News cycle covering candidates recycled – Romney.

Financial pushes short sales,  hence, forces flash crash.

Airplanes keep pushing the limits. Hence, flight crash (Reno, then W VA).

NASCAR and NASDAQ always pushes the bleeding edge, the former claimed a few lives in Daytona, while the later crushed many dreams.

When it comes to choice, we have only a few : capital, land and labor.

With Web and Cable, we got more access (Le Monde anyone?).

In Russia, they long for a return of the Soviet command and control style. At least, they got bread, albeit a long wait.

In short, freedom is frightening. Can’t count on that same Wikipedia page a few months from now.

Dynamic web.

When I bought the coffee-table book entitled “Knowledge”, I found that’s  printed in China.

Western Civilization, printed and shipped from China.

And I know before long, they won’t even print the revised version there. It will be online. For my friend to browse and sneak peek.

Amazon’s “puppy-dog” sales “Search inside the book” to “publish and read the entire content”. Penny talk extends from wireline to wireless phone, then onto Skype for free.

Too much democratizing of technology, and not enough in analog spheres (food, fuel, clothing and shelter) where scarcity still rules.

Steve Jobs’ is credited with saving the music industry (99 cent song).

The next century belongs to folks who can monetize and monopolize attention, influence and customer experience.

Gone were the days when companies could  just throw a bunch of channels or web pages at people, and hope it will stick (shotgun approach). Maslow says it best, “first survival and eventually self-actualising“. Using this need pyramid as framework,  we can see that we are still at the survival stage (of the data deluge).

But years from now, we will develop the capacity to filter and fashion the Web in our own image (hybrid between buffet style and a-la-carte). Like the proverbial Russian bread line, all it takes is the waiting (for more  mobile apps).  And my friend, the one I asked in the early days of Internet, the most patient person I have ever met, doesn’t mind waiting. Le Huffington Post, anyone?.

A Face w/ a name

A few years ago, TIME’s Person of the year got a face with a name. In fact, he manages to drag in a billion faces and names with him. The last time someone wearing pajamas in public yet got that much publicity was John Lennon (who invited the press into his honeymoon suite).

Mark was told to attend one of the VC meetings in pajamas (talking about sabotage).

Facebook personalises the impersonal Web. Between Facebook and YouTube, we see a bottom-up movement that gets endorsed by enterprises (latest McKinsey research shows enterprises who adopted social media came out ahead).

To make media “social” we first need to put a name to a face.

Then, slowly, we learn about that person through his/her social graph (evolving profile). It  is another message altogether i.e. with subtext like “I am cool”, “I am with it”, “I am in the know” albeit starting out as a medium.

Change agent. Thought and opinion leader. Votes of confidence. Hot topics.

When Hollywood got into the act, you know it’s in (The book, the movie and now TIME cover).

Almost a billion and counting might not mean a lot, but in sheer number, it is a force to be reckoned with.

It has not been without some controversies (privacy) as well promises (in-mail).

In the hierarchy of snappy content, Facebook delivers creme de la creme (tweeting is by far a data burst while yahoo chat and G-mail, yesterday’s tools).

Inside Facebook, you interact with peers, your Web Ivy League. Think of the Web as a huge city, and Facebook as Cheers, where everybody knows your name (and face).

In an age of globalization (7 billion) and ubiquitous technology (mobile), we have carved out for ourselves a virtual community, discussing and gossiping about topic du jour. That beats “bowling alone” and bingo hall. No wonder a few  days ago, one of the topics was getting hooked on Facebook.

By naming Facebook’s founder Person of the Year, TIME was posting its own eulogy, acknowledging this many-to-many medium is here to stay and grow in influence.

TIME Person of the Year = Chief Influencer

Filter builder

Building up our filtering capacity does not mean firming up our prejudice. But no matter what we do, we can only watch an average of 4 hours of TV and a few hours on the Web, mobile or stationary.

So we rely on thought leaders. Two-step information flow. Except this time, information flow through a social network i.e. multiple gate-keepers. We essentially recreate what early radio stations did when they strung together broadcast relay stations (to deliver a larger audience to advertisers) with their affiliates.

To be prejudice-free (reaching out only to friends and reading only their posts), I try to connect with a diverse pool, from left, center to right, black white and yellow, male female and gay and straight.

While we die alone, we don’t have to be isolated in our thought life.

In fact, we should recalibrate our filter, to let in more

data of different shapes and sizes. Ours is a post-Columbus Google era and each of us, our own press agent. Some even venture to suggest Social Media profile to replace credit history.

http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/26/why-your-social-media-profile-might-be-your-next-credit-score/

In 2010 the year in review, they posted a picture showing a naked Haitian woman who contracted cholera, lying and dying on the streets. No one stopped to cover her up (I hope the photographer would, after taking that picture that stirred our conscience).

And remember Nida, dying in front of our Twitter eyes during post Iranian election?

When I was in International Journalism class, we touched briefly on information flow, and how it had always been from North to South, from information-rich countries to information poor ones. Well, that was before YouTube and Twitter.

Now, anyone with a clip or tweet can share. New Dean of Columbia Journalism school, Steve Coll, will have to start a Twitter account to  stay relevant.

I have yet learned how to build a twitter filter. So what harm can it do me, reading unsolicit 140 characters. It would be an equivalence of hearing an elevator pitch from an aggressive salesman, whose odd of success is quite small (because he skips over the discovery phase). But some tweets stick and I learn something new every day. Technology is just a tool to deliver content.  Just don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Do you hear what I hear.

Time to take stock

So this is Christmas, what have you done? Year-end review and future projection.

Cloud strategy? Hiring and firing decision? Productivity squeeze and cost cutting? (female shoppers said they planned to spend 1% less as compared to last year).

Time to take stock, at individual and institutional level.

New calendar.

Hollywood is going to Detroit (greener pasture).

And the Ark finally found its home in Kentucky (Noah or Colonel Sanders, your choice).

Fund raisers are targeting public buildings and venues (Verizon stadium etc….).

There will emerge new industries (cloud system integrator , google glasses, google cars, google scanners ….).

Thanks to Social Media, I watch more of YouTube .

Meanwhile, not a day goes by without us seeing something coming out of China (reverse engineering Russian weaponry, Shanghai Math and Science champions, huge increase in its Africa’s raw materials and South-South global strategy.)

When John Lennon left us “standing here”, he couldn’t have seen the “long winding road” ahead. 30 years was a long time. Enough to turn BRIC countries to where they are today. “Imagine” the world 30 years from now.

We are so used to annual review, not decades in review:

(war is still raging on because men are still with that strand of evil –  albeit the Genome project could account for most of human DNA) “So this is Christmas, What have you done?”

Because of Lennon’s commemoration, 1980 feels like just last year.

In taking out an icon, the fame hitchhiker inadvertently immortalized his victim.

In her NYT piece , Yoko wrote “ours – our family – was one of giggling, teenager-like”. She mentioned laughter but I read it through a veil of tears.

J.L. would have been 70. Yet he still is “on the cover of the Rolling Stone“, just as a line in a song. You just never know. To musicians and artists (Lennon and Van Gogh) taking stock goes beyond the grave. In fact, it’s the long tail of a winding road.