Ged Carroll

Category: technology | 技術 | 기술 | テクノロジー

It’s hard to explain to someone who didn’t live through it how transformation technology has been. When I was a child a computer was something mysterious. My Dad has managed to work his way up from the shop floor of the shipyard where he worked and into the planning office.

One evening he broad home some computer paper. I was fascinated by the the way the paper hinged on perforations and had tear off side edges that allowed it to be pulled through the printer with plastic sprockets connecting through holes in the paper.

My Dad used to compile and print off work orders using an ICL mainframe computer that was timeshared by all the shipyards that were part of British Shipbuilders.

I used the paper for years for notes and my childhood drawings. It didn’t make me a computer whiz. I never had a computer when I was at school. My school didn’t have a computer lab. I got to use Windows machines a few times in a regional computer labs. I still use what I learned in Excel spreadsheets now.

My experience with computers started with work and eventually bought my own secondhand Mac. Cut and paste completely changed the way I wrote. I got to use internal email working for Corning and internet connectivity when I went to university. One of my friends had a CompuServe account and I was there when he first met his Mexican wife on an online chatroom, years before Tinder.

Leaving college I set up a Yahoo! email address. I only needed to check my email address once a week, which was fortunate as internet access was expensive. I used to go to Liverpool’s cyber cafe with a friend every Saturday and showed him how to use the internet. I would bring any messages that I needed to send pre-written on a floppy disk that also held my CV.

That is a world away from the technology we enjoy now, where we are enveloped by smartphones and constant connectivity. In some ways the rate of change feels as if it has slowed down compared to the last few decades.

  • Most popular blog posts of 2017

    How did I go to define the most popular blog posts of 2017. I looked at my most trafficked articles from January to June 2017 here.

    What did June to December look like?

    # Title Notes
    1 Is your PR plan good enough? A series of six posts and a work book on developing and assessing how thorough a communications plan is
    2 Thinking about Marcel Reflections on the challenges and opportunities posed by Publicis Groupe’s bid to build machine learning into the core of the business
    3 My decade of the iPhone Reflecting on the impact that the iPhone had on my smartphone usage. Probably not as much as you would have thought
    4 Out and about: Blade Runner 20149 Review of Gosling and Ford’s reboot of the Blade Runner story 30 years after the original
    5 That Trivago poster The meme created by blanket out of home advertising throughout London in September
    6 The Bell Pottinger Post I was a bit surprised to see Bell Pottinger go into administration after I wrote this post. Even the London finances were bearing up, the key challenge seems to have been NO interested from any agency approached in acquiring the London office.
    7 Living with the Apple Watch A reflection live with the Apple Watch 2. My first Apple Watch went on eBay within 48 hours of its arrival and my initial trials with it. How will the Mk II version cope?
    8 Can too much design thinking be a bad thing? There is a lot of mediocre thinking shrouded in design methodologies out there. But this post wasn’t about that. Instead I wanted to consider the process itself. Was there be constraints on the process itself?
    9 Technology is way ahead of interface designs Good user experience, ergonomics and the latest technology don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand
    10 Three takeaways from Cannes and Vidcon Blind trust in influencers as a marketing tool. The unhealthy state of the online advertising eco-system and transfer of value from agencies and media to two platforms

    What did the most popular blog posts  of 2017 look like overall?

    # Title Notes
    1 Living with the Casio GWF -D1000 Frogman watch Casio took their Frogman watch and improved it even further. Some of the technology is interesting mainly because they’ve managed to run it all off a diminutive solar panel. The bigger changes for me was moving world time from the ‘home screen’ and reengineering how the strap is fastened to the case in a much more robust manner
    2 Louis Vuitton, Supreme and the tangled relationship between streetwear and luxury brands Louis Vuitton has been dragged into the 21st century by its creative director. A collaboration with Supreme seems logical in retrospect for so many reasons
    3 Is your PR plan good enough? A series of six posts and a work book on developing and assessing how thorough a communications plan is
    4 Thinking about Marcel Reflections on the challenges and opportunities posed by Publicis Groupe’s bid to build machine learning into the core of the business
    5 Richard Edelman is wrong, PR isn’t at a crossroads… Richard Edelman commented on the trend for large marketing groups to consolidate PR agencies and integrate PR offerings into a larger marketing services stack. This mirrors changes that Edelman’s own company has gone through as multiple disciplines close in on a marketing singularity
    6 It’s time that we talk about micro-influencers Looking past the hype of micro-influencers to work out how it fits with brand planning scenarios
    7 Oprah Time: Blood and Faith – the purging of muslim Spain (1492 – 1614) by Matthew Carr I picked this book up on a trip to Madrid. Carr’s books looked at Spain’s history with the muslim world in an unsympathetic light. The issues of conservative populism and racism also feel very contemporary given political sentiment across Europe
    8 Magic Lantern Festival, Chiswick House Gardens Chiswick hosted a lunar new year oriented lantern festival similar to what you’d seen in Hong Kong and across China
    9 Have we reached peak streetwear? A follow-on post from my jog down memory lane about luxury and streetwear. I started thinking about it in terms of a market in its own right
    10 My decade of the iPhone Reflecting on the impact that the iPhone had on my smartphone usage. Probably not as much as you would have thought

    There is it is; the most popular blog posts of 2017.

  • Block sales on Amazon & other news

    Block sale of luxury goods on Amazon

    Luxury Brands Win Right to Block Sales of Goods on Amazon in Europe – WSJ – in its findings giving the right to block sales on Amazon, the European Court of Justice takes an expansive view of luxury brands  “The quality of luxury goods is not simply the result of their material characteristics, but also of the allure and prestigious image which bestows on them an aura of luxury,” the ECJ said. “That aura is an essential aspect of those goods in that it thus enables consumers to distinguish them from other similar goods.” – essentially luxury brands are experiential as much as they are selling products. That’s one of the key points to block sales and prevent Amazon getting into luxury 

    Media

    Ad Holding Companies to Rapidly Increase Spending With Amazon – WSJ – likely to hurt Google’s product search business hardest rather than Facebook and Istagram’s direct to consumer business.

    2017 was the year digital ad spending finally beat TV – Recode – its about growth of digital rather than death of TV as a medium for advertisers

    Paywall Will Be Wired’s ‘Hedge Against the Future’ – WSJ – I’ve been a Wired subscriber for a long time, not sure how well this move is going to do (paywall)

    Retailing

    Pitney Bowes Parcel Shipping Index Reveals 48 Percent Growth in Parcel Volume since 2014 | Business Wire – the growth in parcel volume is an indicator of increasing online retail sales.

    Technology

    China hopes cold war nuclear energy tech will power warships, drones | South China Morning Post – I’d much prefer a Thorium powered DeLorean to a lithium powered Tesla

    Don’t Buy Anyone an Echo | Gizmodo – interesting to see this sentiment from a gadget blog. Admittedly there is a lot to be concerned about

    OptionPlan | Index Ventures – interesting data across startups in the US and EU

  • Facebook API + more news

    Facebook Is Shutting Down Its API That Marketers Lean on for Research – Adweek – big for proprietary agency tools, social media tools and ad platforms that rely the Facebook API – it shows how vulnerable the ad tech sector is

    Spicing up Hong Kong’s Café scene | Marketing Interactive – great write-up of Café de Coral

    China’s central bank believes bitcoin will die | Quartz – I am more on the bearish side along with the Bank of China. A key function of bitcoin for China was aiding capital flight out of the country

    Unilever moves global comms planning to Mindshare from PHD | Media | Campaign Asia – huge win for Mindshare and a move away at the global level between planning guidance and media buying. It would be analogous to investment managers to go back to taking advice from sell-side analysts. I guess part of the problem is trying to get global guidance to be implemented at a country level

    Flotogram v1.1 Preview on Vimeo – interesting app that blurs the boundaries between AR and photography

    Google’s AI Built its own AI That Outperforms Any Made by Humans – one thing humans jump to is the implications of a more general purpose rather than narrow focus machine learning tool

    China’s Tariff Cuts Won’t Hurt Daigou Business For Now | Jing Daily  – China plans to reduce tariffs on 187 consumer goods, including cosmetics, apparel, health supplements, food, and pharmaceuticals. The new policy will go into effect on December 1. The average tax rate will drop to 7.7 percent from 17.3 percent.

    China’s Toutiao Tried to Buy Reddit — The Information – One reason was general skittishness among Reddit’s investors about selling to a Chinese internet company whose user and revenue numbers were tough to assess – and there is the burn

    Chinese Smartphone Maker Xiaomi Eyes 2018 Stock Market Listing — The Information – interesting move given Xiaomi’s challenges with other Chinese smartphone companies

    Futuristic Warfare Arena Ghost in the Shell: Arise Stealth Hounds – VR ZONE SHINJUKU – I’d love to have a go at this

    Are we witnessing the end of the jumbo jet? | Quartz – interesting mix of game theory and economics involved

    Apple: Chinese Buying Huawei et. al. but Sticking with iPhone, Says Morgan Stanley – Barron’s – The Jigaung data also highlights that in the 4 weeks ending October 22nd, more “switchers” left their Chinese branded smartphone for an iPhone than iPhone users left for a Chinese branded smartphone, across all local vendors. In fact, Apple’s net switching rate, or the net amount of switchers gained/lost as a percentage of all brand switchers increased to 7.6% in the latest 4 week period, up from 6.7% in the prior 4 week period ending October 8th. Comparatively, Vivo was the only Chinese smartphone vendor to gain “net switchers”, albeit at a significantly lower rate. We expect this trend to only accelerate as future data sets will include the period after the iPhone X first began shipping.

    Amazon (AMZN) is so good at keeping prices low, it’s changed how economists think about inflation — Quartz

  • You are not safe

    You are not safe was a theme that echoed through a period drama on Silicon Valley yet is equally applicable today.

    IBM 360 Announcement center

    I have been catching up on Halt and Catch Fire. It is a fiction based on various aspects of Silicon Valley lore. I have enjoyed watching it immensely to a point.

    I was especially struck by  episode eight in the third series. One of the main characters in series three hacks his employer and releases their anti-virus software online for free. But its the mid-1980s through a thoroughly modern lens. It resonates because it speaks to our age, not to the 1980s or even the mid-1990s.

    YOU ARE NOT SAFE

    I, Ryan Ray, released the MacMillan Utility source code. I acted alone. No one helped me, and no one told me to do it.  I did this because ‘security’ is a myth.  Contrary to what you might have heard, my friends, you are not safe.  Contrary to what you might have heard, my friends, you are not safe.  Safety is a story. It’s something we search our children so they can sleep at night, but we know it’s not real.

    Yes, there was software piracy, it was a mainstream part of computing culture which had sprung up from the ‘homebrew’ mentality.  Prior to founding Apple, Steve Wozniak used to give out the schematics of what then became the Apple I. Punched paper tapes of software used to be exchanged between members when they met up in aMenlo Park garage and later on in an auditorium at Stanford University.

    Back then the narrative was overwhelmingly positive in terms of technology. The main problem was whether the Japanese, Microsoft, Intel or IBM was going to crush the rest of the technology eco-system in Silicon Valley. Consumers  had a bright new world of technology ahead of them.  Video games were still a niche interest compared to VCRs (video cassette recorders). VHS versus Betamax was as important a format war as Windows versus Macintosh.

    Here’s the thing. This show (rightly or wrongly) may frame the way a lot of people think about this part of the digital age. For those who aren’t well read about the history of Silicon Valley OR didn’t live through the 1980s – it will colour their view of history. That detail rankled me a bit; I’m not quite sure why.  Part of it is knowing where we’re going is understanding where we have been in past.

    That’s all very nice, but why does this matter? It provides you with perspective and the ability to critique ideas. Either way you are not safe. More related content here.

  • The media of me

    media of me post

    Wadds came up with 13 theses about the media of me with more than a nod and a wink to The Cluetrain Manifesto. The main thrust of it is that the media model is broken, technology has a lot of the blame at its door.

    Picking through it are some worthy aspirations, but it was diagnosing symptoms rather than causes. I believe that the main problems in the media of me are wetware, not software. People and civil society rather than networks and servers.

    Technology has its own momentum

    As with many things, the reality and where we are going is much more complex. Kevin Kelly posited that technological progress is a natural force of its own. He called this force the ‘technium’. It is not moral, it doesn’t understand good or bad. It can be slowed down for a time, but never stopped.

    Even during the European dark ages, the golden age in Muslim countries saw Arab scholars:

    • Collate classical knowledge
    • Translate it into their own language
    • Build upon the body of knowledge

    This knowledge came back into Europe. It helped provide a foundation for the renaissance.

    We’re not going to be able to stop bots or algorithms. As they improve; their impact will be harder to discern. There will be a tension in online platforms; shareholder value versus good citizenship.

    Digital is a winner takes all world

    As with many previous technology markets such as the PC and smartphone operating systems online is an oligopoly of two. Digital media provides a disproportionate amount of benefit to very few platforms.

    Facebook and Google count for 85-90% of online advertising growth.

    In China, online media is dominated by Tencent and Baidu. We could ‘Balkanise’ the media landscape. But that would mean a poorer experience for users outside the US and China. The technology sector does not have:

    • Commercial scale in funding
    • Sufficient talent
    • Comparable addressable markets

    Timms & Heimans hypothesis of ‘new power vs. old power’ rubs up against technology as an uncomfortable vector.

    This all means that the tensions in society, civic society and societal discourse is accelerated and amplified.

    From the perspective of technology platforms this isn’t their problem. They are only tackling it with reluctance, they don’t have a silver bullet solution.
    In their eyes:

    • ‘Online’ isn’t a problem, it is the breakdown in social norms, which are then amplified and gamed online
    • In the real world we’re insulated from views unless we chose to explore alternatives. Algorithms have amplified this process further to create a filter bubble. Algorithms are only mimicing our natural desires. This is mirrored in the lack real-world discourse and polarisation of views
    • Algorithms are accused of having a reductive effect on an individuals breadth of media consumption. News feed algorithms jobs are to make platforms money. Before their widespread use netizens widely flocked to chatrooms and forums with a similar narrow focus. News readers using RSS which would allow individuals to read widely have proved to be only a niche interest

    Reading widely is important to be being well informed, but its a conscious choice that people have to make. But in order to read widely one has to be:

    • Sufficiently educated to be confident in their reading ability
    • Confident enough to ignore any scorn that might come from ‘books, learning and being an expert’
    • Sufficiently curious to have the motivation to read
    • Having sufficient time to be able to read

    These bullets are affected by quality of education, social norms and income. If you are just getting by with a series of side hustle jobs you might too time poor to read widely.

    These are not universal traits in society. In the UK the idea of the self-educated literate working-man who goes to classes at the Mechanics Institute is long dead. That wasn’t done by Facebook or Google.

    The notion of an easily swayed populus wasn’t an invention of Cambridge Analytica, Google or Facebook. The Roman poet Juvenal famous for the concept of ‘bread and circuses’ would see something similar in populist politics. From Brexit, to Germany’s AfD the focus on diversion, distraction and immediate satisfaction ‘palliative’. A significant amount of common people are selfish in nature and often pay little attention to wider concerns.

    A quote from near the end of Jean-Paul Satre’s play No Exit sums it up quite well

    “All those eyes intent on me. Devouring me. What? Only two of you? I thought there were more; many more. So this is hell. I’d never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the “burning marl.” Old wives’ tales! There’s no need for red-hot pokers. HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE!”

    Whilst in a democracy, all opinions should have the opportunity to be voiced; should they have a right to be heard? Should politicians really reflect the will of the people? I think there is a strong argument to be made against it. I am not advocating authoritarian rule, but that we need leaders who reflect on the greater good. Edmund Burke – one of the founding fathers of British conservatism is a widely cited example of a politician who didn’t reflect the will of the people. Burke recognised that democracy can create a tyranny over unpopular minorities. He didn’t consider politicians to be delegates; conduits for votes without moral responsibility.

    He is widely cited as being a better man for it:

    • Burke viewed the British conduct in India under the East India Company immoral
    • He advocated representation for American colonists
    • Acknowledgement of wrongdoing by the Crown in America and an appropriate apology

    Facts versus Emotion

    Facts and emotion have always duelled and facts have frequently come off the worse for it. Western politicians from Adolf Hitler to Barrack Obama have little in common except being successful exponents of rhetoric and emotion in their speeches. Technical skills and knowledge don’t make the cut. A classic example of this is the dissonance between the advice of John Redwood as a strategist with Charles Stanley versus his political stance on Brexit. Mr Redwood knows what works as a politician.

    Those that wield emotion now, have a greater understanding of how it works. It is why populist organisations win. It is why experts fail to persuade voters to act in their own interest. That won’t change with technology but with stonger, harsher electoral commission powers.

    Fact versus Fiction

    Yellow journalism and fiction has been with us for as long as civilisation existed. It’s modern roots are in the American media industry of the late 19th century, as publishers battled for circulation. They work because audiences love ‘good stories’. A good story is one that:

    • Surprises
    • Entertains
    • Reinforces our own beliefs

    American journalist Frank Mott listed the following characteristics of :

    • Scare headlines
    • Lavish use of images
    • Faked expertise: misleading headlines pseudo-science and false learnings

    All of Mott’s points sound like a thoroughly modern media playbook. Yellow journalism pioneers Hearst & Pulitzer were only stopped by public vilification and shame. The Pullitzer Price, like the Nobel Prize was a penitent act at the end of a successful  commercial career in media. Hearst & Pullitzer were owner-proprietors, it is a lot harder (though not impossible) to shame a public company today. The bigger issue is that a century of mass-media practice has lowered the bar in standards for ‘new media’ companies. A brutal legislative machine that would replace compliance through guilt with compliance through fear is a possible solution. However the legislative executive by its nature tends to favour the wealthy.

    More information
    What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly
    Trend Watch: New Power v. Old Power by Beth Comstock
    No Exit and Three Other Plays by Jean Paul Sartre
    Satires by Juvenal
    Media of me: 13 theses

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