Ideas were at the at the heart of why I started this blog. One of the first posts that I wrote there being a sweet spot in the complexity of products based on the ideas of Dan Greer. I wrote about the first online election fought by Howard Dean, which now looks like a precursor to the Obama and Trump presidential bids.
I articulated a belief I still have in the benefits of USB thumb drives as the Thumb Drive Gospel. The odd rant about IT, a reflection on the power of loose social networks, thoughts on internet freedom – an idea that that I have come back to touch on numerous times over the years as the online environment has changed.
Many of the ideas that I discussed came from books like Kim and Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean Strategy.
I was able to provide an insider perspective on Brad Garlinghouse’s infamous Peanut Butter-gate debacle. It says a lot about the lack of leadership that Garlinghouse didn’t get fired for what was a power play. Garlinghouse has gone on to become CEO of Ripple.
I built on initial thoughts by Stephen Davies on the intersection between online and public relations with a particular focus on definition to try and come up with unifying ideas.
Or why thought leadership is a less useful idea than demonstrating authority of a particular subject.
I touched on various retailing ideas including the massive expansion in private label products with grades of ‘premiumness’.
I’ve also spent a good deal of time thinking about the role of technology to separate us from the hoi polloi. But this was about active choice rather than an algorithmic filter bubble.
You are not safe was a theme that echoed through a period drama on Silicon Valley yet is equally applicable today.
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.
WSJ City | Gig work may stifle some startups – a gig work firm’s entry into a given area caused a decline in the number of unfunded and underfunded Kickstarter campaigns launched locally a year later
Google Translate: Telefonini e patenti | L’Espresso – Umberto Eco making the valid point that communications by phone are often less circumspect because of the immediacy of the medium. Writing a letter allows more time for consideration and weight in the communications
Red Bull Content Pool – interesting that Red Bull has its own inhouse picture agency
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.
How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, not Engaged Argument by King, Pan & Roberts – Chinese regime’s strategy is to avoid arguing with skeptics of the party and the government, and to not even discuss controversial issues. We show that the goal of this massive secretive operation is instead to distract the public and change the subject, as most of the these posts involve cheerleading for China, the revolutionary history of the Communist Party, or other symbols of the regime (PDF) – fascinating study, more online related content here.
Apple Knowledge Navigator was a rewarming of Vannevar Bush’s ideas in his essay ‘As We May Think that’ was published in the July 1945 issue of The Atlantic. There is a clear line between Vannevar Bush’s notional Memex machine and the Apple Knowledge Navigator.
While Bush had the good sense to realise that a device with all of a user’s books, records, and communications had value. It reminded me a lot of the modern smartphone or the Wikireader. But there was less consideration with regards organisation and search in the Memex.
These were some of the challenges that Apple thought through in this 1987 concept film.
The Apple Knowledge Navigator concept film had really interesting search concepts in it. It is a shame that we’re nowhere near where Apple thought search and natural language processing would have been in 2007. This is still a concept video for today.
