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Threads of the fauxion
One from the archives: Circa Late 2011
What follows is a mashup of the Fauxion Thread first published on the ExCapite Blog in December 2011 - It closed out the original MobCon experiment. It is by any measure a very long read but it provides a glimpse of the tapestry of threads that made up the ExCapite blog
Easily the best piece I have read all year on the state of the Post Modern Rococo [MoRoCo] cultural landscape is from next year. It's Kurt Andersen's You say you want a devolution? from the January 2012 edition of Vanity Fair.
"For most of the last century, America’s cultural landscape—its fashion, art, music, design, entertainment—changed dramatically every 20 years or so. But these days, even as technological and scientific leaps have continued to revolutionize life, popular style has been stuck on repeat, consuming the past instead of creating the new."
It achieves in an essay what James Gleick failed to achieve in a 400+ page book.
A brief insight into the cultural and economic impact of living in Shannon's accidental distopia.
As the reviewer for Slate magazine suggests of Gleick's The Information "Trying to link the economic principles of information with its scientific properties would have been a great service".
Likewise few, if any of the newspaper and magazine reviews of the book, apart from perhaps this piece from The Wall St Journal provide us with the razor sharp insight that what has changed over the past 20 years is "how things are made and distributed but not what they are".
"Neither information theory—as Shannon often emphasized—nor any other methodology can find meaning for us. Each of us has to discover—or create—meaning on our own" - The Wall St Journal
Certainly there is the despair that comes when any journalist or writer stares deep into the heart of darkness that is Shannon accidental distopia.
"What was – and remains – radical about the Mathematical Model of Communication is that it asserts that information is a measure of quantity, not meaning." - The Globe and Mail
"There's no road back from bits to meaning" - The New York Times
"Sartre pointed out that the trouble with narrative is that it secretly begins at the end... Everything in the world exists in order to end up on Facebook" - The Independent
"The logical conclusion of our relationship to computers: expectantly to type “what is the meaning of my life” into Google." - The New York Review of Books
"For Gleick, information has always been our medium; since cave dwellers painted the first animal forms on their walls, we have existed in two parallel universes, the biosphere and the infosphere." - LA Times
"All of us, he argues, are now “creatures of the information,” fated to inhabit a vast library of Babel." - Washington Post
"That’s the asymptotic limit of computing’s future: perfect storage and perfect operations over everything, for free. Only deleting bits of data comes at a cost.... As Gleick notes, “forgetting takes work.” At the quantum level, information isn’t opt-in; it’s only opt-out." - Nieman Labs
But insight into what's next is a rare commodity amongst these writers who deal in information systems rather than the "living" culture that feeds and thrives off these systems.
In the end I found this conversation between the Author and Wired Magazine to be the most revealing in understanding the overriding limitations our predicament:
"Geick: Scientifically, information is a choice—a yes-or-no choice. In a broader sense, information is everything that informs our world—writing, painting, music, money." - Wired
I say that because it expresses the limitations of our one dimensional thinking about what knowledge and information is in a world consumed by the binary.
You see the world as a computer sees things is either on or off. Or, I:O as the computer savvy would say.
This of course is a reflection, if not the pinnacle, of Western thinking post enlightenment.
You are either a Capitalist or a Communist. A Republican or a Democrat (In the USA), Conservative or Labour (in the UK), Apple Mac or Microsoft WinTel... There is no middle ground.
The same applies to the Internet. You are either on the side of closed systems or open systems. Apple or Google, Google or Facebook. Google or Microsoft, Android or iOS. Our thinking is binary. It is either or. We struggle to converse, to navigate and to travel the so called middle ground.
Indeed we have a saying ... again from the playbook of Oscar Wilde. The man who sees both sides of a question is a man who sees absolutely nothing.
But what happens if we reconsider this position and introduce the simple idea that to take full advantage of this Internet, the network of databases, we have to learn to think beyond the simple confines of binary?
Let's, at least as thought experiment... a fantasy perhaps, suspend the logic that is rational binaryism for a moment or two and apply a bit of Post Modern Rococo [MoRoCo] Christmas thinking to the problem.
Let's explore what happens if we assume that, within the context of Shannon's Distopia, this idea of information as an I:O choice is fundamentally flawed and information, ultimately confined and constrained within the unlimited limitations of a global network of databases, may well be subject to an uncertainty principle in much the same way the electrons that powers the information network are now imagined.
We'll begin the journey with an exploration of an idea that is central to this journey into heart of darkness: Systems Theory.
If we think of closed and open as opposite ends of straight line then we see that both, if allowed to run towards their logical conclusion result in failure.
A closed system becomes fragile because of the lack of new ideas that an open system generates means it becomes too rigid and ultimately fails, sometimes catastrophically, when over stressed or simply because "times have changed". Have said that closed systems can be revitalised and renewed when they are open enough to acquire or adopt new approaches.
An open system is equally fragile simply because the an open system without self imposed boundaries fragments towards chaos. Likewise open systems can become self regulating if the trend towards chaos is "time boxed" by the introduction of rules and methods to restrict enquiry.
In this way the seeming polarity of the Open and Closed debate is in fact circular when subject to the realities of the real world. Changes over time create something of an oscillation between Open and Closed.
Now if we apply a bit of the MoRoCo to the mix and we revisualise this Western polarity of I:O thinking as Eastern Yin and Yang thinking then we see that one naturally feeds into the other and what we should be seeking is a balance not a question of and/or.
Now the thing I find interesting about the Yin Yang when it is express visually is at the heart of the diagram is a wave.
A little bit of MoRoCo imagination allows us to contemplate the Yin Yang as an expression of Signal to Noise. The extremities being the level of noise. The Middle ground between the two extremes being the Signal.
If we map this idea over time you can see how the Signal to Noise ratio is amplified as the wave moves through time. The more we talk about it the more noise that is begerated and so to the signal becomes stronger. Just take the US Presedential race as an example or the meme that Social Media (i.e. Facebook and Twitter) is the catalyst of the Arab Spring or eCommerce is disrupting Retail.
Moving on quickly we know from experience that there are one dimensional and multi-dimensional ideas in circulation about open and closed systems.
So let's find another dimension to expand the scope of the system. Let's remap the Open and Closed Systems as Competition vs. Collaboration.
Firstly using Western rational thinking techniques.
(Note you can see why Western Business School thinkers struggle once you get past the Boston Box. 3-D concepts are very hard to project using I:O thinking).
And now mapped over time as an expression of Yin Yang thinking...
What becomes apparent is in this new model the signal starts to move around. In much the same way we now think about atomic particles. We discover the signal can be in multiple states simultaneously.
Add an infinite number of dimensions and you end up with a sphere of information that is expanding rapidly over time. Not only is the sphere becoming noisier (i.e. Expanding). The signal is also becoming more erratic in the sense that it is becoming more and more difficult to pin point its multiple states at any given time.
This then is Shannon's Distopia. All noise with a signal that is subject to the uncertainty principle. i.e. You can map its position or you can map its momentum but you cannot do it simultaneously.
Now take a step back from the noise bubble and what do you see?
A bubble full of chaos that requires you to extract meaning by your actions... but understand full well that your actions (however well intended and focused on curating and normalising the chaos) will only enlarge the bubble and increase the level of chaos.
What is interesting of course is the apparent absence of any signal the bubble itself becomes the overriding signal.
This is why I suspect the Internet is the future of everything meme became so powerful. You can substitute the word Facebook, Social, Web, Dot Com and now even Mobile but essentially they are words we use to describe the Bubble.
So how does this explain why we are "stuck on repeat, consuming the past instead of creating the new" and more importantly how we are going to change this situation?
It doesn't. That is going to take a bit more imagination and energy.
Of course as soon as we embark on a discussion of signal to noise we inevitably stumble across old ideas about how, online at least, media has been replaced by the endless lists of likes.
As George Dyson pointed out earlier in the year: Information is cheap, but meaning is expensive. Or, put another way, the value of the system is negligible without the effort we put in to creating meaning from the system.
So in real terms the value of Google, Facebook, Twitter and even Apple is negligible if you (and everyone else) choose not to apply your energies to create meaning from these information wastelands.
The truth is the web is infinitely stupid. It is our infinite capacity to explore, our innate curiosity, and most importantly the questions we ask of it that provides the illusion (or is that delusion?) of intelligence.
Meaning then is an expression of you the consumer of information rather than me the creator of information.
That's why, in an era where "attention is priceless", the audience is of more value today than the author.
If you doubt this then consider how much things have changed online. Up until just recently advertisers spent vast sums of money hiring the best creative talent in the world to keep TV, Radio and Magazine audiences the world over entertained while being sold their products. Today advertisers spend vast sums of money on the best programming talent in the world just to watch the audience while they navigate the web. Those who were once authors have become the audience and the audience have become authors... and not by blogging, tweeting and posting. But by navigating. By creating patterns of activity. By weaving patterns across the web. By creating textures from the threads of information that imply deeply personal tapestries of meaning and experience.
This in turn suggests that meaning isn't to be found in the network. Meaning is external to the network.
The purpose of the network is capture a reflection, or, better yet, a shadow, of you through your (inter)actions with the network.
This then brings up two new lines of enquiry. The first is the network as an expression of collective reflected glory. The second, the much older and primitive idea, of the soul as shadow or reflection.
Thomas More's Utopia was of course a concatenation of the Greek No + Place. Fauxtopia I imagined would be a Franco Greco concatenation of Fake or False + Place. Needless to say I was amused to discover in the urban dictionary it meant That feeling of soothing reassurance you get when you (mistakenly) tell yourself it was probably nothing important.
I say that because if I was to picture Fauxtopia as a modern city then my city of choice would be Chicago. Or, more accurately the Cloud Space located in AT&T Plaza within the Millennium Park. Better known as the Chicago Bean this Stainless Steel sculpture with its mesmerising ability to draw a crowd in to its dreamscape is easily the best expression of Fauxtopia one could imagine. For here are people, reflections and shadows mixed together with unlimited opportunities to change one's outlook and contemplate the endless skies while all the time being consciously aware of one's position and one's appearance within the faux universe.
Few people can remember what a sorry state the Internet's Brand was in prior to the advent of Social.
After the Dot Com crash all the indicators clearly showed that interest in the Web, the Information Superhighway, the Internet, eBusiness, or whatever else you wanted to call it, was fading fast.
Online advertising had collapsed in 2000 and, other than the growing interest in a start-up called Google, it was yet to show any signs recovery. Targeted online marketing had been tried before and it had been found wanting. Google's revolutionary search engine marketing solution on the other hand was proving to be something of a revelation.
Then along came the rebranding of the Future of the Web as the new Social and interest in the Internet Brand and, more importantly, its unparallelled ability to target an audience for advertisers was reborn just in time to be embraced by a whole new generation of "game changers".
"The Internet is exciting again, and once again folks are rushing in. In some categories - like search or social networking, for example - there are scores of start-ups vying for pretty much the same market, and it's certain that, just like last time, most of them will fail" - The New York Times, November 2005
The same applied to the general outlook in investment circles. After the Dot Com crash nobody was interested in in investing in the Internet. Then in mid-2004 things changed. We see the trend line move back into positive territory. So much so that if it hadn't been for the intervention of the GFC who knows what heights investment in the Social Media revolution would have reached by late 2011.
The tipping point of course was Google's IPO and News Corp's acquisition of mySpace. Overnight the Internet became hot again and, just like the original Dot Com Boom, this Social Media revolution wasn't just confined to Silicon Valley. Social Start-Ups simultaneously emerged all around the globe including the key Asian markets of Japan and China.
The key question of course for experienced industry observers was what was going to be different this time around? After all Social Networks, Instant Messaging and User Generated Content had been with us right from the start. Hadn't we seen this all before? What made Social as a Brand so special?
The answer of course was the shift in the message from "this is a great new way of doing business" to "this is now exclusively all about YOU!"
The original Dot Com Brand was all about getting people excited about a new way of doing business. Bank Online, Buy and Sell Online, Book Travel Online, Read Newspapers and Magazines Online, Buy Theatre or Concert Tickets Online, Get a Job Online, Advertise Online, Auction Online. You name it if it's about doing business you can do it quicker and cheaper online.
By the end of the Dot Com Boom the message had run out of legs. It was exhausted and, thanks to the stigma of the Dot Com Crash, heavily tainted.
What people remembered most of all about the Dot Com Boom was the failure. The vast sums lost on the stock markets. They had to think twice before they could recall the winners (e.g. Online Banking, Travel, Ticketmaster, Pizza Hut, eBay and Amazon).
The expression "Web 2.0: Give us another chance" was tried but it simply wasn't going to cut it. To revive the flagging Internet Brand the message had move on from the old "today you can do business online... but with better graphics and faster download speeds" storyline.
It needed to be fundamentally repositioned. Forget the past because the future has nothing to do with it. The future is all about YOU!
Not that there was anything new in all this. Take a look at this 1997 Annual Report from Yahoo! and you'll see that the language and the message is still the same.
It is all about Customisation of the experience so you can Connect with Content, Community, Commerce. Communicate, Come Together and Share Interests with Friends. Success is measured in time spent online, page views and traffic. And advertisers are excited about delivering the right message to the right audience. Why? because it is the Place where the world meets...
The only thing that has changed is the Brand: Yesterday we were all Connected Online. Today we are all connected by being Social. Tomorrow?... We'll all be socially connected by mobile.
The key thing to understand here is how the Social Branding narrative changed the way we think about the Internet.
It has evolved from a gadget (i.e. Your PC being hooked up to our telephone line) into something far more personal and sustainable. The idea of building communities of interest and engaging activities that are focused exclusively around you.
This in turn is what brought Nokia unstuck. The Internet may be small compared to the Mobile market but thanks to Social the world's leading handset maker's brand was repositioned as just a manufacture of mobile gadgets as opposed to being the world leader in connecting people on the move.
It also helped to reposition Japan and it's revolutionary mobile economy as an economy of mobile gadgets as opposed to a socially mobile economy.
All of which goes to prove that Brands and Slogans are still important. They spell out the illusions and the belief systems that shape our expectations and our aspirations. Simply by owning the word Social. Silicon Valley has not only reinvented the future of the Internet but also claimed the future of Mobile.
Plus it has also allowed all those old worn out ideas about "the Internet as the Future of Everything" (e.g. Social Commerce, Social Business, Social Banking, Social Shopping, Social TV, Social News, Social Enterprises, Social Analytics, Social Job Hunting, Social Marketing, Social Advertising, Social Gaming, Social Layer, Social Branding, Social Investing, Social Intelligence) to be repackaged into fantastic new line extensions.
In the end Social is more a "Fauxion of the Mind" than a mind blowing revolution in innovation and technology. But it has cemented Silicon Valley's reputation as the world leader in innovation.... and in the end isn't that what innovative Branding is all about?
So what does all this fauxionary thinking reveal about the future of media?
I suspect in the future you can either watch the original or you can watch the remake starring you and your friends (and perhaps even enemies).
Just imagine being able to come home from a hard day at the office and you sit in front of the TV wall and you can select from any number of action flicks where you appear as the hero and the boss (or any other "pain in the neck" from your workplace) gets to play the villain.
Alternatively you may yearn for a romantic encounter or a road trip. Either way you will have the choice to insert the avatar that is you into the narrative.
Why? Simply because the meta narrative of our time is YOU.
So why watch Bruce Willis or Tom Cruise or Robert Downey Jr when YOU can be John McClane or Ethan Hawke or Iron Man? or, in Tomi's case Connery, Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan or Craig.
The same goes for TV Sport, Music and Reality TV. It is the convergence of the Passive (TV) and the Active (Games). So not only will get you get to live out your fantasies you'll get a good work out at the same time.
The real world may get you down but you can at least live out your dreams as a comic book shadow on the silver screen.
Forget sitting in the movies. Here's your chance to be living your fauxionary life as an endless mashup.
And it's not just the movies that are heading towards the endless mashup.
It is all media and software.
Today we debate endlessly the merits of curation vs. creation vs. consumption vs. context. vs attention vs. stickiness. But ultimately I suspect the debate will prove to be nothing more than trying to pour "New Wine into Old Wine skins".
Our ideas are framed by the simple idea that the future of media and the Internet will be little more than the [circa 1995] CD-ROM experience spread across multiple screens of all shapes and sizes.
Consider for example the recent evolution of the 7th Mass Media.
15 years on and the CD-ROM and the Brick experiences have merged into the life changing experience of the iPhone (i.e. the child of the Newton PDA). The only question looking forward is how does this experience evolve into the next wireless CD-ROM experience. Will it shrink, will we wear it as an item of clothing or will we end up with Maxwell Smart's Shoe Phone?
Only the physical shape of the tools that deliver the experience will change. Not the ideas that shape the experience.
The road map to the endless mashup
How much do our ideas about how we experience media have to change before we can reimagine the mobile phone - or any other screen - as a tool of the endless media mashup as opposed to a tool for media consumption?
Let's start the journey by examining some of the meta trends that are leading towards life as an endless mashup
We'll begin with Elad Gil's chart illustrating why Social Curation will be the next big thing.
The key idea behind Elad's post is the increasing popular idea that "YOU are what you curate".
I would challenge that by suggesting that just as every man is three (i.e. the Man you think you are, the man other thunk you are and the man you really are) I suspect that YOU are the sum of what you create, curate (i.e. collect) and consume.
The problem with this idea of course is, as we have seen before, online at least only 1% are the creators. The rest are curators or more likely simply consumers.
In the original version Elad mapped the ease of content creation over the emergence of social Media platforms. What I have done is simply replaced the ease of content creation with the underlying meta trend of message fragmentation.
The mega trend is people are sharing more and more of less and less and each generation of Social Media start-ups are evolving to meet the challenge. They are launching with less and less functionality and arguably less and less value.
Indeed if there is a lesson that every start up can learn from a comparative study of Successfactors.com and LinkedIn it is that every new feature you add takes you further away from a global network worth, at least in the eyes of Wall St street and the Silicon Valley VC community, billions of dollars.
The meta trends - as we can see in this chart below - appear to be towards More Connections (i.e. Information Sources/Root: Telecoms), Shorter Messages (Information/Root: Media) and Less Functionality (Function Points/Root: Software)
The other meta trend within media circles is of course the ongoing debate over content and context.
This too can be mapped 2-Dimensionally.
Again, if we account for the launch of the various portals and platforms, we see a meta trend away from consumption to creation.
The more advanced thinkers (i.e. those with the ability to think beyond 2-D) are starting to understand the opportunity and the challenge as something of a Rubik's cube of Content, Context and Texture.
This I believe is what Marc Shillum was alluding to in his popular Branding is all about Creating Patterns, Not Repeating Messages. Though as an aside it is interesting to note that essentially what Marc has created here isn't a pattern but a single idea. A meme that, if isn't being repeated, is at least being supported by a network of sign posts (i.e. Tweets, Posts and other link references) leading us back to the one message (i.e. the original Fast Company article). More a "Branding is about creating many pointers to the single message" than a "Branding is about Creating Patterns". A repetition of pointers (i.e. Actions) as opposed to a repetition of messages.
The other meta trend of course is the fragmentation of attention. Today attention is priceless. The focus is how to become the stickiest player on the block. That's why Facebook is arguably more valuable than Yahoo! or AOL.
Step away from all this noise at you'll see that at the heart of all these ideas is the meta narrative of how the convergence of media, IT and telecoms (i.e. the MobCon) is leading to fragmentation of the message elements.
Now consider what happens if we reframe the discussion as: What happens if the convergence of media, IT and telecoms (i.e. the MobCon) in reality means the convergence of the creation, curation and consumption of media?
As you will come to see, if you consume and curate media by the creation of media then the whole discussion about Context, Texture (i.e. Patterns) and Attention becomes irrelevant.
They are merely an extension of YOU. Simultaneously the Creator (Author), Curator and Consumer of media.
What the CD-ROM experience can teach us about the future of media
OK, I understand your initial reaction is "Nothing" but the truth is the smartphone and the desktop web experience you have today was shaped by the original CD-ROM media (e.g. Games, Videos, Web Page Browsers, Simulations, Calculators, Walk Throughs, VR Product Catalogues, Shareware, Utilities). Indeed one could argue that, thanks to the improvements in bandwidth, the quality of the online experience today is on a par with the old CD-ROM experience (e.g. Graphics and Video).
The key point I am trying to make is the only thing that has changed in over 15 years is the delivery mechanism has evolved from sharing Disks on the covers of magazines to Wireless. What was a monthly experience at the Newsagency Magazine Rack has become the 24/7 "real time" information stream of the hyperconnected world.
The killer desktop apps of 1995 (e.g. Office - Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Photoshop, Premier, Director (Flash), HTML Browsers) remain the killer apps of 2012. I say that because the "Killer" platforms of the past decade (e.g. Wordpress, Blogger, Google Apps, Facebook, Hipstamatic) are essentially stripped back versions of these products delivering little more than the core functionality that made these apps popular 15 years ago.
If we still use Photoshop or Premier or Powerpoint it is to create media to upload onto one of these media distribution"platforms".
While our desktop tools have become increasingly complicated and over featured our online tools and mobile apps are becoming, just like the messages they created, fragmented and stripped back. We live in a world where the illusion of much much less = so much more than ever before.
Now close your eyes for a moment and think what the world of media would look like today if rather than the Web Browser being the gateway to the connected web experience the apps (e.g. Photoshop, Premier, Flash, Excel, Powerpoint and Word) had evolved into database apps.
Imagine sitting in front of Photoshop today and rather than playing with an app that manipulated images from your desktop or CD-ROM or local server it was a Super Web App that allowed you to add and manipulate in realtime any image from anywhere in the world. The same goes for Excel. Any data source from any where in the world simply by opening up Excel and opening up a new worksheet. The same for Word. An essay written simply by typing in the keyword and the sources flowing onto fill the page from anywhere in the world. The same goes for Premier or Final Cut Pro. Need a shot or an animated sequence or an effect. It's there in the app ready to insert into the time line. The same goes for music apps like the Korg Synths.
Mash all this functionality together and you have the killer media app of the future.
The ultimate endless mashup machine.
You see if we had reimaged our desktop apps as globally networked rich media apps from the very beginning of the web this whole debate about context and discovery would be irrelevant. The act of creation, curation and consumption would be today one of the same thing.
Instead we repeat endlessly what we already know and do. Struggling with the reality that the value of the tools and messages we create today reflect a world of yesterdays and are price accordingly (i.e Free).
In this context Facebook and the other Social Media platforms, the iPhone, the iPad, Android and the App Store are better understood as less the future of media and more the epoch (but ultimately the end) of old media.
Put simply our whole experiential conceptual framework for media in a hyper connected world is fundamentally and catastrophically flawed...
I don't just want to discover and share media. I want to forge it and experience it a new every time I touch the screen.
Once again we find ourselves standing in one of those places where the buses just don't go... never mind stop.
So where to next?
Do we like, Glieck before us, look backwards for the answers to what we can make of Shannon's Distopia or throw the dice and take our chances?
If I look backwards to my formative experiences I could embark on a rousing dialogue of why The Thunderbirds still matter.
A veritable soliloquy before breakfast on why the - in retrospect seemingly quaint - idea that technology can empower a new generation of heroes and heroines to help others to make the world a better and safer place for all of us.
But in the end I hesitated. Reluctant to expose an new generation of Post Modern Rococo [MoRoCo] thinkers to all that pre-feminist sexual imagery. It would only distract from my core proposition trying to explain to today's generation how children of the 60's were openly exposed on a daily basis to the relentless subliminal sexual messages of rocket ships that emerge from swimming pools to rescue the world and mother ships that give birth to baby machines.
So I decided to spare you all and look forward. To go in search of what insights into our future that Japan may may provide us with today.
If you follow excapite on Twitter then you will already be aware that I began my search over at NeoJaponisme. Specifically a recent post on the great shift in Japanese Pop Culture.
Here I encountered ideas like consumption as pathology.
"They must consume, no matter the economic or personal financial situation. ... Otherwise they lose their identity... And that means the markets built around these subcultures are relatively stable in size...So as the total market shrinks, the marginal groups — in their stability — are no longer minor segments [i.e. Marginalism becomes the new Mainstream]"
and links to one of the flagships of Japanese MoRoCo pop culture: AKB48 and their song "Heavy Rotation", the Number 2 top selling single in Japan of 2010.
Now you're probably thinking after watching this that I should have stuck with the Thunderbirds.
After all what is to be found here that you cannot find today in the works of Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Ke$ha.
The point I am trying to make is that what I have discovered is more a Fauxtopia than a Distopia.
A veritable Meme Bubble of global proportions.
The next question of course is how did we get here?
After all radio, the original electronic broadcast network, was originally a medium of ideas. Popular Music emerged from the medium simply because songs helped turn complex ideas into sing-a-long nursery rhymes.
Then "video killed the radio star" and ideas where replaced by movement and colour. Dance and costume become more important than words or tunes. And the revolution of the mind dissolved into a grind of the hips, a flash of white teeth and a licking of the lips...
If I have one criticism of Kurt Andersen's You say you want a devolution? it is simply that his window of 20 years is not long enough. We have been stuck in the 1980's for 30 years.
If anything has changed since then it is simply this: The Me generation evolved into the Meme generation. Yes, the Filofax and the Motorola Brick merged into the Crackberry and now the iPhone. The Sony Walkman became the Apple iPod and Charlie's Angels and Captain America became, well, Charlie's Angels and Captain America.
As Kurt says what has changed is "how things are made and distributed but not what they are".
We are still thinking and using these devices to do the same things we were doing 30 years ago.
We have had a revolution in the tools. What is lacking is a revolution of the mind. A new way of thinking. A new way of seeing. A new way of doing. A new way of expressing how and what it is we are.
It was Warhol who said in the future everybody will be famous for 15 minutes. What he didn't say was that in the future everyone will be creative... A creator of art, of culture, of ideas, of images, of music, of words, of meaning, of ideas... that challenge and change the world.
I suspect if the Rebecca Black viral video success story has anything to say to us it is simply that the real insight is that we have no visionaries among us with the innate genius, unlimited imagination, explosive talent and, most importantly, the arrogance and the courage to expose just how unimaginative and uncreative we really all have been over the past 20 years with these extraordinary new tools.
Of course when you are just starting out the idea of being an individual and choosing a specialisation appears to be the perfect offensive strategy. What better way to get on with life than to carve out your own personal niche? Your own personal brand within the meritocracy. Study hard and work relentlessly to be the very best in your profession or specialisation.
It is only later, with the gaining of wisdom, do you come to understand that far from being an offensive strategy Brand.Me is the ultimate strategic defence that will protect you against all comers.
Sadly though with each step you take towards being the only one that is "ME" you are narrowing the scope of what you could be tomorrow. Then one day you'll wake up and discover just how small, and in most cases inconsequential, you have become.
Your life has become ultimately the sum of its parts: YOU.
The problem is compounded when you look around you and you discover that you don't look all that different from anyone else. You look just like all the rest. You have chosen, as John Ralston Saul would describe it, to live life in a box.
This then is the great tease of the meritocracy.
It was also the pattern that was laid out in the videos selected for our last post: A fauxion of the mind.
In our mad rush to define and express ourselves as individuals worthy of merit we ultimately, albeit somewhat paradoxically, choose to conform. This is the great meme of our times and the So.Me has only helped to accelerate this process.
“In democratic societies, every citizen is habitually busy considering one very small subject, namely himself... His ideas are either self-orientated and clear or his thoughts are very general and vague; the space between them is empty.”
- Tocqueville’s Democracy in America
Now urban myth would have it that the So.Me is the perfect platform for amplifying Brand.Me.
An opportunity to broadcast yourself and demonstrate just how special you are.
The reality of course is 1 Billion people posting 24/7 all about themselves means that Brand.Me is the noise and it is the So.Me that is the signal.
So, just as with the original web where it was Google that emerged to become the dominant signal and the web sites and the hyperlinks consigned to the role of being
the noise, it now appears that Facebook has emerged to become the dominant signal of social media and our social relationships.
This in turn brings us back to the original discussion about open and closed systems. The argument being that Google is open. Facebook is closed.
But what if it is the wrong discussion?
After all, as John Ralston Saul also pointed out, information is the currency of any system. Open or closed. However once you have given out your information your capital is spent.
In a meritocracy you are defined by who and what you know.
Your specialisation, the box you choose to inhabit, fundamentally defines who and what you are within the system. Social media is the process by which you externalise, perhaps even automate, at the very least record, who and what you are within the system. The act of interacting with social media essentially involves the transference of your specialisation (i.e. you being you) into a network of databases. All of which means that in the act of transferring this personal and professional information you are in effect transferring your social and professional (i.e. systems) capital into the network.
So perhaps the real question that needs to be asked isn't which system is better - open or closed - but what happens when the capital of the So.Me generation is spent?
Does this information, through the economics of hyperinflation, become relatively worthless? or, Does it by virtue of the Social Graph become priceless?
Today there is a growing awareness that if you are in the middle of the social graph then you are being squeezed in the trend towards the globalisation of the labour markets. If you are internationally recognised as being at the top of your profession you will be in great demand and doing exceptionally well financially. Likewise if you are working in the "low skilled" service jobs (e.g, Fast Food) you will also be in demand if not doing particularly well financially. The problem is if you sit in the middle ground you will be busy negotiating for every chance to compete with the rest of the world. (See Thomas Friedman's A Theory of Everything (Sort of)).
For these middling peoples the world over the So.Me has become a competitive edge (See Can Facebook get you a job?). So much so that in some geographies and professions you need to be social to stay in the game. For here they freely exchange professional information and relationships for what are little more than social gaming credits (e.g. Klout).
Sadly few, if any, of these socially connected professionals have made the connection that Social Media (e.g. Networks, Blogs, Videos, Influence Indices) is the solution to a problem that it has created.
"Whenever he has been drawn away from himself, he always expects to be presented with some wondrous object to look at and that is the only reason why he might agree to wrench himself away from the minor complications which excite and charm his life." - Tocqueville’s Democracy in America
I suspect if he was still with us Spike Milligan would have relished the absurdity of living life as a So.Me man.
The tweet, the post, the like, the share, the digg, the +1, the followers, the fans and the feeds, the dogs, cats, birds and bots with their very own Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. All of these thinks - and things - would have fuelled his imagination and his love of the absurd... indeed the sheer comic madness of it all.
In the 60's you could turn on, tune in and drop out.
Today you can simply Tweet yourself into existence.
You see these days absurdity isn't just a mere literary genre, art movement or a TV series. It's an international lifestyle. A new global zeitgeist where personalities and egos are on display, much like pictures in a gallery, 24/7.
I also suspect that he may have intuited that at the very heart of the So.Me lifestyle are destructive habits that will ultimately make life in a box untenable for all those who choose to live there.
You see So.Me man is the most imprudent of life's card players. A man who lays his cards face upwards for all to see and then wonders and worries constantly why all his best cards are either taken or trumped.
For not only does So.Me man show the world his face, his smile, his anger and his anguish. He also opens up his personal library, the very source of his power in a world of specialists and experts, for all the world to see.
He also makes the mistake of exposing to the world his conversations and more importantly those who influence him and those over whom he has influence.
So.Me man shares endlessly the very things that decorate and define the box.
Ultimately turning what was once a sanctuary, where his darkest fears and lonely self, all those forbidden desires and wildest dreams, could be hidden safely from view, into a goldfish bowl.
A personal space where the rest of the world can turn out, drop in and be turned on.
Upon re-reading yesterday's "tour de force" of the MobCon it has occurred to me that only one thing is missing... an explanation of the Fauxion.
The Fauxion is the counter point to the utopia of the MobCon.
Let's begin by saying, for those who struggle with the term, it's pronounced Fork-shon-airy. Or, just think of a fairy with a fork.
If the MobCon is an exploration of about how, thanks to the Internet, our Universe can change within an instant, then the Fauxion is an exploration of how the only thing that has really changed is our ideas about the medium.
So in its simplest expression the Fauxion is about how the Internet, and now the Mobile Phone, is shrinking, rather than expanding our world view, to the point where the only thing of interest is the medium and ultimately the actors (i.e. Me and You).
Or, As Stefano Bartezzaghi so aptly described the very public ascendancy of the Mobile Phone over a decade ago. More a Linus's Comfort Blanket than a tool for changing our world.
It expresses the idea that far from being a revolution of the mind (or the even the economy) the Internet is little more than the Emperor's New Clothes for the Telecoms and IT industry. More fashion statement than game changer. More fiction than fact. A slick marketing campaign designed to sell more electronic gadgets and wireless Internet connections.
Fauxionary ideas are everywhere. You can recognise them immediately. They cloud the imagination in much the same way the heavy fogs sit in San Francisco Bay. e.g. The Internet changes everything. Mobile changes everything. It's a new way of doing business. It's a new way of shopping. It's the new TV. It's a new way of ... thinking. It is going to disrupt everything. Software is eating the world...
And yet each time we peel back the layers we discover the Internet hasn't really changed anything. It merely feeds off what was preexisting and represents it to us anew... at a shiny new price.
Consequently the first and only law of the Fauxion is any statement about the growth and impact of the Internet, Social Media, Mobile, Telecoms and IT on the economy is a Fauxion until proven other wise.
The simplest expression of how a Fauxionist thinks compared to a MobCon "artiste" is in the ideas we have about money.
A MobCon thinker would argue that the transition from plastic to mobile payments is a revolution in the payments industry. Where as a Fauxionist would ask the question how has the Internet or Mobile Fundamentally changed our ideas about money? After all money is one of the purest forms of media (i.e. Information) we have ever created. And if Meaning is Irrelevant in Information Theory and by extension in the database and on the Internet, how does this idea fundamentally change how we think about and act in relation to money?
You see for our Universe to change, our ideas have to change. Mobile wallets don't change our Universe they merely change our habits. We have to explore the deeper questions of reputation and trust to understand how the Internet and Mobile Communications can radically and fundamentally change our ideas about money.
We need to ask the question does money still have meaning when today it is little more than bits of data pushed around the network? Does it suffer from the same Free economics or the economics of abundance that plagues digital content on the Internet? Has money and by extension all those other Financial instruments been rendered meaningless by the network? Did this two decade old road to meaningless on the Internet actually fuel and accelerate the path to the GFC? And finally, if the Internet has changed our world so radically why can't we use it today to solve the world's ongoing financial crisis and create a better life for all of humanity?
The Fauxionary answer to that of course is the Internet just isn't that special. We use it to optimise the performance of the existing systems. Not to create radical new ones. The whole concept of the disruptive Internet is fundamentally flawed. We should be talking about the optimalnet.
Hence the Fauxion holds the utopia of the MobCon accountable.
For the MobCon "Artiste" the Internet changes everything. For the Fauxionist the Internet is merely a funhouse mirror that distorts the way we see everything.
Now I know that some of you have dismissed this History of the Fauxionary Design movement as little more than mere “Bubble Wrap” for the MobCon.
Indeed it has even been suggested that Fauxion is the sound you hear when you rummage around in a box full of bubble wrap.
However let me assure you that the lineage of the FAUX Design movement can be traced back though the rest of the 20th Century to the very beginnings of the UX industry (i.e. motion pictures).
Just as Sergei Eisenstein experimented with the art of the montage (i.e. Mashing pieces of film together to create new meaning) so now do the Fauxs assemble Fauxages (i.e. Mashing activities and messages together to create new meaning).
Nor is the Faux made up of a single design movement. Under the Faux umbrella resides a number of reactionary or breakaway movements.
For example we have the Memealists who specialise in the art of the Memeblage which is of course the assemblage of memes (i.e. virus or replicable units of imitation). This movement of course shouldn’t be confused with the Meowalists who specialise in viral Cat videos.
There are also the Usualists - from the Latin usus - whose pioneering work in the area of usablage during the in 1950’s led to the realisation of the endless lists of likes.
Then there is the cross over group that combine the work of the Memealists and the Ususalists into the Meusblage of personalised experiences (e.g. the digital nest).
For the early filmmakers it was the frame (i.e. the Stage) that shaped their ideas about how meaning is created. Eisenstein himself emerged from the theatre, having theorised about the “Montage of Attractions”, before making films. So whereas Eisenstein pioneered the juxta-positioning of film to create meaning. The Fauxionists have pioneered the juxta-positioning of actions to create meaning.
For the early Fauxs, or the DO's Fauxs as they are better known, it was the keyboard that shaped their ideas about how meaning was created. The Nouveau Fauxs were inspired by the mouse.
The Nouveau Fauxs are of course best remembered for their outrageous Avante Garde works like the truly terrifying "Blue Screen of Death" and more recently something called "Vista".
The more recent Faux movements include the highly respected Dot Fauxs, the So Fauxs and now of course, the newest generation, the iFauxs. A generation inspired by the potential of the Mobile Phone as a fauxionary new list engine and digital nest.
A cursory glance of the mobile app market suggests the future of the Faux Design movement looks to be in good hands. The app stores of all the leading smart phone vendors are awash with List Engines and Bling for the Digital Nest.
If there is any clouds on the Fauxs' horizon it is the emergence of a more experimental design movement. The Xemeisters.
The X's, as they call themselves, are a radical Xemeist group of young designers who excel in the art of the xemeblage. The mashing together of xemes (i.e. units of experiential meaning) into new, and by definition infinitely more compelling and more meaningful, mobile experiences.
Anyone who has read the Xemeist Design Manifesto "The list and its discontents" would instantly recognise that here is a group of young designers that have declared themselves no longer satisfied with merely transposing the desktop computing experience into a mobile world. They are seeking a world of mobile experiences well beyond another era of endless lists and bling for digital nests.
For this edgy collective even Google Goggles amounts to little more than pictures with tags. And, if the Fauxion is the sound of unpacking the bubble wrap then it must be said the Xemeisters enjoy nothing more than popping all of the plastic bubbles one by one. Or, as they say amongst themselves crossing out the fauxs.
This then is the highly competitive landscape of interactive UX design as it stands today. Much as it was during the Golden Age of the TV industry. A veritable xemeblage Faux and the X's.
A one act play for four people
[Setting the Scene]
After a long day at the Excapite conference a Fauxionist, So.Me expert, Xe.Meist and a MobCon artiste adjourn to a Karaoke bar in Liverpool.
Having ordered a couple of warm beers and a dry martini - shaken, not stirred - they are looking forward to the opportunity to perform their individual party pieces. Revolution, Tomorrow never knows and The Magical Mystery Tour. Sadly the So.Me guru already has the mic and having just completed a rather dour rendition of George Harrison's "I Me Mine" is now launching whole heartedly into Sinatra's My Way.
Having pondered the fate of Eleanor Rigby the discussion quickly turns to matters of the day.
Football.
[Draw the curtain open]
MobCon: Did you see that piece on Leeds United by Phil Ball? The one that married Spinioza, Revie and Barcelona into a single catch phrase. What was it?
Fauxionist: You only develop or progress in life when you make significant associations.
MobCon: That's it. You only develop or progress in life when you make significant associations.
Xe.Meister: Yes. Phil Ball said Spinoza felt that the whole of our lives boiled down to a search for these 'associations', and that the rest was just decoration. Which means that a team can begin to improve if it has just one useful association. The more associations. The better the team. This is what makes Barcelona great and Liverpool... Well...
Fauxionist: Do those associations include the referees? and the administrators?
MobCon: What? Get out of here. No a football team is just like a network. Build a stronger network. Build a stronger football team.
Xe.Meister: So does that make Barcelona the perfect team?
MobCon: Well they have it all don't they. Great players, Great movement and Great passing. What's not to like about them? They share the ball around and have so many options. The opposition spend most of the game chasing shadows.
Xe.Meister: So what does football teach us about the future of the Internet and the Web?
Fauxionist: Actually nothing. The illusion between Football and the Network is largely superficial... at least if you take out the assumption of match fixing. You see we look forsimple ideas to explain complicated systems and behaviours. And yet the analogy and the reality are mutually exclusive.
At least until we have football matches played by robots and men.
The web is an electronic network consisting of a potentially infinite number of footballs and an infinite number of real and robot players. It has infinite potential for growth. Unlike football which has 22 players, two goals, one ball, a fixed area of play and set of rules.
The web is chaos. Football a game.
We look for these associations simply because they have currency in a free market. Not because they provide answers to the problems of operating and profiting from the free market.
In the 1800's there was a market for Fairy Stories. Today there is a bubble market for books on business and management based on the unlimited power and potential of networking... in all its forms. Social, Commercial, Interest. You name it. If a line between two points can be drawn it now constitutes a network theory. Better still if the line is between two ideas.
[They all turn and look in despair as the So.Me guru, without missing a beat moves into his next song. "What about me?"]
Fauxionist: Looks like we'll never get our chance at the mic the way he's going at it.
MobCon [Hoping to change the topic]: So did you think to Ged Carroll's idea about the Internet and the Perfect Market? and that Facebook is the digital equivalent of the Hotel California. You an your data can enter, but never leave.
Fauxionist: The problem with the perfect market theory is it assumes equilibrium. And yet any chemist will tell you that once a solution reaches equilibrium then essentially the catalyst is used up and the reaction stops. Markets thrive on activity. Not equilibrium.
As Ged points out Commerce on the web has been little more than a series of arbitrage plays. A game of low hanging fruit. Take the arbitrage play to its logical conclusion and we'll see a world in the not too distant future were people walk down the street taking pictures, or capturing the sounds of the world around them, with their mobile phone and then sending orders for what they have discovered directly through to the manufacturers and what's left of the arbitrage plays.
Under this scenario commerce will be little more than a game of mobile discovery and instant gratification delivered directly to your door.
MobCon: Actually even that doesn't take it far enough. If everyone has 3-D printers at home. Then It will be waiting for them on the printer when they get home.
You see the economic challenge of our day is not to seek the perfect market.
The optimisation of the old economy.
It is to use the MobCon, the convergence of everything into the mobile web, as the catalyst to reinvent our whole economy.
You see the network is the answer.
Fauxionist: So does this mean the future of the western economies will be dominated by the network, manufacturers of mobile gadgets and 3-D printers and purveyors of bags of magic dust? If that's our future then I reckon the network is the problem.
Xe.Meister: Sounds brilliant to me. Hey. Who knows we may even be able to print out a whole new team of footballers for next season?
MobCon: You mean like those printable drones?
MobCon:Xe.Meister: Yeah. They can't be any worst than the current crop we have playing for.
Fauxionist: I suppose the networked future might not be all that bad. Who knows we might even be able to beat Barcelona. Wouldn't that be something after all these years.
[The So.Me Guru starts to sing a mournful rendition of "You'll never walk alone"]
Xe.Meister: You know lads. I don't think this guy is ever going to give the mic up. Who's for a singalong or bit of Guitar Hero followed by a game on the X-Box?
I'll be Man U.
[They all get up and walk off. Draw the curtain and dim the lights]
So how to finish this so you get the message? Provide a clue to the riddle buried in spaces between the posts.
Look. I know most of you out there are big fans of hip hop but to be honest it sounds more like the teenage babysitter has taken to bong upstairs to help set the mood for a round of bed time nursery rhymes. You can hear the origins of a beat in there but the space between their head and tongue occupies a higher plane of existence.
So in keeping with my geriatric tastes in popular music I'm going to close off this tribute to the MobCon with a melody of some of Robert Palmer's greatest hits... Simply irresistible & Addicted to Love... Updated for the So.Me generation
... And I want you to help out with the chorus. Nothing like a bit of audience engagement to warm things up.
I want you to do two things.
The first thing is to hold up an imaginary iPhone with your left hand. Place it directly in front of your face and then use the index finger of your right hand to swipe the screen.
That's it. Just keep doing that. From side to side like metronome keeping time.
Now for the response to the chorus.
It goes like this
Might as well share it, you're addicted to txt
And as you sing it. With your finger waving from side to side. I want you to turn to the person standing next to you and smile.
For those of you who don't have anyone close nearby then go find a mirror and sing to yourself.
OK ready? You remember the line? Repeat after me.
Might as well share it, you're addicted to txt
OK. Let's get on with the show.
Wow this so excitable
It invigorates my cuticles, yeah yeah
That kind of touch is magical
This phone is anything but typical
Let's see those iPhones held high!! And keep swiping!!
She's a phone you'd endorse, she's an iPhone of course
You're embarrassed to use Android when there's one in the room
Nokia used to look good to me, but now I find the iPhone
Simply irresistible, Simply irresistible
These apps are so powerful, huh
The choice is incredible
The appeal is irrepressible
This phone is so desirable
She's a gadget with more, that leaves us in awe
It deserves the awards, I bought one because
Nokia used to look good to me, but now I find the iPhone
Simply irresistible, Simply irresistible
Simply irresistible (It's a great design, you can see where the money went)
Simply irresistible (It's all mine, Android's not the way to go)
Simply irresistible (It's a great design, you can see where the money went)
Simply irresistible (It's all mine, Androids' not the way to go)
That's it I can feel the groove from here.
Now let's try it without the iPhone. That's it just the right index finger. Side to side. Not too fast.
Not too slow. Let's change gear.
Your phone is on, and your all alone
Your mind is not your own
Your palm sweats, your finger shakes
Another swipe is what it takes
You can't sleep, you can't speak
There's no doubt, you're in deep
Your wrist is tight, you can't type
Another txt is all you need
Whoa, you like to think that you're immune to the stuff, oh yeah It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough You know you're gonna have to share it, you're addicted to txt
OK. Here we go. You lot out there ready? This is your moment! Get those fingers waving and the voices proclaiming!
Might as well share it, you're addicted to txt
Might as well share it, you're addicted to txt
Might as well share it, you're addicted to txt
Might as well share it, you're addicted to txt
Might as well share it, you're addicted to txt
Did you enjoy that? Great. Now one last song before we all go home. It's getting late and we all have more important things to be doing tomorrow morning.
I'd like to close off the set with a Rod Stewart classic from the mid-1970's updated for the So.Me generation.... It's was called Sailing. But today we are sharing...
And I'll need your help. I want you to hold up your imaginary iPhone one last time and pretend that you are scrolling down and then swiping from left to right with your right index and second finger.
That's it. Scroll down and then left to right. A two finger movement.
Slowly, gently count the beats. Scroll and swipe. Scroll and swipe.
OK. Great. Let's go. And don't forget to join in if you know the words.
I am sharing, I am sharing,
once again, 'cross the web
I am sharing, here on Facebook,
to be friends with you, all for free.
Look at that movement. Scroll and swipe. Scroll and swipe. I'd like to say it's all in the wrist action but you need to move your whole arm if you are going to do it properly. OK next verse...
I am tweeting, I am tweeting,
like a bird 'cross the sky.
I am tweeting, here on Twitter,
to be followed by you, all for free.
What a sight. The whole world. One movement. One memory. One shared moment.
Will you read me, Will you read me?
thro' the network, far away,
I am typing, forever typing,
to be consumed by you, all for free.
And don't forget to turn to your friends and share the action. If you're at home then look in the mirror. And don't forget to simile.
Do you understand it, Do you really understand it?
All these words I have to say?
I 'mleft wondering, forever wondering,
do you get it?, who can say.
Last verse. One voice. Here we go. A last hoorah before a long goodbye...
We are sharing, we are sharing,
once again, in the clouds
We are sharing, thoughts and stories,
to be consumed by everyone, all for free.
Oh everyone, thoughts and stories, all for free.
Oh everyone, thoughts and stories, all for free.
Oh everyone???
Wow. How good was that?
Did you feel like the whole world was with you? Well at least just for a moment? A shared moment? A shared moment that was already memory before you had a chance to share the moment with others? A memory without meaning. Just a moment with movement?
You were doing the movement, right? The scroll and then the swipe? If you didn't do the movement while I was singing you missed the whole message. Best go back to the beginning and start again. As I have said before the business of blogging is in the performance.
But if you did do the movement then you'll understand why that is it. That's all there is. The share laid bare. The network effect explored and exposed. The movement is the meaning.
For now the hands are tired. Eyes are tired. But the mind is satisfied. So let's end it here.
Thanks for coming. You all know where you can find me.
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