tom willerer . com

the billboard inflicts itself unbidden upon all but the blind or recluse. Is this not an invasion of privacy? I think it is, and I don’t see that the fact that a billboard is out-of-doors make the slightest difference. Even if it were possible for you to not look at billboards if you didn’t so choose, why in the world should you have to make the negative effort? Moreover, this invasion of your privacy is compounded in its resale to a third party. It is as though a Peeping Tom, on finding a nice window, were to sell peeps at two bits a head.

— http://howtolookatbillboards.com/

I found the above “tweet” interesting for the following reasons:

1. From an outsiders perspective, this message is absurd.  Someone that has never heard of twitter will have a very hard time understanding this message.
2. It’s interesting that with only 140 characters, none are original commentary.
3. Twitter, for all its simplicity and focus, is very complex.  @ signs, # signs, RT.  It’s a whole new lexicon.

The challenge is to look at the rituals and events in your organization (freshman orientation or weekly status meetings or online forums) and figure out how amplify the real reason they exist even if it means abandoning some of the time-honored tasks you’ve embraced. Going around in a circle saying everyone’s name doesn’t build a tribe. But neither does sitting through a boring powerpoint. Working side by side doing something that matters under adverse conditions… that’s what we need.

— Seth’s Blog

As one group amasses huge amounts of centralized power the way that Facebook has, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on the psychological relationship between the site’s owners and its users.

— readwriteweb

Listening dominates on Facebook

From Facebook’s statistics page:

“More than 100 million users log on to Facebook at least once each day”

But

“More than 20 million users update their statuses at least once each day”

By far most people are logging on to Facebook and then just reading what their friends are up to, instead of telling anyone what they are up to.  Conventional wisdom is that Facebook and other social networks are all about sharing (i.e. talking), but it seems that the dominate activity is listening (i.e. spying).

If the modus operandi on Facebook were more about connecting with close friends and family, I think the amount of sharing (i.e. talking) would go up, because for many people broadcasting their lives to a network of semi-close friends and colleagues is a bit intimidating.  Which explains why most people just listen.

My hunch is that in the near future we will find ways to parse down our list of followers to only close friends so that the social aspect of social networking is more prominent, whereas to date it has been much more about the networking.

Having a conversation with a few close friends or family on Facebook is not at all intimidating, and that’s what I think will start to emerge and convince the 80% that are just listening, to talk.

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is routine the enemy of creativity

begin routine

wake up

play with baby

go for run

shower

go to work

stare at computer

eat lunch at desk

awkward conversation in hallway

go home

eat dinner

stare at computer

watch TV

play with baby

read

go to bed

repeat

It’s somewhat strange to reduce my life to a list of actions like this, but this is nonetheless my (more or less) routine.    My question is whether or not routine is the enemy of creativity?  Am I less creative because I have such a routine (which is an argument I hear fairly often)?

I think not.

If that were true, all “creative” people would have no routine, which is certainly not the case.  Routine is good, and allows us to focus on things that matter.  My hunch is that most people hate their routine, which is why they blame routine for their lack of creativity.  So the root cause is a lack of passion for the things within the routine, rather than routine itself.

But I would argue that if you enjoy your routine and have a passion for some of the things within it, then creativity will be a byproduct of engaging with your routine.  So instead of dismissing the idea of having a routine, the focus should be on maximizing the time we spend on things within the routine that we thoroughly enjoy.

“Creativity and discipline go hand in hand.” —Jim Collins, quoted in INC

If you take this to its absurd logical end, we will soon have grntr, which will allow us to grunt our thoughts, feelings and expressions to our friends in 3 grunts or less.

We are actually only in an “age of commodified intelligence” — a “time of conspicuously consumed high culture in which intellectual life is meticulously measured and branded” but generally without true appreciation, writes George Balgobin.

“Facebook is devoted to cataloguing this cultural rebirth,” he adds. “Here people curate their personas and project them at the world.” Yes, the lights are on, but is anybody home?

— Idea of the day

Quality over quantity on social networks

Social networking sites have been growing and dying for quite a few years.  I don’t think they are going away, even if some of the well known, or over hyped options currently in operation are no longer in existence in a few years.  Why?  Because people have an innate need to communicate, share and keep in touch with other people.

But, I do think that many social networking users’ focus will change from obtaining lots of followers to refining their list of followers to just the friends and family for which they want to keep in touch.

It will soon be all about the quality of the connection, rather than the quantity of connections.  In fact, I think social networking sites should not only suggest new people for me to follow, but also people I should likely stop following since we aren’t close enough for it to matter.  That would be helpful.

I’m not sure if people are ready for this yet, though.  It has yet to become burdensome (like email) to monitor the social networking sites for enough people.  But it will.  Until then, I’m going to prune my list of followers and see what happens.

self-fulfilling research

See below for an email from Glue about why I haven’t been using their service much. I’m writing about it here because I found the “survey” they included in the email interesting and totally incomplete.  If I’m being negative, I find it uninsightful and self-fulfilling.

As you can see they only provide three choices, which from their perspective must be the only three choices possible, right?  Wrong.  There are many more reasons that might provide insight into what Glue could do to keep users like me (curious, but not engaged).  At least provide a space for me to write in my own response.

For me, Glue is an interesting idea but in practice I don’t find it very useful.  I think it is partly because there aren’t enough

1. people using Glue

and related,

2. of my friends using Glue.

The other reason I don’t use Glue very often is because although my friends are my friends, they aren’t always the people I want to hear from regarding products or services I’m thinking about purchasing.  For the most part I’m perfectly ok with reading a review from someone I don’t necessarily know, especially if it’s well written and insightful.

That’s what I would have told Glue had they asked correctly.

Hi there,

We noticed that you have not been using Glue: http://getglue.com lately.

If you have a moment please tell us why, it would really help us improve the service.

(1) I have uninstalled Glue
(2) I have Glue installed, but it does not show up anymore
(3) Firefox is not my primary browser

Thank you!

Get Glue:http://getglue.com
The Network That Sticks With You

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inspiration is elusive with an organized Internet

From Wikipedia:

Inspiration refers to an unconscious burst of creativity in an artistic, musical, or other intellectual endeavor such as the invention of a new scientific theory. Literally, the word means “breathed upon,”

Typically I find myself inspired by what I read, view, or otherwise stumble across on the Internet.  But lately I’ve been feeling as if my Internet experience is too organized for inspiration.  There is no randomness, discovery, or freshness in my experience of the web.  This isn’t all bad, though.  I like that my Internet experience is organized.  I couldn’t live without google reader.

But

I wish there were a better recommendation engine for my Internet experience.  One that could help me discover new music, blogs, short documentaries, photography, etc.  I want it to suggest something to me, but allow me to feel as if I discovered it.

I’m looking for that unconscious burst of creativity sparked by something I discover on the Internet.  Perhaps the role of the Internet is to bring us closer to sources of individual inspiration, so that we can be breathed upon.

The wires between the brain cells, the connections, are the things that you can modify throughout life,” he says. “They change and they improve through your 40s and 50s and 60s.

— npr.org

thoughts on twitter: editorializing

In a post titled, “New Gatekeepers Twitter, Apple, YouTube need Transparency in Editorial Picks”, MediaShift nicely summarizes what’s been happening:

Twitter began listing Suggested Users a couple months ago for newbies who weren’t following anyone and didn’t get how the service worked. By highlighting popular Twitter feeds from news organizations such as the New York Times and celebrities such as Britney Spears, Twitter hoped to hook new users. The problem? There was no explanation of how anyone made it onto such a list, and all the featured users started racking up huge numbers of followers.

Then…

Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis made a kind of indecent proposal to Twitter, saying he would pay $500,000 to be a Suggested User for three years — equating it with a Super Bowl ad. Twitter didn’t bite.

And then…

Blogger and tech guru Dave Winer decided to start his own Twitter-like microblogging service, and was upset about the way Twitter went about picking Suggested Users.

Now that we’re caught up, I have a few thoughts.

1. Why do we care if they editorialize?  Are any of these services claiming to be “fair and balanced”?  Besides, it’s actually interesting to following some of their suggested users.
2. Comparing being a suggested user on Twitter to a super bowl ad is ridiculous.  If a Super Bowl ad is a fire-hose, then Twitter is a leaking water balloon.  Seriously.
3. I’m all for transparency, but I think it’s fairly obvious why twitter is suggesting those users - they’re popular / celebrities.
4. Twitter isn’t like email, as some suggest.  Txt mssgs are like email.

File this under ramblings.

As an editor and a lover of books, I sympathize. But why should a civilization that reads electronically be any less literate than one that harvests trees to do so? And why should a transition away from the printed page lessen our appreciation and love for printed books? Hardbacks these days are disposable vessels, printed on ever crappier paper with bindings that skew and crack. In a world where we do most of our serious reading on screens, books may again thrive as expressions of craft and design. Their decline as useful objects may allow them to flourish as design objects.

— Slate

The idea that you can give things away online, and hope that advertising revenue will somehow materialise later on, undoubtedly appeals to users, who enjoy free services as a result. There is business logic to it, too. The nature of the internet means that the barrier to entry for new companies is very low—indeed, thanks to technological improvements, it is even lower in the Web 2.0 era than it was in the dotcom era. The internet also allows companies to exploit network effects to attract and retain users very quickly and cheaply. So it is not surprising that rival search engines, social networks or video-sharing sites give their services away in order to attract users, and put the difficult question of how to make money to one side. If you worry too much about a revenue model early on, you risk being left behind.

Ultimately, though, every business needs revenues—and advertising, it transpires, is not going to provide enough. Free content and services were a beguiling idea. But the lesson of two internet bubbles is that somebody somewhere is going to have to pick up the tab for lunch.

— economist.com