Archive for the ‘Culture’ Category

Monday, May 6th, 2013

The Race to be Wrong — Is it Right??

reddit, its (r)editors and “old-fashioned” media channels all took negative hits during the recent tragic Boston bombing and its frantic aftermath.

Interestingly enough, if you cut through the digibabble and pontificating punditry, the issue is actually the same – the need we have to provide the scoop – to be the first – to have the 15 minutes or 15mgs of fame as the source of information that everyone wants but no one yet knows.

Some would say that the CNN and other broadcast news problem is the need to fill 24 hours of airtime with meaningful content – while the digital issue is how to verify the source when torrents of information assault the system.

Stay with me here – cut through the crap and there is no difference. In both instances we have a need to communicate, a need to share, a need to be first, a need to own what no one else has.

In both instances – unverified information from sketchy sources caused bad, wrong, invalid and in some instances hurtful information to be shared. In both instances we distributed “onwards misinformation” – WOM – digital and analog perpetuated the problem and in the end – an old guy who noticed blood on his boat cracked the case.

Bottom line – the power of digital communication and digital sharing is akin to wearing Iron Man’s power suit. It takes our human need and behavior…exponentially increases it, and at its best opens up new and exciting opportunities for problem solving – in fact, that is the true promise of reddit – and it works.

The mistake is to think that the reddit blow up in any way denigrates what they can do or that the mindless chatter we saw on CNN and other broadcast channels in any way denigrates what they do. (Jon Stewart’s take on this is a must see.)

And finally, read up on Dewey-Truman – you know my view – connecting the dots backwards propels us forwards….

At the end of the day…no one person or channel or anything has a total and complete lock on veracity…listen:

“No one can be right all of the time, but it helps to be right most of the time.”
Robert Half

And there you have it. We need to stop making excuses.  Lose the digibabble and figure out how to better vet our incredibly expanded and expanding range of sources. If we don’t? Dewey-Truman will haunt us – exponentially….

What do you think?

 

 

Posted by David on 05/06 at 07:43 PM
  • Following the thread from Graham, Reuters pursue the mantra 'fastest and most accurate', but following this mantra lead them to be swamped by Bloomberg and other news sources who provide 'opinion', which is taking the facts plus the journalists POV to deliver more column inches, therefore publishing slanted coverage, which can easily become inaccurate as a story breaks and morphs ...
    Read more >
    Posted by Simon Milliship on 2013-05-07 07:41:58
  • BBC News and Journalism were an old client of mine and pride themselves on being the news source that will only publish a news piece once it has been validated by three separate sources. It let Sky News own the 'fastest' position but for a public service striving to deliver 'World Class Journalism' integrity of the story outweighed speed ...
    Read more >
    Posted by Graham on 2013-05-06 21:18:56
Monday, April 22nd, 2013

Reality Bites HARD

Reality bites…hard…very hard.

This time, though, Reality is not relative; it’s not decided by cultural or social norms; it’s not linked to social channels or digital magic….

The Boston Marathon Massacre is a Reality defined by death; murder; terrible human destruction; terror; and at its core – hatred…pure and simple. This Reality bit and it bit very hard.

Yet, make no mistake. This is a Reality that is global – it’s a Generation World phenomena…it’s a Reality we have watched; read about and become inured to…until it bit us…up close and personal…but it’s the same Reality nevertheless.

How many of us have seen or read or heard about or even, sadly, experienced similar events in other parts of the world?

Schoolchildren murdered; wedding revelers maimed; policemen gunned down; holy places destroyed…we shake our heads and wring our hands – if even that…and somehow are thankful we don’t live in those places…until it happens where we are…again…

New York; Oklahoma; Seattle; Los Angeles; London; Paris; Moscow; Madrid – places we don’t associate with terror yet have all been victims – some multiple times.

Baghdad; Mumbai; Karachi; Cairo; Beirut; Jerusalem…these are some of the geographies that trip off our tongues as we deplore terror and its aftermath – but unless we live there or in the region, I’m afraid that our interest level and attention span is short and getting shorter.

Until it happens here – here being wherever we are…and it happens to people like us…close to us…people whom we can relate to in everyday cultural and social terms.

Let’s be clear – whatever makes us uniquely who we are…socially; religiously; nationally…whatever divides us geographically…whatever makes us unique by tradition – can often divide us…sadly…but hate for any of us comes from the same place…Listen:

“Hate is the father of all evil.” – David Gemmell

Evil is a global Reality. It knows no boundaries; respects no laws; is not contained by fences or borderlines; has no prejudice, in that it often attacks its own.

Generation World…an outcome of our digital potential…has also given evil new and richer spawning grounds as our magic gets perverted…think Lord Of The Rings or Star Wars….

The Quest is on…

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.

What do you think?

Posted by David on 04/22 at 03:45 PM
Monday, April 1st, 2013

Does Facebook Know it’s Mobile?

Facebook is a mobile company. Already. FULL STOP. In fact, as much or more so than AT&T or Vodafone or Telefonica or whatever local carrier you use in your country or region. In fact, as much as Google or Microsoft or Samsung or Nokia – only different.

So I am mystified by the digibabble and speculation surrounding a potential Facebook phone – whether a good idea or bad is a secondary issue – and the continued chatter and noise that refuses to acknowledge what is versus the continued hope for what might make money for investors with little or no value for users like you and me.

First and foremost – more photos and status updates are posted to Facebook from mobile sources than from computers – DUH!!! Why is this a surprise? Why is it even written about? If all we did was sit at our desks…think about how boring life and Facebook would be…we are all out and about – restaurants, shows, museums, movies, stores (yes…stores), parks, vacations, sports events, you name it – with our friends, significant others, families – whomever – OF COURSE WE POST…that is the point – NO?

Cell phones began our liberation and smartphones continued our exodus from slavery to freedom. No longer were we chained to cables and no longer were we limited to voice calls.

The carriers were at a loss – they wanted greater value than they could get from a mere pipeline – they wanted to charge premium prices for the data they carried – and while they were the original abolitionists of the tyranny of place – they became complacent…collected fees and engaged in price wars. Meanwhile the Googles and Apples of the world were re-imagining the way we untethered.

Search went local – as did we – and as we go, so goes Facebook and Instagram and just about every other social platform idea you can think of – not to mention those that were created to be obviously walkabout like Foursquare, Waze and OKCupid, which allows people to scout dates based on their location.

Bottom line: Facebook is mobile – as mobile as you and me. What they haven’t figured out is how to charge for it – make money from advertising – create bigger shareholder value…although I’d bet most of us agree that user value is still fairly high….

All of which leads us to the matter of the Facebook phone. WHY? Limit development to one maker of hardware? Limit access to holders of a piece of plastic and metal? CRAZY!

Access is in fact the new ownership – who cares what hardware I have so long as I can access the Facebook platform? Make me better apps, more useful sharing tools and YES, please figure out how to deliver me the right advertising in the right way so you can make some money and continue to develop your platform and not end up charging me for access….

GUYS – follow the content…please – don’t follow the analysts who still don’t get what mobile is….and who only want to drive stock price, not user value…Listen:

“The only reason I made a commercial for American Express was to pay for my American Express bill.” Peter Ustinov

I hope that Facebook doesn’t lose the plot….

What do you think?

Posted by David on 04/01 at 04:14 PM
  • David, totally agree. FB has been late to the game in figuring out that everything is mobile, when I am sitting at my desk it is only another view into my connected world. Until recently FB mobile client did not allow for me to create a group! It said go to a computer...at least that is fixed. I have been using ...
    Read more >
    Posted by Jacob Ner-David on 2013-04-03 07:21:29