Is Shakespeare any less The Bard if I read him on my iPad 2 in the Kindle app?
Is Game of Thrones any less TV if I watch it in my hotel room in Barcelona on my laptop via Slingbox?
Is The King’s Speech any less of a movie if I enjoy it with my friends using my Xbox LIVE Netflix account to stream it to the Big Screen in my living room?
Are the Doors any less of a Band or is their music somehow diminished because I created a Doors channel on Pandora, bought some cuts on iTunes and right now am listening to it on my Internet radio?
Bottom line…we continue to have the wrong arguments and discussion.
It’s time we let the technology wash over us; become transparent; fact of life.
It’s time we stopped obsessing over feeds, speeds and screens.
What is clear is that people still demand and expect great content.
What is clear is that they still enjoy reading, watching and listening to great, entertaining, educational, informational, emotional, mind-bending words, images and music.
Frankly – it is so last century to believe that revolutions are driven by technology. Here is the truth – they are driven by people – just ask the 99%’ers.
Sure they use technology – but what revolutionaries in history didn’t use the technology they could – see the Guillotine….
Bottom line – listen – see last week – and listen:
“Men have become the tools of their tools.” Henry David Thoreau
And there you have it from two centuries ago…
Tools enable – it’s what pulled us from the primal goop and differentiated us from the rest of the organisms inhabiting our little planet.
People. People are what make the difference…let’s not lose sight of where the power really is and where the future lies.
What do you think?
If I read a book on my Kindle, continue it on my PC Kindle app and finish reading it at Barnes and Noble on my usual Sunday visit, I am still totally enjoying the same book. Is the medium still the message. When people see me read my Kindle and ask if I still read (hard copy) books, I have to laugh because they just don’t get it. Technology enables us, it is NOT the be all and end all. In fact my (old) Kindle is tomorow’s Fire ( I keep hinting to my wife) and next year’s ???? (Dick Tracy Watch?)
I could not agree more. Device channels are like media channels are like marketing and business. We all need to be breaking down more silos so that we can collaborate more fully.
I key in on your word \emotional\ and have been thinking a lot about this lately in context of the work we do for clients. Sadly, in these days of social this and mobile that, we too often are forgeting to focus on the basic \emotions\ we try to invoke…that hopefully lead to some sort of action. It is a worthy challenge for us all to consistently push ourselves and our teams toward that emotional core without getting lost in the delivery mechanisms. As the passing of Steve Jobs reminded me, he was a master at understanding and creating emotional responses. The products or technology he developed were simply a means to deliver those emotions.
Couldn’t agree more with this post. Thoreau said it well, we’ve become tools or our tools, maybe Westworld isn’t too far behind? We’ve become obsessed with latest, shiniest new gadget and forgotten that what matters hasn’t changed. People read/consume/engage with what they like, sometimes it’s an ad. And that ad, or advertising is still the same, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, or CNN. If we create interesting things, then people will respond, if they’re not interesting, then we’re wasting our clients money. All too often we’re talking to ourselves in meetings about creative product. I’m with Lee Clow, 90% of advertising (this includes websites, Facebook, social media initiatives, regular ads, updating it for our modern age) sucks. We spend too much time defending mediocrity, rather than fighting for greatness. And all these tools get noticed for the fact that they are new, not for what they’ve facilitated.
good quote from Thoreau.
We should also appreciate the differences between each medium. In person conversation allows us to observe the facial expressions and tone of voice. E-mail permits us to time-shift and multi-task. Video permits repetition…..and so on.
Very interesting topic, I know I’m a sucker for romantic rituals. As cliché as it sounds, for me the wine with a cork tastes better than with a twist off, Miles Davis sounds better on vinyl (180 gram) than MP3, and opening a ragged, dog eared copy of anything by F. Scott Fitzgerald or the beat writers gets me into the story even before I’ve read the first words. I don’t believe we will ever be able to look at content divorced from medium. There is experience in a medium and experience is crucial to content.
I am reminded of an old tech term, GIGO–Garbage In, Garbage Out. A lot of people get caught up on the tech and miss the point that at the heart of it it needs to be useful and/or interesting. A channel is only as good or bad as the message it carries. Yes, the ‘pipes’ add to the experience but would never be enough to compensate for mediocre content.
Following phrase (that you mentioned) says it all:
“Men have become the tools of their tools.” Henry David Thoreau
It is true that technology is driving our lives these days and it has gone to an extent that if today we dont have internet (for any technical reasons) our life stops… we cannot even move our body… we become zombie… and that is one of bad effect we had from technology…
And there is one more concern I have, I think with the mass development and usage of technology we are somehow losing the worth of content… imagine there was a time when you buy a book (at quite high price) so because you’ve spent some good amount so read it to its max and you enjoy it… now I’ve hundreds of books & magazines in my tab and non of them is finished properly… same is the case with every thing that has been digitally produced like music… when we use to buy it on CDs or Cassette we heard all of it and again & again… but now even the music has lost its worth… so in short the seriousness of content is gone…
You make a very good point, David. But let’s not forget one thing: Shakespeare never intended for his work to be read, whether on a page or on an iPad. Shakespeare was a playwright. He wrote plays that were intended to be performed by living people in front of living audiences. His primary goal was to bring people together. While technology can and should be invisible to us in terms of delivering content to people, don’t imagine for a minute that it brings people together. The main problem we are faced with in this century, especially as parents, is how to overcome the growing trend of separation within our society. Yes, we can ‘connect’ through the internet, social media, etc. But are these connections real? And, more important, do they foster a sense of belonging or merely add to a sense of alienation?
Yes, eating fish besides the sea is very diferent than eating fish up in the city.
Listening to Mozart or Straus in Viena is darn different than listening them on anything
back in Costa Rica! The right media helps improve the message´s flavor.
tb1272812@1272812…
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