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 29th, 2013

The Future Rests on Legacy

How important is the past to you?

Is everything that was…all that happened…just mere history…dinosaur doings?

Do you subscribe to the notion that nothing that is old is worth knowing and that only the new – the bright and shiny – is valuable?

Frankly, this week I became obsessed with this notion as the company I work for left its office space of 87 years and moved.

Truth is, our building has been outdated for years – as it was built not just in a different era (obviously), but for a different use – it had been designed for doctors and dentists in office suites – in fact, I remember many years ago finding old X-rays in a back closet.

To be fair – when I first entered the building in 1976, its usage state and efficiency quotient were not in my thoughts.

Honestly, I was awed, overwhelmed, intimidated by the sheer energy and power that radiated from the place…to me it was a mecca…I was drawn to it like a magnet. It was the only place I wanted to be.

Yet as time passed and needs changed and changed again and again – as we realized that the structure itself could not support our growth and the future as we envisioned it – we decided to move, and move we did.

All of which leads me to the notion of legacy…the past and the future.

My loyal readers know that I have no patience and little respect for people who throw out the past…who claim to learn nothing from what was…who put little or no value (at least publicly) on bringing the knowledge and wisdom of preceding generations to bear on their doings…who posture that what they do is ex nihilo – sprung out of their fertile creativity – new and unsullied by the ancients.

Needless to say their vision of the future is equally flawed – as they assume that they will not fall into the “long-ago” category, as what they are creating is forever….

By the way – I love the way the retro style in fashion and design plays to that audience…another Ramble perhaps….but a joke nevertheless.

So here I am, obsessed with legacy…excited by my new digs…wondering what they will mean 87 years hence….

And then I read the following…listen:

“We are a continuum. Just as we reach back to our ancestors for our fundamental values, so we, as guardians of that legacy, must reach ahead to our children and their children. And we do so with a sense of sacredness in that reaching.” Paul Tsongas

We are a continuum…I love that thought. We are on a journey that has no end…we are a product of the past that was and the future that will be…legacy is not a stagnant pool of water…legacy is not an artifact in a museum or a historical oddity….

Legacy is a living and breathing thing. Legacy is what we build on and pass on to the next generation and the next…we learn and create seamlessly…changing and molding and evolving and transforming as we grow and move on….

Without Gutenberg there would be no Internet…understand that and you get my view of legacy.

If you think of Gutenberg as analog and us as digital, you are limiting what we can achieve…as many do.

But if you think of Gutenberg as the revolution of widespread sharing and the resultant desire for knowledge – and the Internet as a logical and critical step in that revolution – then the possibilities are endless and go way beyond the next gamification strategy to make a few investors rich.

This week begins our next cycle – we will continue to build our legacy as I hope 87 years from now our successors will as well.

Legacy is yours and yours alone – make it so….

What do you think?

 

 

Posted by David on 04/29 at 06:59 PM
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