how we deal with real change.

I  never shut up about my beloved iPhone, but it's one of the few things I've owned in the last 5 years that has actually changed anything.  Clearly, this is more about the rise of smartphones in general, than a specific gushing about Apple's current gadget du jour.

I recently read Cory Doctorow's 'Little Brother'* on my iPhone, through Stanza.  Last night, I read several comics released in an iPhone application format, from iVerse media.  Both of these experiences got me thinking.

We deal with new technology in one of two ways, generally.  These are both examples of the first way, which is usually the most successful and the majority of uses; taking something we already do well and finding a way to emulate that on the new platform.  Taking content created for one form (print media) and finding a way to make it work reasonably well in another form.

The second way we deal with new technology is to think about the essence of things we currently do (in this case, text narrative, graphic fiction, etc), and then devise a new way to do them based on the abilities and limits of the new technology.  This is substantially more rare, because it's very easy to do poorly, and very difficult to do if new technology isn't standardized.  Also, in comparison, written text has centuries of R&D behind it, any new form is pre-Alpha, by comparison.

That said, the second method, creating a wholly new way to do something important or interesting, is where the massive transformational power is.  It's at least worth spending some time considering this approach whenever you're tasked with reconfiguring content from one medium to another.

*It's good enough that not only will I recommend it (and probably blog about ways in which it inspired me later on), but that I'm planning on giving it to the majority of YA fiction readers in my extended family, who I've always worried weren't geeky enough. 

my english degree vs. my new media savvy

Vacations are good for creating a distance from one’s normal circumstances.  This has been useful as I’ve got a more accurate, I think, view of what I’ve been doing right and wrong in many creative and professional endeavors.  I’m not going to examine every conclusion I’ve come to, but I’ve spotted a large number of holes in how I’ve been conducting my online life, especially through this blog.

I’ve been playing to my personal strengths and habits, rather than the strengths of the medium.  In other words, I’ve been spooging habits from other writing I’ve done in my life into my blogging.  My English degree is showing through the cracks in the following prominent ways.

1)    What I write here is generally far too long.  Reading 1200-1500 words on a blog isn’t pleasant, and most people won’t do it.  But given my experience writing Lit papers, this feels like a short amount of space to express complex ideas from beginning to end.  I’m naturally verbose, but this is an easy thing to fix in two ways, I can either be concise, or break things up into multiple posts.   Which brings me to…

2)    Blogging is naturally serialized.  As in, nothing HAS to be expressed in terms of one long essay and complete idea.  I can take it piece by piece and spread it out, as most of it isn’t time sensitive.  If I published more complex ideas in 3 -5 post sections, it would also help me with my other major problem…

3)    Inconsistency makes it difficult to keep people interested.  I tend to not write at all, and then write 3000 words in a week, then not write for another 6 days.  Things don’t need to be all boom and bust, but here we are.

I’m hoping that by addressing these issues, I can point them out to other people, and watch them more closely myself.  The other big issue, or course, is that all I’ve posted here in a long, long time is text, which is, to say the least, not very engaging to all readers.

More to come.

'the medium is the message' and 'messages by the medium' - corporate social media.

Everyone remembers 'The Medium is the Message' - it's succinct, and is a great reminder that means of delivery alters potential interpretation.  It's a classic for a reason.

We're reaching the era of 'Message for the Medium' - your content will have to be defined by, and tailored to, the limitations and most importantly cultures of each medium.  Regurgitating the same creative across social networks, banner ads, billboards and TV spots won't work unless your creative operates like a native, to the natives on each platform.  Awkwardness is tantamount to invasion, and will be responded to as such.

Corporate blogging is almost always terrible, mostly because it's usually press release content, advertising content, or marketing content designed for another channel, spooged into blog form.

[Spooged is, if I remember right, taken from Douglas Coupland's Microserfs - the context is in taking an application made for one OS, and then screwing with it until it works on another one.]

Spooging content is poised to become an even bigger problem, for many reasons.  First, social media has larger corporations in a panic, and they are starting to demand a presence without understanding that they don't fit.  Second, old business models are being made less relevant by the second, so content and business plan are being spooged into new media in an attempt to 'modernize' without having to completely re-create a revenue stream.  Third, mobile internet, and mobile social media, are going to be dead easy to sell (who wouldn't want to advertise in someone's pocket) and hard to execute.  The first iteration of this will be horrid, like most first iterations.

Some corporations have such a perfect angle, though, I wish I could convince them to blog just so I could enjoy it.  The one I want most: 3M's Research and Development Division.  A bunch of geniuses with a colossal budget creating tiny outbursts of the future, and sharing it with us step by step and constructive narratives by both the research team, and the project.  But it won't happen, due to trade secrets and the simple fact that it's too alien a concept for the higher ups to approve.  But it's an example where a corporate element would actually fit into the character and requirements of blogging, as opposed to trying to turn the medium into something more familiar.