post-scarcity communication.

[My understanding of the relationship between scarcity and conflict has always been fairly straight forward. Conflict occurs when scarcity necessitates competition for a resource. This happens with land, with food, with money, significant others, etc. If there is one of something, and two people want it, conflict ensues. As such, I've always idealized the concept of a post-scarcity reality. While there are a bunch of ideas associated with the concept of the singularity, the hope of living in a post-scarcity society is the one that interests me the most.]

I recently started flirting with the idea that we have reached a post-scarcity state in the western world, in regards to human-to-human communication. (I'm intentionally not getting into advertising messages, here.)

With email, text messaging, twitter, facebook, blogs, phones, voicemail, call waiting, snail mail, email, instant messaging, skype, MMS, and so on, there are so many means of communication, instant or asynchronous, visual or auditory or both, tied to no specific location, that often the only justifications for not contacting someone are forgetfulness, avoidance or time-scarcity, which is more or less ranking other activities above communicating with the person in question.

This becomes clear when asked why you didn't invite someone along, or ask their opinion before making a choice - when pressed, often the only answer is 'I didn't think to' or 'I didn't want to', very rarely can one honestly respond that it was impossible.

Reaching a post-scarcity state in communication has the effect of intensifying conflict in relation to time-scarcity. By making a decision to not contact someone, you are in essence making the decision that other activities outrank communication with that individual.

This means that failing to respond, react, reach out and share concepts, thoughts and ideas is no longer excusable. If something is important, and not addressed, it is because you have chosen other tasks above addressing it, or you have simply chosen not to.

Post-scarcity communication means you aren't allowed to be too busy, or distracted, or out of reach when opportunity or crisis appears.

No one is going to believe "couldn't be reached for comment" unless you have a very unusual situation that can be clearly demonstrated.

Keep that in mind as you go about your business.

tv and music don't have the same problem.

Filesharing has complicated things immensely for the music industry, and everyone knows this.  The core issue is that money used to be made selling CDs (or records, or tapes...) and now the industry needs to develop new revenue streams to solve that problem.

TV never made money selling TV.  The money comes from advertising aired during the programs.  Again, this is obvious.

The thing is, making it dead easy to access something means more people do it, and that people do more of it.  The average music collection size has skyrocketed due to filesharing.  The average amount of TV that people watch is likely similarly impacted by illegal downloads.

If what you sell is eyeballs aimed at a screen, and more eyeballs are watching your content for longer, this is a good thing.  If you can't find a way to make money from these added eyes and hours, you have forgotten what your business it.

Dear TV,

You create filmed content, and then sell advertising based on the data you can collect for who is watching individual shows.

None of this has to be tied to cable distribution, or TV screens, time slots, limited availability, production realities, or what came before.

You attract eyeballs, and then sell them based on demographic information.  Focus on doing that, rather than doing the specific version that worked perfectly, before everything changed.

Sincerely,

Jon

the short version (again).

Social media means anyone can publish.

Twitter, etc, mean people can publish as a reaction, with minimal effort, minimal forethought, at will, and connect to other people.

One aspect of this is that everything is now 'on the record', so we have two choices:

1) Freak out about anything that is remotely insulting, insensitive, or inaccurate; or

2) Accept that 'publishing' as an act has changed, and stop pretending a facebook status is remotely the same the New York Times, because both involve published text.

If we choose option one, which many people seem to think is the only option, people stop using social media to communicate, and start treating it as a form of resume.  This kinda ruins things.

If we choose option two, we have to do what we've done with file-sharing.  Ignore the law and established order, hoping that eventually it will become common enough that change will be forced upon society.  This is based on the idea that law should reflect the standards of society, not the other way around.

Note that I don't think accountability should be reduced.  I just think we all need to accept that publishing is not what it once was.  We've created a massive system of laws, rule, social behaviours and authorities attached to the act of publishing, all based on it being something only a chosen, dedicated few can do.

Reading was like that once, too.  I think we can all agree moving on from that was a good call.

question four: truncated vs full RSS feeds.

What are the benefits between full RSS feeds, and truncated feeds that link back to the original content?

Full RSS feeds indicate that you actually want people to read what you are writing. That you value the ease of your readership, and you want them to have at least some control over the information you've decided to create and share with them. Full RSS feeds lower the barrier to read content, because no clicking is necessary. Full RSS feeds are generally less of a hassle on mobile devices, because they don't require opening a new page.

Full RSS feeds are an indication that you are creating content because you want people to see it, not because you want to sell ad space on your page. And given the relatively low levels of RSS adoption, and the ability to include ads in RSS, it's not a huge sacrifice.

The benefits of truncated RSS feeds, linking back to the original site, include bringing more visitors to the original site, which may drive traffic to other content located there. The original formatting and design, as well as the framing that the page layout provides, is left intact (this is one of the reasons I was a latecomer to RSS, I like seeing different designs). This might result in more ad revenue. Maybe. Truncated RSS is great, if you see feeds as a kind of bait, and your site as a kind of trap.

My recommendations, in order: Have a full RSS feed. Failing that, offer an ad-supported full feed, or an ad-free truncated feed. Failing that, have a truncated feed, and be amazed at how little of your content actually gets read by RSS users, because you seem to have missed the point.

[This is the last in a series of my answering my own questions, which I think would help a few people when it comes to interviewing potential media hires. I am glad that this is over with, and apologize for how whiny I got at the end there.]

the age of accountability.

Many moons ago, I wrote a post about something I called the Paparazzi Panopticon. I'm fairly sure I forgot to attribute the original idea to Bentham, focusing entirely on Foucault, but the core idea, a democratized version of the all-seeing eye, has never stopped being interesting to me.

I've been having several conversations in this vein lately, focused on accountability. People are accountable for each word of every email they send, anything they post online, comments and images published through social media sites, anything that happens on video, audio, or print. And nothing ever goes away, because we aren't dealing with one outlet that can be 'reasoned with' or 'bullied', we're dealing with reality.

The reality is, the internet has made us all accountable for anything we do, either as a means of recording our actions, or as a means of publishing them.

And this is a Very. Good. Thing.

If the method of surveillance is in the hands of the government, I'd be terrified, and suggest that you adopt a similar course of action. This is because I rarely feel as though the government has similar values to mine. And improper action only gains awareness online when it becomes a cause pushed by a passionate community. Short version: in our democratized panopticon, cops shooting a restrained youth will be made public. My use of orphan works to illuminate a point in a presentation? If no one is impacted negatively, there isn't an uprising.

Accountability isn't a bad thing. Ideally, it just means that we all do as few things we aren't proud of as possible. The counter argument is that people will be punished for anything they do that doesn't toe a company or government line.

My counter argument for that? It won't be too long before companies and governments demanding total control and limitation of employee's private expression becomes the latest infraction to spark a collaborative response. The internet made Tropicana change its logo in a few weeks. I think we can get people to care about corporate attacks of the freedom of expression that private citizens have.

Will people get fired for telling off clients, even indirectly, over social media? Yes. And they should. Because the most important lesson yet to be learned by most of us is that THIS IS REAL LIFE TOO. It's not a hiding place where you can act in ways that would shame you in real life. It's not a playground anymore, not entirely. It's another facet of real life. The separation many of us hide behind is flimsy at best.

This is real life. Real life means accountability, which means better actions, and better people. We just can't let ourselves get caught in the trap of spending out time policing the minor issues, rather than uniting to deal with the major ones.

question five: list 5 books.

List the five books most influential to your view of communication:

1. The Rebel Sell

2. Here Comes Everybody

3. Understanding Media

4. Channel Zero

5. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

If you have read, or do read, all of the above, I probably want to be your friend. Just saying.

[This is the 5th in a 5 part series, answering questions I suggested be asked of any potential media hire. I haven't done number 4 yet, because I wanted to answer this one first. Out of order FTW.]

question three: publishing online.

What services have you used to publish online?

Diaryland, Blogger, LiveJournal, Wallop, Flickr, Blogger (this time after Google acquired it), Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter.

I am nearly certain there are others, but these are the ones I can recall at the moment.  Any obvious things I've missed?

[This is the third in a series of posts wherein I answer the questions I suggested posing to potential employees working in media.]

different, not right or wrong.

People are usually good at being right, sometimes good at being wrong, and usually terrible at understanding those aren't the only two options.

This came to mind when I was discussing different viewpoints on social media, in relation to the old guard.  Even if people admit that social media is important and can't be ignored, they often fall into one of the first two categories.

People accustomed to working with traditional media sometimes think it's their job to educate bloggers on how media works.  By educate, they mean: impose the behaviours of old media on new media.  Turn a new thing, into a new channel for the old thing.  This is "I am Right" thinking.

Almost as bad is "I am Wrong" thinking, where someone with a long history working in traditional media, and a large amount of expertise and wisdom, decides that they do not understand social media, never will, and therefore should attempt to stay away from it.  By assuming they are flat out wrong in relation to anything centered on social media, less of that hard won wisdom and skill gets put to use, and much of it is applicable.

It's harder to admit that things are just different.  That it's not about being right or wrong, it's about taking what you've learned and developed, and seeing what works with the new world order.

Different is harder because the only option is fighting to keep an open mind, while considering new information through the experience that informs wise action.  When you are used to either being right, or wrong, this comes across as a massive amount of work.

Don't discount the older guy who says Twitter is a waste of time, even though we all disagree with him.  He probably knows a thing or two about how to make 140 characters impactful, or engaging, if you can express why everyone would benefit from his expertise.

[I suppose this could be considered the counterpoint to my post on millennial arrogance.]

question two: over-hyped social media service.

What social media / social networking service do you think is the most over-hyped?

For me, the only answer is LinkedIn.  I understand it's importance, I have a profile myself, and I do my best to keep it updated.  But for me, LinkedIn fails on the 'social' element, and that keeps me from making it part of my day to day usage.  I don't have relationships on LinkedIn, (and I fully admit this is my fault) I only have information there.

LinkedIn serves a particular niche, in my eyes - People who see the power of social media, and are still unnerved it.

Twitter has conversations, which lead to being exposed.  Facebook has history and context, which lead to being exposed.  Blogs have content, which paired with context, leads to being exposed.  LinkedIn seems designed to avoid exposure at all costs, and feels like it is based on the premise that your work life, and work social ecosystem, should be kept separate from your personal one.  To me, this feels like a service designed for people who like the idea of social media, but are terrified of incorporating it into their lives, and dealing with the exposure related to that.

Again, I understand the appeal of LinkedIn.  But for me, it feels as though it was designed for a subset of the current generation of employers, the people who think an embarrassing picture on Facebook, from five years in the past, is an accurate indicator of an individual's ability to contribute to an office environment.

So, I don't think LinkedIn in the future.  I think it serves a specific missing link between the people who have no interest in using social media, and the people who will soon be the only target market that matters: those who live in social media.

[This is the second in a series of posts where I answer the questions I suggested people ask potential media hires.]

just say no to ghostwriting.

Ghostwriting blogs came up today at Dave Fleet's Podcamp Toronto talk on Ethics in Social Media, and I've been thinking about it all day.

I disagree with ghostwriting in general, but I understand why it happens.  I disagree with ghostwriting in social media especially, because social media requires authenticity and trust to overcome the disparity in authority it faces, when compared to traditional media outlets.

That was a generalization, but I think it's a fair point.  I get my news from print media, and from bloggers.  I trust the Globe and Mail because it's the Globe and Mail.  If I trust information I get from your blog, it's usually because I trust the person I've seen writing and sharing that information with me and every other reader.  That trust is developed over time, and I think it's got more to do with the value of social media as a news source than speed does.

To clarify, I have no problem with hiring freelance writers, or bringing on unpaid guest writers, to pen entries for any blog, as long as it's made clear in some way that this is happening, or may happen.  If your blog has a note on the about page that says 'entries on (blog name) are often the result of a collaboration between myself and a ghostwriter', I might not like it, but I won't be able to justify getting mad about it later on.

My core issue with ghostwriting in general is it's not really justifiable.  If the value of your outlet or blog is the brand, it shouldn't matter who is writing, as long as it's associated with the brand.  If this is the case, there's no argument for misleading readers as to who the author is.  If, conversely, the value of your blog is the personality creating it, there's no justification (at all) for misleading your readership about what content is coming from that personality.

There's some overlap here, but the point stands even if we're talking about a 'Personal Brand'.  If the emphasis is on brand, someone else publishing with your approval (under their own name) should still carry weight.  If the emphasis is on personal, then you are obligated to do it yourself, to whatever extent works for you.

In the session mentioned above, someone pointed out that Barack Obama doesn't write his own speeches.  I (and several others) countered by pointing out that the guy who writes Obama's speeches gets profiled in the New York Times for doing so.  If credit goes where it is due, (or at least doesn't go to someone undeserving) there's nothing to get mad about.