Month: January 2009

  • Lost Universes

    Sometime back, I got an email forward – A Violinist in the Metro, about the world famous musician Joshua Bell, who, in 45 minutes, played 6 Bach pieces, with a violin worth $3.5 million, at a metro station in Washington, and collected $32 for the effort. A couple of days back, he had sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats had averaged $100. The incident was a social experiment by Washington Post to check out whether we perceive beauty in a commonplace environment and whether we stop to appreciate it. The findings are a testament of the fast paced life we live, and the things we miss out on.

    But a few other facts in this incident interested me. For one, the crowd segment that paid the most attention to the musician were children. Their parents had to forcibly tug them away. Even if we are cynical and claim that its just curiosity, and not an appreciation of music, I still wonder about our life graph, and the part where we lose our innate curiosity. And its not just curiosity, its innocence, its a lot of other things that we lose on the way.

    When I meet friends from school or college, I sense they’ve changed, and so have I. Attitudes,mindsets, behaviour, all transforming themselves according to the experiences that life throws at us. And because of this, I am not able to relate to them the way I used to at an earlier point in time. A part of me that is perhaps lost forever. Even if I tried to re create it, it would be resisted by the current me.

    The other portion in the incident that interested me was that after the performance, there was no applause or recognition. People just moved on, oblivious to the phenomenon they didn’t perceive. I wonder if Joshua Bell was disappointed. Perhaps, if you’re a musician of that caliber, you would have passed the stage where you needed a stamp of approval. Or is he just like me? An unconfident performer of life, who looks around apologetically if he has upset any balance. Perhaps if i could perform like a carefree child, I could get back the curiosity and the other things that I’ve lost.

    This stream of consciousness reminded me of something I’d read about in the novel Space – a space shuttle’s flight. As it ascends into space, at different levels it discards different parts, parts that were useful to get it to that point, but useless after they’ve served this utility. And after completing the mission that it was sent for, it blazes a path back through the atmosphere, burning all except its core. It lands in a place far away from the place of its origin, and time has passed while all this is happening. In a strange way, it reminded me of the way lives are lived – at massive speeds, too fast to notice the beauty of the vast expanses of space around, to achieve something which is relevant only in a very small context, burning up with the hope that all that is being done is worthwhile, and perhaps in a lost, melancholic way, deciding that since anyway the life is to be lived, might as well live it with a mission, however inadequate it seems.

    until next time, touchdown

  • Crowd Control by the crowd

    Its rightly said that however thinly you slice the bread, there will always be two sides. Sometimes the very features that makes me love the social web – sharing and transparency, are not treated with the respect they deserve. Or, to be more specific, the crowd is not able to react maturely when someone is being transparent, or sharing something innocuous, or just doing his job. I remembering touching upon mob justice in the case of the Hasbro vs Scrabulous issue too.

    Since then there have been several instances of what Jason Calacanis might describe as the ‘madness of the mobs‘. From Hotmail users fighting against the new design, virtual protests and self immolations on Second Life against a steep purchase and maintenance fee increase, to relatively harmless breast beating on Twitter and Facebook, there has been a lot of action happening all around.

    A few recent incidents have made me look at the otherwise wonderful features of the social web in a negative light again. Rex Hammock recently wrote about a Dilbert strip in which its creator Scott Adams did a bit of ‘in house’ product placing – for DilbertFiles.com, an online sharing and file storage service that was the result of a deal between Adams and Sendyourfiles.com, which Adams had explained on his blog. In fact he also points out that

    As the number of traditional newspapers continues to shrink, this is the sort of thing that will help keep Dilbert free online.

    But several readers took exception calling it a ‘shameless plug’ and ‘unethical’. Thankfully there were many in the crowd who were objective enough to see it as ‘lame but not ethical’, and several others who found it interesting, and a great way of promoting the service. I, for one, thought it was some neat ‘brand integration’. The debate is now over, i guess, and Scott Adams made some candid, cool closing remarks on the issue. You can read them here.

    The other incident that caught my attention was the case of James Andrews (@keyinfluencer on Twitter). Here are the details. In short, this is what happened. James Andrews, from a company called Ketchum, in Atlanta flew to Memphis to visit FedEx, one of his agency’s biggest clients, to talk to their corporate communication team about social media. Being a regular Twitter user, he tweeted on landing

    “True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say, ‘I would die if I had to live here.’”

    Instead of the lil argument that would’ve happened on Twitter over this, it became a classic ‘tempest in a tea cup’, when a person from the Fedex Corporate Communication Group took this up and sent a mail to Andrews. And thus it became a story of the agency guy (Andrews) talking ill of his client’s city. (the entire mail can be read in the link I shared earlier) All the poor man did was give a personal opinion about the place he landed in. That is a crime in social media, according to a few social media storm troopers. Suddenly, there are statements to be made, the agency has to apologise on behalf of Andrews. I say, FedEx, thats #FAIL. Kudos to Funkidivagirl for defending her husband so eloquently, and putting things in perspective.

    Both the situations made me think of expectations. Scott Adams is perhaps thinking of greater good (keeping the online strip free) when he makes a deal like this. He even explains the reasons on his blog. He doesn’t have to. And the crowd, or at least a part of it, loses it. James Andrews tweets personal views about a nameless place  (Fed Ex’ reaction ensures everyone knows about Memphis now) and his agency and work are judged based on that!! We’re supposed to be careful of what we tweet.

    The last and most recent incident is the worst, because unlike the other two, this one’s effect was real and physical!! And at the receiving end was none other than Tech Crunch’s Michael Arrington. As he was leaving a conference, someone walked up to him and spat on his face. The pain in his words are unmistakable as he relates the incident. It doesn’t matter whether you agree, disagree, love or despise TechCrunch or Arrington, but their contribution to the web and startups transcends that, and cannot be denied. If this has to do with what he writes about as part of his job, this is a despicable reaction. I, for one, would really want to know what provoked such an act.

    We expect transparency, honesty and sharing in the social web.  But are we always ready to handle it maturely when its given to us? Yes, brands and people have a responsibility towards us, but shouldn’t that be reciprocated by us too? By having unreasonable expectations from brands and people, especially in a scenario where the rules of engagement are only beginning to be formed, are we forcing these entities to stop sharing and stop being transparent? As RWW correctly notes,

    Whether you believe in monitoring yourself online or not, don’t forget the point of the social Web: to get to know other like minded people, share resources, have fun, and leave the place a little nicer than you found it.

    Let’s have some of this spirit back, and show some maturity not only when we share or tweet or try to engage an audience as a brand/PR person, but also as a reader, when we consume this content. After all we are human, and I like to think that with web 2.0, we’re on our way to making this cold machine driven entity called internet , human. Lets not make the reverse happen.

    until next time, you have the right to remain silent, sometimes the duty too..

    PS. but you should comment 😉

  • Back to Yoga

    He’d been doing Yoga for a while now. And while it was going quite well, there was one posture he was asked to do everyday, but could somehow never manage. After some deliberation, he figured out the reason. He realised that the problem wasn’t physical, it was more psychological. He really couldn’t bend over backwards.

    until next time, yoga builds character 😉

  • The Long Tail of Caves

    I read about the Jaipur Lit Fest, only thanks to a tweet from prolificd/roshnimo, this despite the fact that I fancy myself to be quite a voracious bibliophile. So, I wouldnt have been surprised to be asked ‘Have you been living in a cave?’.

    I blame it on the information overload, and wonder if we have reached full circle. Once upon a time, the means of communication was so minimal that most people lived their lives without most of the information they’d have liked to have. These days, its the other extreme of communication means, but the effect is the same. Even if I have an interest for something, I might end up missing the information, simply because of the large amounts of data I’m plowing through in terms of Twitter, blogs, Facebook, news sites and so on. Don’t even think of saying noise, or filter. There are limits and it doesnt help if you have interests in the social web, Bollywood, puns, books, Formula 1 and so on.

    The more interest I have in different verticals, and the more conversations I have in any one of these, I expose myself to being in a ‘cave’. Different people based on their interest areas and levels of interest, would thus create a hmm, long tail of caves!!

    I’m getting by now by paying special attention to those whom I trust, in specific fields, to give me the latest, valid information. A sort of virtual look out. But I’m hoping for a better solution, like say, a few vertical networks?

    until next time, wassup? 🙂

  • Tweets w00t

    I’ve never plugged plugins before, but in this case, I’ll gladly make an exception, because its so damn useful. Quite a while back, after installing the friendfeed plugin, I remember asking on Friendfeed whether there was a WordPress Plugin that could pull in any sharing of a blog post. Think of the trackbacks we have for blogs, and then imagine if we had a similar mechanism for Twitter, Google Reader, Delicious or any of the sites we share stuff on.

    Mashable wrote sometime back about the concept of Tweetbacks, and thanks to the magical way in which web 2.0 operates, the bridge from fantasy to reality was quickly created, and the WP Plugin creation was called yes, Tweetbacks. Dan Zarrella, you’ve heard this before, you’re awesome. 🙂

    I’d recommend it strongly to all those bloggers who are familiar with Twitter (actually even those who aren’t) and would like to see who’s sharing your post there. Its an absolutely hassle free plugin- easy to install and adds another dimension to connecting with people and conversations. And now, Dan has built another plugin called Tweetsuite, which adds a load of functionalities. Testing it out now. Suggest you do too.

    until next time, hoping for a Reader and delicious plugin 🙂