Talk about Txting
The census numbers are in. The results are staggering and disturbing. People are... sending text messages.
It is always entertaining to watch a behavior such as text messaging develop over years, firmly embed itself in culture then all the sudden bust into the media. Recently, we've had a one-two punch of no-texting-while-driving legislation and census figures. Pundits have gone mad with opinion and analysis.
As with most new trends, the general feel that's being cultivated around the media's latest insight into humanity is one of apprehension and fear. I understand where this protectionist mindset comes from, because I feel it to. But I think it's rather dumb because it doesn't comprehend that this is a new form of communication that is evolving as people use it. It hasn't played itself out yet.
I, for one, am more excited to see a decade down the road what we're going to be doing with texting and other new forms of communication than I am afraid of what it is doing to us.
Derek Sivers of CDBaby and MuckWork on Startup Success
Even in this age of fear based news, war and famine, contentious politics and avian flu, it is difficult to be a pessimist with people like Derek Sivers in this world.
Derek Sivers is the man behind CDBaby and now MuckWork who parlayed the simple need to publish his own CDs into a company to sell his friends albums as well into a scalable web business into a massive payday, which he parlayed into a tremendous charitable organization designed to aid independent musicians in a much more comprehensive way.
In this interview Derek speaks candidly about his journey from a musician into the big business of music showing that tremendous success can come from following natural, compassionate intentions and be fed back into scaling those intentions to a tremendous degree.
http://startuppodcast.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/show-40-derek-sivers-cdbaby-and-muckwork/
If you're into the business site of the web, I highly recommend subscribing to this podcast. It's worth going back and listening to the entire season.
The Kingdom Grows
“If content is king, then bandwidth is the kingdom,” says Clayton Banks, founder and president of Ember Media and organizer of Innovation, an annual meeting of media and technology professionals in NYC. If he’s right, then the kingdom is growing now and has plans for further expansion.
As it turns out, he is right for at least two reasons and each reason has import into how media and information technology professionals should approach work.
On the surface, it is simple: content isn’t going to do anything for anyone no matter how good it is if it doesn’t get to them. It’s a quick reminder to make sure what we do can get to the audience. No matter how much we like the sultan of Brunei, we’re not going to enjoy his enlightened policies unless they reach us… which they don’t unless you live in Brunei. For me, this also calls for media equality to champion the cause of democracy, to which we owe the society we enjoy today, in the world of dissemination. To play out the dominant ideological difference of the day, others may see this as limiting those broadcasters who run the resources, forcing them into supporting the mob.
Under the surface, however, there’s a different story that’s been going on for a while. The kingdom is growing as bandwidth is getting to us in greater quantities (faster) and different ways. Our attention is being consumed and our action driven in more profound and varied ways. The digital infrastructure that we recently saw, for example, translate our financial system into itself is now translating significant parts of our habits and choices, and even our personalities and potentials, into forms supported by bandwidth and the technology that delivers it. And, well, the kingdom grows.
The borders of the kingdom can not be measured in bits per second or audience size alone. They are sweeping across our relationships with friends, our capabilities in navigating our days and decades, and just about everything that kids do. The fact that kids are taking to technology like ducks to water with floating bread in it can not be overstated.
It is the job of the technology professional to see how bits translate into behavior. It is the job of the business person to see the opposite.
The questions we ask and the standards that we demand of ourselves and each other must be made from the standpoint of legislators of a kingdom who are responsible not only for the health of the bureaucracy but who take an active responsibility in the development of their subjects.
I may have digressed a bit too deep into metaphor. Here’s a technology called Sixth Sense that was developed by one college student with the resources of a small tech group. The goal is simple, to inject helpful technology into common everyday actions. Imagine the proliferation of such technologies over twenty years with the penetration that cell phones have today. A whole generation of young adults on down with no memory of a world without it. Imagine how they would engage their world. Now shut off the bandwidth. The place people live is pulled out from underneath them. Sure, the world is still there but the world is still there when empires fall, it’s just very different. People would suddenly find it very hard to live. It would be traumatic.
Now think about what you have to do and get back to work! Mind your own business!