I'm feeling a little bit hopeless this MFW. Maybe it's a cry for help, but almost nobody reads this blog and I wrote this, and it mentions the media in some passing way at least. Maybe it's a cry for help. May be.
I work in a workplace where there is a new initiative being worked by the whole company for "disaster planning". Disaster planning is basically a set of contingencies for how business will be conducted if there is no office to go to and the office is destroyed or rendered inaccessible (due perhaps to a flu epidemic).
As I have also lately been working for another client as part of a diverse team of people, part abroad, and part in the U.S., I've been effectively working under many of the same kinds of constraints that a "disaster" would impose on the first workgroup.
This past year I've also begun to work the majority of my hours in a home office, and have ceased commuting to work and dressing for work much of the time. My gas bill and dry-cleaning bill have withered, while I have undergone a real transformation mentally to adjust to my new mode of community.
I have taken the first faltering steps toward exercising my own internal discipline about work. I've seen the imprint of isolation on my psyche and begun to take lingering breaks to walk up the street to the bakery or to a coffee shop to sip from the font of social interaction. And I've looked into the dessicated souls of my fellow commuters the one day a week I drive 40 miles to work "on-site". Watching the peak oil "fuel-o-meter" tick toward empty, while listening to the creaking and moaning sounds of our declining post-war civilization broadcast on NPR.
The dry-cleaner greeted me "long-time no-see" in broken English last time I saw her. Every night I wait for India to go to work, and my job at 11 p.m. is to check in with my team and remind them that our firm's work is more important than their other clients. India is 10 1/2 hours different from us, a devilishly simple conversion of numbers which is often an intractable puzzle at 2 in the morning. The team and I take turns keeping each other up and asking staggeringly simple questions that seem impossible to answer under the effects of time-zone-lag.
And it occurs to me that by my on-site work-mates' standards, the state I'm living in is a disaster. The workplace is inaccessible, and will eventually remain so in perpetuity. Now, home is the office. Work is where ever-you-are. "You are your job", and your job is to make someone you've never met, and never will meet, do your boss' bidding. You are an electric cattle prod that's been modified into a tool of social discipline. You are riding a de-escalator. Up. To the future. And you are just hoping, against hope, that it won't lurch to a stop in the middle. Between floors. Between first and third... worlds.
Of course, "Disaster planning" has another sense. Up until a couple of years ago, it only meant "planning" in the same sense as airlines phased the homily "in the unlikely event of a water landing...", while failing to mention that an airliner slamming into the ocean at any speed really could hardly be called a landing at all. But today, there is nothing comforting or dismissible about planning for the most likely disasters. Planning means making plans -- in the positive sense, such as "Let's make plans to go to a movie. How about Armaggedon?"
As one who has been on the vanguard of change for some time, I now believe that the huge investment I have witnessed companies making in enterprise-level web applications development is based on the assumption that in order for companies to compete, white collar jobs will soon be transitioning to a global fulfillment model. Companies are "planning" for this transformation. In English, that means that white collar workers are not in Kansas anymore. We are going to be clicking our heels together as a primary mode of transportation for the rest of our working lives.
As place dissolves, information spaces will rise in our psyches until they are the real "there", and what we now still think of as "here" will mean less and less to everyone else. In fact, eventually we won't need to be here, at all. "Here" will happily be relocated, out of the city -- in other words strategically redistributed, in the same sense as the internet's distributed network model positions its assets disparately so that local disasters do not threaten the larger whole.
Keep in mind, it's no coincidence that your blackberry contains the same basic hardware as a home detention device. If you are home-schooled, home-detained, or "working from home", it's basically the same. It's a form of distance [learning/storing/working] -- one that's imposed by a stranger you'll never meet, who is really just communicating his boss' prod to you.
Have you ever zoned out during a virtual meeting as the late afternoon packet-loss has garbled a transmission into broken broken English? Have you seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Mars, while attacking a shipment of mars bars? You will and more. It's time to colonize mars. It's time to step into Wonka's tram ride. You don't switch horses in mid-stream. It's war time.
And at the end of our time, the end of days, in our life-times, we will become experts in disaster planning. Naturally, what will happen then is a matter of deep personal faith. The faithful look to an omniscient being steering us toward our destinies -- a 3-point walking-on-water landing. In that inspired vision, there will be the holy, wholesale reclaiming of souls and other territory, especially Oceania and Eurasia.
By comparison, the dubious look warily at the decision making process of the all the fallen -- drug addicts, prostitutes, politicians, bosses, and selves. We perceive phantom hands pulling puppet strings in the shadows -- making us dream up new and disastrous plans, yielding to hunger and other aversions. Planning for an even better disaster.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Saturday, April 12, 2008
A Video Is Worth....
This week was a big Media Free Week. Though I managed to avoid television and news all week, a few things leaked out.
The most notable was the story of a teacher who had been beat up by one of her students. I did not know the teacher, but I know the school where she works, and I know a young man who attends the school.
I heard the story from a colleague who was very upset by the news. She heard about the incident from the news, and then watched the cell phone video on YouTube that one of the students recorded. From her perspective, the most shocking part was that the entire class watched, and seemed to condone their peer’s attack.
Later the same day, the student I know came by and talked about it. While he wasn’t involved, and had not seen anything, he heard a great deal from his fellow students. From the information he had, he was of the impression that the teacher did not act appropriately, by egging the student on.
I was disappointed by his comments, but realized that for many young people this is the normal course of events. Of course this would happen, when someone gets in your face, you run or you fight. Or if you are really talented, you joke the situation away.
This sort of thinking is also easy to adopt when you haven’t had the experience. I often hear about an incident on the news, and try to break it down like I’m the detective. But I wasn’t at the scene, I don’t know the people involved, and all I have to go on is an anecdote between car commercials.
In this case, however, many people have been able to revisit the scene, thanks to a cell phone video. My student watched the video himself after we talked, and changed his perspective. He saw the person who was hurt, a teacher he knew, and reconsidered his position. While the entire context of the class is missing, the clear brutality of the situation is streaming on the web for anyone to see. [Though it may have been removed by now.]
I’m not sure what this says about society, or media, or the problems in our schools. But I’m glad that video was recorded, and that it might help shed some light on a terrible situation.
The most notable was the story of a teacher who had been beat up by one of her students. I did not know the teacher, but I know the school where she works, and I know a young man who attends the school.
I heard the story from a colleague who was very upset by the news. She heard about the incident from the news, and then watched the cell phone video on YouTube that one of the students recorded. From her perspective, the most shocking part was that the entire class watched, and seemed to condone their peer’s attack.
Later the same day, the student I know came by and talked about it. While he wasn’t involved, and had not seen anything, he heard a great deal from his fellow students. From the information he had, he was of the impression that the teacher did not act appropriately, by egging the student on.
I was disappointed by his comments, but realized that for many young people this is the normal course of events. Of course this would happen, when someone gets in your face, you run or you fight. Or if you are really talented, you joke the situation away.
This sort of thinking is also easy to adopt when you haven’t had the experience. I often hear about an incident on the news, and try to break it down like I’m the detective. But I wasn’t at the scene, I don’t know the people involved, and all I have to go on is an anecdote between car commercials.
In this case, however, many people have been able to revisit the scene, thanks to a cell phone video. My student watched the video himself after we talked, and changed his perspective. He saw the person who was hurt, a teacher he knew, and reconsidered his position. While the entire context of the class is missing, the clear brutality of the situation is streaming on the web for anyone to see. [Though it may have been removed by now.]
I’m not sure what this says about society, or media, or the problems in our schools. But I’m glad that video was recorded, and that it might help shed some light on a terrible situation.
Monday, March 3, 2008
You Can Trust the Brand, but You Can't Brand the Trust
I read some media the other day that Weather.com is always in the top 10 web sites. This has contributed substantially to the value of the TV network that owns it (which is currently for sale for some magnificent figure). The fascinating thing about their content is that viewer's interest in it is almost all real-time, so their ability to sell their audience to their advertisers is very stable, compared to the slow erosion of real-time viewing that most other broadcast media outlets are experiencing.
Meanwhile, advertisers are working on many fronts to combat audience erosion. Recently I saw SNL broadcasting a "mini-mercial" of the setup for the next sketch in between commercials. And, shenanigans being played by shifting the start and stop of programs by a few minutes to punish TIVO viewers is widely known. Product placements and even more insidious product themed content have become more normal. For example, a couple of months ago I saw an episode of some youth-oriented action drama where one of the major developments of the story was that a main character's new SUV was stolen -- the same SUV that was advertised throughout the broadcast! Co-branding, especially of music, has surged as well. And certain programs have always been transparent vehicles for advertising, The Apprentice perhaps being a distant second compared to The Price is Right.
This MFW I'm trying to steer clear of advertising as much as possible. Once again, I am doing some major class work on a media web site -- this time, my personal favorite technology web site TomsHardware.com. Hilarious digressions into content keep occurring. It's really a shame how easy it is to turn a simple class assignment about web site usability (Organization, Labeling, and Navigation Analysis to be specific) into a shameless bout of media frolicking. This is especially true since I am in no way motivated to finish this assignment even though it's due at 5:30. "Focus. Focus."
One of the interesting by-products of this assignment is that I finally [almost] understand TH's web site. It turns out that even the third largest web media outlet for technology has major (and I mean "Call-me-immediately-and-pay-me-to-solve-these-problems-today"-scale) organizational, labeling and navigation problems. It all goes back to their recent flawed/half-hearted attempts to disentangle the different parts of their brand. To be specific, they are still attempting to sort out the presentation of their content and site organization following their acquisition/merger by/with another company several years ago, and a more recent attempt to harmonize their brand into THREE[!] separate websites that all share a navigational interface and similar branding and mission, as well as [gasp] intermingled content. These are TomsHardare.com, TomsGames.com and TomsGuide.com. (Huh).
Like many broadcast media, the web site has attempted to blur the lines of their content and their advertising relationships in a attempt to befuddle their audience, in an unholy and unwise attempt to grasp at several foolish goals. For TH these are probably to split their brand into sub brands that each can hopefully evolve into separate viable brands. Of course they are very ambivalent about this and in no way keep it simple by sequestering content on one side of a fence or another. I doubt their advertisers feel that any advantage has been gained, and I especially doubt that many choose to be on ONLY ONE site, which in turn proves that there really is ONLY ONE site after all (albeit one huge site with many discrete parts).
In conclusion, like many broadcast media networks, TH has been cursed with success and has complacently started chasing its own "long" tail by endlessly promulgating content channels as places to put ads, rather than taking a hard look at what attracts and retains readers/viewers. They have long been seen as one of the most objective sources of information about technology, and their charts and common navigational interface have been imitated many times because they are simply the best. However, the trend toward obfuscation of relationship between content and ad, and "channelization" of content into more and more specific persistent parts of the site, each with their own nav, are powerful erosive forces that may set the stage for a competitor to grab the one, great thing that TH has used as to anchor its success. Trust. And, once it's gone, "trust me", it will be very hard to get it back.
Meanwhile, advertisers are working on many fronts to combat audience erosion. Recently I saw SNL broadcasting a "mini-mercial" of the setup for the next sketch in between commercials. And, shenanigans being played by shifting the start and stop of programs by a few minutes to punish TIVO viewers is widely known. Product placements and even more insidious product themed content have become more normal. For example, a couple of months ago I saw an episode of some youth-oriented action drama where one of the major developments of the story was that a main character's new SUV was stolen -- the same SUV that was advertised throughout the broadcast! Co-branding, especially of music, has surged as well. And certain programs have always been transparent vehicles for advertising, The Apprentice perhaps being a distant second compared to The Price is Right.
This MFW I'm trying to steer clear of advertising as much as possible. Once again, I am doing some major class work on a media web site -- this time, my personal favorite technology web site TomsHardware.com. Hilarious digressions into content keep occurring. It's really a shame how easy it is to turn a simple class assignment about web site usability (Organization, Labeling, and Navigation Analysis to be specific) into a shameless bout of media frolicking. This is especially true since I am in no way motivated to finish this assignment even though it's due at 5:30. "Focus. Focus."
One of the interesting by-products of this assignment is that I finally [almost] understand TH's web site. It turns out that even the third largest web media outlet for technology has major (and I mean "Call-me-immediately-and-pay-me-to-solve-these-problems-today"-scale) organizational, labeling and navigation problems. It all goes back to their recent flawed/half-hearted attempts to disentangle the different parts of their brand. To be specific, they are still attempting to sort out the presentation of their content and site organization following their acquisition/merger by/with another company several years ago, and a more recent attempt to harmonize their brand into THREE[!] separate websites that all share a navigational interface and similar branding and mission, as well as [gasp] intermingled content. These are TomsHardare.com, TomsGames.com and TomsGuide.com. (Huh).
Like many broadcast media, the web site has attempted to blur the lines of their content and their advertising relationships in a attempt to befuddle their audience, in an unholy and unwise attempt to grasp at several foolish goals. For TH these are probably to split their brand into sub brands that each can hopefully evolve into separate viable brands. Of course they are very ambivalent about this and in no way keep it simple by sequestering content on one side of a fence or another. I doubt their advertisers feel that any advantage has been gained, and I especially doubt that many choose to be on ONLY ONE site, which in turn proves that there really is ONLY ONE site after all (albeit one huge site with many discrete parts).
In conclusion, like many broadcast media networks, TH has been cursed with success and has complacently started chasing its own "long" tail by endlessly promulgating content channels as places to put ads, rather than taking a hard look at what attracts and retains readers/viewers. They have long been seen as one of the most objective sources of information about technology, and their charts and common navigational interface have been imitated many times because they are simply the best. However, the trend toward obfuscation of relationship between content and ad, and "channelization" of content into more and more specific persistent parts of the site, each with their own nav, are powerful erosive forces that may set the stage for a competitor to grab the one, great thing that TH has used as to anchor its success. Trust. And, once it's gone, "trust me", it will be very hard to get it back.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
The Coldest MFW
February is the roughest of all Media Free Weeks. It marks the 4th anniversary of MFW, but there is no celebration. How would we celebrate? Watch some TV? Have a beer? Here are a few of the challenges to MFW in February:
>> I MUST know what the weather report is, but in the winter, it's too cold to risk opening a window. I wait and see what other people are wearing walking down the street. This is not always successful.
>> The early sunset means staying in is the most desirable option. When I stay in, I want to knit. When I want to knit, I want to watch TV. Another quandry.
>> The impending Valentine's Day holiday makes me want to find a gift for MFW Editor, and I am tempted to go on Etsy, or Threadless Ts, or go to the stores. (I must admit, I gave Etsy 1 hour of my week).
>> I'm almost always sick in early Feb. This week I spent the first 1.5 days at home. There is nothing better than lying in bed watching TV or reading magazines when you are sick. I read a book, and became very, very tired instead. Which really was ok.
>> I am finally flush again, after the December holidays. In between birthdays and other big obligations (save for V Day), I begin to think about that next purchase - maybe a Wii, or a new sewing machine. Researching on the Internets would be my first step.
>> It's the Primary Election. The relief of not hearing ads for candidates competes with my urge to read up the latest news about the campaigns.
I figure if I can make it through February's MFW, I can make it anywhere.
>> I MUST know what the weather report is, but in the winter, it's too cold to risk opening a window. I wait and see what other people are wearing walking down the street. This is not always successful.
>> The early sunset means staying in is the most desirable option. When I stay in, I want to knit. When I want to knit, I want to watch TV. Another quandry.
>> The impending Valentine's Day holiday makes me want to find a gift for MFW Editor, and I am tempted to go on Etsy, or Threadless Ts, or go to the stores. (I must admit, I gave Etsy 1 hour of my week).
>> I'm almost always sick in early Feb. This week I spent the first 1.5 days at home. There is nothing better than lying in bed watching TV or reading magazines when you are sick. I read a book, and became very, very tired instead. Which really was ok.
>> I am finally flush again, after the December holidays. In between birthdays and other big obligations (save for V Day), I begin to think about that next purchase - maybe a Wii, or a new sewing machine. Researching on the Internets would be my first step.
>> It's the Primary Election. The relief of not hearing ads for candidates competes with my urge to read up the latest news about the campaigns.
I figure if I can make it through February's MFW, I can make it anywhere.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Media Free Mondays
I haven't blogged much in the past two MFWs. Part of the reason is because I tend to get flattened on Monday - something happens on that first day of MFW that just shuts me down.
In October, it was a very difficult work situation, something that kept me up at night and wasn't really blog-friendly. In November, it was another work situation, this time a big event and numerous overtime hours. In December, I was in the throes of a serious headcold.
In January, I experienced disaster in the form of a favorite handknit shawl - loaded with sentimental value - becoming a child-sized scarf. I will stop writing about this as it is still too painful.
And February, the toughest of all MFWs, I was sick.
I wonder, are all Mondays so difficult? Is it just that the veil of media has been lifted, and I can see Monday for the bummer that it is? Or does the universe challenge me so I will become stronger each MFW?
In October, it was a very difficult work situation, something that kept me up at night and wasn't really blog-friendly. In November, it was another work situation, this time a big event and numerous overtime hours. In December, I was in the throes of a serious headcold.
In January, I experienced disaster in the form of a favorite handknit shawl - loaded with sentimental value - becoming a child-sized scarf. I will stop writing about this as it is still too painful.
And February, the toughest of all MFWs, I was sick.
I wonder, are all Mondays so difficult? Is it just that the veil of media has been lifted, and I can see Monday for the bummer that it is? Or does the universe challenge me so I will become stronger each MFW?
