Category: brand

The Line: Boundary, Connection, Outline, Inquiry

Published September 6, 2009 by cgerrish

The boundary line separates this from that. National boundaries are called borders, they indicate the line of demarcation between this country and that. By crossing such a line, the set of laws, the cultural practices and often the spoken language will change. Of course, one imagines a flock of migrating birds crossing a border completely unaware of any significant change in the environment. We think of the line between countries as being stable, the power of a sovereign nation is used to defend its borders. But if we zoom out and select a larger increment of time, we would see that even national borders are fluid—they move with a specific viscosity, velocity and trajectory.

The line also connects this and that. Wittgenstein discussed thinking as a process of seeing connections, discovering connections and making connections. Lines can converge, cross or run in parallel. (and if we admit the visions of the string, super-string and M (membrane) theorists – each line may exist in parallel universes where all their permutations are expressed.)

The line of inquiry, tends, in its character, to gravitate toward the one or the many. We can think of these methods as the “either/or” and the “both/and.” The line of inquiry that models the one seeks to purify and clarify itself, it cuts off connections to things that it sees as outside of its concept. A boundary line is enforced, an outline of a shape is drawn, an ideal template is generated through which the world can be sorted and filtered in a binary action (fits, doesn’t fit). The ideas of internal coherence, self-consistency, and conceptual integrity emerge from this approach to thinking as the elimination and reduction of the multiplicity of meaning. This is the process of clarification and the removal of the non-germane. The power of this kind of inquiry is measured by its ability to defend its borders. Its sovereignty and its identity depend of the continued existence of a bright line of demarcation.

When this mode of the line of inquiry begins to unwind, its identity, the central image/concept begins to blur. The borders are breached, foreign connections are established and begin to gain purchase. The viscosity, trajectory and velocity of the line are now in play, the inquisitor has lost exclusivity of editorial control. Here we connect to another kind of line. As lines of inquiry unravel and are overcome, they disperse into a sedimentary layer making up part of the next line of inquiry.

If we take a step back, we can see that every line of inquiry is composed of layers of sediment. At the height of its power, it’s able to cover over these historical sources and present itself as a simple, coherent, consistent identity. Its origin is either proclaimed to be ex-nihilo or a new history of its birth is created.

In the opening section of Deleuze and Guattari’s essay “Rhizome,” it says:

We wrote ‘Anti-Oedipus’ together. As each of us was several, that already made quite a few people. Here we have used all that drew near to hand, both the closest and the furthest away.

Deleuze sees the starting point, not as identity, but as a set of lines. Although it should be noted that the boundaries of this set are fluid. A person, or a line of inquiry, is always already composed of many threads, at whatever moment we choose to call ‘the start.’ These threads are spun into a yarn, braided into rope, disassembled and remade over and over again. They are spread out like a spider’s web, or wound into a ball.

As individuals and groups we are made of lines, lines that are very diverse in nature. The first type of line (there are many of this type) that forms us is segmentary, or rigidly segmented: family/profession; work/vacation; family/then school/then army/then factory/then retirement.

What of the line of inquiry that begins as many and seeks to connect to many? Is there a thinking that asks after multiplicity from the first moment? This mode, from the perspective of its polar opposite, can only be described as disruptive, anarchic, incoherent, gibberish, illogical, unrealistic, unfocused. What can one say about a line of inquiry that doesn’t defend its borders? A line that exposes its mixed origin of birth— from sources both ‘closest and furthest away.’ What kind of line doesn’t drive toward clarity and sharp, bright lines; but rather makes connections as they emerge. How are we to find meaning in such a swirl of chaotic crossed lines. Can meaning emerge from such a maelstrom?

The task seems impossible if we remain ensnared in the logic of identity. If we believe that each intersection of lines must establish identity and dominance or be defeated and ground into a sedimentary layer of its betters. (The logic of identity is also tightly tied to the economics of value through scarcity.)

It’s inevitable that the whirl-pool of electronic information movement will toss us all about like corks on a stormy sea, but if we keep our cool during the descent into the maelstrom, studying the process as it happens… we can get through . (McLuhan 1995)

For a line of inquiry that consists of seeing, discovering and making connections, meaning and value emerge from the swarming and clustering of connections in the unfolding of real-time. Meaning and value have the potential to be very fluid. The sorts and filters aren’t permanent exclusions, they’re qualities of a view. What is important to us one day may seem unimportant the next. This is not to say that meaning a value must always move at a high velocity. These lines have different qualities of viscosity, some move very slowly, some quite quickly. Meaning emerges at the point at which we engage the interface.

The electronically induced technological extensions of our central nervous systems… are immersing us in a whirlpool of information… the aloof and dislocated role of the literate man of the Western world is succumbing to the new intense depth participation… decentralising – rather than enlarging – the family of man into a new state of multitudinous tribal existences. (McLuhan 1995)

These lines, these borders, are surfacing with more visibility in our everyday lives. The borderline between work, family and friends used to be a physical line defined by the boundaries of a workplace. The telephone began the disruption of that space, and thus, the personal phone call was prohibited or limited. This same policy has transferred to a personal connection to the Network. Control of a corporate image means that employees must be silent. The brand must speak with a clear and pure voice— all signal, noise absent.

The iPhone expanded the disruption by overlaying a powerful personal Network connection over the limited connection of the workplace. An inversion of the relative power of technologies has amplified the rupture. If the Network is the computer, the personal connection has access to the computer; while the corporate connection wears blinders. Access to multiplicity provides more access to power, value and meaning, than the narrow scope of the corporate machine.

Women were the first to have to deal with the reality of multiple (social) networks overlaying the workplace. They have the potential to be simultaneously workers, mothers, daughters, wives and more. Men were only too happy to leave their role as ‘father’ at home— and exist solely as a worker in the workplace. The ability of a worker to be all the people she can be may ultimately surface as a civil rights issue.

The boundaries of the Network and the Nation State begin to cross and struggle for power when the US State department asks Twitter to delay scheduled maintenance because of real-time events in the Middle East. This is the beginning of a moment where the Nation state will inscribe its sovereignty within the outlines of the Network. The borders of a territory are surfacing as both physical and virtual.

Borders will continue to try to control lines of connection; the question that emerges is whether the locus of power, meaning and value is moving toward the line of connection, and away from the boundary line that excludes.

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Business Models: The Razor and the Blade

Published August 18, 2009 by cgerrish

The razor and the blade have taken on largely metaphorical meanings in the era of “Free.” Products and services are bundles of threads, some free, some advertising supported and others with a variable or fixed price. The razor itself is free or low cost, and the consumer pays for disposable blades which subsidizes the cost of the handle. Cellular phones use this pricing model. Chris Anderson posits that this model will become dominant, with a digital component naturally tending toward a price of zero.

If we take a moment, and look—not at the metaphor, but at actual razors and blades, we’ll learn a great deal about how the “Free” business model will develop. The Holy Grail of the shaving world is the “close shave.” And, of course, the close shave imbues the shaver with extraordinary attractiveness and social power. It becomes the almost unattainable object of desire. The companies that make shaving equipment have brought together the world’s best scientists and storytellers to create a compelling narrative. The road to a closer shave can only be achieved through multiple blades and high-level engineering. The five-blade razor has emerged as the pinnacle of shaving science.

The simple razor and blade have been transformed into a technology experience beyond the understanding of the average Joe looking to rid himself of five o’clock shadow. Along side the production of the physical product is the production of desire. The act of shaving requires ever greater efforts, continual progress— we’ll pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of the close shave.

The world of shavers has been tightly wrapped in the dream narrative of the progress of shaving and its technology. It turns out the “Free” part of the product is not the critical factor, it’s the production of desire. The essential ingredient is the creation of a strong narrative beyond which the consumer cannot see or imagine.

Every extreme engenders a backlash, and the five-bladed razor may have tipped the scales. Step outside the dream of the technology of the “close shave” for a moment and consider a double-edged single razor blade that performs better than the latest five-bladed technology. Could “one” be superior to “five?”

Of course, we need our dreams, our goals, our destinations— the humble razor and blade provide an excellent example not just of the economics of a business model, but of how the production of desire influences the engineering of the product. “Free” is the taste, the invitation to the dream.

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Attack Surfaces: The Body Reborn as Software

Published July 21, 2009 by cgerrish

The brutality of the online commenter can sometimes be astonishing. The violence of the language is often out of all proportion to its surroundings. Certainly not every commenter resorts to personal attacks, but like spam, it’s something we seem to expect— and for some reason tolerate. What is it about the environment of the Network that allows this kind of behavior to flourish? Initially it was thought to be a function of anonymous comments, but more and more, we see attacks launched from identities based in social networks.

What are we, when we’re in the Network? Marshall McLuhan saw it by looking at the primitives of the new ‘electronic information conditions.’ Well before the internet and social media, he saw this new medium was fundamentally different and would change us utterly. When information moves at electronic speed– and it is information that serves as a trigger for all transactions, our relationship to the space surrounding us becomes transformed and devalued.

“The electronic age…angelizes man, disembodies him. Turns him into software.” — Marshall McLuhan

The annihilation of distance is the state of affairs where everything is ready-to-hand— technology creates a powerful extension of human reach. We can be present at a meeting anywhere around the globe without leaving our chair. We can buy/sell any kind of goods or services, research any topic and access any form of entertainment—as long as we have an access point to the Network. The information economy transforms the worker into pure information (inputs/outputs). The person becomes disembodied, omnipresent, but not omnipotent.

In McLuhan’s book on the Global Village, he talked about the satisfactions that would result from these radical transformations:

Robotism, or right-hemisphere thinking, is a capacity to be a conscious presence in many places at once. It is a right-hemisphere mode— the dominant brain mode of the extended mechanical abilities of our bodies, keyed to one time and one place. Communications media of the future will accentuate the extensions of our nervous systems, which can be disembodied and made totally collective. New population patterns will fuel the shift from smokestack industries to a marketing-information economy…

McLuhan also discussed the dissatisfactions of this new environment:

Robotism is also decentralizing. In an electrically configured society all the critical information necessary to manufacture and distribute, from automobiles to computers, would be available to everyone at the same time. Espionage becomes an art form. Culture becomes organized like an electric circuit: each point in the net is as central as the next.

Electronic man loses touch with the concept of the ruling center as well as the restraints of social rules based on interconnection. Hierarchies constantly devolve and reform.

When we are born into the digital Network, we are formless— our point of origin is obscured. Connections to family, work, organizations, and local community are absent, we enter the Network untethered. Because our identity is unknown, it presents no attack surfaces, no surfaces of any kind. Should we choose to, we can launch attacks into any opening in the Network without fear of reprisal. Disconnected from our earthly connections, we are drawn toward and begin to flock with our mirror images.

When we lose touch with social rules based on interconnection, there are no checks on our behavior— we tend to move toward the extremes. Cass Sunstein in his new book Going to Extremes makes the case that “closed groups of like-minded people, if left to their own devices, will move towards the extreme.” He notes that when people with similar views debate an issue, they end up with more extreme positions than any of them previously held.

As we take root in the Network, some would call it establishing a personal brand, we expose— put forward representations of ourselves. As we produce outputs, we also seek inputs. It’s here where we begin to expose attack surfaces. As with any relationship, it’s the moment that we start to be vulnerable that the possibility of something interesting begins. In most small personal networks the connections occur directly between known entities. When one accepts inputs from the Network in general— there are no limits on who might respond and what they might say. While this relationship opens the door to an unlimited kind of discovery, it also opens the door to an unlimited kind of abuse. Openness of this kind depends on an assumption of civility.

There’s an asymmetry to the configuration of Network inputs and outputs. While the outputs are visible and have a known location, those producing inputs have no location requirement. A comment can literally come from nowhere. And the invulnerable commenter, like the spammer, rarely contributes anything of value. The premise of civility is founded on the idea that a person has something at stake. A person who comments under a personal brand puts that brand value at stake with each comment and so an economic calculation is made concurrently with each comment.

We started with the concept of a two-way web, but began with a publication medium (read only). Writing surfaces have been tacked on to reading material to simulate a two-way interface. I wonder what a symmetrical interface event with two-way visibility and read/write capability would look like? (Twitter? FriendFeed?) It’s the visibility into social connections that begin to exert a civilizing influence. Social connections are perhaps the most valuable thing we have: family, work, marriage, children, friends. Returned to a social context, the disproportionate nature of the violent comment is exposed and its true price is finally visible.

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The End of Architecture

Published June 26, 2009 by cgerrish

It was when the web site entered its Baroque era that the job description of the information architect seemed to crystallize. The ornamentation decorating the dizzying heights, the complex taxonomies of categories, and various drawers into which content was stuffed, all this required the vigilant organizational skills of the architect. The web site seemed to pattern itself on the design of the altar of a Baroque Cathedral. Information organized for the greater glory of the product. The value of the space radiating out from the home page expressing the theology of the brand. The adjoining chapels and the stories of the saints told in shards of glass extend the value proposition. User-centered design assumed the supplicant wished to have the most useful experience of prostration before the brand.

Room after room was added to the structure, each cleverly tucked into some classification that related it to the whole. Of course, while all of the rooms were smartly decorated, there was almost no foot traffic. The monitors of the brand wander the halls, peeking in to the this room and that one, checking to see whether dust is accumulating. The small portion of the structure that attracted use and generated revenue serves as a keystone to the entire surrounding architecture.

Wikipedia, for the moment, has this to say about architecture:

Architecture (from Greek word ἀ�?χιτεκτονική – arkhitektonike) is the art and science of designing and constructing buildings and other physical structures for human shelter or use. A wider definition often includes the design of the total built environment, from the macro level of how a building integrates with its surrounding context (see town planning, urban design, and landscape architecture) to the micro level of architectural or construction details and, sometimes, furniture and hardware. Wider still, architecture is the activity of designing any kind of system.

The reason that the Baroque era of web design signals the end of architecture, is not that the task is complete. Nor is it that another style, Bauhaus, for example, will replace the previous style. Architecture is an art and discipline that organizes things in physical space. The Network is not a physical space. When we speak of it as a space, we project attributes on to a blank screen. Doc Searls talks about the Giant Zero, the idea that the distance between endpoints on the Network is zero. In the manifesto he wrote with David Weinberger, World of Ends, he describes the thoughts sparked by Craig Burton:

When Craig Burton describes the Net’s stupid architecture as a hollow sphere comprised entirely of ends, he’s painting a picture that gets at what’s most remarkable about the Internet’s architecture: Take the value out of the center and you enable an insane flowering of value among the connected end points. Because, of course, when every end is connected, each to each and each to all, the ends aren’t endpoints at all.

Even this description relies on a spacial metaphor. If there’s no distance between the startpoint and an endpoint, why do we talk of starting and ending at all? What are these points that have no distance between them? We gut the history and most resonant qualities of a word, and then persist in using it as a tool for thought. We ask what are the qualities of the space of the Network? What’s the most user-centered approach to building out a site in that space?

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
– Ludwig Wittengenstein

The end of architecture doesn’t mean the end of thinking about the Network, or standing up new nodes of connection. It’s only that we stand at the edge of our language and words come slowly. Rather than looking for an external model out in the world, perhaps we should look for an internal one. Or something that stands at the threshhold between the two: Language itself might serve as a point of departure.

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