economies, internet, language, and culture
The viral contagion that is Twitter is directly related to its simplicity. Twitter is one of the smallest possible connectors of nodes on the network. Follow. Unfollow. Block. Post 140.
Some think we want more complexity. We want more depth, more features. But the fact is we want to build up complexity out of simplicity.
Comments closedIn the book “This is your Brain on Music,” Daniel J. Levitin talks about the “ten thousand hours theory.” Levitin is writing about the brain, music and, among other topics, how long it takes to become an expert musician. In study after study the number 10,000 keeps coming up, talent matters, but time matters just as much. If you practice (effectively) for 10,000 hours it’s highly likely you will achieve a “level of mastery associated with a world-class expert.” You can think of 10,000 hours as three hours a day, or 20 hours a week for 10 years.
Levitin thinks the 10,000 hour rule applies to any pursuit, and that brings to mind the new media. How many bloggers have logged 10,000 hours of blogging? How many have 10,000 hours of Twitter? With new mediums like Twitter is it even possible to have 10,000 hours of experience?
When we talk about the professional and the amateur, we usually operate within the context of “mainstream media” vs. blogs; or traditional revenue model vs. adsense vs. free. Perhaps rather than talking about money, we should think about what makes quality?
The primary skill for both blogging and tweets is writing. A person with 10,000 hours of writing experience will have achieved a master level. 10,000 hours of experience in a particular subject matter (coding, politics, humor, short essays on life, the future, the direction of technology, enterprise technology, philosophy, human behavior, social networks) results in a high level of mastery.
When thinking about the idea of quality and depth, one might ask: how many things do you have 10,000 hours of experience in? How does each inform the other in relation to your writing, or photography, humor, film making, music or ability to make friends?
Comments closedIf you haven’t taken the time to listen to Dave Winer’s conversation with George Lakoff, it’s worth your while. If you subscribe to the Morning Coffee Notes RSS feed, it may already be on your iPod. Lakoff is a co-founder of the Rockridge Institute and a practitioner of what’s called cognitive science. He posits that “words matter,” and in politics they matter more than you might realize.
Lakoff investigates the currents of language, rhetoric and influence that swirl below the surface of our everyday language. Political language is by its nature adversarial; by various methods it attempt to persuade and influence. One view of campaigns and elections is that candidates have platforms that can be rationally evaluated. Here are the positions, which candidate holds the ‘right’ ones? The voter is a rational actor.
Can a person step into a frictionless abstract space where “facts” can be evaluated and decisions made outside of time and our mortality? Lakoff says no. Do people always make decisions that serve their best interests? No, they don’t. Lakoff has the political sphere covered, but this thread started much earlier. Look at Daniel Kahneman‘s Nobel Prize winning work in behavioral finance and economics.
While the sciences have only recently weighed in, the poets and philosophers have long understood this idea. How can we make “objective decisions,” when as TS Eliot says in Burnt Norton, we are “distracted from distraction by distraction.” We dwell in language, it’s where we make our home and compose the stories that we tell each other everyday. And language isn’t neutral.
The idea of the frame is that by controlling the context and lexicon of a conversation, you can shade the outcome. For instance, if I ask you “when did you stop beating your wife?” and if you accept the frame, you will be left with a limited and incriminating set of answers. Political strategists and candidates attempt to do this to gain an advantage. The interesting thing about the idea of the frame is that it’s most effective when it’s hidden from view. When the frame is brought out into the light, and becomes a normal part of political rhetoric, it loses its special power.
Comments closedAlain Robbe-Grillet passed away earlier this month. I first became aware of Robbe-Grillet as the writer of “Last Year at Marienbad.” I saw that film twice in one day. (At least I seem to remember it that way) There are a few movies I’ve found so compelling that I had to see them again right away. “Wings of Desire” was another one. The film lead me to the novels, and I read them one after another.
Robbe-Grillet’s writing seems very much of a particular time and place as I look back on it now. But what he accomplished was very important; it’s as though he created an element, a fundamental substance which were added to the periodic table of writing.
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