Writelife

I’m currently reading a book that is peppered with terms and acronyms. It’s a bit annoying, but I can live with it. However, what drives me batty is the lack of definitions for some of them.

This often happens with acronyms - a pet peeve of mine. In this case, however, terms themselves aren’t defined. I suppose the book predicates a certain audience profile and, based on that, feels there is no need. The book’s audience would be familiar with the terms. Myself, I think that’s a wrong approach.

One of the terms I keep seeing over and over is ubicomp. Finally, frustrated, I went searching for an explanation on the Internet. It turns out ubicomp is a neologism, a made up word based on two other words. It’s short for ubiquitous computing (”ubi” and “comp”).

The book uses both terms but never actually states the relationship. I guess it was assumed I would figure it out myself (which I obviously did).

But wouldn’t it have been easier to have just said “ubiquitous computing (ubicomp),” as the Wikipedia entry does?

(By the way, even if it had, I don’t believe the book gives an explanation for what ubiquitous computing is, so Wikipedia or some other source would have been required to figure out what was meant.)

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I suppose social networks (of the Internet kind) haven’t been around that long (relatively speaking), but I wonder how long they last. There appear to be gazillions of them now. Like dandelions, they have spread everywhere.

Are they like news stories? Hugely popular till the next one comes along? Facebook, Twitter, MySpace … (Is MySpace still big? I could never get into that one.)

I imagine the life cycle has two aspects: public and private. A network may be popular but an individual may drop out. However, when enough individuals drop out the public popularity drops.

What about social networks generally? Will they lose popularity when the next big thing comes along (whatever that may be - social networks 2.0?)

Part of the reason for wondering about these things is the sense I get that a great deal of what becomes popular on the Internet (and even those things that aren’t so popular) are dependent on the “passing fancy” factor. Something looks kind of neat, a person gets involved, then loses interest.

How much is function a factor? LinkedIn has always struck me as one of the most practical of networks, in theory. But I rarely use it. I use Facebook quite a bit but that is largely because of the number of friends who are also on it. But other than the contact factor, I don’t really have much use for it.

What (if anything) must networks like Facebook need to do to sustain beyond a 3 to 5 year cycle? If my suspicion is correct that the majority of Internet networks, sites etc. have a fairly brief life cycle of success (they may linger for years but for all intents and purposes be kaput), does it make sense to invest money, time and effort into them?

Just wonderin’ …

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I write because no one listens to me when I talk.

That was the sound byte answer. But it’s true. When I talk I sound like an idiot. So people tune out, as I would too. When I write, however, I can usually bamboozle people into thinking I not only know what I’m talking about but that I can convey it to the world mellifluously.

Imagination is a big part of it too. I can pretend people are reading what I write whereas if I talk I see their eyes glaze over and attention wander. Very disquieting. And discouraging.

Imagination also plays a part in that, when I write, I can use big, polysyllabic words as if I not only know what they mean but also know how they’re pronounced.

I can write about anything and, if I’m doing it even moderately well, I can be perceived as an expert, whether I know anything about the subject or not. I can write about world politics, an economic collapse, evolving and emerging technologies – you name it – and I can come across as if I’m the guy world leaders need to talk to when they’re in a fix. The Internet is a big help in this. I can find terminology almost anywhere that most people haven’t come across and it reinforces the notion that, “This guy really knows what he’s talking about!”

Shall we discuss taxonomic ontological metrics? (Actually, I just made that one up.)

Of course, writing also helps me avoid doing things I don’t want to do. I’ve been writing a lot recently because there’s a load of laundry begging to be cleaned.

Writing, however, cannot help you where walking the dog is concerned. This is probably because dogs, for the most part, are illiterate.

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For a week or so now I’ve been trying to write about 2008, my own summation of yet another year. There’s really no need to. Anyone who has been alive through the year has his or her own idea of what it was like, but I decided to write something as a personal assignment just to see what I’d come up with.

It hasn’t gone well.

To begin with, given the way 2008 came to a close (economics, weather, etc.), it was just too easy to malign the entire year and write some grouchy, misanthropic rant. In fact, most of my attempts have gone that way.

Part of the problem, I thought, was that 2008 doesn’t/didn’t actually exist, just as 2009 doesn’t really exist – not in any tactile, real-world way. It’s a mental construct. It’s not like flowers or buildings or cats. It’s all in our heads. It’s a way to keep track of what we do and what happens in our lives.

That thinking was because I didn’t want to write something.

Finally, since the scribbling was not catching flame, I decided to steal my own words from an email I sent to family and friends, and post a little video that summarizes the year as well as I’m able. What I like about the video is its banality. No earth shaking events, personal or public. Just day to day life as I’ve been living it.

So, from my email:

My mother use to wonder how it was that someone who wrote as much as I do, and who wrote such “lovely letters,” didn’t do so more often. I’ve wondered that too. All I can say regarding that is, whenever I attempt something along those lines, I can never think of what to write. Letters or emails such as this one usually are about relating recent incidents. Sort of, “This is what’s been happening with me.” But I can never recall what’s been happening.

I recently read that the ability to recall personal experiences is something that goes with age. They call it autobiographical or episodic memory and the passage of time makes it flee like delinquents when the cops show up. However, I find it difficult to think my problem is this since I’ve had this problem from at least age 18.

My solution has always been to ramble, as I’m doing now, so as to avoid recounting what has been happening in my life. (Of course, it’s entirely possibly nothing has been happening and I simply live a life utterly bereft of consequence. A Kafka thing without the bug transformation.)

This year (note how I write that as if this is something I do every year – ha!), I decided to go through photos I had taken to see if they would jog my memory. I did so and, seeing them, I determined I would make a video using them.

However, as I went through the photos, what I found was an idea. Instead of finding the highlights of my year and relating them, I would make a video of the ordinary, everyday things. For example, I’m very pleased I have images of the Superstore in this video. Who does that?

“What did you do in 2008?”

“Well, I went to the store a lot.”

I call that thinking outside the box. I expect a call from Scorsese any day now.

You may or may not recognize people in this video. Hopefully, you’ll know which one is me. You’ll also be able to recognize Molly Bloom (dog) because she’s all over the place. Other than that, there are quite a number of friends, my sister, and oodles of people of whom I know nothing.

All in all, it’s a pretty good summation of the year: Grocery store. My favourite pub. Dogs. Floods. Wine. Stella Artois. Babies. Snow.

Heavens, there’s even a woodpecker! And a car in a swimming pool!

Yes, it’s quite a life in  New Brunswick.

I hope your Christmas was all you could have hoped for and more. I also hope your 2009 is exciting, bountiful and prosperous (especially if you’re the world economy). I rather like this “ordinary” life, though it’s not for the faint of heart. Oh, … for those with dogs, may the poop you pick up not be runny.

(btw … The music in the video is “This is the Moment” by Canadian band Shaye, from the album “Lake of Fire.” Recommeded.)

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In reading Peter Morville’s Ambient Findability I came across something on the topic of gossip that related to an earlier post of mine, Losing nuance: Working remotely. It’s this:

“Despite huge investments in information and communication technology, we still rely heavily on informal person-to-person networks known as ‘the grapevine.’ And we often trust this ‘unofficial news’ more than the ‘official story.’”

Morville discusses how we humans behave, how any system has to take people into account, and design requires empathy for the user. While not necessarily rational, we rely on gossip as an information sharing system because, while technology may advance quickly, human evolution does not.

Where this relates to my earlier post is in how this gossip aspect, the “watercooler” information exchange, is one of the things lost in working remotely, and is a primary form of communication for people (rightly or wrongly). Yes, there is email, text messaging and so on, and we do use them as gossip mediums, but it’s the person-to-person, in person interaction where the main exchange occurs.

And that is lost.

(btw … Ambient Findability appears to be headed to my list of favourite, most useful books. It’s one of those books I think anyone engaged in the tech field - or any field for that matter - should read. It should be required reading.)

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How does my mind work? This post is a good example of how the process of writing is, for me, the process of understanding. It was only in writing this post that I arrived at what I really was looking for. I think I knew the answer but was only able to articulate it after writing this. It goes like this (btw … feel free to skip to the end to find what I was actually looking for):

I’m reading Peter Morville’s 2005 book Ambient Findability, a book about … well, ambient findability. Of course, the question for the layperson is, what in the world is ambient findability? In an online interview with Boxes and Arrows, the author says, “Ambient findability describes a world at the crossroads of ubiquitous computing and the Internet in which we can find anyone or anything from anywhere at anytime.”

Well, that tells me what it does, but is what it does what it is? (How’s that for a baffling sentence?)

Perhaps this is a confusion in the interview. The question asked is, “What is ‘ambient findability’?” It refers to the concept. The answer, however, may be a response to “What is ‘Ambient Findability’?, referring to the book. Except, that is also how the book defines ambient findability.

Here’s the thing … I have the book (haven’t finished reading it yet), and I’ve been online looking for a clearly stated definition of the term “ambient findability.” I can’t find one. (It doesn’t appear to be particularly findable, ambient or otherwise.) I don’t really need one. I can intuit a definition from usage. And I can get a sense from the author’s quote above.

What I’m really looking for is the relationship between the word “ambient” and “findability.” From the little I’ve read, it seems the word ambient is unnecessary. It seems as if findability alone would do the trick. Unless “ambient” is meant to imply a world of “… ubiquitous computing and the Internet …” Is the term meant to limit the frame of reference to the environment implicit in that: computing and the Internet? If so, it’s still a bit non-specific. As is findability. Something can be found within the environment that surrounds it - but where is the reference to the Internet, data, bits and bytes?

It sounds picky. It is picky. But I really like clearly defined concepts. I also wonder if the word ambient is the best word to use here. Outside the field of study, I wonder how many people would get excited about a phrase like that, much less know what is meant by it? If the concept(s) behind it are of importance, shouldn’t the phrase be more intuitive, more accessible to everyone?

I’m not suggesting the book was written for a general audience. I don’t think it was. And this isn’t a review of the book - I’d have to read the entire thing for that and I’m only partly through it. This post isn’t to praise or condemn the book. It’s simply a little ranting about the language that tends to come out of the field of technology. It often seems utterly detached from the people actually using the tools of technology and the technological environment that constitutes our daily “ambience.”

On the other hand … perhaps the key is in the book itself, in the definition. The definition in the book is pretty much the same as the quote above, but with greater detail. In defining/describing findability, Morville writes, “Findability requires definition, distinction, difference. In physical environments, size, shape, color and location set objects apart. In the digital realm, we rely heavily on words. Words as labels. Words as links. Keywords.”

He continues, “The humble keyword has become surprisingly important in recent years. As a vital ingredient in the online search process, keywords have become part of our everyday experience … And words are the key to our success.”

I think that pretty much explains the reason for the phrase, and the book’s title. Baffling as it may be to the lay person, the phrase is certainly distinct.

In the book, under “Definition,” he defines the two words of the phrase ambient findability and wraps his explanation with, “Ambient findability describes a fast emerging world …” Again, the definition is about what it does and not what it is. Maybe what it does is what it is. But it keeps buggering me up because it doesn’t read like a definition but a like a description.

So … here’s my attempt at a definition that reads like a definition:

Ambient findability: the ability, or lack thereof, to find or be found within a given surrounding environment. (see, Digital ambient findability, DAF)

Digital ambient findability: (also known by the acronym DAF), the ability, or lack thereof, to find or be found within a digital environment, especially the Internet, often referred to more simply as ambient findability. (see, Ambient Findability)

Yes, I know, I know. Seems a very long-winded way to go just for that. Btw … if you can revise, improve upon or replace my definition(s), please do so. They’re not intended as the be all and end all. They’re just suggestions.

Note: I’ve made an edit, deleting some pointless material at the start of this post. Initially I used strikethrough so you could see how moronic I can be but it made for too much struck text preceding the actual post. Mea culpa.

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(I wrote the following a few days ago. The next day, we woke to about two feet of snow. Much shovelling ensued. Today, a day or two later, it’s snowing again. So I was sorely tempted to reconsider number 4. But I won’t revise. I’d still have it on the list, though I believe some moderation is in order. I hope the weather gods read this. Guys, the key word here is moderation.)

Having written previously about the popularity of lists, and having suggested “Best of” lists at least had some value, whereas “worst of” lists were valueless griping, I decided to make a brief “Best of” list about New Brunswick. It’s off the top of my head, but here goes:

5. Lobster!
How can you not like lobster? Messy? Yes. Manual dexterity required? Of course. But whatever downside there may be is trumped by the fact that it’s lobster!

4. Snow
Moan and complain as we do (a requirement of Canadian citizenship), there really aren’t that many people who would have it any other way. Yes, I hate shovelling. But there are few things as beautiful as a snow-laden landscape, or looking out on a world with big flakes floating down.

3. Landscape
You could probably say this about any part of Canada, but I find the New Brunswick landscape to be breathtaking – and in every season! When nature left the world’s cities, it came to New Brunswick.

2. Saint John River
It’s big. It’s wet. Beautiful, historic and given to giving river dwellers the willies in the spring when it rises, “Members of the Maliseet Nation, whose lands and culture have been and still are centered on the Saint John River, have historically called the river ‘Wolastoq’, translating to ‘good and beautiful river’.” (From the Wikipedia entry for the Saint John River, New Brunswick.)

1. The people
As with all of Atlantic Canada, this is a very friendly place. And, as I posted about sometime ago, it’s a place with relatively contented people. (My post was titled, “If you’re happy and you know it - you’re in New Brunswick.”) Thinking about the people of New Brunswick, I can’t help recalling the Kurt Vonnegut line from his novel Slapstick, “Lonesome no more!” (Perhaps New Brunswick is one large extended family?)

(btw … Feel free to coment and add to the list, or make your own list.)

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They are common throughout the year but as December winds down and we approach Christmas, and especially as we near New Year’s Day, lists really get into high gear. They have always been hugely popular on the web, really hitting their stride back when blogs and social networking tools took hold.

What is culturally curious, however, is not the popularity of “Best of” lists but that of “Worst of” lists. I’ve no data on this but from what I see on the web and on TV, there are as many “Worst of” lists as “Best of,” and maybe even more. I’m not sure this was always the case.

When did people decide that listing what they didn’t like was so much fun?

I suppose we could blame the late Mr. Blackwell who may have been the initiator way back in 1960 with his list of worst-dressed celebrities. It doesn’t matter that much. What does matter is why has this happened? What does it say about us that we get so much glee ragging on people we don’t know?

I started thinking about this after following this link to the Village Voice and a “Top Five” post related to the season (worst Christmas songs). If I were to make my own seasonally related list it might be something like “Worst aspects of the season.” At the top would be “Worst of” lists with their tiresomely hip need to dislike anything popular and the de rigueur Celine Dion slagging,

If you have to make a list, at least make it a “Best of” list. I don’t need to know what you don’t like. It’s of no help to me. But a “Best of” list might at least point me in the direction of something good that I’d not been aware of. I might discover something worthwhile.

Just a thought.

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“Members of social networks want to spend time with friends, not brands.”

The sentence states the obvious but you have to wonder sometimes if the obvious isn’t the hardest thing to see. It’s from the Randall Stross article in the New York Times, Advertisers Face Hurdles on Social Networking Sites. It brings up a lot of questions about the idea of brands being on sites like Facebook, probably the biggest of which is, what’s the point?

As Seth says in his post, “… big companies are asking precisely the wrong question. They are asking, ‘how can we use these new tools to leverage our existing businesses?’”

Exactly. This isn’t about the online world, it’s about people. Unless someone is specifically looking to buy something, they rarely want to get a sales pitch. This is why so many ads in the various media are about entertaining rather than an overt pitch.

The phrase “social network” is made up of two key words: social and network. Social means people; network means connected.* A brand is not a person. A company is not a person. A company is made up of people but the entity itself is not human, so a personal relationship won’t be created, which is what social networks are about - people and relationships.

So what’s a company to do? I think, before ever beginning to develop ideas and strategies and so on, a change of mindset has to take place. At the AAAA’s 14th Annual Media Conference & Tradeshow (a year or more ago?), the P&G Marketing Chief Jim Stengel spoke. If you watch the video, it certainly sounds as if marketers are getting it.

But pay attention to the language. He refers several times to “consumers.” He says, at one point, “We’re all consumers.” He’s bang on there. But consumers are people. When you refer to people as consumers, you’re essentially saying, “What’s in it for me?” It suggests you only value people to the extent that they can provide you with something. Moreover, it’s the language of depersonalization. It sounds more like a statistical category than flesh and blood. People don’t define themselves as consumers, only marketers do. So if you go into a social network with the mindset that stats indicate consumers fitting the desired demographic can be found there, odds are you won’t connect.

Stross, in his article, quotes Ted McConnell, manager of interactive marketing and innovation at P.& G. (speaking for himself):

“I don’t want to be best friends with a brand,” he said. “It’s just stuff.”

And that’s the point. People want stuff, maybe even the stuff you’re selling, but they don’t want to have a personal relationship with it. For people, as the quote says, brands are “just stuff.” They want to have relationships with people: family, friends, interesting people who could become friends by engaging them in conversations through an interesting topic discussed by an appealing personality.

Online personality will build a brand far better than contests, “fan of” groups or any of the other attempts marketers have tried on social networks. And it’s very, very hard to do because a company inevitably has a struggle between finding that personality (human, an actual person’s name) and protecting the brand. There is a constant tension between the human voice, and what it is saying, and the non-human corporate entity that sees people as “consumers,” a demographic group to be mined. There is a fear of saying the wrong thing - or saying the right thing but the wrong way. So the corporate entity feels a need to control what is being said, and that’s where the personality starts getting removed from the online presence. Even with a name and face to it, the language becomes safe but bland.

It’s almost as if there is an inherent contradiction for marketers where online marketing is concerned: the only way to market is not to market. It does make sense but not intuitively, a least not for marketers.

So I guess the question becomes: How do you market when you are not marketing?

* Social doesn’t necessarily refer to people - animals are social as well. But in the social network context, it means people.

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I have only one proviso to offer on Seth’s suggestion in his post The power of smart copywriting. (He shows us an ad that says nothing and he suggests different copy.) The client would have to agree with it and not all clients are smart enough to do it. Maybe, in that instance, it’s not a matter of smart so much as it is a client being cautious, even fearful (which, of course, is not very smart).

But have a look at the post and see if you don’t agree that 1) it’s bland, useless copy that says essentially nothing and 2) Seth’s suggestion isn’t just better copy but a much smarter approach to getting sales.

If you are a copywriter, this is the kind of suggestion you should make and strongly recommend the client go with. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself with a growing portfolio of uninspired, bland copy.

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