The TrueTalk Blog

Staying In Touch Using Twitter

Twitter's become a pretty important tool for staying in touch with people and things I care about. 

Singularly Freaked

Susan Greenfield, an Oxford neuroscientist, is pretty freaked by the prospect of carbon-silicon convergence. Guess she's not much of a Battlestar Galactica fan, eh?

As Ray Kurzweil pointed out in this 2006 TEDTalk, Moore's Law has long made it  evident that silicon-based computing power would soon match that of the human brain. Add to that our increasingly sophisticated prosthetic design and implantation technology, and it's pretty clear that by mid-century, at the latest, hybrid human-machine life forms will be theoretically possible. Kurzweil called this moment, "the singularity."

At this year's TED, memologist Susan Blackmore  suggested that technology is already replicating itself via humans, a highly radical notion if you stop to think of it.

Point is, these ideas always frighten us. Visions of scenes of villagers with torches come to mind as Dr. Frankenstein's monster terrorizes the countryside.

I wonder when we're going to be able to have straightforward conversations about this inevitability. Probably not for a while, huh? Especially with Oxford neuroscientists raising the specter of lost individuality as the inevitable outcome of our continued use/dependency on technology.

A Mouse in Z-Time: Update

Clay Shirky's talk at last week's Web 2.0 Conference is up, here.

Wow.

We have come to accept the assumption that time is a  finite resource. Which, of course, it is, if you take status quo as baseline. So, if you continue to work X number of hours and sleep Y what's left is Z. And Z, of course, is already spoken for, or else you'd be sitting around doing nothing, which you're not.

Ah, but Z is the big opportunity. Why? Well, right now, you're reading the paper in Z-time. You're going to the movies in Z-time. Or, you're watching Lost.  Shirky calls Z-time our "cognitive surplus."

What we know, however, is that much of what used to happen in Z-time ain't happening anymore. Newspaper readership; down. Movie-going; down. TV viewership; down.

Well, what are we doing with our Z-time then?

Blogging. Making videos. Recording podcasts. Uploading photos to Flickr. Commenting. Twittering.

In short, we're creating stuff. Some of us more than others, for now, but all of us getting used to the idea that we, all of us, are creators and not simply "consumers" of material. All of us care enough about something to say something about it, write about it, take a picture of it or comment on somebody else's take on it.

And, to do that, we need, metaphorically, a mouse. So, Shirky says:

I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about sitting with his four-year-old daughter watching a DVD.  And in the middle of the movie, apropos nothing, she jumps up off the couch and runs around behind the screen.  That seems like a cute moment.  Maybe she's going back there to see if Dora is really back there or whatever.  But that wasn't what she was doing. She started rooting around in the cables.  And her dad said, "What you doing?"  And she stuck her head out from behind the screen and said, "Looking for the mouse."

Here's something four-year-olds know:  A screen that ships without a mouse ships broken.  Here's something four-year-olds know: Media that's targeted at you but doesn't include you may not be worth sitting still for.

Read the piece. Hey, it's your Z-time, use it wisely.

UPDATE: Here's video of Shirky's talk.

Run Straight Down? No.

Many of us decry the state of our world by using that phrase of mysterious origin: "we're going to hell in a handbasket." Kids beating kids on YouTube vids for the lulz, Olympic torches under attack everywhere, Iraq, Darfur...on and on.

But, that's not the whole story. I made the following video in response to a thoughtful one by an American living in Japan. In it, I lean heavily on Steve Pinker's terrific TED 2007 presentation, which is worth every minute to watch. Hope you enjoy it.

Oh, and by the way, bonus points for the people who can point out the relationship of the post's title to the video!

Flipping Through Twitter

I've been using Twitter fairly heavily for the past couple of months. Before that, it was a curiosity. As I've become more comfortable with it, I've started following more strangers. My system for choosing whom to follow has been fairly simply: I'll look at links and @name replies (if you're not a Twitterer, the "@" sign designates a "tweet" [what Twitter users call each individual post] as a public direct reply to an individual) in the tweets of people I currently follow. That way, I've come upon an array of interesting folks I'd never have discovered otherwise. So far, I'm following slightly over 200 people.

Now, that might sound overwhelming. And, if I tried to follow every single thing that every one of those 200+ people posted, it would be. But I don't. Instead, I'm approaching Twitter like I approach the New York Times.

Here's how.

When I pick up each morning's edition of the Times, there are some sections I read religiously (yup, Sports is almost always first) and some I get to if I have time (Arts). If I have a little more time, I flip through the entire paper, simply looking for things that pop out at me. I think all of us have had that great experience of sitting down on a Saturday or Sunday morning with a cup of coffee and just meandering through our favorite newspaper. I always find unexpected, interesting things when I do that.

Same with Twitter. I'll open my Twitter page in the morning and look for posts from some of my favorite people. I scan the page, looking for those names. If I don't find one (rare) I'll hit the "Older" button until I do. Then, click on the person's name link and, presto, you've got all their tweets in chrono order. I'll do that for a few folks and, if I have time, go back to the Friends timeline to begin the "flipping" process.

Now, this undoubtedly means that I will miss great material. Just like I do in the Times on those days when I don't have "flipping leisure time." Some of those things I'll pick up by virtue of others' references; others are gone for posterity. So what? You can't pick up everything, after all, and you have to trust that you'll eventually find the valuable stuff if you work at it.

If you're a Twitterer, I 'd be very interested in hearing your approach for using this amazing resource...that is, if you can get our newfangled Disqus-driven comments to work!

The "What" and "How" of "Interesting"

In a socially-networked world which presents a humongous number of choices, who do you connect with?

For me, some connections are purely topical. If I'm interested in a particular subject domain, I look for experts in that domain and follow them. I am seeking their ideas, information, knowledge, influence about something in particular. This is why I watch Mario Batali or listen to Mike And The Mad Dog. For me, they excel in their domain-expertise. I listen to them because I'm interested in "what" they're talking about.

But other connections are more broad-based. This is the case when you find someone whose perspective, point of view, mindset is, in itself, interesting. I am interested in this person's "take" on things, no matter what those things might be. This is why I eagerly await anything by Malcolm Gladwell, Frank Rich, Van Morrison or the Coen Brothers. I listen to them because I'm interested in "how" they talk about things.

Vertical social networks, focusing on specific subject domains (everything from auto racing to knitting) are springing up everywhere. The question I have pertains to their sustainability. Unless I'm really, really, really (yup, three reallys) into a domain, I'm much more likely to seek out interesting people so that I can get their perspective on a wide-range of issues. I guess this is related to me being a fox rather than a hedgehog, but I wouldn't swear to it.

How about you? Whom do you find yourself engaging more frequently: "what" or "how" people?

Who's Here?

Sometimes it's hard for those of us who blog and vlog, who spend time on Twitter, Seesmic, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, FriendFeed and who knows what else every day to remember that we're crazy.

I mean, only crazy people are as far ahead of the curve as we are. Like Lennon said, "Imagine all the people..." just going about their lives, oblivious of the technologies they'll be adopting next year and the year after that.

That's the subject of this lengthy video. I'd very much appreciate your comments.

Whither (Wither?) Authority?

Remember when there were powerful people who controlled things?; whose opinions you listened to and trusted?

Now what?

Twittering Along Together

If you're not using Twitter, you're missing both fun and useful information. Give it a try. Why not start by following me?

Care And The Meaning of The City

I'm a Heideggerian.

There, I said it.

Martin Heidegger's work was a large part of the foundation for our Ph.D. program in psychology at Duquesne University in the early 1970s. We were the most progressive thinking psychology program in America at that time.

Our work was based on a long and fruitful intellectual history going back to the pre-Socratic Greeks. I was introduced to this approach to the discipline, which I eventually came to know as existential-phenomenological psychology, by my mentor at the University of Dayton, Dr. Antos Rancurello. Antos was a genius. He had two Ph.D.s, one in philosophy from a university in Italy whose name I, ashamedly, do not know for certain (Bologna?), and one in psychology from Loyola University in Chicago. Antos carried within him an appreciation for the human spirit that was so abiding, so embracing, that nothing, nothing that any human being had ever done, or could do, was foreign to him, and, by extension, all of us. He recognized the commonality of human experience for what it was (is): a broad continuum on which we all abide. This is what Alfred Adler eventually came to call "social interest."

I digress.

At Duquesne, we psychology students were required to take graduate courses in the philosophy department, the same courses that their Ph.D. students were taking; major league shit. So, in my first year, when I took a course in Heidegger's Being and Time taught by Father Andre Scheuer, I had no idea that I was about to be guided in  the reading of this incredibly enigmatic, poetic, impenetrable tract (or, Part 1, to be wholly accurate), by one of Martin's own lifelong friends, someone who, in summers, would stroll through the Black Forest with the author himself, contemplating the true essence of sorge, translated in the English, as "care."

So, Andre had big time street cred.

And, he was an amazing prof. First, he was, after all, "Father" Scheuer, at a Catholic educational institution in 1971. One expected a bit of communal conformity.

No. None was discernible.

Each week, Andre silently walked into class impeccably dressed in a dark near-ganster-striped suit (even thinking about writing about Heidegger gets me started with the hyphens), wearing gold-framed wire rim glasses, carrying a sheath of papers. He'd walk slowly to the podium, take out another pair of reading glasses (identical to the ones he was removing), take a deep breath, and begin. In a thick German accent, Andre would read his lecture notes from the papers on the podium. He would precisely explicate the meaning of a particular paragraph, phrase or word from Being and Time; sometimes for up to two hours.

We were rapt. This was studying as close to the feet of the master as any of us could ever hope to get. The coolest intellectual experience I've ever had. I will remember it always.

Anyway, I was talking to a friend of mine last night and Heidegger came up. Well, not explicitly, of course, but he came up just the same.

My friend and I were talking about the powerful appeal of establishing online relationships with people (and things) that "interest" you. We allowed as how searching for, finding and connecting with...what?...people and things you care about...is the great engine for today's "social media" boom.

"Engagement" is the new black.

And, since (here's another Heideggerian part) care drives experience, we see that we find what we care about when scanning a richly populated landscape (read: crowded marketplace). So, literally, we see that-about-which-we-are-already-concerned (since fully explaining Heidegger's concept of "care" would wear us both out, let's use that phrase as a placeholder: "that-about-which-we-are-already-concerned").

Well, that may seem trivially obvious, but it's anything but. It  means that as we enable ourselves to connect with the people and things we care about, and to interact with those people and things in the ways-we-do-when-we-care-about something, cool shit can happen (that's not exactly the Heideggerian "being-with," but "cool shit" gets it just fine).

And, that's what the city is all about.

PS - Oh, yeah. If Heidegger's picture freaks you out because he looks like some kind of SS stormtrooper, turns out you're probably about three-quarters right. Those beliefs were not at issue for us in the early 70s, struggling, as we were, to learn the basics of Heidegger's thinking, beyond which, I know, I have never progresses.