Friday, 18 May 2012
Hardcover Story
Don’t get me wrong I’ve got nothing against ‘milking’. It brings back fond memories of A-Level economics. I think we called it ‘price differentiation over time’ back then, and it’s ubiquitous in the marketplace, from train tickets to PlayStations. But the publishing industry is the only example I can think of that feels it has to dress it up as a different product. In this resource-conscious time, the right thing to do is bring the paperback out immediately and steadily bring it down in price. It’s not the price I object to, it’s the form factor. Of course, I know, this is not something an individual author or even publisher has much control over – the industry ‘just doesn’t work that way’. But my concern is that this is another sign the industry is unwilling to move with the times, to defend itself. Those pesky indie- and self-publishers (ahem) have mobilised – and, believe me, they’re not packing hardbacks.
(This was written to elaborate on my recent tweets regarding what will likely be my last ever purchase of a novel as a physical book, Killer Move by Michael Marshall (Smith))
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
Smartphone App 'Immaculart' Kick-Starts Global Recovery
[Still trying my hand at those tabloid headlines - expecting a call from Murdoch any day]
So I posed a question in my last blog post:
Well, with no further ado, the answer I had in mind was...
...ART.
Not everyone likes art, I know. But a lot - I'd say most - do. And the beauty of art (beyond the aesthetic kind) is that it can be owned at effectively zero cost. It can be enjoyed without being consumed, appreciated without depreciating. It is an asset. I'm not saying that if you are silly enough to buy a painting of a dot for ten grand that you'll ever recoup your outlay. But if you discover a piece you really like and you're willing to pay a couple of hundred quid for it, then you can pretty much guarantee that there are a thousand other people out there that would do likewise.
And it is this ability to be both consumer product and asset at the same time that makes it a very useful tool for redistributing wealth in a socially ethical way (unlike, for instance, the insane notion of a lottery!! - sorry pet hate).
Of course many artists face difficultly in getting their art seen by those thousands who might appreciate it. So a few months back, when I had my epiphany, I began work on a little project. And at long last it takes its first tentative steps into the real world.
The project is called: immaculart.
It's an art gallery. For your phone.
It's an app where you can browse and buy real art by real artists. And, also, for a more passive experience, you can allow the app to change your wallpaper periodically to a great piece of art from our collection.
Right now, it's just in a pilot phase, but it's live and you can try it out - only on Android at the moment I'm afraid. But if it goes well, it will be made available on other platforms and more features are in the pipeline.
So, if you like art, do download the app, give it a try and let me know your thoughts (or any problems). Or if know an artist, tell them to get in touch. This is a way of them getting their work out to the world.
Contact me on paul.newell@immaculart.com or any of my other email addresses :)
So I posed a question in my last blog post:
What class of product generates value from thin air?
Well, with no further ado, the answer I had in mind was...
...ART.
Not everyone likes art, I know. But a lot - I'd say most - do. And the beauty of art (beyond the aesthetic kind) is that it can be owned at effectively zero cost. It can be enjoyed without being consumed, appreciated without depreciating. It is an asset. I'm not saying that if you are silly enough to buy a painting of a dot for ten grand that you'll ever recoup your outlay. But if you discover a piece you really like and you're willing to pay a couple of hundred quid for it, then you can pretty much guarantee that there are a thousand other people out there that would do likewise.
And it is this ability to be both consumer product and asset at the same time that makes it a very useful tool for redistributing wealth in a socially ethical way (unlike, for instance, the insane notion of a lottery!! - sorry pet hate).
Of course many artists face difficultly in getting their art seen by those thousands who might appreciate it. So a few months back, when I had my epiphany, I began work on a little project. And at long last it takes its first tentative steps into the real world.
The project is called: immaculart.
It's an art gallery. For your phone.
It's an app where you can browse and buy real art by real artists. And, also, for a more passive experience, you can allow the app to change your wallpaper periodically to a great piece of art from our collection.
Right now, it's just in a pilot phase, but it's live and you can try it out - only on Android at the moment I'm afraid. But if it goes well, it will be made available on other platforms and more features are in the pipeline.
So, if you like art, do download the app, give it a try and let me know your thoughts (or any problems). Or if know an artist, tell them to get in touch. This is a way of them getting their work out to the world.
Contact me on paul.newell@immaculart.com or any of my other email addresses :)
Monday, 2 April 2012
Elixir of Value
So we all know that encouraging people to spend money is one way of stimulating the economy. But that's about as limited a notion as trying to measure the extent of that stimulation via GDP. After all, having a car crash stimulates the economy, and adds to GDP (by virtue of all the medical treatment and car fixing involved), but no one's suggesting we encourage those. The problem here is in measuring output and not outcome (a really nice way of putting it borrowed from Umair Haque).
But this is all covering ground I've discussed before. The point that's important here is that what we spend our money on is crucial. We have lots of choices on that front, and their outcomes are all different, so you'll be glad to learn I am not going to begin analysing them all here. But in putting thought to this a little while ago I stumbled across a particular type of product with a very special property: it generates value from thin air.
Let's just consider the individual cost of buying a normal product. If you spend, say, £500 on a TV, how much has it cost you? £500? Well no, because you now have a TV, which has a value. But it's now secondhand, so scarily enough it's probably already depreciated 50%. So the actual monetary cost to you is about £250. Over time it will depreciate to nothing and will cost you the full £500, but over that time you will value the utility from owning it at far greater than that. So all is good. But not great. We generated some value and then saw it witter away into nothingness.
Now, diamonds are cool (of course) - as are many minerals. They don't depreciate. If you spend £500 on diamonds, then they are still worth £500. And over time they are likely to actually appreciate in value. Awesome. But, these already exist. All of them. There are only a finite number of diamonds in the world - that's why they hold their value. So there is no generation of value here - just the moving of it about a little. (Without going into detail, houses can be considered similarly. Because, it's mostly the land that gives a house its value, and that is finite also.)
What if there were a product that could be made from basic materials, such that it has added value over and above those materials (just like a TV), but that then appreciates in value over time? That would be ... really interesting. Why? Because, if person A (Alice) could make these things, and person B (Bob) wanted one, then a rather intriguing scenario ensues. If Alice has £20 and Bob has £500, and Alice can make a product from £20-worth of raw materials that Bob is happy to pay £500 for, then Alice now has £500 and Bob has something which is worth £500 (and will be worth even more in the future). We've generated permanent value from nowhere!
Is this possible?
Yes.
So what is this magical product? Well, let me know your thoughts...
But this is all covering ground I've discussed before. The point that's important here is that what we spend our money on is crucial. We have lots of choices on that front, and their outcomes are all different, so you'll be glad to learn I am not going to begin analysing them all here. But in putting thought to this a little while ago I stumbled across a particular type of product with a very special property: it generates value from thin air.
Let's just consider the individual cost of buying a normal product. If you spend, say, £500 on a TV, how much has it cost you? £500? Well no, because you now have a TV, which has a value. But it's now secondhand, so scarily enough it's probably already depreciated 50%. So the actual monetary cost to you is about £250. Over time it will depreciate to nothing and will cost you the full £500, but over that time you will value the utility from owning it at far greater than that. So all is good. But not great. We generated some value and then saw it witter away into nothingness.
Now, diamonds are cool (of course) - as are many minerals. They don't depreciate. If you spend £500 on diamonds, then they are still worth £500. And over time they are likely to actually appreciate in value. Awesome. But, these already exist. All of them. There are only a finite number of diamonds in the world - that's why they hold their value. So there is no generation of value here - just the moving of it about a little. (Without going into detail, houses can be considered similarly. Because, it's mostly the land that gives a house its value, and that is finite also.)
What if there were a product that could be made from basic materials, such that it has added value over and above those materials (just like a TV), but that then appreciates in value over time? That would be ... really interesting. Why? Because, if person A (Alice) could make these things, and person B (Bob) wanted one, then a rather intriguing scenario ensues. If Alice has £20 and Bob has £500, and Alice can make a product from £20-worth of raw materials that Bob is happy to pay £500 for, then Alice now has £500 and Bob has something which is worth £500 (and will be worth even more in the future). We've generated permanent value from nowhere!
Is this possible?
Yes.
So what is this magical product? Well, let me know your thoughts...
Thursday, 29 March 2012
Honey, I Shrunk the Economy
So, you want to know who broke the economy? I admit it: it was me.
(See how I've heeded the lessons of good journalism by opening with a snappy but exaggerated claim which I'll go on to caveat heavily until its interest is eroded to nothing? Here I go...)
Okay, not just me, but the demographic to which I belong. And okay, not broke exactly (that was the bankers, we all know that), but at least left in tatters.
The thing that struck me about the UK's flailing attempts over the last fours years to save us from a financial meltdown, is that the two main waves of attack seemed oddly opposed. First we had Quantitative Easing Brown (which sounds dodgier than I'd hoped) with his plan to spend spend spend our way out of trouble; and then came Osbourne's message to tighten the purse strings and pay down the debt (both his and ours). It makes you wonder where we might be right now if we'd done nothing all along. But of course, it's more complicated than that. Well, actually, no it isn't more complicated, it's really simple. What we really need, is both. We need the people who have money, to spend it. And the people who don't have money ... wait for it ... to not spend it. That's it in essence, but trying to promote this behaviour via government policy isn't so easy.
This is where it becomes my fault. Because I am in the fortunate position (like many in fact) of having benefited from the Global Financial Crisis. Not life-changingly, but I still have a job ... and my mortgage rate is lower than ever. So, it is in part my responsibility to give something back. How? Well, I could buy a new car a year-or-so earlier than I was planning to; or upgrade my TV like I've being saying I would forever (12-year-old CRT still going strong!). And this extra-extravagance on my part would help, of course (if others like me did similar). But it's not really very sustainable. It's basically getting the economy going via the policy of throwing stuff out - which I can't begin to promote. It's also not a very direct stimulus. Buying Panasonic isn't going to greatly aid the local community.
But there is one other commodity that maybe I, and maybe lots of people who can afford to, should invest in more of ... time. Not investing time, but investing in time. Buying it. Because the nub of the problem is this. There are millions of people who can't find work, and there are millions of people who work too much. I am at the most financially secure of my life and yet I work longer hours now than I ever have, if you count the 2hrs commuting a day (something I said I would never ever do). There is enough work - it just needs to be shared out a little better. The most extreme method of redressing this inbalance is for more people - those who can afford it - to work part time. But I'm not suggesting this at all. For there is a way of buying time at a much lower price. In fact, there are hundreds. Especially if you are a low-skilled lazy-ass like me. Let me just reel some off...
Firstly, no brainer in my opinion. Get your groceries delivered. It costs five quid and saves an hour of your life every time; and give a packer and a driver a job. Next, get your windows cleaned by the local man with a bucket. Maybe consider a cleaner for the inside of your house too. Pay a youth to mow your lawn. And don't put aside that weekend to paint your house, get the decorators in, and take yourself to the seaside. Don't struggle with DIY tasks that an odd-job man on the next street can get done in a fraction of the time. You see, it's all about specializing. You do what you're good at every day at work. Offload some of the other jobs to other people. Go on, buy yourself some time - you've earned it. And the economy needs it.
Give yourself a break. Give someone else a job.
(See how I've heeded the lessons of good journalism by opening with a snappy but exaggerated claim which I'll go on to caveat heavily until its interest is eroded to nothing? Here I go...)
Okay, not just me, but the demographic to which I belong. And okay, not broke exactly (that was the bankers, we all know that), but at least left in tatters.
The thing that struck me about the UK's flailing attempts over the last fours years to save us from a financial meltdown, is that the two main waves of attack seemed oddly opposed. First we had Quantitative Easing Brown (which sounds dodgier than I'd hoped) with his plan to spend spend spend our way out of trouble; and then came Osbourne's message to tighten the purse strings and pay down the debt (both his and ours). It makes you wonder where we might be right now if we'd done nothing all along. But of course, it's more complicated than that. Well, actually, no it isn't more complicated, it's really simple. What we really need, is both. We need the people who have money, to spend it. And the people who don't have money ... wait for it ... to not spend it. That's it in essence, but trying to promote this behaviour via government policy isn't so easy.
This is where it becomes my fault. Because I am in the fortunate position (like many in fact) of having benefited from the Global Financial Crisis. Not life-changingly, but I still have a job ... and my mortgage rate is lower than ever. So, it is in part my responsibility to give something back. How? Well, I could buy a new car a year-or-so earlier than I was planning to; or upgrade my TV like I've being saying I would forever (12-year-old CRT still going strong!). And this extra-extravagance on my part would help, of course (if others like me did similar). But it's not really very sustainable. It's basically getting the economy going via the policy of throwing stuff out - which I can't begin to promote. It's also not a very direct stimulus. Buying Panasonic isn't going to greatly aid the local community.
But there is one other commodity that maybe I, and maybe lots of people who can afford to, should invest in more of ... time. Not investing time, but investing in time. Buying it. Because the nub of the problem is this. There are millions of people who can't find work, and there are millions of people who work too much. I am at the most financially secure of my life and yet I work longer hours now than I ever have, if you count the 2hrs commuting a day (something I said I would never ever do). There is enough work - it just needs to be shared out a little better. The most extreme method of redressing this inbalance is for more people - those who can afford it - to work part time. But I'm not suggesting this at all. For there is a way of buying time at a much lower price. In fact, there are hundreds. Especially if you are a low-skilled lazy-ass like me. Let me just reel some off...
Firstly, no brainer in my opinion. Get your groceries delivered. It costs five quid and saves an hour of your life every time; and give a packer and a driver a job. Next, get your windows cleaned by the local man with a bucket. Maybe consider a cleaner for the inside of your house too. Pay a youth to mow your lawn. And don't put aside that weekend to paint your house, get the decorators in, and take yourself to the seaside. Don't struggle with DIY tasks that an odd-job man on the next street can get done in a fraction of the time. You see, it's all about specializing. You do what you're good at every day at work. Offload some of the other jobs to other people. Go on, buy yourself some time - you've earned it. And the economy needs it.
Give yourself a break. Give someone else a job.
Addendum: Please don't take any of this the wrong way - (a) This is mostly directed at me (and a subset of the economy) and (b) I don't know what I'm talking about. Tomorrow, however, I genuinely will reveal how you can generate value from nothing! Quantitative easing, without the downside. Watch this blog.
Tuesday, 22 November 2011
Democracy or Fallacy?
It only occurred to me the other day that one of the greatest hurdles in solving the world's problems is that we don't live in a democracy. Not even close. Most people would probably agree that it takes a balanced cross-section of skills to make a society run smooth. The right mix of, say, doctors, scientists, engineers, carpenters, teachers, artists, and so on. It's impossible to say what the exact ratio should be, but what we can say is that in a democracy each should get an equal say in what's best for the country. Now, it's true we all get an equal right to vote. But in a developed and (relatively) stable country like the UK a vote doesn't count for much as the alternatives are so similar. We only have three main parties and two of them are in power! So every couple of years or so the doctors and the scientists, etc., each get to vote in some fairly meaningless election, whereas every day it is only politicians that get to vote in the important legislation-making decisions. Now, if doctors know about medicine and carpenters are skillful with wood, what are the skills that set politicians apart? There are a lot of negative answers to this one, but keeping positive, politicians are good at making arguments. Essentially, they are good at having opinions, and making the case for those opinions.
Ah, I hear you argue, but politicians may come from any background. This is true, but in no one's imagination is the make-up of any political body representative of the population at large. Take the US congress. Of its 535 members, 222 of them are ... wait for it ... lawyers. Ten of them are scientists. The latter group are trained to ascertain facts. The former group are trained in the selective use of facts to win arguments. With whom would it be best to entrust our most important decisions?
Finally, to illustrate this point most sharply, I want to re-tell a story I read about the UK Chancellor, George Osborne. He is currently grappling with the biggest economic challenge of our era, maybe ever; a problem which no one understands. It's comforting to note then that Osborne has no formal training in economics. But there is one thing he is outstanding at, illustrated nicely by this tale. At the age of 17 George was due to take part in a debate about nuclear disarmament, and he was arguing the case for maintaining a nuclear deterrent. A tall order in itself, but as he rose to speak he was called away to play in a rugby match. Leaving his notes behind, some guy in the audience stood and read them for him. He won unanimously. He won, without even being there, by the strength of his arguments only. Just as a footnote, Osborne didn't even know he wanted to be a politician, he just fell into a role of researcher at the Conservative Office and then a speech writer (of course) for William Hague.
So, the country (world) is being run be a bunch of individuals who are very good at getting their point across, sometimes despite the facts. But then, of course, it is just as ludicrous to consider that we have a referendum on every state decision. Maybe if we've got a point to make we all need to get together an stand outside a church ... no, hold on, don't think that's such a good idea either.
Ah, I hear you argue, but politicians may come from any background. This is true, but in no one's imagination is the make-up of any political body representative of the population at large. Take the US congress. Of its 535 members, 222 of them are ... wait for it ... lawyers. Ten of them are scientists. The latter group are trained to ascertain facts. The former group are trained in the selective use of facts to win arguments. With whom would it be best to entrust our most important decisions?
Finally, to illustrate this point most sharply, I want to re-tell a story I read about the UK Chancellor, George Osborne. He is currently grappling with the biggest economic challenge of our era, maybe ever; a problem which no one understands. It's comforting to note then that Osborne has no formal training in economics. But there is one thing he is outstanding at, illustrated nicely by this tale. At the age of 17 George was due to take part in a debate about nuclear disarmament, and he was arguing the case for maintaining a nuclear deterrent. A tall order in itself, but as he rose to speak he was called away to play in a rugby match. Leaving his notes behind, some guy in the audience stood and read them for him. He won unanimously. He won, without even being there, by the strength of his arguments only. Just as a footnote, Osborne didn't even know he wanted to be a politician, he just fell into a role of researcher at the Conservative Office and then a speech writer (of course) for William Hague.
So, the country (world) is being run be a bunch of individuals who are very good at getting their point across, sometimes despite the facts. But then, of course, it is just as ludicrous to consider that we have a referendum on every state decision. Maybe if we've got a point to make we all need to get together an stand outside a church ... no, hold on, don't think that's such a good idea either.
Monday, 12 September 2011
Social Media: It's Time to Open Up
The final straw has been cast onto the camel's back of my social-media tolerance. And now you must endure my whinging about said straw ... and the two before that - you lucky lucky things.
The final straw was cast by the mobile handset manufacturer HTC - who I did have a lot of respect for - but who have now spent however many millions of dollars on developing a very slick and feature-rich phone. It looks like a nice phone. I might even have considered it for my next upgrade. Except for one tiny little detail. And that tiny little detail happens to be a rather familiar blue-square-with-a-white-F-in-it motif. Yes, it's been unashamedly branded as a Facebook phone. I don't just mean it's a phone on which you can use Facebook - you can do that on any smartphone. No, I mean that this phone's one-and-only little button, is none other than the aforementioned blue square we cannot seem to escape these days. And what does the button do? Well it rather nauseatingly offers a 'one touch to Facebook' capability, of course. Excuse me while I decide whether to cry or vomit.
The penultimate straw was Google+. I've lived through FriendsReunited and MySpace and Facebook and the one positive that can be stated for this progression is that it was a progression in the that the forerunners fell by the way side and slipped into near obscurity. But this trend has stopped. New services are forming without the old ones dying off. Google+ is the latest to join the fray. Does the world really need another address book to manage? Before the internet, I only had one! Technology was supposed to make life easier. It was supposed to do away with mundane tasks, not pile on evermore layers of social bookkeeping.
The antepenultimate straw was the explosion of these social media brands into every corner of my life, in particular onto public services like the BBC. I don't believe that it's appropriate for a supposedly non-commercial and impartial entity like the BBC to say the words Facebook and Twitter a million times a day. How is it different from them saying, "and if you'd like a drink after the show, why not try Coca-Cola?" And it's not just those two names, many times I've heard the News chaps say "and joining us by Skype". Why do we need to know? Do they think it makes them seem hip and trendy? It doesn't. It's product placement just the same.
The final straw was cast by the mobile handset manufacturer HTC - who I did have a lot of respect for - but who have now spent however many millions of dollars on developing a very slick and feature-rich phone. It looks like a nice phone. I might even have considered it for my next upgrade. Except for one tiny little detail. And that tiny little detail happens to be a rather familiar blue-square-with-a-white-F-in-it motif. Yes, it's been unashamedly branded as a Facebook phone. I don't just mean it's a phone on which you can use Facebook - you can do that on any smartphone. No, I mean that this phone's one-and-only little button, is none other than the aforementioned blue square we cannot seem to escape these days. And what does the button do? Well it rather nauseatingly offers a 'one touch to Facebook' capability, of course. Excuse me while I decide whether to cry or vomit.
The penultimate straw was Google+. I've lived through FriendsReunited and MySpace and Facebook and the one positive that can be stated for this progression is that it was a progression in the that the forerunners fell by the way side and slipped into near obscurity. But this trend has stopped. New services are forming without the old ones dying off. Google+ is the latest to join the fray. Does the world really need another address book to manage? Before the internet, I only had one! Technology was supposed to make life easier. It was supposed to do away with mundane tasks, not pile on evermore layers of social bookkeeping.
The antepenultimate straw was the explosion of these social media brands into every corner of my life, in particular onto public services like the BBC. I don't believe that it's appropriate for a supposedly non-commercial and impartial entity like the BBC to say the words Facebook and Twitter a million times a day. How is it different from them saying, "and if you'd like a drink after the show, why not try Coca-Cola?" And it's not just those two names, many times I've heard the News chaps say "and joining us by Skype". Why do we need to know? Do they think it makes them seem hip and trendy? It doesn't. It's product placement just the same.
So, that's it. I've had enough. It's time for me to spell out the next great evolutionary step that the internet must take - for all our sakes. But we'll get to that. First, let me offer some context.
You would be forgiven for thinking that we didn't know how to communicate before the likes of Twitterbook and SkypedIn and whatever the hell other globalised monsters have emerged from the Valley of Silicon. But we did know, and we did so without the utterance of a brand name or the reliance on bespoke technology. We never had to say 'send me a RoyalMail' or 'I'll give you a BritishTelecom later.' And even when the internet trundled into existence we could simply 'email' people - we didn't have to 'Hotmail' them. I didn't need to have a Hotmail account to email someone who did, or a Lycos account to email someone who chose that as their provider. It almost went that way. In the early days, CompuServe and (the original form of) AOL were closed off networks, with the internet just providing the route to their door. But common sense (or something) prevailed, open standards were written, and lo we could all communicate and exchange our various monikers in a brandless fashion. Even when the web came along, it was all beautifully non-proprietary. At the end of the BBC News they never had to say, visit our 'Yahoo page' - they still don't.
Fortunately, it was understood at an early stage that an electronic mail system and the world wide web would only ever work as an open enterprise, because these two services are arguably the two most fundamental services built on top of the internet. Of course, the internet hosts countless other applications: multi-player video games, financial transactions, video conferencing, streaming TV and radio. But there is a key difference with these applications ... it doesn't matter if people don't all use the same one. It doesn't matter if some people play Call of Duty, some play World of Warcraft and some play Pacman - and it doesn't matter if these games don't interact with each other. In fact, it's better that way ... it's called competition. But with email and the web - just like the internet that underpins them - we all have to be a part of the same system. We all have to be part of a single globally defined addressing and naming scheme.
Think of the web (or email) like a railway system. The stations can all be owned by different people and look totally different, just like websites or email providers do. But there can only be one rail network running between them. And the trains themselves, well they can have anything in them, just like your emails can, as long as the outside of the train is the right shape. The magic would is protocol. Anyone can build a train, or lay tracks or run a rail service, just as long as there is an agreed protocol that they all conform to. Such a non-proprietary protocol is often called an 'open standard' - one which anyone is free to use.
So what does this have to do with Facebook phones? Well, I have a very serious point to make. In fact, I have what might be termed a Big Idea. It's an idea that could revolutionize the internet. Or it could be read by about 6 people and ignored. Time will tell. Anyway, my Big Idea is this:
The belief that this makes sense hinges on the realisation that we have reached a point where all the social media sites are converging on the same set of features. Those being:
So it's time for me to stand up and make a request to the world for
Over and out,
Newell ... you can follow me on Twitter ;)
Think of the web (or email) like a railway system. The stations can all be owned by different people and look totally different, just like websites or email providers do. But there can only be one rail network running between them. And the trains themselves, well they can have anything in them, just like your emails can, as long as the outside of the train is the right shape. The magic would is protocol. Anyone can build a train, or lay tracks or run a rail service, just as long as there is an agreed protocol that they all conform to. Such a non-proprietary protocol is often called an 'open standard' - one which anyone is free to use.
So what does this have to do with Facebook phones? Well, I have a very serious point to make. In fact, I have what might be termed a Big Idea. It's an idea that could revolutionize the internet. Or it could be read by about 6 people and ignored. Time will tell. Anyway, my Big Idea is this:
An open standard to exchange social media informationBoring, huh? Well maybe, but revolutionary it is too. Because social media is no longer a little experiment by a few enterprising start-ups. There are in fact no words to describe just how big it is. Facebook is pushing a billion users all on its own. A billion. That's insane. On this scale we cannot deny that a social media facility is now the third fundamental service offered by the internet, after email and the web. It's time for it to be recognised as such and it's time for it to be treated in the same way. And by the same way, I mean: a single social media addressing system and a choice of whatever vendor's application you like to exploit it - just like email or the web.
The belief that this makes sense hinges on the realisation that we have reached a point where all the social media sites are converging on the same set of features. Those being:
- Defining a set of contacts (be they friends, associates or whoever)
- Posting status updates
- Uploading pictures
- Instant messaging
- Video/voice chat
- Installation of arbitrary third-party apps/plug-ins.
So it's time for me to stand up and make a request to the world for
An open standard to exchange social media information.It is feasible. Not trivial, but feasible. I know, as well as anyone, how much effort it will require to put together such a standard. But it is needed. I absolutely believe that it is. If you believe that it is too, please just spread the word. I here social media is a good way of doing that :)
Over and out,
Newell ... you can follow me on Twitter ;)
Monday, 4 July 2011
Because We're Worth It (Mostly)
I'm sorry, but I make no apologies for returning to 'the Guide', for another insightful observation by Douglas Adams. In his second book, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, we learn of a race called the Golgafrinchans. Their planet was (supposedly) doomed to be destroyed by a great catastrophe, and so they built three ships. In the first ship, the 'A' ark, would go all the high-achievers: the great leaders, scientists, thinkers and the like. In the 'C' ark would go all the people who did actual work, who made things and did stuff. And in the 'B' ark would go everyone else, the middlemen ostensibly. Duly, the 'B' ark was sent off into the darkness of space, and ... and everyone else just stayed where they were and congratulated themselves on such a clever ruse.
This is of course just fiction, and indeed fiction pertaining to an entirely other race. In no way is it meant to endorse a view (of myself or Adams, I'm sure) that one third of society here on Earth are so worthless that they can be blasted into space without being missed.
But ... it makes you wonder, doesn't it?
Who does deserve a one-way trip on the B ark? Anyone?
Okay, before we get into that, let's step back. All the way back to where we started in fact. What's our ultimate goal here? Something like: 'to maximise sustainable equitable happiness'? Hmm, maybe. Bit fluffy though isn't it? Let's leave that for the longer term and get more (but not totally) concrete for today. Basically, I would argue, our aim is to gain the most utility for the least effort. More precisely, we want to maximise the 'true net worth' of our output (globally) and minimise the hours we have to work to achieve it. The 'net' in 'true net worth' means we've counted for all the negative impacts of our activities, such as to the environment, our health, community and family values. And the 'true' means we're not talking about monetary value, but contribution to the greater good. So, for example, a landmine might cost the same to produce as a laptop, but (arguably) the latter has more worth to society.
None of this is easy to measure, but the concepts are easy to understand, and that's all that's required to have the discussion. So, the infinite extreme of the worth:work ratio is the utopian ideal. Everyone has everything they could ever desire, but nobody has to work to achieve it. Near the other end of the extreme consider the industrial revolution where many people (including children) worked 10-12hrs a day, six or seven days a week, and yet experience what most would consider less than a decent standard of living. Today we are somewhere between the two, which means we have moved in the right direction, but we are a long way from the ideal.
This brings us back to the arks. To shift further along the worth:work scale we need to eradicate waste. Waste of all kinds, sure, but I'm not focusing on plastic here, rather the waste of work with no worth. Hours invested with no return. We need to identify the roles that should go into the B ark. Just for fun you realise.
In this quest, we must remember that there is no accounting for taste. We have to strive to be objective when judging the worth of something to society. For example, you may consider that we'd be better off without McDonalds. But we must accept that people like McDonalds. And you can't use the argument that McDonalds has a negative impact on the nation's health, because so does chocolate and ice cream and chips and beer - and many other lovely-tasting things consumed in excess. We have to consider anything that can be consumed in moderation without long-term ill effects to be of worth to society for the pleasure they bring. And so all those working hard to coat things in grease in fast-food outlets the world over, congratulations, you get your ticket to the stay-at-home C ark.
We have to be subjective in many other fields too. Few will argue that the Foo Fighters are worthy, for all the pleasure they bring to millions of music lovers. But Jedward? Well, unfortunately, we can't be in the business of making individual judgement calls on the merits and talents of limitless 'artists'. If they make a living by entertaining - or by creating art - they get to avoid the B ark. For what it's worth in appeasing the masses, the Foos get an upgrade from C ark to A, because they are creators as well as doers. (Although, that supposedly means Beyonce gets her over-sized song-writing butt on there too).
Whilst we're on the subject of entertaining, we have to consider sports stars. Are they worthy, even though they don't bake cakes or invent vacuum cleaners? Well, as it stands today, people love watching sport - it even brings meaning to people's lives. Some people could not imagine life without, say, football. As such, as much as it sickens me to say so, we must allow the disgustingly overpaid stars of football and other sports to stay behind too - despite the fact, when you break it down, their skills are based around an entirely arbitrary framework of conditions.
In our search for B ark passengers, maybe starting with the middlemen, as they were referred to originally, will reap some candidates. Who are middlemen? Middlemen are people who connect a consumer to a producer and take a cut. The likes of: travel agents, estate agents, recruitment agents. Aha - now we are talking! I guess I have to admit that some middlemen do add value, but an awful lot seem only to exist because they always have done, because nobody (or not everybody) has realised they aren't needed any more. Increasingly, with the availability of information offered by the internet, the need for 'agents' is diminishing, and the layers of indirection between producer and consumer are disappearing. There used to be an insurance broker on every high-street. Now how many are there? Ineffectual middle men and women beware. Your number is up. And it's a B.
Here's a good industry to consider: marketing. Fair enough, some marketing brings a new product or service to the attention of consumers who would otherwise not have known about it. This obviously has value. But the vast majority of marketing mullah is spent on brand awareness, on differentiating strikingly similar products in the eyes of the public. As an example, almost every major supermarket sells Red Bull and an own brand equivalent. They are virtually identical in make-up, yet the former normally sells at five-times the price of the latter. So for every £1 spent on Red Bull, 80p is over the odds (due largely to the vast sums spent on marketing), and it's hard to see where the consumer has gained. It would therefore appear that there is much we can call wasteful in the world of marketing. And when it comes to traditional marketing in the form of media advertising, I stand by this. But there's a problem here. Most of Red Bull's marketing is not in this form. Instead, they aggressively sponsor sports tournaments, they own sports teams, they have even created their own new sporting events from scratch. And beyond sport they have founded the Taurus World Stunts Award for film stunts. It's actually staggeringly impressive what they've brought to the world from a single can of drink. So although the consumer of the drink may not be benefitting from the marketing effort, other consumers (sports fans, etc.) are. Oddly, s/he is paying for someone else's enjoyment. Either way, there is net worth. Conclusion, marketers, they stay with us. Most of them.
Who else is worthy? Let's do some easy ones. Doctors, no question. Farmers, of course. Tradesmen and women, ditto. Scientists, yes indeedy. All useful folk. Engineers. Manufacturers. Yes, yes, yes.
Hold on. Rewind. Manufacturing? Hmm. Engineers? Even Scientists? Doesn't it rather depend on what they are working on? What if they are manufacturing cigarettes? What if they are engineering bombs? What if they are synthesizing the next cocaine? It's not that clear cut (the issue not the cocaine). Let's consider that middle one. Bombs. People will argue (as they will about the entire defence industry) that bombs have immense value in providing national security and acting as a deterrent to war. But this misses the point. It's looking at a big picture, for sure, but it's not looking at the big picture. We're trying to ascertain what adds intrinsic worth to the global society. Things like food and films, ipods and igloos, cars and chairs, haircuts and holidays, all have intrinsic value. We like them. Even the things we don't like to spend money on, like MOT tests, have the obvious value to society of ensuring that cars on the road are safe (to a degree). Same goes for servicing the boiler or buying a mop. But what benefit do I get from the missile factory up the road? If there were no threat we would not still make missiles. In utopia there are no tanks! (That sounds like a Banksy graffito - I'm proud). And don't forget, in our little thought experiment we are eradicating worthless activities (and those of negative worth). So that includes crime and, you know, international terrorism. All the criminals, terrorists, war mongers and evil dictators unquestionably get a ride on the B ark. Actually, that's a bit unfair on the recruitment agents. Maybe we should have a new ark for the criminals. Call it something grand like, I dunno, Antipodea. Just kidding! (Have a feeling that will get lost in the edit).
This line of thought has quite fundamental consequences. If we were to get rid of all the bad people in the world, then there would be no true net worth generated be the entire defence industry. Or police, or secret service, or private security firms, or most of the justice system. Or anyone involved in the manufacture of anti bad-people devices, like surveillance systems, car alarms, locks! Am I going too far?
Let me clarify here that I'm not really advocating the blasting into space of locksmiths (or, ahem, people that work in the defence industry), merely trying to tot up what proportion of the work we do that actually has no net positive output. Douglas Adams' fictional account implied a figure of one third, which seemed a bit high to begin with. But once we include all activity involved in countering or preventing bad behaviour (from dropping litter to blowing up planes) then it's probably not that far off. It may be bugging to realise just how much effort is going to waste (on the grand scale of this discussion) ... but on the bright side it means, we have a lot of slack in the system. We have a lot of room for improvement. It's just gonna take some figuring it out, and then some.
I guess it should come as no surprise that the greatest barrier to a perfect world is the bad people that are in it. Not travel agents after all. What did come as a surprise to me is that although in my career I may have helped protect our nation and uphold peace, I've not added any net worth to the world. Bummer.
Well, not at work I haven't. But it's not all about work. I write books. And blogs. And phone apps. And I grow veg. Counts for something I guess.
To be continued...
-PJN
PS: As a side-note, I have on a number of occasions referenced the above as short-hand in casual conversation - along the lines of "he can be first in line for the B ark". Bizarrely, I'm always greeted with blank stares. Seriously, what's going on!? Please help me out by facilitating the use of this analogy in everyday language. Ta.
This is of course just fiction, and indeed fiction pertaining to an entirely other race. In no way is it meant to endorse a view (of myself or Adams, I'm sure) that one third of society here on Earth are so worthless that they can be blasted into space without being missed.
But ... it makes you wonder, doesn't it?
Who does deserve a one-way trip on the B ark? Anyone?
Okay, before we get into that, let's step back. All the way back to where we started in fact. What's our ultimate goal here? Something like: 'to maximise sustainable equitable happiness'? Hmm, maybe. Bit fluffy though isn't it? Let's leave that for the longer term and get more (but not totally) concrete for today. Basically, I would argue, our aim is to gain the most utility for the least effort. More precisely, we want to maximise the 'true net worth' of our output (globally) and minimise the hours we have to work to achieve it. The 'net' in 'true net worth' means we've counted for all the negative impacts of our activities, such as to the environment, our health, community and family values. And the 'true' means we're not talking about monetary value, but contribution to the greater good. So, for example, a landmine might cost the same to produce as a laptop, but (arguably) the latter has more worth to society.
None of this is easy to measure, but the concepts are easy to understand, and that's all that's required to have the discussion. So, the infinite extreme of the worth:work ratio is the utopian ideal. Everyone has everything they could ever desire, but nobody has to work to achieve it. Near the other end of the extreme consider the industrial revolution where many people (including children) worked 10-12hrs a day, six or seven days a week, and yet experience what most would consider less than a decent standard of living. Today we are somewhere between the two, which means we have moved in the right direction, but we are a long way from the ideal.
This brings us back to the arks. To shift further along the worth:work scale we need to eradicate waste. Waste of all kinds, sure, but I'm not focusing on plastic here, rather the waste of work with no worth. Hours invested with no return. We need to identify the roles that should go into the B ark. Just for fun you realise.
In this quest, we must remember that there is no accounting for taste. We have to strive to be objective when judging the worth of something to society. For example, you may consider that we'd be better off without McDonalds. But we must accept that people like McDonalds. And you can't use the argument that McDonalds has a negative impact on the nation's health, because so does chocolate and ice cream and chips and beer - and many other lovely-tasting things consumed in excess. We have to consider anything that can be consumed in moderation without long-term ill effects to be of worth to society for the pleasure they bring. And so all those working hard to coat things in grease in fast-food outlets the world over, congratulations, you get your ticket to the stay-at-home C ark.
We have to be subjective in many other fields too. Few will argue that the Foo Fighters are worthy, for all the pleasure they bring to millions of music lovers. But Jedward? Well, unfortunately, we can't be in the business of making individual judgement calls on the merits and talents of limitless 'artists'. If they make a living by entertaining - or by creating art - they get to avoid the B ark. For what it's worth in appeasing the masses, the Foos get an upgrade from C ark to A, because they are creators as well as doers. (Although, that supposedly means Beyonce gets her over-sized song-writing butt on there too).
Whilst we're on the subject of entertaining, we have to consider sports stars. Are they worthy, even though they don't bake cakes or invent vacuum cleaners? Well, as it stands today, people love watching sport - it even brings meaning to people's lives. Some people could not imagine life without, say, football. As such, as much as it sickens me to say so, we must allow the disgustingly overpaid stars of football and other sports to stay behind too - despite the fact, when you break it down, their skills are based around an entirely arbitrary framework of conditions.
In our search for B ark passengers, maybe starting with the middlemen, as they were referred to originally, will reap some candidates. Who are middlemen? Middlemen are people who connect a consumer to a producer and take a cut. The likes of: travel agents, estate agents, recruitment agents. Aha - now we are talking! I guess I have to admit that some middlemen do add value, but an awful lot seem only to exist because they always have done, because nobody (or not everybody) has realised they aren't needed any more. Increasingly, with the availability of information offered by the internet, the need for 'agents' is diminishing, and the layers of indirection between producer and consumer are disappearing. There used to be an insurance broker on every high-street. Now how many are there? Ineffectual middle men and women beware. Your number is up. And it's a B.
Here's a good industry to consider: marketing. Fair enough, some marketing brings a new product or service to the attention of consumers who would otherwise not have known about it. This obviously has value. But the vast majority of marketing mullah is spent on brand awareness, on differentiating strikingly similar products in the eyes of the public. As an example, almost every major supermarket sells Red Bull and an own brand equivalent. They are virtually identical in make-up, yet the former normally sells at five-times the price of the latter. So for every £1 spent on Red Bull, 80p is over the odds (due largely to the vast sums spent on marketing), and it's hard to see where the consumer has gained. It would therefore appear that there is much we can call wasteful in the world of marketing. And when it comes to traditional marketing in the form of media advertising, I stand by this. But there's a problem here. Most of Red Bull's marketing is not in this form. Instead, they aggressively sponsor sports tournaments, they own sports teams, they have even created their own new sporting events from scratch. And beyond sport they have founded the Taurus World Stunts Award for film stunts. It's actually staggeringly impressive what they've brought to the world from a single can of drink. So although the consumer of the drink may not be benefitting from the marketing effort, other consumers (sports fans, etc.) are. Oddly, s/he is paying for someone else's enjoyment. Either way, there is net worth. Conclusion, marketers, they stay with us. Most of them.
Who else is worthy? Let's do some easy ones. Doctors, no question. Farmers, of course. Tradesmen and women, ditto. Scientists, yes indeedy. All useful folk. Engineers. Manufacturers. Yes, yes, yes.
Hold on. Rewind. Manufacturing? Hmm. Engineers? Even Scientists? Doesn't it rather depend on what they are working on? What if they are manufacturing cigarettes? What if they are engineering bombs? What if they are synthesizing the next cocaine? It's not that clear cut (the issue not the cocaine). Let's consider that middle one. Bombs. People will argue (as they will about the entire defence industry) that bombs have immense value in providing national security and acting as a deterrent to war. But this misses the point. It's looking at a big picture, for sure, but it's not looking at the big picture. We're trying to ascertain what adds intrinsic worth to the global society. Things like food and films, ipods and igloos, cars and chairs, haircuts and holidays, all have intrinsic value. We like them. Even the things we don't like to spend money on, like MOT tests, have the obvious value to society of ensuring that cars on the road are safe (to a degree). Same goes for servicing the boiler or buying a mop. But what benefit do I get from the missile factory up the road? If there were no threat we would not still make missiles. In utopia there are no tanks! (That sounds like a Banksy graffito - I'm proud). And don't forget, in our little thought experiment we are eradicating worthless activities (and those of negative worth). So that includes crime and, you know, international terrorism. All the criminals, terrorists, war mongers and evil dictators unquestionably get a ride on the B ark. Actually, that's a bit unfair on the recruitment agents. Maybe we should have a new ark for the criminals. Call it something grand like, I dunno, Antipodea. Just kidding! (Have a feeling that will get lost in the edit).
This line of thought has quite fundamental consequences. If we were to get rid of all the bad people in the world, then there would be no true net worth generated be the entire defence industry. Or police, or secret service, or private security firms, or most of the justice system. Or anyone involved in the manufacture of anti bad-people devices, like surveillance systems, car alarms, locks! Am I going too far?
Let me clarify here that I'm not really advocating the blasting into space of locksmiths (or, ahem, people that work in the defence industry), merely trying to tot up what proportion of the work we do that actually has no net positive output. Douglas Adams' fictional account implied a figure of one third, which seemed a bit high to begin with. But once we include all activity involved in countering or preventing bad behaviour (from dropping litter to blowing up planes) then it's probably not that far off. It may be bugging to realise just how much effort is going to waste (on the grand scale of this discussion) ... but on the bright side it means, we have a lot of slack in the system. We have a lot of room for improvement. It's just gonna take some figuring it out, and then some.
I guess it should come as no surprise that the greatest barrier to a perfect world is the bad people that are in it. Not travel agents after all. What did come as a surprise to me is that although in my career I may have helped protect our nation and uphold peace, I've not added any net worth to the world. Bummer.
Well, not at work I haven't. But it's not all about work. I write books. And blogs. And phone apps. And I grow veg. Counts for something I guess.
To be continued...
-PJN
PS: As a side-note, I have on a number of occasions referenced the above as short-hand in casual conversation - along the lines of "he can be first in line for the B ark". Bizarrely, I'm always greeted with blank stares. Seriously, what's going on!? Please help me out by facilitating the use of this analogy in everyday language. Ta.
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