A Shed of A Plant

I attended SXSW 2009 down in Austin, Texas a few days back. I was thinking back to see a theme between all the panels. Anticipation. Faith. The opportunity. Being lost. I think most people there realized the times are tough and that we are experiencing one of the biggest crossroads of our time. We have a set of, in many ways intimidating, challenges ahead of us. Challenges as diverse as environmental, political and recently a seriously wounded and rotten financial market. These challenges will force us to start questioning where we are, why we came here and more importantly how we will overcome these.

It is a responsibility as a citizen of this world.

The panels really breathed, and yet not at all breathed, this change. They all tried to address the challenges in their little niche area, but sadly enough nothing groundbreaking or innovative was really being put forward. I have to say I felt a bit disappointed. I caught myself fading out of the discussion when they did not really challenge previous conceptions and beliefs of the world (here mostly in the shape of the web and the media industry).

This is the time of change. That is a funny word. Change… We throw it around frequently. Do we really know what it means? What it really means to go through change?

What I do know it is intimidating to most people.

I guess this is something like growing up. Finding your identity. Meeting yourself. The world of today is in a serious identity crisis. We have lost our identity. Why? Who knows. But we have. We have to find it again. It will probably be a different identity than we knew. I think that would be awesome.

Personally this is a quest for me. I am a 33 years old guy born and raised in Sweden, a pretty calm, democratic neat wonderful little place in northern Europe. Some say it is even one of the few idylls on earth. Some say we have it too good there. Maybe we do. I have been informed about everything – wrongs, rights and everything else – ever since I made my stumbling steps in this world (and probably even before that). I have been taught since kindergarten how to behave towards my fellow human beings, what they expect from me, what is expected from me, and how to treat other people with respect regardless of skin, ethnicity, cultural background or religion. There is a big emphasis in Sweden on being able to have your own opinion and being able to express it. It is also a big emphasis on conformity – for the better, and for the worse.

Anyhow.

In addition the schools in Sweden, which are predominantly public, we are very keen on teaching in depth what has happened through history and how it has affected us without anything being censored. We also study a lot of the present issues around the world and the roots of the issues we see with the focus on looking on all sides.

Ever since I was around 12 years old I have had access to computers and played with them constantly. I wrote programs and then especially a text- based golf game. During my time in college, the IT-boom began and I got my own personal Internet connection and gained immediate access to information and could follow the growth of the Internet and the web from the “orchestra seats”. Astonished by the freedom online, I usually spent hours in front of the computer browsing the web for all sorts of information, and I quickly started to interact via various chat programs and instant messengers. I was amazed and intrigued by the technology.

I can, therefore, honestly say that I have been able to read whatever I want to, and have (at least the right to) my own opinion. Basically, I have spent 11 years of my time at a university level including PhD studies, a Stanford Fellowship and working as an associate director at Stanford with alliances between Stanford and Sweden, which has made me a full-feathered, full-blooded academic guy. I have become who I am because I’ve lived in a country where that is possible, and more importantly, because I know I have (or the very least should have) the right to do so.

Now consider some boy or girl in a developing country, emerging democracy, who might be living in state run by a dictator, corrupt regime or even just a troubled area. By troubled area I mainly refer to an occupied territory. What kinds of information will that boy or girl have access too? Who will provide this information? Will it be accurate? Will it be diverse? Will it be free and uncensored? What difference between that information and the information I can see, hear or read is there? Will they feel as entitled as I do to both access and to create that information? Who knows… What I know is that they should have the choice. At least in my opinion. That is their right. That really should be their right.

Unfortunately, alternative news sources in media are a rare occasion in the world. Too rare. However, via cellphones you will be able to share news, as the cellphones are ubiquitous, immediate and simple. By creating a tool for anyone in the entire world to share their stories at anytime from anywhere about anything you will start to bridge this media divide and create a more diverse media scene. We definitely need it.

It is something that is very important as everyone has the right to have an opinion and the right to express it. The freedom of expression. The freedom of speech. The freedom of the individual.

The freedom. The freedom.

This discussion might seem a bit far out, and a bit too philosophical, but a big issue for the areas I mentioned previously is that the sources of news coverage are very scarce and limited. There is a tremendous gap here between the media coverage, even though the media in the “developed” world has their deep issues in coverage as well. In a constrained landscape either by the number of news sources or narrow owner structure you will have an issue here. It becomes very easy to force an opinion on people, and not have an open discussion. Take for instance Iran, which spends billions of dollars on filtering the web for information that the regime does not feel should go online or opinions they have decided the people should not hear. If you are exposed to one news angle, that angle will become the truth even if it is far from the truth. It is the version you will hear. The only version. It is easier to believe something than not believe anything. You feel part of something, even though this something is artificial.

A few weeks back during the WeMedia conference, I recently spoke to a guy from Cuba when I was down in Miami drinking a Mojito. He told me that when his friends and family came to visit from Cuba, he was amazed how “inaccurate” their perception was. He has to spend time explaining that the stories about Cuba are biased to one viewpoint and “filtered” by more corporate interests. Or is it? I really do not know. Yet ironically who knows who and what is right here. He has his views. They have their views.

What is the truth? I don’t think anyone knows. I for one do not believe in the (expressed) absolute truth. The perceived truth will only be in the eyes of the beholder. Oh, there are so many analogies to quantum mechanics, but let us stay out of that one. Look up Schrödinger’s cat as an example.

Back to the conference, during which I was listening to a panel at SXSW with amongst other Clay Shirky and Deborah Schultz talking about the future publishing model. Once again the discussion between the panel and the audience ended up being polarized. “We should have free publishing. No. We should keep the old model. We need to safe the publishers.”

Hmm. I both understand and don’t understand why we find comfort in the extremes. The world, the media industry is not black and white. It is gray. It will be gray. Embrace it. Move on. Just accept it.

One of the comments from the audience on the publishing models were: “What purpose do you [publishers] serve in the future since you can’t be a filter anymore? That’s why you’re disappearing.”. I guess I see his point, but he is still wrong in my eyes. The “we-against-them” mentality will not work. It will never work. Maybe it is easier to think it would, but it is not. It is actually inhibiting to the process we need to carry out.

It was a bit symptomatic for the whole conference.

Ultimately I think and hope that we now start to think about the new identity of the media industry. How it will change and should change. Why it has to change. Find comfort in the change and see it as the shade of a plant.

I do believe SXSW is the right place for these paradigm shift thoughts and ideas. It would be embraced by the audience. The attitude of the conference participants were forward-thinking and open. They wanted to change. They wanted to innovate. They believed.

Let us find the shade of the plant that grows our future.

Ombra mai fù
di vegetabile,
cara ed amabile,
soave più.

Never has there been a shade
of a plant
more dear and lovely,
or more gentle.

March 22, 2009
By eriks
None

67 Years Ago Since Pearl Harbor

December 7th 1941. A day never to be forgotten. The military strike against Pearl Harbor that probably change the outcome of World War II as it resulted in the US to join forces against the axis of evil. It’s ironic, sad, funny and tragic how “small” or unrelated things and decisions will make a huge difference. The love affair between two men in ancient Greece created a war and legends never forgotten. The shot in Sarajevo started World War I. Small symbolic events started the massive erosion of the Soviet Union. We are yet to see what the effects of Mumbai will be, but I am in some way dreading them. The most scary example still is 9/11. The effects and impacts of those tragic events will last generations to come I am afraid. I still wonder if the outcome would have been different if things would have been different…

I know. It doesn’t matter. It is what it is. Burying ourselves in the past will not make a difference. Today this world needs people with dedication, passion and hope that the future will be woven by understanding, collaboration and peace. Now the ultimate irony. We cannot today decide what the future will be. It will be what it will be. We but only can live our lives in the present in the way we would like the future to be.

Our lives are built up by a series of decisions. Interacting. Entangled with others. Taken in a flash of a moment. The difference is just so small. We need to start paying attention to that. “Even enemies can show each other respect…” I think it is time for us all to start showing sincere respect for our “enemies” and anyone else we have disagreements with.

December 7, 2008
By eriks
None

Personalized Search Results – Huh?

I just read in the Wall Street Journal about the personalized search results from Google. (Sorry, no link as I read the good ol’ paper edition.) I have heard about them and seen them before. This is probably one of the things I have a very, very hard time to accept. For me, the main characteristic of any search engine is objectivity and unbiasedness of the search results. The objectivity and unbiasedness that you get the “actual facts”. I do understand the philosophical issue with that statement – “actual facts” – in itself as an actual fact indeed “was” the sun orbiting around the earth and not the other way around. Yet we all really do know what it means. Getting the results that is not necessarily what we want to see, read or realize but what the “real” answer is.

There are many occasions where personalization makes makes perfect sense. Or let us put this as filtering as the true meaning. It puts an enormous “pressure” on the user to be critical and aware of their choices during the process. I doubt the common searcher will think in these terms. I would say it is rather foolish to believe the common searcher (regardless of educational level, experience or any other adequate characteristic of the searcher) to make this decision. We are lazy by nature. Yep, we are. Nooo, Erik! Sorry, but we are… At least the predominant part. :-)

I think this is a dangerous development even tough I see all the business reasons behind it. You satisfy the “customer”. They get what they want, you get what you want. But do we as a society get what we need? Not at all. I guess that is the core issue. Who should win here? The individual or the community?

That’s a tough one.

I do not have an answer, but I do believe it is not a healthy, sustainable path… But then again that is my opinion. Right or wrong. I guess I should ask Google for it. At least now I can prove that I am right. :-)

November 22, 2008
By eriks
None

Location-based Mashups – Old News And A Bit Out-Dated?

I would say so. I remember when I attended the first Where 2.0 conference in San Jose 2006. Location-based products and sites were just about to boom. The hype was really on. The conference was not the best ever, but became a milestone of a recognition of location-based mashups as something innovative and new. Since then it has been an explosion of services out there and several venture funded startups have come. The underlying tools such as GPS, Google Maps, Google Earth and Virtual Earth to mention some have been drastically improved, so have the concepts of mashing up. The amount of tutorials out there in location-based mashups is enormous. Just Google it and you will find page after page telling you how to do cool overlays in Google Maps in minutes or create and import pretty awesome KML file overlays in Google Earth.

However, we should now start to recognize this as a maturing concept and start to look for new angles in the coming and emerging new media arena. For instance I have looked at the Knight News Challenge. I find it a bit ironic they still have as a requirement that the project needs to benefit a specific geographical community. In my eyes that is not very innovative and a bit misplaced as a specific requirement. Preferred characteristic sure, but requirement no.

When the Knight News Challenge first started a few years back, the location-based mashups were new, exciting and interesting, but now in many ways pretty out-dated as an innovative aspect of a new media project. The media scene has moved on, and we should raise our vision. We will see more of content-based mashups where location will play a role, but will not be the sole differentiation. Of course there is room for more explorations in location-based services and mashups. However as a requirement in an (supposively) innovation stimulative news challenge, I would say it is narrowing the scope for possible projects down too much. For instance, if you would like to create a global borderless social network, based on interaction around news and opinions, it would not fit within the scope of the challenge as it doesn’t benefit a specific geographical community.

Does that really make any sense? I do not think so. Especially since the whole media industry is becoming more and more globalized. Is there room for local news and projects that aim to benefit specific geographical communities? Of course, but will they really benefit more of a niche geographical community? In a way probably. Taking out the constraint of a specific geographical community would enable the local issues are heard on a national, regional and even global level. Yet with the proper execution you can still benefit niche communities within the global one. Think of this as how much sense it would be to constrain YouTube to only one specific type of videos as for reach. Makes no sense there, so why would it make sense for geographical communities?

I would say we should have the guts and actually need to raise our eyes to see local issues in the context of other bigger issues. It is for sure an interesting balance not give the proper room for the local issues if you still consider the bigger picture. Yet that is the only way of really recognizing the local issue and give it the support it so often needs to have. In my eyes that is how you do create a substantial and sustainable change for people around the world who needs it. Especially in the media arena where the weak voices need to be amplified, not constrained.

Let the consumer be the judge whether an issue is “local” or not. They should be the true champions of that, not us creators of the projects or funders of the same. The important part here is really to realize that the more sustainable and incredibly successful projects around the world have been multipurposed ones, not the niched ones. It is about defining the right as vertical. A vertical that is as broad as possible.

November 16, 2008
By eriks
None

The Human Story

I thought of something this morning. Every morning when I walk to the train along University Avenue listening to music I see a few homeless people in the streets. Usually they sit in the sun to warm up. One has always caught my attention as he usually sit and write on a notepad. Sometimes he is numbering the sheets, sometimes he is writing. I am not sure what he is writing and what his story is. It however makes me curious. I want to know more. I also want to know how he ended up where he did.

This is really what media should be all about. For all topics. The human element. The human story. The personal, tangible, relatable touch from another person just as you and I. For all stories. With the context the story lives in presented. It is about presenting that human element of the story… It is about turning the concept of media upside down. Show the individual story with the context around it. Showing the diversity, yet giving it a voice. Giving room for humans, yet using traditional media aspects to provide the context.

Think of concert with Bono. Think of a demonstration on the squares of Minsk, Belarus. Think of the stories from Kenya during elections. Think of the stories from the streets around the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad. Think of the stories from China during the olympics. What really makes a difference is to hear those individual voices. That regular voice. Hearing the whispers on the streets. Feeling it. Think of it as being in the ultimate reality show where you participate, observe and experience it through the eyes of the people there. Only better as this is really real. Now that is cool.

To tell these human stories we will have to turn to multimedia, in particular photography and video. Why? Visual story telling is possible even for illiterates. The main issue with audio is the language barrier. If you do not know the language, the message is lost. Text is not a suitable medium of obvious reasons – langugae, illiteracy and also notoriously hard as most of us are not great writers. Sorry, guys and girls. I know we all want to be, but we are not. There are a few masters out there, but most of us are not. However, I am not saying that photography and video story telling is easy, but it is better media for the common person to tell their stories. The visual language is universal, more relatable and tangible for most people.

The really cool thing is that we have all the pieces – for instance cheap cellphone and digital cameras, 3rd party sites for videos and pictures, cheap and simple editing software and a cascade of publishing platforms. The pieces are there. The opportunity is there. Now let us see who will be the first to capitalize on the opportunity.

November 13, 2008
By eriks
None

Sunday

This weekend I went to the Green Gulch Farm in the mountains north of San Francisco. It is a Zen Buddhistic temple as well as an organic farm. I from time to time go there. It is an amazing ride over there, and a very peaceful place to be in. During the summers we go to the beach right after. It feels like childhood being at our country house in the summers. It also brings back memories from when I got confirmed and we went to a mediation center. (Imagine being thirteen years old ad having to be quite for two days. It was a challenge for sure.) Every time I am up at the Green Gulch I end up feeling like a little boy playing in the grass in the country during the summers, or eating cheese sandwiches and drinking O’Boy under the apple trees listening to sound of nature and horses. Showering with the cold, cold water from the spring. Or building Indian cottages in the forest near the house.

This Sunday, it was this amazing morning with the sun shining and the air was clear. It is something about early Sunday mornings. They are peaceful. The best part of the whole day was to sit on a bench after the meditation and lesson, sipping a nice Earl Grey tea with honey and milk in the sunlight. The company was amazing. The weather was amazing. The surrounding nature was incredible. Sometimes you would like time to just stop… Halt. Sometimes twenty minutes in the sun listening to the nature and enjoying the company is just timeless and priceless.

Life is incredibly good those days. You wish you could stay in that environment forever.

November 13, 2008
By eriks
None

PageRank – The Natural Choice?

I have been thinking of the concept of content ranking lately or specifically the constant struggle between diversity and singularity. Maybe the paradox is us as humans. Singularity is simple. It is transparent. Diversity is not. It creates this twilight zone reality where you do not really know what is the true or false. The easy, simple answers disappear. PageRank… The amazing algorithm that disrupted a whole business and market. It gives us what we need. Or does it? Really? PageRank works (simplified of course) very much like biological evolution. The strongest (or here most reputable) survives. The strongest win. They concur the weakest. The alternative voices such as the extinction threatened species are not heard. They are lost in the noise. Is this right? Or is it “just” the natural choice? Hard question right. Maybe we all are programmed to obey the nature of the evolutionary laws. In every aspect of our lives.

Just to make it a bit more tangible. The best user interfaces are singular in their nature. Take Google for instance. One search box. That’s it. You can say the same thing about the essential objectives behind YouTube and Flickr. They do perform one task and they do it really good. It is one objective really. Making uploading of videos and photos respectively dead simple. Nothing else shadows the major objective. I do not want to go into greater detail, but I will assume you at least kind of get what my point is.

Maybe humans are after “the” answer. They want that ultimate, simple, neat little answer. The this-is-how-it-is answer. That neat little package of how things are and especially how they are not. But are things really that simple? It makes life very easy. All search engines I have seen have been designed that way, and even worse most media companies. But the matter of fact is that the reality is not singular. It is diverse. It is complex. It is human. It really is diverse. It is the twilight zone where you do not really know what is the answer. You just have to accept it for what it is. I love it, but I gather most don’t.

There are so many tangents we can go into. The concept of an ever increasing universal entropy. Or the fundamental concept in quantum mechanics were there is not a concept of a neat little single answer. The answer only lies in the future there.

However…

Ever since I saw the movie EPIC 2014. ( Yeah, I know. Get over it, Erik! I promise I will someday. :-) ) The key question from that movie is whether what we (believe) we want really is what we want. That is a hard one as no single person can answer it. Even more mindblowing. If it is not what we want, why do we want it? How can we shape a media where we get what we want, yet provide the diversity we seek but not seek? How do we shape it so that we see all issues yet do not feel like we get things stuffed down our throats? That is in my eyes one of the biggest challenges for the media industry as well as our society in the future.

Specifically for the media business: Is PageRank type solutions really what we want or is it what we believe what we want? I do not know. What I do know is that we collectively have to decide. Maybe we reach some answers, maybe we do not. But we should think some of it.

Again. The time for media is amazingly exciting these days. The possibilities are endless. Welcome to the party!

November 12, 2008
By eriks
None

The Media Arena of The Future – Key Characteristics and Participants

The state of the news industry resembles the music industry when file sharing emerged. The social media sites are creating a disruption that makes the traditional players all fumble when it comes to how to merge the traditional news coverage with citizen coverage and opinion. Undoubtedly we are in a place in time where the media industry is as exciting as ever, yet we will see new players on the market constantly come.

The essential characteristic of media right now is content packaging and promotion, not content distribution or content creation. The trend towards such will only increase as we move forward. The main disruptions here have been the open-source content management systems and blogging platforms. Putting up a website now is as simple as a few clicks. You are up and blogging in no-time and can start to share your opinions. There are an enormous amount of sites providing possibilities for social bookmarking, multimedia upload and integration with your own site which will help you in the promotional part. In all honesty I would have to admit that learning content promotion is the toughest part and the biggest challenge for any blogger, photographer, video maker or any other content creator.

The main issue for user generated content is validation, quality assurance and trust (especially for unknown and alternative voices). I will not here get into too many details here as it is a pretty broad and slightly complex topic, but the main issue are:

  • Digg voting type of solutions leads to group fractioning. I have also seen too many solutions where you give the power to a few selected users, why you still have an issue to get the less strong yet very valid voices heard. The super editors in Wikipedia is another example here of a model that has proven insufficient, as one of their super editors turned out to be a fake. The issue is not that he was a fake but that it has been claimed that all super editors are prominent member of field of expertise they cover there. It creates a distrust of the system which projects over the quality of the content on the long term.
  • PageRank type solutions lead to the survival of the strongest and/or reputable. The hierarchy has been set which makes it very hard for new entrants in the space and for new, unknown voices to be heard. It is perfect for information seeking, but is non-functional for news and opinion.
  • Reputation of the single user is an interesting factor to build trust, but not solely sufficient. We have seen examples in the media industry before. For instance the tampered photos of the bombings of Beirut in Lebanon 2006 of a well-known Reuters photographer and the made up news stories by the New York Times journalist Jason Blair. You need to have a counter force here too.

It is obvious that the right, sustainable solution will be a combination of these three ranking attributes. Such a combination will be much more scalable, much more robust, completely technology based and still adequately resolve the ranking of user generated content than any human based solution. This is especially true for the long tail market where the amount of content is just too big for humans too handle – both practical and consistently. Think of it as a simulation of the traditional newsroom process. That is pretty cool, right?

The media arena today is highly competitive why the shrinking profit margins calls for a technology based solution with community support to cover a bigger piece of the cake and monetize that part. Keeping the cost structure very low, yet keeping the quality high with an increased engagement and entertainment value for the consumers. This tendency we have seen in another parts of the web already – YouTube did it for videos. Flickr did it for images. Facebook did it for social networks. (Ok, MySpace has played some role here too, but I still think Facebook has a better and broader solution here.)

The key skill sets of the participants of the new media arena:

  1. Consumers
    • Information snacking
    • Broad interests
    • Geographical breakdown
    • The question “why” is increasingly becoming more important
    • Engaged, and entertained
    • Relatable and tangible presentations necessary
  2. Creators
    • Multimedia more important
    • Text as a medium is dying, or at least becoming less important as the story telling media type.
    • In-the-field reporting increasingly important
    • Knowing and closely interacting with their readership very important
  3. Producers
    • Fast consumption calls for a fast medium of distribution
    • The globe as a market calls for a web solution
    • Diverse distribution mechanisms
    • Multiple reporting entries (cellphone, web, email)
    • Multiple media types (text, audio, pictures, video)
November 12, 2008
By eriks
None

Google Search Results – A Place for Alternative Voices?

I read this post at the OnlineJournalismBlog that covers a post from the SEObook.com. It raises a few very interesting questions, but the primary one is whether Google Search Results Pages are really the right place for alternative voices? However do alternative voices have another good outlet is the second question you have to ask yourself?

First of all Google’s business is primarily designed to get revenue from SEM (Search Engine Marketing), and the nature of PageRank is specifically designed to make the most reputable voices (i.e. websites) heard first. Diversity will disappear though per definition. It is kind of intended (somewhat simplified). Originally to make informative, on-point search results. However you get the trust, but will effectively filter out the diversity and weaker voices.

The second issue is that a search result page (and Google’s in particular) is designed to show clear, on-point single entries. It shows you The Answer. Nothing wrong with that but diversity comes from several answers. :-)

Now over the the more interesting question: Is a search engine the “right” place for a diverse media outlet? I would say no. The irony however is that the technology behind a search engine can be used for it, but the purpose of a search engine is not inline with the presentation of alternative, diverse voices. It is a complex topic indeed, but once again brings up the issues we have seen presented in the movie EPIC 2014. I know, I know. It is a very common link in all my blogs, but it is so on-point and highlights the challenges we have right now pretty well.

I guess we have to start asking ourselves what type of media outlet we would like to see in the future and who that actors on this new media arena will be. My bet is not a Google Search Result Page is the right place for it, and probably never will be in the traditional sense. Can Google be an actor? Sure, but I doubt that too. It would be sidestepping their core business.

November 9, 2008
By eriks
None

The most common failure of any community site

The challenge is to as a company be open and diverse in itself, as well as really listen to the community. I have seen so many community sites fail because they try to stick down their own beliefs, preconceptions and opinions down the throat of their community. Or even worse speak about themselves in the sense of “I did this…” or “I did that…”. Self-glorification should be banned from any representative for the company, and constant self-reflection strongly recommended. Ask yourself this. Which party would you go to? The one where the host/hostess only want to show off, or the party in the park where it is come as you are and you feel like one with the group.

Inviting a community is “simple”, yet one of the most challenging things to attempt. It is about realizing that what you as a community site think is completely non-important. You have to genuinely speak, think and breath community in all your interaction and realize that communities are not built, they are invited. It is not about design. It is not about functionality. It is about people. People come if they feel connected and invited. You have to realize that you are but only a part of the community. You have to become the community.

Think of your role as a company as being the shepherd. Your role is to keep the sheep together and to find them grass and leafs to eat. Telling the sheep how to be sheep doesn’t really work or make sense. Yet so many community sites try to do that.

November 4, 2008
By eriks
None