It’s getting a bit long in the tooth now, but I still really like this video:
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I’ve been in situations similar to this on way too may occasions.
Let’s start with a confession – I was in KFC last night for a fix of fast chicken and chips.
While I was waiting the few minutes for the food to arrive I glanced around the posters on the walls before me. I was slightly stunned to find that KFC do an a la carte menu. Yes, really…
It reminded me a bit of a sketch in the Royal Family where Barbara is talking to Nana while she does her hair:
Nana: “Barbara did I tell you that my dead friend Elsie’s daughter Marion went out for a meal last Friday with here husband Lionel.
…
Barbara: “Oh, What did they have?”
Nana: “They both had a la carte”
Barbara: “Oh, how lovely”
Nana: “What is a la carte, Barbara?”
Barbara: “Oh, I don’t know … I wouldn’t mind trying a la Carte one night, I’m sick of chops!”
I’ve witnessed the degradation of term countless times before.
A term gets defined by a group of people who know what the term means, the term then gets popularised and in so doing it gets stretched. There comes a point where it’s stretched so much that it no longer has any meaning, or even changes its meaning completely.
There’s a few terms going through the stretching process at the moment, it won’t be long before they are deprived of all of their original meaning.
When we communicate we have to be careful that the term we once used still has the same meaning.
The Royale Family Sketch is here:
Ever wondered about the the terms we use online every day and how odd they are in teal life:
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I quite fancy the idea of going around the world putting ‘like’ stickers on everything 
.
(Direct like http://youtu.be/aDycZH0CA4I)
An interesting infographic from the Cisco Blog on the connected world in 2015:
Imagine a world where the number of mobile-connected devices nearly equals the number of people on the planet. It’s closer than you might think, with one forecast calling for 7.1 billion devices accessing the mobile network the by 2015. It’s not just the mobile network that’s growing. When you also consider other things (PCs, laptops, tablets, etc.) connecting to the Internet, forecasts jump to 25 billion that same year and to 50 billion by 2020. This kind of growth will put a tremendous load on networks globally. But there’s more to it than that. What we really need to prepare for, aside from the sheer number of interactions, is the quality of those interactions.
Billions of devices connected are connected because they want to interact, interact on behalf of the person using them and interact with each other. It’s the interaction that’s important.
The significant switch that has already occurred is that we now assume that we will always be connected. We don’t plan for connection, we expect to be connected and get upset when we are not. That connection is a utility that we now regard as a human right. Soon we will go beyond the connection and regard access to our data as a human right too.
There’s a saying that goes – “Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it”
Sometimes I like to remind myself about what has changed. If we remember where we’ve come from we might have a better chance of seeing where we are going to.
In my working lifetime we have moved from a situation where the network was something that only did very limited things, and only existed between a few location. It’s job was simple – to connect people to the mainframe. It could only be accessed from specialist devices that sat on people’s desks.
Today the network is everywhere and accessed by a huge variety of devices. We naturally interact with a rich set of media from across the globe. What was difficult just a few years ago is now commonplace.
My kids regard BBC iPlayer as the normal way to watch video.
There are still some constraints of speed, but they are rapidly being overcome.
What was once reserved for the few is now a commodity.
It’s remarkable.
(As an example, I’m writing this on a mobile device connect to a wifi network while sat in a coffee lounge in a church)
If you still think that carrot-and-stick is still a good metaphor for how to motivate people then you should watch this 10 minute animation of Daniel Pink giving an overview of his book Drive:
Daniel Pink: Drive
A 40 minute version of the who talk it’s available here.
If you think that Daniel is being a bit idealistic in his interpretation of the science then you should also watch Clay Shirky’s presentation to TED on Cognitive Surplus.
That’s right – money doesn’t motivate other than in the very basic of activities.
I love the way that these animations are a bit like an active rich picture.
The other day I wrote about Social Currency and some of the ways that we could potentially be measured for our online presence.
One of the things that I’ve been pondering while playing with these different tools has been the social impact of these changes.
This kind of change always has extremes and today I’ve been reading about some of those through an article by Danah Boyd (apophenia) called “Publicity and the Culture of Celebritization“.
This article comments on an article in Rolling Stone about a 14-year-old teen in Florida who has created an online persona called Kiki Kannibal.
You’ve probably never heard of Kiki Kannibal but she’s created quite a stir in her sphere of influence, but it’s not all been good.
In many ways she’s created a level of online celebrity without any of the protection that wider celebrities often receive and the internet can be a very unforgiving place.
Danah makes some really interesting observations about the growing “attention economy” and our ability to deal with “micro-celebrity” and in particular the social and cultural capabilities available to us:
Widespread celebritization is the flipside of the “attention economy” coin and I think that we have a lot of deep thinking to do about the implications of both of these. Both are already rattling society in unexpected ways and I’m not convinced that we have the social, psychological, or cultural infrastructure to manage what will unfold. Some people will become famous or rich. Others will commit suicide or drown attempting to swim in these rocky waves. This doesn’t mean that we should blockade the technologies that are emerging, but it’s high time that we start reflecting on the societal values that are getting magnified by them.
I agree.
We have a long way to go before we understand what we are doing to ourselves in an online world and how we deal with it.
(Charlie pointed out Klout as another way of measuring your social connectedness. It’s interesting to see the score of people I connect to)
I’ve been playing with a couple of tools recently, both of them focussed on assessing someone’s social value.
The first one is Empire Avenue which is an online market game where you can buy and sell shares in other people’s social media presence.
My share value is currently running around 25 eaves up from a starting price of around 17 eaves. Not a bad profit 
.
Your value is influenced by a number of things but primarily by your online social interactions.
I’ve now got 8 share holders too who’ve made some good eaves out of my share price rise. My portfolio is doing quite well too.
The other tool is My Web Career which seeks to measure your online presence in terms of a ‘Career Score’:
A Career Score is an indication of the strength of an individuals career brand, professional accomplishments, and relationships.
Here’s my current score:
It would appear from this that I’m not doing too badly at creating an online presence .
There’s also some really interesting visualisations of my connections which have been quite interesting to nosey around. Who knew that they were connected to them?
Both of these tools raise some interesting questions about the value and the perils of the read-write web and social media.
We all need to remember that our online presence is available around the world and to millions of eyes.
We each need to decide what kind of presence we want to have online.
We also need to realise that our online presence is a differentiator in the workplace with both our customers, employers and potential future employers. It’s a social currency.
(If the truth be known – I thought twice before I wrote this post because I wasn’t sure that it was a good thing to write)
There are times in life when we can see our life clearly, at other times we need someone to remind us of the reality of a situation.
Nigel Marsh’s TED talk on the subject was for me a great reality check.
Some quotes that struck me:
Certain job and career choices are fundamentally incompatible with being being meaningfully engaged on a day to day basis with a young family.
There are thousands and thousands of people out there leading lives of quiet desperation.
Governments and corporations aren’t going to solve this issue for us.
If you don’t design your life someone else will and you might not like their idea of balance.
We need to avoid the trap of “I’ll have a life when I retire”.
Nigel is passionate about his subject and rightly so – it’s a significant issue for our society.
Really interesting TED talk today from Barry Schwarz on Practical Wisdom.
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I’m sitting here with a device that can plug me straight into the list of activities that await me for my working time.
But I’m not working, this is definitely not the time to be thinking about those activities.
I can take that device with me wherever I go, whenever I go.
The lines in my life become more blurred every day.
For over 25 years now I’ve worked in an environment that has meant that I’ve regularly seen something new that has got me excited about its possibilities.
I’ve become a bit more discerning about the things that I invest my time and energy in, but I continue to be amazed by the ingenuity of people.
Long may it continue.
Graham Chastney 