Andrew Keen had been a part of my first book: IMHO. I came across his name again, recently, and in all places, Twitter. I remember reading his book when I was first doing my research for IMHO and thinking “man, this guy is being a bit over the top on all this stuff.” I've come to think differently.
As many of you know my view of technology has shifted greatly since the time of publishing IMHO. I have to admit that I think that shift began even before IMHO hit the presses, but I had committed to the project, and wanted to see it through.
While I still agree with the basic premise of IMHO – that technology itself is not evil, it's how people use it – I do think that technology, and more specifically the people who develop it, need some greater governors placed around them.
Even though we are living through one of the greatest market corrections since the Great Depression, the champions of free market economics seem to be stumping louder and more frequently than ever. Maybe it's the onslaught occurring on so many different fronts. From finance to health care many analysts are seeing the role that mismanaged technology has played in bringing us to where we are today.
Black-box quantitative analysis models, that assumed in their calculations, which the value of real estate could never go down, used by every major investment house in the US, and many abroad, fed the initial unraveling of the real estate / mortgage markets. Some might argue that such an error was not such a bad thing since it forced the value of the related financial products down so much more quickly, helping us avoid a slow degradation of the markets, and forcing investors to stare at the Gorilla in the living room.
I'm getting off on a tangent. Back to Andrew Keen, my “Tweet Deck” -- a tool for monitoring things you actually want to read on Twitter – suggested I follow Andrew. A few clicks later I was looking at his website, and watching the You Tube video clip he has embedded in his site promoting him, his knowledge, and, of course, what he has for sale: him.
This isn't a bad thing. It is, however, slightly ironic given the theme of his first book, The Cult of the Amateur, which laments how the Internet encourages a culture of people screaming “look at me!”
What he is selling, though, is the very real notion that the ungoverned march of technology is undoing cultural institutions that are essentially returning us to the dark ages of capitalism, where unsuspecting monopolies reigned supreme, and the rest of us schlubs struggled to figure out a way to eke out a living.
Google is held on a pedestal. Nike. Wall-Mart. Corporate behemoths are lauded in most corners as great innovators. So many things that are detrimental to society are being pushed through as innovation. Question innovation and you are questioning capitalism. Question capitalism and you're questioning America. Follow that thread and you might as well shut up, pack your bags, and move to France.
A couple of years removed from writing my own book, a book that was fueled by Silicon Valley insiders, and I see why I struggled with many of my “findings.”
There's a job position in Silicon Valley called “evangelist,” and it is exactly what you think it is. These people roam around the world espousing how great their company's new innovations are, and how those innovations are going to not just change an industrial sector, but the entire world.
As Keen says in his promotional reel on his site, “suddenly we get this digital technology and we all start kissing each other.”
Bull.
The more I've looked at technology, the more I am convinced that these social media, these new lands of social, technical, and commercial inventiveness are alienating worlds, rife with self-loathing, and people scrambling to be noticed.
I know. I know. It's not lost on me that I'm in this category.
But when you are someone whose aspiration is to eventually make a living as a content creator, you run into few options. After all, few people will argue that the old methods of distributing content – publishers – are in their death throws. This does not mean that the big publishers or old are going to evaporate into some virtual ether. The smart and innovate ones are going to figure our how to monetize this new space, where everyone expects things for free, and maintain some footing of relevance.
Still, however, for inventive, creative, and relentless personalities, the frontier of the Web – whichever Web that is (from Web 1.0, to 2.0 and beyond) – presents a canvas where anyone can become someone significant. All it takes is that one piece that goes viral, that sweeps around the globe faster than news of Michael Jackson's passing, and you too can be a household name. For how long, is the question. Like that one guy with the video where he was singing along to a song, or the other kid with light saber. Or was the the kid with the song and the guy with the light saber. Regardless, they're so yesterday. Or if you're following on Twitter, they're so fifteen minutes ago.
Many of you know I also write about parenting. So I think about Andrew Keen and his emphatic suggestions that society as we know it are unraveling. Side note – I now also understand why he wrote his book the way he did – nothing sells like hyperbole. I think of this new virtual landscape that our kids get to adapt to and I wonder what we've done.
What did I do by allowing my child such free access to video games? Sure I've enabled him to have cultural touchstones to which he can relate and get along with his peers, but later in life where will he be relating to his peers? From his dorm room? From a dank apartment at 1:30 AM? Where will life occur?
My wife had read an article citing a study that people who use their money for travel rate themselves as being more happy than people who use their disposable income for buying things. Anyone thinking about people who live in Europe right now?
Regardless of how much you travel, or where you currently live your life, we are living through a fascinating transition in our world. Finances. Technology. Climate. So many life-changing super-events are colliding right now that I'm both afraid and excited to see what the future is going to bring. But that middle one? Technology? I hate to admit I think that not only will technology not be our salvation in this time, it'll most likely hurt us, and is easily the most over-rated player in the mix.
RJ Lavallee is the author of IMHO (In My Humble Opinion): a guide to the benefits and dangers of today’s communication tools on sale at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and lulu.com.
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