The Analog Underground article got me thinking, and made some synaptic connections in my head that I am still trying to full grasp.  The author of the article, Ashlea Halpern, mentions the nostalgia as well as novelty value of anachronistic objects, which I totally get.  But she also labels this analog phenomenon a “neo-Luddite counterculture”.  I’m not sure if that label was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but I really don’t think “Luddite” correctly captures the motivations behind this trend.

According to Wikipedia:

The Luddites were a social movement of British textile artisans in the nineteenth century who protested – often by destroying mechanized looms – against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work and changing their way of life.

I don’t think the so-called analog underground is rebelling against industrial capitalism.  They aren’t embracing the nostalgic novelty of vintage analog gadgets because the new digital ones are threatening their craft or livelihood.  I think the motivations are more personal, and inward focused.  Maybe it’s just an aesthetic thing.  Many people, from hipsters to old money trustfunders have favored old or vintage things for a long time now.  But maybe there are deeper psychological and spiritual needs too.  A need for a more physical, tactile connection with our objects.  It reminds me of the New York Aquarium ad I have been seeing in the subway that has a picture of a girl petting a starfish and the line “no screen, just touch.”  Maybe in the age of touch screens, we just want to touch something real.  Something analog.  The physical and the analog have a kind of permanence that ethereal and ephemeral cloud-based applications do not.  And we can really own them, hack them, and personalize them.  We don’t really own the apps on our iPhone or any software as service apps we run.  Somehow perhaps, all of these motivations are a reaction against the increasingly black box nature of technology.  We can’t open things up and see how they work.  After the magic and the seduction of these new shiny digital black boxes fade, what is left?  Alienation from our devices?  A desire for the real?  I don’t know, but it’s something to think about.

Other manifestations of this broader cultural phenomenon include the popularity of sites like Etsy and the spread of the Maker Movement.

Slimwhitman’s comment on the article really resonated with me:

The analog will always be more a more complex code than the digital, which has to approximate its curves, where the nearly infinite realm is. Although that sounds like pop-metaphysics, all you have to do is recognize how the record industry collapsed, it made the analog compressible into any digital file system and degraded our relationship to music. We went from live music to analog waves made in vinyl and magnetic tape to essentially finite squares out of binary codes. In order for a computer to synch with a neural net, like a brain or group of brains, it will require waves that cannot make errors or be approximate. The digital will never be the sole entrancer of humans, and probably, we will have to eventually build analog computers to achieve anything of value in the post-PC age.

I think there really is something to that observation. I have been feeling the same way in my own creative practice as a musician, but Slimwhitman’s articulation of the issue really gelled things for me. While I have been making electro-acoustic music since I was a teenager, and digital tools will continue to be important to how I work, I have recently been immersing myself in the analog music world by playing acoustic instruments. Even the joys of playing the humble ukulele has a kind of humanity and expressiveness that is quite different, and in many ways more accesible and immediate for me, the player, than any of my complex high-tech music making gadgets.

I’m still waiting for the analog blogging platform though.  Until then, I’ll still be sticking to my iMac and WordPress.  ;-)

My Purpose colleague, Alessandra Orofino, and I will be teaching at SVA’s MFA program in Design for Social Innovation when the department opens in fall 2012.

Social innovation is the application of new strategies and models to solving the challenges the world faces and to strengthening society.

The MFA in Design for Social Innovation will prepare students to apply the principles and ethics of social innovation as filters for understanding and as a discipline for engaging with and improving the world through design.

Graduates of the program will be more than graphic designers, filmmakers, advertising creative directors or interactive systems designers. They will be all these, mastering all the skills and knowledge of how to apply them to have a positive impact on business, society and their own lives.

Check out the department website for more updates.

Join leaders of the electric car movement to debate how online organizing, culture jamming, and social influence can turn electric cars into cultural icons. The only way to break our addiction to oil is to stop driving cars that use it. In 2011, mass- market electric cars will, for the first time, become a real option for everyday drivers. But common misperceptions, old habits, and powerful interests could prevent electric cars from breaking through to the mainstream.

Host: Purpose.com
Panelists: Jeremy Heimans, Nate Pinsley (Purpose.com / HelloElectric) + 2
Location: Main Festival Location at SXSW, Austin Convention Center, 6AB (340 seats)
Date: Monday March 14, 9:30 AM CST

Inspired Action: New Approaches to Saving the Planet

To make sure our grandchildren’s grandchildren have a planet to enjoy, it’s time we move past the belief that awareness is the answer. It’s time for action and solutions to come from all of us – not just environmentalists. That’s why we’re asking a few innovative minds to offer their specific solutions for how individuals, small groups and global corporations drive the change needed. It’s not another panel of usual suspects talking about the past. This session will match up experts from different backgrounds to throw their big ideas on the table and work together to mash them into workable solutions.

Hosts: FastCompany, CauseShift, PepsiCo
Panelists: James Slezak (Purpose.com), Robert Murray (National Geographic) / moderated by Scott Henderson and Ann Mai Bertelsen (CauseShift)
Location: PepsiCo Plugged-In Stage at SXSW (Austin Convention Center, Meeting Room 2) // also via webcast from FastCompany and PepsiCo
Date: Sunday March 13, 4:30 PM CST
Detail: http://plancast.com/p/48wd

Haiku synopsis:

Tech helps us to share
Old impulses, New ideas
What is mine is yours

Co-authors Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers present a highly readable overview of the collaborative present and future of consumption as new technologies empower and amplify our basic human urge to share.  I was really excited to finally get my review copy of this book, since my masters thesis, SokoSquare, dealt with many of these issues of reclaiming and redefining community (and finding abundance) through collaboration and sharing. In particular, chapter 8, “Collaborative Design” was a particularly inspiring call to action for me as a designer to move beyond creating beautiful artifacts to creating systems and experiences that generate some sort of communal value.  The ethos of collaborative consumption doesn’t see technology and the internet as an end in itself, but instead a coordinating mechanism for enhancing robust communities.

I have also been thinking about these issues in my recent work with HelloElectric.org, a newly-launched social movement for the promotion of electric vehicles.  Widespread adoption of electric vehicles is only one part of the solving the climate and peak oil crises.  We must also change the way we own and use vehicles.  Botsman & Rogers quote Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford:

The future of transportation will be a blend of things like Zipcar, public transportation, and private car ownership.  Not only do I not feat that, but I think it’s a great opportunity for us to participate in the changing nature of car ownership.

Amen to that.

What’s Mine Is Yours is part cultural critique, part aspirational document, and part survey of the current collaborative consumption scene.  Besides Zipcar, the book also explores the success of sites like eBay, craigslist, and CouchSurfing and offers an introduction to some interesting newcomers in the space.

If you like Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age or Douglas Rushkoff’s Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back, this is the book to read next.

More press for I RIDE FOR LIVESTRONG, an online interactive experience I worked on at Purpose:

TechPresident: Avaaz Co-Founders Seek Purpose Driven Consumer Life

Huffington Post: Julia Moulden on How to Use Technology to Change the World

Cool Hunting: This Week’s Picks

PSFK: Online Game I RIDE FOR LIVESTRONG Raises Funds, Awareness, and Social Empowerment

Previous post: I RIDE FOR LIVESTRONG in the NY Times

I RIDE FOR LIVESTRONG by Purpose in the NY Times Media Decoder Blog!
I was in charge of the music and audio and also worked on animation and visual/interaction design.

Stuart Elliot reports:

A new agency whose name, Purpose, signals the kind of campaigns it hopes to produce is creating for Livestrong, the Lance Armstrong initiative that fights cancer, a virtual version of an annual bicycle race.

The effort is in the form of a game called I Ride for Livestrong. The online race began on Wednesday and continues through May 23, which is the end date for the actual race it mirrors, the 2010 Amgen Tour of California.

On the tech side, I have been researching various frameworks for developing the new version of SokoSquare moving forward.  Looked into CakePHP and CodeIgniter and looked at some how-to videos.  There’s also the Ruby on Rails option, but I think I’m over my head in this area.  Meeting with Elizabeth tonight to discuss, and need to loop Peter in too.  In the mean time, I need to finish mocking up the various user registration pages.

Also, found out at the Awesome Foundation trustee meeting on Monday night that someone else is working on a project very similar to SokoSquare, so meeting on Thursday night to follow up.

A quick update on the status of SokoSquare:  Catherine, Peter, and I went to a “how to pitch” workshop at Stern this Tuesday and got some practice presenting and feedback from other teams.  We have a dress rehearsal of the full pitch next Wednesday.

We will also be participating in an ITP pitch-off this Saturday, for which I prepared this new 1-pager on our project.  In short, we are getting lots of opportunities to practice and refine our presentation for different audiences.

In other news, the Drupal intro session at Purpose I was supposed to attend was canceled, so I’m going to look into other ways to get up to speed on the tech side of building the next SokoSquare prototype.  In the meantime, I will focus on developing the user interactions and the trust mechanisms (I got lots of good feedback from my thesis group on this on Wednesday).

Latest documentation here (PDF).

The Awesome Foundation NY has made our first selection! It was tough NY – you completely blew us away with amazing incredibly brilliant ideas.

But – this month, for our inaugural grant, we’ve picked a LASER TWEEZER that makes amoebas eat bacteria.

Awesomeness to the MAX.

No – really, its a laser tractor beam that prods amoebas. We’ve awarded January’s $1000 grant to Ben Dubin-Thaler’s Cell Motion BioBus.

We’ll be celebrating with Ben at the First AF-NY Award Ceremony on Monday February 8 at 8 pm, at the Apple Bar, Waverly at Greene. Come and join us for a beer, meet the NY Micro Trustees – and we’re working on getting the BioBus there too. Beyond Awesome.

Read more

Ubiqui.tv is a prototype online video travel guide for the Boxee platform.  Ubiqui.tv was created by Joel Leimer, Oskar Von Hauske, Timothy Haynes, and myself as our group project for the ITP class Designing The Future of Television with Richard Ting.

YouTube video tutorial on how to get a Wiimote to talk to a Mac

13.4 million Americans watch some form of mobile video each month, and of those 13.4 million people, each watched an average of 3.5 hours of mobile video per month.  By comparison, the average American watches 153 hours of TV per month.  (Nielsen via Mashable, May 2009)

Also from Nielsen:

Except for the teenage years, viewing of traditional television increases with age; the use of video on the Internet peaks among young adults while viewing mobile video is highest in the teen years.

Men continue to watch video on mobile phones more than women, and women continue to watch video on the Internet and TV more than men.

In a 2007 international survey, a majority of all respondents agreed that “recommendations from friends had the most impact on the type of content they viewed over celebrity, amateur and professional endorsements.” (IBM via REELSEO)

According to a 2008 comScore study: on-demand video was the most popular mobile video format (compared to mobile broadcast), with 3.6 million viewers in the US. The report also gave a breakdown of the kinds of content mobile video users consumed:

See also:
Eyes Wide Open: Video Usage Up, More Watch Cross-Platform
Nielsen: Mobile Video Use Lags Behind

1. Washington Post writer Ian Shapira writes an article about business coach/’generational consultant’ Anne Loehr: Speaking to Generation Nexus: Guru Explains Gens X, Y, Boomer To One Another
2. Gawker blogger Hamilton Nolan picks up the story: ‘Generational Consultant’ Holds America’s Fakest Job
3. Shapira complains that Gawker stole his story: The Death of Journalism (Gawker Edition)

My take

Shapira’s claim that Gawker did not properly attribute him are unfounded.  The Gawker post links to the original article and to Loeher’s generational cheat sheet.  Hyperlinks are the footnotes and citations of our generation (as Loeher would probably say). I’m giving my advice for free: my generation thinks that generational business coaches are B$.  We live in a cut and paste culture; computers lower the barrier to making derivative works, as the next section of this post will demonstrate.  The subject of the original article was pretty ridiculous to begin with, as if it were tailor-made for Gawker fodder.  Gawker added value to the original with its snarky commentary. (Ms. Loeher, is snark a characteristic of my generation too?)

If Oscar Wilde were alive today, he would probably say, “the only thing worse than being blogged about is NOT being blogged about.”  While we are on aphorisms, let me give you some more free (useless) advice about my generation, courtesy of Descartes, updated for our times: Blogito ergo sum. “I blog, therefore I am.”

I don’t think Gawker is so much ruining journalism as Shapira claims as much as it is Maybe the WaPo should stick to actual news coverage and investigative reporting (after all, this is the newspaper that exposed the Watergate scandal, but “old media” can’t just rest on its past laurels).  “New media” like Gizmodo is going to give newspapers a run for their money in terms of business model.  Newspapers can either adapt their business models and learn to compete with the supposed “pirates” (“piracy is just another business model“), or they can fail.  They can revamp their content and delivery models, or they can streamline and specialize in what they do best.  But here’s a hint for being hip with the kids: complaining about the death of journalism is old news and kind of played out.

Or, in a move of desperation, they can throw down the gauntlet and start an Internet turf war like Shapira has done, which is actually a very Gawker-esque thing to do.  (What would Anne Loeher say about how that reflects on Shapira’s generational values?) It certainly has succeeded in getting people’s attention, but I hope this is not the sustainable business model the WaPo has in mind.

Commentary from the blogosphere AKA aggregation adds value

Stowe Boyd: As Media Economics Shift, Old Media Can’t See The Forest, Only Trees

So, at core, the issue here is something larger. Who owns the world of discourse? Who is allowed to profit, and in what way, from the actions of participants in this web sphere?

Various arguments could be made about fanciful mechanisms.

• Imagine a world where people are paid to read stories, basically getting a kickback from publishers from ad revenue. (Hasn’t caught on.)
• We could weigh the value of every link pointing to or away a piece on the web, and a complex, Google-pagerank-ish algorithm could figure out to six decimal points how much everyone owes each other each week. (Impossible to implement, I bet.)
• Authors could attempt to demand that no one should link to their pieces, or clip any information from them without permission or recompense. (Counter to fair use provisions of copyright and free speech protections.)
• Companies like the Washington Post can put everything behind a paywall. (Good luck.)

These mechanisms hinge on old thinking about value.

The web is a place where connection trumps content: content isn’t king, context in a web of meaning is king.

Rachel Sklar: Did Gawker Rip Off The Washington Post? Yep.

The blogosphere has done something weird to the media industry: Now, the imprimatur of having contributed something is not the original byline, but whether your piece was “picked up.” Pickup provides that extra stamp of relevance, that what you did is worthy of inclusion by the all-important aggregators — the outlets which determine the days need-to-know stories, so busy people with no time to read any of it will at least know what’s up. Yes, yes, congratulations on getting your little article published in a top national newspaper — but a Drudge/Romenesko/HuffPo/Gawker link? Awesome!

It’s not just about traffic, it’s about affirmation: You’re on to something. You’re relevant.

Zachary M. Seward: Gawker and The Washington Post: A case study in fair use

Words in Post article: 1,527
Words from Post article quoted in Gawker post: 226 (15%)
Original words in Gawker post: 204
Labor devoted to Post article: about 2 days
Labor devoted to Gawker post: 30-60 minutes
Cost of Post article: roughly $750
Cost of Gawker post: roughly $20
Revenue generated from Post article: unknown
Revenue generated from Gawker post: roughly $200
Blog links to Post article: 7
Blog links to Gawker post: 4
Rank of Gawker post among referrers to Post article: 2nd
Rank of Post article in Google search for profile subject: 3rd
Rank of Gawker post in Google search for profile subject: 6th

Matthew Ingram: Gawker, the WaPo and the death of journalism

I’d be willing to agree that Gawker could have — and maybe even should have, in an ethical sense — mentioned Shapira and his story specifically. But there is no way in heck that a post with three links and an explicit reference to the source constitutes anything approaching a “rip-off” or the “death of journalism.” How about the death of hyperbole, and the rebirth of rational debate about the value of linking and traffic, and/or the ethics of sourcing online? That would be nice.

emptywheel: The Stealing Wars: What’s Good for Gawker Is Good for WaPo’s Slate

Shapira has a point about this particular instance of Gawker’s abuse of etiquette. But he misses all the ways that this information economy is a multiple-directional exchange, one the WaPo is as happy to engage in as Gawker.

VOXPOPULI: How Alan Denton And His Gawker Henchmen Are Ruining Journalism Forever

So, what’s the point of all this? Shapira points out that what took him a day to produce took Gawker less than an hour to claim as its own and make ad revenue from. Newspapers and other traditional media are certainly not the only form of journalism, but they are the ones that 1. pay well enough for one to live a decent life as a working journalist and 2. have (had?) the resources to allow for real news-gathering, which takes time and effort. And with newspapers fading away, there’s less original content for blogs to re-purpose as their own.

On the other hand…blogs are more fun, or can be, and I myself am a Gawker regular. Blogs are a lot less formal and the best don’t, after all, just cut and paste without adding a bit of their own eleven herbs and spices. In the age of the Internet, information is an increasingly free commodity.

Appendix

This is totally tangential, and I doubt you’ve made it this far, but I’ve had my own brush with Nick Denton’s blogging empire before.  Gizmodo picked up my head(banger)phones project from the ITP Winter Show last December.  They misreported the programming language I used to execute the project.  I posted a comment to correct them, but the post was never corrected.  Oh well, I enjoyed the 15 seconds of Internet fame while it lasted.  You could always read the official story about the head(banger)phones on LEESEAN.NET.

In case you haven’t heard enough from Shapira:

Washington Post staff writer Ian Shapira will be online Monday, Aug. 4, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss his Outlook article titled “How Gawker Ripped Off My tory and Why It’s Destroying Journalism.”

Looking at myself in the Self-Centered Mirror

Broken Red Mirror: pieces of a portrait of Red Burns

Broken Red Mirror viewed from the front

Snow Mirror

Mirror No. 5 (Pac Man Mirror)

Mirrors Mirror

More photos on Flickr

The Creative Commons Salon San Francisco took place on June 24th at PariSoMa, “a coworking space that provides desks, wi-fi, coffee and community to independent professionals.”  The theme of the salon was “[t]he digital intersection of art, history, and culture, and how CC can play a defining role in enriching all three.”  Videos after the jump.

Part 1: Francesco Spagnolo

Francesco Spagnolo, Director of Research and Collections at the Magnes Museum. Francesco will explore the sharing and marketing of cultural heritage through the lenses of the Magnes’ “Digital Narratives,” a project that seeks an alignment between a narrative approach to history, a collaborative practice in the interpretation of cultural history, and the uses of technology and online social media.

Part 2: David Toole

Dave Toole, CEO and Founder, Outhink Media, will present on how storytelling bridges the cultural and business arenas, outlining the challenges posed by the new social media and the crucial role played by research in information technology.

Part 3: Nancy Van House

Nancy Van House, Professor, UC Berkeley School of Information, will respond to the other presenters by reflecting on the way in which academia is looking at social media and personal/historical digital archiving, exploring the human interactions that populate the online world.

ITP Spring Show 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2-6pm & Monday, May 11, 5-9 pm
A festival of interactive sight, sound and technology from the student artists and innovators at ITP
This event is free and open to the public. No need to RSVP
ITP @ 721 Broadway, 4th Floor

Punchcard, a project by Caroline Brown, Peter Horvath, Catherine White, and myself, came in runner up at the NYU/Microsoft Design Expo competition yesterday.

Punchcard is a proposal for a membership service targetting freelancers, independent workers and others who do not work in tradition offices.  Punchcard membership would give members access to a network of coworking spaces.  In addition, Punchcard membership would offer access to an online “dashboard” communications/social networking platform, that appears on members’ computers when they log into the WiFi at a Punchcard location.  The platform draws on elements of Twitter, social networking sites, and instant messaging, but is location-based, so that members can see who else is in that space at a given time, and view their profiles.  Punchcard platform is meant to facillitate serendipitious interactions between Punchcard members with the goal of potential networking and collaborative opportunities.

The dean of NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Mary Schmidt Campbell, was a special guest during our final pitches.  She noted in the post-presentation Q&A that the Punchcard platform could also be adapted to other applications besides networking for laptop-nomad freelancers.  She said that something like it could be implemented in a university context to build community and interdisciplinary collaboration between students in different departments.

While team Punchcard will not be continuing on to the next stage of the competition at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, WA this summer, we would still like to continue to develop the project in some way, perhaps in the Stern Business Plan competition in the fall.

Download PDF of the Punchcard presentation deck.

Photo: Team Punchcard is Catherine White, Lee-Sean Huang, Caroline Brown and Peter Horvath.

2. In concert with JC Cassis @ Arlene’s Grocery
Sunday, May 3, 2009
8pm SHARP
Arlene’s Grocery, 95 Stanton Street, Lower East Side, NYC
$8 at the door (Make sure to say you’re there to see JC Cassis)
21+
JC will be performing all her new dance-pop tracks off the forthcoming album, Four on the Floor, as well as some old faves.

3.  ITP Spring Show 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2-6pm & Monday, May 11, 5-9 pm
ITP @ 721 Broadway, 4th Floor
A festival of interactive sight, sound and technology from the student artists and innovators at ITP
This event is free and open to the public. No need to RSVP

4. I’ll be in Washington DC from May 13-15, and I’ll be in the San Francisco Bay Area from May 15-20 and then from early June to mid-August.  Ping me if you want to meet up.

Here are a couple screenshots taken from my upcoming piece, ODI et AMO, a music video/karaoke performance piece I am working on as the final project for my Visual Music and Animals class.  JC Cassis will be doing some vocals for the piece, and she’ll be coming over later today to rehearse and record her parts.

I will be presenting the piece for my Animals class next Tuesday, and then to the general public at Issue Project Room on April 28, at 8 pm.

Also check out the ODI and AMO T-shirt I designed, and my original project proposal.

For my Dynamic Web Development final, I am working on Givkwik, a mobile-based philanthropic micropayment system, with my ITP classmates, Jason Rosado, Cameron Cundiff, and Thomas Robertson.

Read more on the Givkwik Blog.

I just happend to have my Samson Zoom H2 audio recorder on me because I was coming from band practice with JC Cassis and company, so I was able to capture a high-quality MP3 recording of Ari and Steven’s performance.  Unfortunately, it took me a minute to fumble with the recorder in the dark, so I missed the first couple minutes of the performance.  Nonetheless, here it is:

From my colleague Enrique Piraces at Human Rights Watch:

I want to share with you our submission to the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center Mobile Challenge. 

The project is great and we have an opportunity to get some attention and further develop the idea. 

Voting will take place between March 23 and March 27, 2009 and will determine the Top Ten Finalists. 

I want to invite you to keep an eye on the project and to help us spread the word about it. And if you want to further improve your karma, please consider registering to vote for the project. [It is so easy. Just register, go to the project page, and give us a "star". After that you can also share any comments and criticisms in the same page] 

http://www.netsquared.org/projects/bug4good 

I’m finding more blog posts about the head(banger)phones from across the international Internets.

Here are posts from Australia, Brazil, and France.

Here are some photos of me presenting the head(banger)phones at the ITP Winter Show 2008 last night.  Thanks to Justin Tedaldi, editor of the JETAANY Newsletter, for the photos.

The head(banger)phones are a personal music device made up of a pair of headphones and a sensor.  When the user wears the head(banger)phones, the motion and position of her head triggers different sounds, creating a dynamic interactive musical experience.

Here is some internet ink about head(banger)phones:

Nod Your Head, Change the Beat: Accelerometer Headphones | PSFK

ITP Winter 2008: Accelerometer Headphones Control Music Via Headbanging

The Listenerd’s Links for 12.18.08

Gizmodo reports that I did the project using Max/MSP, but actually I used Processing/Arduino.