meta-roj

just a little more tinkering. i think i need to do something about the colors.

since i seem to be in an isolated universe where this is a “common metaphor” i shall explain.

the universal problem solving toolkit contains two items:

1) a hammer
2) duct tape

instructions:

a) identify the problem
b) classify the problem in one of two categories
category 1: something has stopped that should be going.
category 2: something is going that should be stopped.
c) apply one of the tools from the universal problem solving toolkit.
category 1: apply hammer until the stopped thing is going.
category 2: apply duct tape until the going thing is stopped.

thank you for your attention.

ew music sucks. ok, maybe not all new music, but here’s “yet another reason” for some of the problems the music industry is experiencing (falling sales), that i haven’t seen explored in much detail until now. this isn’t a generational thing. sure, i’m getting old, but this isn’t about new styles of music that you whippersnappers seem to enjoy, this is about recording technology, which is something dear to my heart.

rip rowan, in this article does a wonderful job explaining one of the things that has literally driven me away from the radio and much new music. horrid-sounding square waves.

if major-label-produced-material is really following this pattern, and average levels really are creeping up this much, then the only way to do it is to “square off” just about every transient in the music, and that inevitably results in horrible noises.

ask anyone i’ve ever worked with in music, and chances are they’ve heard me say something like “i appreciate dynamics.” i still do. i don’t like a drummer that has only two settings (“off” and “loud”). i don’t like a guitarist that has only one “signature sound.” i enjoy the differences, and if i wanted to listen to “loud” i’d just record a jackhammer and loop it.

just as an experiment, i dug up a track from studiotone (i listened to this track a while ago and made some comments, so it was familiar territory), and i slapped some “remastering mojo” on it, bringing the average level up to -9dB (from about -16dB), and then all the way up to -6dB (way louder than the new rush album!). yes, virginia, it sounds like crap. and it sounds like a lot of things i’ve heard lately.

square waves suck.

yeah. well. i shoulda thought of stuff like this earlier, but… just in case anyone “permalinked” anything, they’re all broken now. i figured better to break stuff with only a few entries…

todays’ business model of the hour, brought to you by those creative people that can harness tv, radio, print, street teams, buzz and everything else. the advertising industry.

the model: assemble a group of several hundred “zombie” bloggers. give them the technology, the resources, and as much free pop-culture kitsch as you can get your hands on. have them talk up all the garbage they can possibly consume, and in six months take the whole package to madison avenue and invite the ad agencies to use the new “medium.”

the pitch: “we will match your product to one or more of our well-respected and popular bloggers, who will sing its praises, kiss your… whatever, and create buzz in the highly-networked universe of the bloggers.”

(this rant was first drafted on july 26, with a nod to Joi Ito (JoiIto), Richard Soderberg (crysflame), Ross Rader (Ross), (yonderboy) and the existence of #joiito)

It starts (innocently enough) with a comment. “i don’t really understand hecklebot, and this is not a request to help me change that.” (Richard Soderberg/crysflame)

Well, request or not… (it is, after all, the prerogative of experts to explain things).

Joi has offered (threatened) to take the Hecklebot to the various conferences and events that he attends to heckle speakers, including Bill Clinton. I have proof ( I’m going to hecklebot Bill Clinton I think.)

The intent of the hecklebot is to provide a direct backchannel to a speaker. Not just a running “sidechannel” commentary on the speaker or the material, but a direct in-your-face response. Speakers are generally selected (or invited, chosen, whatever) because they are in some respect a “domain expert.” The audience expects knowledge, insight, erudition, maybe even wisdom from people chosen to speak on a subject that interests them.

In six months, it’s going to take much courage to speak anywhere Joi Ito might show up. Actually, in six months, there may be a dozen or a hundred hecklebots roaming the conference and event circuit, and it’s going to take a lot of courage to speak on any subject, anywhere. I’m not willing to predict the adoption curve on this one, but the game has changed. Just the potential of having a so-called domain expert called “bullshit” mid-sentence is going to intimidate anyone who thinks they know everything (because deep down, we all know we don’t).

The era of the domain expert is over. The beast is extinct. They don’t realize it.

With the extinction of the domain expert, I predict the emergence of a million forms of “I think…” “I believe…” “It seems to me…” It will take time, but the language will adapt. Proclamations of Truth are going to become rare things indeed. (Joi observed, “Usually the audience knows more than the speaker.”)

The most interesting insights generally come from the “outsiders” that approach the material with a different set of assumptions and semantics.

Perhaps this is because they are willing to ask the “stupid questions.” Unburdened by years of accumulated (and shared) assumptions, the outsider is willing to look at a situation and say “so what?” or “that is crazy” or “what if?”

There is a value in asking questions. There is great value in asking questions that are relevant in context. Context always matters. In his paper, “A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy: Social Structure in Social Software,” Clay Shirky comments on the merits of learning by experience,

The most charitable description of this repeated pattern is “learning from experience.” But learning from experience is the worst possible way to learn something. Learning from experience is one up from remembering. That’s not great. The best way to learn something is when someone else figures it out and tells you: “Don’t go in that swamp. There are alligators in there.”

While I agree, as far as it goes, the more valuable skill is the ability (and willingness) to ask “Is the swamp safe?” and then marshal available resources to find the answer that is relevant to your context. Is it safe for swimming? Since I’m here can I substitute alligator in this recipe for stew? I don’t know if this is a skill that can be taught.

There is significant inertia in education, and it will not change quickly or easily. Knowledge was compartmentalized effectively through several hundred years of development in “higher education.” Now the compartment are so small and so focused, that they directly impact relatively tiny groups. It will be the intersections of domains that is interesting in the future. Domain experts are valuable, but they will increasingly be challenged by outsiders, and their larger contributions will be in areas that span domains.

Any expert that is really deeply invested in knowing The Truth is going to be heckled to death, or at least off the stage.

I’ve never been a President of the United States, but boy, do I have some questions for you, Bill. And at least you’ll know I am listening.

Let the heckling begin!

For more on the Hecklebot, a quick diversion to Hecklebot Wiki and UcHeckle Wiki is in order.

( this rant is also on the joi.ito.com wiki and is available in non-wiki-form here. )

so i’m on this track, chasing this train of thought lately, and for some reason this just jumps out today.

“can someone recommend a _____ that doesn’t suck?”

i think i’ve seen this five or six times today.

and, i just want to say that without a little more to go on, pretty much all the answers sucked.

a concept that has “bubbled forth” in my thoughts of late is that of determinism and predestination, particularly in the context of technology and technology businesses.

a bit of foreshadowing may be in this entry, but i hope to expand on the thoughts a bit today.

this will probably be a bit scattered at this stage, but it will undoubtedly evolve…
(more…)

there’s an explosion of social networking sites recently (friendster, tribe.net, linkedin and many more, i’m sure), and it seems to me that these are all very fragile concepts.

the value of these things depends a lot on the number of people participating, but it’s going to be very easy to alienate or otherwise drive away chunks of the network. of course, the company can “screw up” – a major private-information-exposure scandal would certainly do it – but there are more subtle things that can break these networks….

people participate in “general purpose” networks like these, but i have to assume that they generally have a fairly specific purpose. if the network (or the software supporting the network) can’t deliver on that purpose, i’m gone. so that’s a lack-of-value problem. how do you create (and more importantly, maintain) specific value in a general network? is more open better?

the other side is “driving people away” – if i feel like i’m being “harassed” or “bothered” by people in the network, that’s just as likely to drive me away. how do you keep the “signal to noise” ratio tolerable in an open network?

i don’t know how it will shake out, but i think these companies and sites will have to follow where their networks lead – if they try to force them to fit a pre-defined model, they risk alienating large chunks of the network they’ve managed to build.

this one came up in #joiito a few months ago, but i thought it bore “publishing”…

the problem-space is the “analog hole” for books. the example that brought it up was “sharing books” – which is obviously a serious rights violation. something needs to be done to eliminate the potential for book-sharing.

the solution, of course, is wiki-dispatched bookburningmobiles. when this came up, 451corps.com was available.

with apologies to bradbury….