Broadcasting Brain

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CBC Radio’s Spark, hosted by Nora Young, interviewed Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody and it’s really good. An edited interview aired in May 2008 but the full interview can be downloaded here in MP3 format.

Shirky describes his cognitive surplus concept in more detail. Put it this way: if you look at the millions and billions of hours of television watching time and could take a fraction of that to some good, interesting, or worthwhile work, you could do some amazing things.

Previous generations never had the benefit of a cognitive surplus, which comes from having more leisure time. They were too busy working to live.

If human brains were better at performing background tasks like the SETI data processing initiative, where your PC can be used to help crunch some of the data, I’d say this concept could really go a long way. It appears that we need things like:

• Wikipedia
• Project Guttenberg

where a lot of effort goes into building a work environment and dividing work up into smaller chunks, to really take advantage of this.

Awesome concept, though.

Image by nightthree

Writing continues to transform into a rapid-fire burst of characters that spew out without filters or second thoughts. Get it out, include a link or two and BAM! Your words are on the Web faster than a thundering Emeril (don’t click on this; it’s kind of dumb).

Is this the future of writing?

Fifteen bloody rewrites? Are you a loony?

One thing that stuck in my mind after listening to a recent John Cleese podcast was the idea of drafts or versions of a document. He mentioned doing fifteen (!) drafts on a script. The number of drafts that the episodes of Fawlty Towers that he and Connie Booth went through for each episode is legendary.

In all seriousness, can you ever imagine yourself writing FIFTEEN drafts of a document (unless, of course, you are a professional writer)?

Can you imagine washing your car fifteen times in a row? Making your bed?

Cooking a meal?

OK, bad examples, but do you know what I mean?

Professional writer AND blogger - contrast

Andrew Sullivan, author of The Daily Dish, is a prolific blogger who focuses on short, focused posts including links and quotes to other web pages. I don’t know how much time his average post takes to write, but it doesn’t seem that it would take a long time. These are likely one-draft posts. Blog and go. Apparently they are only 20 minutes apart at times.

By contrast, Sullivan recently provided a well-crafted and thoughtful article about why he blogs. How many drafts did it take him to write that, I wonder?

[Note: podcast with Andrew Sullivan discussing this article is here - MY POST CONTINUES AFTER THE VIDEO]

It takes a village of rewrites to grow a battlestar

Meanwhile, from the Colonial podcast zone, I get the impression that virtually every single episode of the new Battlestar Galactica went through no less than ten drafts, not including scads of minor changes that occurred during filming and editing. Granted, the process of developing screenplays is much, much different than standard documents, mainly because you have to deal with changes that occur when you finally see what your creation looks like in three dimensions.

But still. That is a whole lot of writing.

That’s too complicated for me to write - how about a blog post instead? OR A TXT MSG FTW!

QUESTION: if more and more people keep blogging short bursts of prose on a continual basis, are we gradually going to lose the ability to do the research, analysis, and deep thinking to write traditional long form prose?  [EDIT:  are we losing the knack for revising, proofing, and editing documents into world-class material?  Or are we dealing with a new generation of content creators who don't appreciate the need to EDIT?]

What do you think?

Geography is no longer an obstacle. Blogging, microblogging, instant messaging, webcasting, etc. have made instantaneous communication the norm in today’s world, even more than the telephone did.

Time zones, on the other hand, are still a major hassle.

For example, when it’s midnight here in my town, it’s 8:00 PM on the west coast of North America. And it’s 4 AM in the UK. And 2 PM on the east coast of Australia.

It seems to me that despite the great tools we have for communication, we still haven’t found ways to compensate for time zone differences without causing disruption to one party or another.

Is this a problem? What do you think?

I’ve been using Twitter for close to a year now and I’m falling in love with it all over again. It’s like a magical combination of a farmer’s market, a state/town fair, and a soapbox to shout to the world. It’s very tempting to think of Twitter as a never-ending festival of bytes because of the diversity of people, opinions, and sites there.

If you’re not familiar with Twitter, the 140 character communication wonder, a great starting place is Getting Started On Twitter (note: I am a contributor to Touchbase, the Pistachio Consulting blog, so I may be a bit biased, but Getting Started on Twitter does link out to a lot of great resources).

Short bursts of communication is the thing on Twitter. You send quick messages via the Web or any device that can send SMS messages. By adding links to web pages into your Tweets (Twitter messages), you can communicate huge amounts of information with a short message.

I’ve been using Twitter for the better part of a year now. My feelings on the service have varied greatly during that time. As many of you may know, Twitter has had a history of stability problems, either during key events in the tech blogosphere or due to underlying design problems. Early and mid 2008 were particularly trying times.

Thankfully most of Twitter’s stability problems seem behind it. Twitter has removed parts of its service (including Track, much to the chagrin of some power users) and has done other things behind the scenes and the dreaded Fail Whale is a rare occurrence these days, at least in my experience.

My feelings about Twitter have varied through the year:

• I’ve been upbeat about the service
• I held a little contest on Twitter
• I’ve been frustrated about the service (see the Fail Whale link above)
• I’ve been pragmatic about what we can expect from a free service
• I’ve been cynical about being a Twitter user

And so on.

I’m back to being more positive about the service when I say that I think of Twitter as a never-ending festival of bytes:

• Lots of interesting people there
• It’s a way to get access to an incredible stream of information
• It’s VERY easy to use
• It’s a way for me to promote both my own work but, increasingly, the good things that other people are doing on the Web
• It’s fun

Twitter isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Moreover, if this was happening in the real world I wouldn’t enjoy the experience because I’m not a fan of crowds, at least in large doses - it’s the way I’m wired.

Fortunately, you can jump in and out of Twitter as often as you like. Plus, it’s always on.

After a lot of different thoughts and feelings, I’m back to enjoying Twitter again.

How about you? What do you think of Twitter: good, bad, or indifferent?

Just catching up to this post about idea creation by Hank Williams at Why Does Everything Suck?

Here’s an excerpt:

I am a member of the NextNY mailing list which is a group of New York folks that talk about tech business and entrepreneurship. A recent conversation and actually a persistent theme in that group is that in a startup, an idea is worth 1% and execution is worth 99% or some other highly disproportionate ratio.

I take issue with the concept.

Here’s the problem with the formulation. It belies a misunderstanding of what an actionable “idea” really is. A good idea is almost never some light bulb moment that occurs where you realize some insight that no one else has seen. In truth there are few of those. Very, very few people are that smart or that lucky. Great actionable ideas are really a collection of much smaller ideas, weaved together in such a way as to create something useful unique and compelling. There are few actionable “aha” moments.

In other words, to me, coming up with great actionable ideas requires lots of perspiration, iteration, and ideation. However, once you have an actionable idea that has been achieved through this process it is worth *way* more than 1%.

Great stuff, Hank.

I left the following comment in response:

I think that the idea could be worth a lot more than than the 1% valuation as well, but I look at it from a different point of view. A great idea, with a good plan behind it, is the product of a lot of work. The planning, thinking, and critiquing, when done properly, can eliminate wasted effort during the life of implementing this idea. A former colleague once used the following rule for testing: one day of test planning is worth (or saves) three days of actual testing by eliminating lost time. If the valuation is based on time and effort, then the time taken to develop a stellar idea would be significantly greater than the 1%.

If you’re interested in the process in developing and creating ideas (or content), I recommend checking this out.

Flattery by Imitation is a Broadcasting Brain feature whereby we take an online presence (well known, obscure, or something in between) and attempt to capture their style in one single paragraph (note: not today!). Today’s post features writer, blogger, speaker, and guru Seth Godin.

Condensed Seth Godin

Businesses don’t understand. Except that they really do.

Businesses crank out widgets at dizzying speeds. Drip, drip, drip, DRIPDRIPDRIPDRIP. Instead of the water dripping out of your faucet, it’s like the output of, say, Niagara Falls.

Businesses try to optimize. First they start by fitting ten widgets into a box. Then fifteen. Then fifty. Then thousands. It’s all about squeezing as much into that box as they can. Except when they’re trying to put in as little as they possibly can.

Trillions and trillions dripped out of factories. More widgets that we can think of.

Widgets aren’t interesting. A purple widget would be odd, but not very interesting. Who wants a widget?

Unless you make the right widget. The one that your tribe tells you to make.

Those who focus their efforts on getting the right widget in the right box in the hands of the right person will always succeed. Even if it’s the only widget they make in a month. If the right person gets the right widget and they become infected and sneeze, they won’t get sick. Except that they will. They’ll be sick in the right way and they’ll infect their friends. And so on.

Always make the right widgets that make people sick. No one ever goes to that edge.

This isn’t a dip - it’s the only game in town.

Kleenex is the new iPod.

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In the 20th century, young Billy Batson used to say the magic word “SHAZAM!” to transform himself into Captain Marvel, the World’s Mightiest Mortal. Now, in the 21st century, do we scream “SOCIAL MEDIA” instead?

Just do it.
Be all that you can be.
Trust your instincts (Luke).

Some of the more memorable slogans of the past few decades exhort the listener to realize their potential. Self-actualization slogans are the mantras that encourage people to buy, join up, or otherwise try out new things. Psychologist Abraham Maslow was one of the thinkers who helped bring the concept of self-actualization to a wide audience of listeners. A question, though: does this evolving electronic era give us any opportunities to realize our own potential and become better people? Let’s go back to Maslow and try to glean some ideas from his words.

Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs suggests that human needs can be grouped together into meaningful categories. After introducing the Maslow hierarchy of human needs earlier this week, we looked at both the basic needs of physiology, safety, and love/belonging and our needs for esteem. If you follow Maslow’s theories (and some people don’t, by the way), these lower levels of need must be satisfied before the highest level of need, self-actualization, kicks in.

As the name implies, self-actualization is all about “activating” and realizing potential. People can grow, learn new things, increase skills, and expand their belief in what they can do. This goes beyond self-esteem; this is about having the confidence to try new things, learn from them, and move on to bigger and better things (another cliché in the same vein as the self-actualization slogans that I mentioned earlier).

We looked at social media and self-esteem in the last post. Is it possible that social media could help us along the path to self-actualization? Let’s quickly look at the pieces and see if there’s potential there:

Morality

Here’s how Stanford University defines morality:

The term “morality” can be used either
1. descriptively to refer to a code of conduct put forward by a society or,
a. some other group, such as a religion, or
b. accepted by an individual for her own behavior or
2. normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.

Does social media help you develop a moral code or to behave according to a moral code? The short answer is maybe, but it might be worth a more detailed discussion in a follow-up blog post. There is certainly etiquette and rules of conduct throughout social media, but does it actually take on the role of a moral code?

Creativity

There are lots of people who talk about creativity and how to be creative. Generally speaking, creativity deals with the ability and process of generating and developing new concepts, ideas, services, and products.

Simply put: between blogs, social networks, photosharing, podcasts, videoblogging, and more, there is no shortage of creative outlets to use.

Spontaneity

This is an interesting one. Let’s see what Dictionary.com has to say about the adjective spontaneous:

1. Happening or arising without apparent external cause; self-generated.
2. Arising from a natural inclination or impulse and not from external incitement or constraint.
3. Unconstrained and unstudied in manner or behavior.
4. Growing without cultivation or human labor.

I would classify spontaneity, in this sense, as the ability to self-motivate and start new things without external stimulation. In other words, it’s kind of like the opposite of being a sheep or a plant.

Does social media make you spontaneous? Not directly, no. However, it can expose you to different people and different ideas that may expand your horizons. Perhaps social media activity could be a catalyst or inspiration. It can certainly provide opportunity.

Problem solving

Social media can engage your problem solving muscles just like any other new activity does. Whether it’s setting up and maintaining a blog, learning how to record audio and/or video, or take photos, as you learn and try new things, you’re going to face problems. You’ll have to solve the problems in order to get to the next good thing. Social media doesn’t offer anything new or unusual to help your problem solving skills grow, but it can be as good as anything else.

Lack of prejudice

Social media won’t remove prejudice from you, sorry. If you make snap judgments or if you are predisposed to believe certain things, you’ll certainly find a lot of stimuli if you look hard enough. In fact, social media seems to act as an amplifier. If anything, it may make you more prejudiced if you’re already prejudiced. But the opposite could happen if you learn, think, debate, and discuss via social media. I don’t think that social media can remove prejudice all by itself, but it might lead you to some interesting ideas.

Acceptance of facts

No, social media won’t help you accept the world as it is or cold, hard facts any better than anything else can. At best it can put you in touch with people or ideas that might help you change your thinking, but at best that would be a byproduct of social media usage.

Conclusions

So does social media directly lead to self-actualization? So far I’d say only partially. I’d say that social media can act as a catalyst to spur other things on, but it doesn’t start anything by itself. It’s certainly a potential outlet to realize your creative capabilities.

Let’s be honest, this has not been an in-depth look at Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs. At best, I’ve tried to set the stage by introducing some concepts to you. There is a lot more to talk about on the topic of self-actualization and it’s going to be a recurring arc here at Broadcasting Brain, amongst the other varied assortment of topics that we discuss here.

I hope you’ve found these posts to be useful and I hope you’ll stick around to share your point of view on Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs and self-actualization in particular. It’s proving to be an interesting and useful exercise for me to write about these concepts – I hope they’re helpful for you as well.

Related links:

Maslow Self Actualization - unlearn:  great summary of Maslow’s self-actualization ideas.

Abraham Maslow’s 8 Ways to Self-Actualize:  Sivers’s article pointed me towards the above link.

Image by miliquin

Esteem, usually partnered with the word “self”, sits near the top of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, just below self-actualization. As we continue this series of posts about the intersection of social media and the different types of human needs, we’re going to take a look at esteem and see if social media can help you build esteem, both within yourself and back to the rest of the world.

First, the definition of esteem, as per dictionary.com:

Noun: favorable opinion or judgment; respect or regard: to hold a person in esteem.

Here’s a way to paraphrase the dictionary definition of esteem:

Esteem: being respected and well thought of, both by yourself and other people, while according that same good will towards other people.

Maslow suggested that there are five aspects of esteem.

Here are my thoughts on what these aspects are:

Self-esteem

Self-esteem is when you have a favorable opinion or judgment about you. In many ways this is about liking and respecting yourself. If you feel worthy, you have positive or good self-esteem.

Confidence

Confidence is the belief in your abilities to perform well, to do the right things. Confidence (or self-confidence) means that you can think and act without hesitation because you have the assurance that you are thinking and doing the right things.

Achievement

This is all about getting stuff done: finishing projects; and creating new things.

Respect of others

Respect of others is the consideration of the rights, thoughts, and feelings of other people.

Respect by others

When other people respect you, they will give due consideration of your rights, thoughts, and feelings

What’s the key to building esteem using social media?

To me, the way that you can fulfill these aspects boils to three things:

• Do good work and share it (achievement, confidence)
• Help other people and win their trust (achievement, respect by others, confidence)
• Be considerate of your fellow human beings (respect of others)

If you repeat these things over and over again and get positive feedback, your self-esteem will grow but only if you believe that you are doing the right things. If you don’t believe that you are trying hard enough, giving enough, and growing enough, your self-esteem might not build as much as it could, so belief is a big, unstated component of self-esteem.

So where does social media come in?

Social media is a tool by which you can do these things and can augment your offline activities. Social media’s powerful capabilities for communicating with people, publishing content, sharing ideas, and helping each other lend itself towards achievement, respect by others, and respect of others.

There are endless ways to publish content, either in blogs, forums, discussion groups, photo sharing, video blogging, and so on. There are endless people to communicate with, help, and learn from. This activity, knowing that you are doing good work and helping other people learn and grow, builds confidence and self-esteem. It’s a great proving ground to help you feel better about who you are and what you can do.

And, on top of all that, interacting with other people, learning about them and seeing their skills in action, can help you better appreciate and respect them.

In my opinion, these things help fulfill our esteem needs and set the stage for us to take the next steps toward self-actualization.

Do you agree or do you think I’m full of crap? What do you think?

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The magic pyramid is an indication of when, or if, you might have some creative itches to scratch.

Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, the pyramid in question, is a means to understand when and how human beings experience certain needs at different points in their lives. Maslow’s theory suggests that there are certain basic needs that must be satisfied before other needs become active. The top of this pyramid is self-actualization, the need to realize your potential via creative expression, thought and understanding. On the surface, it seems that social media, an increasingly popular outlet for communication, creativity, and community, can help people satisfy some of their needs, although you would think that it fits better with the needs for esteem and self-actualization than at the basic levels.

Could social media help us satisfy our more basic needs? Just for fun, let’s examine this idea.

Physiological

The most basic of human needs are things like breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, and excretion (sorry, but that’s what the pyramid says!): these are biological musts that we can’t ignore, at least for long periods of time. Can social media satisfy any of these needs? Directly, no. Indirectly? Almost never. The only way that it could is if social media activity leads to income that allows a person to buy the staples of life that would satisfy these needs. Don’t hold your breath waiting for that…

Safety

Safety refers to security of body, employment, resources, morality, family, health, and property. It’s all about being able to believe and trust that these other important things in life are going to be around for the long term. Social media? Again, it’s all about the money.

Love/Belonging

Maslow groups friendship, family, and sexual intimacy into the love and belonging set of needs. Can social media help here? There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence out there that talks about how people meet and become friends via the Internet. Family members can use social networks to keep in touch with each other. Sexual intimacy? Well… I dunno. Two out of three seem to have some potential, at any rate.

So far social media has a decent chance of satisfying one of these three sets of human needs. No real surprises here, but it’s worthwhile to at least think about them.

Onto more needs next time. We’ve still got to work our way up to self-actualization, after all.