Broadcasting Brain

This isn’t a political blog, but I thought I’d comment on Barack Obama’s March 18 press conference concerning comments made by his church pastor and his relationship with the pastor because it has a couple of interesting points about communication in the mass media.

Note: I have not actually seen the press conference video, nor have I read the transcript of his speech, so I am basing this post on press coverage that I’ve heard.

Two particular points of interest:

1. Obama apparently disagreed with his pastor’s views on race in America (I believe the pastor has made numerous statements which seem to accuse white people of doing wrongs against black people in America, but I’ve never read any of it), while at the same time continuing to embrace the pastor as an individual. He also referenced his (white) grandmother’s attitudes and behavior, which could be considered racist at times, while simultaneously maintaining a loving relationship with her grandson.

Obama clearly seemed to be trying to embrace multiple constituencies during a difficult campaign incident - do you he succeeded?

2. The news commentators mentioned that the podium set up (including multiple US flags) and the location (across from Independence Hall in Philadelphia?) seemed to be set up in such a way to make it look like Obama was giving a presidential address, or at least a reasonable simulation of one.

Did he look presidential to you?

Again, two questions related to mass media communication. I’d love to know what you thought about this, regardless of your ethnicity, political affiliation, or nationality, for that matter.

Even though social media is growing in prominence, traditional mass media still seems to rule in government and politics.

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Sometimes we communicate to the world by virtue of the groups that we join.

Membership often implies that you subscribe to the beliefs and values of the groups that accept you as a member.  Is that really true?

Do you ever feel like you are a member of many groups but that you don’t belong to any of them?

What do you think?

I wanted to showcase a Read Write Web article by Alex Iskold about the impending end to the use of paper for information storage (although wrapping paper is unthreatened at present.)  Check out the preceeding link to read the article.

Here’s a small excerpt which summarizes the theme of the article:

According to Wikipedia, papermaking was developed in China during the early 2nd century. Since becoming the de facto medium for recording knowledge, paper has evolved to also become the medium of transferring information in the modern world. Now, however, paper is being surrounded by an increasing number of digital rivals. We can debate how long it will be before the next generation of e-book readers kills printed books, but the days of paper as an information storage medium are almost over. In this post we look at the role of paper in our information-rich lives, from books and newspapers, to receipts and office documents.

Paper continues to be a dominant means of communicating to large numbers of people, although Web technology has certainly eaten into paper’s market share. 

I commented on the article (well written and interesting, it was) and I decided that I’d share that with you here:

There’s a lot of logic and good ideas in this article. Here are my three problems with the concept of completely eliminating paper:
1. I’m not willing to rely on a tiny screen to do my reading (I don’t use a Blackberry or cellphone text messaging, so I’m just not used to a small screen.)

2. Document editing, which many of us do in our jobs, is something I would have to retrain myself to do without using a pen and the ability to, say, put pages 4 and 33 side by side while scanning my content. Could it be done electronically? I’m sure it could, but, quite frankly, I’d never be comfortable with the results unless I could print out the paper and run my pen over it.

Maybe there’s a niche market here: training people how to do online editing and annotation.

3. The other thing that is really needed to eliminate paper is ubiquitous, preferably free wireless Internet coverage or cell phone coverage to ensure access to the Web anywhere, anytime.
If we could get by these three things, paper will probably die.

Even though it will ruin comic books forever.

What do you think?  Will paper ever cease to be a means to store information?

I’ve got something to say today

Social media are ways to communicate with the world, whether it’s through:

• Blogging
• Voting on social news sites
• Using social bookmarks to recommend things that you like
• Commenting
• Sharing images, video, or audio

People who actively participate in social media want to be heard. We have things that we want to say and we want other people to know about.

This is an incredible time in the history of humanity where people have the ability to be heard by hundreds, thousands, even millions of people though the cost of an Internet connection.

I want to be heard, too. There are times when I struggle to figure out which things I want to say, and how to say them, but I wouldn’t be using a public forum if I didn’t want to be heard.

It seems to me that more and more people are seeing what I have to say. That’s a great thing for me. I get some satisfaction from that knowledge.

I’m reading what a lot of other people have to say, so it’s mutual.

Today’s message is: thank you!

Thank you if you are:

• A friend, colleague, or acquaintance from places like StumbleUpon, Digg, Mixx, Sphinn, Reddit, Social News Central, Team Marketing, Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, etc…
• Someone who’s commented or given feedback to me in some fashion
• Someone who I know in real life (I think there are a couple of you out there… )

Very importantly, thanks to my wife, kids, brother and family, my parents, and my extended family, because you are the ones who have no choice but to put up with me!

But most importantly, thank YOU for reading. I enjoy blogging, which is its own reward, but if I didn’t want to be read, I’d still be handwriting journals and hiding them in a box somewhere. I like knowing that someone out there is reading my writing.

P.S.  “Catch the brainwaves” is back tomorrow!

An easy way to keep reading is to click on the Feed icon and subscribe to Broadcasting Brain.

Big cities vs. small towns: some would say that bigger is better. There’s no doubt that cities have a critical mass of opportunity due to the results of population density. Both mass media and social media do seem to have capitals in the largest cities of the United States and other parts of the world, giving them a cornucopia of riches to select from. Techology has leveled the playing field, though.  Today, especially in the blogosphere, size doesn’t matter.

I wrote a guest post a few weeks ago at Tad Chef’s SEO 2.0 blog. The post was called I Live In The Blogosphere and it summarized some of my thoughts about blogging. In short, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you came from, or what you do - we all start out with equal potential. To badly paraphrase that famous line about the movie Alien: in the blogosphere, no one can see where you are screaming from. We all scream equally, although when we all scream simultaneously, it’s hard to pick out an individual voice.

I StumbledUpon a cool blog post this weekend: How significant are we?The post shows the relative size of the planets of our solar system compared to each other, and then our sun compared to other stars.? It’s one of those images that can really put things into perspective. It made me think about my current home. I know some readers live in larger cities (I apparently have a few readers in London, England - hello there!) Let’s compare some things for a moment.

• I live in a town of 5,000 people. There are about 25,000 people who live in a 40 - 50 KM radius of that town.
• The closest city and airport to my home is about 100 KM away (the airport is another 20 KM from the city). The city’s population is approximately 50,000 people, with another 35,000 people in surrounding areas.
• My province’s population is approximately 750,000 people.  That’s slightly larger than the core population of San Francisco (which is about 1/10th of the Bay Area).
• My country’s estimated population is 33 million. There are three million more people living in the state of California.

SO WHAT?

I’ve got (relatively) high speed Internet access and I know my way around the Web. I’ve read lots of interesting information and I’ve processed it. I’ve made contact with an increasingly amazing array of people. I’ve got a steadily improving blog and growing readership. And I live in a town of 5,000 people in a rural part of the world.

As I’ve said before, it doesn’t matter where you are or where you came from. As long as you’ve got a brain and the ability to broadcast, it doesn’t make a darned bit of difference where you are. Technology can bridge virtually any “disadvantage”.

Besides, one person’s “big” is another person’s “small”.

Just ask the stars.

If you think you have a good idea that should be shared, never be afraid of reaching out to the right person, no matter how famous and unapproachable they may seem.

Even if it’s only a brief acknowledgement, you may be pleasantly surprised by the results. Just be polite, thoughtful, and to the point.

Even if they ignore you, you are no further behind. Even if they trash you, you get some publicity. On the positive side, they may share a pearl of wisdom with you. Or more.

Even if their PA contacts you or you get a form message back in return, at least they are sensitive enough to arrange for some kind of acknowledgement.

The Web makes it easier than ever to communicate. Use it carefully and responsibly, but use it!