Web-Tones

Gloom and Doom or the New Reality?

When Will The Recovery Begin? Never. | Robert Reich's Blog. I think it's the latter. The old economy is dead and it "ain't never coming back." Why? Because the consumer is broke, and becoming more broke everyday, globally. We are not in Kansas anymore folks. I have often said that we are going to have to innovate our way out of this mess, and I mean really innovate!

So we have a new economy under going a painful birth. It will likely have a messy childhood and a turbulent adolescence. What else is new? More separation everywhere  between those that have and those that don't. More political unrest. It is time to face the music, the path we were on was completely unsustainable.

Simplistic ideas are not going work and even the best ideas are going to challenge our collective courage, political and otherwise. There is not an industry that won't be turned upside down. This inflection point will make the change that occurred during the industrial revolution look like child's play, consider:

• The old newpaper industry gone
• The old music industry gone
• The health care industry collapsing under its own weight
• The financial system barely breathing

And the fun hasn't started yet. I am an optimistic, we are going to end up in a better place. The future of our children and our grandchildren depend on it. A new vibrant economy will rise from these ashes. But don't expect it to happen anytime soon. The arc of the moral universe bends toward just outcomes. We just need to get up every morning and decide what role we want to play in this unfolding drama.

In the words of Joni Mitchell:

We are stardust, we are golden
We are million year old carbon
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden

Can't you hear that guitar riff wailing?

It's Early in Web Years Redux

Details on Marc Andreessen’s New Fund (Plus Five Other Interesting Things He Said). Anyone heard of Marc of Netscape/Ning fame? He is one of the most grounded people in Tech. Why? He has this smart no BS, common sense, way of discussing the industry. Here he indicates that it is still early in the game because no one can predict where the Web is headed, because as pure software platform it has few contraints.

It short, It's Still Early in Web Years.

Pushing the Search Envelope!

The Real Time Search Dilemma: Consciousness Versus Memory. This is a great post about emerging innovations in search technology and how, once again, it is the small and nimble that are driving the next wave.

I believe that real time search, or metaphorically, searching the web's consciousness real time, is a fascinating concept. That said, I do not believe it has general purpose business applicability(same goes for Twitter). Sure if you are a journalist or trading stocks then real time search is a requirement, but from a business perspective these are the exceptions to the rule.

That said, it is often difficult to predict if/when a niche business app turns into something of use to the general business population. Besides, real time search is just cool to geek on!

Small is the new big?

After well over 25 years I am re-reading Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered by E.F. Schumacher. It's clear to me that Schumacher predicted the current wall that we have hit. His basic thesis is that "you cannot have infinite growth in a finite world." In short, there are limits to materialism. When we disregard these limits bad things happen.

What confronts us now is not the false choice between socialism and the free market  but rather what lies in between. A new approach that rejects unbridled consumerism and unsustainable growth as a kind of madness and helps create sustainable employment. Nothing else will do. If we cannot find a way to create jobs, both in the U.S. and abroad, then we are headed for a "no man's land" of unprecedented human misery or worse (READ MORE WAR).

I don't subscribe to gloom and doom, but neither is there any sense in ignoring what is painfully obvious and staring at us in the face, as it were. You can count me as one of the eternal optimists that believe we can innovate our way out of this mess, but the innovation better respect the jobs engine (i.e. small businesses) and sustainable economic development, or all our efforts will be futile.

It is time for people of conscious, across the political spectrum,  to stand up and be counted, to embrace "ideas over ideologies."  We need to do this for our own sake, and for the sake of our children and our children's children. The stakes couldn't be higher.

The End of Bigness?

Are we witnessing the beginning of the end of the dominance of huge business organizations? Look at who is failing in a colossal fashion: big banks, big automakers, big insurance companies. Sure, there are probably, percentage wise, a significant number of small businesses that are failing as well, they simply don't make the headlines. BUT, I would argue that in an age of constant economic disruption, it's the little guys that are more resilient, quicker to adjust, quicker to regroup, etc.

The economic argument for big has historically been economies of scale, but in this kind of environment we may be, for the first time in a very significant way, witnessing the "dis-economies" of scale. For many years we have heard the constant refrain that small businesses create 80% (or some high number) of jobs. That said, they certainly do not have the political clout of the big boys. Perhaps it is high time that this change. If small businesses are indeed the "engines of growth" then their interests should be better reflected in economic policy.

Caveat Emptor!!

Link: Futurelawyer: The Unkindest Cut of All - Apple cuts prices on IPhone. I rarely disagree with the The Future Lawyer, primarily because most of the time he is right (and quick to tell you so) BUT this time I beg to differ. If you were crazy enough to spend $600 for a "fashion item" then you should just STOP WHINING about it.

How long have we known about "Moore's Law?" Everyone knew that this toy would be coming down in price and still the geek masses rushed to buy! Jobs may, or may not, be throwing consumers a bone with the rebate (i.e. since it is a store credit) but he need not apologize for capitalizing on fashion. It is simply the way that the fashion business works.

Shilling for Money: "People Ready"

Link: People Ready. Start here and follow the links. Is this controversy about "running a business" or "journalistic integrity?" We live in a complex world and the answer is probably a little bit of both. It is naive to think that money doesn't change the equation and probably equally naive to think that it absolutely corrupts. However, the issue is important and should not be easily dismissed as "much to do about nothing."

The Radical Center

Link: Ted Halstead and Michael Lind's The Radical Center. Any movement to the center, in my humble opinion, is good for America. If the politics of "free love" and "big government" were bad ideas, what are we to make of the politics of "race and hate"? The problem with extremists is that they want/must have control of the dialog. I certainly do not agree with all the ideas espoused by the authors (published in 2002) but at least the "Radical Center" is a "place" where we can have an effective dialog concerning health care, education, globalization, the environment and the myriad of other problems that confront humanity in the 21st century.

Of course, in American politics we like "bright lines and clear distinctions" and that seems to preclude (my prediction) a movement to the center by BOTH parties. But if one party owns the center, and the other chooses a reactionary path, then the latter may be relegated to a status of "permanent minority"--which might be OK for some political types but not for the nation. Here's hoping that both parties fight for the center, but in the near term that is not only unlikely but highly improbable.

Heavyweights on CSPAN

Finally we are starting to get real dialog in this country again, among what Kissinger calls "serious people". CSPAN has been broadcasting an event at the Kennedy Center On Government (believe the name is close anyway), and last night Brian Williams hosted a panel discussion with Sorenson, Valenti, Kissinger and Hague. You might not always agree with their views but the dialog was "serious" and lots of potent insights from players that were insiders during Vietnam and have plenty to say about why our current foreign adventures are misguided, or so seriously foobar'ed that our only hope is for a "graceful way out." Kind of sad that after > 2000 U.S. soldiers dead and perhaps an order of magnitude more Iraqis, that this is the best we can hope for; but there you have it.

Hague says we should have never given up the draft, and I agree. We have mostly the poor fighting and dying, and everyone else is taking a "free ride." Hague points out that things would be significantly different if it was the sons and daughters of the politicians and the powerful and influential that were paying the ultimate price! Hague has advocated this for a long time, for over forty years now, and when he says it, it has weight. Kissinger, Valenti and Sorenson also weighed in with powerful NO BS insights that were "refreshing" to say the least.

Thank goodness for CSPAN because the MSM is totally irrelevant, despite the fact that Brian Williams added value and did credible work, the MSM has been MIA for over 10 years, and to say that they have been co-opted is a gross understatement.

Learning Modalities

The conventional wisdom is that as learners we fall into one of three categories: 1) Visual; 2) Auditory and; 3) Kinestetic. So you often hear someone say I am a "visual person", and in fact you hear this probably to the exclusion of I am an "auditory person" or I am a "kinestetic person". Why? Because processing complex visual patterns is something that human beings do quite well. Consider the number of images you are processing when driving 70 mph through Atlanta, LA, Chicago etc. But the truth of the matter is we learn through all our faculties, we are learning machines--and to the extent that the same topic can be covered using multiple modalities our learning is improved.

The Net is evolving into a medium where publishing in multiple modalities is becoming easier and easier. As we awake to the use of voice and video, and the power contained therein, we should not forget that it is the combination of the modalities that really make an impact. Context sensitive rich communications streams, and the companies (think Apple and Macromedia) and individuals (think Dyson and Searls) that leverage them, dramatically improve their communications effectiveness and the ability to convey messages, to touch their audience, and to sell their "products."

But because of the democratization of computing, no one has a pure monopoly on this capability, and I can assure you that the communications revolution is so nascent that we have yet to catch but a glimpse of where we are headed.

Tags: Searls, Dyson, Learning, Apple, Macromedia