Social Hallucinations

2009 - Another Chance for Us to Get it Right

31st December - the last day of the year. Soon we are going to say farewell to the 2008 and welcome the New Year. We will make New Year's resolutions believing we have just got a new chance to change things, to do things differently. So let's not waste that opportunity.

In 2008 we've seen the apogee of our greed manifested through conspicuous consumption and its collapse. Aristotle said once "The avarice of human is insatiable" - we proved he was right over 2000 years later. We consume more than we can take. We live in a world where exploitation has reached the perfection. We are tempted everyday and put in the situation we have to choose between values or benefits. We've become the society there is a huge discrepancy between the norms and socially accepted tools to live according to those norms (I am going to write more about it next year). We entered the state of social disorder.

It may sound pessimistic, but if something is broken we can fix it. We can't just fix it with the old broken tools.

One of the most positive things happening in 2008 was the wave of good thinking coming from people like Neil Perkin - Goodness and Happiness, Faris Yakob, Charles Firth, Umair Haque and many many others. They have pointed out that generosity and doing good things are the new way of the strategic thinking. This is the approach we need if we want to make the necessary change and re-find the meaning we've eaten along with other stuff. This caused us a serious indigestion, we come to suffer from in the coming year. 

Instead of trying to predict what will happen, make things happen. It is us who shape the future, so don't waste the time to speak about it - after all we have no idea about it, as it is unpredictable and random as shaped by unpredictable humans creating endless connections and networks of influence. Let's make Doing Meaningful Things to our business model. Stop wasting any type of resources and keep in mind what Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said once: "Less is more".

This is my New Year's Resolution: Make More from Less.
What is yours?

Happy New Year!

I am looking for the brand new year and I wish you all the best in 2009 all my dear readers! Thanks for reading my rants and inspiring me.

Photo by Celeste

'The Common Sense Sociology'

Internet is infested with social media experts who apply "the common sense sociology" to explain and consult on social behavior. There are dangers of the common sense wisdoms that lead to blurring the reality and taking the wrong decisions based on the wrong assumptions.

"The common senImage by Compound Eye via Flickrse sociology" 3 mistakes:

1. Presumption that we know the social reality because we live in it, and on the basis of our experience we take for granted certain social relations and social behavior. There is an internal limitation stopping us from making the right judgments - many of our social experiences aren't recorded by our awareness thus they are not included when making judgments. Besides our experience is in most cases limited to a single group of society. We take those limited experiences and create oversimplified theories for the whole society.

2. We believe that the research or study we are working on is always linked directly with practical objectives and we measure the reality in relation to the norms that we use to describe what is desirable or undesirable.

3. Assumption that each group of social facts may be considered theoretically and practically in isolation from the rest of the life of society. Despite it is our mantra, we forget about it when talking about social behavior or social relations - Everything is connected!

As a result we can lots of bullshit said around. Lots of so called experts who mess in the heads of uncritical sheeps.

The good example of such an ignorance and the usage of the common sense science was the discussion on Twitter authority where Loic Le Meur and Michael Arrington demonstrated the lack of understanding for basic terms like authority and social relations linked to those. Authority for those gentlemen is the measure of the number of followers. What a misjudgment and oversimplification of social interactions based on the power of authority. There is a huge difference between authority and popularity (I think the whole discussion about the number of followers is referring to the latter one). Applying the number of followers equals authority logic would mean Britney Spears is a heck of an authority! (BTW she has almost 13.000 followers, gee it must be some pearls of wisdom on her profile).
Majority the social media experts are just popular through self-promotion. There are only a few who are credible experts. The difference comes from professionalism, truthfulness, trustworthiness and impartiality.
We need to be more careful and fight for professionalizing in the field to avoid being drifted away by "the common sense science" and tempted with the easy solutions based on vague theories build solely on one person experience: 'I did it this way, it worked, so it must be true for everyone and everything else.' This way of thinking is just the reproduction of the existing stats quo of the cultural structures driven by a great army consisting of the people who do not get it, but have the right to vote.
If we are here to make change we need to keep on being clever and avoid those 3 mistakes of the applying common sense thinking into any social science.

Drawing by gapingvoid

7 Things About Me

Who doesn't like talk about themselves? Tagging is the ultimative chance to brag who we are. It is a bit like Facebook status - staging yourself. I was tagged by dirkthecow to repeal some 7 things about myself and than tag 7 more people to do the same.

Let the game begin:

1. I hate communism, totalitarianism and socialism - all those are the worst disasters that can happen to society. I grew up under this regime, I've seen members of my family get arrested cause they believed things they weren't supposed to believe, I've heard stories of tortures in the name of socialism. Besides socialism isImage via Wikipedia against our nature and is the great excuse to abuse and misuse people.

2. I sometimes watch Days of our Lives - those days when I choose to work from home - sofa, cup of tea and daytime TV with two episodes of Days of our Lives, followed by Dr. Phil. What's great about DooL is that no matter how long I've not seen it, I can always follow it without feeling lost. Shh...we don't talk about it anymore, it is embarrassing, I know!

3. I hate lending my books. They are like my babies and I feel so sad when one of them leaves me. I like to know they are on the shelves and I can take them any minute I feel like. They are like my very personal items you never share with anyone.

4. I've played tennis since I was 10 and sometimes dream of how my life would be if I went pro. Tennis is more or less the only sport I do really enjoy, the rest I just do cause it supposed to be good for my health.

5. I ran away from the police once in Berlin after participating in illegal party on the old underground station. I was very close to get arrested and I thought it was sooo cool - I was only 19 years old. The very picture of myself from those times makes me laugh.

6. I get incredible thrill from gambling and I am sure if I let i go I would lose everything I own. The best book on gambling I've ever read is The Gambler by Dostoevsky. I keep it always in my mind when being close to casinos.

7. I love cooking - I think often about having a small and cozy restaurant of my own. There is a wonderful joy in making food for other people.

My 7 nominees are:

Dear Jane Sample - cause I am dying to know more about her

Amelia Torode

Neil Perkin

Adriana Lukas

Jeff Flemings

C.B. Whittemore

Drew McLellan

This is Enough

Muji is a Japanese retail company which sells a wide variety of household and consumer goods that are charactirized by minimalism, recycling and no-brand policy.

The name Muji is derived from the first part of Mujirushi Ryōhin, translated as No Brand Quality Goods on Muji's European website.

Muji's vision is "This is enough"

 

Timeles idea focusing on sustainable design build around simplicity and purity. No flashy advertising, just Muji's message. The new way of earning money where profits doesn't seem to be the only focus. The state of humanity is included and cosidered. An effort to fight pointless consumption and turning less into more.

Everything is Free These Days

Listen to the voice of youth. A few interesting inisghts

European Youth Trend Report 2009 from trendwolves on Vimeo.

Obama's Lessons for Marketers

Be Cool, Be Social and Be the Change - 3 simple guidelines for the way to think and act in marketing. Obama showed it can work. Now you can tap into that wisdom by reading this book Barack, Inc.: Winning Business Lessons of the Obama Campaign.

I read a few fragments from the book on Google Book Search and it seems like an interesting and inspiring guide for the new thinking in the difficult times we are entering.

You can read more about the book on Barack,Inc. website.

Immersion

Photographer Robbie Cooper's project Immersion shows how focused young video-game players can be and how incredible faces they make while playing those games. Incredible to see the wide range of emotions from complete insensivity to tears...I love human faces.

 

Merry Christmas

War Breeds Innovation

Image via WikipediaWho will dare to experiment with social media in 2009? Small businesses or corporations?

IMHO it will be small business, as most of corporations will cut their budgets and stick to safe and known solutions. They will retreat and fight for keeping the status quo. But war breeds innovation, and small armies will reach out for different ways to survive the war, primarily because they have most flexibility to reorganize armies, secondary they have less soldiers to lose. If they're really smart they will win the war of 2009 and get out stronger while corporations will spend efforts to keep up.

Walled Gardens of Newspapers

"...But people don’t use the Times less than they did a decade ago. They use it more. The difference is that today they don’t have to pay for it. The real problem for newspapers, in other words, isn’t the Internet; it’s us. We want access to everything, we want it now, and we want it for free. That’s a consumer’s dream, but eventually it’s going to collide with reality: if newspapers’ profits vanish, so will their product." James Surowiecki, The New Yorker.

Newspapers should face the truth that they are not in newspaper industry but in information sector. Their job is to inform people and Image via Wikipediamake sure the news find the way to them as they want, not like newspapers want.
For sure there is the need for well paid journalists who can deliver high quality journalism and I am sure there will always be people who are willing to pay for quality content. As Surowiecki points out at the end of his article:

"(...)For a while now, readers have had the best of both worlds: all the benefits of the old, high-profit regime—intensive reporting, experienced editors, and so on—and the low costs of the new one. But that situation can’t last. Soon enough, we’re going to start getting what we pay for, and we may find out just how little that is."

Problem arises when we stick into channel and can't look outside its walls. Paper is just a carrier, there can still be delivered outstanding journalism online. It is content people are looking after and they are willing to pay for unique content that is interesting them. Newspapers tend to think about online in terms of accessibility, but it also has another dimension - exclusivity, where content becomes the socially desired object. Relevancy and quality are the key.
It is incredible to hear from the chief editor of Kristelig Dagblad - Erik Bjerager - that "Online media aren't able to replace newspapers at the moment".
It seems like there is no hope if this the mindset driving that industry. Ignorance? Fear of change? Lack of imagination?
We perceive ourselves as the innovative society, that is ahead of the game, but we are locked in the jail of thinking based on opposites - black vs. white, online vs. offline - industrial way of thinking. The way that makes it easier for us to create predictable routines. Today, we are living in liquid era where things merge, divide, transgress. We need to adapt to stay tuned.

Some say about the need of finding a business model, but the best business model is in first place to understand what drives people behavior and choices and then provide services products that are relevant, in other words - to get things done properly.

Make Something From Nothing

Image via WikipediaWe are all born creative and play with crayons, that we forget to take with us into the adulthood. Some never let the crayons go. Those people are the characters of this fascinating documentary: Beautiful Losers.

"BEAUTIFUL LOSERS celebrates the spirit behind one of the most influential cultural moments of a generation.
In the early 1990's a loose-knit group of likeminded outsiders found common ground at a little NYC storefront gallery. Rooted in the DIY (do-it-yourself) subcultures of skateboarding, surf, punk, hip hop & graffiti, they made art that reflected the lifestyles they led. Developing their craft with almost no influence from the "establishment" art world, this group, and the subcultures they sprang from, have now become a movement that has been transforming pop culture.
Starring a selection of artists who are considered leaders within this culture, Beautiful Losers focuses on the telling of personal stories. It speaks to themes of what happens when the outside becomes "in" as it explores the creative ethos connecting these artists and today's youth. "

You can also visit Nike site with art-based workshops created for the film release. From Just Do It to Make Something From Nothing.

I hope it will inspire you during the weekend.

The Early Adopter Myth

Microsoft Advertising and Synovate published results of the global youth study "Young Adults Revealed: The Lives and motivations of 21st century youth" and the results are somwhat far away from what we hear around about today's youth.
The early adopter myth was challenged. The today's youth resembles their grandparents far more closely than they do their parents, according to the report. They seem more pragmatic than hedonistic and value family, good education and career.
The report goes throgh media attitudes, media consumption and attitudes towards brands and pushes to rethink the way we imagine we should communicate with youth.

Defintely worth reading. You can download it her.

Sharing Matters

The world is inhabited by great people with great ideas. By sharing stuff you make possible for those minds to meet and create new connections and ideas.

via SwissMiss

What is it? Black on White Paper?

Newspapers! And they are definitely facing some serious issues (BTW, it is not only in USA). John Stewart has some interesting comments on the situation. I wonder when newspapers industry wake up and acknowledge it is time to find out how to approach and meet the new readers demand. Rising the  prices for advertising while readership is in free fall can't be a solution. It is time to admit - newspapers aren't viable to deliver the news. There is one interesting case in Denmark - Weekendavisen. It is newspaper, that is published weekly (still reminds newspaper, black on white or rather grayish paper) and is the only newspaper that experiences readership increase. Reason? They don't deliver news but in-depth articles on the interesting subjects. While the rest of newspapers do everything they can to fight google and linking. How more absurd it can get? It sounds like complete triviality but dear newspapers guys Internet come here and will not go away, not matter how many Voodoo Doll you play with.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Clusterf#@k to the Poor House - Final Edition Edition

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

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