Quickthink

Intellectual History is a relatively new field and it is a tricky one. How does one trace the effects of ideas over time? It is easy to assert, for example, that the Catholic Church helped to create what we now call Europe. And Kenneth Clark does a great job in elaborating that argument in his Civilisation series. But what made the Catholic Church such a force? Do we have corollary institutions today? And why did the influence of the church decline? Is that a positive or negative or neutral phenomenon?

The questions are interesting on their own. But these types of questions are also important. As we zoom into the 21st century one aspect of our life style has grabbed attention. I do not refer to the vastly increased opportunities for learning. I refer to the question whether our life styles can be sustained. Are we — as a species — headed for disaster or nirvana? And most important, can we have an impact on which future our children will experience? If we believe that either disaster or nirvana is possible, and if we love our children, we need an answer to that second question. But to answer that question, we need a model to understand the dynamics of our societal development. We need to anticipate the intellectual history of the next generations.

Well, that is pretty hard to do given that we are only beginning to understand our own intellectual history. But this has not stopped very smart people from extrapolating out trends and drawing conclusions. The latest is a book by Diamandis and Kotler called “Abundance“. They argue that we need not worry so much. Technology is coming to our rescue. The future will be better than it appears now. Jon Gertner — who just wrote an interesting book about Bell Labs — reviews their effort for NYT. BTW, he quibbles but in the end agrees.

I enjoyed the review and recommend it. I also will download and read the first chapter from the Abundance website. I am reminded of Kenneth Clark’s main lesson from his Civilisation series. He said that the key ingredient for making the future possible is confidence in what we believe now. Without this sense of confidence, we narrow our perspectives and so, with great vigor we  celebrate only momentary and fleeting triumphs — called incremental gains. With confidence, we reach for the stars. And you might see books like Abundance as important confidence building projects.

So what is it about our modern lives that gives confidence? And how do we transmit that confidence to our children? Diamandis and Kotler focus on confidence in innovation processes. And it is the prevailing view these days that we must have confidence in technology above all. I do not argue. To the contrary, I agree wholeheartedly with one facet of this —-  faster shared learning is the key to our future. But implicit in what I will call “technology based future think” is the sense that we have less confidence in our ability to communicate about who we are than our ability to make things. Here is the idea — we will be saved by the things we can bring into existence with more and more clever use of the resources at hand rather than the friendships that we enjoy while doing it.

Isn’t that a bit odd? It is not if you consider that confidence in the saving power of friendship was not a predominant 20th century belief. To the contrary, the mythology of competition trumped the mythology of friendship. And we are the children of the learning that took place back then. So of course we need faster and faster innovation just to keep up with the pressing  task of cleaning up the ever more dangerous mess that our sloppy relationships cause.

FOLLOW -  Re-reading my post I bumped into this phrase in the first sentence - that intellectual history is about tracing effects of ideas over time. The search for cause and effect contrasts with the more ancient preoccupation with searching for and agreeing on ultimate truth. That old fashioned zeal for literal truth was a great confidence generator (think of the great cathedral building craze or the energy of Lenin’s revolution). It also set in motion the agenda for intellectual history. One might call it repeated exercises in domination. But via the enlightenment, we began to value method over conclusion. The west gained confidence in reason. Romanticism challenged this sense of confidence but did not supplant it. So we live still with the tension between the mythology of reason (think of Spock in Star Trek) and the mythology of rebellion (think of Bob Dylan). This tension is not resolved.

We should keep this in mind when we use words like “engagement” and “gaming” to describe optimal motivators. They attempt to shoehorn both values (reason and rebellion) into a single model. And it works to a certain extent. The limit is how well we share enthusiasm for the game that should be played. Without that shared enthusiasm, challenges to accepted models of thought seem like assaults on feelings that should be shared. Friendship suffers.

2d FOLLOW -  At the end of his Civilisation series, Clark summed up his attitude about the future. Speaking back in 1969, he said that he was optimistic but not exactly joyful at the prospects before us (British understatement?).  I was a bit puzzled when I first heard this. A future with less than optimal joy? Well, I think I understand a bit better now why we face this risk.  Our agenda is crowded but not with tasks dedicated to the pursuit of shared joy.

3rd FOLLOW -  Check out Fred Wilson today on relationship building in the VC world. It is a great example of the gaming mentality. Fred plays the game well, and wants to share learning. To mentor. But shared joy? Well … the post is more about how difficult the relationships are rather than how rewarding they are. I think this is pretty honest and just a bit sad. Why? As Fred says, this is not really the best game for young people to play. And yet they rush in where angels fear to tread.

I liked Marx Brothers films as a child. They were fun. But I didn’t think much about them. They were just one of many films that would pop up on the TV movie channel. Then when I was in university, I got into a discussion about who were the greatest comedians of the 20th century. One of my housemates said that without a doubt Groucho was the greatest of them all. What?

That got me thinking about Groucho. And over the years I have come to realize how talented and different he was. BTW, if you want to learn more about Groucho and his unique gifts, check out Dick Cavett’s piece about two new Groucho books.

But the conversation had a second effect. It got me thinking about the relative value of comedy and comedians in our modern society. Again, something I had taken for granted as a youngster. And that too has stuck with me for quite a few years. It got me into trouble a few years ago in a pub conversation about Woody Allen. I said that Woody betrayed his comedic genius when he went “serious” and “European”. He decided that it was more important to be smart than funny. My friends thought I was over the top.  But I stuck to me guns.

The other day my phone stopped working. I called the telephone company on my mobile phone and the nice technician tried to help me. Sorry. I couldn’t do what he asked. It was too tough. It’s not because I am an idiot. Errr — well, we will just assume that. But I just didn’t have the time or the patience to go through five or ten technical checks when each one meant crawling under the desk and moving shelving.

But that got me thinking. Part of the problem is that my wiring system is just too complicated. Too many wires going this way and that. It would be great to have more simple stuff. Stuff that anyone could fix in a jiffy. And that sort of stuff is hard to design. Which makes life a lot less fun.

So I was in the mood for a recipe that is “as basic as it gets” from Mark Bittman.  A Spring veal stew.

Enjoy!

 FOLLOW -  The next day a telephone repairman came to the house. BTW, exactly on time. He found that the problem was inside one of the wires. Nice guy and job well done. But … wires decay over time? that was new for me.

Heaven help us. The US Supreme Court is about to rule on Obama care.

Why the concern? Because there is something more going on here than just legal argument. The question is whether an ideology about governance will render the US ungovernable.

America cannot be governed if its government lacks the power to cope with a serious policy problem. Out of control health care costs is such a problem. And Obama care addresses the problem in a pragmatic way. As Paul Krugman points out, there are two ways to do that. Either require people to buy insurance (the so called mandate) or tax everyone and give the insurance to them.  Obama care takes the first option. So far so good.

The Supreme Court will consider whether the US constitution gives the federal government the authority to impose such a mandate. This is a novel legal argument —  that allowing the federal government to impose such a requirement would be overly intrusive.  BTW, the commerce clause has traditionally been interpreted very, very, very broadly. And for good reason. Effective national regulation of interstate commerce is essential for the US to work as a single entity.  So here we go — underlying this new way of “legal” thinking is the idea that less government is by definition better government. This is ideology, not law. Randy Barnett is a leading intellectual voice behind this way of thinking. NYT profiles him here.

So if the federal government only has the power to prohibit, perhaps it should prohibit folks from getting sick.

This is a follow up to my post yesterday about collaborative business models - more specifically about building community.

One of the things I like about Fred Wilson’s blog is that it is community based. And I am not talking about the fact that Fred has a vibrant follower group who form a digital community via commenting. That is cool, but I am much more interested in two other communities that he is building.

The first is geographically based — the tech community in the city of New York. Fred is an evangelist for the New York tech community. This link gives a sense of how he fits into that scene.

The second is issue based —- Fred builds communities around issues that he thinks are essential to preserve the internet as a haven for disruptive business models.

My point here — I don’t think Fred could do this if he just focused on one or the other. To build communities, he needs the synergy between the three. The synergy transforms random interactions that you find in places into creative collisions.

FOLLOW -  Are there other great trailers that are location based? Sure. Check out this one about Stockholm. It is very creative. But because we cannot see how the actors participate in communities themselves, it is just a show.

This quote from John Zimmer caught my eye this morning while the telephone repairman was fixing a cable.

… 80% of seats in cars (in the US)  are unoccupied during travel. Even today, the U.S. sees 2.3 billion long-distance car trips a year running at only 20% efficiency.

Wow! This is something I sort of knew, but never really thought about as a huge problem. What a great example of kluge!

John is doing something about it. He started up a firm that helps people share transport and in his article (link from his name), he offers some suggestions to keep in mind for building collaboration based business models. There are the three elements

1. Build the infrastructure that enables it

That means building platforms that encourage community, trust, and credibility between peers.

2. Promote access over ownership

Ownership is often sold as a status symbol. Access may be the new status symbol

3. Nurture communities

You can “leverage our virtual communities into the physical world”

Here re my three analog questions for the above elements

1. How hard is it to share and why?

2. Could I get rid of stuff that I own and be happier?

3. How many people do I meet each week via sharing?

The shift is to see sharing as a business opportunity rather than a social duty. BTW, the Elion service guy did a great job.

What an odd question. Trapped in the here and now? How could we be trapped if modern society provides us with so much of what we want in life?

And yet … the question is not without interest. Being provided for is nice, but prisoners receive provisions too … at least prisoners trapped in golden cages. We could well be trapped and happily so if there is no need to explore the perimeters of our confinement.

Ah … how to do that? If you have a hankering for exploration, check out these two videos by Simon Schama.

The first is his treatment of Mr. David, the heroic propogandist of the French revolution and then Napoleon.  I was stunned by one aspect of the presentation. How easily David gave over his identity to a cause — regardless of its morality. He could not resist the urge to amplify messages that he did not try to understand. And then in the moment of truth when his role came into focus, he slunk into the shadows claiming that he was no more than a mere artist. Repulsive, I would say. But repulsive or not, certainly trapped by the need to be swept up in something larger than himself.

Then watch Schama’s treatment of Mark Rothko. Rothko did not pretend to understand what was transpiring around him. But he insisted on the honesty of his feeling for color in shaping human imagination. He stepped back from the trap of gorging on the moment (something Picasso would never have dreamed of) in favor of a glimpse of eternity. He wanted to create an experience that offers us an escape from the here and now.

So which artistic pose is heroic after all? I leave you to judge.

FOLLOW -  Adventures often start off with an escape from the here and now. Either things fall apart or what was lovely suddenly tortures. Either way, there is no choice but to leave home. “Wild” is a story based on the former and the heroine is a woman who decides to just walk away from her lonely life. Dwight Garner cried while reading it.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have been tracking the great freemium story for some time. This is a quick update.

It all started when web service providers realized that by attracting huge amounts of traffic to their sites, they could monetize their services — other than by charging user fees. Think Google. This prompted a great deal of experiment with giving way services to get traffic. Think Facebook and Twitter et al. This led to interest in the social aspect of digital exchanges of content.  It also caused no small amount of panic among traditional content providers who just wanted just to transplant their old business models onto their web presence. Think New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

What to do? Paywalls were the most obvious answer. And after they started popping up, there was an interesting debate about the differences between hard and soft paywalls. But by now, one thing is clear. Paywalls don’t bring in that much cash.

So we are still groping around for a new model. Matt Ingram writes about one at Giga — the so called velvet rope model. This thought caught my eye

(one should) think of the relationship with readers as being about more than just money, and then let the monetization flow out of that relationship, rather than the reverse

Let monetization flow from a relationship? Build incentives for participation rather than just consuming content? Outrageous! But it seems to be working.

FOLLOW -  If this is the starting point for generating revenue on the web, then of course cutting down on piracy is irrelevant. You can cut it down, but it won’t generate more online sales. And surprise, surprise, that is the result so far from the three strikes law in France.

Corporate story lines can get complicated. For example, what does the PR department say when it comes out that Coca-Cola is part of a conservative lobby group that promotes freedom to own guns, privatization of prisons, and so on? What do guns and prisons  have to do with selling soda? And what about Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, who recently started making political speeches.  What does politics have to do with selling frappaccinos? The answer is nothing at all.  So why do corporate actors play politics?

Good question.  One reason is that they get away with it. They have the money to waste, a certain gravitas, and no one complains too much. Another reason is ego. Just like the bad old days when blue blooded idiots thought they knew better how the great unwashed should live and die, wealthy corporate executives think they know better how the rest of us should think.

I don’t know about you, but I find this to be offensive. Politics is about us, not about others informing us who we are (i.e. a branding game). And the fact that someone is pretty good at selling soda or coffee or pizza or can do leveraged buyouts is irrelevant to their ability to understand my life.  Let these folks join the political fray as equals, not as privileged actors with insider status, making silly claims of expertise that they don’t have.

What is really at issue here? The problem is that so far, we have tended to accept this as normal. We tend to accept the corporate voice as an authentic political voice. I find this to be very strange.

FOLLOW -  BTW, I singled out Coca-Cola but it is not alone. Other well known brands are also members of the above group and you could ask the same question about them.

2d FOLLOW -  Simon Schama talks about the danger that we live with now with the politics of governance debased (in part by the corporate message). He makes the good point that not all of the blame for stunting political debate lies with the right. The arrogance of the left opened the door back in the 1970’s. I agree. It was a side effect of the Vietnam war. As Schama notes, the war brought down the great champion of governance (Johnson). It also radicalized the rhetoric of the left, which opened the door to the odd idea that the champions of governance — the left — could not be trusted to govern. Nixon planted the idea in his victory in 1972 over McGovern (mainly because of McGovern’s opposition to the war). Reagan resurrected it as a more general theme (markets know better) and now it has morphed into an ideology that government cannot be trusted at all. One must “starve the beast”. Of course, this creates an excellent opportunity for corporations to assert their interests and they do. Indeed, as we can see from the above, they go far beyond assertions of their immediate interests. What fun!

3rd FOLLOW -  Mark Bittman offers a nice illustration of how corporate interests are preventing better regulation of advertising junk food to kids - despite the rather sad fact tht 17% of American kids are obese and many more are nearly so.

The other day, Susan Matt wrote an interesting Op Ed for NYT. She argued that we have a problem these days, and that it is a problem we don’t talk about. It is the loss of connection to our homes. That loss is most felt by less well off  folks who leave their country of birth searching for better paid work. Her main point is that the connections offered via media, internet, work and so on, do not provide sufficient substitutes. There is an illusion of connection, but not the real thing.

I think that she has a point. And it troubles me that we don’t have a good vocabulary for talking about something like the illusion of connection. Like when we rely on media (TV or movies) for friendship as a substitute for connecting with real people. What does one call that?

You might keep this idea in mind while reading Paul Krugman on the influence that a national organization in the US is having on state law making. Corporate interests trumping community? And if so, what does it say about the strength of the communities affected?