The Dumb Thing about Smartphones

I love my iPhone.  I love having just about everything I need at my fingertips (even if I only use about 10% of it 90% of the time).  Thanks to some innovative programmers your phone is also a car key, a credit card, a music player, a map, a gaming console, a web browser, a timer, a calendar, a cat viewer, etc.  And, depending on how old your phone battery is, it could even be used to warm your morning bagel.  The point is your phone is just about everything, which is also what makes it dumb.  If you by chance lose your tiny little friend you have just lost everything, or depending on what security features you have enabled, you have at the very least lost several hundred dollars of your hard earned cash.  Because even if you have your phone locked and GPS tracking enabled someone can steal, wipe and then turn off your phone before you even have a chance to get to a computer to try and trace it.  What’s worse is if your phone is stolen straight from you hands while you are using it, then the thief doesn’t even need your password to get in.  This trend of aggressively bold thieves stealing phones straight from the hands of those lost deep in the depths of their Facebook page during the middle of the day has been oh so cleverly named by the media as “Apple Picking” and it is only getting more popular with the black market for smartphones becoming more lucrative.  Last year in New York alone, 11,447 stolen iPhones and iPads were recorded in the first nine months of the year (I couldn’t find the numbers for the whole year).  I imagine someone clever will find a resolution to this issue, but until then keep your friend’s close and your iPhones closer.

We are our own Big Brother

I never read George Orwell’s novel “1984” and I’ve certainly never seen an episode of CBS’s “Big Brother”, but I do understand the Big Brother concept: a society under complete surveillance and control by their government.  Since the writing of Orwell’s book any act, initiative or action taken by a group, political or otherwise, that has any modicum of privacy concern is typically compared to Big Brother (as I’m doing right now).  These Big Brotheresque actions are typically not lauded and therefore the concept, as is in the book, generally has a negative association, however, the combination of mobile cameras and social media has given us the means and the drive to become our own Big Brothers (genetically this is not possible, but conceptually it holds together). 

In the wake of the Boston Bombing the FBI, via Twitter, requested that any photos or videos taken by citizens during the event be sent to them in order to aid in their investigation.  They were crowdsourcing surveillance; in sense making the public what Forbes online’s Tarun Wadhwa called “tens of thousands of Little Brothers”.  Obviously, this is far less threatening than the traditional Big Brother concept as it is completely voluntary, but it is interesting to note how much information people are willing to send out into the universe voluntarily, not necessarily in this case, but just in general (see Facebook, Twitter, etc).  In either case, the FBI was able to gather, process and tag the incoming evidence and use it to help in their investigation.  What did not work quite so well was when citizens took the investigative portion of the case into their own hands; apparently users on Reddit and 4chan made some false accusations, some of which were then echoed by the media and lead to some unhelpful and emotionally damaging situations for those accused (luckily no one was hurt as far as I’ve heard).

All in all the tools and social forums we have at our fingertips are incredibly powerful and only becoming more so.  It’s interesting to watch as this shapes our social customs and culture.  I’m hoping we will lean more towards the productive than the destructive side of things, but as history shows likely both will continue to exist.

Moore's Law and the Law of More

Moore's Law states that the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit (and thus processing power) will double every two years.  In parallel with this is what I like to call the "Law of More", which states that the amount of patience we have as users of technology decreases by half every two years.  So, the more we get, the less patience we have for it.  It's funny to think that not all that long ago I was browsing the web on a 56k modem with few complaints, but today if my browser holds up for even a second or if my Netflix streaming freezes for a moment I feel like I am on the verge of a psychotic episode.  What is it about advances in speed, ability and performance that make it so easy for us to forget how grateful we were only years ago with half the speed, ability and performance?  Don't get me wrong, the demand for greater products and higher expectations is in part what drives us forward and I'd much rather be angry about a slight delay in performance of an advanced technology than be content with the laboring speeds of an outdated one.  But, it is funny to see how far we've come and how quickly we no longer appreciate it.  I think this interview of Louis C.K. on Conan puts it into comedic perspective.

If Joshua Bell played the violin in a subway station and people were around to hear it would anybody listen?

 
Likely we have all read some version of the story of famed award-winning violinist Joshua Bell playing his instrument incognito in a Subway station.  If you haven't, you can read a version of it here:

http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/bell.asp

The idea was to put an incredibly talented musician, who in ordinary performances sells seats for an average of $100 per ticket, into an unusual situation and see if people could still recognize the formal beauty without the proper dressings.  The outcome?  Apparently, they can't.  The hypothesis?  If we can't stop to appreciate the beautiful music of a critically acclaimed child prodigy then what else are we missing out on?

I found this article to be heavily biased and slightly demeaning.  It made me feel like I should apologize for something I haven't done based off of findings that ignore simple truths in order to promote a writer's preconceived ideas.  I do agree that sometimes people don't seem to appreciate what is in front of them and if you're not careful you may overlook something life changing, but I don't think this experiment, as interesting as it is, is proof of that.

I found this video, which via cute animation, uses Aristotle's work "The Art of Rhetoric" to explain why people were less likely to listen to Bell in a subway station than they were to in a concert hall.

While I find the explanations given in this video refreshing and quite useful they also seem to miss two very obvious reasons behind people's lack of interest in subway Bell as opposed to concert Bell:

1. Time - Arguably, the most valuable commodity in a human's life is time.  People in a Subway during morning rush hour (as they were during the Bell experiment) are not there for a lack of better things to do, the majority are there because they are going to work.  They have a limited amount of time to get to their job, where they trade their time and talents for money in order to buy food, clothing, housing, heating etc.  Even if you told someone who is trying to make it to work on time that the man playing the violin was Joshua Bell and that seats to his concerts go for an average of $100 they probably still wouldn't stop because being late to work jeopardizes their job security and seeing a man playing the violin, no matter how good he is, isn't worth losing your job (for the average person).  I bet if you ran the same experiment on the weekend when people were using the subway more for leisurely pursuits you would have a higher stopping rate for Bell. 

2. Beauty is subjective - No matter how technically skilled or world renowned Joshua Bell is, if you don't enjoy the violin as an instrument and you have no taste for classical music you aren't going to stop and listen to his music just because someone else would pay $100 to.  The reason Bell sells out his concerts is because he his advertising a location and time that people who appreciate his music can go to appreciate it.  You can't just randomly drop Joshua Bell in the Gobi desert and expect that Joshua Bell fans will suddenly materialize because his strings are reverberating there.

My point is that there is more to many situations than people think to point out and making conclusions based on limited observation is annoying when unnecessary.  Joshua Bell is an amazingly talented musician and is appreciated in the right circumstances.  But, just because I put a Van Gogh in the dumpster and the homeless man who sleeps there doesn't appreciate it doesn't mean society as a whole is incapable of appreciating great things.

4 Keys to Successful Networking

I've never been great at networking.  I understood the importance of it and often found it quite fun, but just never actively did it.  More recently I've started to really push myself into the networking world and here are 4 things I've found to be of great importance:

Give

Don’t go into networking events thinking only about yourself.  If you look at each person and event only as how they/it can benefit you or your business you will miss out on a lot of potential opportunities.  Go into networking events thinking, "How can I help."  Having this mindset does two things: one, it helps you not come across as a salesman only looking to see who you can make money off of and two it allows you to be open to more opportunity.  Maybe the person you meet and help connect with a friend of yours, that can give them insight into a problem they're facing, isn't going to bring you any business, but maybe down the road that person introduces you to someone else that might.  You never know what interactions will lead to what outcomes.

Receive

If someone offers you something, take it.  Unless it is truly going to harm you or is against your personal beliefs, receive what people offer.  People feel good when they help others and often those good feelings are transposed onto the person they have helped.  If someone wants to help you, introduce you to someone, get a coffee, invite you to a party always try and accept.  Even if people can logically disassociate that you turning down their offer isn’t personal, many people will still take it personally on some level and with enough turn down will eventually stop trying to engage.  To build strong relationships you need to be able to accept what people offer.

Remember

Remembering someone's name and what they do goes a long way.  This also happens to be my kryptonite.  To try and relieve this problem I’ve found that it helps to repeat people's names during conversation.  Also, if you get a business card, write something on it that will personally remind you of the person and what they do.  And, remember who you know.  When meeting other people always be thinking about who you can connect them with.

Engage

The more you do the more likely you are to meet people you are interested in meeting and the more you have to talk about with them.  I recently attended the 95th birthday party of local legend Aubrey Davis on accident.  There was a mix up using Eventbrite that allowed me to get on the list and attend a somewhat intimate celebration with Aubrey, his family, friends and co-workers.  And, though I didn't know anyone there the hosts and Aubrey were very gracious and invited me to stay.  Even if nothing came of that event I still had a good time and have a good story to tell at future events.

What do you think is key to networking successfully?

Present Telepresence Robots Present

 I do a lot of telecommuting for work, as many people do these days, and therefore am intrigued by any potential changes or advances in technology geared toward this type of thing.  So, when I read a recent article on informationweek.com comparing telepresence robots I was about as excited as a new puppy dog whose owner has just returned from being in the garage for 5 minutes.  Let's call it benign interest with a side of mild enthusiasm.  Though the concept of telepresence can apparently be traced back to science fiction novels as old as 1942 (according to Wikipedia) my personal oldest memory of the concept comes from the 1993 movie "Demolition Man".

Practical application of the concept, again according to Wikipedia, can be seen as far back as 1990, though only in the past few years has anything really started to kind of take off.  There are a handful of companies working on robots that they hope will be used in various work spaces, though they basically appear to be FaceTime equipped iPads glued onto broomsticks attached to RC cars.  I think they will have a purpose in environments where people aren't able to easily access a computer at a desk: construction sites, schools, museums, art installations, laboratories, war-zone tourist destinations, trade shows and underground rap battles.  But, in work environments where people have access to computers and cell phones and no real need to move around the space the teleconferencing tools available today will suffice as long you up the sound and video quality as well as increase connection reliability (which are issues you won't avoid with a robot anyway).

I did want to share this video from Suitable Technologies demonstrating their remote presence device named Beam.  I burst out laughing at the end when the main character finishes her work day, turns to her son who is off screen, smiles and reaches her arms out.  There is a long enough pause before he runs into frame, which had me honestly expecting him to enter remotely on a Beam device of his own (presumably too lazy to stop playing video games and come downstairs to hug his mom).

3 Microsoft Software Application tools I Wish Worked in Real Life

 I, as no special exception to the average American, use my PC on a daily basis for work, shopping, bill paying, reading, learning, socializing, and looking at pictures of cats while watching videos of people being hit in the groin in various Rube Goldberg-esque scenarios.  Though I love my Apple devices (especially my iPhone), I am a PC at heart, even when it comes to artistic applications.  And, like many people, when it comes to work I tend to exclusively use Microsoft software.  During my time using these applications I have more than once wished I could use some of their features in real life (regardless of how impossibly improbable that would be).  Here are 3 of my favorites:

Format Painter
Format Painter is in most of the Microsoft business suite applications and it is pretty awesome.  Simply highlight an object or piece of text, click "Format Painter" and then click a different object or highlight a different piece of text and all the formatting from the original object/text (font, color, size, effects, etc.) will be transposed onto the 2nd object/text.  This is a great time saving shortcut and is inexplicably fun to use.

In real life: You could apply the fit and comfort of your favorite pair of jeans to those weird mom jeans you bought because they were on sale and didn't make your butt look big.  You could format paint that one time you had a good hair day and apply it to every other day of your life.  Got a bald spot?  Not anymore.  As long as you had one ripe tomato all your tomatoes would be ripe.  Don't like the new gas prices?  No problem.  Buy 1 new rim for your car, now you got 4.  I could go on...

Distribute Horizontally
This is an arrange feature I use primarily in PowerPoint.  It allows you to select several objects on the screen and automatically distance them evenly apart based on the outer two objects.  Simply select three or more objects, open the "Align" menu and then click "Distribute Horizontally" and the objects are now equidistant apart.

In real life: I would largely use this to make it so that the cars in front of my apartment weren't wasting valuable parking spaces by leaving themselves a 5 foot buffer between cars on either side, which is one of my biggest non-important pet-peeves (besides people using the word "pet-peeve").

Drop Shadow
This is an affect you can add to objects in programs like Word and PowerPoint to make them pop off the page.  Have a boring square?  Make it a cool square by dropping a shadow on that fool.

In real life: Admittedly, this is a bit of stretch, but if in real life I was able to create a shadow it would imply that I was creating a light source that in turn created the shadow, so in essence I would be creating light at will, when and where I wanted it and to what degree.  This would save me a small fortune on light-bulbs over my lifetime...


So, what Microsoft application tools do you wish worked in real life?