Tag Archives: google

Bruce Sterling: State of the World 2010

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Every year the Well (one of the early, pre-web, online communities) invites Bruce Sterling to chat about the state of the world. This year, he paints a grim picture of where the “present” is heading:

“Various entities and institutions have scrambled together safety pins and gobs of glue to rig the global economy so that it appears to be ambling along, but isn’t it a great conceptual Jenga, ready to fall if you move the wrong block? What kind of shuffling and reshuffling can we expect, if there’s a global economic meltdown? And has the collapse already happened – are we like the coyote, run far beyond the edge of the cliff, waiting for gravity’s effect?”

On Google News and Twitter:

“I’m looking over my Twitter stream here, because it seems a more useful barometer to me now than Google News. Google News definitely has that rickety Jenga feeling that JonL is talking about. Whenever you see something on Google News nowadays, you have to wonder: “who owns this so-called news organization now? What’s left of them financially? Is there even a shred of objective fact in this?”

Mel Karmazin interview: “Fucking with the magic”

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Mel Karmazin is the CEO of Sirius Satellite Radio. Before that he was head of CBS Radio. For most of his career he has been known as a “Wall Street darling” for his ability to drive up the price of his various companies’ stock. Don Imus frequently referred to him as the Zen Master. Let’s just say he knows a lot about radio and advertising. I was struck by his description of advertising and frank assessment that Google was “fucking with the magic.”

“I loved the model that I had then. At that point I had… I was the CEO of  CBS and I had a model where you buy a commercial… if you’re an advertiser you buy a commercial in the Super Bowl and, at that time, you paid two-and-a-half million dollars for a spot and had no idea if it worked. I mean, you had no idea if it sold product… did any good… I loved that model! That was a great model! And why …if I can get away with that model… if I’m in the business where I can sell advertising that way, why wouldn’t I want to do it?

No return on investment. And you know how everybody looks for return on investment? We had a a business model that didn’t worry about return on investment and then here comes Google. They screwed it up. They went to all these advertisers and said, we’ll let you know exactly what it is.”

Oooh. Reminds me of the old saw, “I know that only half of my advertising works, I just don’t know which half.” The full interview is worth a watch and confirmed my feeling that a real sea change (in advertising) is taking place.

Congress 2.0

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Here’s a little thought experiment I’d love to try. It comes in two parts:

Part 1: On January 1, 2011, we put every member of Congress (along with their families if they want to go) on a big cruise ship. Two, if necessary. And they set off on a year-long cruise, around the world. They’ll stop –for 24 hours– at the nicest ports of call, but a security escort sees that they get back on the boat. At meals, they’re seated R-D-R-D-R.

Part 2: The management of our country is turned over to Google and Apple for this year. Any questions of constitutionality go immediately to the Supreme Court of a ruling within 24 hours.

Any bureaucrat that puts sand in the wheels can be immediately dismissed, without cushy government pension.

What would/could Google and Apple accomplish in a year? No idea. Would they institute a bunch of policies that do nothing more than line their pockets. Maybe, but I don’t think so.

At the end of the year, every U. S. citizen casts a single vote on whether to keep the Google and Apple teams for another year. This vote will be electronic and an effort will be made to get everyone in front of a computer.

As for Congress, we’ll let them off the boat if the project goes for a second year, on the condition they don’t try to foment rebellion. If they do, back on the luxury cruise ship.

And what happens if The People vote to send the Google and Apple kids back to California? There’s a year of transition, during which the HR departments of the two companies recruit, interview and hire the best and brightest to serve in Congress 2.0. The new kids take over on January 1 of the following year and serve a 2 year term, at the end of which, we return to the current system of electing officials. But none of the Boat People can serve (they had their chance).

I fear our system is so broken that it no longer has the means to repair itself. The people wielding that power do not want to fix it. They like it fine, as long as it allows them to remain in power.

PS: This might make an interesting movie or novel, no?

Gmail Task applet

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I attended my first “time management” workshop back in the early 70s. I got the bug pretty bad. Read and listened to countless books and cassette tapes (before CDs) on productivity. I think there was a recent resurgence under the GTD (Getting Things Done) banner. Somewhere along the way, my passion waned but in those 35+ years, I’ve tried lots of tools and systems.

To-do lists have always been a challenge for me. I tend to put too load them up with too many items and they stay there too long. I recently came across the notion of identifying three things you really want to accomplish during the day and writing those on a 3×5 card. Portable, focused… might work.

tasklist

My current favorite is the Tasks applet in Gmail. Small, simple and available everywhere. Supports multiple lists. About as close to that 3×5 card as I can get.