Am I who I am?

I was sitting in on a webinar on Social Media the other day when the presenter said “You are not who you say you are – you are who Google says you are”. It reminded me of the poem – “I am not I” by Jimenez- who says he is something larger than himself. Is that true for us? If we are not who we say we are then who are we? Are we only the people who we see ourselves as or the person that other people see ? In this electronic age is there no us except as we are seen by Google?

Qwerty riding off into the sunset?

Just read this great article on the end of qwerty on the BBC. Has this technology become so common that we can’t think of replacing it? Will our need for a comfortable interface stifle our ability to innovate? http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130314-qwerty-time-for-a-rethink

Media Silence

American violinist and conductor Yehudi Menuhin and concert pianist Glen Gould were having a conversation once and Gould mentioned that he really didn’t mind the thought that live performances would become a thing of the past. Gould didn’t mind the thought that the future might only know music in a singular environment- no clubs or concert halls only headphones and home speakers. This got me thinking about interpersonal communications. What if we never saw or spoke to anyone else in person, never heard their voice or saw their face in person as they spoke- what if our only personal communication were through a keyboard. After the initial shock- would it be that bad or would we become used to the silence broken only by the tapping sound on the keys?

More on our Electronic RIP

Google just announced an Inactive account Manager on the Google account settings page so you to tell Google what you want done with your digital assets when you die or can no longer use your account. So if you die is your electronic legacy gone with you? What do you think?
http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/11/googles-afterlife/

Landscape and media

 

I just read that retailers were using the weather to target location-based mobile ads to pitch weather related goods and services. We may be connected to our landscape in a whole new manner our surroundings were made up of physical things where our landscape may now be made up of information. Not so much where we are but how fast we can get to something.

Electronic RIP?

When people pass away does their last tweet become their epitaph? Could our social media sites become our electronic last resting place?

Share your intelligence

Share your intelligence, the world is a dangerous place and needs your help

All to one?

If, as McLuhan proposes, all media is an extension of our human nervous system does our new constantly connected status mean that we are now all one person- feeling, seeing and hearing all things at once through our digital connected-ness?

Welcome to the Mc Luhan Galaxy

an ongoing discussion of the many ramifications for this new media, how will it change our lives, our perception of our lives and our world. If, as Mc Luhan said, all media is an extension of our nervous system what does it mean for our relationship to ourselves and one another?