A friend emailed me a note alerting me to an upcoming show for Clifford Ross, photographer. Ross has been commissioned to “create a monumental public art project for Austin’s new U.S. Federal Courthouse on Republic Square.” The Austin Museum of Art is holding an exhibit showcasing his work February 21 – May 17 at AMOA-Downtown. I’m particularly interested in his Hurricane Series, pictured in the image below. From the press release:
For the Hurricanes series, Ross tracked storms starting in the Sahara across the Eastern seaboard on the internet. Between August 1998 and Sept. 11, 2001, the dramatic date of his last Hurricane shoot, he captured thousands of images of stormy seas. The six large photographs featured, freeze breaking waves to capture views of nature’s power that is impossible for the eye alone to perceive The expressive energy of these black-and-white photographs ranges from soothing to menacing and evoke visitor reactions that are just as varied. In contrast, the small 10 X 8-inch diptychs and triptychs of the Horizons series Ross created using a medium format camera, show quieter, contemplative views of the rolling surf.
My daughter tells me I’ll never pull off this post. Her initial reaction was, “OMG, please don’t ruin a classic piece of Literature!” Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms was, according to Wikipedia, “Considered by some critics to be the greatest war novel of all time.” It’s about young Lieutenant Frederic Henry, an American ambulance driver serving in the Italian army during World War I. The book takes several twists and turns including Henry getting wounded and spending time on the front where he is caught in a bombardment by enemy forces. How does Frederic Henry relate to me? Why through Monty Python and the Holy Grail, of course.
Stay with me. Arm #1 = Web 1.0. (aka dotcom bust)
This beloved platform we’ve come to know as the Internet has been brutally battling me for ten years now. In the 1.0 era, I got swept up in the irrational exuberance and joined a company where I swiftly suffered several personal economic blows when the company I joined went out of business and I lost all my savings on investments that tanked and I was rendered unemployed by the eventual bankruptcy of the startup I joined. (Ouch.)
Arm #2 – Web 2.0. (aka socialweb)
Fast-forward to 2006, I came back into the workforce after a nice, long break. About that time, I was once again swept up in the excitement over web 2.0 and what these incredible changes could mean for business. I discovered some smart folks talking about Enterprise 2.0 and was hooked. I blogged about being on the front lines of a valiant battle (Like Frederic Henry), ready to charge the hill of corporate complacency. This new wave of enterprise transformation is even more exciting to me than the hysteria that whipped up during the late 90s. I sailed past the third anniversary of this blog this month. Shortly before the Christmas holiday, I found out I was being laid off. Around that time, I also found out that because of the mudslide in housing values, I had lost virtually all the equity in my home I’d been unable to sell in NJ and now bear the burden of my own toxic asset. So, web 2.0 is turning out to be more seriously damaging to me financially than 1.0 was. (And I didn’t think that was possible.) I’m writing this candid view into my personal life to explain why I am still ready to keep fighting.
Call me ignorant, call me a sentimentalist, but I believe in the power of the Internet to change the world. There, I said it. Leveraging technology to change the world for the better has been a lifelong ambition of mine. It’s the reason I chose computer science for a career and pursued a career in technology. For a long while, I spent most of my days in tech driving toward improved quarterly earnings for one company or another. In 2009, everything is changing. Technology has been such a powerful force in uniting people around the globe, and the impact the participative social web has had on the global political stage is unprecedented in modern history. There’s a lot that folks born in my generation that grew up in the 60s and 70s aspired to achieve. The technology platform our global tribe is creating will enable those idealistic dreams of youth. But, like Obama says, there is much more work to do. One half of the world’s population has still not made a telephone call, yet tools are getting in the hands of people who can really make a difference. This simply thrills me.
So to those who would tell me to just give up, to admit defeat, to look for a new, more stable occupation, I say, “Bollocks. It’s just a flesh wound.” I just have to make sure the lights on my cable modem don’t go dark.
I began this post last week when the recent blogstorm over Ketchum interactive VP, James Andrews and a questionable exposed email from a Fedex staff employee threw the blogo/twittersphere into a hightech lynching of Mr. Andrews, who has in my view, become a hapless digital transparency hero.The incident showcases how responsibility, privacy, constitutional rights, influence, transparency, and well, new rules of the digital era will present us all with new and interesting challenges.In case you’ve missed this, please prepare with the introductory reading assignment:
Andrews’ tweet as he arrived in Memphis, hometown of Ketchum client, Fedex.
PRinfluencer, Peter Shankman (with 20K+ twitter followers. That’s > /steverubel, but < /chrisbrogan), who exposed an email from an unhappy Fedex employee with this post.
I borrowed the headline for this post from Esther Dyson who signs her emails with “Always make new mistakes!” It’s become such a trademark for her, it’s refrigerator magnet worthy. I’m choosing Esther’s slogan to frame my reaction to this new twitter-gate episode partly because of her long-time advocacy for Internet privacy, but also because of her belief that we can only learn through experience. Sometimes we’re right and sometimes we’re wrong, but in the end, we all benefit from the lessons learned.Oliver Marks says in his post, “no one comes out of this looking good.” So, yes. I agree mistakes were made. But, what’s more important is what can we learn from this?On PrivacyThere were two privacy issues in this case study. The first involves Mr. Andrews’ personal thoughts telegraphed to the world. Because of Twitter’s ubiquity and real-time reach, Andrews forfeited his right to privacy here. A right he chose when he unprotected his tweets. The second issue is related to the privacy of the individual who sent the damning email and now has perhaps embarrassed Ketchum and Fedex for being mixed up in a socialweb skirmish. Did the Fedex employee intend for Shankman to expose Andrews? If so, he/she gave up his/her right to privacy. If not, Shankman has some explaining to do. This incident reminds me of another social media expert who found herself in a dither with the social media community over a private email she sent to friends that also was posted (and exposed) via a blog. That was the Debbie Weil case. Different set of principles and values, but another lesson learned for all who jumped into that one. Regardless of where you stood on that issue, Ms. Weil’s privacy was jeopardized and led to a social media embarrassment for her.On ResponsibilityYes, “Think before you tweet.” It’s like Microsoft told Scoble, “Blog smart.” On the social web, we are what we tweet and what we blog. Going forward, as the social web colors in the paint-by-numbers portraits of our true character, we will need to stand on our principles. Where we have prejudices, they will be revealed. Nonetheless, I’ve been in the ad agency business. In many ways, I found it was that rare combination of Emotional Intelligence and IQ that made the best ad executives. The account executives and creative groups who were sensitive and respectful of the clients’ values succeeded in creating great campaigns and developing longstanding client relationships. We can ding Mr. Andrews on a breach in sensitivity here, knock a point off his performance review, but to call for his dismissal is a giant step backwards in the national discussion on transparency and openness.On Freedom of SpeechTwitter, YouTube, Blogs, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr– all of these open social media are lifting our voices. We are all being heard. We have a right to object, to argue, to agree, and to embarrass ourselves. Just like the pre-Internet age, with that powerful right comes the great responsibility to suffer the consequences when we fail to self-censor. I urge all of you who are active in online activities to learn more about Internet freedoms. Two good places to start are the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the OpenNet Initiative.On InfluenceJacob Nielsen’s 1/9/90 needs to be re-interpreted to explain the influence the 1% is wielding in shaping public opinion on the Internet. When eruptions such as the Ketchum/Fedex-gate occur, it’s incumbent upon the socialweb-orati to explain the significance of the events as well as argue their side of the debate. It has disturbed me that the loudest voices on this issue are coming from the PR/social media community who condemn the agency VP handily without seriously weighing the ramifications of lynching Mr. Andrews for what amounts to a personal opinion.On TransparencyWe’re entering a new era of openness and transparency. Transparency rests on a platform of truth. Transparency is our ally, not our enemy. Yet, transparency’s ugly twin sister is accountability. You can’t date one without the other. Will we hold Andrews accountable for Ketchum losing the Fedex account? I hope not. But should we be held accountable for what we say online? Yes, but within reason.Mistakes are the only way we will progress toward a universal protocol for our acceptable digital behaviors. May you make many of them!
A Piece of My Mind 