What a day for a daydream

“I once lost a pair of earrings and tried to Google them”. So says my byline on this very blog, as it has for the past three or four years. Only, lately, it’s just not that funny anymore. It’s not funny because it’s possible. Between Google and “the internet of things” the ability to search the internet for the location of unique, physical objects is happening, has happened.



And in a good, excited, optimistic way, I am completely freaked out. In such a short space of time we’ve gone from plugging things in and getting them to work, to Steve Jobs’ vision for things that “just work”, and now we’re into stuff that is working all the time while you’re just busy enjoying life. Which is exactly what technology should be about - because right now, sitting as we are on the corner of Everything and Everywhere, our relationship with technology is demented. Look around - we’re all hunched over phones and laptops like voluntary returnees to stage numero uno of Darwin’s evolution of man. Yes, Google Glass may be ridiculous, but at least we’re walking upright again.

It’s not just the hardware that’s messing us up, either. The other day at lunch I casually mentioned to my fellow colleagues how I sometimes dream in browser windows. Silent stares from the (ever so slightly) older generation, nods of understanding from my contemporaries. “When I was in a long distance relationship, I would dream of my boyfriend’s Facebook profile” admitted one. A quick Twitter poll revealed similar experiences, @culturalelite recounted how he’s “had dreams where I tried to right-click physical things to ‘inspect element’ and look at the source”. And @kowchow has spent her sleepytime in the realms of the Airbnb interface and Adobe software. Seriously, WTF?

What all this reveals is that while our brains have been busy blurring the line between the online and offline even as we sleep, technology is running to keep up. Google, connected devices, voice recognition, heads-up displays and machine learning are not only evolving but finally converging. Converging towards a future that’s just like the past - when we stood up straight, took time to notice and appreciate the people and environment around us, and dreamed - not of the multi-tabbed browsing of our present - but of the unimagined amazingness of our future.

Preference Setting (Part 1)

About a year ago I wrote a post entitled “20 Reasons Not to Date a Digital Strategist”. It was just a bit of fun, but since April that entry has had almost 10,000 views and travelled from the UK to North America, Canada, Australia and most of Western Europe. Clearly I was not alone in my exasperation - and amusement - at the undefined rules of engagement for social media when it came to real life relationships.  And, while corporations busily debate the financial value of a “like”, it seems regular people everywhere are trying to figure out its emotional value.

Claiming expertise in the management of connections and engagement online is a lucrative career choice these days - ensuring brands maintain consistent, rewarding relationships with their customers. Yet, there exist no guidelines (official or otherwise) for managing personal relationships across so many platforms. Recently Mashable reported that 1 in 10 people playing the Scrabble-esque word game Words with Friends has directly led to a "hook up". While Facebook is currently cited in one third of all UK divorces. For perhaps the first time in human history branded platforms - and the behaviour they nurture, encourage and, ultimately, manipulate for their own commercial ends - are affecting our interpersonal relationships. Ahead of Facebook's IPO, Zuckerberg even went so far as to admit wanting to actively "rewire" people and they way they form connections!


Social media brands nurture a behaviour that revolves around constant self-refinement. Their business models rely on our belief that we are only as interesting as our last post, or as popular as the number of followers we have. So much so that it's easy to get caught up in the expectation to continuously like, follow, friend, favourite, re-pin, and re-tweet. Russell M Davies said recently that social media is “networking for shy people”. Safely adhering to the rules of a predetermined user experience, it's easy just to pick out and present our best sides, our wittiest comments and our coolest links. But Facebook, Twitter and the like are all engines by which to curate ourselves, and it is these curated selves - not our real selves - with which we are now forming new, online relationships.

But what happens to the online, curated self in the real world, when the shy people have to meet up offline? Coping with the reconciliation of avatar to human being becomes a daunting, even stressful, prospect. Are we ever going to be as interesting, glamorous or funny? What happens if the connection formed online disappears offline? Suddenly, the potential for traversing an emotional minefield grows vast. Gone are the days when you could yank your phone line out the wall - 80’s movie style - and cry into your tie-dye leggings til you felt better. Now - connected across multiple platforms - you’re on the Internet, they’re on the Internet and, without really wanting to, you know each other’s every thought and move. The complex machine learning and recommendation engines behind Facebook and Google were designed for the group hug of the open web, not the late-night Internet-loitering individual.

So, I guess that number 21 on the list of reasons not to date a digital strategist is that we're going to over think this situation. The gender divide, the 'Digital Native' generation, and taking existing, real world relationships online are all part of it, and aspects which call for separate consideration. As brands and technological innovation impact on how we build interpersonal relationships, the opportunity for us to define the rules of engagement becomes greater yet harder. Without taking the backwards step of disconnecting altogether, we must learn to live our real lives whilst simultaneously plugged into an online world.

Photos via Ida Rhoda, Howard Grey, Henri Lartigue

Siri says...

This past week, I spent quite a bit of time writing one of my longest articles yet on the future of technology (2,000 words biatches! But, more on that soon). In it, I talked about how exciting change is, and what a positive force it can be. On Wednesday, at a trend briefing by LS:N Global, I sat there shaking my head as they used the word "scary" over and over in the context of social networks and our digital lives online. In fearing the pace of change, we are no different to the Victorians opposed to the speed of steam engines. Technology and the progression of mankind are intertwined - each driving the other forward.

That said, however, the new ad from Apple (released on Friday) showcasing the Siri feature sent a chill down my spine. Compared to the warm, sentimental, intimate even, nature of the FaceTime ad of June 2010, this spot left me cold. And I had to ask, are we really getting to the point where we no longer talk to people on the phone, we just talk to the phone?

 

To be fair, I'm not condemning the technology. Intuitive, voice activated interfaces make perfect sense and I can imagine a number of situations in which Siri would be incredibly useful. It is Apple's depiction of user behaviour - the highlighted "consumer benefit" for which they are known to lead with - which I object to. Unlike the iMac, or iPod or iPad, Siri isn't positioned as being about freedom, fun, beauty or utility. What the ad, and copy like "Siri understands what you say, knows what you mean, and even talks back", suggests is that we are all ultimately alone in the world, attempting to communicate with computers.

 

I may argue that the evolution of human behaviour in line with technology is progress, but Apple's idea that a phone can replace some of the few people in your life who are there for you when you've locked yourself out, or need to get to a hospital, who listen to you and understand you, and who know how to help you with all the little things like packing for a trip and tying a bow tie... now that really is scary.

What's going on in there?

I just found myself watching a skype-skype interview on mobile apps online while simultaneously watching Gok's Fashion Fix on mute on the TV. Yesterday I found myself reading two newspapers at the breakfast table. What is going on in my brain?

Am I so conditioned to multi-tab browsing? So used to reading emails as I talk on the phone? When did tweeting, facebooking and watching television become second nature?

I'm fascinated because if that's me - and at 26 I'm old in digital terms - what is going on with "the kids"? My boss recently found his two year old son - who, I hasten to add, cannot yet talk - watching iPhone videos of himself in one hand while playing on the iPad with his toes. And it really makes me realise - his approach to learning, multitasking and problem solving is going to be unrecognisable to his elders, to the people trying to teach him when he hits school.



This week I was lucky enough to be part of a panel on "How to... Be part of the next cool thing" as part of LCC's Futurising festival. After the panel Martin Raymond (The Future Laboratory), Jaana Jatyri (Trendstop), Maggie Norden (LCF) and I went for a coffee. We were all gobsmacked by the seeming lack of curiosity from the assembled graduate audience. How could they even consider a career in trend forecasting if they were not brimming with questions for the panel? Maggie, a lecturer, voiced her concerns at the total and utter lack of investigative nous amongst her students. While Martin said interns that limit their research to page one of the Google results don't stick around long at FL.

But I'm concerned we're looking at it from the wrong point of view. Our way of thinking, our way of finding stuff out, is not the future. The extinction signs are there and we should be warned - we already don't remember telephone numbers anymore or since when did you turn to an encyclopedia? My boss's two year old will one day need to be taught by someone who understands that his brain is going to be wired in a totally different way. He is going to have skills and abilities that were once rare, just as he will have blank spots where his father is an expert.



I'm looking forward to spending the next few months figuring out what this is going to mean for brands wanting to make products and services that will thrive in the hands of these "Digital Instinctives". But until then I'm off back to my work iPhone, my personal Nokia, my 7 open tabs on Firefox, my Spotify playlist, the rest of that vid and the last 10 minutes of Gok. Wild times.