November 28, 2007
The discussion leader experience was fantastic. I enjoyed the smaller group interaction more so than the full class discussion. I saw three groups and realized quickly that I would have to modify slightly my approach to the articles each time. The first time I went into greater detail about the first article that we were all assigned. By round two and three I realized that my students had probably heard enough about the first article from the last presenter, so I was able to focus more on my second article. I really liked being able to ask the students questions and get an immediate conversation started, and during each round the discussions were unique. All in all it was positive experience.
Here is the PPT I created as well: The Production of Difference
November 18, 2007
Chapter ten of Christensen’s book “Seeing What’s Next” is titled ‘Breaking the wire’. This chapter, like the nine that came before it, is all about predicting what technologies and which companies will dominate in the future. In this case the future of telecommunications and all of its different forms is what is being analyzed. Not too surprisingly it is the internet with it’s promise of shrinking the time and space continuum that is acting as the disruptive innovation to traditional telephony. Not too dissimilar to the telephones own beginnings as a disruptive innovation to the telegraph. Well turnabout is fair play and Christensen is suggesting that telephones and telecommunications time has come. VoIP and wireless telephony are putting pressure on the industry to adapt and master these new technologies or fall by the wayside. The chapter focuses on case studies of instances where the incumbents succeeded and failed and where the low-end disruptors were able to steal business away. For example Christensen tells the stories of 3G wireless networks and NTT DoMoCo to illustrate two different patterns, one that failed and one that worked. In the late 80’s 3G wireless showed promise as a potential for data and voice transmission. Many companies, quite rightly, saw this as a breakthrough that was ready to explode. Many invested a lot of upfront money to buy licenses to broadcast on the 3G frequencies and then went to the R&D to determine what services they could offer. They also held back their products and services until they could be sure they would work flawlessly. All of this sounds OK except that the R&D took longer to perfect and they tried to cram too many services on to the line. As a result theses early investors lost lots of money before having a product or service to roll out. At the other end of the extreme was NTT DoMoCo which predicted that smart move was to offer a few simple services and to target undershot customers and non-consumers. This plan work phenomenally. By only offering, at first novel ring tones and fun simple graphics, and by marketing to teenage girls, the company quickly shot to the fore-front of the industry. Baby steps, it seems, was a novel approach that proved a recipe for success.
What can we learn from NTT DoMoCo’s success?
Why hasn’t VoIP exploded to take over telecommunications?
How could other 3G wireless companies mimic NTT DoMoCo’s results without mimicking their, relatively simple, approach?
November 13, 2007
In addition to the regular readings I was tasked with reading “Technology and the production of difference” by David Nye. Furthermore I selected two book reviews by Neil Hickey for supplemental information. I enjoyed Nye’s article and found it a refreshing change from Hardin’s “The tragedy of the commons”. First and foremost it was optimistic in comparison to Hardin. Where as Hardin only had negative things to say about threat of over-population and glaring lack of a solution, Nye, by contrast, provided a rather upbeat view of the concept of conformity and the standardization of society by technology. It was upbeat in that he suggests that as humans we consciously and unconsciously rebel against conformity and he cites three different examples for illustration. Levittown NY was a pre-planned and pre-fabricated town of little “boxes” that all looked the same. Critics suggested that it would produce “standardized soulless people”. However in the decades since its development the owners of these little boxes have “…added garages, pillars, dormers, fences, and extensions. They have painted their homes many different colors and planted quite different shrubs around them, landscaping each plot into individuality”, notes Nye.
Nye goes on to showcase two other examples of nonconformity, the telephone and the Ford automobile. At the time of their development both the telephone and the Ford Model T could be had in any color the consumer wanted as long as it was black. But these were consumer driven markets and as such both AT&T and Henry Ford eventually offered variety and choice to maintain their market share. Nye points out that many people still believe that technology will lead us slowly down the path to conformity but his examples prove that it isn’t true.
My second article was actually a combination book review and article by Neil Hickey. Hickey reviews two books that have a similar theme. The theme is the woeful lack of knowledge that most Americans have regarding foreign countries. Hickey reviews “International News SE Foreign Correspondents” by Stephen Hess, and “Lights Camera War, Is Media Technology Driving International Politics?” by Johanna Neuman. At first glance this article and these two books don’t seem to have any connection with Nye’s article on conformity. An in depth analysis however reveals that the first glance was correct and these two articles do not share any themes. And yet I read it anyway. If forced to synthesize the two, I would have to say that because we Americans are more concerned with the color of our house, the shape of our telephone and the coolness of our car, we simply don’t have time to read about the houses, telephones and cars of foreigners.
Hickey, N. (Nov-Dec 1996). Lights, Camera, War: Is Media Technology Driving International Politics?. Columbia Journalism Review, 35, n4. p.53(4).
November 11, 2007
The tragedy of Garrett Hardin’s article entitled “The tragedy of the commons” was that I wasted my time, something I have a finite amount of on this finite world, in reading it. Hardin is attempting to explain that overpopulation is a problem with no technical solutions. For the rest of the article he spends his time showing us how there are no technical solutions to this problem. His pessimistic view is that everyman will exploit the ‘commons’, our shared space, and that there is no higher authority to stop us. Laws are ineffectual, governments are ineffectual, science is ineffectual and appeals to conscience are ineffectual. Apparently Hardin isn’t interested in suggesting any options that might help; he just wants to point out that we’ve been doing it wrong. Thank god Garrett Hardin is here to save us!
At one point he uses the example of an appeal to conscience as being a bad idea since it comes with the inconsistency of verbal and nonverbal cues. We ask someone not to exploit the commons, but imply that if they do as we ask, they are just another pathetic sheep following the herd. This contradiction, of course, would put the person in a double bind that would lead them down the path to schizophrenia. Relax buddy, not everyone who appeals to someone’s conscience is a hypocritical elitist. Some people actually want to come up with solutions to problems, rather than sitting in their ivy covered tower at UC Santa Barbara pointing out what is wrong with the world.
I take that back, he does offer the solution of ‘coercion’, or in other words a law against the freedom to breed. He doesn’t offer up any suggestion as to how we determine who will be permitted to breed after this law has gone into effect, he just says our world would be better off if we suppressed the freedom to breed. I suggest that if Hardin was getting the opportunity to ‘breed’ more often, he wouldn’t waste our time writing this drivel.
What is an alternative to the ‘commons’?
What role does education play in helping to solve world wide issues?
Why isn’t there a technological solution to overpopulation?November 4, 2007
After reading Virginia Heffernan’s article “The Hong Kongs, New Yorks, and Tokyos” of the internet I am compelled to write about my feelings regarding online communities. I must admit I struggle with the idea of “online community” since I don’t really see the internet as bringing us closer together. We say we are closer, but are we really? For example, I belong to two message boards, one for my obscure German automobile,Opel, and one for my vintage Honda cb450 motorcycle. I will never deny that these two resources are bottomless wells of information that simply isn’t anywhere else. On many occasions I’ve turned to the experts on these message boards to get advice and instructions on how to fix whatever ailed me at the time, but rarely do I have to actually communicate with these experts. Most of the time, my problem is not new and somebody else at some time in the past has experienced the same issues and already posted a solution. In fact recently I’ve noticed that when newbies join the boards and post a question, invariably they get told to search the archives since most of the old timers aren’t interested in repeating themselves over and over again. Not really a community at that point but just a reference tool. I suppose there is something to be said for discovering you’re not alone out there. These message boards were there long before I found them and at the time I was looking for info, and I was surprised at just how big the community was, considering the rareness both my motorcycle and my Opel. Still if you just lurk or are unwilling to contribute, you’re not really a part of the community. It could just be me, however, since these communities meet in real life at car shows and such but I’ve never contributed to any of those meetings either. With that in mind answer me this:
If you are just a lurker are you still a member of the community, why are why not?
What needs are met in an online community that can’t be met in real life?
Online communities are policed by moderators, who put them in charge?
October 28, 2007
Gilmore’s book “We The Media”, another history lesson, had one main point: the idea of grassroots media is nothing new. Since the dawn of man the dissemination of news has been individual to individual. Media conglomerations only formed in the last hundred years. The internet is making it easier for the individual to get back to spreading the news, but really we’ve been doing it that way for thousands of years. We can’t call it ‘new’.
I read chapter 9 which focused on “Trolls, Spin, and Boundaries of trust”. Again I would agree with the main point of this chapter which essentially is ‘let the buyer beware’. We all should take our news with a grain of salt and perform our own research when we don’t feel like we are getting the whole truth. Actually Gilmore is suggesting we should do our own research even when we agree with the conclusions of the writer. I disagree with one point he made in the chapter however, he tells a story of a commentator on his blog who refused to identify himself. The commentator suggested his identity shouldn’t matter if his arguments are logical and his facts are correct. Gilmore instead thinks that if you are unwilling to sign your name to your words it casts doubt on your arguments and facts. In fact Gilmore uses the story of the Drudge report, that suggested John Kerry was having an affair, to point out that the allegations were unfounded but at least Matt Drudge signed his name to the report. I think that the fact the allegations were complete unfounded proves the point that the facts are more important than who posted them to internet. To paraphrase a line from “Tommy Boy” : “If you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will, I’ve got the time”. In the end all your going to have is a guaranteed piece of crap! If signing my name lends credibility to lies, then what have we gained, nothing.
Maury Webber
(that ought to make Gilmore happy)
Ponder this:
Why is credibility on the internet tied to identity?
Why are we so quick to give bloggers more credibility than established news outlets?
Who is to blame when errors, lies, and misrepresentations are spread on the web?
October 21, 2007
This weeks reading selections from Christensen’s “Seeing What’s Next” and Bush’s “As We May Think” as well as Standage’s “The Victorian Internet” compliment each other very nicely. The overarching theme from all three seems to be that as great as the technological advances are today, we can expect more and in some cases better advances tomorrow. The Bush text is great since we can use it to realize how even our visionaries of the past often came close to predicting the future but still missed the mark on some key devices. His description of the camera of the future included the ability to view photos instantly, and hundreds of photos could be taken with out having to change film. In concept that is where we are today, but Bush assumed we would still be working in chemical photography instead of digital photography. His vision was limited by the technology currently in use at the time he wrote “As We May Think”. If photography had advanced along those lines with out the development of digital media, chances are it wouldn’t be as popular or as relevant as it is today. However, Bush did predict the modern day internet while he was describing an individual accessing a wealth of information, what he calls the ‘record’, from a home based machine called the ‘memex’. Again, his idea of the interface for this machine was grounded in the technology of the day, but the concept of going to a machine and instantly pulling up information on just about anything, is right in line with modern PCs and the world wide web.
Perhaps what we should pull out of the Bush text is not his antiquated predictions but something he alluded to in the beginning. Offhandedly he suggests that it was the collaboration of scientists during WWII, rather than the tradition of competition, that brought about such rapid and fantastic change and innovation. While he didn’t elaborate on that thought, it would be fair and in line with the tone of “As We May Think” to speculate on what the future would be like if collaboration rather than competition was the norm.
What innovations are we overlooking or dismissing now, that will be key ingredients to future technologies and why?
When can the concept of overshooting the customer or the market be a good thing?
October 14, 2007
After reading both Christensen and Rheingold, I was struck by several similarities. Rheingold top ten list mentions that new technology can be both a blessing and a curse. This was certainly true when considering the invention of the Telephone at a time when Western Union’s market share in the technology of the the Telegraph was at its zenith. For Western Union the telephone was more of a neat toy then a serious threat to their business. By not recognizing the telephone as the next big advancement in telecommunications, Western Union blew their chance to continue to be an industry leader well into the 20th Century. Rheingold further discusses the fact that new technology is never evenly distributed. Christensen echoes this argument by showcasing how, at first, the telephone was too expensive for widespread use and too limited in its abilities to over take the telegraph for mass communication. Finally Rheingold argues that different technologies have different biases based on differences such as sensory, content, and social uses. Christensen would agree by pointing out that the telephone changed the way and the what that people communicated to each other. It also used the auditory senses instead of the visual senses and finally as mentioned above, during its early years and due to its expense, the telephone was limited to the ‘higher’ social classes who could afford it.
Rheingold’s analysis focuses on some market factors that can control innovation. By contrast Christensen shows how government can influence innovation outside of the the market. He also suggests that the cost of development can influence innovation as well. I would think however, as history has shown us, the biggest non market factor at work today, is the tangential or collateral use of the technology. In other words, technology that gets used for purposes that it was not intended or invented. Christensen points out that when the telephone was invented nobody, not Bell, not Edison, and not Western Union thought that anyone would want to use the technology for anything but business. They figured it would be used by big business only. In fairness to all of them, there was no analogy at that time that they could draw from to conclude that the phone would eventually be used by the masses for idle chit-chat. More recently, the creators of YouTube might not have seen the explosion that was coming barely a year after its inception since, as they have stated in interviews, they were just trying to create a way to share video files with their friends across the country. It was only after that technology was co-opted by the users that it’s commercial possibilities really came to light. Now it’s uses, for both the market and those outside the market, far exceed the initial intention of the creators.
October 7 2007
I found this weeks reading very interesting and informative. Both Winston and Fidler provided a nice history lesson, something I think gets overlooked often when discussing digital media. I preferred Fidler’s approach and was surprised to learn just how early the US had transitioned from industrial society to an information society. Fidler suggests that by 1930 one quarter of all workers were employed in the knowledge sector, ten years before the electronic computer was invented. Winston took a different approach providing a model or flow-chart to describe how a technology or a device develops based on intervening forces. I found Winston’s article was more challenging to read and while he may not have needed a thesaurus the day he wrote it, I had to get out my dictionary just to read it.
The third article we read, on the development of skye and how it will efffect the telephone industry disappointed me. The article suggests that skype and other voice over IP providers will signal the death of traditional telephony. I disagree, since I believe traditional telephone service took two major hits long before Skype came along. The first blow came with the breakup of the Bell monopoly in the early 1980’s. No longer were you receiving your phone service from one company, and many more service providers sprung up all vying for the consumer’s dollar. The second blow came with the wide spread use and availability of cellular and wireless technology, which further dispersed the consumer dollars among many service providers. The truth is Skpe and other VOIP providers are moving into an already flooded market, and therefore their impact will be minimal. Applying the classic communication model I would argue that Skype is just a new medium, and unlikely to change the sender receiver or for that matter the message. As users we still have to pay for this service so whether we pay Skype or AT&T our pocket books are still affected. Personally, I haven’t owned a home phone for over ten years, due to the use of my cellular phone for all my personal voice communication needs. Secondly, the cost of this service to me hasn’t change significantly since I gave up a traditional hardwired phone. If in the future I decide to adopt Skype as a method for communicating I would expect my service fees to again stay about the same. With that in mind, I can’t see how Skype could turn traditional telephony on its ear from a consumer perspective. Finally, if current phone companies feel thier bottom line is undermined by Skype and other VOIP providers they will resort to the traditional corporate buyout of their competition as they did with the cellular technology in the early 90’s. I didn’t feel that this article complimented the two history lessons provided by Wintson and Fidler, except a s a juxtaposition to showcase and author who has not studied their history. I would suggest that a quick review of the telephone industry history would have improved the perspective of the author and perhaps changed his opinion of VOIP ’s impact.
I did find both Winston and Fidler useful and I believe I can apply some of their lessons to my research project on the use of digital media and education. Specifically, I might be able to use Wintson’s model to understand why certain digital technologies get adopted for educational purposes and others do not. I do believe, above and beyond the supervening necessities, there are simply individuals who embrace technology and those who shun it regardless of its usefulness and usability. Currently I work at Central Washington University, and I have witnessed first hand instructors who utilize the latest and greatest gadgets to enhance their lectures and those who shy away from technology preferring instead to write on a dry erase board. I suspect those instructors would further prefer chalk and erasers if made available.
I’ll finish with three questions to ponder. First, If someone had been there to carry on the work of Babbage and Byron when they passed away how much sooner would the electronic computer have been invented? Second, Why is the stereotypical nerd a male, when women were at the forefront of this information society? Finally, I believe Wintson’s model or flow-chart is generally correct but are there certain technologies and devices developed outside of the model making them the exception that prove his rule?
