The Declaration of Interdependence

"It's important to remember that technology is just us. It's not this separate thing."

Tiffany Shlain gives an emotionally rich talk here about how connections are worth little unless they're deep, and deep connections require attention -- something we lose if we don't harness the technology in our lives. She wraps with her four-minute "Declaration of Interdependence", which I quite liked.

In April I was lucky enough to liveblog Shlain's keynote for MIPCOM, preceding a screening of her film Connected: An 'autoblogography' about Love, Death & Technology. I love her way of weaving seemingly-unrelated topics together and infusing them with (sometimes overwhelming) feeling. She also invests technology with an importance, and an optimism, rarely experienced -- even while admitting that her family takes a tech break one day a week. 

We Need More Stuff Like This.

Someone recently asked me if I am optimistic about the future of humanity. Despite dire statistics and the (anecdotal?) knowledge that people care more about maintaining quality of life than about big-context global sustainability*, I still feel that people work best at gunpoint. The worst may not yet have arrived, but neither has the best, and we have to traverse the former for the latter. That is just how we are. (Hopefully the wake-up call isn't full-on apocalypse, though.)

For as much waste and destruction we're capable of producing, we are just as equipped for producing miracles. There are some who say we are fascinated by our trajectory toward imminent tragedy. This isn't the case, and every little thing we do -- connecting with the world, self-organising for human rights, cooperative farming, purchasing locally, correcting wrongs, even advertising with greater care for both the long-term sustainability of the brand and our children -- makes a ripple in the sea of our collective destinies.



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*There are currently as many people alive on Earth today as the total number of human deaths since the beginning of organised civilization: 6.8 billion. Is that not ostentatious?

What is Media Planning (Then vs Now)?

What is media planning?

View more presentations from John V Willshire

Here's a nice, simple presentation that breaks down what media planning used to be, what it's evolved into, and why. It also breaks the core of media planning down nicely: we're working with principles now, not rules.

The latter was great for creating barriers between companies and people, which was highly profitable, but not realistic or sustainable. The former is more vague and harder to quantify, but it forces you to stay intimately connected to users and innovators because they are the ones whose behaviours, sentiments and feedback will lead you.

How hard can that be? About as hard as you, on your own, trying to be a better person every single day of your life. Except scaled. Enormously. *shrug*

And in the end, doesn't that make sense? We've spent years trying to get people to feel emotions for brands as if they were human, concurrently creating laws that treat companies as if they are autonomous entities. Forcing them to comport themselves according to the standards of Ethical Man seems like a natural expectation.

That was an enormous digression. Sorry, guys.

From Egypt, with Love

One of the biggest challenges following the Jasmine Revolution was attracting tourism back to Tunisia. It was a challenge that sparked creative efforts of goodwill from entrepreneurs, like Patrick Robin's "1 Billion Ad Pages in Tunisia."

Egypt faces the same problem; no pleasure-seeking tourist likes the sound of structural volatility. But videos like this one, which demonstrates the immense gratitude, depth of heart and diversity that characterises today's Egyptian, may make the country's work easier.

In addition to stories like this. (And this.)

Via @CandaceHetchler.

The Butterfly that Turned the Tides

Now the sons are coming, the new generation, and they are saying, 'I don’t care that my father agreed with you — I am asking for more, and I am asking for something else.'

-Bahraini columnist Sawsan al-Shaer,
"Unrest Spreads, Some Violently, in Middle East," The New York Times

This is like when food fights started at school - by one person at outset, then the whole cafeteria got into it. Ironically enough, food has a lot to do with this: these are revolutions of people starved for morale and dignifying resources, while those responsible for oiling the machine throw parties and feed their dogs.

But it's also so much more than that!

This is what happens when you are able to compare yourself to people you can relate to, and find that, despite your similarities, your freedoms are incredibly lopsided. That kind of power once belonged only to wealthy meritocracies.

But because technology flows like water, penetrating those deep shadows in human society, making remote strangers feel so much closer than they are, so much more real and human, everyone has this capability. Everyone can see when they're being shafted by a rotting hegemony.

That is amazing, because the world is about to change faster than it ever has - huge ripples resonating across our fiber optic cables, ripping the chords that compose the white noise of our lives.

Pay attention to this dissonance in the frequency, even if it sounds faint, or you will miss something enormous: not a turning point for the Middle East, but a turning point for humanity to which we all contributed when we decided that 56k was too slow, that we wanted organic from Wal-Mart, that Nestlé and Cadbury had to stop using palm oil to make our candies, that Wikileaks deserved an audience, that we wanted to stop paying for out-of-state long distance, that, finally, we wanted our own communication channels, and we wanted to publish faster, and we needed to feel closer.

That's beautiful, isn't it?

Because We Like to Think that When Robots Are Finally Self-Aware, They Will Also Have Feelings and Growing Pains and Crippling Self-Doubt.*

ABSOLUT Vodka -- which has apparently decided that selling kindness and vulnerability are the way to go for market differentiation -- partnered with Spike Jonze to develop a short film called I'm Here.

It doesn't seem like it'll take itself too seriously, but it's got enough ennui-laced warm-fuzzies to at least win views from a Cannes judge or two or three.

The film will appear on the I'm Here website in March. I'll probably watch it because I dig Spike Jonze and the fact that it's billed as "a robot love story." That is, if I don't forget in the wake of some great calamity -- like Chris Crocker getting a network deal.

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*Because maybe then they won't all kill us, and people can mate with them, like in Bladerunner.

Riverside Romance: Paris vs. Tokyo

Chelsi wraps up her three-month sojourn in Japan this weekend, so I'm hoarding all the cultural comparisons I can while the gettin's gewd. Here's a shot she took of a couple in the Japanese countryside Tokyo:



And here's a shot I took of a pair by the Seine, fortified by a now-empty bottle of wine:



Love love love. Same language, different dressings...