Save the purple tree worms

Alright internet you win, I give up. I’ve tried playing devil’s advocate. I put up a good fight against Malcolm Gladwell with Jaron Lanier on my side. I tried to take on Markos Zungia’s system. But maybe after all my heckling and skepticism there is something to this whole new media thing.

I first exposed my reluctance to accept online journalism while discussing Dan Gillmor’s “We the Media.” I am first and foremost an English major, before I knew how to craft a news story using an inverted pyramid structure, I knew how to analyze a poem or strip a novel down to its underlying themes. The first few semesters as a double major were rough, my brain was confused. It didn’t like having to compartmentalize writing styles and switch from one to the other daily. English was flowy and prosaic, while journalism was sharp and concise. But I forced myself to adapt, simultaneously learn different techniques and apply them during the appropriate circumstances. I become content in my world of books and newspapers. Then the print industry died.

Sure this death began well before my college career. Print journalism has been critically ill for years, but it wasn’t until recently that I came to terms with my future not involving paper. A lot of that was thanks to this class. It force fed me the truth I had been avoiding by sticking to what I knew. I was able to avoid writing online by making myself an asset to the print version of The Brown and White and getting an internship at a struggling publication known as The Morning Call. I thought Twitter was only for egotistical celebrities and blogs might as well be personal diaries thrown into the cyber black hole. I don’t say this much, but I will say it now: I was wrong.

The internet is an incredibly powerful tool that anyone can put to good use with the right techniques, and according to Clay Shirky author of “Cognitive Surplus,” with means, motive and opportunity.

The tools a.k.a. means are infinite today. If someone wants to spread the word about endangered purple tree worms, they can do it dozens of different way: A Facebook page supporting the worms, a twitter feed distributing information about the worms, a blog sharing stories about the worms, and the list goes on. Decades ago the endangered worm enthusiast would be limited to word of mouth and print to spread information, which worked, and was more effective than centuries ago when even print was a luxury. The internet revolutionized communication. The world is at our fingertip, and even better: It’s free!

Next is motive, for Mr. Purple Worm Man the endangered species is his call to action. He recognizes the plight of the worms and wants to help. If his efforts are successful and the worms go on to live another purple day, he will have a sense of fulfillment for doing a good deed.

Opportunity is the tricky part. The lone activist cannot save the worms by himself. He can shot his heartfelt pleas as loud as he wants into cyberspace, but they won’t do any good unless someone is listening. He needs support from fellow worm lovers. This is where some of the other lessons from this class come into play. A stick message would help his cause: a personal anecdote about the worms, a dire need they need to be saved, or a catchy tidbit that makes the purple tree worms stand out in a crowd of regular-colored worms. Once the activist’s message is sticky others will gravitate to it and spread it, join the purple tree worm bandwagon. This collective force has exponentially more influence than the lone activist did. Combined their connections can reach around the globe, and that is how change happens.

The internet is powerful, but it is nothing without the people using it. The cognitive surplus exists in all of us. We watch TV instead of reading a book, scan social media sites to put of work, and take a morning nap even though we woke up three hours ago. There is so much wasted brain power out there and so many opportunities on the web to put it to good use. A slight change, and a bit more focus from each of us would have a whirlwind effect that not only could save the endangered purple worm population, but do something even more significant.

Now excuse me while I go refresh my Twitter.

Believe in the Beat

I remember sitting in the car with my mom a few summers back when Jason Derulo’s “Whatcha Say” came on the radio. I put up with the offensive lyrics about a guy begging his girlfriends to come back after he cheated on her, because I enjoy the Imogen Heap song “Hide and Seek” that it covers. Derulo was singing, “Cause when the roof caved in and the truth came out I just didn't know what to do,” when my mom turned to me and asked, “What does this song have to do with a tooth coming out?”

I sat for a minute, trying to control my laugher and figure out the best way to correct her error. “No, Mom, he said truth not tooth.” Clearly there is a disconnect between her musical preferences and mine. Not to say that my taste is better or more valuable than hers because I can understand the lyrics of rap songs (fun fact: I can remember the lyrics to almost any song after listening to it two to three times). Jaron Lanier, author of “I am not a Gadget,” would probably argue that my music taste is actually inferior because it was founded in a world dominated by synthesized beats and auto-tuning.

It’s not my fault though. Lanier traces the digital music world, or even broader – all digital sounds, to the Music Instrument Digital Interface or MIDI. MIDI translates notes produces by instruments to translate into a digital language that can be understood by and shared between electronic devices. The problem with MIDI is it is over-simplified, and captures sounds as data instructions rather than sound waves, therefore reproducing flat tones. Basically instead of the emotional pull of a violin or the resonating trill of a flute the MIDI user’s music is one-dimensional. MIDI was designed over a decade ago with the keyboard in minds, however, the programs spread to accommodate all sorts of instruments, some it was not designed for, and was adapted to a variety of programs. The digital music world got “locked-in” to MIDI, and since it is everywhere users are forced to accept a less than adequate system that is too integrated to replace.

“How can a musician cherish the broader, less-defined concept of a note that precedes MIDI, while using MIDI all day long and interacting with other musicians through the filter of MIDI? Is it even worth trying? Should a digital artist just give in to lock-in and accept the infinitely explicit, finite idea of a MIDI note?” (Lanier 10).

Lanier says hip hop is the best example of a genre growing up in the digital era. While it was introduced before the domination of the web, it was defined by it. Hip hop uses the convenience of technology to mass produce songs. There is less need for creativity or even talent when music is produced mostly by computers rather than human beings.

So, basically anyone born into the cyber age is musically stunted. Our minds are tainted by booty shaking beats and thumping basses. We just don’t have the capacity to appreciate the subtle genius of a well-preformed concerto or intricately organize symphony. The one redeeming quality of rap, Lanier said, is its ability to express anger or lust though volume and explicit lyrics. According to Lanier, “Hip hop is imprisoned within digital tools like the rest of us. But at least it bangs fiercely against the walls of its confinement” (Lanier 135).

Another product of the digital age of music is the mash-up. Artists, who are essentially glorified disk jockeys, weave songs together to create a new song. Dozens of songs can go into a single mash-up track. There are a lot of legal ambiguities associated with this: are they stealing? Is it original? Can they put their name on it or must the credit the hundreds or artists who contributed? Do they need the artists’ permission before using pieces of songs?

Mash-ups are a direct product of the tools of technology, and while some are offended by the results, others see it as a unique form of expression requiring as much or more creativity than creating a work from scratch.

Is there a middle ground? Can the generation defined by mashing-up other people’s music into one collective mess of sounds still be creative? I think so (we may not make money from it, but creativity is far from extinct).

Let me introduce you to Peter Lee Johnson, a student at the University of Southern California, who is fusing popular music with classical techniques. He has played the violin since the age of four. He has made a name for himself in the online community, as well as the television and film communities by composing scores and playing accompaniments. Johnson’s covers of billboard hits from Kanye West’s, “Birthday Sex” with an introduction of Beethoven to Edward Maya and Vika Jigulina’s “Stereo Love” mixed with MGMT’s “kids” have gone viral on YouTube.
What makes Johnson so special, and gives hope to our generation, is that he is essentially reversing the limitations of music created digitally. Johnson takes the electronically defined songs and strips them down to the melodies that define them as musical and plays them on a violin, one of the most classically defined instruments.

Johnson is proving that we are not gadgets, well at least not yet.

Digital minions

This should be exciting: The internet is making it possible for anyone who owns a computer to become a celebrity, or overthrow a government or be elected president. But with all this talk from Markos Moulitsas Zungia about “Taking on the System,” I can’t help but feel a little weary.

The power of technology is undeniable, but how we harness this power is still unclear. Like Peter Parker’s, A.K.A Spider-Man’s, good old Uncle Ben said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” So, do we use it for good or evil?

One of Zungia’s “unlikely warriors” is Stephen Colbert. Recently Colbert has used his power as a multimedia celebrity to raise almost $100,000 for donorschoose.org in less than a month. How did he do it?

It all started with a pint of ice cream. Not just any ice cream, but Colbert’s very own Ben & Jerry’s flavor “Americone Dream.” Colbert was happy to announce that his flavor was selected to be featured in Ben & Jerry’s stores around the country, but less happy to announce that fellow late-night personality Jimmy Fallon was about to debut his own Ben & Jerry’s flavor “Late Night Snack.” The two engaged in an ice cream eating face-off and shortly after an ice cream induced musical hallucination announced a truce, and that they would be best friends forever – for six months.

Then things got interesting, Colbert in an attempt to raise money for donorschoose.org , Colbert auctioned off his famous portrait within a portrait painting for $26,000. On his show the next day he announced that BFF Fallon would be matching his donation, unfortunately Fallon had no idea.

"If you can't donate $26,000 of your best friend's money without asking him first, then what's the point of being best friends?" Colbert asked during a surprise appearance on Fallon’s show.

So what did Fallon do? He gave Colbert a taste of his own…well…ice cream, and promised that if viewers could help him raise the $26,000, Colbert would appear on the show that Friday to sing, what Fallon called “one of the most important songs of our time,” Rebecca Black’s hit single “Friday” accompanied by The Roots.

“And that is a promise I am making from him to you,” Fallon said.

Fallon easily raised the $26,000, and actually beat that goal by $60,000. Because Colbert is a man of his, or Fallon’s, word he followed through with the promise and delivered a stunning performance.

In chase you haven't see enough of this...

So Colbert used the power of the internet for good. He proved an imaginary friendship and promise of a “Friday” cover can raise money exponentially faster than a Sarah McLaughlin song played over the pictures of one-eyed puppies or that Santa Clause-looking man holding starving African children. The information age has created tactics more effective than advertising, public service announcements and political campaigns to influence people’s thoughts and induce behavior. Has this gone too far though? Is technology able to be even more effective than common sense?

Take Daniel Tosh, for example, his weekly show on Comedy Central features viral videos and Tosh’s commentary. One segment on the show challenges views to create their own videos in response to a prompt. These include “surprise trust falls,” “things never to yell when entering a room” and “sittin’ on the toilet.” These challenges get hundreds of responses, featuring people falling on strangers, screaming profanities at colleagues and performing monologues with their pants down. Who do all these people do these embarrassing, belittling things? Because Daniel Tosh said so!

So far most of these videos are harmless; a few bruised bottoms and egos in the name of humor. But knowing Tosh, he will push it further. And knowing his viewers, and the power of the internet, they will listen.

Through the internet, both Colbert and Tosh have gained power and a following. I prefer to see these people as minions. I’m sure thousands of those donating to the Colbert/Fallon project on donorschoose.org had no idea that the charity helped school teachers across America fund projects for students (I didn’t know that either until I just looked it up, but I also didn’t donate), and just blindly gave their money. Similarly to how Tosh’s viewers willing put up inappropriate or demeaning videos of themselves without thinking about who might see them.

They do this because the trust Colbert and Tosh, and look up to them as leaders. Zungia became a leader for an online political community when his blog was launched into popularity – a reluctant leader, but a leader none the less. According to “Taking on the System” anyone can become leaders with the right attitude, motivation, tools a techniques. But what about the followers? With this many possible leaders there are infinitely more follows, and surely some of these leaders will lead their naive followers astray.

We love to hate

In case you have not had the pleasure of watching this already...

“I’m assuming you have heard of Rebecca Black,” my friend said to me one afternoon on Facebook chat.

“Maybe…the name sounds familiar,” I told her, but that might have been because the first name was very common and the last name was a color.

“Watch it now, you won’t be sorry,” she said.

My friend is very smart, recently admitted to Stanford, University of Chicago and Cambridge for graduate school PhD programs. She is also culturally aware, and fairly trendy, so I trust her opinions. When she says watch something, I watch it. She is a maven of sorts, as much as I hate the Malcolm Gladwell reference. That was my first exposure to Rebecca Black’s hit single “Friday.” I watched the first minute and turned it off in disgust.

“That was terrible, why did you do that to me?” I asked.

“No, it’s the best thing ever!” she said.

“Ok,” I said. After ten years of friendship, I’ve learned not to waste my time proving her wrong.

After my initial exposure, I thought I had heard the last of Rebecca Black, until the next day I noticed a trend on my Facebook news feed:

Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday
Today i-is Friday, Friday
We-we-we so excited
We so excited
We gonna have a ball today
Tomorrow is Saturday
And Sunday comes after...wards
I don’t want this weekend to end

Clearly I missed something, maybe after the first minute Black turns into a musical genius. So I went back to YouTube, when I noticed the play count. “Friday” had over 30 million hits in a month. As it turns out Rebecca Black is not a musical genius, but an internet phenomena thanks to Tosh.O. Comedian Daniel Tosh is a web junkie and connector, to use another Gladwell term. He blogged about Black’s video in a post titled, "Songwriting isn't for Everyone," which pushed it to become viral in a week.

They were not praising Black for her lyrics, creativity or musicality. Instead, they were tearing the 13-year-old apart for recording the “Worst song ever!” The comments range from mild criticism to requests for Black to kill herself. Despite the negative reaction, Black is making the most of her leap to fame by donating some of the proceeds from her Single (which is currently in the top 50 songs downloaded off iTunes) to charity.

What made “Friday” stick? According to Chip and Dan Heath, the authors of “Made to Stick,” there are six basic traits that allow ideas, stories or trends to stick. Black’s video had all of them.

Simplicity: what can be simpler about a song about going out on a Friday. The core of Black’s idea is in her title, her packaging and her tone. She is a young girl who enjoying hanging out with her friends on the weekend. Her message is conveyed through a pop song, which by nature are catchy and addicting. In addition to Blacks video being so simple in content that even the simplest person can feel superior it is also simple in format. YouTube has made spreading information beyond easy. In an era where fast is the norm and faster is better, what can be faster or more convenient than videos on the internet: click a link and watch (no reading required!).

Unexpectedness: Much like Justin Bieber, society does not expect much from its youth. So when a teen becomes an instant celebrity people take notice. None of our names were trending on Twitter when we were 13-years-old (Twitter also was not invented yet), so what makes this girl so special? According to Heath, “Surprise makes us pay attention and think” (68). The surprise of me seeing almost 40 million views on Black’s video made me think enough to blog about her. The surprise for others was her age, the viewer’s reaction or the mention by Tosh and other celebrities or later by the media and social media.

Concreteness: Well obviously if today is Friday, Friday then tomorrow is Saturday and then it is Sunday. In case that wasn’t concrete enough, Black put that idea to a tune and flashed in on cards. The visual images that accompany the song follow the lyrics exactly. Black sings about being in a car while sitting in a car, Black sings about being with friends while surrounded by her friends, etc. In addition to Black’s message being easy to comprehend, the pop beat makes it easy to remember too, both important factors of concreteness.

Credibility: The credibility here does not lie with Black, who has little to none in the music industry, but Daniel Tosh does. Tosh and his pseudonym and television program Tosh.0 has a reputation of being a guide to the internet. He finds the best of viral videos, blogs and broadcasts them to the nation. He takes the guess work out of the process of procrastinating, and allows YouTube surfers to immediate find video that are worth watching because of their humor, shock or entertainment value. Like when my friend who told me about the initial link, Tosh is that same credible source for millions around the country.

Emotional: There was certainly plenty of emotion driving “Fridays” play count through the roof. The emotion was a collective hatred for the poor teen. Black and her song are the epitome of teenage innocence, and like a pack of hungry lions, YouTube views like to prey on the weak. She was an easy victim, and the anonymity of the internet made the barrage of hate even more venomous.

Stories: Love her or hate her Rebecca Black has a story to tell, a story that is still developing and changing, and a story we have not heard the end of.

So, eventually my friend and the reasons above got me to watch the entire video for “Friday,” all three minutes and 48 seconds of it. After I watched that I even watched the “unplugged” version, and guess what, she still can’t sing. But that doesn’t matter, because while Rebecca Black may not be able to sing she certainly can stick.

I don't want them

“The web didn’t introduce a new competitor into the old ecosystem… The web created a new ecosystem.” Clay Shirky – Here Comes Everybody

A little over a year ago I was sitting in O’Hare International Airport waiting to get on a plane to London. There were a lot of thoughts going through my head: “What do I do once I get there?” “What sort of people will I meet?” “What do I do if I hate it?” “What do I do if I love it and never want to come back?” “I wonder if British guys will be cute, or jus their accents?” But for some reason something much simpler stole my focus. Sitting across from me was a man, about my age, wearing orange finger shoes. I could not stop staring at them, and told my best friend who I was texting at the time about them. I expected her to laugh or make fun of the outrageous fashion statement, but instead she responded by saying she knew the guy.

At this point I looked around the airport terminal to see if she was hiding somewhere in the vicinity, but she was not, and I asked her how she could possibly know the stranger. She explained that on her recent trip to Israel she traveled with a guy who wore the same shoes. While catching up with him over a chat session on Facebook he mentioned he was going to London. She told me to go ask the guy his name and tell him she said hi, but at this point the novelty of the shoes had faded and I had a plane to board.

Clay Shirky uses a similar example involving strangers on a plane in chapter nine of “Here Comes Everybody,” explaining that random connections with apparent strangers aren’t necessarily random. The “small world” phenomena is really an illusion, because people are likely to surround themselves with similar members of a population, the odds of mutual connections within that isolated population increase. Thanks to technology the world is a much smaller place with much more information swirling around it. Shoe guy and I had several factors in common making our chance encounter not really chance at all. First was traveling, which would put us both in the airport, next we are both Jewish as determined from our participation in Birthright, which could also be tied to our departure from Chicago that has a high Jewish population, we are both college students active on social networking sites such as Facebook that increased the chance of the awareness of the connection.

Shirky uses two terms to describe this event, first is the idea of “groups” and the second is “tools.” Groups are essentially the way people organize. Currently my groups contain seniors at Lehigh University, journalists for The Brown and White, Chicagoans, foodies, travel enthusiasts, gym rats etc. “Tools” are the means of technology that connect these groups, the internet mostly and sites on the internet but also mobile phones and the fictions of those phones. Tools allow for faster and more efficient connection of groups, so not only am I better connected to my group of classmates at Lehigh but can connect to friends and home and even connect these groups to each other.

Well this is great right? Everyone likes friends, so now we all have more. Not so fast. After his airport interaction, Shirky talked about an application called “Dodgeball,” today’s equivalent would be the 2.0 version called “Foursquare.” Basically the applications allow people to post their location and the activity they are doing at that location and then notifies them of connections at the location and suggest activities or specials in the area. The application also notifies others of their whereabouts. According to Dennis Crowley, one of the creators of these applications, "What we wanted to do is turn life into a video game.”

OMG NO! Let’s leave the games for the school yard.

These applications, along with the title of Shirky’s book “Here Comes Everybody,” frankly scare me. What if I don’t want everybody? I’m happy with my tight circles and don’t need to know of every random acquaintance we have in common are more importantly don’t want those acquaintances to know where I am at any given moment. Maybe it’s just me, but personally I’ve always believed quality is more important than quantity when it comes to the people I incorporate into my everyday life.

This idea translates to the infiniteness of the internet. With so much content, so many connections, it is too easy to get overwhelmed, and the more we advance into the cyber age the more there is to filter. I would rather have five good friends than 50 so-so ones; similarly, I would rather have five websites that I trust than 50 that I need to be skeptical about and double check.

Let’s go back to my encounter at the airport. If I had the awareness of all of the possible connections in that one (very large) building my head might have exploded. There’s a reason I didn’t go over and introduce myself to shoe guy, because I saw no value in the connection. We would have exchanged pleasantries and thrown out the obligatory “what a small world,” but then probably would just have gone to our seats in different parts of the plane. It is like the majority of the content on the internet – sure it’s out there but I have no need to be aware of most of it.

The idea of infinite connections goes hand in hand with infinite information. While the development of technology allows us to be more informed it also allows us to be more stimulated, which may not be a good thing. Sure Shirky, here comes everybody, but what are you going to do with all of them when they get here?

Perfection in "Imperfectionists"

I may be one of the worst English/journalism double majors in the history of academia. My mantra until about a year ago was, “Yes, I study literature and writing, but I hate to read.” So what changed? Somewhere in London, my high school mentality of “if you make me do it I will hate it” disappeared. I discovered the classic texts of my Romantic literature, Shakespeare and American literature classes stuck around for the past few centuries for a reason. Amazingly, when I sat down to tackle the works of Austen, Shelly, Keats, Twain and Shakespeare it didn’t hurt, no tears were shed and I actually enjoyed reading. To be fair, breaking a twenty-year-long abhorrence does not happen overnight, but my mentality was definitely altered. The summer after my return from abroad I read more books by my own accord than I had since I took on the entire Harry Potter series in one month.

I find myself drawn to authors I can relate to: specifically contemporary Jewish authors and journalists turned authors. My favorite is Mitch Albom, as evident from my stained and worn copy of “The Five People You Meet in Heaven.” He is both a Jew and a journalist, so how can I help but love him? I am drawn to his style; it is easy to read, conversational, yet complex and emotional. I always walk away from his books with a mind full of bubbling question and new perspectives. Even though his background is in sports writing, Albom tackles difficult topics such as death and faith. He tackles them in a way that is not preachy but beautiful and always open for interpretation by the reader.

One of my new favorite books and writers comes from another journalist, and I encourage any journalist, anyone who has worked in a news room or even just read a newspaper to pick up a copy. The author is Tom Rachman and his novel is “The Imperfectionists.” I must confess I am about 100 pages shy of finishing the book, because I suffer from the common affliction of college students involving a guilty feeling associated with reading material other than the thousands of pages already assigned for classes. From what I have read so far, all I can say is this book is amazing! One of the best books, if not the best books I have read in a long time. What makes it so special? Not only does he recreate the landscape of the journalism industry for the past forty years spot on, but he takes the deadline crazy, in-your-face news business and makes is personal. The structure of the book is unique in that each chapter tells the story of one member of the staff of an English newspaper based in Rome. In between each chapter are a few pages telling the story of how the newspaper came to be.

There are moments in this book so real and heartwarming they I have to stop mid page to appreciate the genius of the writing. It is so easy for writers of any genre to fall into the trap of following clichés, I am not exempt from this. Stories have been told for centuries, so finding ones that have not been told before is rare. But Rachman brings a level of creativity to his novel that I did not expect, given his journalism background. I don’t think anyone who read this book would be disappointed, but I think it would be even more difficult for a journalist not to appreciate and relate to it.

No one likes change

This is the future of journalism, and it terrifies me and excites me at the same time. I can’t take my eyes off of it, yet it is everything I want journalism to be. I think Dan Gillmor would agree with me.

The recent suicide bombing at Moscow Domodedovo Airport have flooded headlines, TV news stations, social media sites, blogs and vlogs all around the world. This is not surprising – anything involving a potential terrorist attack and mass casualties will get people’s attention, boost ratings and spark discussions. The story is without a doubt newsworthy and of course tragic. I first saw the headline on Monday when it popped up on The Chicago Tribune’s homepage, I heard about it later on TV news stations, but it wasn’t until I stumbled upon some photographs and later a video on YouTube that this story really caught my full and undivided attention.

The photos were of the actual victims, bodies visible through a cloud of dust in the baggage claim. They were images comparable to the graphic ones from 9/11, but still an in-your-face photo that “Big Media,” as Dan Gillmore refers to it in his book “We the Media: Grassroots journalism by the people, for the people,” is often reluctant to expose to the public. The video was taken by a witness on the scene, essentially a victim of the bombing. He or she survived the attack, took out a camera or mobile phone and started recoding the aftermath.

On the same day of the attacks this video was posted on YouTube, and within 24 hours it had over half a million views. The video titled “First witness video moments after Moscow Domodedovo airport bombing,” was posted by Russia Today. According to their channel:

RT is a 24/7 English-language news channel. We are set to show you how any story can be another story altogether. Broadcasting over six continents and 100 countries, our coverage focuses on international headlines, giving an innovative angle set to challenge viewers worldwide.
The channel is government-funded but shapes its editorial policy free from political and commercial influence. Our dedicated team of news professionals unites young talent and household names in the world of broadcast journalism.

Despite their massive resources, large staff and extensive content, this video says more about the attacks than most stories will. Sure I skimmed through the news reports to get the details of the event, and listened to the news anchors for breaking details, but this video did something different. This video put me in that Russian airport, with the chaos and confusion of separating survivors from victims. At the end of the 44 second video all I could do was sit and absorb everything I had seen and heard.

This is the future of journalism Gillmor predict in his book – journalism driven by the people who are a part of it. I think this is great, because for the first time in a long time the world gets to see all of the news, any story they want and in any format. People are using technology not only to their advantage but to further the knowledge of others. At the same time, it also makes me hesitant. Hesitant, because if this is the future of journalism, if the maker of this clip can capture a story on film better than I could in words, where does that leave me?

For one, it reduces my $200,000 education to something I could have picked up off the street, but also makes me question where my future in journalism will lie. I have dabbled in being one of these grassroots journalists, but my initial failure and dislike left a stigma that plagues my desire to rely on the internet as a career.

During the fall semester of my sophomore year, a friend helped me get hired as an editorial intern for a website called Unigo.com. The mission of Unigo was simple, yet one I could easily be passionate about: Provide a place for perspective college students to learn about the schools they were considering from students who were currently attending them. My job included assignment every two weeks, e-mailed to me by my editor at the Ungio headquarters in New York City. The assignments ranged from political trends on campus, environmental initiatives to athletics. They were then posted on the Lehigh University section of the website, along with videos made by my friend, the media intern.

Something about the internship never sat well with me. I loved the opportunity to write more, and it was easy to write about events and people who were all around me, but the whole process seemed so impersonal. All of my interactions with my editor were via e-mail and I had little say in the editorial process besides the actually writing of the articles. These qualms turned out to be a moot point, because my internship was terminated by the end of the semester due to a lack of funding at the company.

Despite my brief exposure to the world of online journalism, I knew I didn’t like it. I missed being able to hold my completed story in my hand, and look over the shoulders of readers and see my name on the page. Also, if the website could not afford to keep on unpaid interns, what hope was there for their paid staff? When anyone can be a journalist, how valuable are professional ones, who maybe have better writing skills, but demand a paycheck in exchange for their work?

The world Gillmor describes in “We the Media,” ruled by bloggers and citizen journalist, is one I do not see myself part of, but instead as a reality I think I will have to come to terms with. Fortunately, the transition is still happening, and print publication still have a place in the lives of readers and lovers of paper like myself, while still allowing the hyper-accessible world of online media to fill the holes in the pages.

Business is anything but usual

Other than being able to sleep through it entirely, the best thing about mornings is being able to wake up to a hot cup of coffee. Unfortunately, the coffee maker in my house has a thick crust lining the pot from the previous owners, so in order for my good morning caffeine I have to venture into the world. Despite its over-commercialization and over-priced brews, I have nothing against Starbucks, because I can go into any one and know exactly what to order, exactly what I will get and I will get it fast. But a real, quality cup of Joe is a treat I have learned not to expect. A small company in Chicago has maintained the art of artisan roasting. Metropolis Coffee Company not only makes amazing coffee but it is making news for their business strategy: emphasizing communication with their customers so they are selling more than just coffee, but an experience, an ambiance and are creating a community both within their stores and around the world with the help of the internet.

Co-owner Tony Dreyfuss and his business partner and father Jeff Dreyfuss opened Metropolis in 2003. It quickly earned recognition from Chicago Magazine that names it the best latte in Chicago and Food and Wine that names it one of the country’s best coffee bars. Located within walking distance to Loyola University, the company has a collection of loyal local patrons, but wanted to expand their clientele to the greater Chicago-land area. AS a result of their anti-advertising mantra, they had to seek out alternative means to spread their message.

“We’d always sworn that we didn’t want to advertise,” said Tony said in an interview for 435digital.com. “It just felt stupid — like bending people’s wills. It didn’t really align with who we are.” This was when Jody Robbins and Rita Fisher, co-owners of Nimble Social Media, came into play. “Jody explained to me that your website is the basic information you want to get across about your company — social media is your personality,” Dreyfus said in the article.

Fisher helped create Metropoliscoffee.com, a website dedicated as much to the coffee as it is to its customers. It includes a blog, connections to their Facebook page and Twitter accounts, photos and other links. The website does not end there. Deryfuss takes the content and feedback very seriously, and all business decisions are based on customer input. When the company recently decided to stop offering dark roast coffee they turned to their followers on the website before those in the store. They announced the change via social media which gave their customers an opportunity to honestly express their feeling about it. The openness of the web provided the owners with unfiltered responses, both positive and negative, to the change.

It is this sort of relationship with customers that “The Cluetrain Manifesto” preaches through the use of the internet. Metropolis is returning to the traditional marketplace that the writers of “The Cluetrain Manifesto” are begging for a return to. Rather than being just faceless, voiceless consumers, the customers of Metropolis’ stores and website have an opportunity to communicate directly with the producers. They can look at a product, pick it up, taste it smell it and then either buy it with a smile and a compliment or throw it back in the makers face with a few harsh words.

It is the kind of model that works well for small businesses who have that family feeling, but the difficulty is translating these practices to big business. “The Cluetrain Manifesto” scorns big business for being trapped in the “business and usual model”: Relying on hierarchies, power struggles, races to the bottom line and bigger profits and hiding policies and facts behind veils of PR and advertising spin. It points out examples of business that have broken free from this mold, companies like Amazon.com, that depend on customer communication to sell products, but other companies who had their start outside the realm of the internet may have a more difficult time stepping away from their PR people and traditional advertising companies.

The basic principles that form the foundation of Metropolis’s social media campaign and “The Cluetrain Manifesto” can be applied to any company using the internet, which at this age of technology dependence is almost every company. The first step is establishing the company’s tone and mission, for Metropolis this is an earthy, almost exotic one mixed with urban chic. The website’s blue, purple and rust color scheme is contrasted by its black and white logo. They know who they are – a natural coffee company in the heart of Chicago, and that is exactly how they present themselves. Every company, big or small, had a purpose – a product or idea they are trying to sell – and making that purpose clear to customers is the first step in honest business.

The straightforward business model is necessary to build trust with customers, and this trust in necessary to facilitate the types of communication the internet supports. As “The Cluetrain Manifesto” explains, silence is the worst approach to dealing with business on the internet, regardless if the business is directly involved with conversation with customers, the customers will still talk. By facilitating conversation though their website, Metropolis remains at the heart of customer service. They know what their customers want, their likes, dislikes and needs. Most importantly, they respond to them and build a repertoire that keeps their customers coming back for seconds. With the resources available to big business, there is no reason that a similar repertoire cannot be established, not every employee needs to be in direct contact with the customers the serve, but the lines of communication need to remain open and honest within companies and with the market.

The most important thing about this new open relationship, like any relationship, is there all no rules to what this communication needs to be, it just needs to be there. It can be serious, or sarcastic or funny. It does not have to be dry and technical; it can be entertaining and clever. The unique voices of the customers and company are able to finally shine thanks to the ease of the internet.

Does any of this sound difficult or outrageous? No, but as “The Cluetrain Manifesto” points out, change is hard. Businesses have been following a particular model for decades, and for most of those decades the model worked. The internet changed everything, and businesses need to adapt or eventually die. It’s time to return to survival of the fittest, and those who refuse to change will become extinct. We must return to the market style of our ancestors, as “The Cluetrain Manifesto” says, and go back to the style of vendors selling their wares directly to the customers on the basis that their product is the best not because their commercials are the most clever or their PR and communication departments are the best at hiding the truth.

A few tips about “The Tipping Point”

Well done Malcolm Gladwell for stringing together over 250 pages of common sense rambling with some supposedly relevant research to create a national bestseller. First of all, I want to praise Gladwell’s writing, because regardless of the content, the book is well written. I would expect nothing less from a staff writer for The New Yorker. I always find it difficult to criticize something that has received so much praise and success. Who am I to say the popular opinion is wrong? I don’t read very much, I have little background in the principles Gladwell is examining and I only read the book once and therefore could only take it in on a surface level. I will do my best to strip down the basic concepts of “The Tipping Point” and point out the flaws in his tips.

“The Tipping Point” explains how phenomena, epidemics and trends explode from simple ideas and everyday sources. The root of these explosions can be traced back to three different kinds of people: Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen and three situational characteristic: The Law of the Few, The Stickiness Factor and The Power of Context. He opens the book with the loveable and memorable story of Hush Puppies, a small shoe company that went mainstream thanks to some indie trendsetters. This anecdote got me hooked, mostly because as a child my next door neighbor worked for Hush Puppies during their explosion into popularity. The droopy eyed dog mascot that could be found all over their house is permanently embedded into my psyche. For nostalgia and simplicity sake, I will continue with this example as I attempt to delegitimize the ideas Gladwell presents as groundbreaking and innovative.

First, I will look at his theory of the Law of the Few and the people that spread epidemics. The idea here is it only requires a small amount of people for an idea to tip, but the types of people that the ideas initially reaches are what is important. In the story of the Hush Puppies tip, Gladwell says a few trendy kids in the East Village and Soho neighborhood of Manhattan started wearing the shoes as part of their alternative fashion sense and the trend spread to designers and then all over the country. By his theory, in order for an idea to tip it needs to be touched by a connector: a naturally social person who knows a lot of people, a maven: an expert in a certain field with credibility, and a salesperson: a particularly persuasive individual. Theoretically, a pair of Hush Puppies could have landed in the hands of any of these types of people, and probably did. Some connector in the East Villiage bought a pair and his abundance of friends saw, one of these friends was a maven in the fashion industry who gave credibility to these shows, and another friend may have been a salesperson able to convince others to buy the shoes as well. Bam, a trend is set. Seems simple, but maybe it’s a little too simple. Gladwell takes the facts of this story and twists them to apply to his theory, while ignoring others. The shoes could have fallen into the hands of any of these people somewhere besides New York and the idea never would have tipped, and Hush Puppies would remain another dying shoe company with a limited market appeal. Or if the Hush Puppies trend still began in New York, but once they fell into the hand of the mainstream designers the public didn’t buy it. Gladwell does a good job of explaining why things that have tipped tipped, but conversely I am sure there a hundreds of trends that could have happened the same way that did not tip. He is exploring the foundation of the indie movement. He is looking at one trend (a brand of shoes) within the larger fashion world that I do not think he understands. He somewhat addresses this issue later when he talks about the idea of coolness in regards to teenage smoking. A cool person is someone that does not follow the norm that takes something old and makes it exciting because it is different. Gladwell presents this idea as new itself, trying to make it or himself cool, but the concept is as old as time. People strive to be different and unique, and the wearers of Hush Puppies were only trying to do that. I see the Hush Puppies trend as nothing more than a fluke.

Gladwell’s next supposedly revolutionary idea is the Stickiness Factor, tweaking the way an idea is present to make it memorable and clearly presented. Um, well, obviously everyone who has an idea wants to share it in a manner that people will remember it! In this chapter he throws a lot of psychology at the reader, a quite sticky trick, but I think it’s just hot air. His case study for this factor is children’s television, which works well because there is a lot of research and the attention span of children is easier to research than adults. Once again, Gladwell takes an idea that proves his theory and applies it, but fails to do the reverse and prove his greater theory can apply to anything else. Going back to the Hush Puppies case study, the stickiness factor here would be similar to the coolness factor. The shoes were presented in a way that made them appealing to the fashion conscientious public. How this idea is any different than what forms the billion-dollar advertising industry is beyond me. I think Gladwell is trying to simplify and idea by ignoring the bigger picture. Advertisers dedicate their lives to study how to package products to make them appealing, but it is not as simple as making it “irresistible” to the public, as Gladwell states. The same concepts that works for the products Gladwell called sticky, such as Hush Puppies, could be applied the same way to a different product and it would not tip. The market and consumers are much more complex than the psychological tidbits Gladwell attempts to force upon them. If he went back to the same stores where the Hush Puppies trend began, he will find dozens of trends that only still exist in that limited market and never tipped. What made Hush Puppies sticky and not a different brand of shoes? On a similar note, Gladwell can look at dozens of trends that tipped for reasons that’s fall outside of his golden rules such as popular fashion designers, for example, or magazines such as Vogue. Trends are created and spread like wildfire after being introduces by one of these sources and psychology has little to do with it. People buy a new Louis Vitton bag because it’s an expensive status symbol, and they model their wardrobe after the spring lineup in Vogue for no other reason than because Vogue says so. Maybe certain products benefit from a stickiness factor, but most of the time it is less formulaic.

The final concept is The Law of Context is probably to most ridiculous and farfetched of the bunch. Once again Gladwell pushes the psychology button too far. He goes on about the Good Samaritan theory and the law of 150, both very interesting psychological concepts, but too widely applied to his underlying idea. The factor that does hold some water is his emphasis on the important of environmental factors and peer pressure. This applies perfectly to my ideas about The Hush Puppies tip. The Hush Puppy trend could only have tipped in Ney York during the mid-1990s, the environment was right for that trends to start end evolve, oh, if only this is what Gladwell means when he writes about environment. Nope, he has to make it much more complicated and less applicable. Gladwell explains that tiny differences in the environment have a greater impact than big changes. The example he uses is the crime epidemic, and how cleaning graffiti and making basic repairs decreased crime in New York City. That’s great and it is probably correct, but once again, is it relevant? The hipster atmosphere that surrounded the Hush Puppies movement may have contributed to the creation of the trend because it brought the trendy people together, but it cannot be credited for producing the trend or even catalyzing it. Despite taking up two chapters of the book I’m still not entirely sure what the Law of Context is. Which, I suppose is the underlying theme of the entire book: a lot of smart sounding writing with little substance. It is well researched, that is undeniable, but poorly executed. I think the problem lies in the fact that the concept was not clearly defined to start, so Gladwell, in his attempt to turn a half baked idea into a book, threw together as many facts as he could that sort of fit, and then sought out case studies that proved his “theories.” I look back to the cover of the book for some direction, “how little things can make a difference.” Yes, Gladwell, they can, of course they can, anyone who has spent any time thinking about life and how events come to be or events that have passed can tell you that, but the important question he failed to answer is how, why and if the little things are any more significant than the big ones.

Altogether, Gladwell’s ideas make an over-complicated how-to guide for sparking some trends and epidemics, but the book as a whole, I feel, fails at being relevant or meaningful. So, yes, well done Mr. Gladwell, if only you had included a chapter on how you got “The Tipping Point” to tip. Maybe then, wannabe authors with actually innovative ideas could get their work into the public eye.