Every now and then a friend points me to some massive missive I wrote them ages ago and waxes nostalgic or ironic about its contents. It seems I’ve written some pretty epic emails, a few of them practically have LOTR-style soundtracks.

Most recently, I was served up a beast from 2005 wherein I let off a little post-MA job hunting steam with a silly list of faux employment priorities. Given where I am in my career now, I thought it was hilarious to read what 2005 Liesl was jokingly looking for in her first “real” job.

Excerpted below in order of importance:

1. Kitsch Value.
No joke, I actually just applied for a proofreading position for Harlequin romances. My interview preparation will consist solely of earmarking the words “bosom” and “shaft” in my thesaurus.

2. Vacation Time.
“How much vacation time will I get?” is the very first question I ask in an interview. Answer usually generates prolonged sulk and desire to move to Europe.

3. Location
Namely proximity of work place to bouncy castles and/or derelict warehouses. A busy gal’s gotta get firearm practice in somehow.

4. Sexual Harassment Policy
Preferably weak to non-existent.

5. Dress Code
Ultra-casual: if I can’t wear My Little Pony flannel PJs to work, I’m not interested. Also, crossing my fingers for “Naked Fridays” (see item 4 above.)

6. Free Indoor Parking
I may not own a car, and I can’t even drive, but I need underground parking for illegal solicitation, loitering and shady political dealings.

7. Flexibility
Management that won’t complain when I decide to upgrade my cubicle to a hot tub with built-in entertainment unit and mini-trampoline (also, if there’s space, a sliding desk).

8. Salary
I refuse to accept anything that is not paid to me in cash, in a brown paper bag.

9. Benefits
I refuse to accept benefits that do not fit in a brown paper bag.

10. Office Supplies
Infinite stock of company branded brown paper bags.

…and then I go on to bemoan the dehumanizing experience of unemployment and drift into an in-depth study of the idiosyncratic germophobia and karaoke obsession of my then-roommate in Toronto.

It’s neat that there’s this prolonged period during which emails to friends are the best chronicle of my life. But now with social media, I’m not doing as much of the one-to-one longform messages. There are plus and down sides to this I suppose, but regardless (and as the period between my last blog post and this would not-so-subtly suggest) I know that I need to get back to some more writing.

Oh, I never did get an interview at Harlequin, but thanks to Roget I still know plenty of synonyms for “bosom.”

I saw this post and I must confess I’m a little jealous of Montreal developers. And not just because we’ve all seen “The Social Network” by now so the secret is out: development is clearly pure sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. Task lists include: line of code, line of coke, bang groupie in bathroom stall (if this is not actually the case, I’ll have to write an angry letter to Mr. Sorkin).

No, that’s not why I’m jealous today. It makes me somewhat annoyed that my softer skill discipline doesn’t lend itself to cool, Google or Facebook sanctioned competitions like hackathons. So as I told Dimitry Zolotaryov over at WebIT, I think a PM-athon is in order.

But let’s face it boys and girls, such a thing would probably consist of a track and field type obstacle course involving thrilling activities like the following:

1. Speed ballpark estimating

Making up numbers faster than you can count.

2. Phone tag tug of war

Congratulations, you now owe me a call!

3. Synchronized emailing

Blitzkrieg replying is an artform.

4. Hunting for resources

Is your SysAdmin on a smoke break, gone for lunch, working from home or hiding under someone else’s desk?

5. 15K PowerPoint presenting

Only one can survive this marathon boardroom long distance endurance event.
 
6. Competitive motivational nagging

Panel judging awards points based on strictly regimented criteria.

7. Downhill cost control

Wrangle that budget into shape!

8. Critical path jumping

Timeline too aggressive? Do you REALLY need specs? Make a few experimental changes to process and hope for the best.

9. Freestyle synonyms

For such turns of phrase as “How Long?”, “When?”, “Deadline” and “Change order”.

So what are you waiting for, PMI: let’s get on this!

Congratulations to Sad Baby Pumpkin (SBP) for having the WTF muscle to beat out all other contenders to win the iStock Comedy 3: Battle of Geddes-burg. You’d think that’d make SBP a little happier, but no….

It’s getting colder and darker, which can only mean it’s time for a little more iStock Comedy! You’ve voted on quite a few bizarre images in Vote for iStock Comedy & iStock Comedy 2: Royalty-free Revenge, but this time round I thought it’d be fun to tackle a theme.

So in this third instalment, I’m getting my own back for all the Facebook friends* who’ve basically turned my news feed into the social media equivalent of a coast-to-coast baby monitor. Seriously, if you scroll through my friend list, you’d think by the profile pic icons that I’ve been hanging out at an awful lot of daycare centres. So until FB develops baby recognition software, my retaliation is to offer up the weirdest stock baby photos for your voting pleasure.

*Are you my friend? Do you have an infant (or two)? Of course I couldn’t POSSIBLY mean you & yours. Your family is totally the exception, and without that 200th picture of your baby eating creamed spinach I couldn’t possibly have wrapped my head around the sheer, overwhelming cuteness. It’s all those OTHER Facebook friends cluttering up my feed with bonnets, bottles & babies…

Here’s a recap on how iStock Comedy works:

Every now and then, you’ll perform a routine search for royalty-free images on iStockphoto.com and a little gem of WTF comedy gold springs up on your screen. I am certainly not the first to identify silly stock photos, but these will be my methods:

1. You get to vote for your favourite! (Poll closes on Sunday, October 31at 11:59 PM, because I celebrate Halloween with creepy iStock goodness). Post your reasons/debate the virtues of your pick in the comments.
2. Images that try too hard or are purposefully “silly” (e.g. people making stupid faces) are disqualified.
3. I purchase the images (where I can, sometimes weird iStock photographers demand exorbitant numbers of credits) because stuff this awesome deserves to be freed of watermarks.

So without further ado, here are the strangest iStock baby photos I’ve seen. Bear in mind that contributors want these images to be profitable and sell, why else would they be on iStock? So the greater the absurdity and the less marketable the image, the funnier it is.

Name: Baby in Puppy Dog Costume

iStock Photo Description: Feeding time for the puppy.

Downloads: 10

Select Keywords: Baby, Costume, Dog, Halloween, Child, Puppy, Dog Food, Pet Food, Dog Bowl, Feeding, Spotted, Animals Feeding, Pets

Why Vote For It:

• Um… because it’s a baby in a puppy dog costume!
• Finally settles bottle vs. breastfeeding debate: dog bowl FTW
• “Spot” must be among top 100 baby names of 2010
• Bone = perfect teething solution

What’s Holding it Back:

• Not yet housetrained
• Cruelly turned down by the SPCA Adoption Centre
• In all its weirdness, it’s still pretty cute

Name: Angel Fairy Baby with Wings and Flowers Isolated on White

iStock Photo Description: Cute baby with wings and floral tiara, surrounded by flowers..

Downloads: 9

Select Keywords: Baby, Fairy, Flower, Single Flower, Angel, Costume, Crown, Sadness, Tiara, Artificial Wing, Child, Cherub

Why Vote For It:

• Angel + Fairy + Baby + Wings + Flowers yet still somehow resulted in an adorable FAIL
• Palpable awkwardness & discomfort
• All that pixie dust and “Sadness” is still a keyword…

What’s Holding it Back:

• That baby does NOT want to be in the shot
• There’s an angry little old lady somewhere missing a whole pile of plastic flowers
• Future therapy bills & lawsuit

Name: Young Boy Holding Skull

iStock Photo Description: Young caucasian boy holding large skull

Downloads: 1 (i.e. only mine)

Select Keywords: Baby, Costume, Bizarre, Spooky, People, Clothing, Halloween, Mausoleum, Nasal Cavity, Human Jaw Bone, Eye Socket

Why Vote For It:

• Because “eye socket” HAS to be a popular search query
• Baby’s face reads front-page tragedy, skull reads post-Halloween Dollarama bargain bin

What’s Holding it Back:

• Piltdown Man precedent may raise suspicions over skull authenticity
• Skeleton hoodie in poor taste, dented skull’s feelings
• Oral hygiene clearly a problem for the deceased
• Fog machine juice running dangerously low…

Name: Little Baker

iStock Photo Description: little boy in the cook costume at the kitchen sitting on the table. Special toned photo f/x

Downloads: >20

Select Keywords: Chef, Baby, Child, Cooking, Domestic Kitchen, Food, Bakery, Bread, Small, Offspring, People, Hat, Eggs, Milk

Why Vote For It:

• Babies caught making apple pie late at night are way better than those lazy, sleeping babies
• More hygienic than cartoon rat chefs
• Crisp, clean uniform

What’s Holding it Back:

• That flour pile is a storm just waiting to happen…
• Surprise is for the weak, babies should expect pesky parental interruption at any time

Name: Infant in a Pumpkin

iStock Photo Description: This is my daughter in a pumpkin I carved last year. In this image she is 1 month old and as content as a child in a pumpkin can be.

Downloads: 20

Select Keywords: Halloween, Child, Baby, Costume, Pumpkin, Autumn, Jack O’ Lantern, Toddler, Babies Only, Baby Girls, Trick Or Treat

Why Vote For It:

• Photographer’s description confesses to blatantly using own daughter for iStock profit
• Similar to those “how many squares do you spot in this image?” quizzes, only with jack o’ lanterns!
• Jack Skellington is clearly her father, and he’s pretty bad-ass
• It bears repeating, “she is 1 month old and as content as a child in a pumpkin can be.”

What’s Holding it Back:

• Not quite Halloween enough. Needs additional pumpkin(s).
• Daughter realizes embarrassing photos of her not only all over Internet, but sold as royalty-free images = easily won emancipation suit

Name: Sad Baby Pumpkin

iStock Photo Description: Sad little Baby Pumpkin, can’t find his way back to the pumpkin field.

Downloads: 10

Select Keywords: pumpkin, sad, baby, halloween, decoration, antique-looking, ceramic

Why Vote For It:

• Part baby face, part pumpkin, all sad!
• By the sacred tenets of gang tattoo symbolism, Sad Baby Pumpkin has killed 2 people: you don’t mess with SBP!
• Takes Anne Geddes to the next level of creepy anthropomorphism
• Reminiscent of first iStock contender, Sad Orange
• Definitely has the WTF Factor

What’s Holding it Back:

• People keep mistaking him for a vegetable, making fruity Sad Baby Pumpkin (SBP) even sadder
• “Pumpkin field” (as opposed to patch) destroyed in fire, SBP will never find his way back

And that’s it! Vote now, and remember to check back after Halloween to find out which iStock baby picture wins!

For those of you wondering (and there are fewer of you each day, Google tells me), I have not been blackmailed into silence by the Interacting with Print secret society. And the less said about my absence, the better (the interwebs are brimming with ‘Oh blog, how I neglected thee!’ posts.) Suffice it to say that: new job (loving it!) + warm-weather-induced-social-life-ressurection (ditto!) = blatant blog neglect.

So, moving on…

I Tought I Taw…

Today, I was delighted to Facebook-stalk upon a series of pictures from a guerilla project manned by a friend of mine and cohorts. It involved sprinkling a series of tweeting birds across their NYC Nolita neighborhood. But it really has to be seen to be appreciated:

From what I gather the endeavor was based in pure “why not?” whimsy, and to me it evokes a kind of tongue-in-cheek, absurd and literalist observation of the kind of amusing, disposable ephemera with which we clutter our digital world invading and occupying an actual little corner somewhere. 

I’m struck by how many fun, cheeky, hard copy leave-behind operations occur in cities worldwide. Sometimes there’s a greater purpose like the DARPA Network Challenge (if by greater purpose you mean a nice cheque for finding 10.1% of Nena’s stash), sometimes it’s the brainchild of a roomful of marketers, but the most intriguing exist for their own sake and some even ride the meme wave all the way and develop a viral life of their own (Bacon, anyone?)

Barking Up the Right Tree

All the while I think there’s the underlying notion that for all we talk of a digital, virtual, soft copy world, ever-evolving with the release of each new i-product, we still love the real deal. On a rainy day (or after viewing The Story of Stuff) I may even argue that our rampant consumerism grows from an increasing, almost fetishistic desire to stamp out a brick & mortar impact in an increasingly abstract world.   

The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Proliferation

Working in digital media, and living in an online world, it’s easy to get caught up in the virtual aspects of what we do and how we live. So easy, in fact, that it becomes refreshing and exhilerating to experience a work articulated in actual space. Particularly a work of social or political commentary, which have become the content mainstays of the blogo-twitter-insertnewfad-o-spheres.

When I think about efforts like the Tweetie birds, I often wonder what Walter Benjamin would think about the work of art in the digital age. In his 1935 essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, he describes how the aura of a piece withers in reproduction, divorcing mass-produced copies from the ritual, meaning and intent of the original, and becoming ideal vehicles for political ideology.

Keepin’ It Real

The world wide web being what it is, with each new Facebook/Twitter recruit or company determined to churn out post after post to play the SEO game, sometimes we have to realize that Content isn’t always King. Sometimes Content is Clutter. In fact, more often than not, it’s clutter. And the more of us generating it and splashing it around the series of tubes, the more meaningful NOT mediating your experience can be (so put your recording device down and actually watch the concert, why don’t you?)

So while I acknowledge I’d only know of the Tweetie birds because of dear mother internet (she pays my bills, gives me ideas and tucks me in at night), I wish I could have stumbled across them the old-fashioned way: a cute little day-brightening discovery in the midst of my standard routine.

As my Facebook friends would surely confirm, I’m hardly one for shameless self-promotion (luckily for that last statement, I don’t import my blog posts on FB…)

But when others promote me it seems only fair to supplement their efforts. So here’s a QDF Press Release:

At the Katharine Hepburn Tribute on May 13, held at the Atwater Library, Byron Toben announced the winners of [the Montreal One-act Play] award, opened for submissions in January 2010 and closing March 31. The theme was Montreal or environs written in a film noir style.

After much deliberation, the prize of $360 was split between two tied entrants.

They are: Liesl Barrell for One Night in Berlin and Jane Gilchrist for Fatal Error

Ms Barrell’s play has its resolution in Montreal, although the entanglements originated in Berlin. It was mounted to some acclaim at the 2008 Montreal Fringe Festival (the parameters of the award did not preclude previous staging).

Ms.Gilchrist’s play, written in February and March, has its entanglements originating in Kentucky (!), but resolved in Montreal’s Loyola district.

On the short list were: Kelly Horwarth for In Debted Bliss, Jessica LaFrance/Andrew Smith for The Complicated, Travis Henry Morgan for The Mad Hatter, Megan Piercy for Lone, John Udy for Film Noir Play.

All kidding about promotion aside, it’s awfully nice to be read and recognized at any level (no matter how niche or local), especially so long after producing the play.

And it warms my heart to know that there are others out there who enjoy the sordid imaginings of noir as much as I do, and would go to the trouble of encouraging writers to embrace their cynicism and twisted inner voice over narration. 

So thank you Byron Toben, QDF and company for this lovely gesture! It put a little spring in my step and has me thinking about all sorts of new projects on the horizon…

Today (March 24) the blogosphere honours Ada Lovelace, considered the first ever computer programmer (and daughter of poofy-shirted poet Byron, no less). Charles Babbage nicknamed her The Enchantress of Numbers, and she kicked algorithmic ass for his Analytical Engine back in the pre-natal days of computing.

A Web of One’s Own

But what’s really neat about the movement, is that participants pledge to honour a woman they admire (in blog posts, tweets, etc.) for achievements in science and/or technology in celebration of Ada’s life and work. They can then submit their hommage to the findingada.com database and entries are catalogued and mapped out, all in an effort to spotlight the oft-downplayed contributions of women in these fields.

The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth

For my tribute, I picked local champion Tanya McGinnity, founder of the Montreal chapter of the Girl Geek Dinners (find a group near you: there are 60 worldwide and counting…) Not only because she’s a project manager in tech circles that I admire, but because she uses her considerable community-building experience to bring bright, talented and geeky women together to share knowledge and make connections.

“Definitely Does Compute”

I’ve only been going to the Girl Geek Dinners (GGD) since November, and I can’t believe how much I have learned or how many engaged and amazing people I’ve met through the events in such a relatively short time (Interactive Storytelling in Video Games! WordPress Tutorial!) As the only woman in my web firm for nearly two years, it’s been a treat to meet so very many other tech-friendly lasses (and a few lads, too). In fact, some of the events draw close to a hundred people (where do they all come from?)  I always leave feeling enriched and inspired (so I was rather bummed that I missed this week’s instalment), and that’s no accident…

A Lil’ Punk in the Trunk

It takes real commitment, drive and Thatchers to put on events this successful, draw the right speakers and reach out to build an audience, and Tanya does it because she is clearly passionate about building a better network for women in the tech community. As she says on her blog:

I come out of the punk rock scene and believe that when people fall down in the moshpit, you pick them up and help them out. I believe that you can do it yourself, without the help of a big label backing you up. I believe that we are all need to share and collaborate in order to truly be fulfilled.

She works hard to make Montreal a more hospitable place for girl geeks, and it’s Tanya’s plucky moshpit philosophy that makes me (and doubtless many others) feel like we’re not at it alone, that there’s a tangible community behind us. That sugar and spice might just be the sweet smell of success in the digital age.

Math Isn’t Hard

Tanya has exciting plans to reach out even further, to inspire school-aged girls to take another look at careers in web, gaming, engineering and other geeky fields.You can follow her on Twitter or join the MTL Girl Geek Dinner group on Facebook.

I for one can’t wait to see what she has in store next, for April’s GGD and for the group as a whole.

I have to say, I really do appreciate a good 404 page (“Page Not Found” messages that are usually lame, but are occasionally very awesome…) It turns a mild nuisance into an Easter egg: it’s like  uncovering a little bundle of buried treasure on your quest for the Contact page (or whatever has moved/is missing/etc.) It makes me happy to stumble across one of these gems, as I did during lunch, when I landed on this cute Future Shop error page.

So I looked up some classic and creative 404s, and while I can see how an imaginative Page Not Found could occasionally be the result of rogue programming, the best ones are creative, thought-provoking and on-message as a representation of a brand, whether personal or corporate (South Park’s “Son of a Bitch! Where’s My Page?” and the Future Shop 404 being good examples).

But I have to admit, I can’t think of 404s anymore without getting a mental image of a firetruck, thanks to the folks at Very Demotivational. In fact, the other day I saw a 405 firetruck in downtown Montreal, and I was relieved to know the fire that was called in had a +1 chance of being found.

You may have noticed my posts have dwindled to once a week as of late. Of course you noticed, it makes you angrier than a piechart missing recovered profits… Well, there is a reason for the cruel halving of my post time, and the reason is actually rather awesome: it’s First Person Digital.

Thatchers Abound

Frequent viewers of Stephen Colbert will likely be familiar will his concept of “lady balls,” or “Thatchers”, named after some dude who ran Britain for a while (thanks to Sophie for the link). Well, the folks over at the NFB and Studio XX are celebrating true-blue storytelling cojones by offering grants for six multimedia, new media and/or intermedia projects with budgets of $5-$25,000  helmed by brassy Quebec women. It doesn’t get much more awesome than that, if you ask me.

Boys Allowed

Despite the gyno-friendly concept, mixed gender teams are encouraged, and a preference appears to be given to work with a clear purpose (bonus points for socially conscious initiatives), innovative use of interactive technology and, above all, the desire and ability to craft narratives that make an impact.

Creating Content for Change

This afternoon First Person Digital held a wonderful online seminar with Erica Priggen of Free Range Studios, producers of such viral favourites as The Meatrix, The Story of Stuff and The Good Life. The talk was held online specifically to reduce her carbon footprint, which shows that “creativity with a conscious” is more than a tagline over at Free Range.

While her presentation raised many salient points (including one of the most succinct explanations of broadcast vs. narrowcast I’ve heard), my favourite part was where she outlined and defined the phases of a viral piece as: Message, Choir, Persuadables, Public. The first goal of a message-driven viral piece is to reach the choir, the people who preach that same message and have been waiting for the right summation in story form to share their values with their friends (the Persuadables). From there, the piece makes its way to the general public and develops a life of its own (which she admitted can occasionally be difficult to watch if the piece is politicized or torn apart, as Glenn Beck and other right-wing conservatives attempted with anti-American/consumerist accusations against The Story of Stuff).

Choose Your Own Adventure

It was a joy to hear Erica talk about modern myth-making and interactive storytelling, but an even greater joy to network with a room full of dynamic, energized media professionals from diverse backgrounds, all armed to the teeth with innovative and amazing ideas. I don’t know how the First Person Digital juries will narrow their selections down, based on some of the project snapshots I heard floating around today.

As you’ve probably guessed, I’m among those applying for a grant for a side project with a good friend and collaborator, which is why I’m down to posting once a week until March 1 (I know, it’s sad: but necessary). What does our project involve? Well, I’ll describe it more in detail over the next few weeks, but for now let’s say it’s a hyperdrama that combines live performance, multimedia (film, music and dance) and social media to tell the age-old story of boy meets girl (online); 10 years later, they meet for real…

Well, the Angry Piechart takes the cake this iStock Comedy round, with 43% of the votes. Hope you all had a wonderful Valentine’s Day, preferably chock full of Recovered Profits, Cross-dressing Dads and Naked Astronauts.

The Slacker Sitebuilder

I noticed dimitryz was having some fun playing around with a new beta product called flavors.me, so I had to jump in and see what it was all about. They provide a simple tool to “create an elegant website using personal content from around the internet.” I’m always intrigued by a product that sells itself on the notion of solving our fragmentation problems, so I tried it out and it made me think about the promise of consolidation in an increasingly micro-happy www.

Advantages

Over time, many of us have accumulated multiple social media accounts and while there have been free integration options for the average user to consolidate all this personal activity in one spot, they tended to be either:

• Part of a more intense site-building platform (WordPress/Drupal plug-ins, out-of-the-box solutions like Weebly, etc.) so if you don’t have the patience or energy to start or maintain a site: no consolidation for you!

Flavors.me advantage: Love Facebook? Can’t stop tweeting? Post lots of Flickr pics? Sell stuff on Etsy? Would friends keeping up with you get a serious case of Web 2.0 Whiplash? You’re all over the place, but you never set up Home (or you did, but you abandoned it for lack of time/motivation). Starting a blog or a site of your own is work (so is finding the right publishing option because there are so many out there it’s overwhelming). Pulling multiple microblogging and publishing tools together with flavours.me acts as a simple personal website that puts the micro stuff front and centre to tie everything in without tying you down to higher maintenance content updates. So if you’d rather tweet or update a status than create a page or a post, flavors.me may be home sweet home.

• Part of a single social media tool (e.g. integrating your Twitter feed or blog on Facebook), useful to a certain extent, but the ultimate goal of the provider is to get people spending more time using their service (Facebook), not to promote your multiple channels on a level playing field. So if you want to do it properly, you’re cross-feeding as much as you can on all these individual channels. And, again, if you don’t have a website or blog of your own, these efforts still don’t achieve the cohesion you may want from a “Home.”

Flavors.me advantage: As an aggregator, flavors.me is out to promote consolidating all these other publishing/networking tools, so it’s not directly in competition with them for those functions (at least, not at this stage of their business plan). While Facebook and Twitter keep trying to find ways to get “stickier,” both for publishing and gathering information, flavors.me is more in competition with free sitebuilding tools, weighing in as the slacker’s sitebuilder: slap up a bio and choose your design options/services and forget about it… Instant, low maintenance dynamically-updated Home Page!

SEOtastic

And, of course there’s the added SEO value of yet another online page with your name in the page title, linking to all your online soap boxes, large and small, in one crawltastic sweet spot. Have multiple professional blogs? Multiple Twitter accounts? Artistic ventures? Flavors.me is a simple and effective way to help search engines connect those dots and produce a simple, interactive business card, with nary a post or widget in sight.

A Little ‘Me’s Time

For me, right now I would only add two services to my flavors.me account (which hardly seems worth it, right?) for my blog and my LinkedIn profile. That’s because I wouldn’t feed my Facebook statuses and pictures onto a publicly accessible page and I don’t want to give my theatre site the same prominence as my professional stuff. And while I concede I will eventually start a professional Twitter account, I’m still knee-deep in my content plan for this blog, so I’m not there yet. While the concept of a single lifestream may appeal in theory, in practice, users may use the service to consolidate various streams into separate hubs. The heaviest users of social media are creating streams for various projects, hobbies, professional services, alter egos, etc. So if I’m into hockey and publish a host of puck-in-net-related content across platforms, and my day job is as a graphic designer, so I publish about design stuff across multiple channels, too, I may want one flavors.me page for the hockey.me and one for the designer.me, and so on, ad nauseum for all the different ‘me’s for which I have time. Flavors.me offers a quick and easy way to brand your different projects, brands, businesses, artistic stuff, etc by reeling in all the related feeds in one spot. So flavors.me‘s consolidation pitch of lifestreaming is good, but if you consolidate multiple streams, you’ll still end up with multiple “Homes” for your multiple online personalities.

What of this lifestreaming business, then?

Stream Trap

The Singularity

Seeing as much of this technology promises to make us feel connected, not just with others, but collating the different elements of our own lives and personalities, many are trying to be “the one”: the site or service that brings it all together for you in that single grand narrative. However, there are plenty of career options and personality types we can think of for whom the lifestreaming concept (in its purest form) would not be appropriate (the extremely shy/reclusive: RIP J.D. Salinger, teachers at almost every level, lawmakers, etc.). There are also people for whom it’s possible, but ultimately the best use of channels, networks and streams always come back to identity, self-marketing, and comfort levels, and, well, to each their own. And all these digital platforms trying to sell us on connectedness from the net’s infancy to now has produced a fascinating zeitgeist of championing the network over the medium or the message.

The Stream Dream

Though there are some fervent social media butterflies out there testing the furthest limits of lifestreaming, most users intuitively understand that the point isn’t to get ALL of your life online, but to use these tools to achieve certain very specific goals. For most of us, that involves projecting one (or many) side(s) of our identities using one or more of these networking and publishing tools. So the question becomes, which sides to consolidate? If you’re like me, you’ve clearly delineated your private web life (for me that’s Facebook, but some people use Twitter, blogs, etc. for personal-only purposes) from your professional web life (LinkedIn, blogs, Twitter, etc.) and use social media in a way that maintains that separation. I don’t know very many people who can participate in lifestreaming in its purest form, nor do I think it is the best way for most of us to market ourselves.

Projecting Yourself

It’s one of the things I am wary of about services that encourage young people to blur the line between their professional and private selves with a single lifestream as they go through school and enter the job market. Not all of them think of shifting or changing this strategy over time. Sometimes maintaining lines with multiple streams is the best way to brand yourself and reach the right audience for each one. To borrow from corporate or business-speak, it’s kinda like horizontal v.s. vertical integration: if you’re vertically integrated (your interests, work, hobbies are all very inter-related), a single lifestream may work for you, but if you’re more horizontal or lateral like me (have a diversity of interests across what many see as disparate worlds, even if you don’t), multiple streams will likely suit you best.

Stream of Unconsciousness

For those who flinch at Facebook or turn away from Twitter, the idea of lifestreaming seems to be precisely what irks them about all the 2.0 noise out there. To these very particular luddites, each new 2.0 venture sounds more ludicrous than the last (here’s looking at you, Blippy!) and the casual throwing about of more and more microcontent and personal information is more plague than viral. For them, flavors.me will be just yet another blight on the net, tying in the flotsam and jetsam that they proudly proclaim not to care about. I actually meet a surprising number of my peers who feel this way, and I do understand an aversion to virtualizing your social self. Every now and then I go on a media diet in an effort to focus more on real-world face time. It can get overwhelming, and these services are designed to become as sticky as possible, to slowly encroach on your time more and more. But that’s how all media has always competed for our attention, so striking a balance between our media diets and our real lives is hardly a new phenomenon (though the interactive component certainly raises the addiction level).

I’d Like to Buy a Vowel

Unsurprisingly, my biggest issue with flavors.me is that they opted for the American spelling of flavour (thus forcing me to proof this post more than usual) and haven’t at least secured the domain and established a redirect for the British spelling. In an age where so many of these services drop one or more vowels altogether, maybe they should have gone with flavr or flava instead of putting all their eggs in a regional spelling basket.

Check it Out

If you want to play, too, go to http://flavors.me/, submit your email address and click on “notify me.” You’ll receive instructions on how to sign up (incidentally, this process isn’t very clear from their write-up, which makes it seem like the service is available by invitation-only). You can then set up a page in less than 5 minutes, whether you like the concept of lifestreaming or not.

Every now and then, you’ll perform a routine search for royalty-free images on iStockphoto.com and a little gem of WTF comedy gold springs up on your screen. I am certainly not the first to identify silly stock photos, but these will be my methods:

1. You get to vote for your favourite! (Poll closes on February 13 at 11:59 PM, because I [heart] iStock Comedy this Valentine’s Day). Post your reasons/debate the virtues of your pick in the comments (or suggest your own contender, if you dare).
2. Images that try too hard or are flagged as “silly” (e.g. people making stupid faces) are not considered.
3. I purchase the images (where I can, though this installment had two pricey numbers) because stuff this awesome deserves to be freed of watermarks.

So without further ado, here are three of the strangest iStock photos I’ve seen since last time. Bear in mind that contributors want these images to be profitable and sell, why else would they be on iStock? So the greater the absurdity, and the less marketable the image, the funnier it is.

Name: Recovered Profits

iStock Photo Description: Piecharts are indicators of the profits or losses in businesses. The angry piechart represents the losses that suffocate us. The pawn [with a piechart piece under his arm] and the queen have recovered a part of the investment thanks to their ability and efficiency.

Downloads: 8

Select Keywords: Chess, Pie Chart, Businessman, Business, Blue

Why Vote For It:

• Has the production values of an episode of Square One TV
• Makes little sense without the description
• Chess + Business + Pac-Man Nod + Statistics = Mixed Metaphor Win!
• Infinite chessboard for super long chase sequence
• Pawn looks awfully chuffed with himself
• 2 Credits makes this an affordable iStock find

What’s Holding it Back:

• Stakeholders unimpressed with stolen piechart piece’s impact on bottom line
• Angry Piechart moves into bargaining stage of grief, proves better negotiator than chess pieces

Name: Cross-dressing Dad

iStock Photo Description: Family gets shock when they return from the shopping trip.

Downloads: 4

Select Keywords: Change, Guilt, Cross Dressing, Humor, Embarrassment, Sexual Activity, Surprise, Lifestyles, Family…

Why Vote For It:

• Cartoonish pyramid of protected eyes
• Dad rocking his look just a tad more than mum
• Explains every awkward family dinner iStock photo
• Clothes piled in the left corner suggests Dad’s normal attire reassuringly butch

What’s Holding it Back:

• Conservative America
• Shame
• 20 Credits: That’s enough to make a cross-dressing dad want to burn his borrowed bra!

Name: Naked Astronaut

iStock Photo Description: Photo of an astronaut standing naked in a barren wasteland, covering himself with an American flag.

Downloads: 9

Select Keywords: Astronaut, Bonneville Salt Flats, Desert, Landscape, American Flag, Humor, Environment, Space Helmet …

Why Vote For It:

• Two words: Naked Astronaut
• All the pride of “I’ve conquered this for America!” meets all the shame of the standard-issue naked-for-school-assembly nightmare
• Spaceman fighting losing battle against The Elements
• Shiny, bulbous helmet
• Intriguing combo of space/birthday suit
• Oddity potentially spacey enough to lure Bowie back to the bi side

What’s Holding it Back:

• 20 Credits: That’s 10 Angry Piecharts/Recovered Profits!
• HAL
• Modesty: let that freak flag fly, Mr. Astronaut!
• Worse NASA hazing rituals to come

And that’s it! Vote now, and remember to check back on Valentine’s day to find out which iStock gem stole our hearts!

The fight for funding to superimpose the digital paradign onto print continues! Mitch Joel, of Montreal marketing agency Twist Image, unleashed this gem on his blog. This time the offenders are at Stanford, where they are mapping out communications between 18th century writers (presumably in a bid to convince Voltaire to join Twitter posthumously) using very pretty colours, delivering epic screensavers that still manage to bore your socks off.

The “dots” or “letters,” do move rather nicely through the lines or “communication channels,” and “principal investigator” is a pretty kick-ass title for Edelstein, I must say. 

Said the world, “wasn’t it content we crowned king?” Well, turning content into dots makes us focus on the really important thing, here: writers of the past had friends, apparently. And in some cases, they even had more than one. And hey, with Twitter rebranding their offering as Information Networking, perhaps we will stop caring about either the medium or the message, and start focusing on the network. At the very least, this Stanford venture has the kind of “enduring” appeal of such Facebook apps as Friend Wheel, billed as a “Wheely Good Friend Visualiser.”

Considering this got a green light, things are looking up for me to receive funding for my upcoming project, “Early Modern Marital Dynamics: It’s Complicated – The Tweeting of the Shrew” in which I plot the relationship statuses of major Jacobean and Elizabethan figures over time using a kind of Ur-Facebook made by carving out of the remains of Bebo.

By now, even if you live alone on a small unnetworked island in the Caribbean, you’ve probably heard about yesterday’s breast cancer social marketing campaign that had women (and a few men, thanks lads!) posting the colour of their bra (or in some cases, the lack thereof).

Millions whimsically played along, while a few detractors grumbled in the corner. Then, there was the usual round of aftershockers who (perhaps because they missed out on the first-round fun) posted socially aware messages in lieu of hues (donate here, post this instead, breastfeeding is good, etc.) Some criticized the campaign for deliberately locking men out of the fun (and perpetuating the incorrect assumption that only ladies get breast cancer), and many cultivated semi-mock outrage over the triviality of the campaign. What’s the point? How does this help? Right! Stop that, it’s silly. Very silly indeed.

Well, as we’re all trying to out-goose each other, I’d like to add my own ridiculous complaint to the mix:

What is up with the poor selection of bras on the market?

‘Black, blue, pink, red, beige, white and none,’ read the statuses in my feed…

What, no puce? No battleship grey, Bondi blue, burnt umber, goldenrod, vermillion or wallflower? It’s enough to make a girl want to burn the darn thing.

Do I fault the imaginations of women the world over or should I start sending letters to Victoria’s Secret? They should take a cue from cosmetics companies (now there is an industry clearly in possession of cutting edge synonym technology).

Social Investigation

Clearly, getting women to mention their unmentionables was a much-needed inquiry into the sad state of affairs that is the average lingerie line-up. All this cunningly disguised as an awareness campaign for… I forget.

But at least we can trust whoever got the ball rolling to take action: we’ve done our part, now lobby those retail giants into a greater spectrum of colours in their palettes!

Periwinkle.

One of the only good things about being stuck in two airports and a plane this holiday season, was that I got to read the current issue of Wired cover to cover in one sitting (in addition to completing many crosswords, notes on my content plan for this blog, listening to music, and staring intently at the boarding gate and every agent daring to man it). In particular, I enjoyed a lovely nostalgia piece by Scott Brown on Homestar Runner.

As I twiddled my thumbs in a seat by the gate and slowly dozed off into my bundled-up down jacket, it occurred to me that the end of 2009 has brought about more cumulative net nostalgia than I’ve ever experienced.

The World Wide Wonder Years

Holding hands and skipping down memory lane with the collective web unconscious started for me in October, with Yahoo shutting Geocities down, and the fitting xkcd tribute to the free site building and hosting service that so very many of my generation (myself included) used to launch a maiden voyage on the ol’ Information Superhighway.

Happy Birthday, Dear Internet!

Just three days later the last of a seemingly endless string of 40th anniversary landmarks for the internet was celebrated, with the microblogosphere all humming “Happy Birthday” and a lovely interview with Leonard Kleinrock on CNN. In it, Kleinrock perpetuates a sweet bit of mythopoeia that magically transforms the first word sent via network from the rather mundane “log” to “lo” (of “…and behold” fame.) He gets away with it because, as this hilarious classic CBC clip of the 80s/90s reminds us, “Internet” is pretty amazing.

Blasts from the UI Past

On the same day as Uranium Interactive posted this adorable flashback Christmas card (note to unilingual readers: it’s in French, but you will get it, and it’s well worth the click), The Onion releases the following video, a glorious piece of web jetsam that hyperlinked its way across the series of tubes at an astonishing rate (if my feeds are anything to go by…)

Internet Archaeologists Find Ruins Of ‘Friendster’ Civilization

Rest In Peace

Along with losing Geocities, a whole slew of sites became fodder for the Wayback machine in 2009. As sites have competed for online survival of the fittest, it’s amazing how much people get attached to a certain UI or look & feel. There’s something so visceral about interactive media that takes nostalgia and resistance to change to a new level (just look at the complaints in your feed the next time Facebook tweaks its UI or rolls out a new feature).

Put on The Neverending Story and I’ll get misty eyed, but load up Super Mario 3 on a DS and there’s nothing like finding that first warp whistle… With online experiences, the stickiest sites of yesteryear hold such fond memories because the joys of using, frequenting and interacting with them are part of a slowly fragmenting and shifting experience: navigating a site in its native environment.

Boulevard of Broken Memes

Content is now broken down and cast adrift as digital flotsam on the high seas of blogs, social media, apps, aggregators, etc. The sites we interact with for hours on end are reducing to a core (Facebook, Twitter, Readers, News sites, Google, etc.), many of which are becoming “too big to fail” (but like AIG, it doesn’t guarantee they won’t be the next MySpace). And as they homogenize, the UI differences, quirks and design elements that distinguished older sites from one another are no longer as disparate. While the semantic web is still a while a way, I think the 3.0 shift will eventually have us remembering Web 2.0 more holistically than we recall individual 1.0 sites now.

Pining for the Adored

So what makes me nostalgic? Well, there are so many sites and software, and so little time to write. So I’ll save some of them for a new day. But for now, I’d have to say that hearing the ICQ foghorn or uh-oh! message alert takes me right back to the days when a shrill squeal from your modem was the happy sound of successfully launching a new mission in cyberspace…

Last year over 30,000 people took the A List Apart 2008 survey, and they published the rather interesting results.

Of course, considering it’s an opt-in, global survey, last year’s results are rather skewed (respondents are heavy on the male developer side, for example). But over time, this project can only help us better understand the differences in approach, corporate structure and hiring practices for web-related fields across the world, so it’s in our best interests to spread the word across digital disciplines and industries.

More data will make this survey a more accurate representation of the people who make websites (or those who consult/write/engineer to make them that much more awesome). So if that’s what you do, whether you’re a writer, developer, PM, designer, consultant or jack/jill-of-all-web-trades you should take five minutes to fill it out.

While at McGill recently, I walked by a poster still advertising a seminar long since passed entitled Reading and Writing: How Young French Women Interacted with Print in the Eighteenth Century. Now, the research and subject matter interest me greatly: as a media/communications junkie I can’t get enough of debates about the evolution in the way we work, think and live through paradigm shifts (orality < print culture < digital < ???)

But that seminar title really rubs me the wrong way and exemplifies some of the common criticisms of academic study that I hear all too often in the ordinary and business worlds.

Literal, much?

Yes, I can see by the write-up that the seminar itself delves deeper, but the title suggests a depressingly literal approach to the medium. Isn’t it one of the small marvels of the universe that what we’re doing (sitting in a dark room with a bunch of strangers staring at a screen) and what we’re experiencing (James Cameron’s feeble attempt to steal District 9‘s crown as most kick-ass allegorical film of 2009) can be so very different? So why the “Reading and Writing” prefix if your thesis is going to explore how the ideas these women exchanged in space were vastly more interesting than the rote physical activities society assumed were all they had on their agendas?

Passion, please!

Call me old-fashioned, by I like my academia with the kind of near-inhuman levels of obsession and personal investment that pose a serious threat to personal hygiene. Reading about Indonesian fire toads may be dull as dishwater, but all that can change when you hear someone talk about that topic as if it were their raison d’être. If there’s one thing I learned from an academic environment, it’s that being passionate about what you do is often as important as what you’re doing. Just as “Eating and Drinking: Consumption in Nineteenth Century France” does little to convey the wonder of fine French cuisine, so does that seminar title. You can go for dry without completely desiccating your subject…

I’m actually really looking forward to following the Interacting with Print Research Group, even if they cut off their coverage at 1900 just when things start getting fun with the rise of newspapers and early film… But I do hope their future seminar topics, titles, descriptions and content are as media savvy as they should be, without such obvious bids for relevance.

• Green apple in a sea of red apples = standing out from the crowd
• Man on top of cliff with outstretched arms = freedom
• A bigillion generic (but culturally diverse!) pictures of business people

Every now and then, you’ll perform a routine search for images and a little iStock gem of WTF comedy gold springs up on your screen. I am certainly not the first to identify silly stock photos, but these will be my methods:

1. You get to vote for your favourite! (Poll closes on Dec. 24 at 11:59 PM). Post your reasons/debate the virtues of your pick in the comments (or suggest your own contender, if you dare).
2. Images that are flagged as “silly” (e.g. people making stupid faces) cannot count.
3. I purchase the images (where I can, “Eat” being a notable exception) because stuff this awesome deserves to be freed of watermarks.

So without further ado, here are five of the strangest iStock photos I’ve seen in recent weeks. Bear in mind that the funniest are the most random or obscure because contributors want these images to be profitable and sell, why else would they be on iStock? (Note: the download count includes my own.)

Name: Sad Orange

iStock Photo Description: Fork put into an orange with sad face.

Downloads: 5

Select Keywords: Orange, Depression, Sadness, Metal, Pierced, Aggression, Problems, Peel, Fork …

Why Vote For It:

• It’s having a bad day
• Literal description
• Highest number of downloads = most profitable
• White background for easy editing & manipulation
• Fork = maverick utensil for orange consumption

What’s Holding it Back:

• Clinical depression
• Nasty wounds

Name: The dragon has three heads

iStock Photo Description: Three headed dragon made of sausages.

Downloads: 2

Select Keywords: Sausage, Isolated, Food, Fun, Dragon, Food And Drink, Meal, Meat, Snack, Humor, Food And Drink Industry…

Why Vote For It:

• Horse, yes. Dog, sure. Dragon: bit of a stretch.
• Regardless, “The dragon has three heads” is a kick-ass name!
• Wiener Cerberus = Trailer trash spin on classic mythology
• No expense spared: multiple sausages used to create masterwork of wurst (masterwurst?)

What’s Holding it Back:

• Uninspired keywords (could corner the ever-popular “tri-headed sausage” search)
• Vegetarianism
• Second head infected with Beeblebroxitis

Name: Eat

iStock Photo Description: Happy future of food industry and general consumerism.

Downloads: 1

Select Keywords: Pharmacy, Eating, Futuristic, Thinking, The Future, Healthcare And Medicine, Concepts, Risk, Table

Why Vote For It:

• Cryptic yet accessible name & ironic description bring much-needed pretension to iStock
• Polarizing political stance, without pesky “insight”
• Candy, Cake, Doughnut… Marzipan? (Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Lübecker, but that’s pretty specific)
• Exclusive: XSmall version costs 20 credits! That’s 20 sad oranges!

What’s Holding it Back:

• Why so serious?
• Expensive: XSmall version costs 20 credits! That’s 20 Carnivore Dominance vs. Vegetarian Submissions!

Name: Oh my Gosh!

iStock Photo Description: A young woman gasps in shock as another kisses a bear.

Downloads: 4

Select Keywords: Homosexual, Bear, Mascot, Sensuality, Leather, Little Girls, Alcohol, Touching, Ohio, Female, Women, gosh

Why Vote For It:

• Most humorous use of keywords (when I search for “Ohio,” this is definitely the photo I want to find)
• Behind only Sad Orange in number of downloads
• All the prudery of “Gosh” and “gasps in shock” with the twisted kink of “Homosexual, Bear, Mascot, Sensuality, Leather, Little Girls”
• Equally ridiculous companion pieces available
• Goldi-dreadlocks wearing stuffed bear head = deep social commentary
• Classy!

What’s Holding it Back:

• Arguably funnier photo from same series already offending blogosphere
• State of Ohio
• Ghost of Teddy Roosevelt

Name: Carnivore Dominance vs. Vegetarian Submission

iStock Photo Description: A man wearing a tiger mask (masculine carnivore) holds a raw steak in his hand, trying to force a woman wearing a rabbit mask (feminine vegetarian) to eat meat. Dominance concept.

Downloads: 2

Select Keywords: Tiger, Mask, Rabbit, Slavery, Eating, Vegetarian Food, Men, People, Aggression, Meat, Steak, Kitchen Counter

Why Vote For It:

• Mixed Metaphors = Value-added imagery
• Kicks a single-concept shot’s ass! (I’m looking at you, “Freedom”…)
• Descriptive… description
• Gender war + masks + raw meat = Kitchen counter Lord of the Flies

What’s Holding it Back:

• Poor composition & weird perspective
• Restrictive mask mouth holes complicate raw steak force-feeding
• Kitchen ecosystem cannot sustain delicate balance of tiger-steak-rabbit

And that’s it (for now)!

Cast your vote: cut-off is December 24 at 11:59 PM, because all I want for Christmas is a winner. And a pony.

Update 25/12/2009: Thanks for voting!

The poll is now closed and it’s ‘Oh my gosh!’ FTW

We discovered something strange at HTC the other day. There was some Swedish character encoding lurking in our system.

I for one think the Swedes are commendable for their efforts to fight the inevitable extinction of natural blondes. If we were to map the human genome on an actual map of the world, Sweden would presumably be one big dollop of topographical recessiveness.

Maybe I have a soft spot for the country because a close friend from my time in Ethiopia was half Swedish. She taught me a little, though now I can only remember “Jag måste pinka” (I need to pee) and “Ost” (cheese). Admittedly, that is all I would ever need to survive for months on end in Sweden itself, but I felt the need to learn a little more… Maybe it would make me feel more connected to whatever mystery developer of years past left those telltale Swedish imprints in our code.

So I decided to look up “fail,” which according to Google Translate is most likely “misslyckas” (which is funny enough as it sounds: I wonder if they have a misslyckas blog?) but my hands-down favourite of the supposedly 22 different translations for “fail” is definitely “GÖRA FIASKO.”

Any culture that has 22 different ways to fail must try awfully hard.

As is disturbingly common for average young women today (and a few men, but mostly women), I have a cyber-stalker. What was once seen largely as part of the price of fame is now available to the masses, and affects as many as 1 in 8 Brits. And while hardcore stalkers of old may scoff at their virtual cousins, it is a worrisome trend to be on the rise.

Studies are quick to point fingers at online media for facilitating obsessive tendencies, and while I agree that immersive environments have made parasocial inclinations more pervasive, I think we’ve been documenting our trouble with virtuality, self-reflection and one-way relationships for millennia (certainly since Narcissus).

Luckily for me, there are several oceans and large landmasses between myself and this person (who I assume to be one ‘w’ short of a URL) and the level of nuisance is only that of discovering ants in your living room (annoying, but not the end of the world). Many cyberstalked people have to make major life changes to return to some form of normality.

EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE

Nevertheless, it is rather unsettling to see in your stats that invasive searches are being performed or that they visit one of your sites daily. Emails and texts you can delete, calls you can ignore, and the very technology serving you this torment bails you out with a whole set of beautiful rules, blocking and automated actions. But you can’t shake that feeling of being watched, when you know someone’s out there following your every link.

So why am I blogging about it?

Well, it gets me thinking about Social Media, traditional media and our preconceptions of both. And I like thinking about those things.

PARASOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS

In university communications classes, I was taught that TV/film/etc. nurtures parasocial, one-way relationships by very virtue of the fourth wall of the screen or “passive” nature of the medium. You can see Robert Pattinson (and feel things about him, his character or his stupid haircut), but he can’t interact with you: ipso facto any “feelings” generated by his performance are yours and yours alone (I hate to break it to you, but he won’t be glittering himself up for a date with you).

Most people understand that passive interaction and the difference between reality, fantasy and mediated experiences. Of those who immerse themselves in a world informed almost totally by media, the majority of them understand on some level that they are obsessively involved as fans or what-have-you (“I’m a trekkie and this costume is made of recycled set pieces and small flakes of what eBay tells me are Patrick Stewart’s nail clippings”). Some decide that a mediated experience is what they want to enrich their lives and they are quite happy to invest time, money and energy into making their reality ape their fantasies.

But then there are the deluded few who have pathological difficulty understanding that you can enjoy them, you can fake them, you can even indulge them, but no matter how pervasive the fantasy, it still doesn’t make it real. For them, the film star or the singer is somehow speaking to them directly. All media is dangerous because it nurtures the escapist, virtual and parasocial thoughts that fuel their delusion.

ONE-WAY STREETS

While these few have a potentially clinical problem, I think every one of us can relate to parasocial feelings. They are most often what make us attached to certain mucisians, actors and brands, and marketers have been finding new ways to make us feel “connected” in a way that builds “relationships” and capitalizes on our need to insert ourselves everywhere from celebrity life stories to big name brand stories.

Tabloids alone are growing based on a celebrity’s need to expose themselves and our need to build our relationship with them, even when that relationship is negative (“OMG That Britney’s Shameless” goes the self-referential “Piece of Me” lyric.) The very notion of aspirational advertising is to sell us the dream of a lifestyle, persona or connection to a greater idea: buying this camera makes me just like Avril, punky AND girly!

THE SOCIAL ALTERNATIVE?

So, if traditional media encourages parasocial tendencies by virtue of passivity, surely interactive media should encourage more social, two-way relationships (as well as three-way, four-way, and so on, you greedy sods)? Well it doesn’t always work out that way, does it? In fact, in some ways it isn’t taking the parasocial out of traditional media, but infusing parasocial behaviour in our day-to-day lives, where it didn’t used to get much airtime.

Social networking sites are becoming a great way to project a different reality, persona or connection from your day-to-day life, and many people have remarked on how they are turning us all into wannabe celebrities within our own online communities (be they 100 or 1,000 friends strong).

Cyberbullying, stalking and obsessive, destructive behaviour start with lurking, over-Googling and other passive tactics before they graduate into active strategies. The very idea that you can assemble your relationships by friending or unfriending people is strangely possessive, and you can see how in the minds of the misguided it can go all “Butterfly Collector.”

DEATH OF PRIVACY

People have made a big hoopla over the death of privacy. That the only real privacy left is anonymity, and there’s a whole generation coming up behind us for whom the very concept of the private is alien. If it’s not in mediated space, it might as well not have happened. Young-uns hold up devices to record every concert they go to, they text while driving, the present isn’t good enough unless other people have access to it. Now.

Share it or go home.

VIRTUAL INSANITY

Luckily, we are slowly getting more control over privacy, more aware of the implications and developing a greater understanding of what our cumulative obsession with documenting our existence is doing to our experience. While I am concerned for the historians of tomorrow, who will either have to wade through a future ground-breaker’s billions of digital tidbits and micro-content or face roadblocks like wiped harddrives, unarchived profile pages, and no tangible , real-world fingerprints to go by, I am excited about our ability to shape our lives, images and “brands.” Even if there has been (and continues to be) a steep learning curve and even though it is proving difficult for those of us who cannot cope with the virtual overload.

And until we know what the greater implications of it all are, the SEO-friendly among us know how to be more visible, so theoretically we also know how to make things disappear.

I can only hope that, whether or not my cyber-stalker finds this blog (who am I kidding? It will be found), that eventually their ego and my existence can disconnect and we can peacefully coexist in the world.

A CONNECTION IS NOT A PLUG

Our experiences online are still “mediated,” even if they are interactive, and I don’t think it’s the nature of one medium to be more conducive to parasocial than another, rather that all media brings out parasocial inclinations in us.

There are a lot of alarmists out there, but human beings have always struggled balancing their virtual flights of fancy with their mundane, rooted lives (even Madonna has had acting ambitions, poor thing). Words themselves are little drops in the virtual bucket, but it is our ability to project ourselves beyond the here and now that can get us in trouble, both online and off. Thankfully it can also uplift us and give us a greater understanding of the human condition.

I truly believe in the power of social media to build strong, meaningful connections between people, and that despite the proliferation of parasocial activity, the best interactions are still based on fostering and growing our shared bonds and collective experiences rather than contributing in name only by simply plugging project A, B or one’s sheer existence. Whether the names are of celebrities, brands, or your average Joe.

In a slightly more banal lost-in-translation disparity than the whole “crisis-opportunity” thing, the French the word for upload and download is technically one and the same: Télécharger.

While many French interfaces dodge around it by using recevoir/envoyer or importer/exporter for clarity, I think it’s neat that for “Télécharger” the focus is on the action in space (data transfer), rather than whether the user is sending or receiving. In building sites, we often spend a lot of time focusing on labels, buttons and instructions (after all, great interfaces = copywriting) that sometimes we forget to describe what is happening in space.

Coming out of the metro this morning I noticed a disturbing ad for gum aimed at people too rushed in the morning to brush their teeth. It’s one thing to acknowledge every one of us may have been in that situation, but another to actually market to those who slack off enough on oral hygiene to identify this as a “need.” Add to that to the fact that I’m assuming covering up non-brushing has been one of the many off-label uses for good ol’ fashioned regular gum since it came in to existence (see also: makeshift adhesive.)

I really wish I could have been in an early meeting to hear what market researchers had to say about positioning this “product,” I can only imagine they were struck by the same bolt of lightning that got some upstart to think of putting sleeves on a blanket.

Last Friday I remembered a Soviet joke from an old IB history textbook that I used to like, so I decided to share it with a coworker:

Liesl: Why does the secret police always travel in threes?

Intrigued coworker: I don’t know, why?

Liesl: One can read, one can write, and one keeps an eye on the intellectuals.

Intrigued coworker: Is this your new project management philosophy?

After a good laugh, it got me thinking about the way we approach and often categorize “talent.” At HTC, for example, our office is in a nice open concept loft space. But there is a short wall, about waist height, separating the strategy/account team from the “talent” (developers, designers, etc.) Sometimes when we have a question too mind-bogglingly complex to ask via IM, we’ll discuss over the wall, in a Wilson-from-Home-Improvement-style exchange that usually clears things up pretty quickly (or leads to long, interesting email exchanges about development/design philosophy).

What I’ve realized I appreciate most in my coworkers, is that they all bring so much to the table, often skills that they technically don’t need for what they do (seriously, many of them can read AND write). We also all have unique points of view (POV), and often debate usability, information architecture, design, etc. to the benefit of the final product. At the same time, we all have our go-to areas of expertise, and when things get really busy, it’s easy to forget our coworkers’ POVs inform the totality of a solution, and we proceed to box everyone up in their particular niche. You have to: it’s crunch time.

But, particularly when in the planning phase, it is nice to know that I’m in the midst of a bunch of intellectuals, and that we can all keep an eye on each other to stay in the game.

CMS-Watch recently published a neat document they call the 2010 Content Technology Vendor Map. It gives a quick overview of just how many options are out there, and reinforces the message that the purpose, nature and content of your project should drive which CMS you choose. Too often, companies are locked in to a system that does not adequately suit their needs or one that is far too complex, leading to feature shock. With hundreds of options out there it can be difficult to figure out which one(s) are up to the task. And that’s before you start debating Open Source vs. proprietary…

Luckily, the strengths and weaknesses of different solutions are getting more and more coverage, making it easier to choose the right one to meet project goals. All it takes is a little patience, some research and a roadmap and you’re on your way…

As an Arts graduate (got the MA just in case the BA didn’t quite drive it home), you’d think I’d be more prepared to answer the question, “Why web? Why not ‘The Arts?’”

For someone else, I can see how when looking over my bio my career path may seem more “road less traveled” than corporate ladder. And it is in contemplating a thorough answer to “Why not The Arts?” that I decided to start this blog. Because I know from personal and professional experience how much Arts grads in general, and theatre grads in particular, are capable of bringing to the web industry. I think we bring a unique perspective to the process, so I thought it was high time I should help to prove, discuss and document it.

So, Why not “The Arts”?

The Simple Answer:

My love of theatre always stemmed from a greater love of all media, so I never think about my journey as ‘changing course,’ per se. To me, it has always seemed a perfectly logical extension of my interests and skills. I get excited to read about updates to Google’s search algorithms, CMS trends or usability just as much as I enjoy reading Wired, AdAge or Direct Marketing. Partly because I genuinely enjoy my work, but also because an arts education prepares you to be passionate about you do. That’s what’s great about us arts types, we really dig research and when we get into something, there’s just no stopping us.

The Fun Answer:

I’ve worked for Arts institutions before. Some people really enjoy the environment, many of them are friends and former co-workers. But it wasn’t for me.

I realized that one of the reasons I started my own theatre company was because I enjoy making theatre like I enjoy scuba diving. A fun, expensive hobby that I love talking about, planning over the course of months and years, and executing at my own pace in my own time. But just as I wouldn’t want to put in a full workday under the sea (for a start, my dive computer would probably explode), it is a little known fact that working in Arts institution can also cause a wicked case of the bends…

For me, the only cure was a hyberbaric, high pressure web work environment, replete with bigger budgets and great accountability. For some, it’s law or medicine or other agency work.

As I mentioned earlier, I love all media, which is precisely why I’ve studied and worked in the fields that I have. But as I see it, much of the truly innovative, exciting things that are happening in media right this minute are in the digital space. And I want to be a part of that.

Here’s a great article on how former/recovering/current expats or Third Culture Kids can be great additions to your team.

Just try explaining that to the dude who looks at your CV, raises an eyebrow and says “Ethiopia, huh?” or, my personal favourite, “Where do you FEEL like you’re from?”

Cultural relativism can be a powerful force for good in the right hands, but it can take a while to learn to see past the frustrations. It has certainly taken me many years to understand that the limitations of a society are part of a greater package, and that appreciating the possibilities is more important than identifying what is better elsewhere.

The true TCK learns that many of those amazing things we appreciate about a place or a cultural are not wholly transposable to another. But elements of them are, and as our Global Village grows, the ability to appreciate multiple approaches to the same problem or grasp conflicting points of view for all their worth will become more and more important.

Some of my favourite classes in university were:

• Intermedia: An Art History course on performance/video art, experimental music, and the art scene throughout the 20th Century. I read Kurzweil for the first time and wondered what Socrates would think of mobile devices, given that Plato claimed in Phaedrus that he thought literacy alone would wreck our memories.

• The History of Early Film: If you’re thinking silent era, that’s what I thought too. But no, the era we covered looked at pre-silent era film (before 1915). As in “man gets hit over head by mongoose.” It’s a little like grainy YouTube before the evolution of shot-countershot. Reading about an infant medium spreading its wings (and taking down institutions in its wake: goodbye magic lanterns!) brings so many ideas to the fore on art in the age of digital reproduction…

• The History of Communications – Pre-Electronic & Post-Electronic: Why wouldn’t newspapers suffer in an age of web 2.0 community-building when part of their rise was in capitalizing on nationalistic “imagined communities”? The internet renders your audience if not “real” then, at the very least, not quite as imaginary. Also, learning Bell wanted “Ahoy hoy” to be the official telephonic greeting finally made me understand why Mr. Burns uses it to answer his calls (he is awfully old).

• CyberReligion – Technology, The Internet & Religion: Religious studies course for which we were told to “use the internet as [our] primary text” (well, that and our 400-page reader). More Kurzweil, Baudrillard, McLuhan, it was all about researching the experiential phenomenon of a new medium rising in our midst. From religious ideation similar to when people equated hearing a disembodied voice over the phone to a quasi-religious experience (almost like listening to God himself) to inevitable and gradual mundanification.

So the blogosphere is all a-tingle with the news that blogger and author Belle de Jour is actually Dr Brooke Magnanti.

I, for one, am glad that she turned out to be:

• An actual woman (there were many doubters)
• An actual former sex worker (again, many doubters)
• A doctor working for a worthwhile cause
• Proud of her accomplishments and of her past

Politics and emotions aside regarding who/what she is/was, it is a good thing for one of the medium’s great success stories to ring so true. I wish the stories of so many anonymous whistle blowers ended as happily for them, or allowed them as much (relative) freedom on when to step forward.

The Word of the Year announcements have naturally been dominated by tech-speak for several years now, but 2009′s choice, as well as the other candidates show just how far social networking is going, and at the quite the clip.