Lots of wars and death in US magazines this month. Thank god there are celebrity magazines to talk about the lighter side of life ;)

Published in The New Yorker 8/16/2010 by William Haefeli. Buy a reprint here.

Schools get in the media for tuning to iPads, the device will allow multitasking this fall, and brain scientists worry of the effects of multitasking on learning. Adopting a new technology early means playing with fire?

The iPad has been an instant hit for millions of consumers following its recent launch. It has also been a great success in the IMD classroom. “After having piloted the iPad in a partnership program with Allianz Global Investors at the beginning of May, I am convinced that this device will revolutionize executive education,” stated IMD Professor Bettina Büchel. “The feedback from IMD Faculty, staff and the participants was overwhelmingly positive.”

Link
Apple: Multitasking coming to the iPhone this summer, iPad in the fall
One of the biggest criticisms leveled at the iPhone and the iPad — that it can’t run third-party apps in the background — will be fixed at last [when] the major OS revision will arrive this summer for the iPhone, while iPad users will have to wait until the fall.

Link

Russell A. Poldrack, the director of the Imaging Research Center and professor of psychology and neurobiology at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote: “Our research has shown that multitasking can have an insidious effect on learning, changing the brain systems that are involved so that even if one can learn while multitasking, the nature of that learning is altered to be less flexible. This effect is of particular concern given the increasing use of devices by children during studying.”

Link

The Fifth conference published a short piece on one of the theme I am thinking about a lot these days: the need to push back technology into it’s place of being useful and convenient, rather than invasive and interruptive.

As curator of the Lift Conferences you have a privileged view of some of the more interesting ideas and debates on technology. Thus, what in your opinion are the most interesting technology trends coming our way?  

The main issue I’m grappling with is the increasing mismatch between the information coming at us and the way we’re able to manage or process that information; and I’m not only talking about information overload here.  Overload is a recurring feeling, and a look at history puts things in perspective. In 1613, English author Barnaby Rich wrote “one of the diseases of this age is the multiplicity of books; they doth so overcharge the world that it is not able to digest the abundance of idle matter that is every day hatched and brought forth into the world“. Every time a new technology comes we feel overloaded by it, the internet is no exception.

What I am talking about is a broader issue. I am wondering whether technologies are really in line with the way we function, and if not what the consequences are.

Link

Technology is culture - as Basile Zimmermann explained at Lift10 (find the video here) - and it starts to be obvious there is a gap between the Anglo Saxon and the European vision. Here comes slow IT, inspired by the slow food movement that started in Italy. The beginning of adaptation of IT to the old continent’s culture?

Dinner in the US is a one-hour business. Therefore when Americans spend time in Italy they really suffer. First they have to wait until about 9 o’clock for dinner time and then they have to stay put at the table for hours. In a way it highlights a cultural clash between the Anglo Saxon world, which is all about speed and a ‘just do it’ attitude, versus the Rhineland model which is more contemplative and reflective.  Not that the one is better than the other off course. The Anglo Saxon approach tends to be more dynamic and innovative while in the Rhineland model we can get stuck in endless discussions.

I come from the IT sector so in a way we helped create the fast, chaotic world we live in today. Clearly there is opportunity to reflect on the way we interact with technology, both on the side of the producer and the consumer.  As consumers we are bombarded by impulses.  But also at the producer side we often run ahead of ourselves. At Capgemini we increasingly receive requests from clients to produce fast, for the short term. There is no time anymore for strategy, for vision and architecture; when these elements are so important.

[Nicholas Carr] is arguing that the internet is changing the way we think. You can clearly see that in the way young people think.  They’re very good at finding information quickly, online obviously, but they lack depth in understanding. The internet offers access to a huge amount of information but we tend to use that information very superficially and that is gradually turning us into superficial thinkers.

Link

In depth article that recaps the issues that the news industry is facing, and hints at possible solutions to work around the current media crisis.

The diagnostic

“It’s the triple whammy,” Eric Schmidt said when I interviewed him. “Loss of classifieds, loss of circulation, loss of the value of display ads in print, on a per-ad basis. Online advertising is growing but has not caught up.”

What a good business model needs to be made of:

The three pillars of the new online business model, as I heard them invariably described, are distribution, engagement, and monetization. That is:
- getting news to more people, and more people to news-oriented sites;
- making the presentation of news more interesting, varied, and involving;
- converting these larger and more strongly committed audiences into revenue, through both subscription fees and ads.

The article then lists several possibilities for each of the above pillar.

Living Stories is an experiment rewarding serious, sustained reporting, different from the usual ranking mechanisms that reward instantaneity.

Fast Flip is “an attempt to approximate the inviting aspects of leafing through a magazine”.

YouTube Direct is a system “which any publication can put on its own Web site”, allowing “readers can then easily send in their video clips, for the publication to review, censor, combine, or shorten”.

Display ads will become a conversation, “now your users can communicate back to you”. A huge logistical challenge for brands, but certainly one that will reward those who manage to create an engaging experience from their advertisement.

These examples show that for each pillar there are possibilities to improve the current situation. But nothing comes easy these days, and there is no unique and magical business model. Each media will have to find its own model among a large range of possibilities:

“People have adjusted their cost curves to their own form of monetization. The Harvard Business Review is not fretting about a loss of advertising [most of its revenue comes from subscribers]. The free Metro paper is not fretting about low subscription income. They have different business models, and the same principle will apply on the Internet.”

The Atlantic: how to save the news

I hope to see you at Lift! We have an amazing program (20 keynotes, 30 workshops, 10 open stages), an amazing Lift experience (organized by the Geneva University of Art and Design) and a startups zone prepared with the cluster Alp ICT.

Here are the 20 keynotes, each presented in less than 140 chars:

• Jamais Cascio, Ethical Futurist, why prospective matters and how to anticipate the future.
• Rahaf Harfoush, New Media Strategist on the Obama Campaign: using Social Media for politics in the US, Iran and elsewhere
• Yeon-ho Oh, Founder of OhmyNews: the story and future of citizen journalism.
• Neil Rimer, Investor: Entrepreneurship and investment in today’s world.
• Olivier Glassey, Social and Political Sciences researcher: myths and realities of online behaviors.
• Catherine Lottier, TV program foresight specialist: how contents are influenced - or not - by technologies.
• Amelia Andersdotter, Swedish Pirate Party Representative: how to leverage collective intelligence in politics
• Mercedes Bunz, New media strategist: what opportunities for media in new technologies?
• Christian Heller, Post-privacy optimist: the upcoming social norms, and how to navigate them
• Virginia Mouseler, TV program foresight specialist: future of TV content
• Felipe Fonseca, Brasilian media activist: hacking to climb the social ladder in Brazil
• Antonio Casilli, Critical thinker: debunking the myths of the forever young users of digital technologies
• Julian Zbar, Third culture student: how twenty years old use technologies
• Richard Murton, Social Media Expert: social media for businesses
• Russell Davies, Really Interesting Group: printing the internet out and into things
• Basile Zimmermann, Chinese studies researcher: how china adapts and reinvents western web services
• Aubrey de Grey, Eternal life advocate: aging as a disease, and how to curate it
• Katrin Verclas, Mobile services activist: what does and does not work in mobile participation
• Alice Taylor, Playful experiences builder: using games beyond gaming
• Jean Burgess, Media studies researcher: the evolution of YouTube usage

I will be attending the following events in the next two months:

Lift10, 5-7 May, Geneva

Of course :) This promises to be our most ambitious event ever. I said after Lift09 that the next Lift would be different, it was time for a change. And we did just that: we have completely revamped the pace of the conference (workshops every morning, more interactivity, improved open stage and social events), created a startup corner, partnered with the Geneva school of Art and Design to create a scenography and an improved Lift experience. The response has been amazing: new partners like Google, Frog Design, Canal+, Ricard , IMD or Red Bull joined us, and the roster of participants is simply incredible. Entrepreneurs, designers, CEOs, artists, investors, researchers, students, journalists, bloggers, some of the world’s best minds will gather in Geneva in four weeks. A little less than 300 tickets remain as I write this.

Switch conference, 15-16 May, Coimbra

A new conference starting in Portugal. I will speak on entrepreneurship alongside the likes of Charles Spence, Michel Bauwens or Stephanie Booth. I look forward to spending a bit of time in a country I have a soft spot for, and maybe see the old Portuguese gang.

PINC, 18 May, Zeist (Holland)

Founded 11 years by Peter van Lindonk, PINC is constantly cited among the top conferences in Europe. I will gladly attend for the first time, and look forward to hear a co-founder of Kiva, a winner Ig Nobel Prize, a Micronaut, a Neuro-Psychologist and more intriguing (in the Nicolas Nova sense of the word) speaker. 

Frontiers of Interaction, 3-4 June, Rome

I will be animating the balcony interviews where my job will be to keep the audience entertain between talks by making interesting people talk. Should not be too hard: the team has assembled a great line up of speakers, and a conference that happens at a city like Rome has already done half the job right. This will also be an occasion to catch up with Lift07 speaker Sister Judith Zoebelein, who moved on from being the webmaster of the Vatican to new duties.

Transatlantic Network 2020 Summit, 20-25 June, Chicago

I will try to offset the carbon footprint of all those trips by a positive contribution to the Transatlantic Network, an ambitious British Council initiative that aims to “build innovative collaborations between young North Americans and Europeans to address challenges that will define their generation”. The event “will have the overarching theme of Using Technology to Create Social Change and feature programmatic elements that fall under the three TN2020 focus areas of sustainable living, building community resilience and creativity and innovation”.

Lift France 10, with Fing, 5-7 July, Marseille

“Webify the real world!” After gathering 560 people in 2009 around the likes of serial entrepreneur Gunter Pauli, philosopher Dominique Pestre, writer Bruce Sterling and minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, Lift France is back in Marseille in the heat of summer: July 5-7, again in the beautiful setting of Le Palais du Pharo. This year Lift France with Fing will explore how the technologies and concepts of the web are changing the real world today and in the future. For the last 20 years, networked technologies have redistributed the power of imagining, evaluating, and acting. No frontier has remained fixed. No longer the world’s factory, Asia has become a major source of innovation. Consumers have also become producers. The divisions between industries or disciplines are being redefined. This change extends far beyond the digital. It transforms manufacturing, learning, cities, public policy, perhaps even our own minds… The Web changes the world – But to what extent? With what limitations? How can it reach its full potential?

 One last article I read while fighting with the lowly economy class seats of a Finnair cattle transporter plane earlier this week: an interview of Internet pioneer Peter Thiel, co-founder of Paypal.

Wired: We’ve had tremendous growth in the Internet, which is how you made your fortune. Why not look there?

Thiel: Obviously we’ve done well online. But how much more progress is there going to be? How many big new Internet companies are there? In the ’90s we had Netscape, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon. In the past eight years there have been only two: Google and Facebook.

Wired: Twitter?

Thiel: Possibly. Still, the numbers suggest a maturing industry. The Internet may be culturally important, just as the automobile was culturally more important in the ’50s than the ’20s, as we got suburbia and built the Interstate Highway System. But the last successful car company started in the US was Jeep in 1941.

Link

I wrote a post comparing the Silicon Valley to Detroit a little while ago. This makes me think that this old intuition is getting closer to turning into a fact.

Small is beautiful, time to remove friends overload (”defriend“) from Facebook and other services! Two reasons for that:

• Socializing does not scale
  I wrote about this earlier (”Openness is difficult to scale“) and you might have heard of Dunbar’s number, “a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships“. After over-adopting social networks as we over-adopt any new technology, we will  push the envelope back (another fundamental trend I believe).

  Clive Thompson explains in a recent Wired column:
  
  “socializing doesn’t scale. Once a group reaches a certain size, each participant starts to feel anonymous again, and the person they’re following — who once seemed proximal, like a friend — now seems larger than life and remote. […] So the conversation stops.”
  Clive Thompson in Praise of Online Obscurity

• More friends mean more ads
  Another reason is that, as soon as advertising becomes more aggressive on social networks, each of my friend and “friend” will becomes a reasons for social networks to advertise on me. “John bought this”, “Peter registered for that”, why don’t you do the same? That is the balance Facebook and all its competitors will have to solve.