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Heh.  This post from last year is the top post on Google for how to cancel an Xdrive account, well above any of the official sources.

Just finished reading a thought-provoking piece by Anders Albrechtslund entitled Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance.

The abstract, by Albrechtslund:

“In this article, I argue that online social networking is anchored in surveillance practices.  This gives us an opportunity to challenge conventional understandings of surveillance that often focus on control and disempowerment.  In the context of online social networking, surveillance is something potentially empowering, subjectivity building and even playful — what I call participatory surveillance.”

This is a powerful piece, and worth a read.

Historically, I think many of us think of “surveillance” as something that is done by a more powerful authority to an individual who is comparatively less powerful.  One of the classic examples of this is the concept of the Panopticon, a prison where a single watcher could observe the actions and activities of a great number of individuals.

However, Albrechtslund argues that (perhaps not unlike a subjugated group taking back derogatory words) online social networking has the possibility to enable a new type of peer-to-peer “surveillance” that is actually empowering to individuals.  He writes:

“As mentioned earlier, a hierarchical conception of surveillance represents a power relation which is in favor of the person doing the surveillance.  The person under surveillance is reduced to a powerless, passive subject under the control of the “gaze.”

[Koskela] introduces the concept of ’empowering exhibitionism’ to describe the practice of revealing your (very) personal life.  By exhibiting their lives, people claim ‘copyright’ to their own lives, as they engage in the self-construction of identity.  This reverts the vertical power relation, as visibility becomes a tool of power that can be used to rebel against the shame associated with not being private about certain things.  Thus, exhibitionism is liberating, because it represents a refusal to be humble. Many amateur exhibitionism examples can be found on sites like Nu Bay, with both parties fully consenting of course.

Online social networking can also be empowering for the user, as the monitoring and registration facilitates new ways of constructing identity, meeting friends and colleagues as well as socializing with strangers.  This changes the role of the user from passive to active, since surveillance in this context offers opportunities to take action, seek information and communicate.”

So what does this mean?  This means that, as our offline and online lives become increasingly intertwined and networked, the more open we are, the more individual power we have.

What I’m now wrestling with is how this plays at the place where organizations, employees, and customers meet.

Remember, in a networked world, we all play different roles at different times — employee, customer, company representative, parent, friend, person.  And everyone with whom we interact does the same thing.   We are all creators, and all watchers.  Perhaps the more we create, and the more we connect, the more say we have in our own futures.

Related: ArtTartare

photos: 3blindmice and wikipedia

cross-posted to the conversation hub.

Etsy, the online site for cool handmade stuff, has just brought back a service called Alchemy that touches on at least a few of the resonant points for VRM.  What is Alchemy?  Etsy says:

"In an historical sense, Alchemy is the pursuit of transforming common metals into valuable gold. In an Etsy sense, Alchemy is the pursuit of transforming your creative ideas and designs into tangible items.

Alchemy is a space on Etsy where buyers can post requests for custom items. Sellers then bid on the opportunity to make the item and win the sale. It’s your opportunity to collaborate with a crafter or artisan to get exactly what you’re seeking. Buyers can even make private requests to a specific seller within a shop."

Very cool.  I’ve always felt that one of the fundamental tenets of the VRM movement is the enablement of a customer to define the terms of his or her interactions with vendors, and examples of these "reverse markets" where the customer calls the shots are certainly waypoints on the journey.

hat tips: alan patrick and fred wilson

This piece, Homouroboros, is one of the largest, most ambitious zoetropes ever
created, and public exhibition of the piece will establish a new level
of interactivity for public art.  This piece has a chance to live in an engaging public space in San Jose.  Learn more about the piece and how you can help here.

Having seen it firsthand in the desert last year, it is, hands down, one of the coolest things, ever.  During the day it appears like a series of frozen statues or, moving back a little further, a mushroom cloud.  However, at night, perfectly-timed strobe lights illuminate the sculpture as it turns, creating the illusion of the monkeys swinging from branch to branch and taking a sharp right turn on the Garden of Eden story.

Here’s a link to the piece in action on YouTube; the zoetropic effect kicks in at the 30 second mark.  Really, really brilliant engineering.

If you can help, please do so.

A big shout out to Melissa Alexander at the Black Rock Arts Foundation and Exploratorium veteran who is making this happen through sheer force of will.

Joe Andrieu: "Only in the simplest commodity markets is pricing ever the sole factor.
Whether you focus on relationships and conversations or the 20^th
century model of brand-driven differentiation, there are lots of
factors that influence a transaction at least as much, if not more,
than price."

You can find the whole conversation here.  Worth a read.

David Hornik writes a post that sums up something that I’ve been thinking about lately, having reviewed a number of pitches and proposals that fall into this trap.  David:

"Adjectives are not convincing. Facts are convincing. I may not agree
with the conclusions a company draws from those facts. But I will at
least be in a position to appropriately assess those conclusions.
Whereas adjectives are all about conclusions without the underlying
facts. As an entrepreneur, you are far better off having me determine
that your market is "massive," your founders are "brilliant," and your
product is "elegant," than to tell me that your company has "an elegant
solution serving a massive market designed by brilliant founders." So
reread your pitch and remove all of the adjectives. It will go
massively, monumentally, gargantuanly. colossally better that way."

This one is getting taped to the monitor, just a short reach away from the copy of Strunk and White.

(hat tip to andrew anker for the ^H idea. heh.)

Had a great chat today with John C. Havens on BlogTalkRadio about transparency in business.  About 30min or so in duration, was one of the more fun biz conversations I’ve had in a while.  Check it out.

The Good rocking the house at Martyr’s in Chicago on 23-Feb-2008 at their reunion gig, with old friend John Scholvin on lead guitar.  (He’s also a financial trading rocket scientist – really.)

Oh yeah, you can get the music here.

RSS subscribers click here for the video.

Great summary of last week’s VRM meeting in London, with commentary by Ian Delaney.  An excerpt:

"One of the latest solutions to the problem of marketing without wasting
loads of money is CRM. Companies collect loads of data about their
customers and potential customers and then target their marketing
efforts at segments of those groups. CRM is ‘lame and bad’, though,
because it isn’t about relationships at all…"

Here’s a link to the whole thing.

Larry Dignan: "I’ll predict 2009 as the year of enterprise social networks."