Tuesday, October 26, 2010

You've Got Mail! (Weekly No. 6)

An e-mail from Barack Obama, himself, the day after he was elected 44th president of the United States of America. Well, that's what I'm supposed to think, but I truly appreciate the sincerity. Notice the 'please donate' link?
Did Barack Obama just e-mail me? I asked myself that a few times my last semester at Florida State University. I would often wake up to check my e-mail to see a message from who was very likely the next president of the United States sitting in my inbox. This was my second election; my first was when I voted for John Kerry in 2004.

I was 18-years old in 2004 and vividly remember posting a John Kerry poster in my dorm window at Florida Atlantic University which overlooked one of the most frequented paths on campus. If anyone was walking to class or to the food court or to the library, they were definitely going to see my John Kerry poster. I was asked to take my poster down by the dorm monitor. I guess we weren't allowed to have anything in the windows. Although perplexed, I obliged. I mean, this is hurricane riddled Florida we are talking about here, and we were in the middle of hurricane season, and a weightless John Kerry poster was going to do nothing but attract 80 mph winds. This was a safety hazard; and one that I didn't want over my head at night, literally.

Other than voting for John Kerry and the story about the poster, I don't really remember anything from the 2004 campaign/election; I don't even really remember why I voted for John Kerry. Wait, who am I kidding? Of course I remember and know why I voted for John Kerry! I voted for John Kerry because I was ultimately voting against George Bush; or so I thought. Bush was the victor, yet again.

Fast-forward four years later to the 2008 campaign/election -- to what became my first campaign/election; my last didn't even compare. I was getting e-mails from everyone. Barack Obama. Michelle Obama. Joe Biden. The Democratic student organization at FSU. Even phone calls from a local organizations asking when I had free time to volunteer. This was new to me. Like I said, I don't remember much about the 2004 campaign/election, but I also don't remember any e-mails from the candidates, and their wife, and their running-mate, and student organizations sitting in my inbox at Florida Atlantic, and I certainly don't remember being asked to volunteer. My inbox at Florida State was flooded, and this had nothing to do with transferring schools; nor did it have anything to do with hurricanes.

This was the very first time a presidential candidate had ever reached out to me, little 'ole me, by sending me an e-mail; although it was a generic e-mail, and one that I couldn't really reply to, it singled me out and it made me feel heard, alive, and valued as a voter. This was rare with presidential candidates, and certainly a first.

The first theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto suggests that markets are conversations; likewise, campaigns are conversations -- very important ones at that. Conversing with voters was taken to an entirely new level with Barack Obama's campaign. Ultimately, his methods to reach out to voters through the internet and mobile devices was something that had never been done before and something Barack Obama and his 2008 campaign mastered, and what left him victorious. As Gina Cooper explained in Infonomics, "Barack Obama's campaign [was] about rewriting the social contract between citizens and government."

In Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody, he offered three "rules" that were critical to any online endeavor: plausible promise, effective tool, and acceptable bargain. Shirky suggested that it would be difficult to have any online endeavor with only two of the three rules; so in order for you to find success all three must be present, active, and fused together within the framework of the endeavor. Much could be said for a political campaign.

Rewriting the social contract between citizens and government, as Cooper pinned in Infonomics, meant talking to citizens to ask them exactly what they wanted in this new social contract for the very first time. Citizens plucked long desires out of their pockets to sling them at the candidates: healthcare reform, education reform, Social Security reform, and so on and so forth. These were areas that citizens had long wanted reformed, but areas that seemed untouched by the existing administration.

Rewriting this social contract and making tremendous effort to reach as many people as possible in order to hear their wants and needs from their government was, in my opinion, Barack Obama's grand promise in the 2008 campaign. Never before had so many people been engaged with a campaign and felt that their voice could be truly heard and their vote actually count. This was mainly because in every campaign before, people felt like their government never really spoke with them or to them. Conversation was missing in a major way, it was pratically nonexistent; therefore, many people felt that their government didn't care about their needs and wants. This sentiment was a major hurdle in the 2008 campaign, and one that Barack Obama made his priority. Igniting conversation and dispelling any idea that the United States government didn't care about its tax-payers and didn't want to hear them out was a major point to be addressed in this new and improved contract; the first step towards fulfilling the promise of rewriting the social contract between citizens and government.

Engaging in conversation was a necessary tactic, and essential, in fulfilling the promise, but this came at a cost. A lofty cost. Barack Obama's purpose in running for president wasn't to lose, it was to win. In order to win, Barack Obama needed to mobilize citizens across the nation to volunteer in numbers unseen before. This was the bargain; in order for Barack Obama to effectively rewrite the social contract between citizens and the government, that so desperately needs to be rewritten, he needed voters to act, work, and vote on his behalf. This bargain meant that Obama supporters were going to go to work for him, so he could ultimately go to work for them.
"To say that Obama won because of the Internet would be an oversimplification; it’s more accurate to say that he couldn’t have won without it." – Garrett Graff
There is no denying that the Internet was the all-important and all-encompassing tool in Barack Obama's campaign, and one that was used incredibly effective. Graff notes that the internet is the only reason Barack Obama won the 2008 election. To say that he would have lost if the internet didn't play a role is a powerful and true statement. The levels at which he engaged with voters on the internet was unprecedented. Never before had a presidential candidate engaged with voters at this capacity, period; and it was the internet that allowed him to do so.

Two years deep into his presidency, and two years away from the next election, as a Barack Obama supporter, I do feel that he has lost sight of his initial promise to engage with citizens. However, the grand promise was to rewrite this 'social contract' and create 'change,' and I do think he has delivered on that front. With the help of Hilary Clinton -- let's admit it, she's the one who started this healthcare reform movement in the 90's -- and the Democratic party, he was able to push new legislation through congress to reform America's current and failing healthcare system. This was a major accomplishment for his administration, and one that he technically shouldn't get all of the credit for, but nevertheless, one that was championed by him.

Initially, Barack Obama seemed energized and inspired about the prospect of becoming the 44th president. Having a conversation with us, with me, seemed so important to him. He got everyone's attention, left and right, with the help of his astronomical campaign contributions and even enlisted his "friends" to get people excited about politics again. Bono. Oprah. Beyonce. Jay-Z. These are all people who are known by one name around the world! He wanted people to get out and vote, and feel like they were really affecting the outcome of the election. Like we had really helped him win; and we did. Now, I respectfully understand that being the president is a tiresome job, and that the president is a busy man -- he was before he became president and he is probably crying for sleep now -- but I know that it wasn't really him who wrote me that e-mail the day after the he won the election in 2008. The same man who was dropping his name into my inbox at least once a week doesn't seem to be talking to me now. The job isn't over. The conversation should have never stopped.

Barack Obama created a movement and even has a cult-like following, much like Lady Gaga, but the fizzled conversation is what concerns me about his agenda and administration regardless of his prior movement. I feel like the movement is at a standstill. The faded conversation with citizens is what I think will prevent him from being re-elected, but I will recognize that he has recently heightened his level of conversation, but almost solely because of the upcoming election. That doesn't seem as sincere as his e-mail.

As we all witnessed, conversation is important, especially in today's world with the internet being the most powerful and effective tool. We all know Barack Obama mastered the internet, and even has nearly six million followers on Twitter, he also over 15 million "likes" on Facebook; but how will Barack Obama reignite the once fluid and effective conversation that he so masterfully conducted? How will he change his plan of attack now that everyone knows he won the presidency solely because of the internet. Just wait for it! Here Comes Everybody, as in future candidates, who have studied the 2008 blueprint are going to follow suit! Will they be as effective is the question? Only time will tell...

I leave you with this last e-mail. Hey, at least he said "thank you!" ... He even spelled my name correctly! Now that is rare!

Saturday, October 23, 2010

My Life Disrupted by Hurricanes (Response No. 1)

Kate, since you are technically a "hurricane," I just want you to know now that I don't mean that type of hurricane... (:

I was taken back after reading Kate's post about her life in a bubble. Her move to DC from New York struck a chord with me -- probably because I had a similar experience when I moved to Tallahassee, Florida to attend Florida State University for college. Our experiences are as identical as identical twins. Her unimpressed attitude towards DC being from New York was/is very similar to my unimpressed attitude towards Florida being from Maryland. The North and the South are two completely different worlds. I bet you think DC is the south, don't you, Kate? (:

I initially went off to college in Boca Raton, Florida to attend Florida Atlantic University, but ran home traumatized due to the back-to-back-to-back-to-back hurricanes (yep, four) that rocked South Florida in 2004. I'm used to five feet of snow, not 80 mph winds. I vividly remember boarding up my window in my dorm and packing a few weeks worth of clothes in my suitcase because all students were being evacuated from university grounds. I thought I was going home to Maryland, but the FAA would have the final say on that. One that would forever change my attitude towards Florida. My flight was scheduled to leave at 12:05 pm via Southwest --it was the earliest flight I could get -- but all flights after noon were canceled. WHAT?! I don't remember the day, but I remember that it was a Thursday. Needless to say, I freaked out, and my mother, well, she panicked like any mother whose daughter was a 17-hour drive away would. Where was I supposed to go? And with who? And how? I didn't have a car. The entire region was being shut down, and since Florida Atlantic University was a bike ride from the Atlantic Ocean, this was certainly not somewhere I wanted to stay. Again, where was I going to go?

I would soon find myself practically running away from the hurricanes with a group of out-of-state students who literally had no where to go (hotels were forced to close, too). We teamed up and devised a serious game plan: first stop, West Palm Beach, then Jupiter, then Orlando, then West to Tampa, then South to Fort Myers, then Naples, and then across Route 75 to Miami, then North on 95 back to point A- our destroyed campus.

School had been indefinitely suspended until further notice; of course it was. There was a city-wide 7:00 pm curfew strictly in place because the city had lost all power, and I still had no where to go. NEVER AGAIN, I thought. I was terrified, and I was 110% positive I would get out of Florida for good after the semester was over. I remember thinking to myself: "Who lives like this? Who wanted to have their lives constantly interrupted by hurricanes? Hurricanes!" That was/is something I certainly never want to get used to! I ended up staying with a family friend of one of my friends, who wasn't really my friend at the time, but we are now thanks to his fateful adventure trip!

After hurricane season faded away, so did my anxiety about living in the hurricane taunting region of South Florida. I did move home after the school year -- shocking, not after the semester, huh? -- and spent the entire summer recovering from an eventful, and I don't mean fun -- freshman year. A summer completely free of hurricanes, might I add! Here comes the part where I tell you about my move back to Florida. Hard to believe... I honestly still can't believe it!

I packed up my life once again to move to Florida, but this time I avoided the South. Tallahassee, Florida would be my new home away from home -- even though it never really was. See, much like you here in DC, Kate, when I lived in Tallahassee, I felt so unbelievably disconnected from everything and anything "Tallahassee" including their beloved Seminoles (ya know, football). When FSU played Maryland during football season, I cheered for the Terps. How could I not? When FSU played Maryland during basketball season, I cheered for the Terps. How could I not? I even had a bright red shirt with the Maryland flag that I would wear to class (in retrospect, that was pretty lame, but at the time I thought anything Maryland was far cooler than everything Florida). I became known as "the girl from Maryland." Actually, my name is Erika; Erika with a "k." One day during golf class (yes, I took golf -- I was practically required too being a sport management major), I overheard a group of guys discussing Bobby Bowden. Well, who the heck is Bobby Bowden? Was that another name for Jesus? I innocently asked who this man was, and up went the golf clubs! Not to swing at the ball, but to swing at me! Well, not really, but it felt that way! I felt like I asked: "Who is Jesus?" Well, Jesus in Tallahassee was/is Bobby Bowden, and somehow I did not know this before I moved there! Big mistake. HUGE! For those of you who don't know, I surely didn't, Bobby Bowden is one of the winningest coaches in college football, second only to Joe Paterno. Now I knew who Joe Paterno was, largely because my neighbor signed a full-scholarship to play for Penn State. Go

I tried to do anything to connect with home, whether it was staying up-to-date on my beloved Redskins, or having hour-long chats with my sisters. I even racked up some serious miles with my frequent two-day/too short trips home for the weekend. They were so not worth it, but they were so worth it! I did all of this because I never really connected with the people at school or with Tallahassee, let alone Florida, period, so I craved connection to the people I had already been deeply connected with. Blame it on the hurricanes -- and no, I don't mean "the U." By the way, we (I can't believe I just said that) smashed "U" [get it? ;)] the other week 47-17, but I bet neither of us even care! Matter of fact, I don't care, and I know don't! I didn't even watch the game! It's safe to assume that you didn't either. It's also safe to assume that 99% of Florida residents were tuned in to that game, no exaggeration! How about the only reason I even know that Florida State won is because of my Seminole infested Twitter feed. As I digress... Nevertheless, somehow my mind couldn't get past the torment of those traumatizing weeks from my freshman year, which were seriously preventing me from enjoying the state in love with oranges and college football. I don't like oranges, and I'm indifferent about college football. Basketball is my sport.

When I moved to Tallahassee, Florida, I honestly felt like I had landed on Mars. Was it because I was now living in a bubble due to my prior traumatizing experience in South Florida? Who knows, but I do know that I felt so out of place, which was new to me. People dressed different than me, acted different than me, talked different than me, and, even worse, everything seemed slow. For goodness sake, way too slow! I felt stuck in a time warp. I honestly thought the joke was on me; meanwhile, my mind and thoughts were racing a mile a minute and doing full out sprints in my brain racing each other. You're from New York, you, of all people, know exactly what I'm talking about.

It wasn't until my soon-to-be best friend -- who of course is a Florida native -- sat me down to inform me that I was selling myself short by not immersing myself within the Florida State culture and suggested that I get with the program. But, I'm a Hoya at heart -- even before I was accepted to Georgetown (My parents are lifelong fans of GU, and of course that rubbed off on me; isn't that how the story goes?). What she was telling me was as foreign to me as her field of study and what she was asking of me was like asking the impossible, better yet, the unfathomable. Before I could connect to "Florida State" I would have to disconnect myself from Maryland and Georgetown, two schools that, although I had never attended, had allowed me to have some of my greatest childhood memories (Maryland football games and Georgetown basketball games) -- it was never going to happen. She might as well have asked me to help her with her bio-chem homework. That can be done, maybe not correctly, but at least I'd give it a try!

I would go through my sophomore, junior, and practically half-way through my senior year of college feeling like an outsider; an outsider who avoided garnet and gold like the plague. I don't know what happened half-way through my senior year, but something turned on in my head -- or maybe someone busted my bubble -- and I began to feel myself truly enjoying life as a Seminole. I attended football games more frequently, and I even put a Seminole sticker on my car, right next to my Maryland license plate, of course. Trust me, that sticker had a very short life. But somehow I began enjoying the college life that everyone around me seemed to love and enjoy. I also understood that most of these people were native Floridians and grew up with an intense desire to throw frisbees on Landis Green and were likely decked in university gear before they even met the sunlight outside of the hospital. This was not uncommon on Florida State's campus, and I'm pretty sure is common on campuses around the country. I will be doing this to my future children, but with gear from Georgetown. Duh! Now, I never could understand how people stayed in Tallahassee through grad school. Six odd years in Tallahassee plus me was never going to happen! Never! EVER! Two and a half years already felt like an eternity...

Maybe this apprehension towards connecting with Tallahassee and Florida State was slowly erasing itself from my life because I knew that graduation was looming and I would soon move back to my home-state, or maybe it was because my mind recovered once and for all from the torment of the 2004 hurricanes. Those weeks really got the best of me -- I still don't trust Florida weather. Or maybe it was because Tallahassee rarely gets disrupted by hurricanes and I would soon learn that life in Tallahassee would never turn upside down like it did in Boca Raton; even though it took me nearly two plus years to believe that Tallahassee was in a safe little location in the Florida Panhandle. It really is. However, Tallahassee is not safe from the worst of politicians, but I won't even go there.

Looking back, I don't dislike Florida like I used to, but I don't love it either. I have this love-hate relationship with Florida, to be honest. I often overhear people discuss South Beach with such great admiration, a city I have visited more times than I can count on my fingers and toes, and I always listen in with such discontent. My experiences in South Beach have been some of the most memorable experiences of my life thus far, surrounded by family, friends, good food and music is always a plus in my book, but staying out until 3, 4, 5, even 6 am is not something I am necessarily fond of. I'd much rather stay home and listen to Tchaikovsky and Bach while perusing the web for never before read quotes. My mother has salsa and merengue playing all day every day, I don't really need to hear it in my sleep. I also eat platanos like it's nobody's business, but I certainly don't need it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That is just too much. Way too much.

Across the board, the state of Florida, and all of those cities I have either lived in or frequently visited are cities that have taught me a great deal about life, invaluable lessons, there is no denying that; but to this day, I can't say I love any of those cities the way I love home. The way I love DC, and I don't really love DC all that much. I also wonder to myself if my attitude towards Florida and my alma mater, Florida State, would be any different had those four hurricanes not rudely interrupted what was supposed to be an exhilarating and memorable freshman year. It sure was memorable! Those four hurricanes not only disrupted my life, but they disrupted my state of mind, they disrupted my thought-process, and they had a great deal, actually, they had everything to do with shaping my attitude towards Florida. I mean, can you blame them? I was only 18-years-old! I had flown out of the safety of my mother's nest into 80 mph winds and forced to figure out how to fly on my own... I like to think that I did.

Ironically, I'm thankful for my experiences in Florida, because had I not moved to Florida and been tortured by hurricanes I wouldn't know or have some of the most amazing relationships/friendships I have today. Nearly all with native Floridians. Go figure. Did I have to experience all of that for these people to be in my life? I'm sure someone knows... I'm also happy that I was able to somehow live in the moment while I was in Tallahassee, even if it was for the few months before I said goodbye for good.

Now can you believe my boyfriend asked me to move to Ft. Lauderdale?

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Thou Shalt Not Fear Thy Google (Weekly No. 5)

goo·gle
vt, often capitalized \ˈgü-gəl\
goo·gle | goo·gled | goo·gling\-g(ə-)liŋ\
Definition of GOOGLE
: to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (as a person) on the World Wide Web
FYI, I googled that Michael Jackson/Google image, but you already knew that. For the purposes of this assignment, that action alone fascinates me. More on Michael Jackson and Google later.
Should we, humans, nearly 2 billion internet users, fear Google? It's hard to wrap my brain around fearing anything man-made, and this has nothing to do with religion; I just think that nothing or no one is invincible in this world. Nothing or no one has so much power that they can't be destroyed. What is there to fear about Google? Yes, they're slowly but surely taking over the web, but Google also went into cardiac arrest when Michael Jackson died. I know, poor choice of words, but I'm trying to get my point across. Although powerful, Google is certainly not immune to human behavior.
"Link by link, click by click, search is building possibly the most lasting, ponderous, and significant cultural artifact in the history of humankind: the Database of Intentions." — John Battelle
We live in an era where we are constantly seeking information via the web, that is virtually what the World Wide Web is, a massive hub of information waiting to be sought. I can't even begin to keep track of how many times a day I type Google's url into my toolbar in order to search for something, even websites whose address I know. That's just lazy. Google is my main method of gaining knowledge and navigating the web on my laptop and Blackberry. I constantly get into heated discussions with conflicting ideas; sooner or later one of us resorts to shouting: "Just Google it!" In The Search, John Battelle touches on this by stating: "Search has become a universally understood method of navigating our information universe." You can easily replace the word "search" with "Google" in that sentence as Google has become synonymous with search.
"Intent drives search. . . Searching is merely a means to an end."
Although we are still searching, over the past few years the behavior of incessantly searching the web has shifted from the desktop to a mobile device; and I'll give it to Google for owning 97% of mobile search traffic, but at one point no one was searching anything via a mobile device, and twenty years ago no one was searching the web. What happens when the intent fizzles away? What happens when people are no longer search-crazed?

If intent drives search and searching the internet is a learned behavior, what happens when humans start to learn a new behavior or given a new method to access/search for information. What happens if humans completely abandon this behavior? This is why I feel that no matter what Google does, no matter how much it acquires, we shouldn't fear it. If anything Google should fear the 2 billion internet users around the world. Google should fear how often human behavior changes and how quickly we are willing to jump ship to swim to the next big thing. Goodbye MySpace, Hello Facebook!

Although humans search Google over one billion times a day, ten years ago, Google was in its infant stage and barely crawling. This, again, is why we shouldn't fear Google, because at one point they didn't exist. As consumers, we should never fear a company that we essentially gave its power. Humans gave Google its power, and just like we gave MySpace power, we can take it away. Google's future is in our hands.

Just last year Google thought that Michael Jackson traffic was an attack on its servers because of the spike in queries. When the news became official that Michael Jackson was in cardiac arrest, then Google realized what happened. People were going mad searching for the latest on Michael Jackson's condition. The intent to gain knowledge on Michael Jackson's condition is what drove people to Google in unforeseen quantities. The search inquiries surrounding Michael Jackson's death set a precedent for Google as it had never experienced this type of "attack" before. Human traffic, human behavior, drove Google's servers into distress and ultimately crashed the servers. Now that is something to fear.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

And I Quote... (Weekly No. 4)

"When I quote others I do so in order to express my own ideas more clearly." — Michel de Montaigne
I began collecting quotes in a brown journal my sophomore year of high school (the only reason I even know this is because of the date on my first entry). I got the idea to keep a journal of quotes from none other than Oprah Winfrey. One day she suggested to keep a log of your favorite quotes on her show, and like many Oprah-obsessed fans I did as she said. Hey, when Oprah speaks, you listen! Oprah has suggested many things over the span of her show, but that one suggestion ignited an intense fascination with quotes. I always loved quotes, but I never had a place to keep them, and I never even thought to write them down. What 15-year-old girl really kept a diary? Between lacrosse practice and cello lessons, I didn't have time. Fast-forward 9 years later, I have a diary -- the little yellow diary -- and somehow I have time. My "diary" is hosted by Tumblr, and the only reason I have time to write in my "diary" is because there is a Tumblr application on my Blackberry, which means my diary is with me every where I go, because my Blackberry is with me everywhere I go. 24/7, 365, 366 in a leap year.

It was challenging finding an online "quote lover" community; nothing where I could connect with other people who are as fascinated with quotes as I am, but I found plenty of websites devoted to sharing quotes: The Quote Garden, Brainy Quote, and The Quotations Page, which claims to be the oldest quotation site on the web. I even found a site that required a monthly fee to read the quotes on their site- Greatest Quotes & Quotations -- I really hope no one is paying for that. I did, however, find Facebook communities for One Tree Hill Quote Lovers, and for Slumdog Millionaire Quote Lovers. When searching "quotes" on Facebook, I was directed to All My Quotes, they completely lost me after that -- there were definitely no quotes on their page. Even Google loves quotes! Google gives you the option of adding a "Quotes of the Day" feature on iGoogle (customized homepage), courtesy of the oldest quotation site on the web. But still, no fully-functioning quote lover community.

Wait, what am I saying? Tumblr is easily one of the biggest communities for quote lovers. My favorite quote blog: Karishma -- one of Tumblr's most popular blogs -- exists partially on reader submissions. Same with Quote Book, another favorite. There are people constantly submitting quotes to these sites, the site operators (that's a fancy word for blogger or I should say Tumblr) then post the quotes on their site with a direct link to the person who submitted that quote. The connection is established. I can't tell you how many times I've fallen in love with a quote and followed the source to land on yet another quote lovers site. I found one of my favorite quote blogs yet this week because of that. Needless to say, Tumblr is for quote lovers.

One thing I love about quotes is there are quote categories for every walk of life: Age, Love, Marriage, Religion, Life, Politics, even Computers, and the web makes it so easy to find quotes within these categories. Categorizing quotes would have been extremely difficult before the web came into play, but now that's all the web seems to be-categories. Chris Anderson talks about mass markets turning into mass niches in The Long Tail, and this is demonstrated on the web with the overabundance of quote sites and blogs.
"The era of one-size-fits-all is ending, and in it's place is something new, a market of multitudes. . . Increasingly, the mass market is turning into a mass of niches."
Before the web, a quote lover would have to peruse magazines, books, and watch movies and TV shows like a mad man in hunt of an enlightening or inspiring quote, but now quotes are constantly plucked from within these massive entertainment sources and categorized on the web for someone to access them easily. The quote websites are a niche within the web, and I would even go as far as to say the different categories on these quote websites are niches. The same person who is interested in marriage quotes, might not be interested in divorce quotes.

There is nothing I love more than perusing my favorite blogs and websites in search of a quote I have yet discovered. Collecting quotes has been a passion of mine for many years and I don't see this passion fading away any time soon (like others have *cough, cough the cello*); actually, I don't see it ever fading away, but I know that if it wasn't for the web, if it wasn't for Tumblr, collecting quotes wouldn't be an active hobby. I am almost obsessive when it comes to discovering new quotes and if I didn't have a place to easily find quotes, and a place to store them, and more importantly people to share them with (this, I have recently discovered, is something I really enjoy doing, and something I could have never done before the web), I'd probably be knitting pink socks, alone.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

To Bill or Not To Bill (Weekly No. 3)


Should the social web have a Bill of Rights? At first thought, no. Then I start to think about the heartbreaking suicide of a Rutgers University student last week, and I am forced to re-evaluate my answer. One would only hope that the way we conduct ourselves offline should be no different than the way we conduct ourselves online, right? Well, the painful truth is some people’s conduct offline is completely different than their conduct online; this conduct often can and has lead to tragedy.

Before I delve any further into the Rutgers University tragedy, I want to mention that the idea of a Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web is well-thought and well-versed, but it in all reality, it would be impossible to regulate and even more difficult to enforce, but that’s not to say that it isn’t needed in some capacity.

Touching on the first suggested fundamental right—Ownership—I can’t help but think about how saturated the web has become with copy and paste content. News and stories spread like wildfire and are passed along like viruses via modern day journalists aka bloggers; the originating source is rarely cited. Why would they source? Most bloggers are trying to prove that they are a credible source, wanting to direct traffic to their blog first. In the real world, plagiarism is taken seriously, but the World Wide Web is a different world. Tools to identify plagiarism are certainly not as popular as Twitter, therefore, making it impossible to enforce the idea of ownership of content.

The second and third fundamental rights of Control and Freedom suggested in the Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web lead me back to Tyler Clementi, the 18-year-old freshman at Rutgers University who committed suicide after a sexual encounter with his partner was unknowingly webcasted by his roommate.

On the evening of September 19, Dharun Ravi allegedly sent a message via Twitter about Tyler Clementi.

"Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay."

"Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it's happening again," Ravi is believed to have tweeted.

The next day, Clementi was dead.

A mobile status update September 22 on a Facebook page purportedly belonging to Clementi said: "jumping off the gw bridge sorry."

Although Clementi's roommate, Ravi, and fellow Rutgers student, Molly Wei, have been charged with invasion of privacy, prosecutors are still weighing whether to charge Ravi and Wei with a hate crime. Say what? I understand the need to determine the facts and then determine what the applicable law is, but if there was some type of legislation in place regarding the social web and malicious acts using this medium—such as filming someone having sex with their significant other and dishing it out like candy on Halloween night—the only weighing would be at the jail where Ravi and Wei would be taken into custody. Both height and weight would be recorded, and that record would be permanent; the same way every single word posted on the web is. Unfortunately, there is no law to protect us from embarrassment and humiliation, which I can only assume is what led Clementi to commit suicide; which is the gray cloud that is ominously hovering over this case.

The social web is undoubtedly being used to exploit and hurt people, whether it's gossip or bullying, but there is a fine line between gossip and bullying, and pure torment. In Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody, the story of the lost Sidekick and its accompanying retrieval proposed how dramatically connected humans were becoming. "The ways in which the information we give off about ourselves, in photos and e-mails and MySpace pages and all the rest of it, has dramatically increased our social visibility and made it easier for us to find each other but also to be scrutinized in public." Wait, who still has a MySpace page? More importantly, who had a Sidekick?! *Raises my hand in utter excitement!* The social web can be a wonderful and powerful tool, but the latter can also lead to self-destruction, and in many cases has. For this, I do think there should be a governing set or rules intact, or some type of policy within institutions (e.g., schools and enterprises) that encourage the use of social media and where the usage of social media is widespread, such as Rutgers University. I was unable to find Rutgers University’s social media policy on their university site, however, I did find a Let’s Be Social page and information regarding an upcoming event where social media will be the topic of discussion: Social media and government policy-making: Has the great promise been realized? It’s safe to assume that a social media policy is being constructed as I type this blog post, at least I hope so.

As I mentioned, I do think Joseph Smarr, Marc Canter, Robert Scoble, and Michael Arrington where clever for suggesting that a Bill of Rights was needed for the social web, I just think it would be extremely difficult to regulate and enforce; and in most cases unnecessary, but laws are usually created for the exception, not the rule. And in this case, the suicide of Clementi as a result of his exploitation through the web is the exception.

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One thing that I found fascinating given the events that unfolded last week with the string of suicides by gay teens was an idea in Shirky's Here Comes Everybody; Shirky insinuated that increasing human interaction via social networking demonstrated "the ease and speed with which a group can be mobilized for the right kind of cause." The movement that has sprung from the death of Clementi, among other gay-teen suicide victims, is a testament to this idea. These untimely deaths have mobilized organizations across the country to shed light on the plight of homosexual teenagers. Gay rights activist Dan Savage has launched a YouTube channel called "It Gets Better" where he solicits videos from fans who want to provide support and encouragement to gay teens who face adversity, discrimination and bullying in high school. The movement has already caught the attention and enlisted celebrities such as Perez Hilton, Ciara, Tim Gunn, and Jason De Rulo, among others to create videos offering their support and encouragement.

Ironically, the social web will save and destroy lives. Bill of Rights, or not.