Prompted by the awkward mass @home.com to @rogers.com email address change, Peter Rukavina tackles the fickle impermanence of email addresses (go read his comments and then come back and read on).
I’ve been having similar problems with phone numbers lately. I have a home phone at my apartment, but I’ll probably only be at that apartment for maybe two years or so. I share the apt with a room-mate, so we can’t both take the number with us. I also have a cell-phone, but it’s a ‘work’ cell-phone, and a normal ‘work’ number. I’m never sure which number to give to my insurance company or doctor.
I have the same problem with mailing addresses. I have most things mailed to my work as it is my most permanent address. Email address, as Peter has pointed out, are the worst of all.
There is a bigger problem here – that of identity. In search of a permanent email address, I, like Peter, am lucky to work at a web company and can have whatever address I can find a domain for. Currently, I’m both steven@silverorange.com, my work address (and professional identity) and steven@actsofvolition.com my sort-of-personal address (Acts of Volition identity).
This works well for me, but is full of holes. For example, people I’ve met through my personal web log often end up being people I related to professionally as silverorange. For example, I often reply to posts on Reinvented.net, from the perspective both of Acts of Volition writer and silverorange representative.
Peter Rukavina’s Reinvented.net has gone part way to a solution to the dual-identity problem by merging his web log and company website. However, while frank honesty is one of the best attributes of this site, I’m sure this arrangement occasionally forces Peter to avoid some subjects knowing that his clients – both current and potential – will be reading.
I’ve wandered into two different issues here. First, there is the problem of different identities (steven@work, steven@home, steven@civil_disobedient_mob). The best solution to this is to be as honest and ‘yourself’ as possible in all situations – to only have one identity. This is easier said than done. I doubt there will ever be a solution to ‘worlds colliding’ situations, like seeing your teacher buying condoms. We often refer to this as “killing independent George” thanks to a Seinfeld episode on the subject.
Second, is the problem of the transition and currency of contact information (phone, email, instant messaging, and mailing address). This problem is a little easier to solve; by proxy.
Each person should have a unique identifier, perhaps a name or something like email address to avoid duplicates. This identifier could then be used as phone, email, instant messaging, and even mailing address.
For example, I mail a package to my girlfriend with only her unique identifier on it – no address. The post office, as an entity to whom I’ve given the right to my actual information, then converts the identifier into my current physical address. If I move, I just change the address in my central profile.
This is a simple concept, and there would be plenty of problems to work out. Privacy would be a key issue, for example. But in the hands of a trusted ‘identity bank’ – if there could ever be such a thing – having all contact run through a pointer or proxy could be a great protector of privacy.
Microsoft is vying to be this identity bank with their Passport service. Already they have gone farther than anyone else in merging the email and instant messaging identities of Hotmail and MSN Messenger users. The integration of Passport into their new OS, XP will no doubt speed its adoption.
For a system like this to be universally adopted, I suspect it would have to be a protocol rather than one proprietary service (like Passport). If only because the zillions of Slashdot readers will never ever sign up for a Microsoft service.
Does this make any sense? I’m sure it can’t be a new idea. How do you manage your multiple identities?
* appologies to Peter for hijacking his post and to Nick who came up with the idea of having one proxy postal address
Stephen, you say of my website:
And you’re correct.
Careful readers of the site will realize that I have generally refrained, for example, from any comment, positive or negiative, on matters relating to the Provincial Government. This is only common courtesy to a client: if Island Tel were my client, I wouldn’t ever say anything bad or good about them either.
Besides, through my work with the Province I will occasionally have access to information which isn’t yet released to the public, and it’s better for me to simply refrain from any comment as opposed to trying to figure out what I really know and what I only virtually know.
And it certainly wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment on party-political issues given my work with Elections PEI, where both the perception and reality of impartiality is important to the process.
That said, it’s sometimes difficult to know where the Province begins and where the Province ends, and while I have occasionally written things that have ruffled feathers, I’ve never been asked to remove anything I’ve written.
As to the personal-professional separation, I plain just don’t believe in it. While there is a “Reinvented idea” that describes what my company thinks, and how I work, Reinvented is a reflection of me, and I of it; that’s why my website starts Hi there. I’m Peter Rukavina, and this is my company.
I made a concious decision some time ago that I wouldn’t try to pretend to be something corporately that I am not personally: it’s too easy to get confused about the difference between “corporate Peter” and “regular Peter” so I just decided to eliminate the split and let the chips fall where they may.
I have no doubt that this attitude has cost me clients.
But it’s also attracted clients, and the clients that it attracts are better clients because they’re interested in what I really have to offer, not some pretend version of myself that I create for marketing purposes.
As a result of all this, I’ve spent a lot of time writing and re-writing the About Reinvented Inc. page of my website to try and better reflect what we’re really like.
If I have any criticisms of silverorange (and I have very few) it is that your own about us page says stuff like:
…which is really just content-free marketing fluff that tells me nothing about you and your company, and how you work and how you feel, and what it would be like to hire you.
I have always considered it odd that there is no direct connection between the silverorange website and this one, for this website is the best advertisement that the Company has, for it’s the only place on the web that one can get a sense of the wit and intelligence that underlies the Company.
I know we’re all supposed to be hopped-up on brands and the like — creating corporate avatars for our beliefs and marketing attitudes — but I really wish that we could move beyond this sort of thing. It serves only to confuse and distract. Tell me who you are, tell me what you think and feel. Don’t hide behind a logo and an agglomeration.
Peter, I appreciate your response and your link to those sweet Mars photos.
I also appreciate your criticism of the silverorange website. Those who have followed the life of silverorange through our site will know that it is certainly not a blog. We have always chosen to let our work represent us and we have seldom gone out of our way to explicitly promote ourselves. For example, you’ll not find our name or logo on most of our client’s websites (stay tuned our best one yet is coming in a few weeks). This is because we have never felt our website is a great way to make connections with the right kind of clients. Rather, we have garnered a close connection to small family of clients and it is those connections and the work we’ve produced for them that keep the family growing.
You may also have noticed that the silverorange site seldom refers to the individuals of the company (except for Dan, our CEO). This ambiguity has served us well. In the early days of silverorange (which were also the days of dot-com madness) we thought our small size may prove to be a hurdle (this was, after all, a time when appearances were worth a lot of money and our approach was effective in that respect). More recently, we’ve come to look at our size as an asset. Still, we’ve found that in terms of getting attention, that leaving hunkering down and concentrating on producing good work is the best formula.
On a local level, we’ve done very little to promote ourselves. Even our sign on a busy road on Charlottetown (busy in Charlottetown terms, at least) serves only to direct those whose who already know who we are, not to attract new business (the old dude at the sign shop couldnt not understand for the life of him how we could possibly want to put only our logo, and not our name on our sign, let alone not describing what we do but as you can imagine, there isn’t a lot of lucrative walk-in business for a web-software company). We’ve only put out our first press release ever last week (about our intranet award). You’ll not read a lot about us in The Guardian, but this is in no way a reflection of the volume or significance of the work going on in our little shop.
Most of our clients though are not local (especially recently) and we have attracted these clients with the quality of our work. For example, we are very excited to be working with two new companies from Ottawa and Connecticut. These folks didn’t search Google for web design and find silverorange. Rather, they were familiar with our relavent work, Veseys.com (and you’ll notice there isn’t a silverorange logo on anywhere on site).
In terms of the separation of the corporate and the personal, while your comments are still relevant, it is important to point out that you are a corporation of one. You can speak on behalf of your company and answer only to yourself. silverorange is much more than Steven Garrity (notice the v in Steven 😉 and I believe there is a legitimate separation of the personal and the corporate. There are ideas and ideals that I share in common with my co-workers and there are ideas and ideals in which we differ. I suppose that it is both these common traits and our unique individual traits that make us a strong team. However, when I speak on behalf of silverorange (which I occasionally do here on aov) I have to keep in mind that I am speaking on behalf of a group of people, not only myself.
The separation between silverorange.com and actsofvolition.com is clear and intentional and I defend that decision. Acts of Volition is an outlet for myself (and two others, who are not related to silverorange). If silverorange fuels a significant amount of the aov content, it is because silverorange fuels a significant amount of the interesting experiences I have had in the last few years. I have never hidden the connection between myself and silverorange (it says right on the front page of aov that I am a director of the company). But the connection is just that, between myself and silverorange, not between Acts of Volition and silverorange.
Again Peter, thank you for your response. You have forced my to look at some of these issues in a new light (and in terms of your quote from the about us page, touché).
I’m interested to hear how others deal with this Church-State/Corporate-Personal separation.
Your points Ste[v|ph]en are well taken.
However I continue to maintain that, as far as general direction for our society is concerned, groups-as-brands is a step back not a step forward.
In my experience almost all of the goodness in the world extends from the individual, not from the arbitrary group.
And, conversely, much of what’s bad about the world occurs when we move away from the individual to the conceit of the brand.
I think we’re used to groups (churches, political parties, cub scouts, nations), and they offer us some comfort (I believe X, I vote Y, I joined Z). But they are ultimately a shield from personal responsibility, and serve only to collectively dumb us down rather than to elevate us.
Innumerable times I’ve received feedback from the Province of PEI website from angry or frustrated people which is written as if it will never be read: angry, mean, hurtful words. I always respond quickly, and in a civil tone, and universally the response from the correspondent is shock (that someone real actually read their comments) and embarassment (that they assumed nobody would, and they acted so immaturely). When I become real, in other words, so do they.
This is to say nothing of the tremendous energy we spend trying to get people to join our groups, believe in our groups, stamp out the other groups, and so on.
When we do or say things without thinking as much as we should or could things in the name of our [church | religion | politics | club | affinity group] or when we make assumptions about people based on same, we aren’t living up to our potential as human beings: we are being lazy.
I’m not saying that people in groups can’t or shouldn’t achieve great things: the power of the many is a well-established, useful and life-affirming thing. It’s only when we take that agglomeration and try and try to breath life into it, turning it into a pseudo-person (Reinvented thinks, IBM believes, etc.), that things take a turn for the worse.
I’m excited by people, interested in their stories, turned on by their honesty or their dishonesty. Once we leave that behind, are we any different than Coca-Cola? And when we lie about ourselves like Coca-Cola lies (drink this, you’ll feel better), we pollute the world, and ultimately we are all worse off for this.
Thoughtful considerations. I would think that we all have areas that we cannot discuss through the business dealings we have on PEI – another good reason for getting clients in a number of locations. There is much I am barred from commenting on publicly and privately through my career but as I deal with others in their areas, I find there are few so independent that they can truly speak their mind on all matters. Lucky Kevo. That being said, self-censoring and hiding behind one’s affinity group, political party, work place, brand is exactly as Peter said…lazy. Worse, it withholds from the public debate the experiences of others. That is why these local blogs are so interesting. As much as is possible, people put into play the opinions they have. It really does not matter whether there is agreement, disagreement or even a new idea – as long as there is a discussion. I was at a truly awful IT Industry conference in Halifax on Friday, “the TechAction Town Hall”. I was invited by a client who was equially disappointed with the blandness of the discussion, the inflexability of the format and the superficiality of the conclusions. Apparently, a number of these things are being held, “results” filtered up to the upper middle management and a part is played in framing the basis for future policy. Yikes. By relying on the committee or on “decision makers” a bad outcome is almost guaranteed. Better to have an idea, go work towards the idea and get the idea done – even if it is a recreational catapulting club. At least it is something human.
Steven,
Americans already have unique identifiers: Social Security Numbers. And here in Missouri they are nearly ubiquitous. Your SSN is your Driver’s License Number, and if you work for the University, it is also your employee number. Of course we feel that giving out that number is simply too great a security risk, even if given only to friends. I’ve thought about this issue before, and the truth is I sorta like the notion that I could, if I wanted to, just vanish and never been seen again. That’s the only problem with centralized contact information, it makes it harder to leave people (or rather, undesirable situations) behind.
But if you were going to do it, given the special properties of space and time, use a unix timestamp and a lat/long pair to pinpoint one’s birthplace. That’d be unique, even for twins. Har har.
About corporate identity: I find that I really enjoy About Us sections with photos and profiles of people you might work with. It immediately brings the reader’s focus to the center of the business, the people. When I did a villa shopping cart for Travel-Italy.com, every new customer was assigned a staff contact and they got a itty-bitty picture of that person on their shopping cart page: “Hi, I’m Jan your staff contact, call me at 800-66-Italy if you have any questions”. Faces and names are more important than fancy lingo.
By the way, I sent in a resume to you several weeks ago. I haven’t yet followed up, so let me say: “I’m following up”. If you have any questions, please let me know. I dig LAMP.
~Jesse
Peter, again with the clever URLs.
I’ve always joked that humans get exponentially dumber as our numbers increase. 2 people are four times as dumb as one person, 3 people are nine times as dumb as one person, etc. (I’m not too strong in the maths).
And I think I’m agreeing with you when I say that brands are the artificially manufactured values and reputations of companies who can’t rely on their actual values and reputations.
As for working as teams, it sure pays off for silverorange. You would not want the Steven Garrity Inc. managing your web software project (it might look good, but the linux administration would be somewhat lacking).
I’m not sure about personifying groups. Sure, lying about ourselves (Coke makes you feel good) is bad, but what if the qualities attributed to the group are accurate. For example, the products built at silverorange are far better for having intense debate between those whose experience is primarily technical with those whose experience is primarily creative – especially since each group has a good understanding and respect for expertise of the other. The results of this process have attributes which are attributed to silverorange. I suppose we could attribute them to Dan, Isaac, Nick, Nathan, Dave, Steven, and Daniel, but that doesn’t have the same zesty zing of silverorange.
On a barely-or-not-at-all-related note while were making use to wacky gifs, all this talk of multiple identities has reminded me of a story I simply must tell. One Christmas when I was about ten years old, I wanted a He-Man action figure. My well intentioned aunt went to the (formerly) trusty Consumers Distributing (how’s that for a non-brandified name?!). She picked up what she thought was the He-Man action figure.
Come Christmas morning, I found out how wrong she was. Fakor is another of the He-Man action figure line. One of Skeletor’s evil minions he looked exactly like He-Man (except for the odd fact that he was blue) and used his uncanny semblance to He-Man for the evil purposes of Castle GreySkull. My aunt had been fooled by the evil Fakor! It was a sad Christmas.
You can see how my aunt was confused…
I don’t doubt that the collected minds of silverorange can do better work than the individuals individually. I envy you all. And nothing I said was meant to suggest that we should all retire to our geek grottos and hack our our little bits of isolated code, pure in the knowledge that we are unadulterated by the evils of Coca-Cola-ism.
I just like the world better when I can deal with people, not machines.
PS: If you change the name of silverorange to Dan, Isaac, Nick, Nathan, Dave, Steven, and Daniel, I think the world would be a much better place. I am willing to help contribute to the costs of changing your business cards if you proceed. It worked for the michael & elliott company. Sort of.
ring…ring…..
“Dan, Isaac, Nick, Nathan, Dave, Steven, and Daniel… Dan Speaking”.
“Ok sir, I’ll just ask you to spell the name of the company for me … “
Getting back to identifiers, a unique identifier such as a Social Security number or web related identifier poses a real problem to personal privacy. If all data bases about you are identifiable through the same code, then whoever has the code has you. If they have the key they can change you, become you or create a number of yous. I kind of like the disfunctionality of one string of numbers for my car licence, one for my health card, one for my social security, post office box, etc. I also like the freedom of putting down an e-mail address on usenet or a telephone number for a e-commerce pruchase that is one or two digets wrong just so the data cannot be mined and/or misused. This is my tiny form of system busting that I think furthers my impression of my own individuality. Whether the impression is merely placating…well who knows. Any proposal, however, to put all medical information on a data based accessable only to “health professional” – ie every counsin to a secretary in every chiropractor’s office – gives me the willies. Insurance co. hires PI who snoops and finds out who has diabetes and policies just seem to tighten up. If the entry identifier to the data base is a fixed universal ID so much the easier.
I share Alan’s concerns: it’s already a problem with Social Security Numbers in the U.S., which are often used as driver’s license numbers, bank account numbers, etc. by third parties. If you know someone’s SSN, it’s a terrific gateway into their private life.
I don’t know alan. I don’t think inconvenience for the end user is a good security method. It makes sense for this information to be central. There just have to be better privacy laws. If there were an open system, where companies could compete to be your ‘identity bank’, then you’d have a competitive environment where there was a financial incentive for companies to keep the data safe. If you’re naive, you could get the government involved (although for Canadians ordering from Amazon.com – that could only spell trouble).
Fragmented personal information is not the product of some smart dude somewhere trying to protect our privacy. It is the product of thousands of morons who don’t talk to each other.
For example, everyone on Prince Edward Island now has a provician health card. It has my name, a number and a magnetic strip on the back (which I have never ever seen ‘swiped’ in all my unhealthy adventures). Then, I have a hospital card for the Queen Elizabeth hospital here in Charlottetown (the ‘blue’ card). It has my name, and a number (they didn’t bother with the phony magnetic strip). Then last week, I had to go to the Summerside hospital (horrible Trauma in the ER internal photos coming soon) and they gave me a new Prince County Hospital card. It has my name and a number.
To sum up, on Prince Edward Island, the tiny Island province of about 130,000 people (?) I have three health cards! This is absurd. All the damn cards do is give the receptionist a number that calls up my record in their database. Why aren’t they one card!?
Imagine answering the phone at Stewart McKelvey Stirling Scales or MacIsaac Younker Roche Soloman. They do it, though. And presumably it’s at least in part because of the personal associations being good for business.
Come on Peter, are you using these companies as examples of how to run a personal business?
I’m simply responding to the notion that it would be a silly idea to call a company “The Dan, Isaac, Nick, Nathan, Dave, Steven, and Daniel Company,” and pointing out that this isn’t untrodden ground. While I wouldn’t necessarily want to work for SMSS or MYRS, I think there are lessons to be learned from the way that the Professions are organized. Why do I take Oliver to “Dr. Pauline Champion” to have his ear infection attended to rather than “MedicalCorp?”
I’d just like to point out that SIN in canada was promised as a private internal thing for the candaian goverment when it came out, and that it would never be required as an identifier. Now, X number of years down the road, its required for everything. Want to apply for a job? Gotta use your SIN. Wanna get a credit card – or a bank account? Gotta use your SIN. Wanna buy a magazine subscription – they’d like you SIN.
My point. Goverments can’t be trusted with stuff like this, cause its only a matter of time till its co-opted. Having one unique idetifier already exists – not for mail/email/phone number use. For finding out your complete finacial/medical/personal history if someone spends enough time digging. So maybe that last step of making everything point to you is already halfway there.
On a slightly related note, this question is for the lawyer. Why can a bank hide a credit report about me from me? Isn’t that information mine, by right of the fact that i have to give them permission to view it? Why can’t i see it just as easily as they can?
…Plus I don’t want to be in anyone’s “system” unless it is my choice and does me good. If there are three IDs for PEI, it is because they have yet to have an integrated data base with all your info. Why would PEI or any organization get an integrated data base? To cross reference. Cross referencing is only useful to build a data picture of me. I don’t want anyone to be able to do that. The law in Canada is starting to get a bit of the indvidual autonomy that the US has and a bit of the anti-commercial entity human rights privacy protection that Europe has. I think it is a good thing even if it makes things cluttered. If I assist that by a few misspellings, so much the better.
Isaac: Check out the Consumer Protection Act (I think) on line at Peter’s well crafted statutes of PEI site… well-crafted though it could allow cutting and pasting from the on-line text [a legal researcher whines].
Yeah Alan – cross-referencing. I do want my doctor in summerside to cross-reference my records in charlottetown! Could there be a better example?
Not if I have AIDS and my other doctor’s nurse is my neighbour.
[Not to be a pain but…]
Not if I am taking anti-depressants and am myself a health worker…
Not if I am suing my doctor and another is gathering medical data for my case…
Not if I am an alcoholic non-health professional or government official…
Perhaps you should be able to opt-out, but I’ve often thought that every time I visit a health care professional, they should have immediate electronic access to all of my medical history (given my permission).
I had an important appointment with a specialist that took a long time to schedule recently and when I got there, my family doctor hadn’t forwarded my latest records, which were very pertinent to the appointment. Lame.
Bad systems with safeguards are not fixed by removing the safeguards, only by removing the bad. I agree with your consent concept but can it work. As doctors write reports to one another that patients don’t regularly see and as doctors write those reports in a hurry, the mistakes or implications imbedded in them may never come to your attention for correction or consent.
Peter,
I think your position is extreme. You seem to want to discount abstraction all together. Now, there may not be Platonic forms, but without abstraction we’d have never made it out of the trees, or up from the sea, or wherever we made it from.
Just joking, I know that is not what you mean: you don’t want to discount abstraction; you are just making a specific point about branding and marketing. Still, if we all follow your advice, I reckon the world would be a terribly confusing place. Too many long company names.
I’m trying to understand your critique of “groups”. Are you claiming that groups _necessarily_ have no use value or produce no good? I can’t see why that would be true. It may be a contingent fact that a lot of groups suck, but that is a criticism of group members, not of groups per se.
And why must brand come hand in hand with conceit? Sure, some brands are the product of deceitful marketing agents, but again, this is the fault of specific people, not _branding_ per se.
So, if you want to claim “some people in groups or some people in marketing do bad things”, then sure, I’ll buy it. But I won’t buy that “groups” and “brands” per se are evils.
I’m not critical of groups. I think groups are great things. I think we should all join together in more groups more often. Groups are fun. Groups are great.
But when we try and imbue a group with person-like qualities — to try and substitute for all of the richness and colour and anger and joy and bitterness and creativity and sloth and energy of a group of individuals with some shifty slick make-believe “positioning” — we’re taking a turn for the worse.
I’m not making any statement about the group or the individuals in the group when I say this. Nor am I trying to suggest that the individuals are necessarily better or worse for the group, nor that the group is necessarily better or worse for the branding.
I’m simply saying that when we create the deliberate lies that branding requires we play a small role in tearing down a little bit of what’s good and integral and honest about society.
Isaac has reminded me of a question I had. He mentioned “Why can a bank hide a credit report about me from me?” I am also wondering about this except for medical records.
I was sitting in radiology once about a 10 months ago, and I was bored waiting for them to determine if they got a good picture or not. They always sent me for procedures with my big green chart. I decided to thumb through it (why be bored with a juicy book on your lap?).
I found it to be a very interesting read, but just as I was getting into some interesting stuff a Nurse popped out and took the book from me. I wasn’t angsty enough to grill her for her reasons for taking it, but then I realized that I should be entitled to that information.
Anybody have experience with that?
OK, I see what you are saying a little more clearly now. But you feel that branding necessarily entails deception? I don’t see a necessary connection here. Perhaps a strong contigent connection, but nothing more. And if all you are saying is that marketing guys/gals sometimes/often misrepresent the truth, well that seems reasonable.
Woah – multiple conversations happening here.
Rob, I requested all of my medical records from my family doctor. After what I think was some “why do you want these” snubbing, they made me sign something that says it if turns up on the newspaper that I have Disgruntled Thorax Disease, it’s my own fault, then they hooked me up with the whole pile ‘o records. Interesting indeed. Particularly interesting are the letters the doctors write following your consultation. Quite thourough for the most part.
Steve – a cocktail party has broken out here that’s all! The topic appears to be identity, anonymity, privacy and third party records.
I am as against branding as anyone. [I think there is a thread cross reference here Steve or Peter to a discussion 2 or 3 weeks ago.]
There is a great distinction between “Coke is great” and “Coke makes your like fun”. Neither is true but at least the first is a claim [patently false by the way] attributable to the quality of the product. Only the second is branding. Branding is always involved with deception as it focuses on the what-is- not. Fortunately, it is a by-product of summer of love teen having moved into corporate and advertising positions of decision making. When you start hearing Clash tunes behind car ads and the slogans saying “it will get you there – your neighbours will envy you unhealthily – your butt will be toasty” then you know that the boomers are out to pasture and the xers are in charge. One way to suss out who is who in the web sector – use the word “portal” approvingly and you’ll find a brand-licker behind every smile.
i wish i had joined this thread earlier. i do think that sometime the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. i think if silverorange (for example) is doing it’s job i will be a different and better experience than dealing with a bunch of people who happen to work there. i think at it’s best a corporation is organic, a living thing that sustains and need sustances… it’s not a mere collection of individuals, but it seeks out those indivduals that will help if fulfill itself.
at it’s worse, of course, it subverts, sucks, and saps without any care but its own perpetuation.
as for dealing with machines and people…may i please be spared the gopfaced gaze of the dolt behind the counter. and give me the speedy efficiency of a well made machine.
BTW, i thing silverorange tells me as much (if not more) about the human-ness of the company than the law firm styled naming of the people that work in it.
Moses Media…. what the hell was i thinking!!!???
As my friend and business partner Dave pleasantly but subtley points out, if you want a good dose of full-court bullshit, read this page. We all fall victim to the evil braggadocio gene once in a while.
plus i have to remember to preview before i post! ‘cos “spelling counts”!
while on the subject of anthropomorphizing corporations, (well i was anyway), i was thinking how branding and marketing aren’t (as a rule) lies or deceptions, but are as a spear is a mechanical extension of our arms… how we brand ourselves with clothes, makeup, attitudes blah blah blah… and it got me to thinking about “The Human Zoo” (cf. link)[and he changes the subject]
Has anybody been watching this show?
Sorta Desmond Morris for 2002.
How we make up our minds about people within 3-5 seconds of meeting them and how diificult to change people’s impressions (at least eight good subsequent impressions). And how that translates into what branding is all about. Creating a thought-machine capable of producing strong and positive first impressions without having any substantive experience of a product/person.
Of course now i’m thinking about the eight things i’m gonna have to do to counter this one post…
Wired agrees with some of you in that Decentralizing is the best defenece.
At least grant me that the post office should offer proxy addresses – even if they don’t sync with other forms of communication.
Steve: I am pretty sure that they do. A Forwarding Box is what they call it I believe.
Yeah, I know that Jevon – but I’m talking as a complete replacement for addresses. Why have static addresses at all?
Is branding, then, the taking advantage of a human automatic response that is alligned with the acting upon prejudgment and prejudice? Sounds correct. Then, if so, is it not branding a form of advertising playing to that which is base within us – it does not flatter or educate or engage with petty envy but illicits a dumb automated response?
Why bastard? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base? 10
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
Got ‘tween asleep and wake?
Actually I was alluding to the middle part of a transistor separating the emitter from the collector – that part within us….
All ye olde dudes are full of it!
Excellent thread by the way. Thanks to everyone who has been making aov so interesting for me lately with the great discussions.
OLD DUDES?!?!?
Hey Dave – pile on Steve…
i would, alan, but my knees… you know.
It is the wirey little buggers you gotta look out for, too…
Pertinent comments about personal blog branding by John Robb.
the first thing that came to mind when i saw this article was the plan for the new .name top level domain.
for example ‘sean.keane.name’ would be my unique identifier, which is also a web address.
read more at http://www.namesforeveryone.com/
(i got it as a spam today)