What Would Google Do? A book review.

In the preface for "What Would Google Do?"   Jeff Jarvis writes, "This book is about more than Google and its own rules and about more than technology and business.  It's about seeing the world as Google sees it, finding your own new worldview, and seeing differently.  In that sense, this book isn't about Google.  It's a book about you.  It is about your world, how it is changing for you, and what you can gain from that."

For those who seek to better understand how the Internet has wrought great changes in their lives, Jarvis' work is very helpful.   Those who crave a facts and figures detailed history of how Google became "the fastest growing company in the world", should look elsewhere . 

The book is divided into two parts.  The first part explores the rules by which Google operates. For example, "Focus on the user and all else will follow" is a direct quote of Google's corporate philosophy. Chapter one is entitled "Give the customer control and we will use it".  Jarvis intentionally delves deeper in his exploration of Google's operating principles.  So he does much more than simply quote Google's ten rules and explain them.  Chapters explore relationship with customers, the impact of live links on information exchanges, changes in business models, the influence on society, and more.  

The second part of the book, entitled "If Google Ruled the World", explores how various industries and institutions may be impacted by those rules.  Media, Advertising, Retail, Utilities, Manufacturing, Service, Money, Public Welfare, and Public Institutions each merit a chapter.

The Google rules are already causing considerable disruption in media and advertising.  Jarvis gives examples of current events  ( newspaper failures, etc.)  but also looks ahead to how various forms of media must adapt to survive the new regime.  In other arenas, manufacturing or utilities, Jarvis has to report less and forecast more.  

Jarvis weaves together narratives of his personal experience as a customer, a blogger, and a journalist with more traditional feature writing describing events where he had little or no personal involvement.  Jarvis skillfully spins stories.  I found them captivating.  One such story is 

"Dell Hell " .  Jarvis is able to remain humble while telling a story of how the Internet allowed him, a disgruntled customer, to wield great influence.  Jarvis feels free to express his opinion strongly, as when he writes " It is insane to treat Google as the enemy.  Even Yahoo doesn't .."  That makes for entertaining reading, but at times Jarvis comes across as cocksure about highly complex matters.  He redeems himself from time to time with admissions such as "I am a hypocrite.  If I had followed my own rules...you wouldn't be reading this book right now, at least not as a book."

Jarvis shares many, many examples of new businesses, new social sites, related books, etc.  Just those references would be enough to justify the book's price for many readers.  I have considerable experience roaming the WWW,  nonetheless, Jarvis was able to surprise me with lots of new links that I will enjoy exploring.

There were a couple of spots where Jarvis struck me as naive, even ignorant.  That may have been inevitable in a light hearted tome with a vast scope.  When he writes "Free is a business model" he is parroting a bit of nonsense that I frequently encounter about the web. Few things are truly free, and certainly not a web constructed of millions of servers connected to billions of user computers through thousands of miles of expensive fiber optic cables.  Many web based business have foundered when confronted with the sad truth that access to the Internet costs money.  More access costs more money.   The fact that an individual's access to the Internet cost less than $50 per month may be misleading.  Access to broadcast television is virtually free, but we pay for that by allowing our eyeballs to be bombarded with commercial messages.  My blog account on blogger had no cost for start up, but I have no doubt that a price will be extracted in some manner over time.  Advertising, archiving fees, and the like will creep in. 

 

Sorry Jeff, free is NEVER a business model.

Jarvis makes his living manipulating words. I suppose that makes it easy for him to believe that we may all be able to dispense with concrete objects.  So he writes phrases like "Atoms are a drag" or "Nobody wants to be in the business of making stuff anymore".  He taps the words out on a plastic keyboard resting atop a collection of material objects (microprocessors, disk drives, memory chips, light emitting diodes, batteries) that are marvels of achievement in the material world.  Never, ever, take cleverly arranged atoms for granted!

"What Would Google Do" is an entertaining and informative read, loaded with material that a reader can use to do further exploration of the world 2.0.  I highly recommend it.

What Is Stress?

Photo credit: stressed by rick

Hans Selye was a researcher in the biological sciences during much of the twentieth century.  He is widely believed to be the first to use the term "stress" to describe a biological phenomena.

While experimenting with hormone injections in rats, Selye discovered that a wide rage of irritating substances would produce the same response in rats.  There was an impact on their adrenal glands and damage to their gastrointestinal tract.  In other words, the rats got all wound up and their guts hurt them.

I heard Selye speak during the mid 1970's.  He made it clear that stress was the organism's response to the irritants, not the irritants themselves.  He called the irritants stressors.   The general use of the term these days confuses stress and stressors, but the basic idea is retained:

as we are impacted by various irritants, our stress level builds up.  We get anxious. We have various physical complaints, especially gastrointestinal problems.

However, an important point is often overlooked.  Selye learned that stress is generated by both irritating (or bad) events and by exciting, even pleasurable, good events.  To much of a good thing can make a person sick in a way that is identical to what would occur if they got too much of bad things.

It seems that we too often forget that the good events in our lives can help make us sick.  In fact, I have a hard time believing it despite having heard Selye in the flesh explaining it all.

So getting divorced will generate stress in people, but so will getting married.  Deaths, but also births.  Financial losses, but also winning the lottery.  Annoying people clearly create stress in us, but the truth is that stress is also generated when we spend time with a loved one.

There are some great coping strategies for dealing with stress:  exercise, avoiding caffeine, and various sorts of attitude adjustment.  However, I doubt that many people think to employ those strategies when lots and lots of good things are occurring.   I have been reminded of this during a period of weeks when we are enjoying many visits from loved ones, a daughter is getting married, and all of my children are doing very well.  

I find it difficult to believe that great things like those can make me uptight.  But it is clearly true.

Bad things will come, and hopefully good things will come.  My prayer is not that God would remove the bad and certainly not that he would hold back the good.  My prayer is that I would mature, grow stronger, and attain the wisdom needed to cope with the good and the bad.

Pray for strength, not for an easy life.  

How Will You Spend Eternity?

In the interview below, Richard Dawkins is asked if he had a choice between death ( as "that's it") or heaven, which would he choose?  He answers, "Give me two or three hundred years.   But I think no longer than that.  Eternity would be awful." 

Dawkins is healthy, intelligent, and affluent.  If two or three hundred years of that seems good, were it offered,  why not a thousand, ten thousand, or more? What would make eternity awful?

Earlier in the interview, Dawkins was asked whether he would like it if there was a God.  His answer : "What matters is what is true.  The universe doesn't care what I like."

Eternity in an uncaring universe, apart from the God who is love, would indeed be awful.

It would be hell.

Incorporating the Incorporeal has Consequences

photo credit:  the corporation is powerful by markhsx

Why do businesses incorporate?  In other words, why don't we just stick with businesses where the owner or owners are personally culpable for wrongdoing by that business.

The shoemaker has to take the heat if his shoes hurt his customer's feet.  If he adds employees and equipment to his workshop, he may crank out lots and lots of shoes.  In a sense he is now capable of hurting a lot more feet.  At some point he realizes that he is in a risky position.  Angry customers could bankrupt him and blacken his name.  So he incorporates.

The law allows him to pretend that his business is a someone.  That pretend someone can be bankrupted and reviled, but the shoemaker takes comfort that he personally can walk away with the rest of his assets in tact.  He may even escape notice and keep his good name.

Henry Ford made cars.   He and his descendants ran the company for a while.  However, once Ford Motor Company was incorporated, the Ford family's other assets were safe, even if Ford Motor Company went broke.  Over time the Ford Motor Company was sold to investors. Eventually the Ford family no longer managed the company.  The Ford Corporation is an idea, not a flesh and blood person or persons.  We have incorporated the incorporeal.

So when Ford Inc. does something nasty, who takes the rap?  The investors might lose the money they spent to buy in.  A board of directors has responsibility to ensure that the corporation is well run.  The board of directors is elected by the investors.  Sort of.

Although my personal fortune is modest, it is invested in a large number of corporations.  A little bit of GM.  A particle of Dell.  A very small piece of United Airlines.  Lots and lots of little pieces that add up to my life savings.  I spread it around that way on purpose.  My hope is that I may lose a piece here or there, but most of what I own will still be around for me to live on.  

Perhaps I owned a tiny piece of Enron, and it disappeared when Enron went bust.  I have no idea.  I own too many little pieces in too many places (mutual funds, annuities, etc.)  Nor do I have any idea who the directors are for any of those corporations that I own tiny pieces of.  One way or another, my "vote" gets voted by someone else.  Theoretically I could keep track of every piece and vote every vote to ensure that every deficiency is addressed in every company.  That will never happen.  I couldn't do it even if I devoted all my waking hours to keeping track of it all.

Yes, there are some folks with very large personal fortunes.  However, for the most part, they spread their money around as well.  They may own bigger pieces of companies than I do, but they will often own so many pieces of so many companies that they too will be woefully ignorant of what is going one in most of those companies.  

Incorporating the incorporeal has consequences.  Accountability is lost.  The personal touch is gone.  The management is simply tasked to make more money, at least for a while, until they can bail out with a golden parachute or get severed with an awesome severance package.

So it goes.

How Do You Vote?

In rich countries, most people vote every day, many times a day.  You are one of those people.

Perhaps you are not registered to vote.  Perhaps you have never stepped into a voting booth or mailed a ballot.  Nonetheless, you vote often.

You vote every time you read a story, watch a program, or listen to a song.  You vote when you buy something, visit somewhere, or pay someone.

The secret ballot is the exception rather than the rule. Safeway knows what you choose to buy.  Netflix knows what you choose to watch.  An ATM snaps your photo every time you use it.  

Yes you vote early and often.  You vote all day long, every day.

The majority may not always rule, but there is power in numbers.  One million clicks on the latest Brittney tragedy insures that the paparazzi will continue to hound her and publicize her struggles.  Double stuffed Oreos?  As more people choose them, they are stocked in more stores on more feet of shelving.

Some years back, New Coke was voted out.  Classic Coke was voted back in.  

What troubles me the most is that often we get what we vote for.  Junk food.  Crooked politicians.  Bloated CEO salaries.

We voted to give the bank execs big bucks to drive their businesses into the ground.  We voted when we used that bank, bought their stock, or ignored the proxy statements that came in the mail.  We elected the politicians that hurriedly found a trillion dollars to bail the banks out and keep the executive bonuses flowing.  

The impact of our votes can be a lot more important than a mere trillion dollars.  We smile or frown. We gossip or encourage.  Each time we choose, we influence those around us.  Do we really want more frowns and gossip?  No?  Then let us choose wisely.

Any choice is really a vote.  And any vote impacts us all to some degree.

Oh, and please remember, refusing to choose still constitutes a choice.

photo by jugbo

"Gore" is a much easier way to spell "hypocrite"

Many thanks to Barbara Cleaver for this post.

781 visits used 21 languages

Recently I started using Google Analytics to get the big picture regarding visits to my blog.  I was startled to see that people had visited who were using 21 different languages.  I take it for granted when I do a search that most of what I find will be in English.  Ocassionally, however, I have had ocassion to use Google Translate to read a page in a language I don't know.  For example,  I can read my daughter and son-in-law's Norwegian language blog using the translate feature.  Generally speaking, the translation comes out pretty well.

A few months ago I was searching for potential Chinese manufacturers of wheelbarrows.  I was astounded when I saw that Google could translate an entire page of Chinese characters into passable English.  And it does it really fast.

I already think that it is very cool that the world is so interconnected via the internet.  Now it occurs to me that automated translation is good enough to facilitate communication between folks who do not share a common language.  

Amazing.

On Being Watched

I have met many people who are very concerned about the fact that so much can be known about them via the Internet.  I understand their concern.  I have given the matter a good deal of thought.

However, I always come back to the fact that many more people have seen me in the flesh than are likely to ever learn about me on the Internet.  Thousands and thousands of people have seen me in person.  No doubt it is true that the vast majority had little interest in what they saw.  Most promptly forgot me.   

Hundreds of people have read about me on the Internet.  The vast majority were not interested. Most of them have also forgotten me.

So if thousands have seen me in person, why should I worry about hundreds who read about me on the Internet.  It is true that I have revealed some private things about myself in my blog, on Facebook, and elsewhere.  However, actions speak much louder than words.  People read my body language.  They see how I respond to others.  If they are close enough to hear me, they sense the anger, fear, or confidence in my voice.  

I smirk at another's misfortune.  I shed tears in sympathy.  I shout in anger.  Every one of these things can be observed.  My eyes speak volumes more than I will ever be able to communicate via the written word.  My shoulders can slump in defeat, shrug in puzzlement, or straighten as I stand unafraid.  My hands gesture continually.  A wave of greeting.  Clenched fists of rage. Palms opened in submission.  From my hair to my toes every part of me shouts out before I even open my mouth.

And I have only spoken of humans so far.  God, creator and lord of the universe, sees every move, hears every word, and knows every thought.  He sees the good and the bad.  The beautiful and the ugly.

Yes I am being watched.  Each moment is an opportunity to glorify God or to show my failings.

God help me.

Photo by zachstern

Good versus Evil as seen on Youtube

One of my many strange compulsions is checking Youtube periodically to see which video is the most viewed of "all time". The number one spot is currently occupied by a music video: "Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne, with almost 120 million views after being posted for about 14 months. Susan Boyle's performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" has 26 million views (on one version of the clip, there seem to be many posts) after a single week.

Will Susan Boyle's video climb to number one for all time after a few weeks or months? Seems likely.

Suppose Susan Boyle does pass Avril Lavigne. Would that signify anything?

Lavigne's video is a celebration of nastiness with a pretty face. The refrain is "Hey, Hey, You, You, I don't like your girlfriend". Avrile bullies and torments a pretty but "uncool" girl and finally steals her boyfriend.

Boyle's video is, as one judge declares, a wake up call for all of us. Her appearance is not cool and far from what we seem to hold as an ideal. Even though I knew ahead of time that she would sing superbly (I was late learning about the video), I was still stunned when she began to sing. I got goosebumps and came close to shedding tears. I felt exactly as though I had received a wake up call from God.

Our sick fascination with the type of characters and antics Lavigne portrays will most likely continue. I don't exempt myself from that club. I am all too aware of my own predilection for the dark side. However, perhaps Susan Boyle has been sent as a reminder of how foolish we are to long for the dark, when the light is so much better.

I hope we can all remember her as needed. Thank you, Susan. Thank you, Lord.

All Religions Are The Same, Right?

WRONG!

The next time someone tells you that all religions are the same at their heart, ask them to watch this video.