Help needed from history and anthropology buffs

Image via Wikipedia

For the past year or so, an idea for a new book has been rolling about in my brain. I registered a new domain for it today and want to start formalizing my thoughts. Much of that will come out in this blog. That may spill over to the other domain. And I'll probably try out the concepts in a variety of settings to see how the concept plays out.

Speaking of that: Here's an early chance for you to get involved. The central conceit is simple: as a culture, we move constantly toward as state of increased convenience. I've played with it from a few angles, and that always seems to be the case. There probably exists the odd edge-case or two, and individuals and even small-ish groups can decide to move in the opposite direction. But I'm talking about entire societal blocks. Terms like "Americans" and "industrialized nations" describe the groups I'm looking for.

Tell me examples where large societal blocks moved away from a more convenient lifestyle to a lessor one.

History has provided a few of those. The great civilizations of Mesoamerica come to mind. But I'm building in an out-clause for those shifts that a great calamity or disaster caused, or when dystopia forced our adaptable brains to go another direction. I'm looking for those cases where a conscious decision to "go backwards", if you will, was generally adopted before the disaster struck. Before people looked around and said "Wow, there's nothing left to eat and everyone else is dead. Guess I better remember how to use a sharpened stick to skewer some of these rats."

I'm looking for examples of ebullient societies -- maybe even organizations? -- who decided to not just right their course, but to abandon some trappings of convenience and go "back to a simpler time" on their own. I don't think it's happened. But I'm willing to be wrong and start adjusting my thought process around it.

I don't think this book is going to leave my head unless I write it down. I appreciate your help way way in advance.

The incredible edible whuffie

It took me a month to finish Tara Hunt's book, The Whuffie Factor. That's a very long time for me to spend on a book. And I'm glad I did. Also, you'll not be surprised that I'm recommending you buy it.

But some of you will be skeptical. What if you really aren't all that concerned about using the power of social networks to build your business? That's the tagline of the book. What's that? You're not trying to build your business? Understandable. Maybe you think all this personal branding talk has been overplayed. I certainly do much of the time. Perhaps you're thinking that change is inevitable, and that you're an agile and adaptable person, easily adjusting as the environment changes. I think that describes me.

So to all of you, I offer up this challenge. Go to a bookstore. You remember bookstores, right? Go to a book store and pick up The Whuffie Factor. Open it to page 281 and begin reading the tenth chapter, Whuffie IRL (in real life). Take 10 or 15 minutes and read to the top of page 296. No one in the book store will mind. You aren't stealing. And while it may sound strange that I'm recommending you read the final chapter of the book; fear not. It's not a novel. The ending will not be spoiled.

For the book has no ending. Only beginnings. Only some concepts, strategies and tactics that people have used and are using to build connections. To build social capital. To build whuffie. As Tara writes, you can't eat whuffie, but it's getting harder to eat with out it.

Or just take my word for it and buy The Whuffie Factor online. I'll happily count the pennies from the affiliate transaction. I'm confident you'll find it money well spent.

And for those of you who have already read it, do you agree? What did you get out of the book that's worth passing along?

The struggle of hope over experience

There's a new movie in the theaters this week: THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE.

Interesting title. I WANT TO BELIEVE that this movie won't suck, but prior experience leads me to believe otherwise. The final three seasons were a huge let down over the brilliance that was the first few seasons, and the prior movie released left me -- and many other fans of the show -- feeling rather unfulfilled.

So what leads X-Philes (not sure I'm one of those, but I did enjoy the heck out of the series -- for a while) to believe that this won't be another wasted effort? Sure, Dave and Gillian are in it, but it's not like either has done anything of significance in the last six years, so star-power won't help. Yes, Chris Carter wrote it... but he wrote the last stink-bomb, too. The main difference I can see this time is that Chris is directing, too. Good. But he only directed a handful of shows from the series, and many of them were post-golden years.

Sure, I'll take the cynic label. I'll also grant that I'm being unfair to something I've not seen. But that's the point. I'm rarely a good model consumer, but in this case, I know that my viewpoint isn't that far off from many others. Yes, we want to believe this movie won't blow, but sorta like the desire to have aliens walking among us that can be killed with a sharp spike to the base of the net, it's probably fiction, too. I just don't think it will, and the studio didn't do jack-squat to convince me otherwise.

Of course, I could be proven wrong. And after several days or maybe a week, enough positive news could come from those I trust to get me to go try the movie out. But by then, the "blockbuster" time will have passed and the masses will have moved on to the next movie-of-the-week. Too bad. I think a non-traditional outreach program would have benefited this movie. Yes, I'm thinking Snakes on a Plane. But before you poo-poo my thought, think of how poorly that movie would have done WITHOUT the groundswell. And I still like it, so there.

Dresden Files needs to go

Five O'Clock Shadow 67

Originally uploaded by evo_terra

I consider myself a fan of science fiction. That status is open to interpretation, as some people equate "fan" with the original meaning of an abbreviated version of "fanatic", which I am certainly not. And I recognize others are. But languages -- especially the English language -- are fluid, and the accepted meaning of "fan" is now "someone who likes". And I like. But I don't 'dress up', I don't own a light sabre, and I don't blindly follow the industry, authors, producers, actors or directors and fall in love with their next project just because it's scifi and I'm "supposed to". And that sometimes puts me at odds with the crowd who assume that all fans are -- or at least should be -- fanatics.

I noticed a post from Debbie yesterday that a campaign is underway to save The Dresden Files, currently the recent SF show to be placed on the chopping block from The SciFi Channel. (I posed a comment on her LJ blog, then realized that the social aspect of the campaign gave me an excuse to talk about it here as well.) This may be the more creative of the "Save [insert show name here]" campaigns; supporters are encouraged to send a drumstick (as in, used by drummers, not a part of tasty poultry) to the president of Skiffy (a less-than-affectionate term for The SciFi Channel for those that need the reference) with the protest message "SAVE DRESDEN" marked on the instrument.

Interesting and novel as the campaign may be, drumsticks won't help save a show that sucks. Yes, I know that there are die-hard fans of SF who want every SF show ever made continually produced through the end of time. And yes, there are the die-hard fans of Jim Butcher (I, too, enjoy his writing style) who think this particular adaptation of his books is high art.

Unfortunately, a good number of people who like SF and enjoy Butcher's books think this show blows as hard as Enterprise did -- and we're not watching. When networks notice (don't get off on the measurement tangent, please) a show isn't bringing in the audience, it needs to go. That's not the fault of the original content that inspired the show. And it's not the fault of SF as a whole. In fact, it doesn't matter wherein the blame lies.

A turd is a turd, and sometimes the collective wisdom of the masses is appropriate. This incarnation of Dresden needs to go away, and they (whoever the hell 'they' are) need to try again. Note that this is not a blanket statement saying that television studio executives always make the right decision. Some times they make decisions that piss me off, too. See Firefly, Police Squad, Dinosaurs and Farscape for reference materials.

If you are fan, bust your ass to save the show. That is your prerogative, and I'll not stand in your way. Make your Facebook groups. Launch an email campaign. Storm the castle both figuratively and literally. Use every tool in the chest -- web based and real-world -- and make your feelings known. But I reserve the right to stand on the sidelines, commenting on how this is yet another example of hope's desire to triumph over experience.

Harry Potter and illicit filesharing

The latest and lastest Harry Potter book is out, and the intrawebs have been buzzing about bootleg copies circulating around the net. Two things seem to be cited the most as the negative of that:

1. Less copies will be sold, since readers can get it free online
   
2. Early-readers were posting spoilers from the book

Let's deal with these in reverse, shall we? Spoilers happen every time any piece of highly-anticipated media is released early. Advanced copies are a normal part of the distribution process. Spoilers are easy to avoid -- don't read anything or listen to things that are likely to spoil. It's not 100% fool-proof (I'm guilty of one of the larger ones, but it was also funny), but it should keep almost everyone who doesn't want to be spoiled away from the offending content.

And to the first, that's a crock. Unfortunately, the debunkers are also off the mark. I have a lot of respect for most of what future-thinker Seth Godin has to say, but when he poo-pooed the power of freely available publics desire to read online books:

Books are souvenirs. No one is going to read Potter online, even if it's free. Holding and owning the book, remembering when and how you got it... that's what you're paying for. Books are great at holding memories. They're lousy at keeping secrets.

... he blew it. I agree that books are souvenirs and that holding a book in your hands is a great feeling. But to say that no one would read HP online, even if it is free? Seth, wake up. People *are* reading things online. And quite often, when they read things online, they then go out and buy those things in the store.

Strange as it may sound, there are folks who aren't reading the HP series. I'm one of them and I know countless others. I'm on the Cory Doctorow side of the fence on this issue. I know that putting something like HP out as a free digital download -- by the publisher or by enterprising readers -- will actually increase the overall sale of the hard copy by allowing folks who didn't care to give it a shot. Yeah, it's heretical. Yeah, it flies in the face of conventional wisdom. But I remain convinced that the group of folks who want to read it free were not going to buy the book anyhow. And more importantly, exposure to folks who weren't planning on buying the book can actually cause some of those to make the purchase -- assuming the material is good. And I'll bet you that last group will back up and grab the previous six books as well.

Let the fruit fly. 'Tis a brave new world when content wants to be freed.