I was in Glasgow this week for the Scottish Learning Festival. I don't think I've ever worked quite so hard for ages. I'm used to spending most of my working day on my own, either travelling between appointments or in my office at home slaving over a hot laptop. It was a little different last week. I was on our stand for six or seven hours each day and in more or less constant face-to-face contact with customers or clients. It was extremely difficult for me. It came as a bit of a shock to realsie that I'm not as personable as I used to be. In my retail days, I'd be fine with that. Now, I think I've become so used to spending time on my own that I find too much time spent in the company of other people rather stressful even when those people are very pleasant.
September 2009 Archives
Feast your eyes, people. Feast your eyes. Try to ignore that high-pitched whining noise. It's only Ettore Bugatti spinning in his grave as quickly as one of his beautifully crafted roller bearing crankshafts. What you see in the picture above is a concept from Bugatti called the 16C Galibier. Officially, Bugatti is saying that they have built it to assess its customer's responses to a four seat saloon. Unofficially, we can expect a car closer to a production version some time in 2012. Probably.
Even more unofficially, bugger me, but that's an ugly motor car. Chas Hallett of Autocar disagrees with me. He says that I have to see it in the metal and that it's a lot prettier than it looks in the photographs. I have to say that I like some of the detailing, especially the eight exhausts poking out from the rear bumper but otherwise the exterior could almost be any large Volkswagen and Volkswagens are not beautiful.
The interior is another matter altogether. It's exquisite. The basic forms are simple and elegant. The detailing is so careful, it makes me want to cry because I know I will never, ever get to sit here and I want to so very badly. This is a car which is designed to sit in and be cocooned from the outside world. The exterior isn't important. It's just a means to envelop the interior, keep the weather off the privileged occupants and perhaps to project the brand to the outside world. To that end, it carries the horseshoe grille and some badging. It needs to cut the air gently enough to be quiet for the passengers and admit some air to the engine for breathing and cooling and since this is officially a concept, it needn't even do that much.
The interior is where the most craft in any car should go. It's what the person who pays for it sees most of the time they interact with it. When you're paying the thick end of £800,000 you expect an awful lot of craft and in this case, I would say you get it.
Even more unofficially, bugger me, but that's an ugly motor car. Chas Hallett of Autocar disagrees with me. He says that I have to see it in the metal and that it's a lot prettier than it looks in the photographs. I have to say that I like some of the detailing, especially the eight exhausts poking out from the rear bumper but otherwise the exterior could almost be any large Volkswagen and Volkswagens are not beautiful.
The interior is another matter altogether. It's exquisite. The basic forms are simple and elegant. The detailing is so careful, it makes me want to cry because I know I will never, ever get to sit here and I want to so very badly. This is a car which is designed to sit in and be cocooned from the outside world. The exterior isn't important. It's just a means to envelop the interior, keep the weather off the privileged occupants and perhaps to project the brand to the outside world. To that end, it carries the horseshoe grille and some badging. It needs to cut the air gently enough to be quiet for the passengers and admit some air to the engine for breathing and cooling and since this is officially a concept, it needn't even do that much. The interior is where the most craft in any car should go. It's what the person who pays for it sees most of the time they interact with it. When you're paying the thick end of £800,000 you expect an awful lot of craft and in this case, I would say you get it.
Continue reading Why Bugattis are ugly.
Having said I would spend a few days blogging about the Internet Manifesto, I've only gone and not done it again. I have been following the debate there with some interest for a change. Normally, the only things which keep me interested for more than a few minutes have either breasts or wheels. Quite pointedly, the Internet Manifesto has neither.
Anyway, I was talking about this to my boss during the week. We were at our quarterly sales meeting in darkest Oxfordshire and late in the evening we started talking tech and connectivity and the impact that the Internet (have to give it a Capital Letter, it's an Important Thing) is having on society.
A few years ago, I was living in a flat in Hull and I had no home phone. I used to go down onto the street and queue there outside the phone box in the pissing, cold rain to call my girlfriend in Dundee. She would arrange to be in when I was due to call and we would chat for a few minutes while the queue built up behind me. Someone at some point was bound to knock on the door of the phone box to get me to hurry up. I didn't have a lot of money at the time and a phone line was expensive. Now, I have a mobile phone for work, an iPhone with internet access, a laptop, a Mac in my home office and a landline. My wife is similarly tooled up and we can be in almost constant contact should we feel the need and neither of us needs to stand in a queue in the pissing, cold rain.
Should I wish, I can sit in the comfort of my own loo (the combination of wooden toilet seats, iPhones and WiFi is a truly wonderful thing) and interact with the world without actually having to face it. I can get information from local or nation government bodies without having to talk to anyone. It's possible that in the future, I'll be able to cast my vote without walking down to the Polling Station and all because I have some electronic bits-and-bobs, a phone line and the ability to read. It's also possible that those without those toys, a phone or reading ability could be disenfranchised because their voices will not be heard.
If you want to take part in almost any public discussion today, you have to use the Internet (Important Thing, remember?). BBC programmes are constantly referring their audience to further material available through their excellent website. Twitter has allowed a more immediate response even than e-mail and all of this is great as long as you have the technological and financial wherewithal to access it. Those who don't are losing out a little now and may lose out completely in the future.
Continue reading I've gone and not done it again.
I had intended for this blog to be a light-hearted little thing except when one or another politician got up my nose. However, I am aware that there are lots of serious-minded bloggers and citizen journalists out there, beavering away and doing their best to make the world just a little better for all of us. There are also proper, real journalists with proper, real, paid jobs and on a good day I am prepared to allow that they too just want to make the world a little better.
The Internet Manifesto was created by a group of German journalists and bloggers. It addresses some of the issues any thinking citizen of a technological democracy. It also lists the realities traditional media organisations have to face when coming to terms with a socially-networked bunch of consumers. I reprint it in full below.
I'd like to spend the next week or so looking in detail at each of the articles of The Internet Manifesto before I get on with the much easier task of being rude about Peter Mandelson and since this is my blog, that's what I'm going to do.
6. The Internet
The Internet Manifesto was created by a group of German journalists and bloggers. It addresses some of the issues any thinking citizen of a technological democracy. It also lists the realities traditional media organisations have to face when coming to terms with a socially-networked bunch of consumers. I reprint it in full below.
I'd like to spend the next week or so looking in detail at each of the articles of The Internet Manifesto before I get on with the much easier task of being rude about Peter Mandelson and since this is my blog, that's what I'm going to do.
Internet Manifesto
How journalism works today. Seventeen declarations.
1. The Internet is different.
It produces different public spheres, different terms of trade and different cultural skills. The media must adapt their work methods to today's technological reality instead of ignoring or challenging it. It is their duty to develop the best possible form of journalism based on the available technology. This includes new journalistic products and methods.
2. The Internet is a pocket-sized media empire.
The web rearranges existing media structures by transcending their former boundaries and oligopolies. The publication and dissemination of media contents are no longer tied to heavy investments. Journalism's self-conception is--fortunately--being cured of its gatekeeping function. All that remains is the journalistic quality through which journalism distinguishes itself from mere publication.
3. The Internet is our society is the Internet.
Web-based platforms like social networks, Wikipedia or YouTube have become a part of everyday life for the majority of people in the western world. They are as accessible as the telephone or television. If media companies want to continue to exist, they must understand the lifeworld of today's users and embrace their forms of communication. This includes basic forms of social communication: listening and responding, also known as dialog.
4. The freedom of the Internet is inviolable.
The Internet's open architecture constitutes the basic IT law of a society which communicates digitally and, consequently, of journalism. It may not be modified for the sake of protecting the special commercial or political interests often hidden behind the pretense of public interest. Regardless of how it is done, blocking access to the Internet endangers the free flow of information and corrupts our fundamental right to a self-determined level of information.
5. The Internet is the victory of information.
Due to inadequate technology, media companies, research centers, public institutions and other organizations compiled and classified the world's information up to now. Today every citizen can set up her own personal news filter while search engines tap into wealths of information of a magnitude never before known. Individuals can now inform themselves better than ever.
6. The Internet changes improves journalism.
Through the Internet, journalism can fulfill its social-educational role in a new way. This includes presenting information as an ever-changing, continual process; the forfeiture of print media's inalterability is a benefit. Those who want to survive in this new world of information need a new idealism, new journalistic ideas and a sense of pleasure in exploiting this new potential.
7. The net requires networking.
Links are connections. We know each other through links. Those who do not use them exclude themselves from social discourse. This also holds for the websites of traditional media companies.
8. Links reward, citations adorn.
Search engines and aggregators facilitate quality journalism: they boost the findability of outstanding content over a long-term basis and are thus an integral part of the new, networked public sphere. References through links and citations--especially including those made without any consent or even remuneration of the originator--make the very culture of networked social discourse possible in the first place. They are by all means worthy of protection.
9. The Internet is the new venue for political discourse.
Democracy thrives on participation and freedom of information. Transferring the political discussion from traditional media to the Internet and expanding on this discussion by involving the active participation of the public is one of journalism's new tasks.
10. Today's freedom of the press means freedom of opinion.
Article 5 of the German Constitution does not comprise protective rights for professions or technically traditional business models. The Internet overrides the technological boundaries between the amateur and professional. This is why the privilege of freedom of the press must hold for anyone who can contribute to the fulfillment of journalistic duties. Qualitatively speaking, no differentiation should be made between paid and unpaid journalism, but rather, between good and poor journalism.
11. More is more - there is no such thing as too much information.
Once upon a time, institutions such as the church prioritized power over personal awareness and warned of an unsifted flood of information when the letterpress was invented. On the other hand were the pamphleteers, encyclopaedists and journalists who proved that more information leads to more freedom, both for the individual as well as society as a whole. To this day, nothing has changed in this respect.
12. Tradition is not a business model.
Money can be made on the Internet with journalistic content. There are many examples of this today already. Yet because the Internet is fiercely competitive, business models have to be adapted to the structure of the net. No one should try to abscond from this essential adaptation through policy-making geared to preserving the status quo. Journalism needs open competition for the best refinancing solutions on the net, along with the courage to invest in the multifaceted implementation of these solutions.
13. Copyright becomes a civic duty on the Internet.
Copyright is a cornerstone of information organization on the Internet. Originators' rights to decide on the type and scope of dissemination of their contents are also valid on the net. At the same time, copyright may not be abused as a lever to safeguard obsolete supply mechanisms and shut out new distribution models or license schemes. Ownership entails obligations.
14. The Internet has many currencies.
Journalistic online services financed through adverts offer content in exchange for a pull effect. A reader's, viewer's or listener's time is valuable. In the industry of journalism, this correlation has always been one of the fundamental tenets of financing. Other forms of refinancing which are journalistically justifiable need to be forged and tested.
15. What's on the net stays on the net.
The Internet is lifting journalism to a new qualitative level. Online, text, sound and images no longer have to be transient. They remain retrievable, thus building an archive of contemporary history. Journalism must take the development of information, its interpretation and errors into account, i.e., it must admit its mistakes and correct them in a transparent manner.
16. Quality remains the most important quality.
The Internet debunks homogenous bulk goods. Only those who are outstanding, credible and exceptional will gain a steady following in the long run. Users' demands have increased. Journalism must fulfill them and abide by its own frequently formulated principles.
17. All for all.
The web constitutes an infrastructure for social exchange superior to that of 20th century mass media: When in doubt, the "generation Wikipedia" is capable of appraising the credibility of a source, tracking news back to its original source, researching it, checking it and assessing it--alone or as part of a group effort. Journalists who snub this and are unwilling to respect these skills are not taken seriously by these Internet users. Rightly so. The Internet makes it possible to communicate directly with those once known as recipients--readers, listeners and viewers--and to take advantage of their knowledge. Not the journalists who know it all are in demand, but those who communicate and investigate.
Internet, 07.09.2009
- Markus Beckedahl
- Mercedes Bunz
- Julius Endert
- Johnny Haeusler
- Thomas Knüwer
- Sascha Lobo
- Robin Meyer-Lucht
- Wolfgang Michal
- Stefan Niggemeier
- Kathrin Passig
- Janko Röttgers
- Peter Schink
- Mario Sixtus
- Peter Stawowy
- Fiete Stegers
Translated from the German by Jenna L. Brinning
There are no jet packs, flying cars or ray guns. Robots have comprehensively failed to do much more than paint Fiat Stradas and show no signs of serving us a really dry martini. What we have instead is the clanging of cymbals. Welcome to my blog.
Welcome to my new blog powered by Movable Type. This is the first post on my blog and was created for me automatically when I finished the installation process. But that is ok, because I will soon be creating posts of my own!
