Fascinating…
Roman Empire GDP Per Capita Map Shows That Romans Were Poorer Than Any Country in 2015 – Brilliant Maps: “What a difference 2,000 years makes. The map above shows the GDP per capita in 14AD of the various provinces of the Roman Empire in 1990 PPP Dollars. On average, the GDP per capita across the whole Empire, was only $570.”
I’m archiving this snippet and article to revisit in 2020… I wonder if we’ll look back on 2015 as a “tipping point” of the internet as we knew it?
The Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace by John Perry Barlow in 1996 does seem like a long ago dream.
Perhaps immediacy is not a democratizing state of being for modern humans? Literalism is the enemy of imagination, after all.
The Internet’s Loop of Action and Reaction Is Worsening – The New York Times: “Hear me out. If you’ve logged on to Twitter and Facebook in the waning weeks of 2015, you’ve surely noticed that the Internet now seems to be on constant boil. Your social feed has always been loud, shrill, reflexive and ugly, but this year everything has been turned up to 11. The Islamic State’s use of the Internet is perhaps only the most dangerous manifestation of what, this year, became an inescapable fact of online life: The extremists of all stripes are ascendant, and just about everywhere you look, much of the Internet is terrible.”
Emotion + Experience = Marketing
I do wonder about the scale of virtual reality. With Google investing in Cardboard, and Facebook spearheading Occulus Rift development, there is certainly a case to be made for mainstream adoption.
Of course, there was once such hype around Second Life as well.
Interesting read from Mike Elgan…
How Virtual Reality Is Redefining Marketing: “Advertiser-supported virtual reality and mixed reality content will have experiential marketing content instead of ads. These can not only be convincing and immersive, but potentially social and participatory. Best of all, they can go viral and spread across the world in minutes. And that’s why virtual reality and mixed reality will totally transform marketing. It combines the emotional impact of experiential marketing with the viral scalability of Web campaigns. “
Keep in mind…
Focus Fracas – The Chronicle of Higher Education: “We talk a lot about distraction, but the way we tend to talk about it suffers from historical amnesia. Since the invention of writing, people have warned about its supposedly harmful effects. Socrates thought it would weaken readers’ memories. ‘Be careful,’ Seneca warned, ‘lest this reading of many authors and books of every sort may tend to make you discursive and unsteady.’ In his Moral Letters to Lucilius, written between AD 63 and 65, Seneca touches on a condition that today might be diagnosed as attention deficit disorder. The ‘reading of many books is a distraction,’ he cautioned, that leaves the reader ‘disoriented and weak.'”
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Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson discuss the issues involved with marketing and p
Thinking Religion is 50 minutes long this week.
The post Thinking Religion 58: Personal Branding and The Academy appeared first on Thinking.FM.
This might make Franklin Graham’s head explode, but I think it’s a good move to associate design with “politics” and assert the relevance of seemingly mundane things such as color choices to cultural conversations:
Pantone Color of the Year 2016 – Rose Quartz and Serenity: “Joined together, Rose Quartz and Serenity demonstrate an inherent balance between a warmer embracing rose tone and the cooler tranquil blue, reflecting connection and wellness as well as a soothing sense of order and peace. The prevalent combination of Rose Quartz and Serenity also challenges traditional perceptions of color association.”
Religion’s smart-people problem: The shaky intellectual foundations of absolute faith – Salon.com: “But we shouldn’t be deceived. Although there are many educated religious believers, including some philosophers and scientists, religious belief declines with educational attainment, particularly with scientific education. Studies also show that religious belief declines among those with higher IQs. Hawking, Dennett and Dawkins are not outliers, and neither is Bill Gates or Warren Buffett.”
Those of you who know me well know that I carry a Field Notes notebook pretty much everywhere inside of their Gentleman’s Memo cover with a Space Pen that has their branding on it. That’s a pic from just now as I was writing this. Note the coffee stain on the notebook cover. Character.
Branding hegemony aside, I do love their stuff. I use notebooks more than any other form of technology (analog or digital) for everything. My notebooks have been my “Inbox” for about 10 years now and I lovingly keep them archived in a special order so I can re-reference things or read back through long ago thoughts as needed. Their notebooks are durable, small, and able to take the daily wear and tear I put on them which can be a considerable amount since they ride in my back pocket when not on a table somewhere.
So in the midst of all the Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday emails I’ve been receiving from various companies and groups, I was happy to open and then read this one…
Field Notes Brand: “Today only, buy anything and and get a Field Notes ‘Pitch Black’ 3-Pack free. No coupon codes. No minimums. No bull. Heck, you don’t even need to be aware of the deal. If you buy something today, you’re in. But get moving, as we expect Thursday to roll in sometime later tonight.”
Like computer interfaces, the best marketing is marketing that gets out of the way.
Thinking of how great it would be to add a member to your family?
Looking to have a baby soon?
Pregnant?
Buy one of these…
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite or Voyage.
Trust me.
Your friend… Sam, the newborn dad at 3am on a Wednesday morning.
Scary, true, and worth your attention if you value your privacy…
Mozilla will let go of Thunderbird | Boing Boing: “There are many good reasons to use standalone email clients, but for Americans one of the most compelling is the absurdly outdated Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, which treats any file left on a server for more than six months as ‘abandoned’ and accessible to law enforcement without a warrant (no, really!). That includes all your Gmail previous to June 2015. Really. All of the efforts to reform ECPA have died on the vine, because law enforcement loves this creaking piece of legislation.”
Vote out your representative if they don’t “understand technology.” That’s not an excuse anymore.
