Seth Godin

I got a chill reading this post from Seth Godin:

So, very soon, you will own a cell phone that has a very good camera and knows where you are within ten or fifteen feet. And the web will know who you are and who your friends are.

What happens?

What happens is that you have no privacy. Seth sees a big upside.

See a dangerous driver? Send a video snippet to the clowd. The clowd collates that with a bunch of other shots of the same driver... busted.

And the clowd also knows where you are, camera or no camera. So it can tell you when your old friend is just two gates away from you, also wasting time at the airport waiting for her flight. Or it can do Zagats to the ten thousandth power by not only suggesting the best nearby restaurant (based on your food circle of friends) but can also integrate with Open Table and only recommend restaurants that actually have room for you. Or it can let restaurant owners do yield management and find you a table at a good enough restaurant at the best possible price...

This is going to happen. The only question is whether you are one of the people who will make it happen. I guess there's an even bigger question: will we do it right?

If you do what he describes, can it be "right"?

Imagine the feeling of going to the doctor for that private medical condition, and everybody knows. Imagine being stalked by an admirer or resentful ex while you go about your day. Imagine broadcast spam being pushed at you via phone where ever you go. This adds a whole new meaning to the term "cyberbullying."

The drunk driver scenario? On one level, it's a description of being guilty until proven innocent. Everything you do is under scrutiny.

And of course, not all scrutinizers are equal. It's quite obvious that the government and big business will have more scrutinizing power than your snoopy neighbor. Is that the life we want in a free society?

There at least should be a toggle-able opt-in/opt-out, yes? Or are we to live in the Matrix, plugged in with no option, doing our duty by exposing our entire lives to the machine?

To me, the real possibility of this new age is the empowerment of the individual. That's the power of free (as in freedom) exchange of information. That's the power of open source. That's the power of collaboration, mash-ups, crowdsourcing. Empowerment, not simply a cooler, sexier sublimation to the System. Isn't that the real dream? Isn't that the un-tapped economic and cultural goldmine?

I can't say I'm a Ron Paul supporter, but this New York Times "analysis" by Julie Bosman of a Ron Paul television ad caught my eye as being a bit off the mark. Consider this:

The advertisement has a low-budget, unpolished feel, but that is unlikely to bother many of Mr. Paul’s supporters, who tend to be extremely devoted.

Let's pause right there. Ms. Bosman's assumption that only "devoted" supporters would appreciate a low-budget television ad strikes me as nuts, or at least naïve. I don't know anybody who likes the premasticated schmaltz sausages that pass for political commercials these days. They tell us nothing, really -- and are, in fact, some of the most tedious and boring crap (excuse me) on televison. If prescription drugs and iPods were sold like this, Pfizer and Apple would be out of business.

The advertisement accomplishes what the Paul campaign said was its modest goal: to introduce Mr. Paul to voters in that state, where he is emerging as a potential spoiler in the Republican primary.

Hmmm. Is he a "spoiler"? Considering that Paul raised $4 million online in 24 hours, he's already looking more viable than some of the other "contenders" out there, like -- what's his name? That actor guy that all the talk shows were buzzing about. The guy with the hang-dog expression. Oh yeah, he was too boring to remember.

For those of us paying attention, Clayton Christensen introduced the idea of the "disruptive" technology. Transistor radios, for example, hit the market by storm in 1965. Nobody saw it coming, except the Japanese. They were "competing against non-competition." Nobody was selling radios to teenagers -- or portable radios to anybody. Suddenly the Japanese were market players in consumer technology.

Disruptively financed Ron Paul is certainly starting to disrupt the political dialogue:

The war on terror and the growth of big government have had a dangerous side effect: the loss of privacy rights for the American people. Both parties have put their pet schemes ahead of our rights. Not me. As president, I won’t stand for it. No national ID card, no invasion of privacy.

This guy is running for president? Nobody else anywhere in the presidential race is "selling" this. He's competing against non-competition. That makes his increasing numbers ... disruptive ... to the status quo.

Hat tip to Seth, who's not endorsing Paul, but merely notes:

When you're trying to sell something new, particularly in a business to business setting, there are always people like Julie Bosman. They are the defenders of the status quo.

They have an important job to do: to point out to everyone the risks of change. To identify potential spoilers.

In the 1990s, Ross Perot competed against non-competition, and totally disrupted the presidential election. Call him a spoiler, but I don't think it's an accident that Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress took up his message and balanced the budget. Four years ago, Howard Dean was the disruptive candidate with online power.

In the end, Perot and Dean couldn't hold it together in the context of mainstream media message making. A lot has changed since then. The web is not on the margins anymore -- it's the new reality that all the mainstream media are focusing on. Just check the hot topics on Romanesko.

Is Ron Paul a "spoiler"? My feeling is that you won't learn much asking the pundits.

[Photo credit: Vince Brown]

Seth Godin is worth reading because he so frequently comes up with some interesting insights about this modern world that's evolving and growing before our eyes. But I think here he gets it this wrong:

If I had to pick one word to describe what's new, what's different and what's important about now vs. then, it would be "choice."

The choice of more products.
The choice of more retailers. Many a click away.
The choice of more consumers to ask for an opinion.
The choice by marketers over who to market to (precision increases).
The choice of workers to be virtual or flexible or change careers.

He goes on with some for-instances.

The thing is, I don't see choice as being some "new" 21st-century phenomenon. In fact, in many ways, there's less choice today than there was 25 years ago. There may seem to be more banks around, but what I've been seeing is massive bank consolidations. The local banks in my area are being absorbed by -- or absorbing -- other banks. I can buy insurance for my company from any number of brokers, but they're all selling the same thing, often the same underwriters, especially when it comes to health insurance. There may appear to be more credit card offers out there, but these companies have been consolidating so rapidly, I think I have one single card in my purse that has not merged and changed names in the past 2-3 years.

Bob Warfield takes on Seth's idea and riffs a bit on "scarce," as if it were the opposite of "choice," but then points out:

The web moves in punctuated equilibrium. Most of the time, choice is illusory. It consists of thousands of minor variations on what are just a few common themes. Most people crave consistency, because they can’t handle too many real choices. And yet thousands of minor variations are strangely unsatisfying. We can invest all the time, seek all the answers, work hard to get to depth, and we’re left wanting more, or at least wondering if this is it. Delivering something deeply different to break us out of the drone of all that mundane choice is valuable.

Seth does hit on one thing, though: "More choice in who to listen to (and who to ignore)."

That's true. However, I feel that is only a symptom of the real paradigm shift in our economy and culture today:

Voice.

Every day, in the "old media" of traditional broadcasting and newspapers, we see closed-minded -- and I'd say willfully ignorant -- attitudes expressed about how unimportant blogging and social media are. But they are speaking from platforms that are feeling a bit disempowered by the new media.

The new media are what have given people their voice. And it's not just that now we can hear what people used to just shout back at the television. We (the people) are changing. It's amazing what happens when you get a sense that maybe, this time, when you speak out you will be heard. That's profound. It's revolutionary.

People can talk back. Talk back to companies. Talk back to politicians. And, most important, talk to each other. We have more choices to listen to because we have more people saying things.

We have voice.

What do you say?