The Lost Art of Television Watching

I remember exactly when it happened: two years ago. I sat down at my television set, and my loyal friend, the Talking Head, asked me to go somewhere else. "Don't just watch the programming, interact with the stars!" the Head said, "come to our website, and find out more". It's like they didn't want me to sit still and watch my "disasters a second" for my three-hour allowance a night.

It was a decade after the end of the show about nothing, networks started expecting us hard working folks to stop watching television and go to an "Internet" for bonus features and content. (that's right, "an" Internet). First, it was our books, our movies, and our music; now our cathartic experience inducing cathode rays are being turned into data. Major broadcasters are forgetting to program us, and expect us to explore content and give our opinion on their blogs.
     
Is nothing sacred?

I have no kids. No wife. No cottage. No personal charming story to appeal to your emotions, however another couch potato does: let's call him "Cricket". 

Cricket is the owner and operator of a business. He has two children and a lovely wife, let's call her Carol. By the time he returns from work, showers, hangs out with his kids, and maybe stretches; he's physically exhausted. Then, the National News asks him to "Go Deeper", while we sits eating his dinner. Small children can't be blamed for getting heavier, but now his chill time is asking for more of him?

There is no more sitting back, tuning in, and uhm.... something else. Now, our reliable rubber ball, bouncing on our screens for years, wants us to catch it, turn it around and examine each error on every side; or worse yet have to learn how to juggle that ball with two others that magically appear out of a series of tubes. 

Our meditation time in front of the good ol' talky box is under attack; like a small child asking questions while you're on a phone call, our focus is drawn away from the best content television has ever produced. We're expected to be tweeting (on Twitter.com) while watching, as if our discussions and peasant squabbling could have an affect on ratings.

If this were the Sixteenth Century, would we be talking with someone in a far off land, like Florida, about whether or not Iago would be able to get a handkerchief to Cassio and Desdemona? Would there be, "Behind the Blade: The Rise & Fall of Othello"? 

Have no fear. You can't read or watch any content on the "Internet" without ads on the five-minute mark, or dissecting each paragraph you read. It's free, though. We pay in the time it takes to reach these extras, and we don't even get the full experience. Sure there is an option to recall and search the every piece of data anywhere, at any time, but: so what? Our time is stretched so far, it's like it isn't the most limited resource we all share. 

As Bill Gates said, “Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs”.  However, in an age when more and more of us are working on our laptops from coffee shops, the last thing we want to do  is reach for it while we are enjoying our time in front of the TV, ignoring the people we love. This Holiday season, resist the urge to update you're favorite scene from Chevy Chase's Holiday Vacation. Instead, keep the enjoyment of Home Alone in your house.   

Jordan Keats lives in Victoria, BC, and wrote this while listening to Beck's Record Club, reading poems from Leonard Cohen's Book of Longing, and trying to focus on an article by David L. Ulin from the Los Angles Times Online about Reading from 2009. He's a Communications and New Media specialist with a love for coffee, and a lifelong dedication to Chen Style Taijiquan. He gives way too much of his spare time to: blog.jordankeats.com. 

 

Nota Bene: After sending this article to dozens of newspapers, and receiving no response in return - I've decided I don't want anything to do with them either. What are THEIR qualifications for publication? 

So you want to be a journalist?

 Say Hi on Twitter

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The Best Independent Technology Journalist of 2010: @JesseBrown of TVO's Search Engine

Sick of: 

Social Media Gurus?

Futurists drooling for the peaceful arrival of singularity?

Newspapers crying over losing control over our stories?

Well, @JesseBrown is none of the above. The show he hosts, TVO's Search Engine, will help you to understand technology and the culture of the Internet. Jesse Brown & Rick Nye are independent Canadian journalists who are discussing global questions about technology, copyright, and privacy. A few of Search Engine's featured guests are:  Anthony Marco, @anthonymarco, a high school teacher and podcaster from Hamilton (Episode 63); Michael Geist, University of Ottawa Law Professor, and Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, @mgeist, (Episode 66); and Chris Parsons, a political science, privacy and surveillance expert, from the University of Victoria, @caparsons.

Search Engine's last eighty episodes are available through TVO podcasts, and Search Engine is still in the Top Ten Downloads at CBC.ca (but we don't link to them). 

Thanks for reading, watching, and exploring,

Jordan,

Say Hi on Twitter

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Reblogs Vs. Retweets

Kicking it with a few friends the other day, my pal Tim asked, "What's the big deal about Tumblr?". Tim (@Howlabit) is a regular Twitter user, who tweets about Scotch, and the aesthetics of the ladies who serve it, but he has yet to try Tumblr as an alternative micro-blogging platform. I've managed to break my obsession with my Tumblog, but I'd been a regular poster for the majority of last year, so I tried to explain the difference to him.

I'm no Tumblr Celebrity, like Julia Segal or Bohemea. The majority of my meagre four hundred posts consists of reblogged photos of: the Beatles, SelleckWaterfallSandwich, and Zooey Deschanel. I even forgot about my account for a couple of months.  When I checked into my dashboard the other day, this is what I saw:
Thirty people reblogged a Rob Sato photo I found online after seeing one of his shows in the gallery at the Giant Robot store in San Francisco.  Big deal, right? Thirty reblogs.  Many Tumblr Celebrities expect three hundred reblogs per post. However, I'm humbly surprised that one of my posts was reblogged more than the amount of people who follow my Tumblr account, and happy I could share Sato's awesome art with some folks who may not have heard of him before.

Recently, my Twitter account surpassed one thousand followers:

Again, big deal. Paul Pierce's account has over 1.6 million followers (more than three times the population of Boston), and he only follows twenty seven accounts back. Still, for me one thousand followers is a considerable Twitter milestone, and a significant audience to share with. However, with Twitter's amassing audience I've begun to doubt the hype of the "million person reaching" retweet. With the recent changes to the Twitter interface, retweets have been removed from your @mentions, and quarantined in their own tab. Combined with a new option to block retweets from specific users, and the option to turn off RTs completly with Hootsuite, the dream of having one tweet "go viral" is over.             

In less than six hours, or one profile screen length without scrolling, a tweet from an account the size of mine has been lost in the noise. Unless one of the big time Twitter celebrities, like @jianghomeshi or @sharonhayes, sees your tweet, and retweets it - the only person who will read it is the archivist at the US Library of Congress (Lucky them!). Perhaps this is one of the reasons Jon Mayer quit Twitter for Tumblr? 

Here are a few solutions to maximize your reach with Twitter Retweets:

1: Automate - Scheduling a few tweets with a third party service, like Hootsuite or (my favorite) Posterous, can help you reach different time zones, which can be helpful for those of us who live on the Pacific side of the continent. Change your text a little, space your second tweet more than six hours apart, and some bloke will be reading your article at Tea Time in London, UK, (or Ontario). Be careful though, this tactic can make you seem disingenuous if someone asks a question or sends you feedback through an @mention, and you take twelve hours to respond, or look like a spammer if you repeat the same tired blog post every hour for twelve hours.

2: Don't Expect - If you send an @mention to someone you mention in a blog post don't expect them to reply, but don't be surprised if they do. One of the most awesome parts about Twitter is it's ability to connect producers with people, and @mentions are faster to respond to than emails.

3: Leverage Influencers - Each tweet is assigned a unique URL, DM that puppy to someone who you know will Retweet you. Again, don't be a spammer and attempt this trick with every one of your boring tweets, but if you have something of value for the person you are sending to then hop to it, with respect. For more information on identifying influencers read Gary Lee from mBlast's: The Hype Over Influencers

For more information on Retweeting check out Ben Parr's How To: ReTweet on Twitter
& the update by Josh Catone:  How To: Use The New Retweet Feature

Thanks for Reading, Reblogging and Retweeting: I'd love to be proven wrong!

Jordan

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Does this "Queen" have a King? What is the population of this "Cum Land"? #yyj #BC #BCFerries

There is hilarity everywhere.

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One Year of Twitter

Twitter is awesome and overwhelming. On March 4, 2009, I signed up - like millions of other people - to Twitter. Many of these millions of new users have since been attributed to spam, advertisers, and ghost users, however the amount of real people posting quality links has kept me happily using Twitter.

I use Twitter for two main reasons, networking with people in my discipline and city, and promoting valuable resources for my own niche community of martial arts enthusiasts (kinda dorky, I know). When I graduated University, and began figuring out how I would pay back my heaps of debt, a woman (Janice La Couvee) contacted me on Twitter asking me how she could help me. I was taken aback by her unsolicited offer, and we met for a coffee. Over a hot cup of java, Janice gave me access to her network. One of her contacts lead to a pretty awesome volunteer opportunity, with the Canadian College of Performing Arts, giving me some much needed real world, resume-worthy, experience.

I practice and teach an obscure martial art, Chen Style Practical Method Tai Chi,  and our community is scattered across the world. Resources and conversations about this martial art are hard to find, and many of the people who train locally move away. Twitter has connected me with martial arts enthusiasts from around the world. Masters in Australia, America, and Europe, such as @chrischats, @TanDoaKungfu, and @masterboozer, share valuable information and experience via Twitter.
       
This fall, my twitter account was hacked. I clicked on a spam direct message disguised as link from an otherwise reliable user, and they spammed out 500 Direct Messages (DMs) to all of my Followers. The worst part, some people believed I would send them a poorly written tweet about weight loss programs. With a password change and few apologies everything turned out fine. Scams are part of internet life. Be careful of who you follow, and which links you click.  

Twitter is an internet service with the ability to change lives. It's networking capabilities allow you to meet people from within your choice of communities and interests. From around the world and in your hometown, people are contributing, a.k.a. Tweeting, to their communities.


This year, I have met many local people from Twitter (tweeps) at local 'tweetups'. Together, we organized a social media charity function "Twestival", a social networking fundraiser supporting a local charity. We held a silent auction for donations from people and companies who use twitter. Although holding a twestival is a new name for an old idea, a group of local people - Twitter users - got together to raise funds for a non-profit.    

Second only to real-time search, Twitter's best feature is its layout.  Many people can't get over the limit of a 140 characters, but it's limited design makes information clear and concise. It feels like you are brainstorming with unlimited amounts of people, because it is invitational and you can choose which accounts you want to follow.

Twitter can be whatever you want it to be. If you like celebrities, there are tons on Twitter, if you like graphic design or photography there are plenty of resources and information for you. If you like cute animals, hockey, or UFC,  you will find a community for that too.

The problem is managing all of these interesting people, and interesting articles. Twitter can be a time suck, and you don't need to subscribe to the noise all of the time. For a much better musing on how to manage the scale of your online socialization, read Wired Magazine's Clive Thompson in Praise of Online Obscurity, Tweet responsibly and have fun,

        Find me on Twitter @Jordan_Keats

P.S. Although I am blogging about social media, I do have a real job: www.outpostcommunication.com

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The Future of Tai Chi

After reading Matthew Honan's article, Meet Online Friends in the Real World (Beware: It Will Be Weird), in the August '09 issue of Wired Magazine, I was super reluctant to meet people in the Meatspace (I believe David Maguire coined the term) that I have met in Cyberspace.

"Often, the trouble isn't what you're saying but how you're saying it. Language is more than words. It also includes kinesics (body language) and paralanguage (pitch, tone, and wordless noises)"

Having had one positive experience meeting with a local maven I met on Twitter, thanks again @Lacouvee, my reservations for future meatspace meetings was, and remains, low; however, that meeting was about business, and networking. Also, having not read Honan's article, I was unaware of the awkwardness that can occur. In the article Professor Nancy Baym said, "Often, the trouble isn't what you're saying but how you're saying it. Language is more than words. It also includes kinesics (body language) and paralanguage (pitch, tone, and wordless noises)".

When I found myself in the exact same situation Honan presents, traveling to a city where a longtime (in Internet time) Tweep (person who tweets) lives, my confidence in tweetups was ruffled. To be safe, or possibly not, neither of us talked publicly about the possibility of meeting up, but talked behind the scenes about meeting up for a Tai Chi workout.

"The purpose of our meeting was to discuss and practice kinesics and body language: only we call it Tai Chi"

We both practice different styles of Tai Chi, him: Yang and Cheng Man Ching styles, me: Chen Style Practical Method, but we both have had limited experience in the other's style. Politics and titles aside it is all the same Tai Chi, but with nuances and distinctions noticeable to the trained eye. Referring back to what Professor Baym said, the main purpose of our meeting was to discuss and practice kinesics and body language, only we call it Tai Chi.

"the man with the magic hand"

One of many stories about Grandmaster Hong Junsheng's life that resonates with me is about the Japanese students who called him "the man with the magic hand", because of his ability to bounce opponents away without using what we normally consider to be strength. Grandmaster Hong was among the first Chinese Tai Chi Masters to indiscriminately teach the art to those from outside of China. From 1956 to 1988 master Hong developed a reputation in Japan, and elsewhere, of being of incredible skill. These years, however, were a dark time in Chinese history. Hong, and many others, suffered at the hands of political oppression, war, disease, and famine. Two of his best students, twin Japanese women, died of Scarlet Fever, and Grandmaster Hong was isolated due to poverty. The art that he saved, and shared with the world, almost died with him.

"There will be no lines of Tai Chi bras or stretch pants"

Today, Tai Chi's future is threatened again. This time by the isolation caused by an increase of media consumption. Tai Chi has to compete with Video games, Television, the Internet (sorry Radio you do not make the list), and a overworking generation of people. Tai Chi is hard, believe me, and not sexy, there will be no lines of Tai Chi bras or stretch pants. This is why the art is threatened.

"Sorry Myspace: not on the list"

On a positive note, Social Networking sites like Twitter, and Facebook (sorry Myspace: not on the list), are bringing the community together in ways that are astounding. On Youtube, every style of Tai Chi are represented, and tutorials are available at your convenience. On meetup.com, a group of local Tai Chi people are inviting those who live in the West Shore/Landford, BC, with any experience level to come practice with them. On Twitter, there are people meeting fellow practitioners everyday, and some, like @Vanadia, and @Jordan_Keats, who are taking online discussions into the meatspace, traveling from Victoria, BC, to Portland, Oregon, and doing our best to ensure Tai Chi has a future.

Try something new:
http://www.vanadia.com/
http://www.chentaichi.org/home.html