Media Ecologists – Check out Chris Brogan

I’ve been learning alot over the past few months about how to leverage the web by Chris Brogan.  His work is well worth the investment of time to read and reflect upon.

For folks earning a living on the web, particularly as a marketer, his blog and various offerings are a top value as a guide in the space.  I get a lot from Chris that way.  But as a student of media ecology, I am continually seeking to understand the deep structures of information delivery that shape the communication environments in which we operate. Chris also adds unique value here.

FYI, before I lose you to thinking this is academic, trust me when I tell you I apply my study of media ecology very practically in my work when selling internally or externally, in my faith when I study Scripture and my own inner workings,  in my citizenship when I monitor all the political positioning and propaganda aimed at influencing me and others, etc etc etc.  I wrote this winning essay several years ago for Evangelical Outpost on the impact of our new media ecology on the Christian gospel, and I think you’ll see what it is such a fascinating and practical realm of thought.

In fact, Chris’s work shows us another layer of media ecology’s relevance and power to bring insights.  Traditional media ecology looks at how our tools of communication profoundly shape us as distinct media with certain unique structural properties.  This is McLuhan’s Laws of Media.  But our tools of communication, especially the web, have an underlying business dimension.  The profit motive makes things like Twitter, Facebook, and now Google+ take the shape they do because enterprising innovators are the first to shape them.  Thus external market realities, not only inner structural realities, play a major role in media ecology.

Chris has been posting on the new Google+ here, here, and here.  There is a reason he was invited into Google’s sandbox early.  He is a great articulator of how, why, and where web tools work practically for folks.

Do you want to know the future impact of any medium?  Ask McLuhan’s Tetrad questions.  But if you want to know the future of the web and its many offspring media, you should also ask what Chris Brogan is saying and doing.  That will tell you alot.

Amen Secretary Gates

Secretary Gates nailed it in his address in Brussels about the uneven military relationship between the US and Europe.

“The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress, and in the American body politic writ large, to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources … to be serious and capable partners in their own defense.”

Dwindling is right.

Europe should think about taking a note from Brian Cardinal and become a better teammate. They can still be a contributing role player in the world and enjoy our protection.

And they can keep sending Dirks over to compete at the highest level. We’ll send them back champions.

Informatica and Big Data

Check out Informatica 9.1 for Big Data.

This platform released by my company, Informatica, is a significant step in enterprise IT organizations’ ability to adapt to the growth in data volumes, machine data, and, of course, social media like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

This is also a significant step in media ecology, an area of personal and academic interest of mine.  The ability to shape the communication environments in which we live and operate is tied to the ability of diverse organizations to manage the information they can influence but don’t directly own.  Think of financial firms, retailers, government agencies, and others being able to identify and influence you through visibility into your spend patterns and social interactions.

For privacy and security reasons, as well as for marketing spend effectiveness, it is a big shift in every industry to see organizations gaining authoritative, trustworthy information from all the data at their disposal–inside and outside their organization.

As with any tool–which this platform is–it is more than just about how people use it.  It is how the internal components of the tool are projected out onto the world to disrupt existing social structures, be they competitive relationships in the world or the hierarchies of consciousness in our mind.

More on that last part later.  But check out Marshall McLuhan’s Understand Media and Friedrick Hayek’s The Sensory Order to go deeper.

Treasury to tap pensions to help fund go

Treasury to tap pensions to help fund government http://ow.ly/4XdgH

Economist on Gallup poll showing Pakista

Economist on Gallup poll showing Pakistanis believe in conspiracies–b/c they are proven right & b/c they feel powerless. http://ow.ly/4TStM

Economist sees a new tech bubble in the

Economist sees a new tech bubble in the Internet space. Here we go again. http://ow.ly/4TRK0

Intelligence vs. Journalism

I am intrigued by the process of intelligence, whereby trained analysts individually and in teams gather data points into a narrative about the activities or intent of a person or group of interest. Journalism, which also seeks to gather data points into a compelling narrative, is a similar craft, but there are very important differences.

Understanding the distinction has become especially relevant following the death of Osama bin Laden and the mounds of press coverage on how the operation unfolded.  So I thought it timely to point you to the person who I believe is about the best in this business, STRATFOR Founder and CEO George Friedman, who explains the different approaches taken by intelligence analysts and news reporters in coverage of world events.

This kind of careful analysis is why I just renewed my subscription to STRATFOR.