Evan Rudowski: Web Transplant

Worlds Have Collided

My old industry friend Len Muscarella has a bit of a grumble in his latest Interactive Media Associates newsletter about the increasing use of Facebook for networking by business colleagues.

Len was one of the pioneers of online media, having been one of the early executives at Prodigy, which in the early 1990s was one of the first and most cutting edge consumer online services. I worked with Len at Newsday when we brought him in to help us launch our own service on the Prodigy network. Len has seen more trends in his career then most of us ever will.

 

I understand where Len is coming from, but I think the cat is out of the bag on this one. The days are over when we could compartmentalize our business and personal lives, as if they were separate personae.

(I can't help but recall the Seinfeld episode in which George Costanza's fiancé meets his friends for the first time. "Worlds have collided!!" he shrieks.)

In today's world it's all out there, if we choose to use these services. And if we don't, we're left behind. So we've got to put it out there.

That's why I know that last night a leading venture capitalist went to a particular concert, or that a prospective employee recently had a new baby.

For some people this might be too much, and it does take some getting used to at first. But actually, it's not so bad to know you're doing business with a real person, with their highs and lows, joys and heartaches -- rather than an empty suit.

Now this doesn't mean that we must lose control of our public image. If you post photos on Facebook of yourself incomprehensibly drunk, or leering at members of the opposite sex -- well then you're stupid. Or maybe that's you. And maybe people will not want to do business with that person.

But if you want people to know who you really are, and what excites and inspires you, or where you come from, then Facebook is a great place to do it. You might find some common ground that you didn't know existed. You'll be human. And after all, we're all humans doing business with other humans.

Congratulations -- It's a Tweet!

Recently I received a message via FriendFeed, broadcast by a friendly associate, someone who is highly successful, liked and respected -- and deservedly so. To paraphrase, it said that he was in the delivery room, using a wireless connection, and the baby was on its way.

What a funny world we live in. I hadn’t known he was an expectant parent (we’re not that close, and we’re separated by thousands of miles). Now I know. And I’m happy for him.

Of course, in my daily information flow, or lifestream if you prefer, my friend’s headline carried just as much weight as news of the latest presidential poll rankings; the impeding Beijing Olympics; invoices I needed to pay at work; and the 15:43 train I needed to be sure to catch. They all flowed equally across my screen, carried by one of the many tools I have installed for sending chunks of information this way and that. These tools do not discriminate; they do not care what it is they’re sending. Making sense of it is up to me.

Arguably the birth of a baby is most important of all of these bits of information. But in the old days, given the extent of my acquaintance with this person, I might have learned of the blessed event closer to the child’s first birthday. Which is just about where it should be in my list of personal priorities (with no offense intended to my distant friend).

But we all live in public now, to paraphrase another friendly old acquaintance, Josh Harris, who realized this earlier than most of us. And this made me wonder what my friend’s partner, who was presumably in the delivery room groaning while he was tweeting, would have made of this.

I asked my one-person focus group, my wife, who in her deprived existence does not tweet, or twhirl, or jabber, or tumble or twitter (in the old days people were institutionalized for doing such things, especially all at once). She assumed that my acquaintance must have been joking. She made it very clear that should we ever find ourselves in the delivery room again (however unlikely), I’d best not be sending messages out until her work was done.

For all I know, my friend’s spouse may be an executive at one of these services. But my wife is not. Therefore, here are some tweets you will surely never receive from me:

 “Wife is ovulating – wish me luck dudes”

“Never mind – she wants to finish that New Yorker article first”

“Still in the delivery room – everybody tweet her to push!”

“Wow - the afterbirth is nearly as big as the baby -- see photos on Flickr"

Unhappy Meal

We took the kids to McDonalds this morning.

McDonalds is great if you want to eat cheap (good for start-up budgets), fast, and of course the kids love it too.

The atmosphere of the local McDonalds has enjoyed a major upgrade, as described more in this article. Upscale, dark wood panelling; muted, hanging lighting; pop art on the walls; free WiFi – all add up to a more pleasant and grown-up experience, more reminiscent of Starbucks than the McDonalds of old.

And the coffee is not bad either – as well as ethically sourced.

But one thing brought the experience back to reality – and that was the help. Although in the UK McDonalds recently was accredited to offer courses toward A-level degrees or diplomas for its employees, it was clear that any benefit had yet to reach the young man taking my order.

If this boy had been any dumber, he would have been on a bun. Slowly, patiently, I repeated the components of my order to him, and repeated them again, and still again, as he searched for the correct key to press, and then forgot what I had said. I thought I heard sizzling, and it wasn’t from the grill. I could only hope he was hung over from Saturday night; otherwise if this was as sharp as he could get his future was too terrible to contemplate.

Maybe it was my American accent – but how many times should one need to say “porridge” before getting porridge? Apparently the manager agreed, because he handed me a voucher for a free meal after my hard-won porridge finally was handed to me only half full.

There is a lot to like about the new McDonalds, but some things don’t change. It’s still a McJob, and the people behind the counter would probably mostly rather be somewhere else – even if out front we’re all lingering longer over our lattes.

Spare Some Change?

One of the nice things about having dual US/UK citizenship, I often joke, is that I get to vote for lousy politicians in two countries.

This year, however, the stakes are higher than ever. In my native country, the US, the quality of candidates seems exceptional. It couldn't have come at a better time, when the challenges facing the US and the world are so serious.

All of the candidates seem to be talking about "change" -- and after eight years of the Bush Administration there's no wonder the term resonates so strongly.

At times it almost seemed like I wouldn't live to see the day when President Bush and his people were on their way out the door. No I mean really, given their agenda, I truly almost thought I wouldn't live to see the day.

But to be honest, like Hillary Clinton, I was for the Iraq war before I was against it. As my French friend SP recently told me, "Our friendship almost ended over that issue." Come to think of it, the same was true for France and America themselves. SP and I were just proxies.

I went with the information I had at the time and so did Hillary. We were both wrong. Of course, I didn't have a vote in the Senate and Hillary did, so maybe it would have been better if she had been more skeptical. After all, the French were.

Still, it's all well and good for Barack Obama to assert that he was always against the war, but then he wasn't in the Senate when it was actually necessary to cast a vote. To my ear, "vote for me because I didn't vote for the war" seems a little disingenuous coming from him.

Hell, I didn't vote for the war either. Why not elect me?

Actually, don't answer that.

Hillary has worked deliberately and determinedly to put herself in a position to be president. Her views, compared with what we've been stuck with for nearly eight years, are light years ahead. And those of us who are from New York are aware of how hard she has worked as senator. She's taken it seriously, and far more than just carpetbagging, she's worked hard for the state and won admiration from across the political spectrum.

Hillary has done this because she has a political agenda that she believes in, and she wants to put it into effect. How ironic that her historic candidacy, as the first woman to have a real chance at a major party nomination and at the presidency itself, is now overshadowed by the charismatic Obama and his bid to be the first black man to have such an opportunity.

We've gone from thinking that no woman or black person could ever gain the White House to having to accept that only one of them can. Couldn't we have timed this better?

I worry for Hillary, hoping that she won't end up being like this year's New England Patriots, destined for greatness but stopped three points short by the young upstart. I think Obama needs more seasoning, and he has time on his side anyway -- but they said that about Eli Manning too.

And if the real Super Bowl is going to be against John McCain, then as much as I would like to see Hillary have her shot I wonder if it isn't Obama who has the best chance of beating the centrist McCain. Hillary is a polarizing figure, and McCain may draw the independents away from her. Obama's vision of hope and change -- however fuzzy -- may resonate far more widely than Hillary could.

Nevertheless, McCain is one of the first Republican presidential candidates in a long time who hasn't filled me with revulsion. As bad as each one seems, the next one seems even worse. McCain is the first to reverse that trend.

Considering all that, I've voted for Hillary in the overseas primary. If we want change, really, I think she's got plenty to spare.

Tomorrow we'll see if voters agree.

 

Striking Worst Late Western

This morning the organizers of “More Train Less Strain” staged their second fare strike against First Great Western, the railway operator here in the west of England.

To my New York friends, trust me, whatever gripes you have about the Long Island Rail Road cannot compare with the deadly service offered by First Great Western, this decrepit shell of a railway. The most profitable of British train operators is also the one with the worst on-time performance and the most miserable conditions for riders, who have been known to stand in the toilet due to lack of room anywhere else on the train.

Back in the 19th Century, the building of this railway was a major accomplishment of the industrial age, linking London Paddington with Bristol Temple Meads and cutting a trip that formerly took days down to several hours. The builder of the railway, the young Isambard Kingdom Brunel, reportedly mused aloud about how, one day, men would be able to travel from London to Bristol at 40 miles per hour, sipping a cup of tea.

Today, around 150 years later, the inheritor of this legacy, First Great Western, remains true to Brunel’s vision by ensuring that we seemingly do travel at around 40 miles per hour at best, although tea is not as readily available.

The fare strikers were out in force this morning at Bath Spa station, along with the television crews. In typical British style, it was a polite protest, with no angry confrontations. There didn’t seem to be a way to feed my strike ticket through the automated barrier, so I used a real one – but in spirit, I’m on strike, and so the railway workers got no smiles from me today (although to be fair, the only thing more awful than riding on this railway must be working on it).

Cynically, the First Great Western customer support team was also out in force, purporting to be there to hear our concerns, and most importantly ensuring of course that a First Great Western representative was always visible in the background, regardless of camera angle.

Tomorrow it will all be back to normal, the representatives gone back to their cubicles and the commuters wondering once more whether their journey will be delayed, canceled, interrupted or merely unbearable.

Or maybe it was back to normal already this morning, as once out of range of the television cameras the train was delayed again at Bristol and again there were not enough seats in the two dingy carriages to accommodate all the passengers who wished to ride.

Brunel, wherever you are, I hope you’re not watching.

The Headline Says It All

From the Associated Press:

Bush Speech to Have Few New Ideas

 

Why I'm Skipping the Almeida This Time

I've had the pleasure of being involved with London's Almeida Theatre for some time now in connection with its "Reach" program for younger entrepreneurs and aspiring patrons of the arts.

At age 43, I'm always glad to be involved with anything that allows me to continue to classify myself as "younger." But even if it were not for this benefit I would still consider it a privilege to be involved with this wonderful theatre, which puts on such quality productions and is run by people who are dedicated, talented, gracious and warm.

The Almeida is one of London's great theatres -- and this is in a city where theatre still often can rise to the level of high art, more often probably than in any other place (and as a native New Yorker, I say this only grudgingly).

Yet in spite of this I'll be skipping the next Almeida Reach event, which features a performance of Caryl Churchill's "Cloud Nine." That's because Churchill, lauded as one of Britain's greatest female playwrights, is a patron and active supporter of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and its calls for a total academic and cultural boycott of Israel.

Heaven knows the Palestinians need good advocates, given that the organisations that purport to advocate for them today are hardly doing a creditable job. But Churchill and others who have joined her on the extreme left cannot be serious in believing that their methods will have any beneficial effect.

The way to bring the parties together in the Middle East is to encourage dialogue. In Israel, as anywhere else, there exists a cross-section of viewpoints and positions across the political spectrum. To take a blanket position of no dialogue stifles all voices -- even the moderate ones who might be in a position to help move toward a solution, if they could be heard. To attempt to delegitimize one side of the conflict only encourages the other side to harden its position, giving it false hope that intransigence will ultimately lead to victory.

Fortunately, for these reasons, more level-headed people have rejected this extreme position. "Boycott, not dialogue" is a discredited strategy and has failed to gain the traction its advocates had hoped. Where reasonable people have considered the issue, they've chosen dialogue over closed-mindedness. They understand that the advocates of boycott have chosen to cast themselves as partisan soldiers and have thus forfeited any claim to fairness or impartiality.

It's particularly ironic that a cultural figure like Caryl Churchill, who owes her livelihood and influence to the willingness of audiences to listen to her with an open mind, is not willing to extend the same courtesy to Israeli intellectual and cultural figures, regardless of their individual views. She is unwilling to distinguish on an individual level, because her goal is to demonize Israel full stop.

In the same way Churchill and her gang might argue that Israel takes indiscriminate, collective action against the Palestinian people, they employ the same tactics against Israeli artists and academics -- the ones most likely to be sympathetic with the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people. Churchill and her comrades are soldiers in a war, and their aim is victory; nuance and subtlety are weaknesses in wartime. And of course, she and her crowd can and do characterize their own belligerence as a necessary response to Israeli power. So by demonizing the Israelis, they claim credibility for their own unjustifiable behavior.

The Almeida should certainly produce Caryl Churchill's work -- it should be judged on its own merits as a work of art, rather than on the politics of its author. But it's too much for me to go and applaud it. And I'm too polite to boo and hiss in this special theatre run by brilliant people.

I hope to be back at the Almedia next time. But for now, Caryl Churchill -- I'm not joining your audience.

We Held a Seance, But Nothing Gay Happened

Police investigating a murder attended a seance in an attempt to find the killer, the BBC reports.

Testifying at the High Court in Edinburgh, a former detective indicated that during the seance officers had held hands, although not in an "affectionate" way.

It's reassuring to know that although police may be dabbling in the occult, they're not being gay about it.

Tags: lawenforcement, occult, homosexuality