I’d like to introduce you to an important book.  It is Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not a Gadget:  A Manifesto.”

But first, a few questions.

How are you?  Everything good?

How about your life on social media?  How is that going?

Have you updated your blog? Gotten any comments lately?  Any trackbacks?  And your Facebook page?  What is your friend count?  Who’s writing on your wall?  How about your Twitter feed?  Have you checked in with your Google account?  Gone through your Google alerts?  Charted your progress with Google Analytics?   Have you checked in with Foursquare?  Did you get a new badge?  How are your Twitter client numbers?  Is your following getting bigger?  Are your “retweets” growing?

Is this you?  Is this what social media is doing to your life?

For those who are regular visitors to the JuiceBar you’ll know that I’ve a love/hate relationship with social media.  I think a lot of us do.  And the irony of me taking on social media through social media is certainly not lost on me.

Enter Jaron Lanier, the father of virtual reality.  He is an admitted computer genius and geek but also a musician and artists.  And as he looks around at what social media has done, he’s none too happy.  His recent book “You Are Not a Gadget:  A Manifesto” is a great read.  Yesterday’s Washington Post review had a good summary paragraph up front.

A self-confessed “humanistic softie,” Lanier is fighting to wrest control of technology from the “ascendant tribe” of technologists who believe that wisdom emerges from vast crowds, rather than from distinct, individual human beings. According to Lanier, the Internet designs made by that “winning subculture” degrade the very definition of humanness. The saddest example comes from young people who brag of their thousands of friends on Facebook. To them, Lanier replies that this “can only be true if the idea of friendship is reduced.”

If you think that’s good, try this.  Here are a couple of excerpts from an interview on Amazon’s site.

Here Lanier talks about how Web 2.0 actually works against the average Joe …

The problem is not inherent in the Internet or the Web. Deterioration only began around the turn of the century with the rise of so-called “Web 2.0″ designs. These designs valued the information content of the web over individuals. It became fashionable to aggregate the expressions of people into dehumanized data. There are so many things wrong with this that it takes a whole book to summarize them. Here’s just one problem: It screws the middle class. Only the aggregator (like Google, for instance) gets rich, while the actual producers of content get poor.

And the big problem according to Lanier is this crazy idea of the “liberation” of information — as if what we’re doing on the social media front is akin to the storming of the Bastille.  Lanier writes:

The original turn of phrase was “Information wants to be free.” And the problem with that is that it anthropomorphizes information. Information doesn’t deserve to be free. It is an abstract tool; a useful fantasy, a nothing. It is nonexistent until and unless a person experiences it in a useful way. What we have done in the last decade is give information more rights than are given to people.

Think about that.

With the whole huffing and puffing of social media claiming that “Content is King” … are we in turn making ourselves slaves?

I spend a lot of time in airports.  Not as much as George Clooney in “Up in the Air.”  I don’t like traveling as much as this fellow seems to and I find negotiating airports more of a pain-in-the ass than comforting.   But in a recent trip I toured through three major U.S. airports and two major European ones and was reminded of a curious difference between the two.

European airports list departures by time.  When are you leaving?  Look up on the board and scroll down for the time.  There it is.  Got a 9:45 am flight out of Berlin?  Just need to find those flights listed between 9:40 and 9:50 am.  It will be there somewhere in betwixt the flights to Cracaw and Geneva.

U.S. airports list departures by destination.  Where are you going?  Washington DC?  That’s easy.  Go to the end of the listings in the WXYZ space and find where you’re going and then work backwards for the time and gate.

The U.S. system makes a helluvalot more sense to me.  First, I ALWAYS know WHERE I’m going.  But there’s a lot of times I don’t quite remember when.  I can get confused about whether the flight is at 2:30 pm or 3:30 pm but I NEVER get confused about whether I’m going to Newark or Los Angeles.  Then there’s the issue of delayed flights.  You check in and they tell you that your flight is going to be an hour late.  Do you look for the ‘correct’ time or do you look for the revised time?

Very confusing.

I can only think that the European airports carried over the vestiges of the old train station arrival and departure boards.  You know.  Those huge mechanical panels that every minute do the “click-click-click” thing in which plates unfold from the middle to amazingly display a curious combination of yellow and white type on black that gives the latest listings of trains, cities, and gates.

Now it is a series of luminescent flat screen panels dangling from the roof … but the listing by time remains.

And I still can’t remember when that flight is supposed to leave.

Worried that you’re going to die because you CANNOT get the swine flu vaccine?

Worried that you’re going to die because someone is going to MAKE YOU TAKE the swine flu vaccine?

Ready to blame the government, big pharma, the medical-industrial complex for it all?

Welcome to the whacky world of being a human being in America.

On the same day — November 6th — there were two polls that told the story of America’s schizophrenic mindset about vaccinations, swine flu, and modern health.

One was a Harvard poll whose headline read alarmingly that only “one third of those who sought the vaccine were able to get it.”  The poll was part of a swarm of stories flooding the top half of virtually every news outlet citing long lines, soaring complaints, and rising outrage that more vaccine was not available to the American public.  If you follow these stories you’d think that an uprising of cataclysmic proportions was just around the corner.

On the left coast there appeared another poll.  According to it more than half of registered voters in California didn’t want the swine flu vaccine.  Indeed, the “Times/USC poll also found that 59% of people ages 18 to 29, among the most at-risk of any age group, said they had no plans to get the vaccine.”  And there were sizable portions of the public — particularly among African Americans and Latinos — that the vaccine itself was more dangerous than the disease.

So the paranoid will get vaccinated.  The apathetic will not.

And whatever happens, I’m sure the blame won’t be on the paranoid or the apathetic — rather it will be on the poor folks who are actually trying to develop and deliver the vaccine.

According to the New York Times, casting directors are now Tweeting as they audition for talent.  The main culprit in the Times story was Daryl Eisenberg.  In anticipation of criticism, Eisenberg issued a “free speech” defense … specifically “There is NO rule/guideline against Twitter/Facebook/MySpace/Friendster. Freedom of speech. Ever heard of it?”

I wonder if Eisenberg would be so charitable if someone else was Tweeting about him every time he, say, applied for a job or pitched a show idea.

And if I use Eisenberg’s logic, does it mean I can Tweet while I interview candidates at Brodeur Partners?  How would that work?  Something like …

“Hold on, you just said something really stupid, funny, incipient, lame, insightful [pick one].  My folks got to hear about this one.  Just a second while I grab my BlackBerry. ”

… or …

“I know I’m not looking at you but I’m listening … really I am.  You have no idea how focused I am on you and your well being right now.   And to prove it I’m tweeting to my 5,000 followers on Twitter — most of whom I don’t know and, to be frank really don’t care to know –  about what you just said.  Can you repeat that again, a bit slowly?  BTW, your mannerisms also crack me up.  Can you do that thing with your hands again?  I may need some time to figure out how to text that in 140 characters.”

To me, the offense is not one of publicity.  Eisenberg didn’t name names.  The offense is one of civility.

There are limits to multitasking — or at least there should be.  Besides, the same NewYorkTimes a week later confirmed what we all have known for awhile — multitasking makes you mediocre.

Mediocre.  That’s worse that being stupid.

Are there places where people should simply not tweet?

Apparently the folks at the U.S. Open tennis tournament think so.  The sad part is that the reasons they give have more to do with commerce than decorum and civility.  (There’s a fear is that it would screw up tennis gambling)

Where are your no tweet zones?

Senator Kennedy a role model?  Sure you’d have to have been living under a rock over the past few days not to hear or read about the public service accolades, the interest in the poor, the legislative accomplishments.  But what about the getting kicked out of Harvard part?  The carousing and cavorting?  Chappaquiddick?  What about all the bad stuff and the personal flaws — many if not most of which were on display?

Well yes.  There was all that.  And perhaps even some more.  But reflecting on Senator Kennedy’s life — and life in general — I suggest we all reflect on our own short-comings.  They may not be as big or as egregious or as oversized as what we saw in the youngest Kennedy son.  But if we’re honest with ourselves we’ll find our own blind spots, our own severe missteps, our own poor judgement — ours  just didn’t get all the attention that Senator Kennedy’s did.

Some may focus on the flaws of Ted Kennedy.  But whether you are right or left, conservative or liberal, religious or secular, what should him a role model for us all was his unique combination of two things:  genuine personal compassion combined with a strong work ethic.

I live in Washington DC.  In this town you often find one absent the other.  People who overflow with words of caring and love but are too lazy to act on that compassion.   They say the right words and perhaps even have the right motivation.  They just don’t do much.  Then you have the workaholics who lose themselves in their jobs and their causes.  They are so wrapped up in their own little world that they forget that there’s real people, real individuals, real folk out there who just need some help.

Mr. Kennedy was not a lazy man.  He was by all accounts, tireless, indefatigable, unstoppable.  And he found a way to put that energy to help real people with real life problems.  I’ve been stunned by the sheer number of stories that people have shared with me about Senator Kennedy’s personal compassion.  Everyone seems to have a Joe Biden story.  A story where Ted Kennedy took an extra step or lent an extra hand when he found out a person was dealing with tragedy.  Recently a friend and colleague shared with me the following story:

You know the connection I have to both 9/11 and the Senator so I took note of this story I saw about Senator Kennedy and the families from Massachusetts – it was reported for the first time shortly after his illness was disclosed.

Within a couple of days after the 9/11, Senator Kennedy had called every Massachusetts family that had lost a someone.  There were 176.  Even by the standards of exceptional elected officials, you and I know that’s a lot of calls.

A few weeks later one widow, Cindy McGinty, was informed by the Navy that because she could not locate her husband’s discharge papers, an honor guard would not be sent to his funeral.  Michael McGinty was a insurance executive in one of the towers and a Naval Academy graduate.  She called Senator Kennedy.  The next day someone from the Navy called and said a Navy honor guard would be sent to the funeral of Michael McGinty, USN, Rtd.

As David Frum reports, Sen. Kennedy wrote a personal note to every family that lost somebody.  He also wrote a letter to every family every year after that because as he said, the memory doesn’t go away.

A few months after 9/11, he pulled all the federal agencies together in Massachusetts to meet with the Massachusetts 9/11 families to make sure everything was being done that could be done.  At that meeting, Cindy McGinty, who had two pre-teen boys, said she was overwhelmed and was having trouble putting one foot in front of the other.  Kennedy made sure each family in Massachusetts was assigned an advocate who would do as much or as little as the families needed.

A year later McGinty said she didn’t know how Kennedy found out, but one of her sons was having trouble adjusting.  Kennedy invited her and her two boys out to Hyannis Port for a sail one Saturday and they sailed from 11 to 4 (absolutely no press was to be told).  He was to meet with presidential candidate, John Kerry, that afternoon and reportedly kept him waiting.  Later he sent to Mrs. McGinty and her boys photographs and a picture — one he painted — of the day sailing with inscriptions saluting them for their courage.

Senator Kennedy’s life and death is a reminder of those compassionate acts we’ve left undone … those people we’ve forgotten to care for.

Senator Kennedy has passed.  But we’ve still got some time left.

Folks who have followed the JuiceBar know that I’ve a love/hate relationship with social media.

I love it. It is wild, dynamic, open, refreshing, democratic, transparent, exciting … and just plain fun.

I hate it. It is elusive, confounding, over-hyped, out-of-control and overwhelming.

So here’s my quote of the day from Brian Mazzaferri, the lead singer of I Fight Dragons from a great story by Walin Wong of the Chicago Tribune.

“There’s so many things you can do online that make you feel you’re doing something, when in reality you’re doing nothing.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought the same.

Then something happens.  You get curious.

And you say to yourself … log on one more time!

Just when you thought you were out of the worst of it … Bam!  Another 200+ point drop.

I’m telling you this economic stuff is driving folks crazy.

One of my favorite subjects of discussion is what “letter” the economy will resemble over the coming months.  This has been the focus of discussion of everyone from AARP to SeekingAlpha to Blogs.com to MutualFundSmarts.

First, there is the “V” shaped recovery.  The one we all want.  Straight down and straight up.

Then there is the “U” shaped recovery.  The one more likely.  Straight down, suffer for awhile, and then go back up.

Now comes the really bad letters of the alphabet.

The “W” shaped recovery.  As if we haven’t had enough of Ws already.  Sort of a bipolar recovery.  You go broke.  Make money.  Go broke again.  Make money.  Suffer. Enjoy.  Suffer.  Enjoy.

Finally there is the dreaded “L” shaped recovery.  You decend into hell and stay there.  Hopefully over time you’ll learn to enjoy it.

We need a new monogram.

Hi there.

Hope you’re having (or had) a wonderful New Year’s Eve.  There’s a lot of talk about putting 2008 behind us.  Indeed, in the annals of “Auld Lang Syne” (arguably one of the world’s strangest song) our serenade to end 2008 was one of the most sincere in recent memory.

For most normal people — that is, if you are not a high-level senior executive of banks, insurance companies and auto companies making seven figure incomes while bankrupting your respective company –  2008 was a financial train wreck.

Owning a home and having a traditional 401k in 2008 was not quite the equivalent of living in downtown Manhattan on September 2001, nor was it like being on an island in the Indian Ocean on December 2004.  That said, in all three cases a significant portion of lifetime effort was swept away.

You may consider the various Bernie Madoffs of 2008 to be the equivalent of Osama Bin Laden except that that they stole wealth rather than innocent lives.  Or you may consider that 2008 was the violent correction that naturally takes place — just like a tsunami — when the basic forces of mother nature are denied over time.

In either case.  Poof!  There goes $6.9 trillion!  Trillion.  A THOUSAND billion.

Now we have talk of being prudent and frugal.  People discuss the novel idea of spending LESS than they make.  We’re going to increase transparency, enforce regulations, and make things more equitable.  We’re going to come together as a country and fix these seemingly intractable problems that face us.  And who can stop us?  We have Obama now.  Everything will be alright.

After September 11, 2001 we said we’d come together as a nation, put aside partisan differences, and start acting like a responsible, unified nation.  Everyone in the world was an American.

An global opportunity squandered.

Today in 2009 we have another opportunity to begin to get things right, this time with our fiscal and economic policies.  Everyone in the country seems to be behind a new administration’s call for change.

Let’s hope we can do better this time.

Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas!

Did you get the “Christmas spirit” this year?  Yes?  Well what kind of spirit was that?  I’m just checking cause a lot of what I see out there doesn’t synch with my idea of the Christmas spirit.  So just for fun I typed in “Christmas” into Google News this morning.  Here’s a sampling of what I found:

The Queen’s annual Christmas talk was one of a “sombre” Christmas that, according to Her Majesty, conjures “feelings of uncertainty.”

“Hallelujah!” “Joy to the World!”

Paris Hilton’s Christmas spirit took the form of a pink Bentley.

“Away in a manger … no crib for a bed ..!”

According to reports, Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called Jews animals will say Jesus, if alive today, would be against bullying, ill-tempered nations.  (Someone needs to tell him that Jesus was a Jew)

“Peace on earth, good will toward men.”

Google, with a gazillion dollars in market cap and sitting on billions in cash, canceled its Christmas bonus and instead will give its employees a cell phone.

“I have no gifts for him pur-um-pa-pum-pum … Me and my drum.”

The annual Disney parade will be hosted by Ryan Secrest and Matt Dallas, star of the television program in which he plays Kyle who has the 2008 version of the “virgin birth” … a boy without an umbilical cord and belly button living inside a chamber, until he woke up in the middle of a forest covered in pink fluid.”

“Oh come, let us adore him.”

There was the guy who dressed up as Santa and massacred people.  There was the WalMart shoppers who trampled to death the poor soul chosen to open the doors to the store.  And indeed, most stories were about shopping, retail, and sales.  So much that one story retold the quote from Bill O’Reilly who said in 2005 that, “Every company in America should be on its knees thanking Jesus for being born.  Without Christmas, most American businesses would be far less profitable.”

Not the spirit of Christmas that I know.

“Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people” … “For unto you a child is born.  Unto you a son is given.”

Have a Merry Christmas.

It is the day before Christmas and there’s still shopping to do.  What to buy?

A watch?  Huh?  I say that because I open up the Washington Post on the Monday before Christmas and every other page is a full page ad — a FULL PAGE — of nothing but watches.  OK.  A full page ad isn’t as much as it used to be.  But still.  That is some heavy spend.  All for something that fewer and fewer people seem to use.

What is it with Christmas and watches?

They still make nice gifts, right?  Ask John Mayer.  He reportedly gives Rolexes to (some) of the women he gets “romantically involved” with (I think that means he is having sex with them).

But not everyone is John Mayer.   And watches seem to be going the way of the buggy whip, particularly among young people (the object of my shopping for today).

Here’s a snippit from a story written a year ago by Martha Irvine of the Associated Press

In a survey last fall, investment bank Piper Jaffray & Co. found that nearly two-thirds of teens never wear a watch — and only about one in 10 wears one every day.

Experian Simmons Research also discovered that, while Americans spent more than $5.9 billion on watches in 2006, that figure was down 17 percent when compared with five years earlier.

Why buy a watch when a cell phone will do?  Apparently it is a sentiment widely shared.  I read in the New York Times that 2009 isn’t looking good for our Swiss friends.  Is time is running out?  Will the watch make a comeback?  Will, as some claim, the watch have to turn it into some Dick Tracey type multi-function device in order to survive?

Too late!  The smart phone got there first.  I think I’ll go buy one of them.  Then again, it we are in a recession and the kids already have a phone.  I think I’ll buy (another) book.

Merry Christmas!