Postman wrote that the early 20th century brought forth two competing visions of the future: Orwell’s 1984, in which we are oppressed by a totalitarian regime and Huxley’s Brave New World in which our fascination with personal amusement means that we choose to oppress ourselves. Orwell’s dystopian vision was dying even by 1985, a year past its sell-by date and mere moments before glasnost. Huxley’s vision however, seemed only to have become more real.

Postman premise was  was that technological advances within media do more than give us new tools for the expression of our culture, they mediate it, changing not just what we think about but how we think at all.

The printing press ushered in a typographical epistemology; when thinking and creating we did so through the construct of the printing press. One of the elements of this construct was the sheer amount of information that could be imparted through print, it lent itself to volume. With volume came nuance and argument, challenge and careful refutation. Our minds were shaped through this typographical prism and it affected the entire culture even beyond the printed page. As I have noted before, the Lincoln-Douglas debates were seven hours long in which a crowd would be expected to follow an intricately constructed argument on a single point for hours at a time. Early novels were happily gargantuan (which author would even attempt to equal Richardson’s Clarissa now?). This is not to say that every work was one of volume (this was also the age of pamphleteers), but that the principal technology through which we expressed our culture also defined our ability to think within our culture. The technology was suited to expressing depth, and thus our culture reflected it.

The second aspect of this culture was that it was, in general, geographically limited. News was truly local, and as a result often actionable. The news they read had an intrinsic effect upon people’s lives. This is important; the news was something that was used as a guide to action, it had a purpose. This meant that the press were held to a certain standard of utility.

This largely changed with the next great technological epoch, the invention of the telegraph and photograph. The telegraph ushered in an incredible transition in our culture, news organisations raced to be the first to have the telegraph from Washington to New York and then across the country. Our media was no longer limited by geography, recency became prized over actionable information. An earthquake in California, or flood in New Orleans was now news that the people of brooklyn might expect and demand to read, but it was no longer information that they could do anything about. News was divorced from action and now flirting with entertainment.

The photograph intensified this transition, no longer was the printed word the principal carrier of our culture, it had been superseded by the image. And it turns out that a picture is worth far less than a thousand words, it merely paints a portrait from one man’s vantage point that brooks no contest or refutation. The media we received had ceased to be actionable and had become entertaining, it had ceased to be nuanced and open to challenge; it had become a statement of unalterable fact: a picture never lies.

Postman believed this reached its apotheosis with television. Television demanded that everything be entertainment, no action required but to consume. What’s more, that technology mediated towards brevity. A 30 minute newscast on average contains less words than a single newspaper column. This meant that only the most simple concepts could be delivered and it changed everything.

It was from the television preachers that we saw the rise of a fundamentalist christianity that preached that every single word of the bible was literal and true, no other message would have survived and thrived in minds built by television. Education, which had previously been supposed to have been a challenge to the intellect was now judged on how entertaining the teacher or materials might be. Instead of seven-hour debates we saw in the last election an endless stream of 30 second soundbites masquerading as debates. No thought too small, no challenge beyond the flat denial or wisecrack. Television had (and has) defined us, and we sit staring at Huxley’s Brave New World.

Postman never got the chance to see the Internet flower, and he might have thought the future he saw confounded. When the Internet was young, poor connection speeds and the sub-culture from which it was born meant that typography seemed to rule the day again. The language used to define how we interacted with this new medium were lifted from that typographical era, we ‘browsed’ ‘pages’ our default home was often index.htm. A medium in search of itself drew upon the metaphors of the past and sustained itself.

As if reliving history, the image and then television encroached upon this new typographical world and overtook it, but these were still in large part borrowed concepts adapting to a new environment instead of being created by it. The first change in epistemology that has truly been born out of this new technological change is the stream. It has no ubiquitous analogue within our former culture. Fragments of information, often unrelated flowing past in a vast ungraspable river of information into which we dip. Information has become an ambient part of our awareness, rather than a point of focus.

This new change might have made Postman fear ever more greatly for the future he left to us. We are not even given the luxury of a story beyond the headline; recency becomes not just the most important thing, it becomes the only thing; we know 140 characters about everything but have trouble reading a post as long as this one. Yes the stream brings each of these fragments together, but a thousand competing headlines do not equal a carefully constructed argument. Yes, the stream contains links that bring the reader to longer texts, but the impact of the stream on our culture means that our ability to delve to even this depth. We look in awe to those normal people who could sit through a seven-hour lecture 150 years ago, but I wonder whether the stream means that future generations will look in awe upon even our meagre efforts to focus on depth.

Just as with television we have less and less time with which to hold attention and get our point across, and thus must naturally lean towards emotion and away from intellect as the most effective and loyal respondent. Could streams give birth to the same level of intellectual enlightenment as the printing press? It seems more that we are exchanging being enlightened for being informed.

However, there is something here that makes the future seem brighter and the earthquake in Haiti in part points to this. The telegraph took away our proximity to news and our ability to act upon it, but the Internet of streams may yet bring it back. Geography no longer precludes our ability to act and the fragments of news we receive may engender micro actions and it is there, far more than in the stream, where the cumulative effect can mean something. The Haitian earthquake is potentially no longer something of interest primarily as entertainment, but is once again news that I can act on. As the web brings forward new ways for people to collaborate through micro-actions, such as kickstarter or If we ran the world it has the potential for each of us to make the news more than morbid entertainment, but a tool for action again. If we can nurture that crucial link and make those actions more implicit to how we interact with the web then over time we might just regain what was lost.

Personal

Observe a tech sabbath: At social foo last year, Michael Galpert of Aviary spoke about reconciling his always-on tech role with his life as an observant jew and the process of switching everything off for 24 hours once a week. Ever since, the idea has resonated with me more and more. I’m utterly addicted to the dopamine fix of every tweet, email and foursquare check-in and I think that it’s taking me down a short-attention span path I don’t wish to follow. As a result, I’m going to try and turn off my internet access, close my laptop and leave my phone in a drawer every Sunday. I want to see what it’s like to go for a walk without music, go to a restaurant with only the people who are with me and have serious time for reflection.

Learn the ancient skill of focus: I kicked off this year with Neil Postman’s 1985 book ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death‘, which looks at how the changes from a typographical culture through the telegraph and photograph to television have shaped how we interact and behave. While we’ve certainly gained much from technological advances, we’ve also lost something. During the Lincoln-Douglas debates, crowds would sit and listen to two speakers discuss dense and nuanced positions for seven hours. Seven hours. I’m embarrassed to say I don’t think I could do that, but I want to. I want to reduce my often constant flitting from document to email to twitter and back and learn how to focus again. I’m doing this with a simple timer, setting a period of concentration on one item and not letting up until the buzzer goes. Over time I want to extend that concentration so that I could one day sit through the kind of discussion that previous generations thought commonplace.

Improve my memory: The missus has oftentimes pointed to my hazy memory for things she has perfect recollection of, such as meeting, proposing etc. I’m keen to try to improve this and delve into the loci system to see if that can help.

Get married, go on a honeymoon, learn how to dance: and importantly don’t screw any of these things up for the other person with whom I have planned these things.

Physical

The marriage/honeymoon bundle is going to take up a fair amount of time this year and preclude doing too many farflung events. However, I’m keen to:

Run the circumference of Manhattan: This to me seems like something more fun and illuminating than a straight mileage distance. I am often accused of rarely straying from the West Village and I hope this gives me a sense of the parts of Manhattan I rarely see.

Swim two miles/do a century ride/run a marathon: I might not be able to fit in an ironman this year but I want to get back up to the level where I could. Would also love to run the New York marathon as a good pal has assured me it’s the best in the world.

Get back into cross-country skiing: I was lucky enough to get a pair of bomb-proof back-country skis for xmas and I’m keen to get back into it again. New York and Pennsylvania have numerous places where I can really get going and I loved it too much to let it slip.

There’s a few more resolutions related to my professional life and other new projects, but I’ll keep those closer to my chest for now.

There’s a few different applications that really make a difference to my productivity at Betaworks. I thought I would share a few:

Partychat – Turning Gtalk into Yammer

One of the key issues that I’ve come across is a lack of transparency even in small teams. Information can often not find everyone it needs to and sometimes the person with the answer is not the one you might have thought of. I initially used Yammer to try and surface a lot of these conversations, but it was always one more medium of communications to layer on to a team and didn’t seem to gain much traction. Despite the name, Partychat has made a real difference in keeping everyone up to speed. It basically adds group chat functionality to Gtalk (which I use in Adium) and it’s where we have most of our conversations even those that would normally by one-to-one. The advantage here is being able to insert a transparent way of communicating into mediums that people are already using and it’s well worth a try.

Pivotal Tracker

At last years Social Foo, Pivotal Tracker was the tool we all thought was our secret until we realized the others were all using it too. Quite simply, it’s the best tool for managing an agile product development process I’ve found, and it’s free!

Fluid SSB

I use the Fluid Single-Site Browser to turn a lot of web applications into desktop apps. Having Gcal, Mindmeister, Pivotal and Google Docs as separate applications rather than tabs in a browser has made them easier to manage and I’m sure I’m more productive.

Omnifocus & OmniOutliner

Some people prefer the somewhat simpler Things as their To-Do list manager of choice, but I am an omnifocus addict and can’t see myself moving. Omnifocus enables you to manage tasks by project or by context. I make heavy use of omnifocus’s perspectives tool, which enables me to filter through to the most apposite tasks for the day, whether it’s due soon or just tasks that I estimate will take me less than 30 minutes. Also, everyone I work with has their own context so I know exactly what I have to cover with them every time we meet. Take a look at the helpful tutorials on the omnifocus site.

The one issue with omnifocus can be when it starts to become a note-taker rather than task manager. To avoid that I also use OmniOutliner. It’s hierarchical document structure means that I can keep almost all the information on each of the companies in one document. Meeting Notes, product roadmaps, brainstorms, basically everything that is useful information but not an actionable task goes in here.

Notable mentions

1Password: An awesome password and other secure information manager. With one click I can fill in forms on the web and use ultra secure unique passwords without having to worry about remembering them.

Apimac Timer: I use this countdown timer to give myself sprints of productivity. It helps you realize just how much you can get done in the ten minutes before that meeting if you focus.

Skitch: I love this free tool for taking screenshots and marking them up. Absolutely invaluable.

Scrivener and Ommwriter: I’ve used Scrivener for years and it’s a great app for getting real writing done. Full-screen editing and great organisation features. Recently, I’ve also been enjoying Ommwriter as a new and peaceful way to focus on the task at hand.

Let me know what other tools you use.

(via Ze Frank)

I would hate to be on the other side of the debate to this guy.

via Alastair Humphreys

You don’t want to get the calculations on this wrong…