Boo! - The Internet remembers everything

"He is bright, but he is sissy."
"He is tall, but he sucks in Math."
"He is rich, but he is struggling to do his coursework."
"He is street smart, but he misses the obvious."
"She is a straight A student, but lacks ambition."
"He is very articulate, but is anti-social."

The internet remembers everything. Every but. Every objection we have about others. 

…and sure to haunt us later.

This is the biggest bane of digital life. Not privacy or the abundance of mobile cameras, but, things that were supposed to be written in sand, is carried across generations.

Interaction Rituals and the Passion-driven enterprise

In "Interaction Ritual Chains" Collins argues  that sex, smoking and social stratification and much else in our social lives are driven by a common force: interaction rituals.

Successful rituals create symbols of group membership and pump up individuals with emotional energy, while failed rituals drain emotional energy. Each person flows from situation to situation, drawn to those interactions where their cultural capital gives them the best emotional energy payoff.

While physical presence provides many natural avenues for interaction rituals, it becomes challenging in geographically distributed teams. 

Interaction rituals are key to the success of the passion-driven enterprise. 

Skimming and Netflix's iPad vision of Television

Netflix views the future TV as an iPad. Apps instead of channels. No Complicated Remote Controls. No Appointments. Everything is on-demand available by just a touch.

It articulates its vision very well, in this Paper

If such a vision turns into reality, it would certainly reduce costs because consumers would truly pay for what they want, when they want and where they want.,

But TV would be dead. Internet TV would not be TV at all. It would just be Video.

While I think, House of Cards is a revolutionary idea, it takes more than great apps to provide a TV experience. The missing aspect in their document, is Discovery.

Yes, the key to Personalized Television is discovery. You don't want to be searching content to watch from a keyboard, nor do you want to watch only those content, that your friends in your social network watch.

You want to be able to construct your own appointment TV guide, personalized to your own likes and that of your social network and thus able to enjoy a lean back experience.

Skimming the video just like skimming the document, before putting it in your schedule, would become pivotal to creating such a personalized TV guide.

Channel surfing would be dead and would be replaced by Skimming.

Joy of Consuming moRe is the fifth R

No. I am not talking about consuming physical goods. Read on.

To reading,writing and arithmetic, a new R was added recently, pRogramming. Social Media is buzzing with people from diverse disciplines advocating, learning to code as a crucial skill.

YouTube has over 4 billion hours of video. The web contains over 8 billion pages.

In spite of LOLCats and other trite, there are lots of valuable stuff to watch, read and enrich from.

So, the key skill would be to watch a lot, quickly decide to skip or continue watching.

The same principle applies to reading as well. Browse a lot, read many and study a few.

Khan Academy has over 4000 video lessons.

In this age of lifelong learning, there is no bound to learning. So, one must consider learning a lot, try many and learn some every month.

I would add the fifth R, i.e., learning to watch more, read more and learn more, as a crucial skill to navigate the Present Shock.

House of Cards - The future of Television

House of Cards is a TV show, but on Netflix. You can watch all thirteen episodes all at once or one per day, like Appointment Television.

It is not one of those cheesy Internet Series, but a professionally made one, for Netflix has poured $ 50 million just for Season 1 alone.

I have seen 7 episodes thus far. The show is made compelling by Kevin Spacey who acts as the "King Maker" senator. Reminds you of "Wag the Dog".

I give it a five-star rating not only for the content, but also for the genius of Netflix.

I think they have nailed it. "House of Cards" is indeed the future of Television.

"You can watch anything anytime" had lot of promise, but is not very successful as a business model.

On-demand Video lacks the "looking forward-to-ness" of Appointment Television, as well as the freshness for water cooler conversations.

"House of Cards" provides them both and I predict we would start seeing contents of different sizes, pretty soon.