zenpundit.com

Longtime blogfriend and sometime collaborator Critt Jarvis has a guest post on “branding” and social networks up at Strategis:

Dear Brand Manager

 Here’s the dirty little secret so-called social networking “experts” don’t want you to know: “US consumers are most interested in brands that keep them up to date and improve their knowledge. And they do not want brands to act like their friends.

Critt, who has been involved in a number of edge tech projects is usually ahead of the curve. Critt is best known for convincing Thomas P.M. Barnett to start blogging back at a time when blogging was an emerging “fad” and the idea of a “serious” defense or national security expert blogging was regarded as ridiculous ( and it probably sped Tom’s departure from the Naval War College and into the big leagues of writing and consulting). Today it’s hard to think of an important foreign policy-defense type who doesn’t blog or at least try to promote their articles and op-eds in the blogosphere and sites like SWJ.

Critt’s calling attention to the point that once you get past the novelty of having a twitter account or a facebook page, your institution’s online presence has to actually be delivering value in terms of useful content and substantive interaction on a regular basis.

He’s right, but it is going to take some time for the crowd to catch up to him.

Thanks to the kind invitation of S. Anthony Iannarino, I have been on the much vaunted, often coveted,  Google Wave beta app ( I do not have any invites yet, sorry ) which mashes up email, realtime transparent instant messaging, other embedded web 2.0 apps and a wiki-like functionality. The interface looks like this ( from O’Reilly Radar – who can explain Google Wave far better than I can:

What is it like?

First, for me, it’s a small handful of my blogcircle ( most of who are techies) milling about chatting, trying to figure out the functionality. The champ so far is Sean Meade, who is Tom Barnett’s webmaster and also the web editor for ARES; Sean assembled a tutorial “wave” for the rest of us that I have just begun to plod through. It is not easy to find other googlewavers which is why people are posting calls on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites.

Secondly, this is a very unfinished symphony of a beta – at least compared to prior beta experiences I’ve had. Sliderocket, by comparison was very smooth and probably 95 % ready when I received a beta account while with Google Wave I’d anticipate significant differences before it becomes generally available. As it is going to be open source, the potential creativity for future apps is vast.

Cool, interesting, not entirely sure how I will eventually use it on a regular basis yet.

More fodder for the digital vs. dead tree debate:

UCLA Study: The Internet Is Altering Our Brains

….After the initial brain scan, subjects went home and conducted Internet searches for one hour a day for a total of seven days over a two-week period. These practice searches involved using the web to answer questions about various topics by exploring different websites and reading information. Participants then received a second brain scan using the same Internet simulation task, but with different topics.

The first scan of participants with little Internet experience showed brain activity in the regions controlling language, reading, memory and visual abilities. The second brain scan of these participants, conducted after the home practice searches, demonstrated activation of these same regions, but there was also activity in the middle frontal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus – areas of the brain known to be important in working memory and decision-making.

….The results suggest that searching online may be a simple form of brain exercise that might be employed to enhance cognition in older adults,” Teena D. Moody, the study’s first author and UCLA researcher, said in a statement.

When performing an online search, the ability to hold important information in working memory and to take away the important points from competing graphics and words is essential, Moody noted.

I will be interested in seeing brain scan comparisons between digital natives who were on computers from the time they were toddlers, and the digital immigrants.  My son, for example, learned to read on his own long before pre-school from looking at words on a computer screen ( less “learned” than spontaneously “realized” the symbol-sound-conceptual connection ) while his sister, who had a more traditional exposure to reading, learned later ( more “taught”).

Another difference, while they are both equally skilled at reading, adjusted for an age, she is an avid reader who devours large books (mostly fiction) while her brother reads instrumentally, for knowledge or expository explanations (mostly natural science subjects. Only “Clone Wars” attracted him to read fiction).

Nice.

Shlok posts up on the future of war in response to Lexington’s Green’s prospective speaking engagement:

The History and Future of Warfare

…..The history of warfare looks something like this cycle that repeats itself within the governance market – between an insurgent governance platform and the dominant platform of the time. Victory is gauged by market-share of each platform.

1. Tribe vs. Tribe
2. Tribe vs. State
3. State vs State
   1. Marked by the invention of the nuke.
4. Network vs State
   1. Where we are now. Networks are essentially information empowered tribes.
5. Network vs. Network
   1. When the nation-state collapses into its component resilient communities and combats the networks that won.
   2. Insurgencies and private military corporations act as governance platforms.
6. Small-Scale Networks vs Network
   1. Advanced information flows decreases mass requirements and increases decentralization.
   2. Trend continues until post-human age.
7. Small-Scale Network vs Small-Scale Network
8. Individual vs. Small-Scale Network
9. Individual vs. Individual
10. Post-human vs. Individual
    1. When the difference between man and machine is negligible.
11. ? vs Post-Human

*Acceleration really takes off when the network barrier is broken.

I like the flow in the outline. Potential countervailing trends to Shlok’s model? Here’s a couple:

• Aggressive migration/refugees-in-arms – think Hutu militiamen fleeing to the Congo from Tutsi rebels, but scaled up for a failing great or regional power.
• Rogue nuclear events will cause a countervailing, centralizing, “circling the wagons” effect that will temporarily strengthen states and allow them to “take off the gloves” against networked opponents.

This is simply amazing and the ultimate in Orwellian thought police technology ( Hat tip to Bill Petti).