the social software bloggers talk a lot about presence. about how the generation below ours, or perhaps two below, thinks of the net as ever present. they don't really know what it means to be analog, to treasure a piece of plastic as the representation of music, to think of anything that can't be relatively effortlessly copied and transferred. to be lost. to need a dime for a phone call. to ask at the hotel desk where you can get a bite to eat.
to these folks, presence online is defining. think of the little icon in instant messaging software. mine is frequently grayed out, as i rarely leave it logged on but with an away message. this generation - there appear to be semi serious surveys on this - never does that. they tell their friends if they're sleeping, or studying, with the red icon, not by logging out. they're always present. they use the web from their phones. text messages are a way of life.
blackberries can be contemplated, from this perspective, as an infection of youth culture into business culture. they fill very different needs of course. there's a real business need in some fields for constant communication (this may be a pyhrric victory for the short term over the long term, we'll see). but i think few people really need them. those doing international transactions, for sure. no one wants to be chained to the desk through the night, just in case the deal comes through or goes crazy. anyone who works weird hours. people in high value service industries like law, accounting, stocks. people who need to be present.
nearly everyone asks me why i don't have one. i think it's because i don't need one. but i've been wondering why i don't need one, given that i do international transactions and work weird hours. i think it boils down to presence and how i manage mine.
i've got three primary email addresses at this point, which i check with very different levels of regularity. my work email is always on when i'm online, with a noise to let me know when new mail comes in. i'm always logged into AIM in that context, with similar noise alerts. i've got my computer set up to keep making noises after the screensaver kicks in, so i can hear communications incoming for up to an hour after i move away. i can sit around reading, cooking, eating, scratching, and still respond nearly instantly as long as i'm in earshot. to work email, that is.
it's great that no one can email me when i'm walking, given that i typically walk at least an hour a day. walking is a very balancing thing. i think a lot. i space out. my brain slots problems and solutions together. and i can't talk to anyone - i hate walking and talking on the cell. it's an enforced sojourn with my brain, with sensory input. last week i walked in the bitter cold from mit to harvard, without even really intending to do so or even noticing. it's only the lack of presence that lets me be that free.
i check my semi pro account and my personal accounts a lot less. i'll spend a few minutes in the morning and a few minutes in the afternoon on each one, sometimes time in the evening. but those accounts see a lot less presence than my work one. being present this way is a resource drain i only apply to work, or to people who actually get to use my work email without getting banished to yahooland. I don't really talk to non work people on IM.
IM used that way is like a virtual water cooler. I've got the team using group chats as a backend to our staff concalls now, and they're about used enough to it that I'm going to create a CC staff room that we can all just hang out in. This is a great way to manage a virtual team, but it takes a lot of time to get people used to the idea.
All of this is, in its own way, an emergent office behavior system. I once read a description of military etiquette (SIR YES SIR) as a way of behaving that made it easier for a bunch of guys to travel all over the world, doing incredibly weird stuff together, and not kill one another. I suppose, killing only those who are
*outside* the system.
This system strikes me as a non killing system that makes it easier for a set of technonomads to stay in touch. my friends are scattered across the country and world, some of whom i only ever see by accident in airports. i know ceos, hollywood directors, rock stars and rock musicians, venture capitalists, and more. we stay in touch by email, almost exclusively. i know many of these people intimately though i see them at most once a year, and never talk to most of them on the phone. there's a personality representation that can come out through email that, disintermediated from physical self, is in some ways more honest and less forced. in some ways the physical reunions are a little forced in comparison to the ease of emails and lists.
It also makes me wonder about that generation below. I feel very fortunate. I remember music as a physical thing, something with
*heft*, and both mourn and welcome the transition to bits. It's why i have vinyl records at home. i remember before cable. i remember before video games, when you could only get phones from at&t. i revel in my time online, as well as offline, in the digital and in the analog.
i wonder about the psychological impact of constant presence starting at age 5 and the impact of physical isolation as created by an ipod culture. i don't have one of those either, i like to listen to people on the bus; you'd be amazed what people will say into a cell phone two feet from you. i like being present online when i'm alone, and in the world when i'm in it.
