Think

Instant message is my preferred way of faceless socialization - maybe that’s too severe a word. Just with friends and coworkers ("stranger danger!" *calls Chris Hansen*). The majority of my non-work IMs consist of quotation marks (what I or someone else would say for maximum hilarity) and asterisks (what I or someone else would do for maximum hilarity). We all do it. We probably just follow different style guides. Mighty Laughs Aplenty.

Back in the day when computer games came on floppies, there was a genre whose interface consisted of nothing but text. These interactive fiction - or more commonly, text adventure - games always had the same setup: it tells you where you are and what you can see. A line break later, the game outputs:

I just caught this fantastic video update from Current TV on Parson's infamous Internet Famous Class. Or feel free to watch this ho-hum NBC clip on the class below:

We all want to be original, right? To turn heads, to raise an eyebrow...But what is original anymore? Two topics prevailed during yesterday’s lunch table conversation: pantyhose and applications. I’ll spare you details on the former. The gist of the latter was that many of the apps people are thinking up already exist in some state.



Swissmiss recently posted a lovely quote from Jim Jarmusch, opening with the phrase “nothing is original.” Proving his point, Jarmusch borrowed words from Jean-Luc Godard. I stole that snippet and pasted it above. Why not? After all, “originality is non-existent.” Or maybe it’s omnipresent. Originality is not about creating from scratch. It’s about exploring what’s around you and turning that into something entirely new.

I've been working on a Keynote deck for the past week or so about reaching people in a post-advertising world. We all acknowledge that we are in this world, but it seems like we're less willing to define what that means. One of the things that I see holding us back is the fact that so many people are relying on buzzwords and adverspeak to come up with new ideas. "Make that viral." Uh-huh...yeah, coming right up. "We need to create a community." Um, why?!?

In a very informal poll, I asked my Twitter friends which buzzwords they feel are overused. The results were not that shocking but definitely informative. Viral topped the list, followed closely by widget, community and authenticity. I was surprised that people didn't seem to have much of an issue with location-based or cross-platform. But hey, today's vocabulary is tomorrow's adverspeak.

On any given work day, you have your default work application open - a compiler, an Office or a Photoshop. That's one (or perhaps two or three). Then you have a browser with multiple tabs. Then you have a work email program flashing you new mail. And you have instant messenger with at least two convos going on. And you have an RSS reader. And Twitter. And a gmail notifier. And when you leave your desk, all this goes with you when you take your iPhone for a "walking" break.