In contrast to attending a high school reunion a few years ago, this one was just a lot of fun.  I saw my old roommate who I hadn’t seen in close to 25 years, caught up on mutual friends, saw people I really liked during school and lost touch with, and it was generally just terrific, not awkward or weird at all.  Even my kids, who were reluctant to get dragged to this thing, had a great time.  (Penn does a fantastic job planning these things, and I am really impressed- it speaks well for a school that has one of the best business programs in the Country that the marketing, branding, and everything else was truly impressive from top to bottom. Entertainment, planning for families- everything was great.)

At this point, all of us are in our 40′s.  In contrast to earlier points in time, most everyone is pretty happy where they sit in life.  We know who we are.  We’ve been through life’s speed bumps, and come out the other end, smarter and better for it.  The women were self-assured and happy with themselves- no need to put on a show.  We could tell stories of what we remembered, and most everything was pleasant and funny now- perspective is a wonderful thing.  Many of us have kids who are in their teen years, looking at colleges as well, and it was a great moment to look back and realize how their whole experience is so much different than ours was.

This reunion for me was just about as perfect as it could be.  It was full of all the things you’d like it to be, and none of the awkward gauging of where you are in comparison to the lives of others, and feeling weither smug or resentful as a result.  People have gone off and done marvelous things, and we can all be really happy for each other.

One of the things we spoke about it whether our kids will ever have this same sort of experience, with the web and Facebook a daily part of their lives.  Will they ever lose touch with anyone?  Will they ever not know what happened to a friend?  Will they ever be able to outrun or lose the people they don’t want to be in touch with anymore as well?

This cohort of Gen X’ers are a sandwich generation.  We’re young enough to (mostly) move with the tech tide.  We still have a sense of old fashioned values about things like manners, hierarchy, deference, and public versus private lives.  I’m just so glad to be back in touch with so many people I really have missed over the years- it was a better experience than I ever imagined, and one I won’t soon forget.

The meet-up was simply a joy, and it was great to find out Chris and I had mutual friends, which made it much more like meeting someone I already knew, than meeting a total stranger.  It was also great to talk to someone who had a book out, as mine was coming out later in the year, so it helped me think about what I wanted to do to make mine as special as Chris has made his.

Needless to say, when Chris told me he had a new book, The $100 startup- Reinvent the way you make a living, do what you love, and crate a new future, I was thrilled that he asked me to read it and review it for the launch.    Even more important to many of the tech and entrepreneurial folks I know, this book is a great guide to making your dreams come true.

In addition to letting you know your passions can lead to greatness, Chris lays out things like the one page business plan, how to construct and offer, and how to launch.  It’s the unstuffy guide to making a business that actually makes money, and you’ll learn you don’t need an infinite amount of capital to make it happen, either.  It’s the business guide for the creative class, that is practical but leaves all the intimidating stuff behind.

This is a perfect book for SO many people I know, and a good reminder and resource for all of us who think we know it all, as well.

Let’s take an example.  I’ve been funding projects from time to time on Kickstarter, for lots of reasons.  They range from really liking some project or something that solves a problem for me, and wanting to be one of the first to try it out, to just believing that a little money can help people build their dreams.  By sharing even in just the stories of these entrepreneurs as they get their projects off the ground, deal with manufacturing headaches and more, it’s like going to business school without the tuition.  You get to see the real world struggles of folks working to make their product, their art, their passion come alive, and it’s incredibly inspiring. (I am sure there’s a reality show waiting to be made out of Kickstarter that would make many of the shows today look sad by comparison.)   All of these entrepreneurs start out with a dream and ask for funding- some get it, and some do not.  But a quick read of The $100 Startup might make some of the projects and pitches more compelling, giving them a greater chance for success from the very get-go.

Even my husband, a traditional guy by most measures, is amazed by the stuff that shows up from time to time at our house from Kickstarter and other small startups like Quarterly.co, and now he’s starting to hear about Kickstarter more frequently in his every day travels, making this side-interest of mine a little less weird and a little more mainstream.  In fact, as I am discussing taking what has been a long-time alpha-project into beta testing and ultimate launch, just knowing about things like Kickstarter has made family support a bit easier to garner.  Now, with Chris’s book, I have an additional source of advice to make sure the launch and initial offers are sound, and I have something to check my gut instincts against, making it much more likely that the next phase will go far better than it would have otherwise.

Chris’s new book, the $100 Start-up is probably best described as the business book for people wanting to live their dreams, but want to do it in a way that means they can actually earn a living- like at least $50,000 a year, not just eating ramen noodles and waiting for a buy out or other miracle to come along.    It’s about being a grown-up, identifying a market, a service, and something you can offer that people want to buy.  People want to have pain removed- they want their problems solved, and they are willing to pay to make that happen.  You just have to be there to use your talents and expertise to help them solve those problems, and do so in a consistent, valuable way that makes you a source for answers.

This is a book you won’t want to miss, by someone who I’m honored to know.  It’s not just a book for the late-twenty set, not wanting to wear a suit to work.  It’s for all of us, looking to make our lives better and do things we care about.  Period.

Her last book was ‘fiction’, based on a couple buying their first home, and was laugh out loud funny.  I went to signing and got a copy for both Beth and my friend, Elizabeth Stinson, who I think of every time I read one of Jen’s books.  Elizabeth wasn’t so sure since she doesn’t often read fiction, but because I gave her a signed copy, she capitulated and now is in love with Jen’s books as well.

Her new book is Jeneration X- One Reluctant Adult’s Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It’s Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner, and I’m excited she will be doing an appearance at one of my favorite book stores ever, Chester County Books.  Being able to see Jen this week with Elizabeth and with Beth as well, is like sharing something incredibly special- and the way reading should be- sharing a treasure and pleasure with friends.

I think each of us sees a bit of ourselves in Jen Lancaster and her friends.  As Gen X’ers and 40 something women ourselves, Jen captures how we feel and see the world with the ironic twist that’s always present at the same time.  I feel like I am hanging with Elizabeth and Beth and we’re laughing and thinking about making margaritas by the pool this summer as I read through the pages.

I think about Elizabeth’s antique sports gear stuff and almost squeal when Jen talks about that in her book.  I think about whether bringing her a silver bowl trophy I earned in high school as a thank you present would seem creepy or sweet, or whether baking her brownies would seem odd.  But the problem here is that Jen Lancaster writes in a way that she already feels and sounds like my friend, and I am so grateful to her for all the fun I’ve had not only reading her books but sharing them with my friends as well.  It’s a gift of joy and understanding and that while in mainstream life, the 40 something women often feel like supporting characters in a drama, in Jen’s world, we’re the fun and funny center stage characters.  We have a voice and something to say.

I think many of us have hit our 40′s and finally realized it’s ok to be ok with ourselves.  We still feel young and fun and aren’t sure when we exactly became grownups.  I know my Mom seemed so much more adult (to me) at this age than I feel, and I’m still trying to puzzle out why the generations seem so different.  What I do know for sure is that Jen Lancaster’s books, and sharing them with friends is always a pleasure, and that I hope, someday, she’ll share the Rick Springfield Bolognese recipe with us all.  (Read the book to understand- Lynette-  I know you’ll love this chapter- maybe you should save it for the Rick Springfield cruise, though )

1. Life rewards action.  When you take action, rather than ignoring something, things gradually get better.  Hoping problems will simply go away is called procrastination or waiting for disaster to strike.

2. You can teach faster than people learn.  Yup, telling someone something does not mean they’re going to do it or act on it.  They may need time to think about it, mull it over, and eventually, make it their own.  But just because you said it does not ensure that it’s really been “taught”.

3. Leading with Empathy is always a good idea.  Dr. Bob Brooks suggests small things like using “joining” techniques and phrases that helps people see that you understand their position and that you are all on the same side when trying to solve problems.  This advice works in every day life, no matter where.  The more people can see the problem and the problem rather than the people as the problem, the closer you are to a solution.  Blame helps no one and just makes people feel lousy.

4. Speak up for those weaker and more vulnerable.  It’s easy to stay uninvolved and let people fight their own battles.  Sometimes that’s even the best thing you can do,  but helping people find their own power, or helping them navigate situations where they are clearly the underdog or overwhelmed by the situation helps even the odds and make it a fair fight.  Letting the system beat up on the vulnerable and watching from the sidelines is cruel.

5.  When you have a dispute, bring a solution to the table.  Whenever an inevitable disagreement occurs, brainstorm solutions or suggestions in advance of the meeting, so you can start by solving the problem rather than distributing blame or beating a dead horse.

6. Remember that when you find you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.  I got this from a recent seminar and it’s attributed to Dakota Tribal wisdom.  Simply put, if it’s a no win situation, know when to bow out and stop fighting.  There are constraints in every situation, and you may not be able to change them, no matter how out of the box you may think.    And in case you haven’t seen the list of common dead horse strategies we try rather than the simple dismount, I’ll repeat them here for you, for a giggle:

1. Changing riders
   
2. Buying a stronger whip
   
3. Falling back on: “This is the way we’ve always ridden”
   
4. Appointing a committee to study the horse
   
5. Arranging a visit to other sites to see how they ride dead horses
   
6. Increasing the standards for riding dead horses
   
7. Appointing a group to revive the dead horse
   
8. Creating a training session to improve riding skills
   
9. Comparing the state of dead horses in today’s environment
   
10. Changing the requirements so that the horse no longer meets the standard of dead
    
11. Hiring an external consultant to show how a dead horse can be ridden
    
12. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed
    
13. Increasing funding to improve the horse’s performance
    
14. Declaring that no horse is too dead to beat
    
15. Doing a study to see if outsourcing will reduce the cost of riding a dead horse
    
16. Buying a computer program to enhance dead horse performance
    
17. Declaring a dead horse less costly than a live one
    
18. Forming a workgroup to find uses for dead horses
    
19. Changing performance requirements for the horse
    
20. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position

• The Working Moms v. Stay at Home Moms,  courtesy of Hillary Rosen and Ann Romney, 
• Reproductive rights framed in terms of Personhood bills in several states, culminating with my favorite add-on, the “Every Sperm is Sacred” clause in Oklahoma;
• New requirements that every woman contemplating termination of a pregnancy receive an ultrasound, whether it’s medically necessary or not- (I hope the State Government pays for that cost, otherwise, it’s another unfunded mandate)
• Women knitting Uterus models to send to lawmakers with a note attached saying “Here, now you have one of your own- leave mine alone…” and
• A Wisconsin bill trying to define single parenthood as a contributing factor towards a child abuse and neglect.

I’m sure I’ve missed some as well.  (It seems fair to throw the new parenting books, Bringing up BeBe and Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and the book labelled “momm porn” – 50 Shades of Grey in there as well.)

I don’t know about you, but this is starting to drive me crazy.  I’m getting tired of all of this brouhaha all the time, and every politician trying to wring more money out of the latest hot issue, on the left and the right.  It all seems just so manipulative in the media, and so out of touch with reality.

I know Moms that Work, and Moms that Stay Home, and good number, like me, who try to finesse both.  I work from home, with a flexible schedule, to try to maximize what I do professionally and what I need to do to make the family train run on time.  I have friends who volunteer so much, it should be a full time paid job.  And I have friends that have chosen or ended up not having kids.

In the end, we’re all women, and we have views all over the political map.  We want to have the choice to live our lives and feel good about what we do, without people banging on about how working means we’re neglecting our kids, or how not working leaves our kids deprived of opportunities and/or good role models.

I want to be able to go to the Gynecologist without it becoming a political issue, regardless of what I discuss with my doctor.

I want to be able to cook a meal for my family without every choice being scrutinized about whether I’ve given them a nutritionally balanced enough meal and made politically correct choices about the source of any or all proteins, and what that says about our underlying moral or political beliefs.

I want to be able to talk to teachers at school without automatically being considered a hysterical helicopter parent, but just someone whose concerned about their child, ina normal way.

I want to be able to bring in a snack without being torn apart by the possible sugar content and whether it’s organic enough or somewhere, somehow, ever passed within 20 feet of a peanut.

I want to volunteer and do so with a free and open heart, because it’s the right thing to do to help out where I can.  I don’t want it to defend it from folks who think volunteers must have too much time on their hands or nothing better to do.

I also want to help teach my kids that true “charity” and civic engagement begins with giving of yourself to others, through hard work as well as money, by example.  Writing the check is easy.  Showing up and putting in the time and labor is harder, but it’s what being part of a community entails.

I want to be able to flow between my roles as Mom, teacher, entrepreneur, cook, chauffer, project manager, wife, imagineer, domestic engineer, keeper of the keys, author, friend and more without having to justify any of it to anyone else- because we all wear different hats every day, sometimes several at once, and the labels don’t matter as long as the job is completed.

In the end, I want the freedom to do what I want, as long as I am being responsible for myself and those I care about most.  I want to be treated as an intelligent adult, not a bumper sticker.  I want to be considered a citizen, not a desirable demographic group.

Regardless of our religion and politics, I believe women just want to be treated as humans and not objectified or vilified every morning in the paper, being told that every choice they make is being watched, weighed and analyzed to the point you don’t want to get out of bed in the morning.

I guess it’s a sign women are becoming more powerful and have a greater say in our culture, since everyone is trying to shape our viewpoints and convince us that we need to do one thing or another in order to be part of the group.  But women are individuals first, not just a mindless group of sheep you can wind up and point in a direction and we’ll all go there without asking questions.

So please, Media at large, and politicians in general, back off.  Sure, there’s plenty to debate because we feel guilty that doing it all sounded like a good idea, but we discovered quickly you can’t do it all at the same time, even with an iphone.

One current issue involves a problem between my kid and a teacher.  There was clearly a lot of miscommunication going on on both sides, and I’ve been forced to step in.  Performing what my friend Rick Lavoie would call a “social autopsy,” it became clear almost immediately where things started to go off the tracks.  While we’re making strides towards resolving the issue, I can’t say that this kerfuffle has left me feeling any better about the education system, and it certainly has not made me nostalgic for high school.

Effective Response?

The natural and instinctual reaction to any drama or problem is to take sides and assign blame.  This is the gut, emotional response we can all have, and it takes a while to calm this down.  The next step is to move on to the more useful phase, solving the problem and coming to some understanding about the root cause, so no one has to go through the same pain again.

The worst part of issues that arise between two people is when the problem becomes intractable and requires third party intervention.  This is true no matter what we’re talking about- two employees fighting, kids on a playground, spouses, law suits- you name it.  Things often get more complicated and everyone feels under more scrutiny when third parties get involved.  The people at odds start to justify their own actions,becoming more entrenched in their actions rather than more willing to see the other side, no matter how silly, or trivial the matters may be.  Each party will try to deflect blame and responsibility, and the third parties end up feeling like arbitration judges, mediators, or simply parents trying to get two kids to quit fighting over a toy.

(As a lawyer, I can tell you that the first round of any case is always  the “he said, she said” portion, and the truth of the matter always lies somewhere in the middle.  That’s where the resolution lies, and the faster you can get to the heart of the matter, the cheaper it will be, emotionally and economically for everyone.)

The Social Autopsy

The concept of a social autopsy is really quite brilliant.  Like in a “root cause analysis” in medicine or the military, you hear both sides of the story, and then walk through the process that led up to the problem, with both sides looking at what they did, or failed to do, that led up to the ultimate conflict.  Often, it’s pretty clear where the trouble began, and where each party could have done more, or chosen different actions, to avoid the ultimate disaster.  The trick in this process is to make the learning from the mistakes as non-judgmental as possible.  If one party feels solely to blame, or feels under the gun, resentment will prevent either side from taking away the lessons that can be learned.  When it works well,  everyone leaves the process with a deeper understanding of each other, and how to avoid similar conflicts in the future.

We can choose not to argue about silly things with friends, neighbors, coworkers or family members. We can easily decide to choose our battles and disengage from things that seem pointless.  But when we are dragged in as mediators between third parties, it means the situation is already in bad shape, and we’re like the UN, forced to find the peaceful and reasonable solution between battling factions.

Social autopsies can help defuse tense situations.  Hopefully, they provide learning and let each side move forward constructively.

In the current situation, I can advocate for my child and see where the miscommunication occurred, but I certainly do not hold sway over the teacher involved.  My child has had to, essentially, “lawyer up” by having me advocate on his behalf.  I certainly hope the resolution we strike will work and we won’t have to escalate things further.  It will all depend on whether we can strike that balance between working towards a common goal and the blame game.  Time will tell.

After yesterday’s primary in Illinois, where turnout was reported to be very low, The New American reported that the Romney campaign spent $1,117,704 and the Romney Super PAC spent $2,556,353 in Illinois, for a total of $3,674,057.  I got to wondering, what is that on a per vote, per delegate, earned basis?

Since Romney’s vote total was 428,434, simple math tells us he spent $8.575 per vote in Illinois.  He won 43 delegates, a per delegate amount of $85,443.186.  By comparison, Rick Santorum’s campaign spent $219,961 and his Super PAC spent $312,150.  Rick got 321,079 votes, giving him a per vote expenditure of $1.657 and he earned 10 delegates, spending $53,211.10 per delegate.

Let’s compare to an earlier, and perhaps equally, if not more important race.

Let’s look at the cash spent in Florida.  Figures differ depending on what report you read, and I am being lazy here by not going directly to the Federal Election Commission reports but relying on various reports including the New York Times.   While there are conflicting reports, having the Romney campaign spending at least $5.6 million and his Super PAC spending $10.7 million, net figures report a total of $15,340,000, so we’ll use that figure.  Romney got 775,014 votes, and won 50 delegates.  That’s a per vote amount of $19.79, and a per delegate amount of $306,800, enough to put each delegate in the 1% if the money had gone directly to them personally.  All the other candidates won zero delegates in this winner take all race, so their spending gained zero delegates.  On a cost per vote basis, the $5.5 million spent by Gingrich yielded 533,117 votes, a $10.32 per vote spend.

I wish I could opt to just have candidates send checks to the house and bypass all this media spending and annoying phone calls that will be forthcoming.  The amount of money being spent would go to much better use, if given to schools, local charities, or even in the hand of individuals.  You could take all the money a candidate is intending to spend, convert it into $5 bills, and hand it out at the polling place- it seems like at least for Romney, that would be cheaper than his current barrage of ads and probably would make people happier in the long run.

We don’t like to talk about people buying elections.  It sounds tawdry and even downright illegal.  But isn’t that essentially what’s happening? Is that what we’ve come to in this “democracy”?

It’s starting to look more and more like a third world country, where votes are for sale, and patronage rules the day.  After all, you have to ask yourself- why would someone like Mitt Romney, a successful business man, “invest” so much in getting a job that pays $400,000 a year- less than many people, including himself, make in the private sector.  Of course, the benefits are great, and you can make probably 5 times that much a year afterwards on the speaking circuit alone, not to mention book sales.

What about all the people giving him money?  I’m sure they not only believe in his views, but are also looking for influence, pay back, and benefits to flow back in their direction.  There’s a quid pro quo in here somewhere.  Otherwise, why would rational people give so much money that is being spent on essentially nothing tangible in the long run?  After all the bumper stickers and poster and billboards are gone, what will we have to show for it?  As Molly Ivins was so found of saying, “You got to dance with them that brung you.”  And if we don’t bother to ask the question, we deserve what we get.

To that end, I’ll close out this post with a few priceless quotes from Molly Ivins that are as relevant now as when she wrote them:

What stuns me most about contemporary politics is not even that the system has been so badly corrupted by money. It is that so few people get the connection between their lives and what the bozos do in Washington and our state capitols.

There’s never been a law yet that didn’t have a ridiculous consequence in some unusual situation; there’s probably never been a government program that didn’t accidentally benefit someone it wasn’t intended to. Most people who work in government understand that what you do about it is fix the problem — you don’t just attack the whole government.

One function of the income gap is that the people at the top of the heap have a hard time even seeing those at the bottom. They practically need a telescope. The pharaohs of ancient Egypt probably didn’t waste a lot of time thinking about the people who built their pyramids, either. OK, so it’s not that bad yet — but it’s getting that bad.

In the real world, there are only two ways to deal with corporate misbehavior: One is through government regulation and the other is by taking them to court. What has happened over 20 years of free-market proselytizing is that we have dangerously weakened both forms of restraint, first through the craze for “deregulation” and second through endless rounds of “tort reform,” all of which have the effect of cutting off citizens’ access to the courts. By legally bribing politicians with campaign contributions, the corporations have bought themselves immunity from lawsuits on many levels.

These are things we all need to think about, wherever you are on the political spectrum.  How is money changing politics and what are the lasting effects going to be for the majority who don’t have the same access the big contributors do?  Because in the end, we all live in the same country, and turning it into an aristocracy isn’t what our Founding Fathers were after- in fact, just the opposite.

It turns out that Mike Daisey’s theater piece about Apple and the production factories in China is not traditionally true.  It rings of Truthiness, as Stephen Colbert might say, the appeal to emotions and gut feelings in political discourse, without a lot of concern for actual facts or situations.  In other words, the rhetoric stands, it’s just reality that differs and has a problem.  Daisey’s piece confabulates actual experiences with news articles, with information from protesters “who knew someone who once had a brother who was harmed” sort of stuff.  In the theater, this amalgam of facts coated with opinion and impression makes for a moving piece, but it is not, as is often presented, a true set of experiences, just the flavor of some of them mixed with a lot of other ingredients.

This has lead to quite a kerfuffle.  Daisey is trying to defend himself and his art, which he knows has moved people and political discussion.  Because Daisey is not, say, a comedian, where stretches of truth are part of the humor and understanding.  We never think Rodney Dangerfield was really going to sell his wife, when he says – Take My Wife- Please!- or assume every joke is more than grounded, somewhere in the past on truth, just like the best family stories that get better and more amusing with every telling, until they become more legend than fact.  But unlike family stories that may be equally riveting, Daisey has portrayed his “own experience” as more factually based, and we have taken it as closer to the truth than we should.  This is where the problem lies.

In the current climate, we are all looking for something to believe in.  We’re ready to believe certain stories, and when people serve them up, we’re willing to bite, hook, line and sinker.  How else can you really explain continued questioning of the President’s birth or religious affiliation, other than people willing to believe whatever they’re told, even in the face of hard facts to the contrary?  We have more “news” stations that mix opinion and fact to the point we can no longer reasonably and easily tell the difference between the two.

As newspapers and journalism have been hard hit by the changes in digital media and production, as instant news has taken precedent over reflective and accurate news,  I feel we’re just starting to realize what we’ve lost in the process.  Truth is being gradually superseded by truthiness, and until now, I think we’ve taken for granted what’s been lost.

Citizen journalism can be incredibly compelling and important.  Take some time and look at Small World News where Brian Conley and his crew have travelled to political hotspots and outfitted local people with cameras and equipment to report what is going on in the area from the viewpoint of someone living in that area- including Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Mexico.  Seeing the viewpoint from the ground up instead of from the Government -down is incredibly important to understand exactly how life functions in other parts of the world foreign to us.  It’s not pretty or comfortable, but it’s not supposed to be, either.

But citizen journalism is not always done by people who are trained as journalists, like Brian, or who understand things like fact-checking, sourcing, ethical responsibilities and more.  Anyone with a blog , video camera and internet connection can be empowered to have their own broadcast station, for good and for ill.  The truth, or lies can just as easily come out of that same source.  You could even consider Al Quida’s missives as citizen journalism, reporting and advocating for their own causes, even though we happen not to agree with what they’re saying.  In this same vein, is what Mr. Daisey has done any different- taking the truth or facts as he sees them and recasting them to suit his own purposes?

I hope that this incident leads to a greater appreciation for journalists and what they do- what they do report, and how much they choose not to, because it can’t be verified properly.  The BBC has a terrific article that sums up this point nicely, and is worth a read.   The biggest problem is when the journalist, citizen or otherwise, is no longer objective but beholden to a point of view or editorial requirement that predetermines the outcome of the stories, based on financial or relationship objectives.  If tech reporters are beholden to companies for information, and if they are not seen as friendly, they don’t get the information they need, are the “facts” actually more spin that truth?  Is this not what has happened in the banking crisis, where hype has been taken as truth over fact?

We’re entering a new age where journalism has walked a line between entertainment and reporting.  Daisey may be the example we all need to make sure that line is more clear than ever, and we may finally appreciate the difference between truth and truthiness.  At least I hope so.

There was an article in the New York Times about a marketing firm hiring homeless people and giving them mobile wi-fi hotspots at the SXSW conference, to encourage the wi-fi hungry tech crowd to use these hotspots and pay a donation to do so, that would go to the homeless person.  The point was to try to bring together those struggling and those tech folks with big voices and audiences, to engage rather than ignore.  Instead, many people saw this as exploitive.  Apparently, most of the homeless folks involved seemed to think of it as a decent job to have for a day- I’m sure far better than other day labor jobs available.

The problem and conflict here is whether or not the homeless folks were being humanized or objectified by this process.  Were they being seen as a cyborg of sorts, a walking vending machine, or were they bringing a human touch and benefit to a commodity?  It seems to be largely in the eye of the beholder on this one.

The problem in general is that we are having more and more conversations with people that are mediated by technology.  You are reading this blog post, for example, and I get to have a one way broadcast with you.  If you post in the comments, that broadcast can then become a two-way conversation, converting you from an objective “audience” into a singular voice- Mary, Steve, Chris, Gonzo32@gmail.com- whomever comments. Until this becomes a conversation, all I can do is send my thoughts and feelings out into the world, speaking to the unit/object defined as audience, typing into my computer, another object.

The Conversation is also mediated by the computer, and across time, rather than instantaneous.  It allows me to be perhaps more candid than I might be face to face, where we tend to measure what we say by the instant emotional response we get from the people in front of us.  I can express myself more freely, but it also may be more extreme than it might be if we were sitting at dinner together, because the social boundaries are less clear, and I have more time to choose my words and review them than I would have in the flow of a conversation.

Because of this delay in response and direct feedback, you’ll often see people post unflattering, nasty and inappropriate things on various social networks, because there’s less inhibition by immediate feedback of social norms (ie that look from friends or family that says “don’t go there”) and less sense of the impact your words might have on other people.  It makes bullying on Facebook easier to do.  It makes being a troll and leaving hateful comments easier.  After all, it feels like you are just typing your thoughts, not really “talking” to a real person on the other end, let alone everyone else that can see the posts.  This leads to much of the communication occurring online to turn hyperbolic and extreme.  You can say inflammatory things online, never having the same immediate consequences they would have if you said those things to your neighbor.  You can unleash your inner id, often with little consequence.  And in multiplayer role-playing games, from social networks like Second Life to things like World of Warcraft, you can even indulge in avatars, never having to reveal your true self or suffer the consequences of having bad acts associated with you personally if you want to disavow  them.  Epic Dwarf 35 may be a real jerk, but you don’t have to be accountable in real life for those actions.

Likewise, I was really disturbed to find out both the British and US military are using video games like Call of Duty and Modern Warfare to train troops.  Moreover, there are concerns in academic circles about whether these games are essentially propaganda and end up glorifying war, especially as they become more and more realistic.  There was even an article questioning whether these games could violate the Geneva Convention, especially if the behavior trainees practice is not what would be allowed on the real field of battle.

This may sound like the rantings of a mom of teenaged boys, and it is, in part.  The other part of me, that loves neuroscience, also knows that our brains and the mirror neurons record these things as more real than simulation.  I’m not sure there’s such a leap to be made from kids playing Modern Warfare 3 and the same 18-22 year old kids fighting battles in Afghanistan and committing acts that most of us find reprehensible, whether it was a recent rogue sergeant killing civilians or the marines who urinated on corpses.  The more you see other people as objects and not people, the easier it is to treat them with contempt and distain.

I would argue that even much of our current political debate seeks to objectify the political opponents, by failing to acknowledge them as people.  Watching the HBO docudrama “Game Change”,and watching some of the moment replayed from the last campaign,  I was struck by how folks seemed to be looking at the President as an “Arab” “muslim”, “Socialist” or used other labels that seemed to place him more in the realm of object than man.  One of the most moving moments was when John McCain corrected one older woman and admitted that Barak Obama was a good man with a good family, just one with whom he had a difference of opinion.  That was very important, and it’s something we need to do in more of our public discourse- treat each other with respect and compassion, even if our views differ.

When we allow ourselves to forget that the internet enhances communication with other people, we lose a bit of our humanity and reason.  This is not just some amorphous “world at large”.  We’re trying to get our voices heard above the din and contribute to the world at large, providing perspectives and ideas, that, hopefully, will help make the world a little better. We need to keep humanity, compassion and responsibility for our actions.

I’m not sure how we can prevent mass objectification of people when so much communication happens through machines.  Video chats, audio, and the like help, of course.  These are immediate and personal forms of communication, and avoid the time-delayed feedback that even BF Skinner and other behavioral psychologists found to be so critical in mediating response and training.  I  worry the more we divorce people from reality and the direct nature and consequences of their actions, the more extreme that behavior may become.  Because much of the feedback is mediated and delayed through computers, consequences are more remote and have less direct effect on modifying behavior.

I’d just hate to see the most fantastic breakthrough in communications turn out to drive us farther apart than bring us together.  But the risk is very real.

Thanks to JRoota for permission to use this image

A few years ago, when I started podcasting and blogging, I knew I was doing something unusual.  Being on what turned out to be the “cutting edge” felt a little weird, but I had good company, with a band of fellow geeks and nerds.  When the people we told about our obsessions with podcasts, then Twitter and later, Facebook, started to explore and act like they had just discovered the world was round, we smiled, because we knew the feeling.  Now, over five years later, I shake my head when someone comes up and asks me “Wow- did you see this new social media site, Twitter?” because if you know me at all, the answer should be obvious.

Part of the issue is that it takes time for an idea to spread.  In the meantime, you have been working away, trying to make things better, telling people about the tools that can help them- they may listen, but they don’t “hear” you until they discover it themselves.  They start to integrate it into who they are and what they do, and have one of those “Where have you been all my life?” moments, seeing what new possibilities exist.  Then, it’s like a religious convert- it’s all they CAN talk about.

For me, I ‘m excited we have one more in the fold.  I try not to say “I told you so” and “What took you so long?”  But I wish they had taken the time to listen earlier.  I wish I had made a better case for why the tool was useful.  I wish they had tried it out sooner.  Sometimes, I even feel guilty, like I haven’t shared all I know and have kept some great things secret from the person who really needs the information.

We can’t know everything, or solve everyone’s problems.  We also can’t assume that everyone knows what we know.  But somehow, we have to find ways to open up and share our resources in our circles of influence.  We have to find ways to have more conversations that are open-ended “You know what drives me crazy?” sorts of things, especially with people who are not in our field, because many times, it’s from outside that we find the greatest insight or new angle on an old problem.

For example, on Saturday, I was out to lunch with a group of ladies I don’t see very often- all of them were physicians except me.  Many had kids, and we started talking technology, iphones, ipads and more.  I started offering up advice, and before you know it, I was grabbing the iPad from the car and showing some truly useful tools to them.  I have a whole bank of knowledge they need, but it’s invisible to them until we start having “small talk.”  Likewise, we shared information about things from summer camps, vacation spots, things to try, etc.

As much as we may spend time on Facebook, I’m not sure it’s the same as the serendipity and discovery you get when you just sit around and have a chance to talk to folks.  But in this day and age when we all seem so busy all the time, we have to make a special effort to create these places and meetings of discovery.  And sometimes, the most laid back, unimportant, casual discussions with someone can spark all sorts of new ideas.  Creating this space is not easy, but vital for getting ahead.

How do you find ways to get outside your miche and share with others?  Where do you find your inspiration? How do we create this space of sharing, but not make it so pressured, like a grown-up playdate?  I’d love to hear your ideas.