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We have access to mind-numbing
amounts of data - the trash and the treasure, the
ridiculous and the not-so-sublime ... We were promised
that all these new options would enrich us. And yet
even with this gluttony of choices, our diet is getting
thinner. Meanwhile, we're becoming cluttered with
all kinds of info-accessories: CD-ROMs, computers,
online services, the Internet. And not only is it
decreed that we have to try to comprehend the tonnage
of stuff we're supposed to read, but it is ordered
that we have to understand and use all these new
technologies or we will be fossilized. All this
information and all these new products were supposed to
make life easier, but now we work harder, longer - just
to stay in place and keep up. I point all this out not
because I'm a cynic about the power of technology -
far from it. But I believe the acceleration of daily
life, this confusing mad rush to get ahead of the
future, the speed of life in and about the media, is
eroding our ability to gather the building blocks to do
the real and necessary work of creating new products. -
1995
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What's the old saying? "A
rumor goes around the world in the time it takes Truth to
put its boots on." Today, Truth wouldn't bother
getting out of bed ... When we become information-savvy
in a very superficial way, we get dragged along on the
dumb current - scanning for patterns and trying to copy
those that work. It gives a false sense of security, a
dreamy delusion that success will be found by repeating
the pattern again and again ... We are on the brink of a
great convergence - where the computer, the television,
and the telephone will meet to create truly new
communications products. Who knows how they'll get
along? Who knows what the result will be? What we do know
is that the time for hype has passed. And the time has
arrived for us to do the tough conceptual work of coming
up with a new discipline, a new vocabulary, a new
paradigm for what is emerging. - 1995
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Right now, no matter what kind of
publication you put out, you're all asking the same
questions: Are we still relevant? How do we make sure,
when we're riding down that info highway, that we
don't get a flat or become roadkill or some other
ridiculous cliche? The irony is, you're victims of
your own hype … fear of displacement is misguided.
When cable TV arrived, people said, 'This is the end
of the networks.' No. That's insane. There is no
such thing as real displacement. Movies survived
television, and radio is hardly extinct. To worry about
displacement is futile, and to base plans on it is
wasteful. Of course, that doesn't mean you
shouldn't explore new technologies ... We will fall
short if we impose our own familiar business models on
the coming convergence. Telephones were not just
telegraphs with voice. Computers weren't just
calculators with keyboards. And in the future, no one
will call your product 'magazines with sound and
moving pictures.' We have to resist media imperialism
- the tendency to colonize, to define new technologies in
terms of the old ... Redefine, don't repackage.
Redefining the mission of your ventures is slow,
brain-bending work. Right now, that message is lost on
too many people. There isn't a single gold-paved road
to success in this new environment. There is no road map
or users manual. It's not something you can research.
And there is nothing to be gained by forcing new
opportunities into the boxes of past experience. What we
need to do is slow down. To relax. - 1995
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Successful convergence means
having the willingness to subordinate your media
expertise instead of imposing it. It means treating a
new medium on its terms - not yours. It means having
the patience to relax and follow your curiosity instead
of hyperventilating and chasing the crowd. We need to
be convergence contrarians - willing to challenge
conventional wisdom, yet able to explore other
possibilities. Now I don't care what software,
hardware, firmware, floppyware, infoware, or underware
that technology convergence creates for our creative
communities. I just care that real editorship is
involved in the process, contrarian and contentious all
the way, because I trust absolutely that interesting
things will follow. - 1995 Today and for the next 20
years, those who are awake, and able and willing, will
be playing that same defining role in what is surely
going to be a radical transformation of all we hear,
see, and know. And what a piece of great, good luck it
will be to have been present at the creation. -
1995
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