Sylvie Blocher is a famous French video artist. I went to her exhibition today at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art and I was totally blown away by the stunning visuals, insights and stories she presented. Her work What Is Missing? features people from Penrith unveiling their unspoken needs, hopes, dreams and desires, and was created while Sylvie Blocher was in residence in Penrith as part of the C3West Project. It talks to identity, culture, meaning in life and what people feel is missing in Australia.
29 March, 2010
28 March, 2010
Is the digital revolution sustainable?
“There are potentially large and early gains from better utilization of known technologies, goods and services…” Ross Garnaut, The Garnaut Climate Change Review, Final Report.
So in my previous post, I made some predictions about the media landscape of the future, of how the convergence between the 'traditional' and the 'new' will progress through the proliferation of media (from an advertisers perspective).
As someone who cares about the environment, its important to realise what this 'digital revolution' will translate to if information and communication technology (ICT) doesn't evolve quick enough and companies continue to have an incumbent approach to sustainability. Hence this post, from a Greenie's perspective.
There's no denying that digital presents great opportunity to limit footprint but its important to remember that whilst there's an element of intangibility, digital data needs to be stored somewhere in the real world (aka 'Cloud').
Presuming the over reliance on non-renewable energy continues, what will be the impact within ICT?
Well at present only 25% of the world is connected to the internet. This is due to change, Africa is one of the latest continents to become 'connected' and adoption is going to continue to grow exponentially in the coming years.
There are more than one billion PCs and laptops currently in use, and that number is expected to grow to four billion by 2020 - that's an increase of 400% in ten years. A lot of people perceive the internet as a given or a right, but we must remind ourselves in the Western world- we still represent a minority.
ICT emissions are the same as the Aviation industry and yet for some reason ICT is largely ignored in the debate on emissions (even though its predicted to increase to 6% by 2020 - equal to the output of the Steal Industry). Is it because we can't see it? We certainly think about it when printing on paper or catching a plane. In one year it is estimated that an average server produces as much CO2 emissions as a family car... To put this in to perspective; Google is said to have somewhere between 700,000 to 1 million servers.
Lets look at 'emerging media' Google Search in more detail...
“The global search market continues to grow at an extraordinary rate, with both highly developed and emerging markets contributing to the strong growth worldwide,” said Jack Flanagan, comScore executive vice president. “Search is clearly becoming a more ubiquitous behavior among Internet users that drives navigation not only directly from search engines but also within sites and across networks. If you equate the advancement of search with the ability of humans to cultivate information, then the world is rapidly becoming a more knowledgeable ecosystem.”
What does that mean in terms of emissions? Well according to Google, one Google search is equivalent to about 0.2 grams of CO2. In 2009 there were 2.9 million searches conducted per minute by internet users over 15 according to commScore (an annual growth of over 40%) and Google accounted for 66.8% of these. Using my incredible mental arithmetic here: that's 1,937,200 Google searches per minute which according to them; equates to nearly three weeks worth of the average US households electricity consumption. That - all in one minute!
Within the advertising industry we've seen more content rich websites, 3D gaming, the advent of augmented realities and witnessed the progression of the ubur connected individual through social networks. This (much to my excitement) a demonstration of the breadth and evolution of digital communication and yet, often overlooked, consequently puts greater demands on data storage and energy use.
“Data centres are among the most energy-intensive facilities imaginable,” says Evan Mills, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Banks of servers storing billions of web pages require power and lots of it! This is obviously not limited to search but across the internet infrastructure, its massive, behemoth and growing really really really fast.
Needless to say digital technologies do much to also limit carbon output, digital content and tools enable us to do many things quicker, with better quality, using fewer resources. But we must also consider the increase in e-waste and electricity consumption created as a consequence to the digital revolution. The challenge is to improve the environmental sustainability of the digital technologies we use and to use technology effectively to reduce resource consumption at the same time.
So in my previous post, I made some predictions about the media landscape of the future, of how the convergence between the 'traditional' and the 'new' will progress through the proliferation of media (from an advertisers perspective).
As someone who cares about the environment, its important to realise what this 'digital revolution' will translate to if information and communication technology (ICT) doesn't evolve quick enough and companies continue to have an incumbent approach to sustainability. Hence this post, from a Greenie's perspective.
There's no denying that digital presents great opportunity to limit footprint but its important to remember that whilst there's an element of intangibility, digital data needs to be stored somewhere in the real world (aka 'Cloud').
Presuming the over reliance on non-renewable energy continues, what will be the impact within ICT?
Well at present only 25% of the world is connected to the internet. This is due to change, Africa is one of the latest continents to become 'connected' and adoption is going to continue to grow exponentially in the coming years.
There are more than one billion PCs and laptops currently in use, and that number is expected to grow to four billion by 2020 - that's an increase of 400% in ten years. A lot of people perceive the internet as a given or a right, but we must remind ourselves in the Western world- we still represent a minority.
ICT emissions are the same as the Aviation industry and yet for some reason ICT is largely ignored in the debate on emissions (even though its predicted to increase to 6% by 2020 - equal to the output of the Steal Industry). Is it because we can't see it? We certainly think about it when printing on paper or catching a plane. In one year it is estimated that an average server produces as much CO2 emissions as a family car... To put this in to perspective; Google is said to have somewhere between 700,000 to 1 million servers.
Lets look at 'emerging media' Google Search in more detail...
“The global search market continues to grow at an extraordinary rate, with both highly developed and emerging markets contributing to the strong growth worldwide,” said Jack Flanagan, comScore executive vice president. “Search is clearly becoming a more ubiquitous behavior among Internet users that drives navigation not only directly from search engines but also within sites and across networks. If you equate the advancement of search with the ability of humans to cultivate information, then the world is rapidly becoming a more knowledgeable ecosystem.”
What does that mean in terms of emissions? Well according to Google, one Google search is equivalent to about 0.2 grams of CO2. In 2009 there were 2.9 million searches conducted per minute by internet users over 15 according to commScore (an annual growth of over 40%) and Google accounted for 66.8% of these. Using my incredible mental arithmetic here: that's 1,937,200 Google searches per minute which according to them; equates to nearly three weeks worth of the average US households electricity consumption. That - all in one minute!
Within the advertising industry we've seen more content rich websites, 3D gaming, the advent of augmented realities and witnessed the progression of the ubur connected individual through social networks. This (much to my excitement) a demonstration of the breadth and evolution of digital communication and yet, often overlooked, consequently puts greater demands on data storage and energy use.
“Data centres are among the most energy-intensive facilities imaginable,” says Evan Mills, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Banks of servers storing billions of web pages require power and lots of it! This is obviously not limited to search but across the internet infrastructure, its massive, behemoth and growing really really really fast.
Needless to say digital technologies do much to also limit carbon output, digital content and tools enable us to do many things quicker, with better quality, using fewer resources. But we must also consider the increase in e-waste and electricity consumption created as a consequence to the digital revolution. The challenge is to improve the environmental sustainability of the digital technologies we use and to use technology effectively to reduce resource consumption at the same time.
07 March, 2010
I’ve sent the future and its… Digital?
Increasingly we’re seeing communication channels expand and evolve in to more dynamic, interactive spaces. There’s been a gradual convergence between tradition and new media. There are two fundamental changes I see:
- People are increasingly less responsive to traditional broadcast advertising
- Communication technology is developing at a very very fast rate
1. If an ad falls in the forest and no one notices, there is no ad.
In a traditional sense, you can define advertising as the science of creating and placing media that interrupts the consumer and prompts an action. Once upon a time this model was incredibly affective, ‘consumers’ had more time, less choice and so whoever shouted the loudest would win the argument. Not so anymore. Now we have less time and more choice, everyone is shouting at us at the top of their lungs why they’re the best and quite frankly it’s exasperating. I’m confused. I’m over-communicated. I’m cynical and having been exposed to traditional advertising all my life, I'm pretty savvy at avoiding it.
Seth agrees; "The interruption model is extremely effective when there's not an overflow of interruptions," Godin says. "But there's too much going on in our lives for us to enjoy being interrupted anymore."That’s not to say that a new, innovative and incredible advert won’t grab attention but I think the challenge we have today is knowing how to shine amongst the clutter and appreciating that interruption is less exciting than interaction.
Its not a case of video killed the radio star; I don’t think it’s a matter of new media vs traditional media – it’s an evolution of our approach, the channels we use and an appreciation that the proliferation of media has changed the way in which people engage with content (remember that now consumer media consumption across channels leads to virtual days exceeding 24 hours)!
I’ve worked in agencies where this shift is emphasised to clients and yet in many cases, traditional media forms such as television remain the biggest investment, even if it’s not the best choice. One obstacle is lack of understanding of new media, followed by company inertia, another big obstacle is finding reliable metric models of these new tools and how a lot of marketers are still trying to retrofit those applied to traditional media.
Of course, the fact that people are less responsive to being shouted at also provides a great argument for a popular space at the moment, social media, where brands and people can have a dialogue. Personally whilst I think social media is a fantastic opportunity for marketers, brands and consumers alike, I also believe the facets of this space are really the beginning of things to come.
Our challenge as marketers is to find what might surprise, cut through, engage, entertain, add value and start conversations whilst using the right media to facilitate it in an increasingly fragmented landscape where ultimately the consumer's in control.
2. Communication technology is developing at a very very fast rate
If we look over the last century and examine the rate of technological growth its incredible to review the rate at which it has developed. We can fly, travel underwater, go to space, access the world wide web, we can see and talk to people on the other side of the world instantaneously, share still images by the click of a button, we can even carry our wallet, bank account, a GPS map, social network, search facility, computer game and telephone in our back pocket. Change will never be this slow again.
What I find very exciting is how traditional communication platforms are also progressing and moving in to the digital realm through these advances in technology and the internet. Some examples below:
TV channels are streaming catch-up TV online, TV channels are launching solely online, they’re integrating with social media (great post on this here), TV has got smarter, more relevant and started to allow for interaction at the push of a button. This I see only progressing.
Print: Newspapers and Magazines have been quite challenged lately and whilst there is seemingly a decline in the medium, the product remains strong. It is the means through which stories are distributed that are undergoing a rapid development. We’re already seeing print complemented with online articles/blogs/Twitter accounts. But this is just a glimpse of what we have to come, see the e-paper business and the likes of Amazon Kindles and Apple’s iPad to get an idea of what we might be reading stories from in the future.
And of course, not to mention, Outdoor Display which now commonly features interactive digital billboards, QR codes (personally not as exciting, but clever nonetheless), can create augmented realities, interactive window displays and not to mention feature hologram technology.
So to conclude, new technology allows for a much needed change of approach and engagement between brands and people. There’s more breadth, room for innovation and opportunities to do something amazing and interactive with people rather than just broadcasting a one-way message.
Forrester unsurprisingly has predicted a growth in interactive advertising and among the interactive channels, Forrester sees social media and mobile marketing spending expanding significantly between 2009 and 2014, with social media jumping by 34% on a compounded annual basis and mobile marketing increasing by 27%.
But these are young channels, at least as compared with relatively mature interactive mediums such as e-mail, display advertising and search which are also seeing a change.
I think it naïve to presume that interactive advertising solely rests within what some perceive as “Online / Digital”, we need to remember that traditional channels are becoming increasingly digitalised, technology is changing and whilst interaction is important and digital may facilitate it - you still need to be a brand that people want to interact with.
03 March, 2010
the silent retreatment
Recently I decided it was time to invest in a form of mediation known as Vipassana (which is essentially a 10 day silent retreat). I have dabbled in meditation before and found it to be a great form of relaxation, however, sticking to it given the life I lead has been a challenge. There's no denying that I broach the subject reluctantly with people as frankly it doesn't necessarily align with social norms of Western society, people give you that look which says "You're... interesting..."
I suppose if I am honest this was a curious enterprise for me, I've never remained quiet for such a long period of time, am married to my iPhone, wifi flows through my body everyday and I have succumbed to a restless addiction to coffee - so a prolonged abstinence was an unnerving endurance test.
And so, how was it? What happened?
The meditation retreat was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I wanted to leave a lot. I was somewhat misled by the term "retreat" given that the whole process was personally nothing but. I craved meat. I found myself singing Cher and I got angry at people leaving doors open.
However. Even though I can say it was difficult, in the same breath, I will also admit it was quite possibly one of the best things I have done in my life. And get this: Being silent for 10 days solid was the easy part (albeit impractical).
Vipassana, which means to see things as they really are, is one of India's most ancient techniques of meditation, the technique is a very practical one progressively taught day by day and what I found essentially interesting was the psychological implications of the practice. Contrary to meditative tradition, I have sought to intellectualise it.
Neuroscientists have found that meditators shift brain activity to different areas of the cortex - brain waves in the stress-prone right frontal cortex move to the calmer left frontal cortex. This mental shift decreases the negative effects of stress, mild depression and anxiety. There is also less activity in the amygdala, where the brain processes fear and so it was no surprised that I consequently felt pretty relaxed following 10 days of intense meditation (timetable), no surprise at all.
What was amazing was the cognitive impact during the practice which went beyond alleviating stress. Apparently the brain is organised into a hierarchy of specialised modules, at the top of which are three mega modules which represent information according to their specialism. Roughly they relate to:
- Knowledge/Thoughts
- Emotion
- Action
Knowledge/Thoughts
I didn't get smarter, but I got wiser. Something that resonated was the idea that "Wisdom is knowledge transformed" and that's how it felt. What was also incredible was my memory recall. I remembered moments of my past, people, incidents, details that I hadn't even thought about since they occurred. One in particular which had me giggling relentlessly.
Emotion
Emotionally I became incredibly aware of my response mechanism, the tangibility of emotions and the choice one has to react to an emotion or not.
Action
And finally, whilst clearly my action was limited to a bare minimum, physically during practice, I had some very surreal "sensations" apparently akin to the effects of horse tranquilizer (according to someone I spoke to afterward who had a similar experience) and by being impartial to these totally bizarre sensations experienced the innate link between behaviour, thoughts and emotion by observing them.
So, in conclusion, for fear of sounding like a crazy new age hippie who may have had John Lennon on repeat in her mind, got far too excited about porridge and had mild obsessive compulsive tendencies around light switches and herbal tea, the Vipassana had a tremendously good impact on me. I was sharper, confident, creative and according to my bf, one very cool cucumber as a consequence. I fully recommend it.
