When not to supersize it

I am subscriber of trendwatching.com and they recently published the april issue of their newsletter on infolust. This was exactly the topic of conversation I had with my friends the Wagens, this morning. How much information do we actually want to consume and how much do we feel compelled to consume just to keep up with the jones? 

Highly recommend perusing this issues on infolust if you want to get the best rates on amazon or find the best seat on your next airline or find the best groomer for your pet. Scary world we live in :-). 

Tara Hunt has been mentioning collective consciousness a lot lately. Sometimes you sense it in the articles you read, for instance in the past 5 minutes I read these blog entries.

1. Change is constant and your knowledge is obsolete
2. 20 most important tools Ever according to forbes.
3. zen is boring accept it.
4. Is pinko marketing the post cluetrain marketing manifesto

Btw, apologize in advance. I am going to be using illustrations from the links above so if you have not had a chance to read them yet, read them!

Puts things in perspective. Be honest and ask yourself how much of the world knows cluetrain marketing and here we are already talking about pinko marketing (cute name btw). Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan and I just got my copy of the cluetrain marketing in mail and I plan on re-reading it over the next week. I am going to India for a week and figured it would be a great read for the plane.

But returning to the original topic, if we do agree the change is constant and present knowledge is going quickly obsolete what are we doing about it. IMHO I think that should drive our prioritization a lot but it does not. For instance look at the 20 most important tools EVER list from Forbes (I love the Evuh! in there) how often do we stop and think about them. Agreed the fact that they are so ubiqutous is what makes them most important I suppose.

Just asking questions, not coming to major conclusions necessarily. But honestly think about the “business process” behind each of these tools that made it to the top 20. They are great examples of the success of “need based” product management and viral marketing. So in effect I am just giving more evidence for what cluetrain is all about but it is worth exploring if these inventions were built around the most hip marketing philosophy of their times.
Standard disclaimer:: I am not a luddite and neither am I advocating stopping progress. I also realise that most of the easy problems have been solved so adding value in our times and society is much much harder. If you get a chance read this post by Seth Godin on the spelling bee final round complexity evolution./Standard disclaimer.
I am asking “Are we keeping the big picture in mind?”

For instance how often did we still think of Darfur. Did you stop when you read this article on a continent splitting apart!! That is not an obsolete change for sure 😉 How long did you pause before _life_ consumed you completely again 🙂
All these questions are introspective but this was triggered when I read the except about “Alice running to be on the same spot” (from coding horror) right before I read the thoughts on enjoying every bite of tangerine (from zen is boring). Do you squeeze every minute out of your life? why not? what are your priorities?

As I was writing this, I realised that I am going to India tomorrow so my parents can meet my wife-to-be for the first time in person. This is exciting stuff not even counting the fact that there is all sorts of fun cultural confusion waiting to happen (grin) so no cluetrain manifesto for me for the next couple weeks. I need to start savouring my tangerine more! I also just got a copy of “Chasing Daylight” based on this review from Brad Feld. Seemed like thoughts on the topic we are talking about from someone who has much more to say ;-).

happy boring days

amar

p.s this is one of those (what sort of universe i live in moments).. see this. Apparently Chihuahua is the second most popular breed on their site. That is scary because it clearly shows me how I have no ability to empathize with the rest of the world in certain areas ( no offense to Chihuahua lovers out there).

More out of necessity rather than need, I started to do this but man it is out of control now. I realised that a lot of things I read/surfed made my blog finger itch but it starting itching a little too much so I decided to delicious the links and revisit them. Oh boy, I had no idea how easily my curiosity is aroused by the world. So without further ado here is the list of stuff that interested me this past week.

1. how NOT to do product package design. highly educational and amusing. must see if you are a fan of the ipod packaging scheme.
2. This is so much cooler than google.labs.forever.beta.sets. It is the new site that was created as an example of using del.icio.us along with a relevance engine. seriously try it out, it has been scoring pretty high for me :: similicio.us
3. The scientists had a freak reaction at Sandia national labs when they replaced tungsten with steel in one of their reactors and ended up with a momentary violation of basic physics. very cool:: link
4. smart people say brushing with your left hand (right if you are a leftie) and doing sudoko puzzles on sundays will make you smarter, go figure:: link

Can someone tell me (a) why the list tags (tried both il and ol) do not render correctly in wordpress and (b) how do I turn of this annoying wysiwyg editor?

I have tons more links but I need to stop and see if I can thread them all together somehow.. 🙂