Misquoting Einstein and the FUD that follows every new technology

Got an email from Mum today, another meme that I just couldn’t help debunking.

It starts with a series of pictures (see below), showing youngsters with their heads buried in smartphones, followed by a quote attributed to Einstein:

“I fear the day that our technology will surpass our human interaction.  The world will have a generation of idiots.”

The near meaninglessness of the quote immediately raised my suspicion that it wasn’t a quote of his at all, so I spent 30 seconds googling and discovered I wasn’t the first one to question this attribution.  This one neatly sums up the situation.

This is what I replied to Mum:

Einstein actually never said that, or in fact anything like it.

It is an “internet meme” concocted by people who hold the view along the lines “this is what we [or at least some of us] are, so this is all we can be”, and I think it’s rubbish.

fear, uncertainty and doubt – FUD – have followed on the coat tails of EVERY technological advance.

Fearmongers claimed that the gramophone would put an end to public performance of music; that movies & cinema would end live theatre; that TV would make our eyes square; that computers would make us dumber.  and that’s just some of the relatively rational claims…

no.

live music is alive and well.

theatre lives on, aided in many ways by technology.

eyes continue to be round, and countless billions educated, informed, and entertained by it every hour of every day.  no one claims now that all TV is bad because of what people choose to watch, any more than they claimed with any credibility that all books were bad because of what some people choose to read; remember, Mills and Boon was a product of YOUR generation! ;)

computers give us, among many things, the ability to type a few words into Google and find out if Einstein really did say those words, and discover in a matter of seconds that in fact he didn’t, and then pause to wonder at the mind(s) and intent/motivation behind those who claim that he did.

Einstein and his peers discovered and invented something that still threatens our survival as a species on this planet even now.  but that’s not all that opening that door of inquiry did; many secrets of our physical world are still unfolding since crossing that threshold, and many tangible benefits have come from it that out-number the deleterious risk of its original application in just about every way you care to measure it; and we continue to have the option, if we are sufficiently motivated, to cease using that original application of nuclear technology.

each step of the way, our collective culture has to take each of these new technologies and experiment with them, learn what they’re good for and not-so-good for, and adapt it to human needs and wants.

having “the internet in your pocket” (or in your hands while seated at a cafe table with your closest friends) is so utterly new and novel and empowering that our culture hasn’t yet settled on new norms and etiquettes for dealing with the social ramifications of these new tools.

prior to 7 years ago when business executives or True Geeks pulled out an internet-connected smart-phone and tapped away at it while in the company of Normal People, they were looked upon with a bit of disdain, but it was mostly tolerated; “their interests are specialised” the ignorant folk conceded.  back then smartphones were an insignificant blip on our collective radar.

then Apple showed us how to make proper smartphones and tablets, and everyone else (manufacturers) followed.

now everyone wants one and wants to use it in all sorts of ways and places and situations that were never possible or practical before.

some other people want society to jump to some imagined conclusion point, some “this is how and when and where smartphones should be used in public, BUT NO FURTHER!”.

well, they can keep wanting, because it will simply take time, not withstanding that there will never be one universal etiquette on the who/what/when/where/how of their use, any more than we can agree on a pan-cultural, universally acceptable use of, and behaviour within, a public toilet.

i’d like to think that Einstein would just shake his crazy-haired head at these pictures and accept that technology is a continuum, and say that people will sooner or later rediscover what’s most important, and re-define the limits of what is acceptable and not acceptable for the use of each technology for themselves, and leave others to do as they wish.

but then, Einstein probably never said anything of the sort ;)

 

 

 

 

the future of calendars

“I’m not used to paying for calendars like you do here in Australia”.

Past

In one simple innocent statement, my partner highlighted the outstanding success of applying “pop-up retailing” to calendars, first brought to Australia in the mid-90s by XXXX XXXXX, licensing the USA-based ‘XXXXXXXX XXXX’ brand and seasonal pop-up retailing concept.

Back then, and apparently still in many countries, wall and desk calendars were either low-value things that businesses gave away to their customers, a cunning exchange of vaguely themed utility for under-the-radar advertising; or “high end” products in niche retail outlets.

Nowadays, calendar retailing is worth several tens of $M (in Australia), forged in large part by XXXX XXXXX’s tireless efforts to convince shopping mall managers to allocate open floor space for short term rental where – voila! – overnight in October/November a ‘kiosk’ appears at your local mall lined with every type of calendar you could possibly want.  They made easy gifts, Christmas ‘stocking fillers’ for those whom you just CBF’d buying anything more meaningful.  I’ve received a few over the years!

The trick to getting people to part with up to $25 per calendar, where previously they were free from your local mechanic / dentist / etc – is personalisation and self-expression.  The burgeoning range of wall and desk calendars catered to almost every social niche, from every breed of faithful dog and fluffy cat, to side-splittingly funny Gary Larson cartoons.  A calendar hung in the home or office signalled to others what you were ‘into’, and provoked conversation.  Oh, and you could also record what you had to do next week – if you remembered to look at it.

Present

However I believe that gravy train is slowly running out of steam.  I have no insider knowledge of sales or returns, but my hunch is they’ve been either plateaued or been slightly falling for a few years, a drop that’s either been masked by XXXXXXXX XXXX’s progress toward market saturation (geographically, the number of stores open each Christmas retail season), or unfairly attributed to the 2008 GFC & low consumer confidence statistics.  Or both.  I believe there’s another – perhaps bigger – culprit.

We’re nearly 4 years into the smartphone boom, heralded by the Apple iPhone first available in June 2007.  Until then Palm Pilot, Windows Mobile & Blackberry PDAs & smartphones were the sole preserve of geeks &/or geeky businessmen.  Among countless other things, a smartphone gives you a calendar that typically syncs with your desktop/laptop computer(s) including your corporate email/calendar/contacts system, and actively reminds you of imminent appointments.  Add the outstanding success of the iPad a year ago, followed by viable competition to the iPhone (Google’s Android, Palm/HP’s WebOS, Blackberry, Windows Phone 7) and “suddenly” a whole lot of people have a lot less reason to record their plans on a traditional calendar trapped on a desk or nailed to a wall, especially those intended for the office or home-office.

This ubiquity of high-tech calendars has only just begun, and I believe signals the beginning of the end for physical paper calendars.

Future

Sourcing calendars from publishers all over the world, XXXXXXXX XXXX is justified in having the tagline “The Best Selection Of Calendars In The Known Universe”.  But as the retail end-point for many calendar publishers and image banks, XXXXXXXX XXXX’s ability to capitalise on that imagery needs to move with the times – into the digital space.

XXXXXXXX XXXX needs to tackle the smartphone, pad / tablet / slate, & computer calendar reality head on.

Other than the same disease that’s beset most old-media for the past decade, there’s nothing preventing XXXXXXXX XXXX from creating their own software calendar ‘apps’, featuring the same imagery from their paper counterparts.  As a major multi-national paper calendar retailer, they already have the relationships with the calendar publishers & image banks necessary to garner trust to take this step into the digital domain.  It isn’t just XXXXXXXX XXXX who stands to rise or fall on this issue, it’s the entire ecosystem of paper calendar publishing.

Imagine a smartphone app that features all the crowd-pleasing imagery that modern paper calendars are known for, seamlessly integrating into the phone’s built-in calendar system (that syncs with your desktop/laptop computer or office groupware system).

People want to customise their smartphones for exactly the same reason they were willing to blow $25 on a dozen sheets of paper with cool pictures – especially given the ubiquity of Apple’s one-size-fits-all iPhone & iPad where there’s zero ability to ‘theme’ the built-in calendar app.  Part of the appeal of ‘jailbreaking’ an iPhone/iPad is the ability to customise the UI, and – for better or worse – Android and other smartphones offer that ability to customise.

If XXXXXXXX XXXX doesn’t take the lead and bring great themed imagery into digital calendars, someone else surely will.