Wisdom 2.0

Naropa University is a Buddhist Inspired, "private, nonprofit, nonsectarian liberal arts institution dedicated to advancing contemplative education." When I visited the website today, I stumbled upon the Wisdom 2.0 Conference. Created by Soren Gordhamer, the conference brings together leaders from the technology industry and leaders from wisdom traditions to discuss how to live mindfully in a technologically connected era. Soren introduces the conference:



Here are some clips from the April, 2010 conference in Silicon Valley:



When I first found out about the conference, I was excited because the topic addressed here is the topic at the heart of this blog and a topic which has gained increasing relevance for me. When I returned my attention to the conference later in the day, I was skeptical. Is this conference created to manufacture the illusion that it is possible for Google and Twitter can exist along-side with mindfulness? Something about the New-Agey tone of the discussions in the video clips and the cast of American tech and spirituality leaders seems suspicious. Do these industries really have any vested interest in creating a true culture of mindfulness?

Perhaps these tech giants are genuinely interested in developing a simultaneously wired and holistic society. If they become maligned for engendering constant distraction and mental clutter, their brand names take a hit. If they become associated with quiescent contemplation, that could be a big boost.

One reason I'm skeptical of the conference's intentions is that the leaders from the assembled wisdom traditions seem to be, almost exclusively, American "converts" to Eastern traditions. There may be a few exceptions in the upcoming conference, such as John Kabat-Zinn, but I'm wondering where Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders are in this discussion? I'm worried that the conference capitalizes on "the cool" of Buddhism and Yoga without including and acknowledging other mindfulness or wisdom traditions, such as centering prayer or Sufi music.

Despite these criticisms, the underlying goal of the conference is earnest and important. Embracing both a fully technologically connected and a fully spiritually awakened life is certainly not an easy task, but undoubtedly a worthwhile goal. And many of the speakers and participants have helpful suggestions about how this might be done. Moreover, they have the power and influence to make decisions that will affect how this is done. Regardless of their answers, merely asking the question about wisdom and technology is a good start.

A great continuation is the partnership between wisdom traditions, technology industries and social justice. This is exemplified by the work of Seane Corn, "yoga teacher and spiritual activist" who co-founded the "Off the Mat, Into the World" initiative. Wisdom and technology can both be great, but ultimately they are meaningless if they are only accessible in the realm of privilege. If done with mindfulness, bringing the benefits of these forces together in service of economic, social, and environmental change is the ultimate expression of wisdom, compassion and awareness.

Weekends

How do you use your weekend? Saturdays and Sundays are days of rest, the Sabbath or Shabat in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Updating and extending that tradition, I would like to be part of a community that makes Saturdays or Sundays a day to engage "the whole person." That is, I would like to organize activities that stimulate and cultivate all aspects of life. If these were to be (falsely) partitioned as mind, body and spirit, activities could include a lecture and discussion; exercise/sports; and breathing awareness/meditation/prayer. For me, fun is also an important aspect of life, so I'd want to finish the day with music/dance/a movie, some sort of entertainment. And service or social justice would also add balance to this mix, so it would be nice to do something that enriches the community at large.

It's weird to me that this appeals to me. I guess it's my take on church, which is also weird to me. Why is church weird?

I also wonder why I'm so interested in integration. Perhaps it's an unattainable ideal that can never be reached. But is it even warranted in the first place? Why do I want all the aspects of my life to coalesce and interact? Is that healthy? What's the need for limits? Should we have barriers between our personal/profession, private/public life? New media technologies are shifting the balance between these spheres of life.

In keeping with the theme of this blog, a good weekend that cultivates the whole person would include mindful media usage. For example, it would be nice to focus the party by doing a guided listening of the music, or making it interactive, or having a lecture about where the music comes from. Or, if we accept that our body is our most basic medium for interaction with the world, yoga would be a great way to bring awareness to the way we use our bodies, and exercise becomes like system maintenance.

This weekend I'm not doing anything like this, but maybe next weekend?

DJs Fundraise Through Art

FUNK AID FOR AFRICA - Dj OBaHさんのMyspaceブログ| www.djobah.com

Deckshark's Artists 4 Haiti


DJs For DRC

A few examples of DJs using their talent to raise money for social justice. Can you find others?

Hoping to expand this model in DC.

TheOneMinutesJR

http://www.theoneminutesjr.org/

TheOneMinutesJR is an international youth network collecting one-minute videos from around the world. It seems to embody the ideals of media literacy and digital story-telling. Check out the website for some videos and more information about the network.

I was struck by this one from Japan:
http://www.theoneminutesjr.org/index.php?thissection_id=10&movie_id=200900015&country_id=141

It questions whether technologies, such as cell phones, iPods and the Nintendo DS are really necessary. Would we be better off without these things?

I find it interesting how these technologies are represented within the video, contrasted with an idealized "old-timey" life before the intrusion of mobile digital devices. The music and video quality are used to create this binary between old and new, slow and fast, connected and disconnected. Undoubtedly, books, baseball, and even friendly conversation were at one time regarded as cutting edge technology. However, their age and implicitness in contemporary life in Japan/throughout the globalized human world make them ordinary and quaint from this perspective.

I question the binary between the fast-paced technological present vs. the leisurely technological past. Yet I'm deeply appreciative of the question posed here. Do we really need these technologies? How do they help and how do they hurt? The video takes its place in an ever-burgeoning discourse dedicated to finding the proper role for technology in life today. Especially in Japan and America, I wish it were a question to which we could start finding some meaningful answers.

Reading Breeds Thought

"...he teaches communications 101, 'communications Skills' and Communications 201, 'Advanced Communications Skills'. Although he devotes hours of each day to his new discipline, he finds its first premise, as enunciated in the Communications 101 handbook, preposterous: 'Human society has created language in order that we may communicate our thoughts, feelings and intentions to each other.' His own opinion, which he does not air, is that the origins of speech lie in song, and the origins of song lie in the need to fill out with sound the overlarge and rather empty human soul."
-from J.M Coetzee Disgrace

NPR also breeds thought about reading about media about reading, which breeds thought. Gotta remember to buy the books featured in my two favorite podcasts, On the Media and To the Best of OUr Knowledge. Something like "The Mindsnatchers," a history of TV, and Hamlet's Blackberry, a historical look at technological transitions. Adding them to the Books to Get List.

Will edit this, add hyperlinks and write more another time when I'm not reading disheartening literature while trying to go to sleep.

Lessons to be Learned from Gap Logo Debacle

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11517129

Gap retreats from it's new logo campaign after loyal consumers complain. The BBC article traces several brand that have received harsh criticism after revamping their logos.

Important point for media literacy: "In fact that is a good analogy to logos and brands - if we think of a brand being someone's personality and the logo being someone's face it makes it easier to see why as humans we like familiarity and how breaking that connection can cause confusion and puzzlement."

brand=personality
logo=face

When a brand changes its logo too rapidly, it's like Michael Jackson (R.I.P.) getting one too many nosejobs.

The interesting thing about this story is the power of consumers to cause a change in brand policy. That is, consumers demonstrated that they liked the old GAP face, and saw no need for something new. The feedback was provided in part through social media (i.e. Facebook).

Admittedly, consumer backlash against less positive logo decisions can easily be ignored. In the case of BP's logo shift, environmentalists sent the message "we didn't like the BP brand before, and we hate the new logo." Thus, companies like feedback that's going to make them look good because it helps them assess the value of their brand's image.

I hope consumers will start sending the same messages not only about brand logos, but also about unnecessary innovations. For example, the new version of Microsoft Office I have to use at work just confuses the hell out of me, and I saw nothing inadequate with the old one. Practically every digital video editor I know agrees that the older versions of iMovie were much better and easier to use than the newer ones. When are we going to start saying that we don't need every product to get a "new, fresh look," when it's the same old stuff? Issues with software innovation or brand revamping or relabeling might be subtler than logo changes, but the GAP case shows that consumers have the power to say "No thanks" to the ad-makers.

Ethan Zuckerman on Monitoring Our Media Diet

In this segment from NPR's On The Media, Ethan Zuckerman of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society advocates a passive media consumption documentation system using software called RescueTime. Though the software is designed as a productivity tool, it can also collect and be used to analyze your web browsing habits. Will consider using this myself and posting results. Zuckerman also reports keeping a personal media diary to keep track of his own media use.

Was nice to hear this piece about a media diary/tracking media consumption from a well-entrenched media critic.

So what are some advantages and disadvantages of a passive vs. active approach to documenting media usage? An active approach would be exemplified in keeping a daily diary of media usage. A passive approach would be represented by using software to track media usage. Alternatively, these two cases might be analyzed as qualitative and quantitative approaches. What's lost and what's gained with each one?

Active/Diary Approach

Pros:
-awareness; heightens awareness of media use while using media
-detail; you can add detail about your experience of browsing the web or listening to the radio. or not.
-tells your own story; you can describe your media usage in your own terms, thereby conveying your ideology about a given medium or technology
-includes analog; you can include a variety of media interactions, beyond just electronic communications media, such as print, verbal/oral, musical, fashion, etc.

Cons:
-time consuming; takes anything from a few extra seconds to a few extra hours to produce a daily reflection on one's media use. the longer the reflection, the higher the quality? but cuts in on "productivity."
-alters behavior; this was Zuckerman's point. keeping a diary of your media usage will cause you to be aware of, and thus alter, your media usage. i notice the same thing if/when attempting to practice breathing awareness - i try to breath naturally, but in so doing end up with deeper or more belabored breaths
-subjective; people lie. there might be some truths about your media consumption you'd rather not acknoledge, privately or publicly.
-requires motivation; along the lines of time consuming, i've been advocating keeping track of my media usage for a while. but i rarely follow through. because at the end of the day, it takes time and energy to produce a diary and i'd rather just flake out and watch some tv or read a book or browse the web, etc.

Passive/Software Approach

Pros:
-passive tracking; keeps track of your media usage for you, and you don't have to do a thing. thereby addressing most of the cons in the diary approach.
-you're less likely to alter your behavior; though in the case of RescueTime this may not be true, since it's also used as a productivity tool that's designed to get you to change your behavior
-quantitative analysis; you can crunch numbers at the end of the month, week, quarter, etc.
-objective approach; it'll record everything you do on the web, for better or for worse.
-a computer does all the work for you

Cons:
-limited to digital media; what about that bumber sticker you saw or the street musician playing bucket drums?
-no chance for reflection at the end of the day; unless you check your stats. but not necessarily qualitative reflection or critical thinking.
-no personal voice; everyone's computer keeps a cache of the websites you visit, or your browser can keep a history. but is that meaningful in and of itself? how is a narration of our web history different from the file located on our hard drive?