Rowan's Future of Choice

Must we all agree?

When they need to make a decision, large groups of people are often obsessed with getting agreement amongst themselves, to the point of forgetting why or how they will execute the decision.

The Group with 900 Years Experience Between Them (aka the Iraq Study Group) reported nothing new yesterday. They confirmed what we all know, and re-stated the obvious challenges ahead. Journalists often quote what the entity called 'History' will say about the present day, as in, "History will remember Mr. Lincoln as the emancipator of the slaves." If History cares to remember one iota of what the 900 Team said, it will be that they said spoke in one voice, but said nothing important.

Members met with 171 individuals, including journalists--such as William Kristol and Thomas Friedman--presumably so the Future will be correctly attributed.

List of 171; download the complete report here;

Post PopTech

                                       

PopTech was incredible once again. It will take me some time to process. Here is a start.

• Managing change was the unspoken theme throughout the four days.

• Acting is easier than deciding.

• The best received speakers combined entertainment with idealism. The worst were ham-handed realists. Go figure....

• We have an apparent grasp of the big problems, but only weak ideas for addressing them.

• The physical layout of the opera house--with the darkened audience facing the well lit stage, felt too much like being alone at home, when I was really surrounded by amazing people.

• As usual, you got 100 extra points for being under thirty. Fifty for looking it. (Something disturbs me about seeing men in their sixties wearing their shirttails out.)

• There are no strangers in the world; only people we have not yet met.

___
Pop!Tech web site; Photo of Reggie Watts

I hear you (again)

This is a repeat of an earlier post, except this one has an audio file I was not able to do before TypePad. My point is that the human voice is a determinant in decision-making.

Download VOICE001.MP3

Here is the transcript of the audio:

Just listened to Doug Kaye talking with Dave Winer (link). Part of their conversation was about the importance of the human voice in podcasting. Much decision-making is the result of personal conversations--with a spouse, friend or advisor. It is often face-to-face or on the phone. More and more of the information we have available for decisions is in written words or video. In both forms, the human voice is not at the forefront. Over time, the intimacy afforded by a podcaster’s voice could lead to trust, which could help us decide what to do.