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Digital Communities
Industry Members
Some Innovations Deserve to Get Left in the Lab
February 6, 2012 By Robert Bell
One of America’s great writers, H.L. Mencken, loved the muscular inventiveness of his countrymen with the language they inherited from the English. He extolled the American word “rubberneck” – which arose in the 1890s to describe tourists craning their necks for a better view – as “one of the best words ever coined.”
My own current favorite example is “creep out.” It describes feeling uneasy, fearful and a bit revolted, as though something unseen with too many legs were creeping up your arm. Here’s an example of it in a sentence: “Is anybody else creeped out by the new Timeline feature on Facebook?”
Timeline, if you haven’t encountered it, is a setting in Facebook that arranges all of your posts, pictures, games and videos in chronological order. Or as Facebook puts it: “The movies you quote. The songs you have on repeat. The activities you love. Now there's a new class of social apps that let you express who you are through all the things you do.”
Information and communications technology have enormous potential to create prosperity, improve health, promote peace and reduce social stresses. They have equally great potential to do the opposite as well. But whatever else they do, they will change how we make meaning of our lives.
Humans are meaning-making creatures. We live by the stories we tell each other and ourselves. And now here is Timeline, which transforms your stray thoughts, likes and dislikes, videos of cute cats and embarrassing photos you never should have posted into the Story of Your Life.
It brings several questions to mind:
1. Why would I ever want to give a bunch of almost-strangers – also known as Facebook Friends – this kind of improved access to my life’s narrative?
2. Could this random digital debris ever be confused with the actual Story of My Life?
3. What if, in a few years from now, it is?
I am all for digital innovation, especially this year, when ICF’s theme is “Intelligent Communities – Platforms for Innovation.” I am all for rubbernecking, but not when it is being done by drivers slowing down in front of me to look at a traffic accident. I can only hope that Timeline will share the fate of cars that talk to you and technology that lets you talk on your mobile phone during airplane flights. We are all better off when some innovations get left in the lab.
About the Intelligent Community Forum
The Intelligent Community Forum is a think tank that studies the economic and social development of the 21st Century community. Whether in industrialized or developing nations, communities are challenged to create prosperity, stability and cultural meaning in a world where jobs, investment and knowledge increasingly depend on advances in communications. For the 21st Century community, connectivity is a double-edge sword: threatening established ways of life on the one hand, and offering powerful new tools to build prosperous, inclusive and sustainable economies on the other. ICF seeks to share the best practices of the world's Intelligent Communities in adapting to the demands of the Broadband Economy, in order to help communities everywhere find sustainable renewal and growth. More information can be found at www.intelligentcommunity.org.
Robert Bell
Robert Bell is co-founder of the Intelligent Community Forum, where he heads its research and content development activities. He is the author of ICF's pioneering study, Benchmarking the Intelligent Community, the annual Top Seven Intelligent Communities of the Year white papers and other research reports issued by the Forum, and of Broadband Economies: Creating the Community of the 21st Century. Mr. Bell has also authored articles in The Municipal Journal of Telecommunications Policy, IEDC Journal, Telecommunications, Asia-Pacific Satellite and Asian Communications; and has appeared in segments of ABC World News and The Discovery Channel. A frequent keynote speaker and moderator at municipal and telecom industry events, he has also led economic development missions and study tours to cities in Asia and the US.
John Jung
ICF co-founder John G. Jung originated the Intelligent Community concept and continues to serve as the Forum's leading visionary. Formerly President and CEO of the Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance and Calgary Economic Development Authority, he is a registered professional urban planner, urban designer and economic developer. He leads regular international business missions to US, European, Asian, Indian and Australian cities, and originated the ICF Immersion Lab program. John is a regular speaker at universities and conferences and serves as an advisor to regional and national leaders on Intelligent Community development. The author of numerous articles in planning and economic development journals, he has received global and Toronto-based awards for his work in collaboration and strategic development and sits on numerous task forces and international advisory boards.
Louis Zacharilla
ICF co-founder Louis Zacharilla is the creator and presenter of the annual Smart21, Top Seven and Intelligent Community Awards and oversees ICF's media communications and development programs. He is a frequent keynote and motivational speaker and panelist, addressing audiences of tech, academic and community leaders around the world, and writes extensively for publications including American City & County, Continental Airline's in-flight magazine and Municipal World. His frequent appearances in the electronic media have included both television and radio in South Korea, China and Canada. He has served as an adjunct professor at Fordham University in New York and is a Guest Lecturer at Polytechnic University's Distinguished Speaker Series. He holds a Masters Degree from the University of Notre Dame.
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