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“Let’s make technology that makes us more human, not less human.”

 Renny Gleeson, global digital evangelist for Wieden + Kennedy, led off the Inverge Conference, with a personal, philosophical discussion on how fast and far our lives have changed due to digital devices, mobile, and online social media.  It was an epiphany for Renny at 4am in a London hotel to realize he’d been screwing around on different social sites for over 12 straight hours. Talk about some high engagement metrics for those sites.  This speech was a month ago, but I feel it was still uber-relevant to get perspective on what has led up to this precipitous change.  Here are my notes from his speech:

With each tech advance, it takes a little while to connect emotionally with it and through it.
• 1876 – Telephone (killed body language), but made it easier to meet up
• 1844 – Telegraph – Morse tapped “What Hath God Wrought” “Crap, what have we done?”
• 1906 – Radio – > Broadcast

Use Technology to meet up, see one another

1971 @ Email (Ray Tomlinson: @ indicated a user was at some other host) -> Email medium can be the most misinterpreted (lose body language, voice inflection, most range to explain enough to get misinterpreted)

Email vs. Social Media
• Email – Very focused (1 to 1)
• Social Media – Distracted by so many other toys involved in it

– Crib Sheet – Visual cues for displaying emotion
– Dinosaurs in inappropriate places – Flickr Group
– Blip.fm: jam or music
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