Ton Ziljstra’s been making me think about presence, and JOHO and Jeneane about authenticity.
If blogs are our online studios, shop fronts, workbenches, gardens, then presence and authenticity (or lack thereof) are what we experience when we are invited into these places of people.
If the Internet and the Web are creating another world … the virtual, cyber world … it is still people who are populating this new world.
And I am not the first to notice, to remark that virtually all aspects of human social behaviour are finding expression in this new world.
A number … nay, many remarkable people have written articles and books that have delved deeply into this vast subject – David Weinberger (Small Pieces, Loosely Joined), Kevin Kelley (Out of Control), Sherry Turkle, Manuel de Coestels, Jim Moore, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, The Age of Spiritual Machines, The Naked Corporation, James Gleick (What Just Happened ?), Steven Johnson (Emergence)… the list continues.
Thousands of blog posts have refracted and refined the understanding that a new way of communicating and relating to each other is developing in front of our eyes. Some key insights into the phenomenon are available in Clay Shirky’s seminal writings, George Dafermos’ Blogging the Market, Joi Ito’s Emergent Democracy, Weinberger and Searls’ World of Ends, the blinding truth of Rageboy’s ongoing scorn directed at our collective, mass-market delusions, fellow Canadians Dave Pollard’s and Rob Paterson‘s and Chris Corrigan’s and Gary Murphy’s seasoned perspectives on the obstacles – structural and mental-model based – to humanity and effectiveness in and by our institutions.
By now it’s not news that blogging is about “voice” … there are many articles telling us that, in TIME, the NY Times, Wired, Vanity Fair and many other venues. And, it’s also about facts, feelings, opinions, learning, teaching, thinking out loud … it – blogging – is becoming a touchstone for the ways humans communicate in a virtual world.
Yes, there’s IM, and VoIP, and Skype and user groups and bulletin boards and various other ways to communicate. But blogs offer us a glimpse into, and of, the person at the other screen who’s also looking into you – who you are, what you know, what you’re thinking and feeling.
Presence and authenticity are perhaps the more recent areas of wide interest, which makes sense. These are potent aspects of human-ness in the real world as well as online.
Think about it … in the real-3D world we notice and remark on and store what we sense of other peoples’ presence (first impressions, anyone ?), and we make judgments about someone’s authenticity (sincerity, genuineness, honesty, believability).
And so do we make these judgments online. How do we do that ? Is it the colours and graphics ? Is it the content ? Is it the writing style (or lack thereof) ? Is it the consuistency of a point of view ? Is it the passion that exudes from the screen, the intensity and inchoate feelings that we can touch ? Is it all of these ? Is it beyond these ?
Are we beginning to make observations about blogs and ways of blogging that are parallel to our capabilities with body language ? Can we call this bloggy language ? Come to think of it, will blogging be a key element of the online evolution of our languages (See “From English to Googlish“) ?
I start getting a sense of someone else – their presence – by reading their blog, of course. And, as I get more familiar with their blog, I begin to notice … notice how they have laid out their way of presenting their ideas, their voice and the “them” that is behind the ideas and voice.
And this is what I really like about blogging – it is inevitable that the act of blogging, and reading and limning (in my mind, so to speak) other peoples’ blogs reveals literally what is there, and also what we think could or should be there.
We project who we are and who we want to be into what we encounter on other peoples’ blogs, and we introject who we are and who we might be as we read other peoples’ thoughts, ideas, feeling.
And where this comes together … where I experience presence and authenticity … is in the peanut gallery. I can get updates on the news from many sources, and I can get certain types of expertise-base perspective from ceratin blogs, and via Google. But for the humanity of the interconnected Web, I get the most out of the comments , the dialogue. As I read, I wonder … “hmm, who is she, and what is it about that post that got her going“, and “why did he say that“, and “what do I think about that“, and “wow, he sure is great at responding to comments … I can see that he cares and wants to encourage readers to explore (this characterizes Dave Pollard for me).
Euan Semple recently posted on his wonderings about the balance between the Web and blogging (for example) empowering people, and the possibility of creating anarchic, mob-like groupings online. To which I would reply that this is already happening … there are mob-like dynamics that occur on some of the blogs I read (and some of which I am aware), especially where there are many readers and hot topics. In addition, I am not at all sure where the dividing lines are, online, between mob-like groupthink/speak and the much-examined phenomenon of “echo chambers”.
Comments, fact-checking, helpful additional links, trolls and flaming, group self-regulation, impassioned oratory, wry three-or-four word comments … it’s all there. Over time, you get a sense … you develop a sense about this other person. Watching how they interact with the peanut gallery is where I get my sense.
If I had one wish, it would be for more civility and manners, in the sense of this blogosphere being the perfect place to practice … developing one’s own authenticity and presence.
What I mean by civility and manners is extending to all others who come and comment the basic human gift of attention, even if for a fleeting moment.
I have seen some fine examples of bloggers tolerating, and even being gracious, to irritation-minded trolls, and my observation is that any ensuing dialogue (even of the troll gets tossed off the blog) is finer and richer for the grace originally offered. On the other hand, I have felt sharply the sting of rejection when I have left comments on other peoples’ blogs which clearly have been ignored (I would like to believe that most of my comments are intelligible enough to warrant a “thanks for dropping by”, but I know better ;-). Even so…
The peanut gallery is important. Most of us are in the peanut gallery in this life. Where and how can we speak out, in such a technological and streamlined society ? Probably not in our organizations, at work. Organizations have Core Groups, and they decide on the colour and flavour of the Kool-Aid each week. Probably not (maybe not ?) by voting, in two-part ersatz democracies run by money, connections and electoral maps. Maybe not at home, or with friends – not
on deep, heartfelt subjects where doubt and conflict live.
Who’s the Core Group in the blogosphere ? Probably depends on who you ask, and which blogs they read and why. Who are the leaders in this Emergent Democracy that is “out” of control ? What kind of control should it be in ?
The peanut gallery is important. In the online interconnected world, I get a lot of my impressions about a blogger’s virtual authenticity and presence from reading the comments from the peanut gallery and observing how she or he is social on the Web.
David Weinberger’s plain words, acknowledging one of my comments ….
“I’d love to see what we look like two generations from now…“
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