Humour

To watch and be watched

Human beings are designed to mingle and networking sites are just public places for “hanging out”, writes T A Balasubramanian

Dishing up even more outrageous insights, Dr Don Jong is back doing his best to stretch the boundaries of the confining world that is the mind of Bobo Jitter, the edgy CIO at Bazooka Corporation. Fondly called ‘The Oddfather’ because of the quaint interventions that he dreams up, Dr Jong has a knack for pouncing upon IT’s newest demons.

“Ah, so what new sprite do we have that is churning up your tranquility this time, Bobo?” says Dr Jong, waving his pipe with a flourish.

“There is a disturbing note from my old friend Radar Rangaswami, who was formerly a Global CIO at a large British company.”

“So what does the note say, Bobo?”

“He says that Web 2.0 with the new rush of blogs, wikis and social networking tools is all set to eliminate the CIO title, as a way to better reflect the roles IT users and individuals play in companies. I asked him if that means CIOs are dinosaurs, headed for extinction, and he said that it was only a matter of time before CIOs would be replaced by other, more currently charming people who represent disciplines far beyond what IT or IS used to stand for.”

“And what would these charming people represent?”

“Rangaswami predicts that they would represent social networks, or represent interactive products or even personal, friendly processes.”

“Evidently, the present lot of CIOs does not bring up any such associations, eh?”

“Well, we keep the network up and we keep an eye out for technologies that can—well, keep the network up even more. On the other hand, Rangaswami is a strong advocate of Web 2.0 technologies, with significant internal use of blogs, wikis and instant messaging. He is bullish about using Facehook, in contrast to many of us.”

“Oh, so you do not like Facehook?”

“No. It is, in my considered opinion, a sloppy, silly social forum. Most of the CIOs I know are banning it as non-productive use of company time and too far outside the compliance boundaries of corporate information systems.”

“And what does Rangaswami say?”

“Well, he thinks Facehook is a neat way to break the ‘assembly line mindset’ we old CIOs tend to slip into. He says that with all the stress on user-generated content, Facehook and other such sites are part of a larger online phenomenon that he calls, ‘Me Media.’ He writes, rather heatedly, and I quote him, ‘If you look at what I’m doing with Facehook, it is clear that I am taking the casual connections that happen at office coffee table and making it persistent, making it more available. That’s a big win because we have been talking about the value of the informal conversations, of the coffee chats, of the more disjointed discussions. Now we have the ability to actually understand what these relationships are, how information and decision-making migrates horizontally and laterally through an organization, rather than through the published hierarchies, how people really work, and what people do as part of that work’. Now, tell me, Doc, who would believe that a CIO could become this incoherent and upgrade a platform for unguarded chatter into useful information?”

“Well, Bobo, the young today are different—I know, because I have a teenage son. According to a recent study by Duckbill & Goose, over 87% of youth under seventeen years of age are online. More than half of them have eagerly created some form of digital content and uploaded it to the Internet—maybe a home page, a blog, a photo album, a video clip or a music library. There are just a lot more people—millions of them—who are comfortable putting their lives online, conversing on the Internet, and writing blogs about themselves.”

“That’s my point, Doc—it is all about themselves. Rangaswami thinks it is important to bring the coffee table trivia out into the open.”

“Bear with me, Bobo, while I unravel the mysteries of ‘bubbly talk’ that so dismay you,” says Dr Jong, with a wry smile. “Sure, the eagerness of people, particularly the young, to preen and brag in public spaces on the Internet still surprises many people. One scientist friend of mine who has been studying social networks for years, says that the growth of sites like Facehook and MeowSpace has very little to do with the idea that we are all networked—since we are used to being like that anyway, and that’s not so interesting. He says Facehook is a big hit because it is all about our natural tendency to be exhibitionists and voyeurs. We like to express ourselves in our own fashion, and we are curious about other people. And traditionally, if you recall your younger days, you got to do this natural self-exposure by hanging out with your friends.”

“Well, sure, Doc. As a student I would be hanging out all day with a bunch of my friends.”

“Ah, and, to use your own phrase, of what earthly use was that—the hanging out?”

“Nothing purposeful. It was good ‘time pass’ as we use to call it.”

“There you are. Time pass, and you say it isn’t purposeful,” says Dr Jong, with his eyes glinting.

“Well, Doc, isn’t it a waste of time?”

“Hmm. Let’s consider that. The best analogy for sites like MeowSpace and Facehook is that it is like hanging out at a public place like a shopping mall or lounging in a vast club. Yes, there is, shall we say, a certain lack of purpose to just hanging out in public, and it is hard to justify if you do not have a lot of free time on your hands. However, it serves the essential purpose—at least for the young and dreamy, who have little to do and no social responsibilities—of watching and being watched. The young today are focused on external appearances and the personas they exude when they are seen to be flaunting or possessing something flashy. It is all skin-deep, you might say—but then, we like to present ourselves in various skins to different people. My son pretends to be something so that he can enter the magic circle of some niche group that he wants to be part of. He says he likes Siamese cats one day, and I do not recall him ever being fond of any animals—leave alone cats. But he finds that some of his friends have started a ‘Siamese Cat Hall’ in MeowSpace and he wants to be liked by them.”

“So it is about mingling, eh?”

“Exactly. We humans are designed to mingle, my boy. You notice the apparently timeless appeal to young people of just ‘hanging out’ and what would you want to do?”

“Let them hang out, I suppose. Even if it means bringing MeowSpace and Facehook into the corporate firewall.”

“Rangaswami was right. But I think it may have less to do with the compulsion for self-expression and more to do with peer pressure. I tried to hold out and go against the flow myself, you know. But last week, my son got me to sign on for MeowSpace. I think we will soon be getting a Siamese cat at home.”