New Year thoughts..onward

Some thoughts on endings and beginnings: January 4, 2011
This is the time at the beginning of a new year to let go of some things that have met the deadline and renew continuing pursuits and projects- by choice, by necessity, by circumstance. Winding down and deconstructing energy and earned knowledge doesn’t just happen in the mind because of the calendar. Re-construction has to come from that place of building and experience, and reinvigorate in the face of another measured period in our lives. Time moves forward and we assess and reassess our place in it. What is our footing for the future?
There is no question that new technology and the ability to connect globally has changed the way we can search for information on virtually any subject from the mundane and political to the philosophical and the spiritual. Associations have never been more abundant and fluid. Collage is our world in images, text, formulas, equations, and combinations with or without our words or definitions. Where are people in all of this and how do we make sense of it for ourselves and for those around us? Is this where research comes in? Is research about things that have already happened and we are tracking that in established ways? Are the creative art therapies doing work that needs a system to make it more... measurable and therefore, more fundable, more academic, more scientific, more? How can we measure creativity, desire, will, or determination although there is an on-going fascination with trying to explain these human qualities, or are they traits or behaviors? And how do these impact our health, well-being and healing from illness, grief, or trauma? How does one capture the creative process and use it for humankind in positive ways? These are the areas of inquiry that I ponder and where I will be spending my time.
Certainly the computer with so many programs and tools has transformed the graphic world and made it easy to copy, alter and combine images in stills, animation, virtual reality, or sci-fi. I want to utilize more graphics as an artist instead of mainly using word processing. Communication beyond language is now possible with an impact on social and advertising markets. Printmaking, now seems old fashioned and too time consuming as its hand-made values have given into image making that was simply not previously possible. I want to do creative work utilizing the new tools that still need big, commercial machines although advances have made it easy to take work to places that do have them. I then miss the personal choices that are made at that level as the process evolves and ideas come as one goes. Although I have learned a lot about tools, I am still looking for ways that are intuitive to the process. All in all this class has encouraged foraging in many areas to investigate their possible use. I am sure that a lot will be incorporated as the needs arise and the familiarity create ease of use and hopefully ways to connect ideas, data, and images that still are clunky.
In the collaborative investigations, I found my classmates very reasonable and cooperative and each offering different skills, which added to the fun of dealing with frustrating tools. Think we all would agree that it was time consuming and the results were ok, but not a natural to use. Sometimes concerns were with confidentiality as in VoiceThread and Blogs or not serious enough looking and acting as in Prezi. I enjoyed using some of my art work images or photographs of clouds in this new context as metaphors and symbols of networks in space. We still need the originators of ideas and of images even if we have machines. The basics are generated and programmed by humans. I do think web site designing and using is almost a necessity today, so I will pursue that. I would have liked more instruction with Endnote as my two-year program is outmoded and quirky on my Mac although they have improved it on newer versions, which mine won’t update to. Technology changes so often and I constantly update, but finding what works over the long run needs to be consistent when collecting data. I haven’t found a great program for Mac for data and had the unfortunate experience of having Word overload or hide data at a crucial moment. Still that is a mystery and I want to avoid that one again as I will have more data in the future.
All I can say is that it has been interesting and informative and helpful to have others comments and experience to draw on, collaborative and participatory learning has social benefits as well. Also, I find it hard to stop blogging as I am now used to it and may continue this from time to time. I may start one with women artists as well and see who responds!

In closing:
Imprint: 1991, assemblage with steel, bronze and aluminum

Infinite space, infinite possibilities....the interaction enables connections and changes humankind in the process. We are imprinted as we imprint. This sculpture called, Imprint, symbolizes that concept for me at this time and with what I am experiencing in the Internet world, which is expanding instantaneously. I am wondering what is it that we are so desperately searching for? S.

Sorry, the image did not transfer..

news from womens enews on technology 12/31/10

I read this news service regularly..


By Amy Neustein
WeNews correspondent

Women may not always be avid adopters of new technology, but Amy
Neustein says cloud computing is something to know about. The emerging
technology's voice-recognition applications may soon save lives along
with everyday aggravation.

http://www.womensenews.org/story/media-stories/101227/cloud-computing-promises-hi-tech-talk-in-2011

Women's eNews

Final Project: Social Media Class

Final Project, December 31, 2010

Interviews with Jorie Waterman on Social Media and Advertising

Conversations over the last few years with Jorie Waterman have been informative about the digital world that she began exploring after college. This rapidly expanding field of connections offered unconventional experience with novel networks that have touched on and driven changes in business, culture, and the society in which we live and function in ways that were not built or imagined a generation earlier. Having her first exposure to a home computer at age eleven in 1984 shortly after Apple came out with the first personal Macintosh computer in 1983 (Katz, 2008, p.8), Jorie’s fascination with what would become her professional career journey was sparked. In high school her calculus teacher who was keeper of the computer with special, select access to academic research that was becoming increasingly available on the Internet, opened her eyes and mind further. At seventeen, Jorie had the opportunity of being present, observing, and listening to the dialogue of a gathering of world scholars from many disciplines at a Lindisfarne Conference on the Web and Chaos Theory. She recounted that it was there that she heard conversations, that peaked her curiosity and wonder, on the potential power of the web and what it could become, and has indeed become twenty years later. Graduating from Harvard with a major in Comparative Religion with a focus in Buddhism and having been raised in the art world of New York and Europe, Jorie found her natural choices in the job market practically non-existent. Opportunities were in start up companies, which were computer/Internet based, there she gained experience and expertise that attracted the attention of Microsoft and precipitated a move to Seattle. Jorie’s drive to know more and be on the cutting edge of her field brought her back East, where she is now, and in the position of SVP Director of Search for McCann Worldgroup (McCann Relationship Marketing/ MRM), which is the digital arm of the advertising firm. Not only does she speak to audiences and clients worldwide, Jorie has just become part of a small group of strategists, one of the only women and the youngest, which considers ways to meet the demands of today’s digital world.
It is clear why I consider Jorie a valuable source of information, as she is a leader in developing strategies on the Internet for major companies worldwide. She reflected that in businesses the key is “finding how to start the conversation between the consumer and the company”. “Yes, it is social media”, said Jorie, because people use the Internet search engines to “search for information and problem solve”, therefore it is about them and companies “research people” to better meet there interests and needs. On the positive side, advertising has used Internet to find out what information people are looking for, what language they use to search for it, and how to get this specific information to them easily and quickly. Targeting audiences according to their behaviors has driven technology to gather all sort of data, come up with the most universally used keywords to guide a search, and make the search in Microsoft terms as “easy as breathing”. Knowing more about clients helps companies provide desired services. Jorie noted that although there is a lot of free information as well as programs out there, “advertising will continue to drive economics” with “on-line display advertising and search marketing”.
One of the problems in this age of massive amounts of information out there that Jorie mentioned, as did authors in Katz’s edited book, The Tower and The Cloud (2008), is that of sorting the information and data and making sense of so much that is available, which requires staffing and large time commitments. Another consideration for businesses and research that she pointed out was that it is difficult to “preselect your audience” as response is open to anyone on the Internet. In educational/academic research it may be important to know whom you are reaching and who is responding, unless it is a random sample. Blogs are potential ways to find those interested in certain topics or who want to share voluntarily their stories. There are support groups for veterans, illnesses, and specific interests, which allows the social aspects of the Internet to connect people directly with each other. Many health oriented institutions and treatment centers have offered this as a service follow up for patients and could do more in follow up after treatments. Individuals reaching out for first-hand information, which is a form of checking and cross-referencing information, have started Blogs and websites of their own. Jorie felt that there was great potential for heath care and for individual therapeutic work once a relationship had been established. She envisioned being able to use an iPhone or other phones to connect with a voice messaging service of a therapist in the middle of the night or when traveling and have that message and immediate concern stored and available for the therapist to respond quickly and from another location. The addition of video now available on new Smart phones and today Skype announced their extended services on phones, she felt seeing each other in real time would make a difference in maintaining a more personal connection.
Apparently, there are tools out there for same room conferencing where different voices would be selected when talking and audible to those gathered in another conference center elsewhere. The word “communities” was used to refer to different groups with like fields or interests. The communal aspect of many tools, such as Skype or VoiceThread, makes communication personable and fosters relationships at great distances with family and others. Certainly on-line learning would benefit from more of these personal discussion opportunities rather than the record of email, which serves that purpose, but leaves out the possibility of human relating in a significantly more satisfying way. There is also the argument for strangers connecting, which has its social and business advantages for some, but can be easily abused by others, as we have learned in cyber bullying and illegal and immoral avenues being opened and often preying on minors or vulnerable populations.
This leads to the issue of privacy and knowing how much to share when aliases, symbols and avatars can be used creatively, or not, as surrogates for real and authentic people and interaction. How does one know who is there? Are they trustworthy? Are they an impostor, a fraud? Privacy settings are available and Jorie felt people need to be mindful of them and set them for protection. Professional sites such as LinkedIn are select for specific interests. We discussed the fact that Facebook pages are out there and one has to be conscious of who can look at them and what one posts and which friends, clients or business associates you choose to give access to your information, caution is advisable. She mentioned a company called Bluekai that is a leader in “consumer privacy and good business ethics”. It is possible to find out free from them what information has been gathered, primarily through cookies, about individuals including yourself and remove it. Controlling your profile and checking what is out there about you goes for all ages. For example, how one is identified can be tracked by college admissions searches or effect job opportunities as personal information stays out there. Young people may not be aware of the ramifications of having personal information available for all to see and for how long?
For Jorie and me the discussion of ethical standards starts with the individual and their intentions, but there are ethical business practices that she mentioned that are available through links to various industries codes of ethics that can be found on the Direct Marketing Association Site (DMA). She felt that for the most part businesses were trustworthy and regulated in this country. Her concern was that about pharmaceutical companies are regulated in this country which keeps them limited in advertising on the Internet due to the vast amount of information that is required of them that can not be accommodated on the Internet, which gives unregulated or foreign companies more visibility and availability to searchers on the Internet. This brings up the question about unregulated drugs, in particular as to what information is available, is it reliable, and has it been tested for what it claims. The public has access to reliable as well as fraudulent information in a global information age, now they decipher it is a question. Other countries do not have the regulatory agency that we do which gives them an advantage on the open market place that is now international. Also, cultural practices and standards vary worldwide. This further opens the global network to illegal and immoral minds and practices, which is beyond the scope of this discussion, but was recently discussed at the United Nations in a panel I attended on the profitable and expanding illegal business of human and drug trafficiting.
The fact is that our world over the last sixty years (Katz, 2008, p.6) has become connected globally by the Internet and instant information is available regardless of the time zone. With more devices that are inexpensive and available it is staggering to assess the impact that this is having at any moment, as updates are constant. Authors writing on this is Katz’s edited book (2008) discuss the ramifications for institutions of higher education that have been evolving from religious and guild beginnings according to Katz’s historical account for over a thousand years. The “tower” metaphor for the exalted, often removed place of knowledge building (Katz, 2008, p.3) was juxtaposed with the “cloud” image which is symbolic of the worldwide web (WWW) which lacks the boundaries of a physical space and the concentration of scholars in close proximity. The positive side to this is possibility of sharing, coordinating, and collaborating globally. Katz used the phrase “maturation of virtualization technology” (2008, p. 11) which presented issues that education as well as all aspects of information transmission will more and more address. With information more available to many people in potentially every culture, the possibilities of learning are more egalitarian and individually prescribed. I can’t help but think this may be helpful to women and others without financial or practical means who have been denied education in many cultures. Institutions of higher learning are indeed challenged to respond beyond their halls and communities of scholars. Benkler (2008) writes of “decentralization” (p.51), Katz and others speak of “disruption” (2008, p.13), “bundling” and “unbundling” (p.4), others write about shifts, changes, cultural differences, economic issues, indeed the ramifications of “the networked information economy and society” (Benkler, 2008, p.51) are provocative on all levels. With this new open frontier that seems limitless, endlessly creative, spontaneous and collaborative comes the call for standards, protection, privacy and whose rules?
Jorie credits her college education where she was exposed to the best scholars in a small group of three other students for four years with giving her the thinking tools to know what questions to ask and ask them relentlessly. She felt that she also saw and heard different perspectives and learned to respect them. The work she is doing now draws on the ability to understand “how people think”, how they go about “solving problems”, and her knowing that “people are actively looking to solve problems”. She laughed as she described her work as “digital anthropology” which encapsulates her problem of sorting through vast amounts of material and more staff to help to do it. I do think that doctoral students are empathic to this and hope for the development of better and easier tools for doing research, storing it, and assessing it at key moments in their thinking and writing in order to synthesize and focus their learning which is the key in communicating their findings. How to get research out there and credited is indeed of concern for institutions, peer journals, libraries, publications and those scholars, writers and creative thinkers and artists who originate and document sources in traditional ways. Finally, our conversations in which Jorie used the term “social media properties” of the WWW, which are influencing society, relationships, the brain, business ect., came full circle to the need to “know when to turn things off” and “balance” life with and without technology. She said that she works generally a fourteen-hour day “communicating” and has learned to be “respectful” of the benefits of the Internet and mindful of the distractions it also provides. Prioritizing communication, archiving emails every 6 months, and not having messaging at home help with time management and just clearing the space. Perhaps we do need to respect and have our own sanctuaries for contemplation, music, art and just being that are without in her words, “constant bombardment”. The excitement of finding “new innovative media” that is out there and feeling “overwhelmed” has to be put aside, said Jorie, to have real time with friends, go to the gym, read, and enjoy her cats. She surmised that the Internet is tied to language and thinking in language, and now translations are easily available in many languages. Explicit or factual knowledge today has been opened to participatory involvement on the Internet, true or false? I was refreshed to be reminded of tacit knowledge (Attis, 2008, p. 81), that which we know, but don’t have words for. As I read the discourses on what has been described as the “cloud computing” (Katz, 2008) culture into which we are webbed, it seems this reality is put in dramatic, frantic terms that describe our changing, expanding world. As the year comes to a end and this class is coming to a close, I am indeed more knowledgeable and curious about tools that have been discovered, are being instantaneously refined, and new ones being developed to allow for searches specific and useful in the dissertation endeavor. The draw is that I don’t yet know what I will discover, what I will look for as the process evolves, or what contexts will expand my horizons.

Postscript
I would like to thank Jorie Waterman for her time and this rich discussion, which has helped me enlarge my perspective beyond academic consideration and into other worlds going on simultaneously. Her ethical, educated, and envisioned stance is admirable and encouraging for our future on the ground and in the skies.

Jorie Waterman’s Bio
Jorie Waterman, SVP Director of Search
McCann Worldgroup (McCann Relationship Marketing)

Jorie Waterman joined MRM in January of 2009 and leads the New York Search practice for MRM Worldwide. She has worked with clients across many verticals: Financial Services, Technology, Retail, Automotive, CPG, Travel, and more. A select list of clients includes: Chase, Bank of America, American Express, Citibank, Mastercard, GEIP, Alleghany, Diageo, General Mills, Colgate, Unilever, the U.S. Army, Exxon Mobil, Chrysler & GM.
Immediately prior to MRM she was at Microsoft adCenter leading efforts around keyword data. Jorie went to Microsoft to work with adLabs, the R&D division of Microsoft Advertising, working with leading mathematicians, engineers, data analysts, and taxonomists on next generation advertising technology. While there she helped develop the Keyword Services Platform, Web services for keyword demand and demographic data. Additionally, she led product planning for the Targeting platform – tapping into years of keyword research and search data experience as a major behavioral factor in targeting algorithms.
Jorie’s search career started in 1999 with Comet Systems, one of the Overture and Google’s first partners, now part of MIVA and eventually led her to iCrossing. At iCrossing she served as Senior Director, Search Analytics, spearheading methodologies such as Linguistic Profiling to drive actionable online marketing strategies from keyword data.
Jorie graduated from Harvard with a degree in Comparative Religion and has an advanced degree from the Universidad de Navarra in Pamplona, Spain. Jorie speaks fluent Spanish, and has reading knowledge of French, Latin, and Olde English.

















References
Attis, D. (2008). Higher education and the future of U.A. Competitiveness. In R. Katz, (Ed.), The tower and the cloud: Higher education in the age of cloud computing (pp.81-87). Campanile: University of California, Berkeley.
Benkler, Y. (2008). The university in the networked economy and society: Challenges and opportunities. Chapter in R. Katz, (Ed.), The tower and the cloud: Higher education in the age of cloud computing (pp. 51-61). Campanile: University of California, Berkeley.
Katz, R. (2008). The tower and cloud: Higher education in the age of cloud computing. EDUCAUSE Retrieved, May 1, 2010 from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/PUB7202.pdf.
Waterman. J. (2010, December 29). Interviewed by S.P. Firestone [MP3 recording, privately held, available], Social Media Class 10-FA GWKSP.7888.01, Lesley University Ph.D. Low-Residency Program in Expressive Therapies. Lesley University, Cambridge, MA.
Waterman. J. (2010, December 11). Interviewed by S.P. Firestone [MP3 recording, privately held, available], Social Media Class 10-FA GWKSP.7888.01, Lesley University Ph.D. Low-Residency Program in Expressive Therapies. Lesley University, Cambridge, MA.

A digital U-Tube Nativity

A friend sent me this link and I thought the class might relate to it! Hope this does not offend as it is meant to bring good cheer for the end of the year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkHNNPM7pJA

Dec. 13 to Dec. 28th 2010

Social Media Blog: News from Several Sources: December 2010

There is so much information out there on social media that my newspapers, magazines, email, list serves, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn and all other connections I may have that I know of, plus those that I don’t know of are overflowing! For me this year has exploded with ACCESS to my known areas of interest to many more that I am now aware of and following... I am staying up later to be informed about friends, sales, deals, entertainment, and all the opportunities that I might be missing if I don’t check! I don’t know about you, but I am still trying to save articles of interest in their original format in case I want to reference them in research or come back to them and reread the information or story more carefully. My files, real and virtual are expanding in the midst of my studio which has several works in progress—when I have the time to focus on them and get into the “flow state” that the creative process brings to me and others who know how to access this state of knowing that draws of another aspect of the brain. Information processing, storage, and small bites seem to tap one or more correctly many resources we humans have and what emotional involvement that we are capable of as well? Simple answers are not possible as evidenced by history and the robust studies in for example one area, neuroscience, which seem to rely on pictures to tell us?? How the brain thinks? How the brain remembers? How the brain handles trauma? Who “reads”, “knows”, “interprets” images and in what language from what cultural context? As we as curious creatures investigate our world inside and out the story becomes even more fascinating that we can imagine.. and we can imagine more that we can do, which droves us on to new discoveries. I can only speak for myself, this is an amazing time to be alive and to have the opportunity to experiment with the tools that are available to us.

For instance, these are a few stories covering a variety of interests, which are using the Internet to go further. Some from The New York Times since I last visited this blog:

12/28/10: Business Day: Scrutiny for Shares of Start-Ups is a article (p. B1, B5) by Peter Lattman in which he notes that the S.E.C. is interested in the trades that are increasing in the social-networking companies, Twitter, Facebook, LindedIn, and Zynga which are all still privately held, i.e. that is not listed on the public stock exchange. Shares are being sold by employees hoping to cash in and investors are speculating as there has been so much $ made and trading is increasing. According to this author these companies are “considered high-risk securities by the S.E.C.” (p. B5). The trading exchange company handling these trades of nonpublic companies is SmartMarket and it is stated here that Facebook is the “most actively traded company..in which $40 million worth of shares changed hands” (p.B5).

12/28/10: Front Page: Cheats Find an Adversary in Technology. Writer, Trip Gabriel writes an interesting article about high school students in Mississippi who had cheated on final exams by using their cellphones, some even texting through their pockets so that proctors could not observe. Companies can now do all sorts of data analysis to determine who is cheating. Red flags turn up when scores differ from previous scores, when a group of students all get correct or incorrect answers and more. Apparently, when students know about this and know they could get caught, the cheating goes down. John Fremer, who is now 71 and helped develop the SAT tests, is a co-founder of Caveon Test Security, which is said to be the only company that has developed security measures to detect cheating. The article goes on to present critics who raise questions that this company has not published in scholarly journals their methods and therefore has not been reviewed. The rebuttal is that they are very busy with clients policing testing and blogs that violate copyright under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Mr. Fremer says that his goal is “prevention” and “fair and valid testing” (p. A1, A3).

12/28/10: The Arts: Patricia Cohen’s article, Scholars Recruit Public for Project: Online Volunteers Transcribe Papers, calls attention to the fact that many original documents by philosophers, scholars, historians, and individuals are not available due to the arduous job of transcription which costs and is extremely time consuming. She writes of The Bentham Project at University College London, which has turned to “crowd-sourcing” (p. C1) as a way of tackling more than 40,000 documents which are unpublished manuscripts by using registered or volunteers users who then transcribe works that are then corrected by editors. Needless to say there are advocates and those from the scholarly field who raise questions, but it is pointed out that this would make so much more available in the humanities where historical and personal documents could be accessible to scholars. See nytimes.com/books for other articles that have been looking at “digital tools that are changing scholarship in history, literature and the arts.” (p. C4).

12/28/10: International: WikiLeaks Founder Signs Deal to Write Autobiography, (p.A8). Ravi Somaiya reports from London that Assange, who is in a “mansion” awaiting a hearing on Jan. 11 for charges brought against him by two women in Stockholm for “rape, unlawful coercion and two counts of sexual molestation over a four-day period last August”, has signed a book deal for his autobiography. Potentially this could be worth $1.7 million, which Mr. Assange is quoted as saying he needs for his lawyers. The British counterpart of Random House, Alfred A. Knopf as well as Canongate Books are said to have signed printing deals with the Australian founder of WikiLeaks. In February, Daniel Domscheit-Berg who was the deputy to Assange will come out with his story in Germany of what went on before he left the WikiLeaks at the end of summer.

12/27/10: Business Day: Technology: Bits: Apple Removes WikiLeaks Apps. Miguel Helft writes that Apple spokeswoman, Trudy Muller, confirmed that the company had removed the WikiLeaks apps for iPhones and iPads because it “violated our developed guidelines....Apps must comply with all local laws and may not put an individual or group in harm’s way.” (p. B4). It is reported that many companies, such as: PayPal, MasterCard, Amazon, and Visa have “cut off services that in some way support WikiLeaks or channel money to the organization” (p. B4).

12/21/10: Front Page: In Youthful World of Messaging, E-Mail Gets Instant Makeover. Matt Richel reports on Facebook’s updating it messaging service to “feel less like e-mail and more like texting”, which will make it faster and be more instantly gratifying. Bosworth, director of engineering, is quoted as saying, “the future of messaging is more real time, more conversational and more casual...The medium isn’t the message. The message is the message.” (p.A1).

12/22/10: Business Day: To Match Profit with Popularity, Skype Looks to New Markets. Verne G. Kopytoff points out that while Skype is one of the most used Internet services in the seven years of its existence with 124 million users, it does not make money because it is free to users. There is a new CEO, Tony Bates of the company headquartered in Luxembourg, who is looking into faster and extended services. It was founded in 2003 as an alternative to expensive telephone costs by a Swede, Zennstrom and a Dane, Friis (p.B1,B2) and sold to eBay and now is mostly owned, 70%, by the Silver Lake Partners. Since many of us use Skype, let’s hope they find a way to stay in business.

12/17/10: Business: A Call for a Federal Odffice to Guide Online Privacy (p. B3). Tanzina Vega reports that he Commerce Department’s task force has advised that a “Privacy Bill of Rights should be created for consumers who are on line as well as a department that is sensitive to U.S. privacy issues worldwide. How information is gathered online would be more “transparent” and an ethical code of conduct would aim to better “practice principles”. The F.T.C. also addressed practice and also emphasized “do not track” options for consumers to prevent third parties to gather data on them. Gary Locke, the Secretary of Commerce stressed the need for preserving “consumer trust in the evolving Internet economy while ensuring the Web remains a platform for innovation, jobs and economic growth” (p.B3). The department estimates that $10 trillion a year is spent on online transactions globally.

12/16/10: Building Case for Conspiracy By Wikileaks by Charlie Savage (Front page, A18). Searching for any evidence of collusion between Pfc. Manning and Assange, the Justice Department investigates possible conspiracy.

12/12/10: Week in Review: Keeping Secrets WikiSafe (Front page, 5). Scott Shane recounts events of “three big WikiLeaks document dumps since July” of classified government documents, “disguised as a Lady Gaga CD”, that Pfc. Bradley Manning “smuggled out of a military intelligence office” (p.1). The story begins .... and will unfold.

Time Magazine’s cover on December 13^th had a full page photo of Julian Assange with an American flag taped across his mouth. In the same issue, p. 19, several people who were honorees for 2009 for “Person of the Year”, Ben Bernanke got it, were asked for their suggestions for 2010.

Michael Eavis who is the Founder of Glastonbury Festival chose Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, because “her performance and skill on the world stage have impressed people of all races and genders, and she has added so much to American status and pride..”.

Youk Chhang, who is the Director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, suggested Queen Mother Norodom Monineath Sihanouk of Cambodia because she “is the embodiment of resilience, a beautiful woman who has endured countless hardships with dignity and courage. Through her, we can learn about colonialism, independence, civil was, genocide, democratization and the quest for justice. Her life too will teach us about the complex history of Cambodia, a country often overlooked.”

John C. Bogle, who is Founder of the Vanguard Group, suggested David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, because of the “bold steps to a) build a ‘big society,’ demanding that citizens take greater responsibilities for the communities, and b) set forth a really tough fiscal policy, slashing government expenditures...”.

Mia Farrow, “actress and activist”, suggested Mo Ibrahim who is from the Sudan and has a foundation in London and is described as a “mobile-communications entrepreneur”. The foundation “provides a huge annual prize for responsible leadership in Africa, promotes the peace process in Darfur and security, the rule of law and human rights across Africa. No one has done more to promote peace and food governance in a continent torn apart by corruption, poverty, and violence.”

The December 27^th edition of TIME had the co-founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, “The Connector”, on the cover as the Person of the Year 2010. Time’s Managing Editor, Richard Stengel, comments are in his article, Only Connect. Mark Zuckerberg and Facebok are changing how we interact – and what we know about each other” (p. 43). He writes, “Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is a recognition of the power of individuals to shape our world. For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them (something that has never been done before); for creating a new system of exchanging information that has become both indispensable and sometimes a little scary; and finally, for changing how we all live our lives in ways that are innovative and even optimistic, Mark Eliot Zuckerberg is TIME’s 2010 Person of the Year.” In his editorial (p. 8) he mentions his visit to Palo Alto and talk with Zuckerberg on Dec.. 8^th which can be found at TIME.com.

In this same issue of TIME, Lev Grossman (p. 44-75) had done a thorough job on the life, personality, and style of Zuckerman as well as incredible statistics on just how Facebook has and is changing our lives and what is happening around our world in real time. Certainly, my views and interests have expanded with my exposure and use of just some of information that is assessable to me. As the end the year approaches and writers and journalists peruse the changes, the events, the discoveries, and the losses of the passing year, I particularly will miss the artist, Louise Bourgeois, who passed away at 98, and is quoted as saying, “Art is a guarantee of sanity. That is the most important thing I have said.” (p. 149)

Sent by email: An artist’s concern...

-----Original Message-----

From: Laurie Arbeiter <larbeiter@hotmail.com>

Sent: Thu, Dec 23, 2010 9:24 am

Subject: Gagosian atrocity

Helloall,

Iam writing to alert people about an incident that happened at the Gagosiangallery Saturday, December 18, 2010, on the last day of the Anselm Kieferexhibition, Next Year In Jerusalem. Anselm Kiefer. Next Year in Jerusalem November 6 - December 18, 2010 ... Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present “Next Year in Jerusalem,” Anselm Kiefer's ...

www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/2010-11-06_anselm-kiefer/ - Cached

Inresponse to the title of the exhibition and the content of the work a smallgroup of artists and activists decided to view the show wearing a shirt with the wordsNext Year In Jerusalem in the three languages Arabic, Hebrew and English. We spent about one to two hours looking at the exhibition, mainly individually,silently and respectfully with full consideration of others viewing the exhibition. We simply worethe words on our shirts and did not engage with anyone unless they struck up aconversation with us. A number of peopleasked some of us about the meaning of the message, gave positive feedback, showed interest, asked where they could get the shirts oroccasionally questioned our political attitude toward Israel and Palestine. Wemade it clear to those who asked that we were not affiliated with the galleryand this was our own personal response to the work. All our conversations wereat a low level, similar to all the other visitors talking with one anotherwhile viewing the show. We neverhad an incident, raised our voices, disrupted anyone, and were not approachedby the multitudes of guards that were there. We took photographs as waspermitted and similar to many other people photographing the work and eachother without flash or disruption to people's passage.We thought we were in anarena of ideas and that words on a t-shirt without any other provocation would be an acceptable method of free expression in response to Kiefer's work. We were so very wrong. Afterabout one and a half hours, half of our group left and four of us remained tocontinue to view the show. Iwalked around on my own looking at the work. I noticed that two other visitorshad engaged two of my friends in a conversationthat was lasting a long time. Curious, I wandered over to where they werestanding to join them. The atmosphere in the gallery was very peaceful andcalm. The conversation that they had struck-up was warm and all of them were very interested talking together. Suddenly, out ofnowhere, two representatives from the gallery approached us. Oneof them asked who our leader was. It was an odd question and Iresponded that we had no leader. She then asked us who was in charge. And again I emphasized that no one was incharge and said that there was nothing happening. She then said that she had toask us to leave the gallery. We, including the lovely couple we had just met,were dumbfounded. At that point, the gallery employee ordered the guards, the same ones that had observed us forclose to two hours with no incident, to surround us and escort us out. I told her that there was no reason to have usremoved. The gallery employee explained that they had received complaints about the words on our shirt, which were causing confusion, and therefore we would have toleave. We then decided to cover thelanguage even though it was very disturbing to do so and we did thisreluctantly, understanding the profound irony against theback-drop of the Kiefer exhibition which embodies a life's work supposedlyconcerned with the horrors of state-sponsored repression, the brutality ofoccupation, racism, abuse of power, fascism and the consequences offorgetting history, not allowing for keen reflection in regard to currentstrains of unchecked power. I mentioned to the gallery employees that I thoughtwe were in the realm of ideas inside the gallery space to which she repliedthat it was a private gallery in the business of selling art and that theywanted us to leave. On principle, something no longer that valued or defendedin the public or private sector, we stayed, acting again in no way that couldbe deemed disruptive. The guards went back to their corners and we went back toour conversation. We thought that the incident was over. To all our shock,several minutes later the police arrived and completely disrupting the calmatmosphere in the gallery began to order us to leave and threatened us witharrest for trespassing.

Withinminutes after the police arrived an incident unfolded that could only bedescribed as brutal. Upon reflection, it waslike a staged scene, depicting what happens when the very forces Kiefer warns us about go unchecked.The police came on very strong and at first directed their warning at us,overseen by the gallery personnel, who pointed us out to them. I asked them toexplain the complaints being made against us and rationale for our expulsion.The only explanation given was that it was a private space just like one's homeand that we were no longer welcome and would need to leave. A woman witnessingthe event and standing at a distance to my left, who I did not know, asked for an explanation as to what washappening. The police officer was very rude and belligerent to her. All this unfolded rather quickly, withinseconds and suddenly I saw him grab her forcefully, pinching the muscle of herarm as he began to drag her from the gallery.It was shocking as she was screaming that she was being hurt and yet he wouldn't remove his grip. Iheard her cry in pain all the way out as she was being removed to the entrance.I couldn't see what happened behind the wall between us but have heard anaccount from another witness that she fell to the floor and wasdragged all the way to the door and outside on the floor by the police without complaint and in full view of thegallery personnel. She was badly bruised and needed medical attention and was taken to ahospital emergency room.

Theseare the facts of my experience as it unfolded. It was and still is traumatizingto recount and to attempt to grapple with all the implications of these eventsunfolding against the backdrop of the Anselm Kiefer exhibition. What happened there can not be explained away simply by thegallery stating that theyreceived complaints. The question should be asked by whom? What was the content of those complaints? What wasthe confusion they pointed to and why couldn't the gallery personnel clearthose issues up? What warranted setting into motion this course of action thatled to a brutal assault by the police andthe shutting down of ideas and speech embodied on a personalt-shirt? These (art) corporations are about money - rank andextreme consumerism. That they invoke theculture of private property as justification for their repression of inconvenient thoughts and ideas mustnot obscure the fact that they have no rightto cause actual physical harm tomembers of the public or to violate the rights of that public. Our peaceful engagement with the Kiefer exhibition was not a demonstration that day in thegallery but the gallery deserves now to be shown what a real demonstration looks like in response to what it did.

I can only wonder what Anselm Kiefer would have to say about whathappened in his exhibition because of the presence of those words that inspiredhim and led to an inspired idea, Next Year In Jerusalem strung together inArabic, Hebrew and English?

Please pass this on and feel free to contact me with any thoughts.Thanks to all those who have shown concern.

Laurie Arbeiter

December 15, 2010 As the year is coming to a close..

I am thinking back on finding a language in which to communicate...other than words..... and I had to take drawing and learn from there how to make art. Looking at things I wanted to draw and was familiar with and then at those I had no idea about how to represent. Learning a skill was a job, a training the hand as well as the eye to observe what was out there and some how make a copy of it? A likeness was not easy for me, particularly at first, but I began to notice that I liked to adjust things according to my own view. That realization that I could have my own view of things coupled with the emotional, empathic, and expressionistic gestures gave me a world in which to live and be that was my own and quite apart from what is named cognitive learning. Sensing that there was an implicit realm that was fascinating and ever full of wonder within my imagination was a new beginning, a new journey that had started very young and in nature.
Education and socialization and life took off and it was only after college that I knew that I had to get back to that place of knowing and find out who I had become and who I wanted to be in this world. Art school? several art schools... looking for learning and wisdom out there and from many.. only to find that yes, there are tools, yes others use them, teach them, are masterful with them, but I wanted to choose and explore for myself even if it do not come out so gloriously. I wanted to find my own way and gather what I needed along the way. The art making told me things about how I was seeing and experiencing the world that I did not know until after making the pieces in whatever medium was needed to communicate at that time, that moment. There was always more to know as the world and people are everly fascinating and I wanted and still want to open doors and find new pathways..
This brings me to the present moment. New tools on the Internet, on my Apple computer, that are useful for making art, writing about my work, gathering information, working with images, and communicating with friends and others. The possibilities are truly endless. As I am consumed in words and becoming more at ease with speaking my voice in type, I am wanting to get back to images and see what I can do there. The back and forth seems enriching and calls..

December 8-14

Social Media Journal Blog: 12-8-14, 2010 I want to bring to your attention the views of Nicholas Carr, author of Does IT Matter: Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage (2004) published by Harvard Business School Publishing Press, and The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, which I have on audio. The following podcast on Carr’s recent talk at The National Academy of Sciences here in New York is fascinating as he has researched and presented some of the effects of the last twenty years of the Internet’s existence on our society and ourselves. In his book, Does It Matter, he reviews the history of inventions that changes business practices, not to mention society. Here he reviews businesses that acquired technology early which gave them a distinct advantage and the present time when most all businesses have technology because everyone does. The point he makes is that that advantage is no longer there as technology has become commonplace, and a business must just have it, as it has become a cost of doing business. Really fascinating is the second book in which he has researched and has definite conclusions on technology changing the brain. Carr points out recent research which finds that the brain that was in the past thought of as fixed in development relatively early by today’s standards is indeed “plastic” meaning that it can form new pathways and continue to expand particularly when challenged with new endeavors. He feels that given this information, the brain will certainly be changed with people using technology more and more. He used the term “adaptive” in relation to the brain changing with repeated experiences. Statistics are given as to the number of hours people are spending on the Internet and several effects noted were the shortened attention span, multitasking and the effect on working memory being that short term memory is not taking in learning in such a way as it goes into long term memory. Our long-term memory is our repository of learning according to Carr. Please listen to this podcast for further and more a more in- depth discussion. Nicholas Carr: Nat. Academy of Sciences: podcast.. http://ne.edgecastcdn.net/000210/podcasts/120310carr.mp3 New York Academy of Sciences: www.nyas.org http://www.nyas.org/Publications/Media/VideoDetail.aspx?cid=ecb4b4d5-248a-40fa-a945-b753437f9400 This is a terrific site and I often go to the lectures which at 4 World Trade Center, next to Ground Zero. It is a new building built after 9/11 and has fantastic views of Manhattan from the 40th floor. Amazing scientists talk on their research. They have a 6 part series that I went to the first session, To Be Or Not To Be, on Tuesday called : Perspectives on the Self: Conversations on Identity and Consciousness, that is funded by The Nour Foundation, which is well worth looking up as they are a 35 yr. old foundation connected to the UN Economic and Social Council. Their spokesman said that their purpose was “to explore meaning and commonality... (with a) multidisciplinary (focus)... that combines science and humanity” (NAS lecture attended, Dec. 7, 2010). During the question and answer period, one question asked the panels opinion on the impact of social media on stream of consciousness. One panelist, Tomas Metzinger, felt that it is underestimated and that we have no idea how this technology will affect the brain and change it. We know the brain is adaptive and can be trained, so it was suggested that the aspect of constant interruption much of which is self-directed would have an impact on attention, the term “attentional agency” was used and it was further suggested that if one loses “attentional control” that is learned from infancy, there would be changes. Another panelist, Evan Thompson, pointed out the contribution of William James and free will, i.e. that one has “the ability to direct and sustain attention” and the notion of habits. Please see the site to get the names and biographical information on the panelists who were moderated by Krista Tippettt who has her own organization and has written several books on these issues and is the creator and host of Public Radio’s Being, www.onbeing.org. http://www.nyas.org/Events/Detail.aspx?cid=94c002ca-3da3-4e37-8f75-7b8d67554909 FYI: Books on Qualitative Research I was looking for a book about research using the Internet and I found this entry on ABEbooks.com which is a good site and often has books that I can’t find on amazon.com. This author/editor Pranee Liamputtong has a variety of books on qualitative research, one on sensitive populations, and several on cross-cultural research, several on Asian mothers, ect. Stock Image View Larger Image Health Research in Cyberspace (ISBN: 1594548196 / 1-59454-819-6 ) LIAMPUTTONG, PRANEE Bookseller: Browns Books (Hull, AB, United Kingdom) Bookseller Rating: Quantity Available: 1 Price: US$ 99.18 Convert Currency Shipping: US$ 9.40 From United Kingdom to U.S.A. Destination, Rates & Speeds 30 Day Returns Policy About the Book Bookseller & Payment Information About the Book Bibliographic Details Publisher: GAZELLE DISTRIBUTION Publication Date: 2006-06-10 Binding: Soft cover Book Condition: as new Edition: Description: Retail Price £74.50, you save 18%. Browns Books - selling books online since 1999 softcover. Bookseller Inventory # 1594548196 Editorial Reviews: Synopsis: Chen and colleagues (2004: 157) contend, online technologies provide researchers with an array of alternative arenas for data collection. As we shall see in this volume, there are numerous ways for social researchers to undertake their research. In many ways, online research More... provides researchers with numerous attractive environments that offline research may not be able to do. But we shall see too that online researchers have come to realise that many issues that we have adopted for offline research can be problematic when we attempt to do the same for online research and this includes the methods of data collection and ethics. Online research can also be problematic and there are important issues which researchers need to think through and deal with. I have attempted to cover these issues in the chapters in this volume. Essentially, contributors discuss more or less along the methodological, practical and personal issues in doing their online research. Some chapters may lean towards a more formal type of writing and are more theoretical while others may be more subjective and practical. But this is the intention of this book, as reflected in its title. ...Shrink Social Media News Briefs have been too numerous in the past few weeks to do justice to them in this blog. This makes me realize the benefit of Twitter for almost instant and continuous updates on developments. Certainly, the timeliness of the news stories on WikiLeaks has captivated everyone and the number of articles from different points of view is staggering, at least in the New York Times every day. I will try to sort through my pile and give you the highlights in case you missed them on some aspects. The privacy issues are far greater and more significant in some areas, such as government security and diplomacy as well as relevant to us, health care and confidentiality, HIPPA rules, ect. I was saddened today, Dec. 14, to read that the number of deaths of UN aid workers is higher than ever in Afganistan. Also of note for us is the article on the front page of the NYT Business section yesterday, Dec. 13, titled, “Facebook’s Mean Streets”. Author Miguel Helft talks about Mr. Willner, 26, and his associates in the “hate and harassment team” who are charged with policing the Facebook site for illegal content that violates the terms of service contracts. This is quite a job given the number of entries a day, which he states as more than one billion by the over 500 million member uploaders. The article goes on to say that a page was taken down which was put up to attack sites that did not support Wikeleaks while leaving on WikeLeaks’s pages. Social media’s most successful agent, FaceBook, is in the forefront of Internet freedom of speech debates, which continue among all ages and even into space.