A Blog About Making Culture
Making Something Meaningful
July 5, 2006
I've been told that sometimes I seem frustrated or cynical lately about new web things or Web 2.0 hype, and that's probably because I have been. I grew up with technology and with loving software, and part of the reason why I loved it was because it felt like the people who were creating this stuff when I was a child were convinced that technology was going to change the world, permanently and for the better.
My early experience with blogging was exactly as they pictured it. It had a lasting positive impact on everything for me, from building a career to getting married to starting a whole new life for myself. Almost all of my closest friends are people I met through sharing my ideas or thoughts on my blog, and letting people respond with their own thoughts and ideas.
Five or six or seven years ago, my experiences in blogging were meaningful more often than not. Reading new posts from friends or discovering people who shared my interests felt a lot like the most profound experiences in any media. Being part of blogging felt like seeing one of those few great movies that I can watch over and over without getting tired of, or like a book that I can re-read and always find something new in, or like any of the songs that I can listen to that take me back to the first time that I heard them.
The good old days
But a lot of bloggers who've been doing it for years start to lose that connection. That's why you see people burn out or flame out. And for the most part, I understand how it happens. Despite the fact that my blog is still fun and rewarding, I've had to develop a thicker skin, and that means it's harder to let new people in. After you've been blogging for a number of years, and been through the blog cycle, you might belong to a community, but you've probably stopped being really open to at least some of those meaningful experiences. I think it's somewhat similar to how most people's musical tastes are defined by their early 20s, and seldom change after that point.
So, even though I spend all my time online, I don't have many websites that I care about in the same way I care about the great films, books, and songs that move me. There are some web communitities that I participate in where there's a real emotional connection, but it's almost always in a smaller, private setting. Honestly, I was reticent to share the story of my marriage on my public blog because I was afraid of the reaction from people who didn't care. I'm not surprised that total strangers wouldn't care about my wedding, mind you, but rather I was unwilling to have something so important to me be dismissed by people who were (understandably) uninterested.
Experiencing something important helped me realize that I wanted to share the most important thing in my life with people who had enough connection to me to find it meaningful.
And connecting, communicating, creating, and sharing the things that matter should be a meaningful experience whether it's in old or new media. We seem to have lost a lot of our bigger ambitions for the web, instead settling for doing things simply because we can. I spend all my time being an advocate for blogging and the medium in the best way I know how to make those connections. But it's not my vocation (and avocation) because I think everybody needs more software. It's what I do because it's made my life better and I think this medium can do that for other people too, and I want it to. I want us all to still be that ambitious.
The great parts of blogging still happen every day, but if you've been doing this for a while, it almost seems like it's despite the technology, not because of it. People who are familiar with blogging really seem to think that, from a technology standpoint at least, it's a solved problem. Blogging is not a solved problem.
But when I have met people in person at conferences or events over the last half year, the one post they most often mention that they remember reading on my blog is the one I wrote on the day of my wedding. And on some of the private community sites where I feel like I know everyone who's participating, someone can do something as simple as posting a photo of a loved one along with a story and it can be profound and beautiful expression. It's especially true because in these environments, most people are respectful. The sad truth is, though, that it's hard to elicit that kind of response when I'm not seeing someone face-to-face, because on this site, I've got a different kind of forum. It's one I'm very happy and privileged to have, and I will always try to do justice to that, but sometimes I just want to hang out with my friends. Or even make new friends. But either way, it's about having a real connection.
Making Something Meaningful
If you believe that tools influence content, and I absolutely do, then the most important thing we can do with all this technology is to try to build tools that encourage meaningful expression. In fact, I'd say it's even stronger than that; One of our obligations is to build tools that help people connect with their friends and family in a meaningful way.
That's not to say there isn't room for all the other more practical and prosaic uses for these tools, but rather that it's important to articulate that this is a goal. In thinking about this, I realize it's always kind of been in the back of my mind. It's something that has been with me since I started trying to make this the thing that i do with my life.
The vocabulary I'm using for the idea, describing this as being "meaningful", comes from Linda Stone. She's long had the ability to articulate trends or concepts that we are all living with but don't necessarily have names for. One of the signs of true genius is people who can identify something so profound that it seems obvious in retrospect.
I saw her most recently at Mark Hurst's Gel Conference, but the topic of her talk was very similar to the ETech talk transcribed here. The key point to me is towards the end of Linda's presentation:
Does this product, service, feature, or message enhance and improve our quality of life? Does it help us protect, filter, create a meaningful connection?
It's a simple statement, but it's important. Is this damn thing making my life better? That question's been bouncing around in my head, in one form or another, for a while. I stopped reading feeds. I stopped having my IM client log on automatically when I start my computer in the morning. I've tried to eliminate many of the parts of my day that Lane would describe as making things un-bold.
That's a pretty low bar, though, just getting rid of the stressful things. What about the stuff that I can't wait to do? What are the sites that I'd like to curl up with like they're a good book? There are some things that just feel good to use, like I'm spending my time in a worthwhile way instead of just killing time by clicking.
So, I'm talking about Vox, of course, to some degree. It's the biggest new thing that's being built where I work, so it naturally commands my attention. But as that's still a work in progress, I'm more interested in what we can do with these ideas in general.
The sense of fun, of discovery, or even of explicitly being "meaningful" in the way that Linda has described was referenced implicitly or explicitly by the first posts about Vox from Andre, Mike, Nat, Matt, Heather and others.
But more important than the testaments from the technologically savvy is what I felt in just the first week that people began testing Vox. I found out that the friend that introduced me to my wife went to high school with one of my co-workers I see everyday. I discovered something as simple as a friend whom I don't get to talk to enough likes the same remix of a song (and the same bit) as I do. Later on, I found out that some of the last people I'd ever expect to talk about books with have great recommendations about what I should be reading.
Well, So What?
The (valid) criticism of these kinds of discoveries is that they're trivial, the kind of boring or banal memes that "serious" bloggers like to mock as being the domain of teenagers or stupid people. But the most important things are the things that we arrogantly want to dismiss as trivia. In every aspect of life, the most profound things are so common that if they don't affect someone you love or care about, they can seem meaningless.
What I'd like to see is technology being used in service of helping me share and record those moments. And I'd like to see technology be used to help create those moments. Perhaps even more, though, I'd like to see that measure of being "meaningful" as a metric that's used when evaluating new technologies, instead of just better/faster/cheaper or whatever else we fall back on.
Of course we aren't there yet. This is a starting point for Vox, and it's a nascent idea for most people who work with technology. It's tough to try to articulate a goal that I can't even do justice to. But I do like the idea of aspiring to make people's lives better, and of promoting that goal explicitly instead of just assuming everyone's on the same page. There have been tremendous advances in usability ever since people started articulating the need for addressing user experience explicitly, and this is really just an obvious extension of that work.
Instead of being exhausted spending our days unbodling things, what if there we made places online that we could be excited about? Sites that we'd make the time to remember to go and visit, instead of having to check them off of a list of things to do?
The new checklist
I guess the bottom line is that my own solution for Web 2.0 malaise or New Bubble Backlash is to try to remind myself to evaluate all the novel new sites and gizmos that I see based on a simple measure. It's been less than a year since the Web 2.0 checklist was created. Now, mercifully, the list has gotten much shorter:
Is this meaningful?
Previously: Continuing the Conversation
majordojo
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Changing the Game: Jane MacGonigal and World Without Oi: Radar friend Jane McGonigal has been profiled over at Salon in "Play peak oil before you live it". Jane is a regular speaker at our conferences, were she talks about how to bring collaborative intelligence out into the offline world... read more »
Dominik Schwind 
See, I don’t even know you and yet you influence my way of looking at the whole blogging thing - that’s what is meaningful about it to me.
Michael Martine
My wife and I were having a slightly uneasy laugh the other day about how unexpectedly and profoundly our lives have been transformed (dare I say improved) by our experiences with blogging over the last 5 years or so. I remarked how odd it is that this nerdy thing with a funny name has had such a positive effect and helped us to grow in so many ways.
kathryn
Wonderful thoughts.
I think the banal/meaningful divide manifests itself obviously in Flickr. Posed photographs of family events, closeups of flowers and kittens, blurry snapshots of running kids are all over Flickr. These are commonplace and artistically “boring” but incredibly meaningful to the people involved.
Jeff
I used to teach photography and computer graphics. I always told my students “having the right tool (whether it be a camera or a computer) is important but it’s what you do with that tool that is really important.” So while blogging is the process, the content we create with blogging tools is key. The critical sense of accomplishment I feel when I blog happens when I write a good story/blog post.
The wonderful thing about blogging and the Net is that it’s allowed us to connect with a much larger audience without the traditional gatekeepers (having entre to media outlets like TV, magazines, and newspapers). But, at times, that input can be too much. I agree with you, reading a good book or having a romantic dinner with one’s significant other are good balances to the huge number of contacts we make online. As much as I love the Net and how it’s revolutionized my personal networks, there is nothing better than one-to-one contact in the real world —f2f. The Net has allowed me to have more of these quality face-to-face relationships.
It’s interesting, Anil, that you bring up the blogging of your marriage. I write about my family all the time. But I have established internal rules for doing so that inject a level of privacy that fit my comfort level. I’m not concerned with whether people care or not about my personal life because I try to write about universal human nature issues that people can relate to in their own lives.
It’s my way of getting personal while attempting to connect with others. It’s a neat thing to make real world friends via this process.
Andy Beal
Hi Anil, I must admit that this is the first post on your blog, that I’ve actually read - usually I read other blogger’s thoughts on your posts. ;-)
I’m glad I did, as your honest thoughts will certainly resonate with me going forward.
Thanks for sharing.
Philipp Lenssen
What you say about the marriage post being one people really remember is very interesting.
On another note, I’d rephrase “does it make my life better” to “does it make the world better”. Which in turn of course still offers great personal satisfaction, to change the world a bit for the better.
But yeah, we always should ask ourselves if we’re running hunting the info noise, or if we’re still taking time outs to make clear and meaningful thoughts.
Jay Fienberg
Great post!
IMHO…
The web became amazingly meaningful, but then the success of the dot com’s seemed to shift so many creative web people into just being uptight about their companies’ and/or their products’ potential success.
After the bust, a lot of web people relaxed out of the uptight / competitive software company view of the web, and back into a more cooperative and more personal one.
Web 2.0 has been a movement that has largely ended-up encouraging and justifying the uptight software company view of the web.
But, the 99% people on the web, those who don’t even know about web 2.0, are still here finding, creating and looking for meaningful ways to interact, etc.
MikeMontana
There is a rare moment when you come across a standard, common place moment (like a a web page filled with a 5yr old’s birthday party) and the author has communicated something about the event that resonates with yourself. It makes a connection between that event and yourself - and voila - thats what Meaningful Blogging is all about.
We’re all aware of beautiful photos that accomplish this goal. Its quick and effective - but, most of us take crappy photos.
We’re all aware of top-rated bloggers who write prose that works like poetry. Most of us write crappy prose.
Some of us have the ability to communicate in one of these mediums. Fewer can sustain that communication - but, thats where Meaningful Content becomes Worthwhile Reading.
Never is the crappy birthday photos, or garrish font styles less meaningful. Its just that some people have figured out how to communicate those moments clearer, and the web is a better place for it.
Ben Turner
I’m a little confused about Anil’s post. You see, every time there’s a big advance in web tools or software, all the designers and bloggers get a headrush. But when the adrenaline wears off, they get all jaded that it’s not how it used to be, whatever that means.
Seems to me that much of this community relies on the energy of software development for its inspiration, instead of relying on their internal vigor and creativity.
While it’s great that blogging has become so easy and prevalent, like Anil says it still has ridiculous room to improve — templates are still poor, markup and stylesheets are still inflexible for end-users, etc.
And even beyond that, the point to all this blogging is not blogging itself, but allowing us to combine our individual efforts and communicate our experiences. This of course relies on us to actually go out and do important things in the world.
All these bloggers are sitting on what by their own admission is a new tool that’s disrupting the old model of mass media and activism, and they’re not doing enough with it. Want something interesting to write about? Start a movement. Travel to foreign countries. Do investigative journalism. That is where real blog content comes from, and that’s what forges useful and lasting connections between people. It’s not that blogs suck in this regard, it’s that people aren’t doing the leg work.
And with regards to sharing your life online, I think it only shows how much offline and online are converging. Back when some of us had web sites in 1995 or earlier, it was only like minds who had the same common goal — improving the internet’s basic tools — who were online. Nowadays, everyone’s online and annoying things like social conventions and business etiquette are enforced.
It took me about eleven years of writing on my web site before it got me in trouble. The honesty I put into my journal that I wrote while deployed to Iraq at the end of last year managed to get me in hot water with the Army, my ex-girlfriend (who now no longer talks to me), my parents, and my current girlfriend.
Now there’s freaking regulations and rules about blogging. Now people you know only offline will find your stuff online. It’s kind of annoying but inevitable.
I have compensated by making most of my content available only to those who fill out a questionnaire about themselves. That way, I know who my readers are and I have a closer, more direct relationship with them. It may turn off guests and visitors, but it’s much better, and safer, for me.
the left
Sometimes it’s (blogging) all taken much too seriously. And people who blog take themselves too seriously. Following my dogs around, watching them, is much more interesting than anything I’ve come across in a blog.
AbC
This is profound. I am rolling on the floor laughing.
I think you write so many words because you can. That’s pretty cool. But it can also tire you out sometimes.
Why can’t you simply say:
Once upon a time I had fun doing this because I used to write about things that really mattered to me and really floated my boat. I loved that stuff … and the new medium that let me have so much fun. And be heard.
But then I got carried away … they even put a page on me on Wikipedia. I developed a mild rash of grandeur. I think I spread myself too thin with blogs called PopLife. I don’t know why I felt obligated to be a social commentator. I don’t know why I burdened myself as though the Mayor had given me a key to the city.
Anyway, now I am bored because I only have so much energy to expend. And I have better ways to do that than address a bunch of strangers who may or may not connect.
I get a sneaky feeling even strangers will connect with me if I were to passionately and lovingly still talk about stuff that really matters to me. I think a lot of bloggers who are still upfront and honest are still having fun. Their ramblings may seem arbitrary, disconnected and vague, but then who doesn’t love winds of change.
I have never been a phoney. I think a lot of guys respect me. But I got carried away. And I need to listen to Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Glory Days’ now. So some silence will be good.
Later.
TC Byrd
Ah, but imagine if your dog could blog.
heif
thanks. “people who can identify something so profound that it seems obvious in retrospect” —-> Anil
vanderwal
Great observations. I have been digging Vox for many of the reasons you cite. Vox is what I had wished many other tools had been or would be. There is a connections with those that have become close to us over the past few years and these connections are sometimes as close as those who are physically near us. The ability to have a tool that embraces this understanding and allows for simple interface with easy interaction with the tool and between people is very welcome.
Thanks for the post and Vox.
~C4Chaos
Anil,
thank you for articulating this. keyword here is “meaning.” you’ve expressed that beautifully. meaning + purpose are also the essential ingredients why we are building this new social networking site called Zaadz (it’s Dutch for seed).
it’s no wonder why Vox Rox!, because people there like you still understand the value of interiors.
~C (for Collaborating in meaningful ways)
charlie
anil,
guy kawasaki is my standard bearer for the ‘make meaning’ mantra. i, too, am gripped by it, using it to evaluate what i do. ugh. it can really put me in a loop.
as for your jadedness, it’s because you are on a path, not stopping on a plateau. you’re reaching for ‘connecting, communicating, creating, and sharing the things that matter’.
i feel it in me, too. i once thought it was from being burnt out just trying to spread the vision. but, i look back and see that i, too, have been trying to find that next tool that will help me with the 3c’s and sharing.
i have sarted dabbling with vox, mostly because i know some of the thinking you guys had (mostly technical though). when i use it, i am looking for that pixie dust, that extra that would make vox special.
funny, i see so many features that you folks there were enjoying with livejournal or typepad or moveable type. i am glad to see them converging in one place.
but, my challenge to you is not to make better lj/tp/mt, but to get on that next cycle of ‘connecting, communicating, creating’. by 2007, with vox, you need to be as mindblastingly different from lj/tp/mt and myspace and what not from 2004, as all of these were from geocities and tripod and stuff from 1994.
i already see things that are the next wave of the net, the next wave that will make last year and before seem like baby steps. will vox be one of them? so far, i am not sure.
i’m not even going to go into the tech of it, as you can guess what’s on my mind, but if vox turns out to be myspace in kakhis, it’ll be populated by the same folks who always populate new web services and you will have missed the opportunity to bring in the rest of the world (like mena’s demo goddess mom).
so go make meaning. make sure vox isn’t like the rest. make sure that you stick to you vision of helping folks with the 3c’s. make sure vox not only leads but defines whole new categories on how we connect, communicate, and create online.
go.
tchau,
charlie
Anonymous
I appreciate your idealism. I applaud it, and I’ll keep reading your opinions. I’ll certainly keep blogging because it keeps me in the written word, but whether it’s in my genes or because my mother rarely spoke to me as a youngster, I still need to be in the same room with a person to truly connect. As much as I love VOX, I still feel a little cheated by the virtual world. See y’all at the next party.
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