recent talks
so the public speaking I’ve done recently has been - or at least has felt - very different from my earlier work. The presentations include the Gilberto Gill panel, the interview with Jon Udell, speaking to my friend Gerardo’s corporate social responsability class at HEC and last night’s University of the Streets discussion.
I’ve given a variety of talks over the last 4 years. Besides the usual ISF dog and pony show I’ve had various versions of an information infrastructure talk, a municipal involvement in ICT talk, a community / geek innovation talk and probably a couple of others.
None of my recent speaking has felt easy or comfortable and the reception has been very different from my earlier presentations. I’ve felt frustrated feeling like I wasn’t communicating properly what has been in my mind, that I was very distant from my audience (which in two of the presentations has been a very non-tech audience). I normally get good receptions from my talks, people from the audience are excited to come talk to me, encouraged, energized. In the last while I’ve just felt awkward at the end. Unsure of what just happened.
I am hesitant to interpret my frustration or awkward feelings as signs that the presentations aren’t good or that I’m not on the right track. I don’t think that the best talk is a rally or a clear exhortation, and I don’t think that the best sign of a good presentation is that you immediately fall for the person presenting.
I’m reading José Saramago right now. It’s hard to read. And wonderful. I wish that I knew that my presentations were worthwhile, even if they are getting harder (let’s forget that I’m using a nobel prize winner as a point of comparison).
[more here about the language and settings of these places adding difficulty to what I’m trying to get to - as well, of course, this place].
I guess the clearest example I can point to that I’m happy with of my change in thought has been taking a request from U of teh Streets to speak about the the great and powerful/vulnerable/unstoppable/* online commons and how we need to feed + protect it and turn it back towards:
“With the world wide web, we now have access to the world’s biggest library: more facts, opinions, history, critique anyone could ever want, but no one could ever thoroughly explore. Almost any question can get a variety of answers. Yet what are the questions that cannot be answered solely by facts, that cannot be explored through technology? And what use is knowledge if it doesn’t helping us come up with better solutions? How do we learn to ask the questions that will create the answers that will help us create the world we want? And what does all of this have to do with protecting, enhancing and preserving the commons?”
anyways - I’m going to keep going and see what I/we get to. I don’t think anyone really needs me to help out as a cheerleader for the online commons. It’s got enough brilliant people (and bucks) pushing away.
March 19th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
hi mike i’ve missed your recent public events, the the question I *think* you are wrestling with is hugely important: that is: is what we hacktivists thought we were fighting for really happening the way we expected it to? are we really improving lives?
that’s a pretty complex question to ask, let alone answer. the tech crowd will react, probably with hostility (”are you saying everything i believe in is wrong?”), and the non-tech crowd, who have not even experienced the technology in the first place, will have trouble groking the first premise (that technology will create more democracy and make everyone more connected and enriched), let alone getting to where I think you are, asking: “is technology really making things better or worse.”
i mean, how do you convince a bunch of people that twitter is bad when they don;’t even know what twitter is?
anyway, our dinner with Jon - and what you said that night - had a big impact on me. In fact it has been one aspect of a kind of paralysis I’ve suffered recently, asking whether truly any of this “work” (whatever it be) is really going to make things better for people, whatever that means.
Anyway, the point is that the ideas are complex, subtle, and far ahead of the curve of most people’s understanding of the world (even/especially early-adopter crowds). so, no wonder you’re having trouble articulating it; no wonder people are having trouble groking it.
that just means, maybe, that you are wrestling with something no so easy to wrestle with, which, frustration aside, is probably a good thing.
March 19th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
hey Hugh. thanks for writing. I like hearing that it had an impact on you. I would add participating that night at dinner with you as part of the public dialogue I’ve been engaged in - so 1) you haven’t missed all of it recently, and 2) if you think it’s been worthwhile it answers my question about my awkward wrestling having any worth, which I greatly appreciate knowing.
too bad about paralysis though. I’m partially there too and it’s a bitch. you should really have checked out the Darin Barney talk. It kind of gave me a small way through the gordian knot.