My name is Conrad Lisco, and this is my blog, where I post odds and ends, things and thoughts.
I work at R/GA in the Mobile & Emerging Platforms group. I'm most interested in the intersection of technology and culture. Addicted to location-based services. Live in Chinatown and love sneakers and street art.
Opinions are my own.
This jet, from South African airline Kulula, says that inforgraphics are here. Really here. They're not just for the digirati. More and more, the masses are beginning to appreciate data and information in a new way.
Steve Rubel wrote about Apple’s supposed iTablet, and wonders why people are so excited. He makes some great points about needs and the psychology surrounding a meme. Rubel states, “Perhaps part of the reason there has been so much debate is that the economy has slowed the pace of industry innovation and so what's in front of us can't meet the expectations of a select, yet influential few - the early adopters.” He goes on to say, “All of this is a fascinating study in the psychology of our times and how conversation drives the news and the hype cycle, potentially setting up everyone to fail given the outlandish expectations. Perhaps only divine intervention will give us what we want, even if we may not need it.”
I agree with Rubel that the hype machine, when fully charged, can create a market for a product we may not need. We find ourselves getting sucked into the vortex of TechCrunch reviews and spy photos, only to retweet them at lightening pace, fueling the hype machine even more. All of this, as Rubel puts it, makes us salivate over the new shiny object. You can liken it to a Pavlovian response, where the press and public are the bell... 
We’ve generally accepted the same doctrines and philosophies around needs for decades. Folks like Pavlov and Maslow continue get quoted in marketing and advertising books, presentations and pitches. You might recall Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs - a theory in psychology in which Maslow attempted to formulate a needs-based framework of human motivation and based upon his clinical experiences with people. The basis of Maslow's motivation theory is that human beings are motivated by unsatisfied needs, and that certain lower factors need to be satisfied before higher needs can be satisfied.
“Human needs arrange themselves in hierarchies of pre-potency. That is to say, the appearance of one need usually rests on the prior satisfaction of another, more pre-potent need. Man is a perpetually wanting animal. Also no need or drive can be treated as if it were isolated or discrete; every drive is related to the state of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of other drives.”
Well I have a new suggestion, or at least an addition. When Maslow published his Theory of Human Motivation in 1942, times were vastly different. Today, technology fulfills many of the the needs in Maslow’s hierarchy. Below is my “new” hierarchy of needs.
My iPhone, for example, helps me solve problems (Self-actualization), in some circles gets me respect by others (Esteem), helps me connect with friends and family (Love/Belonging), helps me locate food, water and places to excrete - public toilet finding apps - (Physiological).
I realize that this isn’t scientific, nor is it proven. It’s simply meant to illustrate the point that technology is playing a critical role in our lives and that we value it more and more without even realizing it. With each new innovation, we slowly (and quickly) become more dependent and reliant upon technology to get us through the day. It gives Apple’s slogan “There’s an app for that” profound meaning.
Maslow said that motivation theory is not synonymous with behavior theory - that motivations are only one set of factors that determine behavior. His final point in the study is that while behavior is almost always motivated, it is also almost always biologically, culturally and situationally determined as well.
Nothing could be truer today – January 3, 2010 – where human behavior is rapidly changing to suit technology, not the other way around. This is the technological situation we live in today.
So to answer @BBHLab's question, "Do we actually need an Apple tablet? What need will it satisfy?" - the answer is yes, all of them.
Last Friday, I spoke at the University of Texas in Austin to a group of graduate students. The topic? New media, of course. As expected, there were some skeptics. They questioned the role of social media and whether it is just another passing fad. However, the majority of them were very excited about the promise of social media and it’s implications not only on the marketing mix but also on human behavior. There were a lot of great questions, and some that got me thinking too. The one questions that really struck a chord with me was about information – and lot’s of it. His concern was “information overload,” as he put it, “what do it do with it all? How do I manage it?” Then, this morning, this tweet from @bastholm:
It appears this student isn’t the only one trying to figure out how to separate the signal from the noise. I explained that you don’t have to read or respond to everything, and that there are tools to help – Twitter Lists, TweetDeck, etc. I think Lars (@bastholm) and Clay Shirky (@cshirky) are right. There is most definitely a filtering failure. But I also think that newbies suffer from FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). They are so excited about their recent discovery (e.g. Twitter) that they want to dive in head first. This is where they get overwhelmed. They discover that there’s an infinite stream of links and things to see and do. And they want to see and do them. This is definitely overload, and overwhelming. 
Fail whale. Tattoo #fail.
This does show how the Internets are spilling into the "real world" and pervading every single part of culture, replacing rituals and the inspiration for damn near everything.
From the Ad Council, "Delete Cyberbullying" is a pretty jarring PSA. Cyberbullying is when someone repeatedly makes fun of another person online or repeatedly picks on another person through email or text message or when someone posts something online about another person that they don’t like.
In a 2008 Survey of 2,000 middle-school students from a large school district in the U.S., findings show that approximately 17.6% of middle-schoolers have experienced cyberbulling of some type.
I just downloaded Rock Band for iPhone. Regardless of whether or not you're a fan, the fact is, there is no longer any reason to be bored. Just download new apps. If you budgeted just $7 a month for apps, you'd be sitting pretty. That's one less Heineken on Friday night.
Sent from my iPhone
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a cautionary tale about how the discovery of knowledge can have huge repercussions, and its effects can be dangerous to humanity. Since its publication, technology has changed dramatically. Shelley couldn’t have envisioned what the world and technology would be like today – in the 21st Century. But despite that, the story and its underlying metaphor hold true today.
What is the modern-day Frankenstein? What are we tinkering with today that’s going to have consequences later?
Love this. And not just because he used my tweet...
Scary as it may be, all of these plots seem eerily plausible. They illustrate our fascination with (and fear of) technology.
Live Free or Die Hard
A group of technological terrorists systematically shut down the United States computer infrastructure causing mass hysteria and panic.
Eagle Eye
Two strangers are forced to take orders from a woman (who turns out to be artificial intelligence computer) using everyday technology to track and control their every move. The AI computer goes haywire and nearly executes the entire governing bodies of the United States.
Enemy of the State
Desperately trying to avoid capture, Will Smith’s character realizes that in the modern world, there is no such thing as total privacy when a dirty politician uses the vast resources of the NSA to track him down.
