MLA 2008: It's All About the Network

Mark Funk's MLA 2008 presidential address and the McGovern Lecture by Andrew Zolli, (Founder of Z+ Partners Inc.; a think tank) dovetailed with one another nicely.

Mark broke away from the 'we’ve always done it that way” approach to presidential addresses and discussed how social networking should be used by MLA to rethink how we do association business. Activities such as committees, the CE clearinghouse, our traditional print publications, and the annual meeting itself can leverage emerging technologies and social networking.

The most important point he made is that it is not about the technology, but is all about the connections between people.

The title of my blog is a classic quote from Marshall McLuhan's classic work, Understanding Media. He is known for his visionary interpretation of the effects of technological communication on society. For those who are unfamiliar with him, it was McLuhan coined the phrase "global village." in addition to the "medium is the message." In this now 44-year-old text, McLuhan asserted it it is not the media or a technology in of itself that is important, the the impact that it has on society.

"the personal and social consequences of any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves - result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology....it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action.

To the point that Mark made, and reinforced Zolli, it is not what Web 2.o can do for our association, it's members, and our customers. What it IS about is the impact that Web 2.0 and social networking technologies have on how we connect and relate to one another. It is not about how we should use Web 2.0 technologies, but rather the impact these technologies have on the way our association conducts business, communicates, and presents it's scholarly communications. Sphere: Related Content

The Internet as an Extension of Man

I had planned on another post NISO Discovery conference post, but came across this draft stub from a couple months ago....

Every few months I pick up my first edition copy of Marshall McLuhan's classic work, Understanding Media, and select a random section to read. The name of this blog, after all, is a McLuhanism. He is known for his visionary interpretation of the effects of technological communication on society. For those who are unfamiliar with him, it was McLuhan who coined the phrase "global village."

I continue to be amazed how this now 44-year-old book reads as if it were just released today. It was written when TV was still in its relative infancy and the first personal computer was almost twenty years into the future. I am sure if it were released today it would receive the same attention as the Tipping Point and Ambient Findability.

The subtitle of this work is "The Extensions of Man." The term extension refers to how an individual or society creates or makes use something that extends the human body or mind in an innovative way.

McLuhan also cautioned that every technological extension also results in the amputation or modification some other extension. For example, the loss of Morse Code skills with the development of voice-based radio. Online social networks and SecondLife extend our sense of community. However, they also diminish relationships based on "face-to-face" oral communication. (Are two avatars talking to one another face-to-face?) How many times have you come across people in the same room or house instant messaging /texting each other?

McLuhan developed a scientific basis for this thought, what he termed the "tetrad." The tetrad allowed McLuhan to apply four laws, framed as questions, to a wide spectrum of mankind's endeavors, and thereby give us a new tool for looking at our culture. As a 'new' medium, these tetrads also apply to the Internet, a technology that was just being conceived at the time.

The first of these questions, or laws, is "What does it (the medium or technology) extend?" In the case of the car it would be the feet. In the case of blogging it would be paper; an extension of the voice.

The second question is "What does it make obsolete?" One might argue that the automobile makes walking obsolete. The growth of email is making the personal letter sent though the postal service obsolete.

The third question asks, "What is retrieved?" The automobile could retrieve one's sense of adventure lost after the US westward expansion. The sense of community returned with the spread of online social networks.

The fourth question McLuhan asks is, "What does the technology reverse into if it is over-extended?" For example, an over-extended automobile culture mkes some long for a more pedestrian lifestyle. Similarly, the over-extension of Internet culture engenders a need for being unplugged from the network. Sphere: Related Content