Nomadic Generation C in the space of information flows

In our book - we write

The changing of customers habits and behaviours wrought by technology means the old ways just do not work anymore. The crisis of many businesses is the crisis of meaning. Leadership for brands and businesses will be through the creation and management of meaning. Brands have to co-create value and experience to deliver added value a value+ if you will. And why is that? Because our ideas of shopping, having relationships, being a parent, having a job, etc., are being modified from the old models of the past. A job is no longer for life, shopping can be done far more easily on ebay and Amazon, or a host of other internet sites.

And in the Age of Connectedness - people will have public and private and semi-private personas, which coexist in the network and are connected independently. The single most visible thing in the Connected Age, is that we suddenly have permanent access to our peers, our friends, our colleagues and family members. Our communities which previously only existed at given points in time now become ever present.

We are no longer alone As space and time have collapsed.

In an Economist article we get a snap shot from real life by what we meant by this

At the Nomad Café in Oakland, California, Tia Katrina Canlas, a law student at the nearby university in Berkeley, places her double Americano next to her mobile phone and iPod, opens her MacBook laptop computer and logs on to the café's wireless internet connection to study for her class on the legal treatment of sexual orientation. She is a regular here but doesn't usually bring cash, so her credit-card statement reads “Nomad, Nomad, Nomad, Nomad”. That says it all, she thinks. Permanently connected, she communicates by text, photo, video or voice throughout the day with her friends and family, and does her “work stuff” at the same time. She roams around town, but often alights at oases that cater to nomads.

Indeed - we can be Placeless but permanently connected what this also implies is that we have the context of a mobile social presence. A bit like how skype works in some ways. And for a more indepth look into the habits of Generation C read They ARE the Borg: Youth, Mobile and SMS text messaging

The owner of Nomad describes his regulars as techno-Bedouins That could me! I also have the added piece of equipment called a Honda Fireblade. I am an über Techno Nomad wiki reference on Nomad

In fact this article reminds of a guy called Leo Plaw who I have never met, who completely overhauled my company SMLXL weblog recently. Leo is Australian, lives in London, has a German girlfriend in Berlin. So the other day, I skyped Leo as he is always "present" - I got an IM back saying

I cant talk, as I am in a café in Berlin and I left my headset at home.

I IM'ed back

Can't you borrow one?

And that is exactly what happened. So I am in Cambridge Leo is in Berlin designing my weblog in a café. Networks Economic, Cultural and Media are becoming the nervous system of society argues Manuel Castells - and I am inclined to agree. And of course we could not forget Howard Rheingold who describes these interlocking technologies as technologies of co-operation that amplify human talents for co-operation.

This suggests that our: society, media and communications is evolving from the straight road of an industrial era to the more complex and networked world that mimics nature. Our new media world isn't about content and distribution. It is about people, connections and social networks. And what happens when Petrabytes seem like flows of kilobytes?

This changes how we will work, how we will collaborate, what we make and who we make it with.

The changes wrought by the networked environment is structural. The above story is a case in point.

Urban nomads like their antecedents are defined not by what they carry but by what they leave behind, knowing that the environment will provide it. Modern nomads carry almost no paper because they access their documents on their laptop computers, mobile phones or online. Increasingly, they don't even bring laptops. Many engineers at Google, the leading internet company and a magnet for nomads, travel with only a BlackBerry, iPhone or other “smart phone”. If ever the need arises for a large keyboard and some earnest typing, they sit down in front of the nearest available computer anywhere in the world, open its web browser and access all their documents online.

Further

The nomadism now emerging is different from, and involves much more than, merely making journeys. A modern nomad is as likely to be a teenager in Oslo, Tokyo or suburban America as a jet-setting chief executive. He or she may never have left his or her city, stepped into an aeroplane or changed address. Indeed, how far he moves is completely irrelevant. Even if an urban nomad confines himself to a small perimeter, he nonetheless has a new and surprisingly different relationship to time, to place and to other people. “Permanent connectivity, not motion, is the critical thing,” says Manuel Castells

Indeed The language of our post-modern culture is one of flexibility - fluidity - portability - permeability - transparency - interactivity - immediacy - facilitation and engagement. These individuals are seeking new consumption choices that can redefine commerce. The new individuals want to make a difference, they want to be heard, and each wants to matter.

This also has a significant impact on our identities described as psychological-self determination. In a post-modern world where our identities are not constructed and defined by, tradition, geography, and economics. We can have many selves, as we undertake a quest for self identity.

This is described as Psychological self-determination the ability to exert control over the most important aspects of ones life, especially personal identity, which has become the source of meaning and purpose in a life no longer dictated by geography or tradition.

These new individuals shun traditional organisations in favour of unmediated relationship to the things they care about. The new individuals thus demand a high quality of direct participation and influence. They have skills to lead, confer and discuss, and they are not content to be good foot soldiers.

So In a post-modern world we can have many selves, as we undertake a quest for self identity. And this is very important because without an identity we become very noisy ghosts in the social machine of life.

Accelerating into the future

Devices, too, are on a steep trajectory. Just as Sony's Walkman once planted the notion that music can be mobile, the BlackBerry by Research In Motion (RIM), a Canadian firm, has since 1999 made e-mail on the go seem normal. And just as the personal-computer era entered the mainstream only in the 1980s with Apple's commercialisation of the “graphical user interface”, the mobile era arguably began only last summer when the same firm launched the iPhone, with its radically new and user-friendly touch interface. As a result, Google, for instance, has received 50 times more web-search requests from iPhones this year than from any other mobile handset.

Back in the distant days of 2005 we wrote about The Birth of the mobile information society As Timo Kopomaa wrote in The City in your pocket

THE FREEDOM PROVIDED by the mobile phone means that people are always available, even when moving, i.e. they are maximizing their contact potential. The more people have a mobile phone, the more complete this reachability becomes. The "need" behind the use of the mobile phones is not just a need for contacts but for autonomous life management, a need to expand the scope of this management both geographically and temporarily. The mobile phone is used to increase the potential in life and to decrease the feeling of possibly missing something.

Kopomaa extends his thinking

As an instrument for maintaining contacts, the mobile phone can be viewed as a 'place' adjacent to yet outside of home and work place, a 'third place' in the definition of Ray Oldenburg (1989). Oldenburg defined his concept on terms of physical spaces, applying it to coffee-houses, shops and other meeting places. Also the mobile phone is, in its own way, a meeting place, a popular place for spending time, simultaneously a non-place, a centre without physical or geographical boundaries. The mobile phone offers a space where you can withdraw when you feel like it. In addition to small-talk and managing everyday chores, the mobile phone also provides an arena for more serious and intimate discussions which one may not have at home in the presence of the spouse, for example.

The mobile phone has become an established part of urban culture and lifestyle. The use of mobile phone is connected to the fact that urban space is more and more becoming a 'common living-room'. The freedom and public anonymity of the downtown area streets and squares promote the use of the mobile phone, which also has a lower treshold of contacting than in other types of interaction. Mobile phones have brought added vitality to the public space and allow users to find new ways of attaching themselves to the hub of the city. The mobile phone, as a tool for managing affairs and maintaining the network of social relations, serves to futher condense the use of space.

This is the world of the 7th Mass Media and all that implies.

When the economy is shaken by a powerful set of new opportunities with the emergence of the next technological revolution, society is still strongly wedded to the old paradigm and its institutional framework. The world of computers, flexible production and the internet has a different logic and different requirements from those that facilitated the spread of the automobile, synthetic materials, mass production and the highway network. Suddenly in relation to the new technologies, the old habits and regulations become obstacles, the old services and infrastructures are found wanting, the old organisations and institutions inadequate. A new context must be created; a new 'common sense' must emerge and propogate.

Such massive economic transformations involve complex processes of social assimilation. That encompass radical changes in the patterns of production, organisation, management, communication, transportation, and consumption, leading ultimately to a different 'way of life'. Thus each surge requires massive amounts of effort, investment and learning, both individually and socially.

Comments

[Leo Plaw]

Hi Alan. Thanks for the plug. 8)

I remember the day quite clearly. I had only been in Berlin for a few hours and was waiting at the cafe / tee shop until my girlfriend came home from work.

Nomadic I suppose is correct, I had never described myself that way, I had described my work as, have laptop and internet, will have office and travel. My first laptop showed me the freedom I could have with my working situation, but it was not until I was introduced to Skype and its abilities to dial standard phone lines that my "office" truely became mobile. I never had to worry about expensive phone calls from my mobile while overseas, better still if the other person I need to contact is also on Skype, making the connection free, just as when we connected that day. It is a very flexible system, but not entirely perfect. I've found in some countries, they block Skype from dialing certain phone networks.

Between Skype, email and a mobile phone I've been able to work with many people remotely, and even build on going business relationships and friendships. One such case, similar to yourself, is Jon Beinart. Until April 2008, we had been in working together on his very popular website, http://beinart.org, for over two years, and had never met face to face.

The internet is an interesting paradigm, because it allows group collaboration from any location or time zone on the same project.

It's nice to change the view of your "office" desk.

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