Merlin Mann - Bold Ideas & Insane Possibilities - WebVisions 2010 Keynote

HELLO.

Merlin’s Original Talk

Keynote Session Bold Ideas and Insane Possibilities

Time: Fri May 21, 4:15 pm – 5:15 pm Speaker: Merlin Mann

What did we do before APIs, jQuery, XML, application frameworks, and open source blogging tools? Well. The truth is we did quite a lot.

But, even as our wrenches and pipes have matured and even transformed, it's more worthwhile than ever to ask ourselves what we're producing with all of that massive horsepower.

Has our creative output kept up with our technological innovation? Are we driving a legitimate revolution in how the world sees, thinks, collaborates, and builds together? Or are we mostly iterating a more sophisticated method for telling millions of people about our sandwich?

Who knows. Maybe it's a little of both.

The answer, of course is as complicated as the people who build, use, and benefit from these tools, but complexity beyond his depth has certainly never stopped Merlin Mann from having a lot of opinions.

In 1994, Merlin edited a text file, pulled it up in the command-line Lynx browser, and his life hasn't been the same since. This year, he brings his passion for unique creative voices to WebVisions.

Through one of his typically hand-wavey rambles, he'll help celebrate the anniversary of WebVisions by holding up some metaphorical before and after photos, designed to illuminate the best and worst of a world in which the possibilities for creative and technical expression seem without limit. And also in which sandwich communication technologies have grown to a level of maturity no one could have predicted in 1994.

At the heart of it, Merlin will challenge the audience (as well as THEIR audiences and himself) to raise the bar for both performance and expectation -- encouraging us to make more with what we have, and to make better of whatever it is we do.

And, if you ask nicely, he might even show you his Lynx browser.

Meaning...

YOU ME

Doing itwrong.

Knowseverything.

Or...

Get off my lawn.

Sorry.

Same thing.But, different.

1. Stuff2. People

Connections

10 Years

15 Years

merlin@freenet.scri.fsu.edu

WARNING:Douchebag Logo Dump

Ahead

Logo Dump: 1995

Logo Dump: 2000

Logo Dump: 2010

Also. Yeah.

1. To Build2. To Publish3. To Connect

Soooo much easier…

1. Wrenches2. Pipes3. Wires

Or...

BUT.

RippedFrom the Headlines

Nov. 2007

Result: Connections Breaking Connections

“Some people would consider this ‘conversational marketing’. It’s not. If Mrs. Kravitz is peeking at me from across the streets through the blinds and then running to her neighbor to give her an update that doesn’t mean Mrs. Kravits and I are having a conversation. It means she’s eavesdropping on my business.”

—weblog.muledesign.com

2009

Result: Connections Breaking Connections

ACCOUNTS

DELETED

Apr. 2010

Result: Connections Breaking Connections

“I don’t see any way to teach my service to exclude events that people marked as Closed because they thought it meant Secret. So I guess elmcity’s Facebook feature is going to have to wait until those lessons are learned.”

—blog.jonudell.net

PRIVACY

PRIVACY?• Security• Integrity• Trust• Discretion• Familiarity

Intimacy.

Too wussy?

Intimacy combines...

• Security• Integrity• Trust• Discretion• Familiarity• ...with a whisper

What’s so hard?

• Getting Granular• Making it “User-proof ”• Finding a model

Granular

Tight as you can.

Guess who?

User-Proof

No “Ooops”-ies.

Money? Um.No model (yet) for:

1. Scarcity2. Closed doors.

1. Stuff2. People

ConnectionsAT RISK