Find change – and not just beneath the sofa cushions

Creativity happens on a lot of fronts and, these days, all of them are important. With another Election Day facing us in the U.S., all registered voters here have the opportunity and duty to make sure that needed change takes place in our different levels of government, local communities and larger society.

Everyone who is eligible should vote – it’s one of Americans’ most effective ways of helping new ideas and policies take shape.  Today in Seth Rosenberg’s blog, “Inexact Possibilities,”  you can find out about key races around the nation and the new directions to which they may lead. 

But infinite other paths to innovation exist, as well, and you can explore some of those right here. Read  Matt Charboneau’s blog, “Arts-Entrepreneur Resources,” to find out how social networking offers the fresh, creative means for artists to publicize and promote their work, and Will Limkemann’s “The Constant  Entrepreneur” to learn useful and imaginative tips on managing small business of all kinds.

Take a look at how scientists’, artists’ and your own personal work or business products can be affected by evolving fair-use law, which Peter Friedman examines in “Ruling Imagination“  with perspective on the lawsuit brought against the ’80s Australian rock group Men at Work for allegedly using the music from “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree” for their hit song  ”Down Under.” 

And keep an eye out for fresh posts from Terrence Spivey on the just-concluded National Theatre Conference in “Theater of Change“; Charlie Eby on a just-released electronic game in “Media Man“; and Len Steinbach on the latest connections between art and technology in “Culture-Tech Verite.”

You can change the world – it’s happening right now.

Creepy technology uses your own feet against you

 The invasion of privacy made possible by technology went beyond disturbing years ago, when hidden security cameras began to be trained on public streets and unwitting citizens, and tracking devices in cell phones and automobiles suddenly prevented all of us from going anywhere without the eye of authority following us.

Meanwhile, social networking started seeming pathologically obsessive - and pathetically trivial – with Twitter.

Now these two oddly reciprocal aspects of the human pack mentality – the unsavory avidity to know everything about everyone and the equally distasteful impulse to tell others far more than they should want to know about us –  have been connected through an electronic innovation that should make all of queasy right down to our soles.

Meet the “social networking shoe.”  

The newest product from Daniel Isaac Group, a company whose Global Positioning System (GPS) sneakers debuted in 2007, has just revealed a new kind of GPS shoe called Blue GPS that has Bluetooth capability and will allow family and friends – and who knows who else? – to track the wearer via cell phone.

As the press release explained,  ”The wearer simply inputs up to five phone numbers of family/friends into his cell phone (eventually this capability will be able to be expanded to up to 20 people) and pushes a button on the shoe to activate a link with those on his list. The Blue GPS can be enabled with all cellular phones.”

So at $150 a pair, you can own shoes that tell everyone that you’re at work, at the grocery, en route home. Or maybe at the apartment of another woman, in the bathroom, in a crack house, or crossing the Canadian border.   

In his statement for the release, company chairman Isaac Daniel jovially describes the shoes as “a fun product to have. People will be able to see where their friends are — and have a better idea of estimated arrival time — without having to call them. And, because the wearer doesn’t have to be talking on the phone while driving, it will definitely improve safety.”

So, apparently, will a button on the shoes that can be pressed for an E911 call, sending a signal to  IDG’s monitoring division, ID Conex™. Monitors then try to contact the wearer and if he or she does not respond, the proper authorities are alerted.

GPS shoes might have some real value if parents could get their children under 21 to keep them on. Or if children over 21 could get their senile, wandering parents to keep them on. Or if people being kidnapped could keep their abductors from noticing that they have them on.  

But for social networking? Who would truly be delighted to have up to 20 family members or friends knowing exactly where he or she was all the time? And even if you didn’t mind having them alerted to the fact that you were at the gun shop or at a bar or at Krispy Kreme – again -wouldn’t it be a hideous mistake to get them used to knowing exactly where you are? What happens when you don’t wear them?  Will you come home from a movie to find the cops breaking down your closet door?

What if you tried to wear them on an airplane? (”Please shut off all cellphones, laptops and footwear at this time.”) With security the way it is now, you’d probably find yourself flying to San Francisco in your socks, while your mother frantically phones the airport authorities to find out why you’ve apparently been squatting under a scanner for five hours.

But the most alarming part of having your own shoes reporting on you is the step our whole society would be taking in them: even farther away from our vital right to be individually anonymous, independent and free. Sometimes – and for no wicked reason – it’s a great relief  to have no one know where you are. To be quit of responsibilities, troubles and the means of being reminded of them, even for a just a few minutes.  

To sit under a tree or wander a street without being watched – surveilled – is becoming impossible. To do either without phoning, e-mailing texting, tweeting, posting or otherwise imparting some lame thought or unnecessary information to our networks of acquaintances has already become unlikely. 

Around the world, their shoes have been all that most people can rely on to take them away from misery and the past and toward a new life. Blue GPS shoes may have a few valuable applications. But it’s a scary kind of creative genius that would co-opt our first and last means of escape.

Isaac Daniel, chairman of Isaac Daniel Group, and his company’s new Blue GPS shoes

Good social networking = your past + your future

I’m beginning to think that the best part of outreach tools such as Facebook and LinkedIn is not their potential for helping you develop relationships with new people, but the nearly miraculous ability they give you to find the old ones.

Over the last few months, I’ve been friended by all kinds of people I haven’t seen, talked to or heard anything about in nearly 30 years. I’ve found out what they do now and who they married; we’ve apologized for old hurts and/or reaffirmed our affection, traded ideas and hard-earned wisdom.

College friends, long-ago office pals – whatever our original connections were, these people feel like the best possible contacts I could have, because we share history and caring that came about through spending time face to face and experiencing life together.

That kind of bond really can’t be created virtually with strangers, no matter how many people we know in common. Yes, it will probably be handy for me to collect a large number of online nominal acquaintances  who could serve as information resources and be part of a broader market for what I sell. But frankly, I’d rather seek advice from people I actually know and trust.

What matters most to me about rediscovering old friends has to do with business only indirectly, anyway. I’ve found that it’s satisfying and somehow reassuring to reconnect with them now that I know a lot more about the world and people than I did at 20, 25 or 30 – time has somehow allowed us to understand each other better, to see why we were as we were then, to forgive or appreciate or sympathize more deeply than we could have earlier.

When we message each other from hundreds of miles away, we don’t just add another business card to the Rolodex. We join hands. 

I feel safer and more confident, richer, with them back in my life. If that helps my business, it will be because it helps me.