Tattletech Hot Seat with Ward Geene, GenY New Media & Gaming Savant

Thanks to a last minute Saturday night Tweetup at De Kale here in Amsterdam, I had the good fortune of meeting Ward Geene. Lots of Generation Y’ers out there, but Ward channels a mindset outside of his demographic. We believe he is one to watch for his views on people’s relationships to the current media environment and his ability to articulate a vision about the world we live in and our own personal relationship with it.

Tattletech: Masters student in New Media & Digital Culture, champion air guitarist, gaming journalist – sounds like a 21st century renaissance man but some would say that is quite an eclectic mix of projects to undertake that are seemingly unrelated. What do you think all those things have in common?

Ward Geene: It’s the power to let go. While playing air guitar it’s all about embodying disembodied sound and creating an illusion with nothing except your own body. You have no place to hide on stage, you just have to show yourself and let go, feel the music flow through your veins. Even though I live quite rationally, I learned to trust my intuition and follow my heart and dreams. I always got the chance to figure out my own path in life without someone telling me what to do or what to become.

This has brought me to all different kinds of places. Some of those are my study, air guitar and game journalism, others are yet to be found. On this path of life I hope to choose my friendships wisely and sometimes there are people that take me along with them like Monique de Haas from Dondersteen Media. She gives me the opportunity to learn and travel faster, but is also willing to listen to my suggestions so that I have a say in which direction we are to go. In the conservative media world and financial crisis we live in today it’s hard to find people that give you a chance especially when you are young. So how I end up in all these places  and different ways of life? It’s about meeting interesting people, letting go of your own conventions and join the story of their lives for a while. Only when you let go, you are able the see the beauty and value in everything around you.

TT: When we met you told me that gaming is all about the “now” and not the past or the present, can you elaborate on that?

WG: Believing in the now of games started almost a year ago when I challenged the Ludic identity theory of my video games professor Joost Reassens and his colleague Jos de Mul on a logic basis. His course was about implementing his theory about a ludic identity that was being positioned opposite to the narrative identity of Paul Ricoeur. I refused, because their logic did not stand. Narrative identity is about defining who you are by telling stories about what you did. It’s focused on the past. Ludic identity must be focused  on de future then, De Mul suggested, because it focuses on the future possibilities. The focus is on what you try to achieve.

I said no to that theory. Playing games or being an actor in a theatrical play is about the now. Because the situation is always different, especially when you believe in the Rhizome theory of Deleuze and Guattari’s. Because of the experience you gain while playing the game it can only exist in the now. There is no game when you don’t decide to play and put your controller down. There is no theatre when the actors decide not to play their part. It’s not about the script or about what can originate from it. It’s all about what happens WHEN the decision is made to let something originate. Games present themselves to you.

TT: You have to make thesis for your Masters and you are making one around secrets called I like my Secrets – your theory was that today it’s all about openness, no walled gardens, but you have a different view on this. Tell us.

WG: When I just joined Dondersteen Media and was still working as an intern (now I am fortunate enough to be employed) I got the opportunity to hear another great media visionary Gerd Leonhard talk about not being a walled garden as a media company. Companies should gain the trust of their consumers. Reach out towards them. Open themselves up to the public and become love brands.

At Dondersteen Media, where i work now, has also recently worked on a project to open up the walled garden principle at the Dutch Public Broadcasters. Instead of putting all the audio and video material in a closed container, a strategy was designed for creating tools, so that the public was able to grab, post, share and leave comments on the material of the Pubcasters, anywhere they wanted to post this material. The goal was to generate (postponed) shared viewing experiences on all different environments people themselves choose to share material.

But the whole openness debate started me wondering about the meaning of trust? Telling someone to trust me or reaching out is meaningless when you are being either completely open or closed. For example, say we could all communicate like angels and knew everything about each other everywhere every time. You would think there would be no more confusion. But what about my secrets? When everything and everyone opens up there is no place to hide, not even a magical world we could create. Everything would be defined and we would never be able to suggest and spark someone’s imagination. So it’s not about being open so much. It’s about being able to choose who you share your secrets with and being able to regulate the information you posses. This enables you to keep close friends and letting people feel special. Being ‘open’ and sharing without relevance has been given a name long ago: spam. I don’t want to be in a walled garden and make it impossible to make friends and neither do I want to be completely open and make it impossible to built trust among friends. That’s why I like my secrets.

TT: On Dondersteen Media there is talk about computational AI. Do you see the kind of ultra modern world popularized by science fiction, or do you see a more sober wise human stewardship of AI which leads to happier, more productive lives for all of us.

WG: Like my mentor Monique de Haas, I believe that relevance is key. AI or ubiquitous computing should add value to our lives. But there is more to it than meets the eye. The idea of ubiquitous computing and the idea of designing technologies that are integrated seamlessly into our daily lives deprives us from choosing what we want. What happens when everything is seamlessly integrated in your daily activities? You will only mention when the system fails to meet the expectations. Want you want already happens. Instead of the choice we make to turn something on, we will only be busy with turning things off. Instead of choosing what we want, we only choose what we DON’T want. People are already ‘de-googling’ themselves. Web 2.0 turn all options to make sharing as optimal as possible. We are already turning off more and more in our lives. So it’s not that I think the future will be AI controlled, but it’s up to media designers to recognize this development. That’s why Dondersteen focuses on User Centered (UX) design. To make media relevant and to let people choose what they want instead of constantly correcting ubiquitous systems.

TT: Why do people’s media experiences need to be shaped? Have we become so immersed in the online world that we need to be spoon fed?

WG: As we see it, it is not the media that need to shape people! It is people shaping media through their stories and experiences. The driving force to connect, get involved and move through media-environments lies in the power of the stories themselves and how they are able to touch upon our lives. We don’t think it relevant to try and feed a person with something that has no (added) value to them. At the same time, to accomplish cohesion in any multi-facetted media environment their needs to be some form of agreed upon rules of that media-environment and what you can do within.

Of course the more people are able to shape that environment to their own needs the better. But people also love to have a little guidance, it takes a lot of time and effort to continuously reshape every aspect of a media-environment you get into, often misbalancing with the pleasure you get from being there and actually doing the things you really want to do. Taking out too much of the hassle and being able to shape the experience to your needs: that actually IS the art of people shaping media experiences.

TT: So, we were talking about nuts when we met, on a serious note, which nut is the king of all nuts?

WG: That must be the coconut. The first reason is the fact that the coconut is the one nut girls can use to make a bikini top. Secondly I can drink my beverages from it. And last but not least you can make awesome horse riding sounds with them like Monthy Python did in The Holy Grail. Yep, it’s definitely the coconut.

– JLH

Tags: Artificial intelligence, Dondersteen Media, Paul Ricœur, Ward Geene

The Alchemy of making a business better, bGrand

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From the department, “get with the program”

I do a lot of talking. Flying on planes, walking the dog, just sitting at a cafe, somehow the topic always comes up – what do you do? I explain, folks sit a bit dumbfounded — yes, its global, no, we don’t have an office and yes our clients aren’t from the US. I get that part. Then it goes to level 2 – what type of technology – some get it when we say IPTV or telecommunications, but most lose it when we get to emerging technology – most regular people actually don’t use all the emerging tech that is out there, they aren’t early adopters – they just are still using their mobile phones for uh, a phone call. So when I read a story like this, in the NYT this weekend, I always smile, because I know that this is another example of where technology is taking us. And by us, I don’t mean the teen and 20 something’s that are already living this life, I mean the old folks and you know who you are. My mom who has an iPhone but only uses it for calls, my dad who wants to know if his personal information will be stolen on Facebook and the gal who sat next to me on my last return trip from Germany wondering why kids want to talk via their computer. This story is for you.

Ah-ha! A real superhero

And all she had was a hammer! This has to be the best story ever! Thank you Neely for writing it and thank you Mona for doing what all of us really want to do! Customer service does indeed “suck” and Comcast needs to wake up!

And what does the spokesperson for Comcast say – a one Ms. Beth Bacha? That Comcast has more than 25 million customers, the overwhelming majority of which are very satistified with their service. Ha ha ha! I think that Beth should get a visit from Kiefer Sutherland and let him get the truth out of her.

For all of you with an ache for revenge (without your hammer) go to Comcastmustdie.com.

We are so lucky

Ink is so lucky – we must have played our cards right or maybe it was all those late nights at Red Herring Venture events in Eruope, but we have successfully hired the very great and highly talented Mary Lisbeth d’Amico.

If you don’t already know her, then you might be living in Wyoming (don’t get mad Wyoming) – MaryBeth is a former Red Herring journalist with more than 20 years of experience covering technology, IT and venture capital. The roster of publications to which she has contributed will make your short of breath. They include the Wall Street Journal Europe, Business Week, Red Herring, Real Deals, Communication Director, Science Business and Total Telecom. Prior to Red Herring, she was a senior editor at Tornado Insider and technology correspondent for IDG News Service. She is based in Munich, Germany and will be responsible for strategy, message development and execution for our precious clients.

Not only that – but MaryBeth is a musician and you can hear her music and see where she is playing ( all over Europe in October!)here.

Citizen journalism

I love this news story about a new iTV website that encourages ‘citizen journalism”.

So many people (other than journalists) are close to events that occur in the world – why do we need to wait for an elite group to report the news to us? (Debates on both sides)

What we do know is that this is another change in the way people get news and how those in the business of making sure your clients news gets to the world must consider. It opens up a whole new approach to public relations – in fact, we probably should change that term completely -to what I don’t know – but the traditional ways of reaching influencers have been changing rapidly over the last decade and now more than ever, companies, clients and agencies alike must re-think how they communicate. It could be that Annie McWriter on iTV really could influence your bottom line.