Digital Temperance (Older Post - 2008 - recopied here)

Digital Temperance

My favorite places recently have been golf courses. I’ll explain by mentioning that I attended the 2007 U.S. Open held at Oakmont in June and was properly impressed with the whole event. The players were fascinating to watch as they succumbed to the masochistic test that is Oakmont. The event itself was run like a Swiss watch, the crowd and traffic logistics were virtually flawless. Even the weather gods were on our side with 4-5 “Chamber of Commerce” days that for those of us who live here know are, well, rare.

But here was my favorite part.

Not one ring, beep, buzz or any other downloadable cell phone silliness and digital noise for over 9 hours on both of the days I attended. Many golf courses have adopted this policy to combat the digitally hyper-dependent. There weren’t hordes of people “multi-tasking” (which for most people is code for doing many things on a mediocre level) with heads bowed, praying to the Blackberry/PDA/cell phone god that has secured such a powerful hold over the converted. Not that they didn’t try. I witnessed literally a dozen or so people who – despite umpteen warnings, instructions and outright threats NOT to bring said devices – plead with the beleaguered security folks that they were the exception to the rule. They HAD to be connected, because they had a pregnant wife, a patient, the office, an elderly parent or a sick dog. As I listened to the whining two thoughts ran through my head: 1. If you’re THAT important and necessary with someone like that in your life maybe the golf course isn’t the place for you to be and 2. You’re digitally out of whack.

Now, I’m not a Luddite. I believe that technology and the way it helps us connect is a good evolutionary thing. I’m in the connection business after all, my company, Mullen, connects brands to consumers. The best thing about the new technologies has been the consumer’s ability to wrestle control from the advertisers. They are deciding what they want to hear about and when they want to hear it. It’s an exciting and challenging time to be in the creative field for all aspects of communications.

But do I have to be connected 24/7? Do I have to wear the strange cyborg growth on my ear and speak overly loud to show folks I’m important? Will the field lap me technologically speaking if I don’t surf the web every 5 minutes? The answers are – in order – no, hell no and I don’t believe so.

Digital technology has unleashed all of this freedom to personalize our own spaces. Wendy Richmond, a designer, communicator and a contributor for Communication Arts magazine has written about the idea of “being alone in public spaces”. Through the advent of cell phones/ipods individuals have constructed fairly impregnable walls around them. Before it was books, newspapers, notebooks or the “thousand yard stare” to ward off unwanted conversations or advances. Mere child’s play compared to the arsenal at our disposal now.

So I can construct the walls, check e-mail, look at a picture or video on a two inch screen, make a phone call, surf the web or zone out to Tom Waits and with the iPhone now unleashed – another seminal techie moment brought to us via Apple (and yes, I got one – extremely cool) – I can do all of this on a single “converged device”. But in doing so all the time I believe I would erode my ability to listen, to observe, or as an anthropologist might say “practice the art of hanging out”.

I’m insistent with my group that we need to break away from the desktop and the interruptions of everyday office life in order to accomplish two vital functions that are required when pushing creativity forward. The first is uninterrupted thought. It takes approximately 12 minutes to get back to an in depth state of thought on a subject once you’ve been interrupted. Coherency becomes an issue. The old adage of “work being the worst place to get work done” particularly applies to the creative process. The second is I adhere to the concept of balance. If you’re constantly plugged in you won’t take as many breaths – a walk, a bike ride, engaged dialogue - I’m sure you have your own list. Unplugging and going off the grid – even for just a little while - simply restores this sense of balance to healthier levels both emotionally and physically.

In addressing the concern that if you’re not constantly plugged in you’ll, you know, miss something, I ultimately find solace in the fact that regardless of how we will connect we still need to tell good stories. Good ideas and good storytelling matter now more than ever if you hope to persuade. Being a good storyteller absolutely requires the two components I wrote about earlier – uninterrupted thought and balance.

Am I tilting at technological windmills? Possibly. But there are signs of hope. John Mackey, the maverick CEO of Whole Foods, has talked about how he sets aside two times a day to check e-mail – and that’s it. They’re doing pretty well. Other companies have experimented with e-free days, or have daylong bans on internal e-mails, which refreshes people on the art of dialogue. In Japan they’ve instituted cell-free zones in certain public places and commuter vehicles and they’re firmly enforced by social and legal codes. Back here in the states, I recently rode in the “quiet car” on a train from NYC to Philadelphia and still was forced to be involved in 4-5 phone conversations. I’m hopeful we Americans will begin to adopt a digital social code that is more balanced and polite.

But until then it’s why Oakmont was so refreshing. The focus of the fans was enlightening to witness as they intently watched Tiger and company display their craftsmanship on the greens and tee boxes. Contrasting that level of engagement with the meetings we’ve all been in where people are checking e-mail or having to excuse themselves because of a phone call and you get a level of communication and professionalism that is full of contradictions and half-measures.

Which shouldn’t be par for the course.