Differing opinions (sort of) from the New York Times over whether technology is or isn’t what the science-fiction writers imagined. From a November article titled “In Defense of Technology”:
Physical loneliness can still exist, of course, but you’re never friendless online. Don’t tell me the spiritual life is over. In many ways it’s only just begun. Technology is not doing what the sci-fi writers warned it might — it is not turning us into digits or blank consumers, into people who hate community. Instead, there is evidence that the improvements are making us more democratic, more aware of the planet, more interested in the experience of people who aren’t us, more connected to the mysteries of privacy and surveillance. It’s also pressing us to question what it means to have life so easy, when billions do not. I lived through the age of complacency, before information arrived and the outside world liquified its borders. And now it seems as if the real split in the world will not only be between the fed and the unfed, the healthy and the unhealthy, but between those with smartphones and those without.
And now, in response to the Sony hack, Frank Bruni writes, “The specter that science fiction began to raise decades ago has come true, but with a twist. Computers and technology don’t have minds of their own. They have really, really big mouths.” He continues:
“Nothing you say in any form mediated through digital technology — absolutely nothing at all — is guaranteed to stay private,” wrote Farhad Manjoo, a technology columnist for The Times, in a blog post on Thursday. He issued a “reminder to anyone who uses a digital device to say anything to anyone, ever. Don’t do it. Don’t email, don’t text, don’t update, don’t send photos.” He might as well have added, “Don’t live,” because self-expression and sharing aren’t easily abandoned, and other conduits for them — landlines, snail mail — no longer do the trick.
But the New York Times doesn’t stop agreeing with itself there (by the way, this is totally fine, I have no problem with the contradictions and actually appreciate them). From “As Robots Grow Smarter, American Workers Struggle to Keep Up”:
Yet there is deep uncertainty about how the pattern will play out now, as two trends are interacting. Artificial intelligence has become vastly more sophisticated in a short time, with machines now able to learn, not just follow programmed instructions, and to respond to human language and movement. … At the same time, the American work force has gained skills at a slower rate than in the past — and at a slower rate than in many other countries. Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 are among the most skilled in the world, according to a recent report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Younger Americans are closer to average among the residents of rich countries, and below average by some measures.
My opinion falls into the protopian camp: Things are definitely getting better, but new complexities are bound to emerge as things change. It’s not going to be simple and there are lots of questions we should be asking ourselves about how technology is changing us and the world, but it’s much healthier to start from a place of positivity and recognition that much of the change is good change.
December 23, 2014 // This post is about: AI, culture, jobs, Technology
I know I post these every so often, but today we announced that we’ve raised a $9 million Series A. This is a big number and what it means most is that Percolate is very much hiring. We’re pretty much hiring across the board, but here’s a quick rundown of the current open positions on the site:
- Account Executive: This is the title we have for our more senior sellers. The job is about getting in front of Fortune 500 brands and helping them understand the value of Percolate.
- Engineer: We’re hiring for both Jr. & Sr. engineers (as well as frontend). We are a technology company first-and-foremost and hiring the best engineers is part of what we need to do to succeed.
- Designer: We have a top-notch design team here and really believe that the product is dependent on keeping that quality as high as possible.
We’re hiring for some other positions as well and you should check out the whole list, but those are some of the more pressing ones. If you know someone who would be awesome please send them our way.
Thanks.
November 14, 2012 // This post is about: business, jobs, percolate
[Editor’s Note: I try not to do these often, but since lots of you are from in and around the marketing industry I thought I’d post this job here as well.]
We’re hiring a brand strategist at Percolate (amongst other positions). The role isn’t to be a planner in the way you would be in an agency, but rather to take those same skills and help onboard clients, help them understand content opportunities/how to use Percolate best and help build out products that can help systematize parts of the brand’s content strategy. Basically we’re looking for someone who really understands how brands work, isn’t afraid to go in front of a client and present and has a mind for making products (which is essentially about looking at what you’re doing by hand and thinking about how to translate that into something that can be done repeatedly by computers).
This is a pretty good job for someone who has worked at an agency and wants to go try something different. I don’t want someone so senior that they’ve forgotten how to dig in and actually do work (not that there’s anything wrong with that, but we’ve all run into those folks and they’re not so helpful to have around). It’s a fulltime gig. I’d say the salary is mid-level, but it also includes equity (like all jobs at Percolate).
While I’m here and talking about jobs I should also mention that we’re looking for a few other positions as well and if you recommend someone for any of these and they get hired I’ll buy you an iPad (this is a NoahBrier.com offer only, so make sure you mention it):
- Frontend developer (jr.): We’re looking for a second frontend developer to join the team. Someone who really knows their way around javascript, html and css.
- Backend developer: If you know someone who writes good code we want to talk to them. We do our stuff in Python, but if they’re awesome we’ll talk.
- Sales: We’re looking for people who can go in and help us tell the story of Percolate and really help us sell. We’re building an awesome team and a great culture around sales. I need to write a whole blog post about this, but watching the sales team build out their processes is a pretty amazing thing.
If any of this sounds like you (or someone you know) please hit me up either on my contact page or via jobs@percolate.com.
June 21, 2012 // This post is about: jobs, percolate
Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker review of the new Steve Jobs book is excellent. In it he makes a point I haven’t seen elsewhere, essentially categorizing Jobs as an innovator, not an inventor (Gladwell calls him a tweaker, but who’s counting):
In the eulogies that followed Jobs’s death, last month, he was repeatedly referred to as a large-scale visionary and inventor. But Isaacson’s biography suggests that he was much more of a tweaker. He borrowed the characteristic features of the Macintosh—the mouse and the icons on the screen—from the engineers at Xerox PARC, after his famous visit there, in 1979. The first portable digital music players came out in 1996. Apple introduced the iPod, in 2001, because Jobs looked at the existing music players on the market and concluded that they “truly sucked.” Smart phones started coming out in the nineteen-nineties. Jobs introduced the iPhone in 2007, more than a decade later, because, Isaacson writes, “he had noticed something odd about the cell phones on the market: They all stank, just like portable music players used to.”
I know I must sound like a broken record at this point, but I feel like the distinction between invention (creation of a new thing) and innovation (commercialization of an invention) is a great way to understand how things really come to be.
November 7, 2011 // This post is about: apple, gladwell, innovation, invention, jobs
