June 24, 2009

Attention and Distraction

The idea of whether the Internet is making us more intelligent or less intelligent, more vulnerable to distraction or more capable of skillful multi-tasking, seems to have obsessed the majority of print and online media journalists lately. No doubt these journalists are concerned with the fate of their jobs, as print media dwindles and people become increasingly less likely to pay for reporting that often costs thousands of dollars to accomplish. Out of this so-called “crisis of attention” has emerged a new genre of writing, a kind of meta-reporting in which journalists, distracted by the swarm of new media overtaking print, are focusing their attention on new neurological research and technological advancements to try and figure out where the future of their own profession, and indeed the entire globalized world, is headed.

One of the more notable recent articles to address this topic was Sam Anderson’s New York magazine piece called “In Defense of Distraction.”[1] Basically Anderson says that the amount of distracting media content available these days (through iPods, iPhones, 24/7 cable news, multiple email accounts, YouTube, etc) may, over time, enable human beings to be better at “paying attention.”

He begins the article by citing a number of scary statistics about the toll the Internet and streaming media has reeked on human beings: Young adults in South Korea have perished from exhaustion after marathon “gaming” sessions; distraction is a “full-blown epidemic” akin to smoking years ago, when people didn’t understand how unhealthy smoking really was; Einstein, were he alive today, would have been too distracted to come up with the theory of relativity. But Anderson soon comes around to say that attention is actually a kind of concentrated form of distraction. Focusing on a pen on your desk, for instance, is a way of harnessing your distractions around a single point. You start to think interesting thoughts about the desk, the pen, ink, the act of writing, etc. You become distracted, in other words, by concentrating on the pen.

We’re always distracted. It’s our natural condition. But too much concentration, Anderson says, can actually be a bad thing. Adderall, for example, often causes people to think mechanically, as if with blinders on, limiting one’s ability to be distracted and thus think creatively. In a recent article in Slate,[2] Joshua Foer spent an experimental week taking Adderall, and found that he was much less likely to be distracted by email, but also less likely to think outside the box. To experience the random associations or sensations that can often trigger a cool new angle on an idea, he needed to be a bit more distractable. Anderson uses the example of Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, Proust’s giant seven-volume masterpiece of reminiscence that was initially triggered by a random sense memory—the taste of a cookie dipped in tea that transported him back to his youth. Had Proust been taking Adderall, Anderson writes, he might’ve been so caught up in whatever conversation he was having or book he was reading that the memory of eating his “madeleine,” as the cookie was called, may not have registered at all.

Nicholas Carr, a former IT consultant who writes periodically for The Atlantic, made some darker prophecies on the subject of attention and distraction last year in an article titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” [3] Taking the opposite track from Anderson, Carr starts by addressing the benefits of the Internet. People may be reading more than they used to in the seventies and eighties, thanks to the web and other text providers. And deep research is gloriously simpler thanks to Google. Whereas before you might have to spend a day in the library stacks to find a relevant quote, you can now search for it in Google and shazaam, there it is. Three seconds versus 5 hours. But Carr is infinitely skeptical of the toll this ease-of-access may be taking on the biological network of our brains. Technology may not only be influencing what we think, but how we think:

[W]hat the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

Carr foresees a time not unlike that portrayed in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 Space Odyssey, in which the most ostensibly “human” character turns out to be a machine. The essence of Kubrick’s prophecy, Carr writes, is that “as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.”

In my own life, I’ve noticed a decreased ability to pay attention to books and magazines the way that I used to, before the Internet became such a big part of everyone’s life.  There’s always something else to do, to look up, to watch. Spending an hour reading a novel or a long article in the New Yorker is becoming less and less feasible. I find myself getting antsy, losing my place, drifting off, especially if I happen to be reading in the same room as my computer—that portal to the land of universal knowledge and, of course, distraction. Granted, there are a lot of great things on the Internet, things that have certainly changed the way I think about the world in a positive and beneficial way. Never have human beings been able to connect with one another so easily, and connect to ideas so easily, which hopefully increases our wisdom and ability to empathize with the rest of the species.

And yet, it’s hard not to feel like a kind of lab rat, punching the feeder bar for more and more input, more content, more blips of temporary pleasure from videos of cats in funny costumes. And the sad truth, as Carr makes clear, is that companies like Google have an economic interest in making us more and more distracted, so that they can learn more about our interests and personal habits and then advertise accordingly. They don’t want concentrated thinking; they want you to continue hyperlinking and surfing wildly and constantly, instead of spending thirty minutes contemplating an author’s intentions. That gets them nowhere. They, too, are thirsty for input.

For the moment, the solution for many ambitious Americans seems to be neuro-enhancers, drugs that increase out ability to pay attention and perform complex tasks more efficiently. But again, what part of ourselves are we losing by taking these drugs? The long-term consequences of Adderall addiction can be just as devastating as an addiction to speed—the gradual burning-out of important neural circuitry. Perhaps the best solution is to take up meditating, or make sure you get some weekly exercise, or just continue to think about stuff and have face-to-face conversations about non-technological subjects. Unless some apocalyptic event wipes out the whole mainframe Internet circuit board, we’re going to be living with frighteningly advanced technology for millennia to come. We better start learning how to ignore it from time to time.

[1] http://nymag.com/news/features/56793

[2] http://www.slate.com/id/2118315

[3] http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

Posted by Jay

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June 22, 2009

Google, A Way Of Life

I have a been a member of the Google, and for that matter Gmail, fan club since it’s inception five years ago. Since that time I’ve taken a peculiar notice that most tech or “Internet savvy” people also reside on Gmail ave.

It could be the generous 7 gigs of free storage, or maybe the moderately intrusive and warily (sometimes) relevant blurbs that morph themselves into clickable text. Beckoning for a bite that will most likely end in an advertisement for some erectile dysfunction solution. I digress.

Truth be told, I’ve come to find Gmail the choice of the enlightened individual. There is something so antiquated about getting an email from a Yahoo or Hotmail user. Subconsciously I instantly discredit the sender, “tech illiterate” screams between my ears, and the hope for a non-prejudicial read is lost. Really, why would you delete an email when you can just archive that bad boy into the eternal abyss of Googleland where it can instantly be resurrected?

I recently searched “ Jay receipt January” and was amazed at the results. First off, an email from a threatened lawsuit for using a trademark as a keyword in my Google Adwords account…ummmm ooops (an empty threat and well within my rights actually J) Strangely enough, I was actually looking for a vet bill from when my dog got mangled by a mutt in the park. The algorithmic genius ads on the side sadly were for credit cards, and merchant solutions?

This made me ponder how DOES that Google business model work? I can confidently say I haven’t clicked on one of those ads in 4 years. Who exactly is sidebar surfing? Are they banking on curiosity, general interest?

Regardless, Gmail is an amazing tool for busy entrepreneurs like me, and it bothers me not in the least to know that Google is screening every email I send and receive only to glean patterns and habits, which will be fed into some giant computing mechanism designed to increase ad-sale revenue.

Gmail is free to me, that’s all I really care about.

When used daily in conjunction with my Blackberry (or iPhone—depending on my mood) Gmail is an incredibly powerful and efficient tool. It might be, single handedly, the most valuable tool in my proverbial entrepreneurial tool-belt.

I use Google contacts to manage my personal and business contacts. I use Google calendar and Google Docs almost exclusively. Combined with the new Google Sync, all of my email, contacts, and calendars sync in real time wirelessly to my PDA without ever having to worry about my data overwriting itself (like with Mac MobileMe for example).

I can be using my iPhone one day, get tired of the lousy touch screen and switch back to my BlackBerry Bold in minutes. Everything is synced wirelessly and the transition is seamless. I even use Gmail as my to-do list when I am on the go. I simply email myself anything I want to get done and there it is in my inbox. I can archive it and retrieve it at any time by simply searching for it since it never deletes any emails, I simply archive them.

I’ve developed a policy that an email never is archived without whatever action item in it being completed. If it is intended for someone else (Support for example) I simply forward the email and then archive it. I also make sure to transcribe any items that call for some sort of action into one of my two trust Rhodia notebooks before archiving the email. I am incredibly anal about my inbox. Any redundant notification emails are automatically archived up receipt so I never actually see them and don’t clog up my space.

My inbox is a sacred space to me. I respect it, it’s clean (like my house) and uncluttered. Everything in its place, exactly where I expect it to be. And fancy that! Good ole Gmail is providing the comfort of knowing it’s backed up for life.

It’s sort of staggering that you can have five, ten, or twenty years of emails available to you without ever having to worry about losing them. (or having paying for it for that matter). My Outlook, without fail, used to crash and wipe out all my emails at least once a year. For a measly $75 a year I bought an extra 40 GB (yes, GB!) of Gmail storage recently, which should last me another 10 years or so – at which point I will simply buy more.

Every time I have someone ask me to resend an email that they can’t find… I feel sorry for them. They just have not found Gmail Ave yet. They are lost sheep, and are most likely still using a PC. Not cool. (Actually quite sad.) But they will soon. Trust me.

I don’t even work for Google and I just spent 30 minutes writing a promotional article for them. But that’s the sign of a quality product that provides a lot of value, to a lot of people. Let’s be honest Google has become so ubiquitous with efficiency and service that it’s now a verb! “23^rd president?” Google it!!!

This should give rise to a question: What value are you providing to yourself and others? If you’re not sure, take a look at your income–it’s a byproduct of the service you are providing to society. Google doesn’t even charge for its products, it lets people use them for free. And because they are so good, people keep coming back and sharing them. Google closed at $416 a share today. At one point Google stock crossed the $600/share threshold, bringing the company’s market capitalization to over $190 billion and making the company officially more valuable than FedEx, McDonalds, Coke, Intel, IBM, and Wal-Mart, among others.

I have learned a lot of lessons from Google. You might do consider taking notice as well. You should definitely start by getting a Gmail account at least.

Posted by Jay

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June 15, 2009

What were you doing on June 5, 2009 at 2pm?

June 5, 2009 2:00 pm (somewhere over the midwest)

In this rare occasion I though it it would be interesting (for my own gratuitous reasons) to put into print exactly what it is that I am doing… at this exact moment. Is this not the reason that we have the “what are you doing now” feature on facebook? Is this not the sole purpose of Twitter?

So here goes… (I wrote this a few days ago en route to LA and then the Cayman Islands.)

-On Continental flight 17, seat 3B, which left on time, surprisingly, from Newark, en route to LA; (can’t say for what though…)
-Drinking a shitty red wine (Faux Bordeaux.)
-Listening to none other than the almighty Serge Gainsgerg for romantic inspiration (instead of my usual iTunes genius mix of Ratatat, Constantines, Mars Volta, Sigur Ros, and Arcade Fire.)
-Reading an article in 7.09 Esquire. (Great cover shot of Bar Refaeili btw!)
-Just finished the graphic novel “Strongman” by Charles Soule. (Great book – El Tigre would be honored to know you were interested.)
-Sitting next to my beautiful girlfriend who does not realize that she is laughing out loud while watching Bride Wars, not unlike the fat guys eating pasta across the aisle in 3F and 3G (who are also drinking the same cheap red… and, now they are passed out on each others shoulders. So cute!)
-Wondering how I am going to propose… Yes, that right. (I have the stone in my bag at my feet.)
-Wondering if she has any idea…?
-Wondering if i will be able to pull it off in a way that people do in the movies… (romantic, tear-filled, joyous.)
-Wondering if I should just slip it on her finger while she sleeps at the Beverly Hotel tonight. (Hmmm that s a pretty good one.)
-Argh! These are the crappiest first class seats ever installed.

(P.S. She said “yes” and considering the shrieks of joy–I believe that I did ok. After an amazing dinner at Eric Ripert’s BLUE… I hid the ring in a match box and asked her to help me light my Cohiba on the moonlit terrace overlooking the Ritz pool. It was Epic.)

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Posted by Jay

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June 12, 2009

The Urgency of Importance

I have had the privilege of spending the last week in the magnificent Cayman Islands with my brand new fiance. The water is clearer and the beaches whiter than anything I have ever seen, it could not be finer. Jamie and I have fallen in love with the island and thus decided to buy a Ritz-Carleton residence deckhouse. Not only does this place feel like heaven, it chalk full of the most wonderful people in the world. (The fact that the island is pretty much the only first world country in the Caribbean with one of the most secure bank systems in the world is not a bad deal either…)

After spending the last week here, and only having the time to take care of the most important things in my businesses, I had some time to think about the urgency of importance.

In Stephen Covey’s book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” he talks about the difference between Important and Urgent matters, and how dividing our time in a balanced way between those two types of activities can make us more or less effective.

It’s amazing how something that urgently demands our attention almost always seems to appear important.  But is it?  Understanding how to recognize the two as separate has really been an eye-opener for me and has helped me prioritize how I spend my time.

Urgent matters require our immediate attention; we react to urgent needs.  It could be something as simple as putting down a book we are studying to answer a question shouted from the next room.

Every one of us probably knows someone who’s permanently in crisis mode, constantly putting out fires, busy, busy, busy.  But, have you noticed, that type of person is frequently stuck somewhere shy of their goals because they never seem to have the time to get to the things they say are important to them?

I am not saying that urgent matters are always not important.  A true crisis must be tended to. But a problem—something like figuring out how to clear the cache on your computer so it runs smoother—must take a number and wait behind matters that actually are important.

Important activities are those that help you get closer to the goals you have set for yourself. Important tasks frequently are things we must do on our own initiative, without some outside circumstance creating a sense of urgency.  Important things come in all sizes, but usually require planning and effort, sometimes simply to prevent situations from becoming urgent. For example, taking care of your own body now is important because it may help you to avoid a future consumed by illness and urgent visits to the doctor. (I have barely missed the gym since I had this epiphany!)

We ignore important tasks early in the day or early in life, they have a way of escalating into urgent situations.

It’s probably becoming apparent that one thing that’s extremely important is to separate important tasks from urgent ones and assign them time appropriately.  Once you’ve clarified that something is important, it’s your responsibility to assign a sense of urgency and get it done. If you’re an entrepreneur, think about the aspects of your business that are urgent as opposed to important.  Consider delegating urgent tasks by getting an assistant. Your effectiveness will dramatically increase if you start spending by far the greatest percentage of your time attending to the important things. If you take care of the important tasks you’ll keep them from becoming urgent and reduce the amount of time devoted to crisis management in your life.

As I said, time for mortals is finite.  In fact, we never really know when we’ll run out of it.  To make matters more complicated, there turns out to be truth in the old saying that you never have enough time to do everything you’d like to do.  So you really do need to decide what is important, and take care of business!

Posted by Jay

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June 2, 2009

CarbonCopyPRO Introduces 10 For 10 Seminar

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June 1, 2009

“Meskada” Feature Film seeking Non-Union Actors (NY)

MESKADA is an independent feature film written and directed by Josh Sternfeld and produced by Jay Kubassek (Aliquot Films) Jen Gatien (DeerJen Films) Michael Goodin and Shawn Rice.

MESKADA tells the story of small-town detective, Noah Cordin, as he attempts to solve a juvenile homicide that occurred during a home burglary in his affluent town of Hilliard. In Meskada County, class tension and resentment reaches a boiling point when a wealthy Hilliard child is killed during a house robbery gone wrong, and the main suspects’ trail leads back to the downtrodden, dying factory town of Caswell… The dead boy’s mother, Allison Connor, is a member of the Meskada County Board of Commissioners, and a powerful woman in Hilliard; and the entire township rallies together in solidarity – to support her and Detective Cordin’s efforts to find the killers. Throughout it all, Noah’s loyalties are torn between his past and his present…until the Connor murder investigation comes to a shocking climax.

MESKADA will be shooting in Catskill, NY and the surrounding area June 8, 2009.

>>> ALL KEY CAST AND CREW ROLES HAVE BEEN CAST! THANKS! <<<

Posted by Jay

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May 29, 2009

Chelsea on the Rocks TV

Watch out-takes and other Abel Ferrara hilarity’s here: http://chelseaontherockstv.com

Posted by Jay

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