On a cross-country weekend without the kids (a story for another post), I enjoyed Moneyball by Michael Lewis. In answering a “simple” question — how does a poorer team, the Oakland Athletics, win so many baseball games — Lewis tells the story of orthodoxy and upheaval in a small, very public world: professional baseball. To crudely summarize an interesting book, Lewis finds that those managing baseball teams, for the most part, fail to examine the evidence and, instead, believe their own eyes: a mistake. Long-held opinions and beliefs about which type of player (age, build, style, etc.) will succeed lead most teams in one direction. The Oakland As, under the leadership of Billy Beane, clear the smoke from their eyes and look at the data, rather than the player. Zigging, when everyone else is zagging, proves quite successful. Not coincidentally, it annoys the heck out of those who are zagging.
Tim Bray read the book a couple of months ago, and made several connections, but these words bear citation:
…it’s fascinating (particularly towards the end) as a study of how a closed belief system reacts to the introduction of fact-backed heresy. Since the human race in general and technology profession in particular tend to the development of closed belief systems, this I think will find a lot of resonance with a lot of readers.
To complete the religious references… Amen.
Thanks to its author, its controversial message, its very popular arena, its excerpt in Sports Illustrated several months ago, this book and its story are fairly well known, whether you’ve read the book or not. A week after reading the book, I realized one reason I found the tale so compelling: its parallels in the two-way controversy/fascination between media and blogging.
The parallels are not perfect. Professional media is a more diverse group than those managing professional baseball clubs. There is no agreed-upon method for “keeping score,” which lets arguments simmer without the support of facts. In contrast, it’s hard to argue with a baseball team’s record… although assigning cause and effect keeps many busy.
Bloggers and the media are not in the direct opposition in which they are someimes placed, especially when you realize that many in the professional media are also among the more widely read bloggers, whether they blog professionally, personally, or both. After all, blogging is about writing, and few have more practice in writing regularly than “the media.” So, what do folks write about, on both sides?
The vision of what is the “right way” to practice Journalism occupies some in the media, especially in judgment of whether blogging is journalism or Journalism or neither or both. In turn, some bloggers appreciate the chance to claim that this is all new (it’s not), that it’s not about being journalists (fine), and that the world is going to change radically because of blogging (yet to be seen… I’d bet it won’t).
Some bloggers seem interested in storming the (perceived) castle of “established” media, and defining blogging in opposition to “big media.” While I love the underdog as much as the next person, let’s not forget two things. First, people don’t change as fast as technology, so companies (media or otherwise) and society are rarely forced to change at the pace desired/wished for by those who would benefit from a ‘revolution.” Second, big media has been under attack for a lot longer than blogging, and I don’t know if there is a castle to storm (mental image of Billy Crystal from The Princess Bride: “Have fun storming the castle.”).
I believe the web, in its enabling of real-time text publishing, is still the catalyst which all media are still reacting to. It’s only been a decade. Blogging is just the newest form of real-time text publishing, but it’s not radically different today than when Mosaic made newsgroups come alive. Yes, it’s easier, and that’s not to be underestimated, but that’s changed how many people are practicing these arts, not what they are doing. Quantity does matter, but quantity of production hasn’t changed the human limits on consumption. Do you have more time than you did ten years ago?
I’m emphasizing the text part of this shift deliberately.
First, radio and then television brought immediacy to the world of information long ago. The web brought a combination of immediacy and persistence which If I don’t listen to the radio or watch TV at the exact instant that someone wants to tell me something or share something new, I miss it. I can’t go back. TiVo and the like are changing that equation, but it’s still rudimentary, in that’s it is driven by my decisions before the event, not my interest after the fact. I can’t decide now, two days after Lance Armstrong waltzed into Paris for his sixth Tour de France win, that I’d like to watch the final kilometers of the mountain stages where the Tour was decided. We’re headed towards a world where audio and video may share the characteristics of text publishing, but we’re likely still a decade away from marrying immediacy and persistence seamlessly.
Another reason text matters is the skillset is more widely distributed. We may all have camera videophones in five years, continuously streaming to the net (David Brin and transparency come to mind). But straight images or words don’t automatically convey ideas. Moving pictures, pictures, and sounds may convey emotion with a power that only the best writers can match. Ideas, however, are more fungible in the written word. A reader can scan, review, absorb, ignore text at his or her own pace, not the speed (and time) chosen by the producer. Maybe it’s the lowest common denominator, but when people’s time is the currency, the power of consumer control should never be underestimated.
Side note: when RSS is described as “TiVo for text,” I find something awry… as noted previously. RSS is more like a flare shooting in the night, alerting all who might care and, importantly, only those might care that there’s is something new to consume. The only people’s time I ‘spend’ — and, I hope, don’t waste — is those whom choose to give me their attention, at their leisure.
I’m guilty of mixing too many themes and ideas here, but I’m not going to take the time to rework this version any more. I’m sure I’ll read more cogent thoughts on this in the future, and maybe I’ll say “Aha” then. I did enjoy Moneyball, even if I’ve stretched Lewis’s point too far in an attempt to make one of my own. Much better than The New, New Thing, and more measured than Liar’s Poker, if not as exciting and brash.