A short note: what if the metrics to determine the full value of our lives simply don’t work in an ambiently intimate world? How can we accurately measure our personal externalities to create the feedback loops we need to change our lives?

Imbalance, London, England, July 2009

After a highly interesting stream of comments on a recent post, I returned to an old thought about ambient intimacy and creating archetypes from avatars:

As much as I want to decry our expanding loose networks, fracturing attention and fake friendships sustained through our ambient connections, maximizing the power of loose networks and loose ties is the real opportunity; it’s where I’ve met the most interesting people, learned the most interesting things, connected to new opportunities; it’s where we find growth and create new value, it’s where we find new edges; it’s the source of innovation and insights we would not have seen otherwise. It’s why we care about serendipity and discovery; we’re hooked by the positive variable intermittent reinforcement baked into all successful, widely-adopted tools; an insight, an opportunity, a confirmation, a life-changing connection behind every click.

But what if our traditional metrics of value simply don’t work in an ambiently intimate world?

Returning to an earlier, rambling string of thoughts:

Digital communication still lacks real feedback, the lack of the digital analogues to the pats on the back, the waves, smiles, firm handshakes, cold shoulders, nods of the head, the blank expressions and all the other hints of body language that mean everything when you’re face to face or merely in the room with people.

… Available web statistics are poor proxies for gauging the real impact.

If I could only see someone’s face when they’re reading something! I want to see the furrowed brows, the nods, the enthusiastic smiles, the shakes of the head. I wish I could see someone’s hands trembling on their keyboards, their smirks, feel their nervousness, the confidence in their eyes, the passion in their voices, the sarcasm dripping from their words, the great pauses, the rushing, tripping words stumbling out of their mouth, the poise, as I read their replies. I want to be interrupted when I’m wrong, stopped when I know someone understands so I can move on, adjusting my message and delivery to hold their attention instead of wasting my effort convincing them of something they already know.

Never compare your inside with somebody else’s outside.
How can we learn to change or modify our lives without being able to gauge or measure the externalities of our lives?

Without telling other people, how do we expect them to know their impact on us?

There is a market failure in communication; positive social gestures abound, but where are the public gestures that allow us to communicate constructive criticism? The absence of positive feedback is not the same as negative feedback, yet without negative social gestures it’s hard for us to discern. Perhaps constructive criticism has to be communicated privately: but what a loss of a rich data set, information ready to be structured into knowledge, interactions waiting to be scaled.

Never compare your inside with somebody else’s outside. Bad information, bad metrics, bad decisions; therefore, how can we bridge the borders between the inside and the outside to tap into the edges of our lives, to create better information, metrics and decisions?

My question: how do we restructure public social systems to allow us to value our personal externalities in an ambiently intimate world?

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Related: Umair Haque, Why Bankers (And Businesses) Need Disincentives.

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No answers for today, just questions…