We Have A Communication Problem

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WE HAVE A COMMUNICATION PROBLEM. An essay by J. Paul Duplantis

Google controls 92% of online searches.

Amazon controls $41% of online shopping.

Facebook controls 71% of social online visits in the U.S.

(Stats from Statista.com)

We have a communication problem.

A problem I believe not for profit funding, open source software development, and community involvement can help fix.

What is the problem?

We are influenced by what we read, watch, and listen to which in turn influences what we say, what we believe, and how we act. Look around and look inside. Sometimes it is subtle. Sometimes not so much.

Currently billion dollar and trillion dollar companies have the keys to this influence through algorithms, databases, and query tools they exclusively control. This influence is amplified by algorithms tuned to the interests of advertising and subscription models attached to shareholder value with user attention serving as collateral for future Investments. Do you want your attention to be collateral for investment groups or short sellers? I know I don’t. So every time we login to an information silo created for profit, we are pledging the experiences we create, consume, or share to the interests of organizations whose sole mission is perpetual growth realized through these profits. Watch the movie Executive Suite with William Holden from 1954. The producers of that movie knew what was coming.

Of course profits are necessary to drive innovation and employment but should they be the drivers of what we say or what we think? Historically communication technology had more of a passive role in influencing our behaviors as there was more of a separation between our behaviors and the interests of providers.

Ma Bell didn’t know what you were making for dinner now did she.

But this line has all but been removed allowing providers an unprecedented level of control over perception and relevance of what is discovered, created, shared, and commented on. This is leading to an ultimate feedback loop optimized to drive profits more than the capabilities and interests of people.

How can this problem be fixed? By harnessing not for profit funding, open source technologies, and community engagement to begin to shift priorities toward the quality of the user experience rather than the quantity of it.

To

• increase a thirst for knowledge across a wider swath of people
• verify the authenticity of content found
• inspire collaboration across platforms and silos of information

To

• protect user data
• provide people more choice in how we discover information, goods, and services
• and improve the quality of communication between people, business, and government

I mean big money is donated to good causes without expectation of profit every day, why should exploring the highest common denominator in how we communicate be any less important?

To be clear, I am not saying to demonetize what content, goods or services are discovered but how they are discovered. We now have the infrastructure built to engage half the world. Should the overall arc of the engagement be for the private good or the public good is the question. I argue there is a social cost and opportunity cost for the majority of people connected when how we communicate is prioritized for the wealth of the few over the physical, mental, and emotional health of the many.

Look around at the pervasiveness of homelessness, drug addiction, suicides, and extreme views of people.

Look at the rising cost of living to include higher education, housing, food, and healthcare in relation to the availability of roles to support these increases.

Look at the misalignment of competencies between services and support in business, between those in need and the resources to help, and between the capabilities of labor and the demands of employers.

What role does the communication problem play in all of this? I am not certain but it is adding noise to what we are discovering and amplifying problems rather than solving them? I am not placing all of societal ills at the feet of communication technology but I believe there is a fundamental responsibility of those building these tools to help tap into the potential and purpose of people.

Think about it for a minute. If more people found purpose in what they did and those efforts were validated and rewarded more often, wouldn’t this help reduce social costs? Don’t these costs affect us all in one way or another?

The good news is there are a number of platforms and methodologies coming online to help free people from the influence of centralized providers over the information they create, consume, and share. From Tim Berners Lee’s solid framework to the decentralized database of Gun DB to Blockchain technology, there are a vast amount of resources here today and on the horizon to help put people in the driver seat of their experiences.

But the communication problem is not just about the failings of technology but how technology should be learning more from the best aspects of human nature to fold back into the application of the technology. I mean how many stories are out there during times of tragedy where people come together to help one another? What triggers this spirit in humans and how could technology tap into this?

This is the cycle that needs to be visited to build a web as well as virtual and augmented worlds to better represent the potential of people these technologies should serve. To create a partnership between not for profit funders, technologists, and communities to build out databases, query structures, and algorithms to empower discovery and sharing without compromising user data or manipulating outcomes.

Imagine the creation of a query tool to help a customer identify a support person within an organization best suited to address their problem as well as identify resources highly relevant to their issue. Now imagine this tool could be embedded into other organizations free of charge and be improved upon by the open source development community, all while keeping the company data secure.

Imagine introducing this model into the policing community to help open channels of communication between community members and those who are sworn to protect and serve. Or to more effectively align the interests of homeless advocates with the needs of the homeless. Or to create a dating site independent of centralized control where the experiences could be moved to another site with a different query algorithm without sacrificing the relationships people have already built. Or to create a movie network built around matching themes and words found within movies with what resonates with the moviegoer the most at the moment of discovery.

Now imagine all of the examples listed above not requiring a login to experience, not harvesting user data for the benefit of the application or third parties, and not requiring a subscription to access. Then imagine having at your disposal a variety of ways to pay for the content found to include micropayments for sections of content, task based rewarding, crypto, gifting, or ads based entirely on user choice.

Let me ask you. Are you OK with the current model built to serve you information, news, entertainment and relationships. Don’t you want less friction and controls over what you are discovering? Don’t you want more choices?

All of the solutions I have described are possible but how feasible are they to scale under a for profit model, especially considering none of the underlying code or the resulting experiences would ever be exclusive to a provider. Could these solutions exist within a for profit motive? Maybe, but all I see is more of the same on the horizon while the problems will become less apparent as we continue to be fed convenience over clarity.

Hey, I admit I fall victim to this all the time whether it is a product delivered the same day by Amazon or a video found for home repair on YouTube but I wonder what would be possible if my attention wasn’t only optimized for a price. And this is the mission of The Emergence which is to uncover communities, technologies, methodologies, talent, use cases, and financial resources that speak to this new model to increase the quality of communication by limiting the influence of money and power over it.

Moving forward, I plan on digging deep to find where these solutions would best serve people, businesses, and government and bring these stories to the podcast to serve as challenges for innovators in technology, finance, and community development to tackle. I will also dig to find what is already built, what could be modified or what could be created from scratch to meet these challenges to bring to the attention of not for profit funders. These challenges will be made available on TheEmergence.io with links to Github repositories of code identified as relevant to the challenge serving as a gateway for philanthropists to consider for funding.

The question here is what could be done to harness technology to engage people at the very core of what they can bring to themselves and to society in general.

Ask yourself if you feel this is important. If it is, let’s do something about it.