Chaos Theory, Narrative and Business Communication

This is an excerpt from a paper I presented in which I am playing with Chaos Theory and Narrative Theory. Therefore, please don't quote it. I will, however, send you the entire paper if you want it. Cheers!


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Chaos Theory, Narrative and Business Communication

            Complexity theory – of which chaos theory is an important part – emerged as a framework for understanding the physical universe in the latter part of the twentieth century in order to refine the precision of predictive models of complex systems through the use of mathematical and statistical analysis. According to chaos theory, minor fluctuations in various systemic models can lead to fierce oscillations, as well as unanticipated and unintended consequences. The goal of chaos theory is to realize a level of predictability within complex systems, without relying on Newtonian causal relationships and patterns, which cannot account for changes in complex systems.

Complexity theory suggests that chaos, or radical fluctuations in systems, might be the answer to questions and dilemmas presented by complex systems, allowing researchers and theorists to view systems from a higher level of examination and to view systems holistically and temporally. In contrast to a Newtonian view of the world, chaos theory takes a longitudinal perspective, and one of the most attractive features of chaos theory is the idea that disorder is necessary for order, that decay is needed for renewal, and that decline is a precursor to eventual growth, that change is needed for renewed stability.

The best-known metaphor for understanding chaos theory is the butterfly effect. As Stewart (1990) explains, “the flapping of a single butterfly’s wings produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere,” a variance in a complex system which can eventually lead to “a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn’t happen. Or maybe on that wasn’t going to happen, does” (p. 141). The point of Stewart’s analogy is that the openness and sensitivity of complex systems to the influences of such minor variances cannot be measured, understood or predicted using traditional methods and models. Systems are always in flux, and using reductive methods to attempt to understand a system’s bifurcation – it’s radical fluctuations - is a paradox reminiscent of what Kierkegaard (1958) wrote about the continuity of human life.

Another major concept of complexity theory is that systems are self-organizing, that is, order re-emerges out of the chaotic state brought about through bifurification. Kauffmann (1995) describes self-organization as a type of anti-chaos, noting that disorganized systems bifurcate and eventually solidify at a new level of order. Complex chaotic systems contain an inner stabilizing force that pulls them toward order, although chaos and order are always in a constant state of tension. The fundamental points of connection and order that exert continuous regulation on systemic behavior are called strange attractors. All dynamic systems have attractors that limit the possible states a system can reach and hence maintain systemic order (MacKenzie, 2005).  Although strange attractors attempt to pull a system into a type of order, (called a fractal) they too are in continuous motion, and do not attract from a fixed point or necessarily in a linear fashion. The paradoxical nature of order/disorder, deconstruction/construction, devolution/evolution is a useful way to examine phenomena in the social sciences as well.

Social scientists apply chaos theory to a variety of fields, including communication, economics, finance, psychology, and sociology. Organizational scholars have attempted to integrate chaos and organizational communication in other arenas, including leadership (Blank, 1995), ambiguity and equivocality (Miller, 1998), the glass ceiling (Reuther & Fairhust, 2000), management (Stacy 1992, 1996) and innovation (Nonaka, 1988). However, the application of chaos theory in organizations is generally applied to times of crisis and crisis communication practices.

While each of the above studies examines various aspects of crisis via the lens of chaos theory, none puts a premium on the lens of communication as ritual or narrative processes.

Are Narratives Strange Attractors?

Organizational Life Cycle Theory suggests organizational environments are relatively stable and that organizations build structures over time to account for the slight changes and problems they encounter. According to Weick (1979), however, both internal and external environments are unpredictable, unstable, and volatile. This volatility necessitates the rapid and seemingly chaotic rearrangement of activities, priorities and performances. Nevertheless there is order of a subtle kind, which appears over time.

In the complexity sciences, a strange attractor is a set to which a dynamic system evolves after a long enough time. Although these strange attractors pull a system into a fractal order they are in continuous motion. The strange attractor is the basis of self-organization. Do narratives function as strange attractors in new businesses that could suddenly close down, devolve, and succumb to entropic forces at any time? Like the strange attractors in a fractal system, narratives at all levels are undergoing changes, while still offering organizational stability.

Narrative as a strange attractor implies not the transmission or transactional models of communication, but the ritual view of communication (Carey, 1988). Communication is linked to words such as communion, fellowship, participation and sharing. The ritual view of narrative as communication is a constitutive approach. It shows how communication constructs the social world, including our selves, our personal relationships, and our organizations. A “group’s temporarily persisting existence as a community, and as a social subject of experience and action,” according to Carr (1986), “is not that different from the story told about it; it too is constituted by the story of the community, of what it is and what it is doing, which is told, acted out and accepted in a kind of self-reflective social narration” (149-150).

This formulation of narrative reinforces and expands (by looking all three levels of narrative) the conception that the collective identities of organizational members are constituted by the narratives the participants themselves author (Brown, 2006). Narrating at the macro, meso, and micro levels simultaneously constitutes the organization and our identity through organizing and sensemaking processes. As Carey notes, communicating is the “construction and maintenance of an ordered, meaningful cultural world that can serve as a control and container for human action” (p. 18).

Narratives may be told and retold at the macro-, meso-, and micro levels, but they can only be retold from the present, with one eye fixed retrospectively on the past and one prospectively on the future (Bochner, 1994). Since narratives at all levels are constantly changing, create the basis for common understandings, and create order/disorder in the chaotic and complex world of social, institutional and interpersonal relations, narratives are the strange attractor that produce a (re)order, reintegration and renewal from the edges of chaos in which we find ourselves. The retelling of narratives is the “sacred ceremony that draws people together in fellowship and commonality” (Carey, 1988, p. 19). 

Are narratives the strange attractors that maintain order within the chaos, and the chaos within the order?

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From:

Herrmann, A. F. (2009). Narrative as strange attractor: Thoughts on chaos, complexity, and non-profit start-ups. Paper presented at the Central States Communication Association Convention, St. Louis, MO.

Thoughts on Twitterville by Shel Israel

Twitterville by Shel Israel

Good little book here. While there is much to learn, this is not a How-To book.

So I’ve only started using Twitter with abandon over the two weeks or so. Sure, I opened an account a few years ago, but was too busy working on my dissertation and then getting settled in at Mizzou to spend any time playing with it. At that point I saw no need to use it. After all, I was busy condensing my life. I closed my Yahoo account. I ended my relationship with MySpace. I figured Facebook and LinkedIn would be enough for me. I was wrong.

There’s something about Twitter that has captured my imagination. I cannot pinpoint it, but I like the ‘real-timeyness’ of it, as compared to FaceBook and LinkedIn. While all are communites of a sort, there’s a difference. LinkedIn I use for my professional persona, looking for places that might need my skills talents and abilities. It is business first. FaceBook no longer seems to be the small community it once was. It is akin to a megalopolis or megaregion: there’s a hugeness to it now. Twitter is somewhere in-between the two.

Perhaps that is why “Twitterville” as a name fits so well. It takes a village to raise a child and there are village idiots running around out looking for other village idiots. Twitter fits between the seriousness of the one endeavor and silliness of the second.  

Twitterville covers the history of Twitter. Yes. Ho-hum. More than that, it is a compilation loaded with stories, exemplars and parables. If narratives and stories are one of the most important ways we make sense of our world, than Israel does a great job of ‘making sense’ of Twitter, removing some of the ambiguity and equivocality. Karl E. Weick is just as applicable online as off.

He delves wonderfully into Twitter culture. That’s not an easy thing when looking at a village as broad and loosely connected as Twitter is. He shows clients or customers contacting businesses with complaints and bravos and how those businesses reacted. (Most of the time: FAST!)

He gives due warning about trolls and spammers and scammers and other undesirable PITAs you may come across and what to do about them.

There are tips for both organizational and personal branding scattered throughout the book. So, if you are someone longing to make yourself into a brand, there’s a lot here to discover and become motivated. And it's a heck of a good read too. That alone makes it a pleasure and makes it stand out amongst boring business books.


You could become the next Miss Destructo!

Indeed R2-D2 Is in Star Trek

It used to be that "seeing was believing." Given the millions of ways images can be manipulated, I find myself more skeptical about what I see all the time. Some things are just over the top.

However not all images are so blatant. Take this one for example.

The altered image on the left was part of George Bush’s political campaign in 2004. He is digitally taken out by copying and pasting existing soldiers over the podium. Later, campaign managers would admit to the altering of the image. 


In another famous disappearing act, you'll below note that Trotsky disappeared from this famous photo with Lenin.

Of course, it isn't always about making people disappear. Sometimes they pop up out of nowhere, like the black student did in this brochure for the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Diversity is so important, they had to make a black guy up!

Of course we all know that women can never be slender enough for some advertisers, so we end up with this disgusting image:

Some manipulation is more subtle. For example, the slimming down of Katie Couric:

Or how they fixed this woman's teeth:

(Foucault would have a lot to say about how these lead women to distorted images of the self and how they then attempt to discipline themselves. That, however, is best left up to others.)


However, after doing my own research and looking at the film over and over again in fast mo, slow mo, regular mo and pause mo, it is true. R2-D2 is indeed in Star Trek. I didn't believe the picture when I first saw it, but indeed, the folks at Lucas' Industrial Light and magic put that little robot in there.

R2-D2 RULES!

Nightmares and Dreamscapes*

Sometimes you have to break out Freud, Jung or Lacan to figure out what the heck your brain-body is trying to tell you about what is bothering you about your life.

(I make no distinction between the mind and the body during dream states. That doesn’t mean that I am a monist. I am most certainly not. I believe in I have a soul, am a spirit, believe in God, etc. I also believe that the body remembers things as well. It stores emotions, activities and such. What I mean is I believe the body and soul are more intimately connected in sleep than in waking life. There is not an überconsciousness to get in the way. )

Sometimes you can have a great dream about sharing a bed with someone special. Sometimes you dream you are flying or falling. Some dreams are absolutely bizarre and you have no idea what they are about at all. As the fragments hit your awakening brain all you can think is “What the hell was that?” Sometimes you have nightmares that scare the hell out of you, like waking up and all life suddenly was like this shit.

Not me. Not lately, anyway. I know exactly what my dreams are about. I dreamt twice the other night. They are different dreams, but have the same theme. Here goes:

Dream #1:

I am sitting in an office. Across from me behind a large desk is am man. I think he was a black man, but I am not quite sure since the room is somewhat dark. He says to me, “Ok, so we are offering to pay you nineteen thousand dollars per year if you take this job.”

“Nineteen? You will have to make to twenty, if you really want me to take it.”

“Twenty it is then,”

We stand up and shake on it both of us getting exactly what we want. I leave the office and walk outside. It is a sunny day and I am smiling and whistling, pleased with myself. And I stop in my tracks…

…because I realize he didn’t say nineteen thousand dollars. He said forty-nine thousand dollars. And I just took it for twenty.

And I woke up in a cold sweat.

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Dream #2:

I am in a café of some sort, behind the counter, wearing an apron. It is my first day on the job.  I am nervous.

“We are throwing you right up at the register on your first day. Its sink or swim Andrew,” says a guy in a black polo shirt, obviously the manager.

I walk over to the register. The keyboard on the register is about three feet by two feet, but all the buttons are half the size of a key on a regular keyboard. I cannot read what button is for what product.

Flash forward.

There’s an angry crowd around the register all yelling at me. Red faces. Yelling louder. The register makes no sense. I can’t figure it out. People are shaking their fists at me. Manager guy comes up next to me.

“You didn’t even last fifteen minutes. Get the fuck out of here.”

And I woke up again.

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When I worked in IT I used to dream I was fixing computers and such. When I was working on my dissertation, I would dream I was researching or writing.  As an unemployed person I am not dreaming about unemployment. I am dreaming that I will screw up my future employment. Fear of failure. I don’t need Freud or Jung or Lacan for this.

*Thanks SK for letting me borrow this title

On Having the “Six Million Dollar Man Syndrome”

I’ll admit it. I feel like I am moving in slow motion, even when I am chugging along at a rapid pace. I call it the “Six Million Dollar Man Syndrome” (SMDMS). 

You remember the show “Six Million Dollar Man.” Astronaut Steve Austin (played by Lee Majors of Lee and Farrah fame) crashes and they replace his damaged parts with bionic appendages.  In the show whenever Steve Austin ran using those bionic limbs, he was usually presented in slow-motion, accompanied by an electronic grinding-like sound effect. Slow-mo to give the appearance of speed.

That’s how I feel. I feel like I am moving as fast as I can, but I am not getting anywhere. I am a half step behind. I am misplacing things, after I know where I put them. I am forgetting things. I am sleeping, but getting no rest.  When I am awake, I am half asleep.  When I am sleeping, I am half awake. I go to my blog, but with nothing to say.  I find myself standing in a room, with no idea what I am supposed to be doing in that room. I start to work on my book and am just blank. I start to read a magazine; I’ve lost interest a paragraph in.

I am not the only one feeling this at the moment.

This is not me.  And I am not sure where I went.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about the two nightmares I had last night. Sometimes the mind hides things and you have to figure out what dreams mean. Sometimes dreams are just right up front and there’s no interpretation needed.

Where I'm Not Doctor H (A Letter to Christian Friends)

HI there my church people!

You know, once upon a time believers used to be THE most important intellectuals. Believers were the philosophers, the theologians, the scientists, and the sociologists. Here is a short list of fantastic Christians who used their brains to accomplish God’s work:

Soren Kierkegaard, the (grand) father of psychiatry and existentialism

Michael Faraday, physicist

JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, author of The Brothers K, The Idiot, Crime & Punishment

Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace

Friedrich Schleiermacher, theologian and philosopher

Blaise Pascal, mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher

Gregor Mendel, founder of modern genetics

John Wallis, cryptographer who helped develop calculus

John Ray, botanist

C.S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia

Arthur Compton, Nobel Prize winning physicist.

T.S. Eliot, Poet

Of course this list does not include all brilliant religious writers: Augustine, Aquinas, Anselm, Jerome, Gregory of Nyssa, Luther, Calvin, John Knox, and Jacobus Arminius. The writers of the Bible were all literate. St. Paul was, in fact, an intellectual.

God didn’t give me George Clooney or Brad Pitt looks. He did not load me up with the athletic ability of a Michael Phelps or a Serena Williams. He did not don me with the skills of oratory like Barak Obama or Winston Churchill. He did not bestow upon me a voice like Bono or Sting. He didn’t hand me the musical ability of an Andy Summers, Jimmy Page, Kevin Max or either of the White siblings.

No God didn’t bless me with any of these things. What He blessed me with was a sharp mind and the ability to use it. He gave me the brains to get my Ph.D. And I did. Yet I feel so uncomfortable that I don’t want to tell anyone in church that I am Dr. Herrmann. We have a “Check Your Brain at the Door” policy. Smart people are somehow not to be trusted. I don’t know why this is. We shouldn’t be afraid. We should be up to the intellectual challenge.

All I know is that God gave me my mind and I intend to use it. In church. 


If you will let me that is.

“My soul…kinda stings”: Spike's Vampiric Redemption

(Please note: This is a work in progress...)

First, let me tell you a little bit about Spike. Before he became a vampire, his name was William Pratt. Interstingly, while many scholars have spoken about Spike’s name, none that I have seen specifically addresses his last name Pratt: which is a British euphemism for a jerk, to put it nicely. He was born in 1870s Britain. He was a struggling poet, often mocked by his peers who called him "William the Bloody" behind his back because his poetry was so "bloody awful." He was sired by his soon-to-be long time lover Drucilla. He got his nickname from his use of railroad spikes when torturing people. Fast forward through all the evil and nasty things he did as a vampire with fellow vamps Darla, Drucilla and Angelus.

In season four Spike is captured by a group called “The Initiative.” They embed a microchip in his brain, rendering him powerless to hurt humans. Obviously for a vampire, this is a horrifying experience. The dilemma is that Spike finds himself on the side of good (or at least unable to be pure vampiric evil) not because he wants to be, but because he has no other choice. Here is the first connection between what happens to Spike and Foucauldian power. The power is suggestive of Bentham’s ideal prison, The Panopticon. The Panopticon included a tower at the center that provided through a two-way mirror an unobstructed view of all the prisoners.

The power of the panopticon is external. Someone is watching you. Guards, wardens, etc., have power over prisoners, so prisoners behave. However, the panopticon was brilliant in another way. Since prisoners realized there was always the possibility they were being watched, they regulated themselves, rendering the exercise of power by others unnecessary. It was no longer necessary to use external power to discipline the prisoner, rather the prisoner now disciplined himself through self-surveillance, self-discipline, self-monitoring, exerting power of his own identity and actions. Foucault calls these activities “the technologies of the self.”

Foucault said his goal was “to create a history of the different modes by which in our culture human beings are made subjects.” Human beings are made subjects – or socially constructed – through various disciplinary discourses. For example, an individual may be constituted and see herself as a sinner or a saint through religious discourses. Through the discourses of science, and the means by which humans began to be studied – through surveillance, observation, measurement and documentation – the individual is constructed in a particular way, and in fact becomes a subject.

At this point, in Spike’s case panoptic power impacts his identity through the microchip that is put in his head, which renders him harmless as a vampire. Naturally enough there are many references to impotence here by Buffy and the rest of her “Scooby Gang.” His interaction with the Scoobies shows how the chip caused them to think of him differently. In response, he takes his first steps on the road to redemption. He is forced to find a new identity in order to gain attention and remain relevant. He is forced into the role of (ambiguous) good guy. Although he relishes that he can beat the hell out of demons and such, he hates what the chip has turned him into. He cannot be a monster. He cannot be a man either. He’s ambiguous, a shadow, liminal.

Late in Season four in the appropriately titled episode “The Yoko Factor” (4020), Spike rebels against the Scoobies, reverting to a more overtly antagonistic role in teaming with Adam: a part human, part machine, part demon Frankenstein. However, Spike's mischief is just that, an impotent churning in frustration at being neither demon nor human, neither fit for real villainy nor acceptable for heroism in the group. His siding with the Scoobies made him a permanent outcast in demon society. Now he is an outsider with the Scoobies. Spike is truly a vampire in no man's land, at home nowhere.

Caught between his origin as a vampire, and his desired destination of humanity, yet welcome in neither place, Spike has become marginalized. The situation is most poignant for the vampire as having been bred of humanity, he can see himself dispossessed of the defiling traits he now bears and yet know he will not regain his full humanity. Spike is the poster-boy for vampire marginality. He has exhibited the full range of motivations and inner turmoil of an individual assaulted with a stigma, dealing with it and thriving, only to be stripped of that modicum of acceptability by the government installed chip, yet barred from return to his former life as a human by the stigma of soulessness.

This frustration can lead to self-hatred and self-derogation: a potent elixir for the brewing of hate and violence. Which is where Spike eventually goes. But first, it must be noted even with the chip in his head Spike is making progress toward humanity. While the chip keeps him from harming humans, it is NOT forcing him to do good deeds, or help the Slayer. Spike, meet the power of the “technologies of the self.”

Discipline is not simply imposed from the outside; nor is it always complete. If it were there would be no place for reflexivity. For Foucault, governmentality is not necessarily negative, but productive. It socially constructs subjects, reality, objects and rituals of truth (1978a). While individuals are constructed and they are subjugated through power relations, they are never powerless. Power relations run through every field, “because there is freedom everywhere” (Foucault, 1987b). Subjects are not deprived of "agency or the capacity to change; in fact, [being a subject] makes them all the more active by extending their reach to include what was assumed to be so obviously necessary, so natural, so taken-for-granted, that it was inaccessible: their subjectivity, their identity, their sexuality, their bodies" (Deacon, 2003, p. 280).

Individuals have the ability through these technologies of the self to reflect upon, shape, govern, and be responsible for their selves within these discourses and resources of power, to transfigure themselves to achieve a definite condition “of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality” (Foucault, 1994, p. 225). In other words, Spike reflect upon himself and ask, “What type of being do I want to be?” “What must I do to become the being I want to be?” This disciplining of the self is enterprising, a continual project of self-construction and creation that can be extrapolated to explain Spike is trying to become a man.

Rose (1998) observes the "enterprising self will make an enterprise of its life, seek to maximize its own human capital, project itself a future, and seek to shape itself in order to become that which it wishes to be. The enterprising self is thus both an active self and a calculating self, a self that calculates about itself and that acts upon itself in order to better itself" (p. 154).

Much like in Dostoevki’s character of Raskolnikov, Spike is coming to recognize within himself the potential for goodness and to set himself on the path to salvation. He has comassion for Joyce – Buffy’s mother – who has a terminal illness. Throughout season five he protects Dawn, Buffy’s little sister, who is the key that keeps the hell dimensions doors closed. If opened hell would literally invade our planet. A bad thing! He fights and is tortured by the nearly omnipotent demigod Glory to protect the secret. He does it because to do otherwise would "destroy her [Buffy]. I couldn’t live her being in that much pain" ("Intervention," 5018). When asked why he, a vampire without soul, is protecting Dawn, Spike’s answer is simply "I made a promise to a lady." He assists people who have been hurt by the troll Olaf. In season six when Buffy is brought back from the dead, it is Spike who realizes she clawed her way out of her coffin. He – being the only one who had to do that – shows utter empathy and sadness. And being ‘undead’ herself, Spike can now kill Buffy – but doesn’t. Spike feels deep remorse and compassion for Buffy and Dawn when their mother dies.

Oh yeah! He also fell in love with Buffy along the way and they’ve been having violent but consensual sex.

Buffy ends the relationship and Spike is heartbroken. He tells Buffy: “I know you’ll never love me; I know I’m a monster, but you treat me like a man,” and for that he is grateful. This is what is most important to Spike—not being treated like a vampire, which is what the undead should desire. Being a man—being human— is his goal, whether he has fully accepted that or not. Spike has expelled his vampire nature as the intruder, has sacrificed that self to save his soul and recreate the unity of the community, as evil becomes good. Spike’s ability to love gives him at least a piece of moral agency, and his ability to suffer makes us sympathize with him. The audience is on his side long before he gains a soul. Spike is desperate to win back Buffy.

Although Spike is making these decisions, though he is learning to discipline himself – he is still at heart a vampire – not a man. He still has that chip in his head, so he is not completely free to choose his path. Until…the facticity that he is not a man nor a real vampire, leads to his tortuous self-loathing…he tries to rape Buffy in a terrifying scene. Spike’s relationship with Buffy up to this point was based on consent and trust, which is why so many fans found this scene of attempted rape jarring and out of context. We forgot he was evil. We have been rooting for him. Still, we must recognize his evil by having him respond to his rejection by Buffy as a demon would, by trying to rape her. This is his turning point.

Spike’s action results in feelings of tremendous remorse, which spur him on to repentance and taking a definite step towards redemption. He realizes the immorality of his actions, in spite of his lacking the guidance which could be provided by a soul. Spike ultimately concludes that in order to live with himself after what he has done to Buffy he must accept that he is a monster, because only a monster could do what he tried to. (2002: 59). Of note, all the evil that Spike has done, he feels no regret for his any of his previous actions, except his attempted rape of Buffy.

After the attempted rape, Spike laments that the chip has confused the natural order of things when he complains:

Everything always used to be so clear. Slayer. Vampire. Vampire kills Slayer. Sucks her dry. Picks his teeth with her bones. It’s always been like that. I’ve tasted the life of two Slayers. But with Buffy . . . It isn’t supposed to be this way. It’s the chip. Steel and wires and silicone. It won’t let me be a monster and I can’t be a man. I’m nothing. (‘Seeing Red’, 6:19)

Now here’s where things get ambiguous. Spike leaves Sunnydale for a remote location in Africa, where we - the audience - are led to believe that he intends to get his chip removed and become his old evil self. However, (as we find out later) Spike undergoes “Demon Trials,” a series of brutal mental, emotional and physical tests, to prove his worthiness to the demon shaman.

“Bitch thinks she’s better than me. Ever since I got this bleeding chip in my head, things ain’t been right. Everything’s gone to hell.”

“Do your worst. When I win, I want what I came here for. Bitch is going to see a change.”

“Make me what I was so Buffy can get what she deserves.”

But this is ambiguous and has been read in different ways by scholars and by audiences. One reading has Spike going to the shaman to get the chip removed so he can kill Buffy. Plausible. Another has Spike going to the shaman to get the chip removed to he can again be a full-fledged monster. These readings are all based on the idea that Spike hates Buffy and hates his situation.

Yet there is a third reading that is overlooked. “Bitch,” “bastard,” “I’ll show you!” are not all phrases of hate, but those also of the angry and disillusioned spurned lover. Most scholars read Spike’s statement “Make me what I was so Buffy can get what she deserves” a testimony that he wants to be a straight up vampire again. But couldn’t it also be that he wants to be not just Spike, or William the Bloody, but William Pratt, the romantic soulful poet he once was? Spike loves Buffy as deeply as an evil vampire can. He wants Buffy. He desires Buffy. He wants to earn Buffy’s love. He wants to show Buffy that he is worthy. It isn’t Spike’s hate that drives him to the shaman. It is his love. It his love that wants to drive out the monster, the one that wants not only to be treated like a man, but to be a man, to be the kind of man Buffy deserves. My reading is that Spike loves Buffy, but hates his situation.

Although Spike has been disciplining himself through seasons 4-6, here is the ultimate switch from the external power over, to the power within. He wants redemption on his own terms. He wants to be good for its own sake not because of the chip. Hence the trip to Africa and the demon trials. Spike wants his redemption, wants his soul back, wants to be a vampire with a soul and undergoes the most horrific ordeals to get it back, including all the guilt, shame and horror – all the emotional despair – at the things he has done as a soulless vampire. (This makes him different than Angel, who got his soul back via a gypsy curse…Spike EARNED his soul back.)

This sea change in Spike’s moral orientation altered his agency to the extent that he was as likely to approach choices from a perspective that was basically good as from one that was basically evil. In light of this transformation it only seems to follow that Spike would be rewarded with a soul since he had practically begot one through sheer force of will. And, of course, at the moment he finally passes across the threshold completely, he becomes ensouled in the final episode of BtVS’ sixth season.


..to be continued.

Based upon:
Herrmann, A. F. (2010). “My soul…kind of stings”: Spike’s discourses of vampiric redemption. Paper presented at the Central States Communication Association Convention, Cincinnati, OH.

Monday Morning's Link

Huxley Vs. Orwell: Infinite Distraction Or Government Oppression?

This is brilliantly simplified and thought-provoking.

Will the New Revamped MySpace Succeed?

"Don't call it a comeback!"


They are about to relaunch a reinvented MySpace. 
Good for them. Will they succeed? I doubt it.
This is where technology and organizational communication come hand in hand.  Their brand is dead. Amazingly dead. Sure MySpace still lives on and it still has millions of users, but it has been surpassed by facebook. 


I always wonder about the number of users they provide. Here's why: Take my friend Sam for example. She has an account at MySpace, but she never uses it. She never bothered to close it is all. Sam is more of a Derridian Spectre or Trace than an actual Space. I will suppose that MySpace counts her as an active member since she has an active account. How many others, however, are a MySpace Trace? Once again I digress into philosophy.


MySpace suffers from an amalgamation of casual knowledge by consumers and associations that are clearly damaging. In other words, it had  “Negative Brand Equity.” NBE cannot be empirically evaluated thoroughly, although some hypotheticals can be applied. NBE is hard to overcome.

Take a look:

Eastern Airlines (Flew right into the ground...a couple times.)

Howard Johnson’s (a slow, slow death)

Jack-in-the-Box (expanded rapidly...food problems...now regional only)

Kinney Shoes (dead)

Polaroid (Relaunched....but hardly exciting)

Kodachrome (exists in name only...and the linked Simon & Garfunkel Tune)

Realistic (the old Radio Shack Brand)

Atari (The original!)

Pets.com

E.F. Hutton ("When E.F. Hutton Talks...")

Ted Airlines (The dead Ted page)

Gateway Computer (Acer ate you for lunch)

In one way or another each of these brands died. Many attempted relaunches. NBE, however, doomed them to failure. Once a brand loses is equity, word of mouth can kill it off and leave it for dead among the other brand carcasses. There are a few exceptions to this rule.


I'll name one: Apple. No need to rehash this amazing comeback.


So MySpace? Nah. I don't see it happening. It is in the ER an the Doctors are performing emergency surgery. Gallant effort or not, MySpace is going to flatline....eventually. 


The End.

Blogger! Protect Thyself!

There’s No Protection in Cyberspace.

Ok, let’s face facts. The law is slow. Slow. Slow. Slow. The law has not caught up to the vast technological change over the last 20 years. This is fairly obvious when you hear what people in high places say about technology. However, the law (and exploitation of the law) is catching up. Blogger be aware and beware. 

Dr. H is here to help.

The good news on this front is that on August 10 President Obama signed the “Speech Act,” protecting American journalists, publishers (both print and online) and bloggers from libel tourism. A good thing.

I am going to assume you are not stupid enough to threaten to kill President Obama, VP Biden in your blog. So don't be a dope like this guy. Don't threaten judges! Buh-bye!

And where there are judges, there are lawyers. And where there are lawyers, there are…well…let me not defame the entire profession. Let’s just say they are a smart bunch who can make you pay and pay and pay.  For example you can be sued for re-posting articles without permission….even if someone else posts them in your comments section. Sometimes even if you add a link to an article! The LV Sun is keeping tabs on the lawsuits.

Best bet: keep away from Stephens Media. Period. 

Oh...

...and if you are in Philly you might want to move to NJ because the City of Brotherly Shove wants $300 for your business license. Yes. $300 to blog. As a Jerseyite - and a Mets fan - I have no problem hating on Philly. Thanks for making my job easier!

Last but not least:

You are not considered a journalist.  So watch yourself.  You don’t want to find yourself on the wrong end of a defamation case. Anonymity is no protection either.

So here are the basics on defamation:

Some categories of false statements are so innately harmful that they are considered to be defamatory per se. In the common law tradition, damages for such false statements are presumed and do not have to be proven. "Statements are defamatory per se where they falsely impute to the plaintiff one or more of the following things":

Allegations or imputations injurious to another in their trade, business, or profession. So don’t call a plumber you did not like "a delirious unscrupulous drunkard."

Allegations or imputations of having a loathsome disease (historically leprosy and sexually transmitted disease, now also including mental illness). So calling the professor who gave you a bad grade “a herpes infested retard” is a no-no.

Allegations or imputations of unchastity (usually only in unmarried people and sometimes only in women): See previous, but make it “herpes infested retarded whore.”

Allegations or imputations of criminal activity (sometimes only crimes of moral turpitude).  So calling your Congressman a thief or a crook or a swindler fits here.

Of course if your professor is one and your Congressman does, then by all means tell the world, but you must make sure you can back that up with facts and evidence. If you cannot, a lawsuit will be coming your way. Sure, it is hard for anyone to actually win a defamation suit against you, but that might not be the point. They just might want to get your money and shit you down.

If you want to Blog like an ethical professional, read this and this.

That is all.

Facebook Places: On Being Ratted Out By Your Friends

I am always hesitant – and there’s always a twinge in my Orwellian brain – when I read that a company crated a ‘feature’ that allows me to tell you where I am. If I want to tell you I am at Starbucks, I will. If I don’t want to, I won’t.  Now, however, I don’t have to tell you where I am. You can tell people where I am. And I don’t have to give you permission to do it. Welcome to the new world of tethering. Welcome to Facebook’s Places.

One of the big concerns about technology is the way in which it impacts our lives, particularly how it impacts our working lives when we aren’t working (or when we aren’t supposed to be working). When doing my IT research, work-life conflict was a central concern for these people, because they were tethered to the workplace with pagers, phones, and laptops home nightly. 

This tethering to the workplace allows for flexibility on the one hand, but also creates work-time conflicts. They are contacted throughout their off-time and connected continually through their laptops and other mobile communication devices. Missed dinners. Interrupted dates. Late night calls about. Always being on-call. Tethered.

The hope was to emancipate (or at least spread the awareness) that working in IT did not necessarily have to be dominated by the technology – that the choice could be made to “tune in turn on drop out” as Tim Leary said. Dr. Leary also said “The PC is the LSD of the 1990s.” I wonder what he would think about Facebook, Google, Apple.

Heck, the laptop, then the cell phone, liberated me in many ways, allowing me to do work, make and receive phone calls, share e-mails and browse the Web from just about anywhere without anyone knowing where I was or what else I was doing. So why would I welcome anything that blows my cover?

The Places tool, part and parcel of the Facebook mobile application, was released last week.  As always Facebook assured everyone that they could opt out of using the product. Places does offer the end-user control, as they must purposely check their location in as they wonder the world. You are not updated in Places automatically. However…

(have you noticed that when it comes to technology there is always a however)

…by using Places, friends can give your location whenever and wherever they want. So lets say we are hanging at the City Diner on South Grand. Although you don’t want certain people to know where you are (because let’s face it, there are some whacked out people wandering around south city at 3 am), your friends can check you in. Guess what? Anyone who wants to find out where you are now has that information readily available.

Places makes it easy for your friends to violate your privacy, because the updates are not controlled by Your FB privacy settings, but by your friend’s privacy settings.

Sure you can untag yourself, like you can untag yourself in photographs. Of course when we do, we always wonder “How long was that picture of me with the dwarf and the monkey up on Billy’s page?”  Do you want the world to know you are not home? Do want more mobile advertising headed your way? Do you want this person knowing where you are? Or even worse - this one? Or even this one? Despite Facebook’s claim that “no location information is associated with a person unless he or she explicitly chooses to become part of location sharing. No one can be checked in to a location without their explicit permission” I can obviously check you in, whether you like it or not.

There are two ways to grow a business. You can create something so cool and so worthwhile that the herd rushes to by it. (Think Apple’s iPod.) Or you can have a business that millions of people already use and then force them to use your new creation. (Think Microsoft when it bundled Internet Explorer into Windows, making it the default browser and destroyed Netscape in the process.)

Facebook is going with the second option.

If you want to deal with your privacy in Places, go here.

Remember, you haven’t been tagged. 

You haven't even been tethered.  

Located. 

Fixed. 

Situated. 

Fingered. 

Designated. 

Cornered. 

Ratted Out.

You've been Placed.

The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet.

I have to admit that since Wired became the GQ or Cosmo for Geeks - all about style and less about substance - I pretty much stopped reading it. I want tech news and information, not pictures of Will Farrell in a spaceman outfit. Every once in a while though, someone actually writes something worth reading.

Here's the gist:

The Web is dead. The Internet is alive and well.

Huh?

Ok, first of all you have to parse the two. We generally consider the Internet and the Web as the same thing. There is a distinction. The Internet is the underlying protocols that allow for the flow of information. This is what people mean when they mention things like TCIPs, IPs, DNSes and the like. These are the protocols that get a piece of datum from you to me. It is similar to when we mail a letter. I put a stamp on it and put it in my mailbox. It goes to my local post office. It gets routed to a larger post office. Sorted. Etc., etc., etc. Eventually it gets to the mailbox in your house. The underlying Internet is alive and well.

The Web is not healthy, however. Why? The main reason is we like simplicity. People are moving away from using their browsers to surf the Web. In fact, many of us spend most of our time on the Internet but off the Web. iTunes - on the Internet, but not on the Web. Apps on your smartphone - on the Internet, not on the Web. The Kindle - The iPad - The Nook. These types of applications cut through the clutter of the Web.

The second reason for the demise of the Web the places we do visit on the Web are fewer (and huge!). The Web was information that needed to be organized. Those who organized it best created their own specific type of experience. Facebook is the experience of Facebook. Nothing else on the web emulates it. Google is the experience of Google. Twitter is the experience of Twitter. Amazon is the experience of Amazon. And so on. When was the last time you just surfed the Web to surf the Web? What percentage of time do you just surf around? Yeah. Exactly. Me either.

As a tech guy and and organizational guy, I found the article - at a minimum - intriguing.

What would precipitate the end of Facebook? (Remember, no one thought MySpace would fall from its heights.) What does this mean for the future of the Web? Where will the next big 'organization process' happen?

Stress, Emotional Labor and Information Technology Workers

Here comes the doctor part of The Doctor H Place. Something I wrote on "The Spin," part of The Untangled Web.


All too often people in other divisions of a business believe that information technology practitioners are horrible communicators. Many clients hold the same opinion. I’ve been working on a project examining communication, stress and emotional labor regarding front line IT workers and have found this belief to be wrong in both theory and practice.


Here's why.

Simple. Stuff happens.

Ok, so some wise guy - actually an RL friend of mine who I haven't seen in RL in about 10 years - asked me about my blog tagline. 


(Maybe we all need to discuss this 'friend' thing one day. Who is an RL friend compared to an online friend compared to a FB friend? Is a FB friend who you never met, but talk with everyday more of a friend than the RL friend you haven't seen in 5 years, but can immediately strike up the conversation with as if you saw each other yesterday? Are RL friends different than online or FB friends? If so, how? If you aren't my friend then why are you reading this anyway? Jerk. And wouldn't you know it, I'm already, as Bob Krizek put it, "being tangential.")


Back to it:


"An interactive communicative space for the trendy philosophical meanderings of a guy who accidentally earned a Ph.D., but can't seem to figure out what to do with it." 


My friend wasn't really interested in the first half to that comment. He knows what the heck a blog is. He also knows about my philosophical meanderings. Hey, you don't end up with a B.A. in philosophy without trying to think about things. Some of the things you think about are really, really, really weird, not merely thoughts about real ponchos or Sears ponchos.


He wanted to know about that last part.  As he put it: "How the hell can you have a Ph.D. and not know what you are doing?"


Simple. Stuff happens.


I am a liar. I worked by butt off to get my Ph.D., so that wasn't an accident. Granted if you asked me 15 years ago - hell, even 10 years ago - that I'd have a Ph.D., I would have asked what you were smoking and if you'd share it with me. I had no desire to go back to school after my seven horrible years as an undergraduate. I was through with school, forever and ever. Yet, here I am having achieved the pinnacle of achievement in our education system, such as it is.


What he wanted to know was how I ended up with no gainful employment, living on the dole, and renting the basement apartment in my parents's house. 


Simple. Stuff happens.


I mistakenly planned for one career and one career only when I started graduate school. I wanted to be a professor. I was solely focused on that. In 2007 I had 20 interviews at NCA. Unfortunately for me I was still ABD (All But Dissertation). For the academically uninclined, ABD means I was done with everything except finishing my huge research project and writing it up. What I found was that many departments are shy about hiring people who are not finished. I don't blame them. Most academics who start a job without being finished never finish. That sucks for everyone involved. I knew I'd get done by Summer of 2008. And I did too. And I did land a job but it wasn't permanent.


And then this. In 2008, the jobs in the academic market dried up. Instead of seeing hundreds of positions I could apply for there were less than 100. Still, I had my one year left in my two year gig, so there was no need to panic, right? Wrong. In 2009, there were fewer academic positions than in 2008. 


(Let me quickly run through this for people who don't get the academic job hunt. Here's how it works: Let's say you are an academic and you are looking for a position that starts in August of 2011. Yes, that's a year from now. However, job openings for next academic year are being posted right now. Applications for next year are already being sent to hiring committees. Yes. It is a year long process. And yes, it is a pain in the ass for everyone involved.)


So although I applied for many jobs in 2009 (for 2010), none of them came through. I applied for one position which received over 400 application packets from would be professors. I had a few interviews: a couple on Skype, a couple in person. What I received were letters or emails that went like this: "Thanks but no thanks." 


This summer my two year gig ended. That was strike one. At the same time my lease ended. That was strike two. No one is going to let you sign a lease if you cannot prove you have an income. Perfect storm. Finally, I have no idea, exactly what I am supposed to be doing if I am not writing and teaching. 


As for the applications for the positions that start next summer: I sent out the first batch last week. Here we go again.


So how the hell can you have a Ph.D. and not know what you are doing?

Simple. Stuff happens.