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Taking Stock: You, Me, & The Internet

by Michelle

I'm that girl who really liked writing papers in college and grad school. For my first kasina book report and in a spirit of simultaneous over and under achievement, I created what would otherwise be a failed research paper. With a fair amount of creative license and some attempts at humor, I tied together sources that would probably not connect harmoniously in a written piece, but seemed to come off as a success as a Powerpoint Presentation:

• Against the Machine, Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob by Lee Siegel
• "The Ecstasy of Communication," by Jean Baudrillard
• "Web 2.0: The second generation of the Internet has arrived. It's worse than you think," by Andrew Keen, the weekly Standard, February 2006
• "The Six Stages of E-mail," Nora Ephron, Op Ed, The New York Times, July 2007

Why is this relevant? We here at kasina are highly adept, heavy Internet users and Web 2.0 advocates. For good reason: this technology helps us and our clients do business efficiently and intelligently. My interest here was a humanistic one: What of, dare I say, our mild or major addiction to this infant medium? How are we affected by it personally and socially? How do we carve out a space for a life apart from it and apart from economics? How has the advent of the Internet affected how we think about self-expression versus art? What is the difference between information and knowledge? Does e-mail actually create "connectivity" or in fact, just the opposite? How has our privacy been affected? While we will not necessarily change our current behaviors or quell the significance or momentum of THE INTERNET, the presentation, via Siegel's book and related articles, was a small effort to consider how we are all so fundamentally changed by its existence.

It being Easter time, I feel I must also mention our new system of using "ducats" during Friday's book reports. What's a ducat, you ask? At kasina it is a small plastic egg, the kind you ordinarily might receive with a chocolate surprise inside. Here we receive them empty. Their function? They break in half, leaving each one of us with two pieces, representing our two opportunities to voice our opinion on the topic at hand. Anu originally told me the word was spelled "ducket" and is Olde English. I looked on the Internet and couldn't find it, so I didn't believe him. Carol set me straight. Dictionary.com offers that it is slang for cash money. So much for carving out a space apart from economics. And, of course, the utter convenience of the Internet is not lost on me. Regardless, a "ducat" at kasina is a turn to speak. You do this by tossing your piece into the center of the room.

I mention this because I was both pleased and alarmed to find that certain questions raised in this book report sparked such fierce debate that, at times, it was like watching a festive deluge of pastel colored shapes. Will even stole a ducat for a third turn. The questionable behavior of our marketing director aside, I do believe this is an important topic, and I am happy to work in a place that creates a forum for such discussion.