Monday, November 02, 2009

WWGD When “the hood” comes to the internet?

OK, I finished... I read WWGD, from Jeff Jarvis and I got into a lot of information... really interesting, estates loads of information (not only data, carefeul choice of words here). But I did something odd, I started in less than 5 minutes to read another book... ( I know... I do categorise myself as an information addict, and that includes books... and to make it even worse, I was on a plane.. so not much more to do), I started with "Barrio de Belgrano, Porque te quiero tanto?" (Belgrano Neighbourghood, why do I love you so much?, a book that my mum wrote and it is really cool... hehehe). the book goes into trying to describe the feelings and sense of pertinence of a neighbourhood, from definitions to songs, to places, and pictures in our minds... not only from enjoying the place, but from sharing those with friends, and not so much friends around the house where you grew, lived, etc.... Now I got into some themes:




- "the hood" gives a physical pertinence to a feeling of pertinence... (I hope it makes sense), basically, it keeps your mind in a particular set, and help you to share with a group of determined people that you already know they share your own “hood”…. So now that we get into a global hood, with people from different cultures, how are we going to relate with people (before we talk to them, you know those hints that they are from you side of the town…)

+ Physical pertinence is easy, you see people all the time, want it or not, you will have a relationship with this human beings around you, but hey! Let’s think a bit more… in a virtual environment, in a G era, in the internet, we don’t need to relate to everyone (thanks the lord, there are too many), but we choose who we relate to… so in the future (or now?) our hood, is made up of people that gets with us, because they have similar needs, wants, questions, or maybe is the people that gives us guidance and tells us what to do in life… So, to be decided, is our all concept of the hood, is that any better, because we learn from everyone (in the area) not only the people with similar mindsets, or the virtual hood is better because we get to know who we want to create our hood?

I think as we will see below, the virtual hood can only work based on openness, and great transparency….

- the second thought I got was linked but not directly to the first one, so we linked to people, and work with people, and share life with each others, and even have virtual relationships… but do we generate the group of friends from the neighbourhood? Can we really reate that group of friends that no matter how many years pass on, we are still going to be related to?

+ I think we can create our own virtual hood on the web, and live connected to people all the time, feeling connected at least, and at the same time, create that “cheekiness” when we relate to them, but as Jarvis says we need to based it all in openness if we don’t share everything, we miss everything…

Now what is better, I think it will depend on personality and mindset… for example, a shy guy that doesn’t believe on creating connections, etc….. Well, he might need to feel protected to start his own hood….And, yes, as you might guess by now, I don’t think it will be the same concept, we will share pictures, experiences, conversations, but the feeling of neighbourhood will only come from the collective feeling of share experiences, not from a location like it used to be…



Will this be a great virtual place? I don’t know, it will be a collection of the views of each others hoods, into a share view of the global hood… I have friends from places that are (literally) on the other side of the world, but I do still related to them, feel them close, and even oddest I still they are part of my hood…



Anyhow, my brain dump for today, and creating my virtual hood, with my friends, my store, my advisers, and the gossipers around ;)
 
Pablo
PS: Errors and mistakes have been deliverately dispersed on the test for enjoyment of the critics...

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