Way of the Technomad

He looked at me as if I had swallowed a cat whole when I told him my Facebook vanity URL was www.facebook.com/technomad. And, of course, the long moment of silence ended abruptly with the most logical next question: what's a technomad? Yet another benefit of working out of coffeeshops: you get excellent opportunities to evangelize your brand that you just don't get while cranking out spreadsheets in the home office. It starts with a definition.

From Wikipedia:

A technomad is an itinerant person who remains connected to the Internet. Originally coined by Steven Roberts to describe a nomadic person who remains connected through communications media such as the Internet during travel, exploration, and online nomadic living.

But defining the lexicon really doesn't capture the spirit of the concept. Truth be told, I've broken many a night owl web developer and nomadic blogger in to the idea, only to hear them exclaim in a Eureka moment, "that's me!" after a lengthy explanation. It's times like these that teach us why the Japanese were persistent in -jitsu (art) or -do (way) terms for martial arts. The spirit of the concept is captured in a word. And, yes, these are survival skills of sorts to to people like myself. I've made an art out of being constantly connected to the global grid, and can Skype/IM/email/text/call/retweet you at a moments notice from anywhere in the world. In fact, my Bluetooth earpiece would seem surgically grafted to my ear as I dare not waste an opportunity to turn my car into a mobile office. The creators of Google Maps would be amazed by my ability to maintain a constant mental map of WiFi hotspots within a mile radius of my position. Seriously, if you disable the security on the wireless access point of your home network tonight, you'll wake up tomorrow morning to me sitting in your driveway - eating a baegle and surfing the web. I have a Bushido-like collection of adapters, connectors and mobile, removeable storage media for the electronic weaponry I wield - still managing to keep my footprint small enough to come and go like a whisper... like ninja.

And, yet, there's something deeper to what it means to be a technomad. It is, first and foremost, a state of mind. I often tell people that my most prized lesson from military experience and having traveled overseas is that I can learn to live anywhere. Likewise, a technomads prowess first comes from the understanding that he can work or play anywhere. Long gone are the days of brick and mortar for many business models, and each generation since the invention of the Internet expands in its understanding that to be tied down to the paradigm of being tied down is a dinosaur's tale. Agility is the new paradigm. Judging by the fact that nearly 95% of America's workforce is employed by small businesses, often self-employed out of coffeeshops and cars (and saving lots of money in the process), this paradigm is here to stay. This, above all, is the Way of the Technomad. This is the reason I named the new company Technomad Media.

A sideways smile forms on Devin's face by the end of my rant. "Yeah, I hear, ya. That's what I am. I'm a technomad", he says. And another one was added to the tribe that night. If I don't watch out, this could turn into something far bigger than myself. This could turn into a movement.

Social Media According to Warhol

My brother Darryl is an avid tennis player. In fact, he prefers to consider himself a tennis player who works in IT to pay the bills. With a 4.0-4.5 rating, and several tournaments under his belt, very few could dispute the claim. For the sake of contrast, I'm a software engineer who enjoys playing soccer; I don't dare delude myself into thinking otherwise... but I digress. Darryl recently shot a customer commercial for Babolat - his preferred brand of racket - featuring himself on a practice court, and invited friends and family to the Youtube debut to generate a buzz. Watching the video of my brother on a global media sharing site brought to mind instantly Andy Warhol's famous 1960s prediction that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.

To be clear, Warhol's statement was not so much an indictment of broadcast media, but a commentary on the fleeting nature of celebrity, and the tendency for the object of media frenzy to quickly loose luster when the attention of the masses is exhausted. A quick stroll down memory lane to the likes of MC Hammer, Star Wars Kid, and Chris Crocker (that "leave Britney [Spear] alone" guy) serve as reminders of this point.

That said, I have to believe that if Andy were alive today, faced with the awesome pervasiveness of online social media, his only words with be, "I told you so." Advances in communications, computing and software platforms such as Web 2.0 (soon to be Web 3.0 coming to an Internet near YOU!) are a trifecta converging to turn an ever shinking world into a shinking and collaborative one. The result is what marketing expert Seth Godin, author of the book Tribes, considers a major paradigm shift. In this shift, we are inevitably witnessing the fall of broadcast media, in which information is disseminated unidirectionally from an authority with the money to pay for airtime to subscribers; it's replacement is the highly collaborative, interactive Internet medium in which groups freely communicate amongst themselves. The new era brings the potential for all of us to be hyped to a level of fame unmatched by any common man in human history. Judging from the hideous death befalling one newspaper after another in America, I would say the transition couldn't come fast enough.

But the birth of the new order comes not without its own labor pains. Observe the case of the American woman who recently found her Facebook photo had been stolen, and was being used in an advertisement for a grocery store in Czech Republic. We can all agree she was fortunate. I don't consider myself a pervert, but I can think of far more sinister scenarios that did't get played out... yet. And eventhough the 2008 campaign was the first in American history in which regular citizens in mass were able to submit debate video questions over the Internet, the countless responses to Chris Crocker's "Leave Britney Alone!" Youtube video only serves to prove that one made instantly famous can, in equally short order, become infamous.

But these are lessons and heartbreaks for another day. For now, I'll simply take pride in my brother doing what he was born to do, in front of the world to see, without commercial interruption. If you don't see the video embed below, let me know and I'll fix it. If you see it and don't watch, I'll hunt you down and kill you like the worthless vermin you are.

And now, my shameless plug...