wake:up Call No. 6

Who is losing?
Towards the end of last week's 4th of July festivities—still giddy from hot dog- and apple pie-eating, Budweiser-drinking, baseball-tossing, fireworks-watching, and not yet sobered by the imminent return to our jobby-jobs—we were overcome by New Economy euphoria.

Could it possibly be (we wondered in a patriotic haze) that, in the midst of this unprecedented inflation-free economic expansion, there are no losers? And if so why should anyone waste time and energy on nay-saying the seemingly indomitable New Economy?

wake:up Call No. 7

Silicon Valley casualties (and we're not talking about dot coms)
A documentary filmmaker from the BBC recently dropped by the headquarters of Alarm Clock Worldwide. Just in from London, she told us she was shocked by the plainness of what she had encountered so far during her location scouting for an upcoming documentary about the culture of Silicon Valley. She expected to see something more glamorous, more opulent. We were reminded that the banality of Silicon Valley, while commonplace to us, is actually quite unexpected for those whose image of technology's epicenter has been shaped by celebratory news stories.

wake:up Call No. 8

I’m lonely, depressed, alienated… but I love the Internet!
An advertorial entitled “E-commerce & The Demise of the Community” recently appeared in the New York Times. It was funded by an organization called the Turning Point Project, which is made up of 80 non-profit organizations that “favor democratic, localized, economically sounds alternatives to current practices and policies.”

The advertisement was a diatribe against the evils of e-commerce and the argument went something like this: As the New Economy runs amok with riches, anything having to do with the offline world is being rendered obsolete.

wake:up Call No. 9

The Culture of Failure
Right now, at universities and business schools all over the country, would-be entrepreneurs are dreaming of making their fortunes in the high tech industry. They’re captivated by the idea that even if their initial foray into the sector is an abject failure, they’ll still be rewarded for having the fortitude to give it a shot. So what has the culture of acceptable failure wrought? Oft-told success stories and untold fortunes, to be sure. But also misunderstanding.

wake:up Call No. 10

Note to Internet workers: We don’t feel your pain.
Earlier this year, Reuters reported that Norwegian doctors noticed “an increase in the number of young Internet consultants seeking help for depression, mood swings, chronic pains, and insomnia.”

Have dot com workers really re-defined the meaning of hard work? Are they subject to a new and unprecedented set of rigors? We think not.

wake:up Call No. 11

The Ennui of the Millionaires
On the list of hackneyed hypothetical questions, this one must be near the top: What would you do if you never had to worry about money again?

When the Internet started making potential lottery winners of us all, the proposition of eternal wealth began to seem slightly less hypothetical. In this stage of late capitalism, what will become of us when money becomes less and less of a problem formore and more people?

wake:up Call No. 12

Communication Breakdown
The Wall Street Journal recently published an essay about the rise and fall of the art of conversation. Remarkably there was no mention of the impact of technology on conversation. Enter alarm:clock.

With the rise of so many new forms of communication like e-mail, chat, and instant messaging one could argue that the art of conversation is experiencing a kind of wired renaissance. But as we “converse” in this day and age, what’s really coming out of our mouths-or from our overworked fingertips? Do we engage in thoughtful exchanges or are we trafficking in just so much piffle?

wake:up Call No. 13

The New Economy ideal?
Just prior to Labor Day weekend, CareerJournal.com, in conjunction with the 2001 Jobs Rated Almanac, published their list of the ten best and worst jobs in America.

Data for the study was gathered over the second half of last year, and the rankings were based on six key criteria-environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands, security, and stress. Although the results weren’t altogether surprising, what these rankings revealed about work—and workers—in the New Economy is distressing, to say the least.

wake:up Call No. 14

Internet election #1
Internet Time stands in stark contrast to Election Time—one is an ethereal tide of 24/7 innovation; the other is marked by four-year increments, between which there is far more inactivity than activity.

It’s sometimes easy to get lost in Internet Time, and forget that this will be only the second Presidential election in which the World Wide Web will play a role (and really the first in which it will play a significant role). Taken in this context, the often innovative, and usually humorous, ways in which the campaigns, the media, and “the people” are using the medium is remarkable.