The Most Underused App On Your SmartPhone - Day 8

My smartphone sits next to me as I write. I have over six pages of Apps. I can use it to check Facebook, the Stock Market and the weather in Paris. I can snap a picture, edit it with my Camera+ App and then post in on Instagram. I can read The New York Times and listen to Pandora. I can send a text, write an email and set my alarm for the next morning.

But the thing that used to be it’s primary purpose - before it became so smart - is the most underused App of all. 

According to the IDC Research Study sponsored by Facebook only 16% of smartphone usage is spent talking on the phone !

The phone call has evolved from being "the next best thing to being there" to an intrusion and an infringement of one's precious time. 

Why talk when one can text? 

And email? It's so much more efficient to do business.

Or is it?

Is it a better use of time to watch the phone ring and let voice mail pick up - than to experience human interaction? 

Maybe.

Is it faster and quicker to reply to the phone message with a text rather than doing something rare and what in many circles is still considered polite and call me back?

Could be.

But not always. 

And here’s the reason. 

The sound of another’s voice is a source of human connection. 

Did you hear that?

It’s why radio still endures as a medium in an age of multiple choice. It’s why podcasts are increasing in popularity.

Your voice is a persuasive tool that does not translate in a text message. An email exchange might change the course of a difficult situation - but nothing will measure against the sound of another's voice.

True, it takes more courage to pick up the phone in a world that lets us hide behind our technology. But because it’s used so infrequently these days it also sends this wonderful signal that says the receiver is important enough to actually spend some time and talk with.

What a refreshing thought!

The point of technology is to enhance our relationships - personally or professionally - not substitute. There are plenty of situations where the text or email is the best and quickest route to communicate our message. But not always. 

If you don't believe me, give it a whirl this week and experiment. Let me know what happens.

note: This is Day #8 of a 30 Day Experiment. Here are the details on how it all started.

The Live Experience As A Premium

Last week I attended a panel discussion on The Future of Media. It was one of those great conversations that if it wasn't for the fact the temperature of the room resembled a meat locker, I could have listened for another hour.

Moderated by Patrick Phillips of I Want Media, it included Roy Sekoff, President and Co-Creator of HuffPost Live, Jonah Peretti, Founder and CEO of Buzzfeed, Mark Thompson, CEO, NewYork Times Company, Cindy Jeffers, CEO and CTO of Salon Media Group, and Henry Blodget, Editor and CEO of Business Insider.

A pretty impressive group, the talk ranged from:  is it more important to be right or first when it comes to reporting the news, are legacy organizations more worried about what's next than what made them great to begin with, the intersection of big data and storytelling and the increased use of the visual in telling the story.

One of my favorite take-a-ways was this from Roy Sekoff.

And then there was this nugget from Mark Thompson.

Mark Thompson has an uncanny resemblance to Kelsey Grammer's Frasier character. So the seriousness in which he said that almost made me want to laugh. 

Except it was so true.  

It's the strange paradox of living in an increasingly digital world. Everyday there are more and more ways to interact - virtually. Yet in the end what we all crave is that in-person, live experience. It is part of our basic human nature to want to be physically seated next to another living, breathing person as opposed to a piece of technology. It's how we're designed. 

And now it has become a premium.

It's why there was standing room only for last Thursday's panel discussion. Why the Times Talk series are so popular. Why in person seminars still sell out.

The point of digital is to connect - more often, more seamlessly and more far reaching than ever before. But none of it means much if there isn't humanity involved - the living, breathing kind. It's the premium I'm willing to pay for.

Why I Will Vote Tuesday And You Should Too

There is only one thing that makes me crazier than when I hear a woman claim she is a Romney/Ryan supporter. It’s when a woman says she may not vote. Actually it makes me crazy when anyone tells me they may not vote. Ask the Greek on the corner of Broadway and 62^nd Street who owns the coffee cart where I buy my Christmas tree every year.

Friday morning when we were catching up on how we made it through Sandy, he interjected how he had a fight with his wife that morning. He told her he was so mad that there wasn’t enough aide getting to his neighbors, he wasn’t going to vote. She kept telling him he had to. I did the best I could, telling him she was right, reminding him that if Romney gets elected it wouldn’t be an issue to get angry about because there would be no aide to get there. Ever. There would be no FEMA. Romney would get rid of it.  By the time I left him I made him promise he would vote. He said yes, but refused to look me in the eye. So I’m not convinced he will. But I did start to worry about something other than Sandy and the destruction and upset she has left in her wake.

I started to worry about people voting. Which is unusual because as a rule, I am not a worrier. I prefer to trust and turn things over to a power greater than myself. But when I do worry, I write. And today it is about why you should vote.

I can’t profess to understand why any woman would cast a vote for a man who represents a party that does not support women’s rights, one who changes his opinion more often than he changes those expensive shirts he wears. A man who reminds me of that charmer with a nice smile we’ve all fallen prey to at sometime in our lives. The one who will tell you anything you want to hear. Until he gets what he wants and then he is back to his old ways.

In the case of Romney, we can’t be sure what those ways are, he changes his views so often. But his party doesn’t nor does his Vice Presidential running mate. They are clear that they do not support women’s issues. They think they, as policy makers, should determine what a woman should do with her body. Forcibly. They think we should all do what their God says is moral and right, even if ours might be saying something different. They claim to believe in less government intervention, except when it comes to a women’s body. They say they want job growth and a balanced budget yet they made their priority for the last four years that President Obama not be given a second term.  They are the party of hypocrisy.

But to not vote at all. To not exercise our right as free citizens in a democratic society.  That to me is the most immoral act of all.

So yes, I will vote on Tuesday.  And I will vote for President Barack Obama.

• I will vote because I can.  In 1912 just one hundred years ago, women were not allowed to vote. Which meant my grandmothers did not have the option as young women. They would be angry with me not to.
• I will vote because I’ve been given a voice. I will use it. We all complain when we are not heard. A vote is our chance to exercise that voice.
• I will vote because my vote does count. And so does yours. And the next person and the next. Collectively we make a difference.
• I will vote because apathy is not an attractive quality. Thinking my vote will not make a difference is a cop out. It does and it will.
• I will vote for all of our daughters, nieces, sisters and every generation to come. As the Dalai Lama has said, it is Western Women who will heal the world. That can’t happen with people in power who want to set women back fifty years and suggest placing an aspirin between ones knees as an effective method of contraception.

If you are a woman or as Nicholas Kristof stated so well in The New York Times, one of  “the men who love them” you should be voting too.

If you live, like I do in the areas hit by Sandy, it may not be as easy to fit in your day.  But that is not another excuse not to vote. It’s another reason why it is so important.

Vote Tuesday, November 6, 2012.



Note: A version of this article also appears on The Huffington Post

The Elusive Search For Security

There is a great quote by Eve Ensler in her interview in the magazine section of today's
New York Times. When asked if she ever yearns for security now that she is 56 her answer is "Security isn't what I hunger for. I hunger for change. I hunger for connection. I hunger for good sex."

While the response followed a previous question concerning her marital status, it occurred to me that the search for security is also what stops so many from reinventing where they are. "Security", if there really is such a thing is what ties people not just to relationships that are not good matches, but to jobs. The idea of security is an elusive search. Yet we think it is something we need to have. And once we get to what we think security is, we hold on desperately, afraid it might slip through our fingers. In that holding on, we stagnate. We fail to grow. And too often the grip makes our hands hurt so much that it breaks whatever we thought was our security.

But if like Eve Ensler, your response is to hunger for change, connection and of course, good sex, you stay in the flow. You grow, you open, you live joyously. And in a bizarre twist, you are given much more than the illusion of security could ever give.