At this point I need to introduce a discussion I was having with FindMeFaster's CEO, Matt Van Wagner. Matt has worked with NextStage and recommends us to clients he knows can benefit from our offerings.
Matt and I were talking about the anthropologic demonstration of tools and I mentioned that tools evolve over time. An example I used was the flint stone. Most people today wouldn't recognize the stone, shell, bone, etc., tools used by our prehistoric ancestors unless they saw them in a museum display or on some science show. Often knapped arrowheads look like oddly shaped stones to the casual observer. The point is, we wouldn't know how to use let alone make the tools our ancestors used if we had to.
Few people appreciate that the reverse is also true. You could hand our ancestors any modern tool (think cellphone, radio, computer) and they would perhaps be impressed that we spent our time making such oddly shaped stones but they wouldn't have a clue what to do with them even if we explained their use. This is often referred to as Clarke's Third Law, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
What is also true is that tools evolve in step with those who use the tools, and I do mean "step". Some tool is introduced and creates a technological plateau upon which the tool users spread far and wide. Depending on the tool and how much it is used, that plateau can be very far and very wide.
Links for this arc:
- Articles on noisy data affecting analysis:
- The Critical Difference: Essays in the Contemporary Rhetoric of Reading
- Design and Purpose links:
- Semphonics Functionalism Paper
- IMediaConnectin Columns
- Chapter 7, "Experience versus Expectation", Reading Virtual Minds
- FindMeFaster
- The Noisy Data Arc
- Posts on new web technologies:
- Posts mentioning WAA:
- Web Analytics Association Links:
- Web Analytics Vendors mentioned in this arc:
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