like a candle in a drawer

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Sleeping, long and straight, like a candle in a drawer.

Travelling home by train at dusk, on an unfamiliar line. The gathering shade had taken out all the colour from the land, leaving it l black, except fragments the colour of the sky, where water gathered.


In response to my recent blog on comparing my life today, with that of my parent’s generation. I would like to add that there are now opportunities available that were never available to my parents. In particular the ability to take a gap year, or dip into work and opportunities. Further I’m not sure to what extent this is actually a change, but if children choose to follow a similar career path to their parents, then their parents contacts and knowledge give them a huge boost.

The Robert Puttnam argument is that social capital in a community gives people access to contacts and networks that offer them opportunities. There would appear to be a widespread decline in social capital today, which would serve to emphasise the influence of close contacts like parents, as fewer people have useful contacts with people outwith their immediate social circle and peer group.

Our working lives have also changed. The model of working for forty years for the same company has gone forever. Unfortunately are pensions and terms of employment are still configured as if we will do forty years. Taking time out reduces your pension, taking reduced hours close to retirement, reduces your pension, taking a less well paid post close to retirement, reduces your pension. There is currently little scope for easing out of the workplace gently as you age gracefully. Instead it seems to be work till you drop, and then you go over the cliff edge, and hit full time retirement, on at best half your previous income, like a brick wall.

Extending on these thoughts, in giving our children the best start, we need to support them to make their own way in the world, giving them the skills and confidence to be self reliant in a world where the basic rules shift imperceptibly over time. Good health, good support, financial support, never go wrong. In order to succeed, a lot is demanded from people. However people are now much more cynical, young people are not setting out to change the world, they would like to be comfortable, but they don’t want to be wage slaves for forty years, simply to have a three bed semi, and 2.4 children. I don’t think you could say young people are less materialistic, they are less attached to possessions, they have too many, to place much value on them, but they are more addicted to functional novelty, the latest iPod, mobile phone etc., and keeping up with technology comes at a high financial cost, that is difficult to support on the income that comes with starting a job.



Commenting further on another previous posting, on the subject of wikis. I think that the demand for good user created content has now exceeded the willingness and ability of people to provide it. Looking at iTunes, or Amazon, or iMDB, or even wikipedia, you do not have to dig terribly deep and it becomes obvious that the infrastructure is there to support a wealth of informative comment, that simply is not there.

I suppose that sometimes the work expected of unpaid contributors is excessive. The work required in contributing to wikipedia would daunt me, and I’ve used bulletin boards for years. One way round this is to simply track paths, or use cookies to find out some information about the casual browser, and use this to supplement the information you do have, to provide suggestions and recommendations.

Alternatively I don’t see why contributors cannot be paid using micropayments. Contributors clearly contribute to the commercial success of some sites, and sites can be worth vast amounts of money, which the creators have cashed in on. If Second Life can create real world fortunes for people, the new user created web should be able to make money for people. Clearly you would want to ensure that you were rewarding quality, measured by recommendations, rather than simply quantity. You would also need to bias towards the areas where comments are needed, rather than adding simply another comment on today’s best-sellers. Also useful to keep under review so that you were not creating perverse incentives, for instance if you pay for comments that generate a lot of replies, you are simply paying people to start flame wars.



I should note that at work, we have just finished a major piece of work, and been much lauded for it. Considerable relief all round, it certainly has been a battle to finish. However also mixed emotions as the team is disbanded, it looks like I will be left with all the work of the team, and no staff to support me, either above or below. Now is probably a good time to cash in the kudos, and start looking for something else. I think I would like something that I felt was more creative, and more about building up something. I’ve just lost a member of staff after six months, and I really enjoyed training them up, and working with them.