Lots To Chew On Today

Today’s a big day. President Obama will deliver the State of the Union address and Steve Jobs will purportedly introduce Apple’s much anticipated tablet device. I am looking forward to hearing what each of these men will say and wondering what their messages will be. With both leaders having to make major speeches on the same day, I wonder if the two of them consulted with each other as they planned what they would say. I imagine the two of them on iChat, with Jobs holding up a picture of the Apple logo to show the President, warning him “tafasta merubeh lo tafasta” – if you try to do too much, you won’t end up doing anything at all. “You see the logo, Barack?” Jobs would say. “You see how the apple’s only got a single nibble taken out of it? Well, it’s like that to tell you not to bite off more than you can chew.”

Have you noticed how Apple has stolen a lot of Obama’s thunder a year after his historic victory? While Obama, the once almost prophet-like CHANGE agent, has fallen victim to what Newsweek has coined The Inspiration Gap, Apple is enjoying inspirational record profits and providing HOPE for its “old media” partners, who are desperate to stay alive by finding new ways to reach the ever more tech savvy public.

Hysterical Apple fanatics and zealous owners of the Jesus Phone…I mean the iPhone…are fervently awaiting the coming of what will no doubt be unofficially dubbed the Moses Tablet (it’s the Jews’ turn, but hey, I’m all for ecumenism – Muslims will have dibs on nicknaming the next Apple invention). Someone is going to have to put out a mock ad on YouTube aimed at the cult of this new device, just as someone has already done for groupies of the much-hyped phone:

Even PC’s is getting in on the religious act. The Wall Street Journal has parodied the popular Mac vs. PC ads, with PC touting its own new tablet called The Almighty. Boy, PC’s putting a lot of pressure on himself. Everyone knows that God trumps Jesus and Moses, so whatever it is he’s selling had better be absolutely divine. (Watch the WSJ ad in the post below this one).

Apple owes its success in large part to its “longstanding strategy of devising new ways to access and pay for quality content, instead of reinventing the content,” according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. “Mr. Jobs is ‘supportive of the old guard, and [he] looks to help them by giving them new forms of distribution,’ says a person who has worked with the CEO. ‘What drives all of these changes is technology, and Apple has an ability to influence that,’” the article goes on to say. Unlike its rival, Google, Apple focuses on inventing new ways for professionals who produce professional level products to get their stuff out there and continue to be relevant, rather than on offering internet user-generated, mostly amateur content largely free of charge.

Steve Jobs mosaic portait by Chavis Tsevis

In this way, Apple becomes somewhat an arbiter of quality and authenticity for the masses. Questions of the existence and role of, and even the need for, such a gatekeeper is relevant also to Judaism. How should we best use the new technologies that are available for both preserving ancient texts and traditions in their original forms and enabling Jews in the Digital Age to create new forms and content for Jewish life? Do Jews want one Apple to dominate, so to speak, or to let a thousand Google-like flowers bloom?

This a serious issue for Jews to ponder, but it’s not something either Steve Jobs or President Obama need to worry about. Leaving the Jewish piece aside, is it even fair to be comparing Apple and the Presidency? Apple goes about its business within a basically closed system. It is all about producing both software and hardware and melding them seamlessly together into works of beautiful industrial design. Apple does its thing and then launches each of its new products with a lot of hoopla, driving millions of consumers into a buying frenzy.

Barack Obama mosaic portrait by Chavis Tsevis

Obama, on the other hand, works in a much messier milieu, a system that is as open and public as there possibly can be. Politics will never look like the sleek iPhone. It’s always going to be much uglier. Apple needs only to worry primarily about business and the economy. The crappy economy is only one of the headaches on the extremely long to-do list facing the President when he wakes up each morning. And Jobs doesn’t have to worry about his healthcare legislation going down the toilet because a guy with a pick up truck named Scott Brown won the Senate seat left vacant by the late champion of universal health insurance, Ted Kennedy (who is surely turning over in his grave).

We need to give President Obama a break. He took office at a very difficult time, and I think we would all agree that 2009 was pretty much an annus horriblis (with this year so far not looking much better). A lot of sh-t has come at Obama, and a lot more is going to yet. But still, I don’t think it would be such a bad idea for the White House to switch over to Macs and iPhones. Even though the President is not allowed to use a computer (does he still use his BlackBerry? – I can’t recall what the final decision was on that), he would still see the Apple logo around the West Wing, and it would remind him that maybe he needs to tackle fewer major issues at one time. We all know that if you bite off more than you can chew, you can choke.

© 2010 Renee Ghert-Zand. All rights reserved.

Keyboard vs. Clubroom

The late William Safire, founder of the Wednesday 10

A recent Wall Street Journal article by Katherine Rosman titled, “What Facebook Can’t Give You,” got me to thinking. The piece is about the Wednesday 10, a group of 20 New York men who have met regularly for over 52 years and have evolved to prominence together, each in his own professional field or industry. The “10″ in the group’s name comes from its unstated rule that at least that number of members were expected to show up at any given monthly breakfast or dinner meeting. The group is 75% Jewish, so it is fitting to call these men machers, their having risen to positions of influence and wealth in business, media, advertising, law, medicine, banking, politics and the arts. Women were not included at the initial formation of the group by William Safire, nor have they been since.  It’s not easy, but I will withhold any commentary on this fact and chalk it up to the “that was then and this is now” excuse.

Upon reading the article, I began comparing the relative merits of old-school social networking such as the Wednesday 10 with new-school social networking. As a disclaimer, I am going to mention right off the bat that I, who am on Facebook but do not Tweet, am no social networking maven. So, I do not claim any authority on the subject other than that derived from my having friends – both those whom I encounter as tiny two-dimensional head shots (419 and counting) and those with whom I interact in three-dimensional space.

A gag Sarah Palin Facebook page

I find I am always, as they say in Hebrew, al kav hatefer, on the seam line. Just as my mother was of the generation of women who were caught between either adopting a feminist identity and working outside the home, or opting for the traditional role of housewife, I too find myself with one foot on either side of a generational divide, this time relating to technology. I am keenly aware of this awkward position I find myself in, not averse to the digital revolution but at the same time not ready to completely embrace it.

There really is nothing that can replace face-to-face conversation with someone, especially if it repeats itself over and over on a regular basis for years. But how many of us are able to keep up in-person relationships with friends in our highly mobile society? Internet technology has allowed us to keep in touch with people no matter where in the world they – or we – live. Phoning, emailing and IM chatting may not be as good as being there, but they sure beat waiting weeks for a letter to arrive by post, or worse yet, saying goodbye forever upon parting.

High touch

Aside from sharing personal news, the members of the Wednesday 10 used their time together to learn the latest about each other’s work. The groups membership was carefully composed of men from a variety of types of professions so that they could “understand why other people do what they do – which is important in life and in business. You don’t learn anything from talking to sameness, ” said Robert Menschel, a senior director at Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.

Today, when so much  - too much, some would say – information is coming at us in a constant, unrelenting stream, I find that I can gain a similar benefit to the one described by Mr. Menschel. That is, if I am careful about separating the wheat from the chaff. In between posts like “I could really use a stick of gum right now” and “My baby just burped,” I glean a decent amount of hard news and useful information and advice. I learn a lot about what is going on in the world from Facebook friends who are either participating in newsworthy events, reporting on them, or linking to articles about them. When they are not playing time-wasting online games or games of oneupmanship in witty quips and commentary, my many contacts bring to my attention interesting professional projects and philanthropic or social causes they are involved in, and invite me to learn more about and support them.

High tech

In an age, and at an age, when I simply don’t have the time to thoroughly read multiple newspapers and magazines and listen to NPR all day, it is extremely helpful (and truly amazing for someone like me who never owned a cell phone before age 29) that I can be kept up to date on important happenings and ideas in real time thanks to social networking. I like to rationalize that my CrackBerry addiction is a small price to pay for this huge payoff for having signed up for a Facebook account.

When it comes down to it, both the old-schoolers and the new-schoolers have it right. The Mishna exhorts us, “Aseh l’cha rav u’kneh l’cha chaver,” find for yourself a teacher and make for yourself a friend (Pirkei Avot 1:6). It appears that social networking may have been invented by Jews living in Ancient Israel. It wouldn’t surprise me, given the historical Jewish track record for discovering, inventing, and most pertinent in this case, schmoozing. The text doesn’t tell us, however, how to go about doing this important activity. In traditional and typical Jewish fashion, it leaves it up to each generation to figure it out for itself.

© 2009 Renee Ghert-Zand. All rights reserved.