Life In Perpetual Beta

Tim Daloisio

You should look at integrateing Seesmic video comments to the blog for responses for this. People could record in from their webcams straight to this page….

http://seesmic.com/

I am fairly certain there’s a wordpress plugin for this already

Now off to think about my responses

Amy Guth

Question one: What does it mean to live Life In Perpetual Beta?

Lie has expanded, life has blown up. We’re not a society of pick-one-thing-and-do-it-until-you-retire anymore; we’re so much freer now to follow our professional whims– and I certainly don’t mean that in an irresponsible way in the least, but entirely in opposite. We watched our parents’ and grandparents’ generations work hard and learned the satisfaction of good, solid, honest hard work from them– especially our grandparents, still the greatest generation in my opinion– but what we also saw and heard was far too many of them feeling stuck or feeling that they walked away from some greater and larger goal to be “practical” or, worse, aimed to follow a given path temporarily, only to find themselves feeling stuck and dissatisfied decades later on the same track.

So, while we inherited the sense of satisfaction from hard work, at least many of us anyway– perhaps because of a generational tendency to organically and instinctively (and perhaps even subconsciously) troubleshoot the things we see as collective discontent of the previous generation– many of us so deeply feared the potential ruts and adhesiveness attached to various professional situations, and grew into adulthood with a different sort of instinct: one that gave us inherent self-permission to be everything we wanted. Lifelong company loyalty paid nothing, and grated upon one another rather than endeared us to one another as in years before, and even betrayed a few of us early on at the beginning of the new era. And we learned and adapted, because if nothing else, we, our society, adapts and snaps back up faster than ever. Life In Perpetual Beta is both a need to live fully and boldly, in every direction we are capable, while also being an un-tarnishable ability to bounce back in more directions and in greater and more creative ways than ever imagined before.

Not everything we attempt is going to work in the way to originally conceive (indeed, some of the greatest discoveries are made quite by mistake) and while traditionalists might see one with Life In Perpetual Beta as aimless and trying out this and that, one project after another, LIPBs see a broader world; the LIPB worldview first asks of each project, “Where is finished?” and “At what point in this project is success?” while maintaining an inner-balance and inner-fortitude to not cling so tightly to the preconceived dimensions of what the given project may be as to smother and stifle it, but to hold a certain openness to allow the project to be all it can, and all it may, trusting it to bloom in ways we can never imagine, while ourselves remaining fluid as to know when project sections become ready to be passed along to another LIPB-neer, and open to what lies over the horizon.

Amy Guth

Question three: How has technology changed the way society behaves in general?

While all too many are quick to point out the ways technology has negatively impacted us; fed a voyeuristic nature, allowed exploitation to exist on another level, if not a greater one and bombarded markets and arenas with unedited, self-approved material, we often forget that both that achievement and abundance are in unlimited supply, and not in a push-pull battle like some might believe, and say what we may about creating a free-for-all for all mastery levels to stream and blog; quality work always rises to sightlines in its time. Technology has freed us; we are free to initiate commerce or make a friend halfway across the world, we are free to publish ourselves uncensored, we are free to be as self-sufficient as we want to be, and as communally-efficient as we can be. Even in things we now consider, by all accounts, antiques were technology in each of their own moments– the loom, the spinning wheel, the shovel, the hoe, the plow, the bridle, the hammer, the nail. All that which, again, points to being best-equipped for the task at hand, to allow its bearer to seize an opportunity when it arrives, or better yet, to carve it out for ourselves.

Ang England

Ang2England

For me, living in beta would be fantastic! I would have an opportunity to show how I work with my children; finger plays, songs, and preschool games – all demonstrated visually instead of merely described via text. And since right now any video I make requires a hideous and time-consuming technical gymnastics only to result in a zit-like watermark over my face, I desperately NEED a digital camcorder. See my single, lonely video to complete the visual of a zit-like watermark.
@AngEngland

VickyH

What does it mean to live Life In Perpetual Beta?

I believe that to live a “Life In Perpetual Beta” is somewhat of a lifestyle choice. It is acknowledging maybe only to yourself that human growth will happen and is expected. That it is perfectly normal to change, grow, and revise your opinions, views, and beliefs.

I know so many people who are Catholic because their parents were or who are social slaves to societal norms that it seems that they believe in nothing and have no point of view. If more people would realize that change is expected, inevitable event that WILL happen in their lives change wouldn’t seem like a dramatic, scary event.

I also feel that when you acknowledge change that occurs in your life or let change occur without trying to stifle your changing views, you are giving yourself a gift. A gift of acknowledging that you are growing, evolving, and moving forward. You cannot move forward if you stay in the same place, can you?

When you acknowledge your own growth, you are giving yourself permission to grow, to ask questions and seek answers. This process causes you to reevaluate at times, checking yourself asking yourself the hard questions that are many times not easy, but that allow people to know who they truly are and not what they believe themselves to be.

In software, to be in beta is a testing period. It is after a company has tested their software found as many problems as they can using test scenarios but knowing they can’t find every flaw, they release the software in beta to a small group of people to use that will report the problems they encounter so they can be fixed before the software is in general release.

Right now in business, small agile businesses have a great advantage over larger companies in their agility. They are able to implement a change or revision quickly, where large companies cannot.

I believe that “Life In Perpetual Beta” is the gift of knowing yourself well enough to know what you are really passionate about, not just what you like. To give yourself the gift of knowledge and lifelong learning to supplement your personal growth with others knowledge. To accept your mistakes and realize in advance that you will make them but not be so afraid of making those mistakes that it stifles your following your passions and dreams. That it is a gift that you give yourself that allows you to be who you truly are and not be what others expect or think you should be.

How has technology changed the way society behaves in general?

Our society, especially our younger generation is the ‘now’ generation. In almost everything we do there is an instantaneous reward of some kind. We have so many choices available to us, that what we aren’t getting from somewhere, we can usually go somewhere else and find what we want almost immediately. That’s why social media is so powerful, word of mouth, we want to know before we buy something that others think is great before we try it. We are bombarded with so many messages, communication, and marketing everyday that the choices are overwhelming.

In order to sift through all this media, all these messages, we are increasingly trusting those we know, and trust on a personal basis. That may not be an in-person relationship, but to those people we feel we know personally.

Another huge change is the way we communicate with each other. We use communication methods that are very close to instantaneous. From our cell phones which we usually carry all day, text messaging, instant messaging, blogs and comments, and email we are able to communicate at almost anytime, anywhere.

We also access information differently. We use to go and search for our information and we still do to some degree, but we also have much information ‘pushed’ to us. Examples of this could be RSS feeds, email newsletters, html links in email or on webpages, ability to attach documents in email, and the ability to share documents online are a few.

Brian Dusablon

Life in perpetual beta means an ever-changing, ultra-flexible life. It means playing it ALL “by ear.” It is an understanding that life does not have to follow an exact plan, nor does it ever usually go as planned (if you’re the planning type). It means working through the bugs and accepting that life is, by design, “buggy.” (and I’m talking MS Windows buggy here). It is enjoying the unknown. Working hard to overcome the bugs to make life, our own little custom software apps, go on, and helping others understand the bumps in the road are just minor glitches and the overall “program” is just fine! Life in perpetual beta is, well, my life; and it suits me just fine.

Technolgy is the great enabler. Tech is changing our connections to the world. Tech is leveling the playing field. It allows me to do this at the last minute via a phone. It allows my mom to see her grandchildren thousands of miles away. Tech has altered society’s expectations of itself. It has altered our expectations of ourselves, our government, our employers/ees and our peers.

And this will now have to be continued because my life is in perpetual beta and other responsibilities have jumped to the top of the bug fix list! Until next time.