Luke Alexander

A lot can change in ten years.

For example, ten years ago I would have rejected that sentence as the worst kind of truism.  Now, on the other hand, it’s a friendly, familiar cliche that does just the job I want it to.

Because a lot has changed in the last ten years.  On a global scale, sure, but also on the microcosmic and individual scales of our daily lives; of the lives of everyone across the planet.

Now, the past tense of change (if we dispense with linguistic formalities) is, or should be, experience.  When your foot slips, or your heart palpitates, or your stomach churns: at the same time, neurons are firing, linking and settling like leaves resettling from a gust of wind.  Or that’s how I imagine it anyway.

My point?  Glad you asked. And in reply, let me say this: that I learned a lot in 2009.  And let me show you this: my list of five things that I learned.

1. Writing is really easy

I wrote a novel in November.  As I put my 50,000th word on the page, three hours before the final deadline, I surprised myself not by my relief in having pushed through the intense challenge of the previous thirty days, but in how enjoyable and pleasant they had been.  Writing is easy.  You just have to do it.  Then you’ve done it, and it’s written.

2. Writing is really hard

Approximately two minutes after that epiphanic realisation, I remembered how individually painful each word had been, and once the words had come, how terrifying it had been to move on from each sentence.  I don’t think there was a single paragraph in that novel I was happy with – and few I was capable of reading without wincing.  My biggest success throughout the project wasn’t writing a novel – nor was it even finding the time to do so – but in forcing myself not to tear the whole thing up and start again every time I opened the document.

3. I don’t belong in the Middle East

This learning may well belong to 2007, or to 2008.  But 2009 – as the year I returned to the UK from Abu Dhabi – was the year I became entirely certain that it was true.

Which isn’t to say that I dislike life in the UAE.  Some great friends, incredible opportunities and challenging work gave me an experience I would never regret… but at the end of the day, more than anything I found myself longing for country pubs, brisk walks in the cold, public transport, old friends.

I’m sure I’ll return to the UAE from time to time when work takes me – but it was a nice realisation that, though I had proven capable of handling living in a foreign country, the expat life wasn’t really for me.

4. I don’t read enough

I think there is a massive chunk of – at least British – society who go around thinking they are regular readers / gamers / film watchers / theatregoers / musicians, but who on reflection can’t really back it up.

For most of 2009 I definitely fell into that category – on almost every account.  Despite working for a gaming company and obsessively shuffling my books around bookcases, during most of the year I didn’t really have a game or a book on the go at any time.

Inspiration doesn’t just promote creativity, it makes you happy, sociable, interesting…  so I’m on the watch out for similar slips into the creative doldrums during 2010.

5. We are in the middle of a modern renaissance

Once I was reading, gaming and partaking of the moving image once more, I realised that the last few years has seen some incredible creative output.

The Edinburgh Festival this year was honestly the best I’ve ever seen it – perhaps an innacurate barometer, but it supported the rest of my experiences throughout the year, which saw superb TV, film, art, gaming…  enough to warrant a second post, I feel, on the cultural highlights of the year.

And certainly enough to make me extremely excited to see what 2010 has in store.

If you’re employed by a marketing or digital agency, and want to get some first hand experience of what is at the core of the term ’social network’, head down to the Royal Festival Hall on Tuesdays during November from 6-8pm.

I was there for a NaNoWriMo London write-in this week, which was an ample demonstration of online social networking at its finest.  iPhones were out on the table, netbooks flitting between facebook and twitter; if I saw a photo in years to come I would be able to confidently state, based only on evidence of the technology lying around, that it was 2009.

These devices on their own were meaningless; what made it a great demonstration of the power of online social networks is the fact that we were almost all strangers, meeting because we a) had a shared interest and b) had been given the tools to share it.

Indeed, the event brought back to me the meaning of the term, which I use so regularly in my day job that it has begun to lose its meaning.  In fact, the way some marketing professionals use it, you’d think anything which has ever touched a web server would qualify.

Words, even technical terms, should retain a little bit of magic that lets them thrive and grow with their meanings.  Words aren’t fixed concepts, like numbers – they have the benefit of an etymology, heritage and resistance to translation which allows them to mean, in a way, more than their meaning.

Email – electronic mail.  Internet – an international network.  Web – a world wide web of linked information.  All of these terms get submerged in the sheer number of people rushing to market, package and deliver them.

At any rate, this NaNoWriMo meet-up made me re-consider the power of the social network, in its online context.  When I was a lot younger, the technological underpinnings of online activity were much more limiting – no facebook, myspace or twitter.  But social networks were still the order of the day, even if that wasn’t how we referred to them.

Back then, I interacted with my online social networks using livejournal, usenet newsgroups and IRC.  What was true then, however, is still true now.  Social networks are created when people, using whatever tools they have at their disposal, create pathways of regular or expected communication between themselves.  Facebook, linkedin, elgg, etc all provide excellent tools to achieve this, but the core principle is that those users are the active element in the equation.

This is not the same as saying that social networks operate on a content-driven model (which may or may not be true).  Sharing cool virals and whatnot is a great strategy for many companies hoping to take advantage of social networks, but it is not the way to create social networks.  To do this, you need to provide users with the tools they need to connect as well as, of course, a reason to connect in the first place – whether it’s getting to know their colleagues, finding music from new bands, or writing a novel in a month.

Welcome.  I’ve decided this evening to give my dormant domain a bit of an overhaul.

Nothing to see here at the moment, but please do check back later for some bona fide content.

Among the issues I’m particularly likely to comment on are:

• Web, social media and wider tech matters
• Good live theatre, comedy, TV and film
• Books galore (Science Fiction and Greek and Roman Classics in particular)
• PR, Marketing and Communications

As for the rest, we’ll see.