A tribute to and a lament for Marshall McLuhan. Five days a week, Tuesday through Saturday, I present one of McLuhan’s observations and talk about its relevance today. 300 ideas. 300 days. 300 posts.
Media extend us
Marshall McLuhan (February 27, 1962, age 50). I thought it up.
Ed Hall says he got the idea that media are extensions of us, our bodies our minds, our spirits, from Bucky Fuller. I didn’t get it from anybody. It just hit me. But now that I’ve got it I see the idea everywhere. Blake put it this way – “If perceptive organs vary, Objects of Perception seem to vary: / If the perceptive organs close, their objects seem to close also.” In other words by extending the senses media vary our perceptions and as our perceptive organs vary and the objects of the world vary. O brave new world!
Me (February, 2010, age 57). What if he’s right?
Marshall McLuhan enjoyed the game of exploring the myriad ways media extend us and in so doing alter the way we see the world. Every part of us he thought was a perceptive organ.
What is Twitter an extension of? Our voice. A yell.
What is the calculator an extension of? Our fingers and toes.
What is PowerPoint an extension of? Our palms and sleeves where we used to make notes to remind us of things we didn’t want to forget.
What is the digital book an extension of?
What is the digital newspaper an extension of?
What is the digit an extension of?
Is this more than a parlor game? Does it really matter?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, pp. 286-287.
Look to the media
Marshall McLuhan (February 27, 1962, age 50). TV!
Every family’s got a drop-out, magazine’s like Life are in trouble, the auto industry is veering out of control, the textbook industry and our schools are being completely overhauled. Why do so few people see that these things and a great many more are directly attributable to the impact of TV!
TV is not the first medium to have entirely reshaped society and it will not be the last. But in many ways it is the most obvious. The book escaped me for years. I caught on to TV in seconds.
Me (February, 2010, age 57). What if he’s right?
Marshall McLuhan’s observation about TV suggests the connection between the rise of the internet and the decay of newspapers.
Extra! Extra! Read all about it! In Atlanta where I was early last month for a conference, the 5 star hotel I stayed in (thanks to the special deal the American Economic Association was able to arrange for its members) did not supply newspapers for its guests, as the big hotels do in Toronto. Their thinking being, I imagine that their guests would rather be on-line or in front of the TV. In Montreal the English language newspaper The Gazette is given away outside metro stations to commuters in the mornings and in the afternoons, but few appear to want to take a paper. Increasingly, the front page of the Gazette has become a showcase for advertisements, colour pictures and teasers about blogs and on-line stories. Some days, like last Monday, the lead story no longer leads on the front page.
The French seem to be lagging in the abandonment of the newspaper. The leading intellectual newspaper here is called Le Devoir. What English language daily would call itself Homework?
Are you more likely to get your news from TV, on-line, or from a newspaper? When the newspaper disappears, where will the radio morning shows get their stories?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
The Montreal Gazette, February 1, 2010.
Who should take the risks?
Marshall McLuhan (March, 1962, age 50). Risk is not for the young scientist!
Gordie Thompson, one of the boffins – one of the senior engineers, that is – in the research group at Bell, was telling me that as one of the old buggers he’s the one who has to be the guy who puts the breaks on, who slows things down, who is the sober voice of second thoughts. I told him, Gordie, you’ve got it all wrong. When it comes to scientific research, you’re the only one who understands the science who can afford to take risks, to make a big mistake. The boys in administration won’t take chances because they don’t understand the science. The young guys just out of graduate school are too busy worrying what will happen to them and their jobs if things don’t work out. Gordie, I said, you’re the one who has to do it. You understand what’s going on. You’ve already proved your worth. You can afford to get things wrong. So go out and take a chance. What if you turn out to be right?
Me (February, 2010, age 57). What if he’s right?
Marshall McLuhan’s genius was to be able to pick the counter-intuitive out of thin air, brush it off and get you to look at it and the world in a new way. The conventional wisdom says the old are the spokesmen for stasis. It’s the young you need to look to for change. McLuhan says no. Of those who can take risks in science the young aren’t strong enough in their position in their jobs, in their world to be truly creative.
What McLuhan says about science, I think applies equally to the Arts and every other area of life in which there is a discipline to be mastered. To hazard a prediction of my own, the people I would suggest you look to for the next truly innovative risky technical moves are the old: Margaret Atwood, Myrill Streep, Leonard Cohen, Stephen King, Stephen Hawking, David Susuki, Bill Gates …
Who are the risk takers in your business?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Philip Marchand, Marshall McLuhan: The medium and the messenger, 1989, p. 186.
Lucky, I’m so lucky
Marshall McLuhan (December 1968, age 57). I’ve got this thing about the number 3.
My new agent Matie Molinaro is working out splendidly. You wouldn’t believe the liberties people were taking with my radio interviews and TV and film appearances. She is making sure my good name is protected and my wish is her delight. An arrangement in which I assure you I delight. For instance, Matie didn’t bat an eye when I asked her to make sure that when she enrolled me in ACTRA that my membership number was divisible by three. You see, I am a firm believer that the number 3 and numbers divisible by three are lucky. If they’re not then why am I so lucky?
Me (January 2010, age 57). The rule of 3.
There is no doubt that Marshall McLuhan believed that the number 3 and numbers divisible by 3 are lucky. He arranged his life to surround himself with these lucky numbers. For example, he had 6 children, the Coach House, the home of his Centre for Culture and Technology was at 39A Queen’s Park Crescent East, and there are 33 chapters in his best selling Understanding Media. Not surprisingly, his rule for determining whether a book is worth reading is to peruse page 69 – a number divisible by 3 both in whole and in its parts. If that page is enlightening then the book is worth reading.
Superstitions are notoriously difficult to shake. If 3 and numbers divisible by 3 are so lucky, and Marshall McLuhan surrounded himself with them, then you might well ask: Why was he so unlucky when it came to his health, suffering from repeated strokes, a brain tumor, and, in the last 18 months (a number divisible by 3) of his life, aphasia? The answer, of course, is that but for the presence of 3 things would have been much worse.
How superstitious are you? If you are superstitious how much effort do you make to insure the Gods are on your side? Is it just a coincidence that this blog closes with 3 questions?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Matie Armstrong Molinaro. “Marshalling McLuhan,” in Marshall McLuhan: The Man and His Message. Edited by George Sanderson and Frank Macdonald. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum, 1989, pp. 81-88.
Isn’t that amazing! (How it all began)
Marshall McLuhan (March 31, 1956, age 44). We’re in the money!
The deal is signed! Bill Hagon, Murray Paulin, and Marshall McLuhan are now, officially, a consulting partnership named Idea Consultants. We’ve got a letter head. And we’ve got ideas, boy do we have ideas. For instance: see-through diapers – no more sniff, pull, and peek; a hose you hook up to the exhaust of the family car to kill pesky front-lawn rodents while you eat your dinner; or, my personal favourite – how to sell beer to dentists – tell them it’s better for the teeth than soft drinks. All we need now is a client. And unless tight-fingered Toronto University gives me a raise, it’s clients we need. The last time I counted Corinne and I’ve had acquired six kids to feed. Poetry is fun, but it’s not paying the bills.
Me (January 2010, age 57). Pitching the impractically practical.
Idea Consultants was a business disaster. They unsuccessfully pitched lunch-sized beer cartons to the J.Walter Thompson advertizing agency. They advised a vice president of Colgate Palmolive that the company needed to develop products that in the age of conformism appeal to the individual. (The principle of reversal.) He may have been interested but now that they had told him the idea didn’t think he needed to pay them for it. Life and Holiday magazines both rejected Idea Consultants’ pitch of some kind of in-store display case to promote their magazines. Life just said no. Holiday added the idea was an old one, but not a good one.
As a business Idea Consultants is most remarkable for two things: (1) the number of remarkably creative ideas the partners generated; (2) their failure to sell any of them. The true mark of an Idea Consultants’ idea is its impractical practicality. For example, their notion that underwear should be dyed a delicate shade of urine yellow, the establishment of a summer holiday retreat for hay fever sufferers, head lights for lawn mowers, and a gasoline-motor powered pencil sharpener.
And yet ideas do emerge that anticipate products that would appear 20 to 30 years in the future: devices such as: the video-cassette and DVD, aluminum soft drink cans, and pre-recorded audio guided tours. Who knows, perhaps there is a future for urine-coloured underwear. Boomers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your dignity.
Which of these Idea Consultants ideas do you think is the best of the worst? Who else in business history was as creative and as unsuccessful as Marshall McLuhan was with Idea Consultants?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
W. Terrence Gordon. Marshall McLuhan: Escape into Understanding, 1997, pp. 168-171.
Isn’t that amazing!
Marshall McLuhan (August, 1973, age 62). My contribution is an h!
Just got off the phone with Cousin Ron – Dr. Ron Hall, now – who you will remember is a biochemist at McMaster. Idea Consultants is back in action. These long hot sweaty dog days of summer have been a positive inspiration to us both. Ron has done the leg work. They say genius is 99 per cent perspiration. So perspiration is a good thing. The problem is it stinks. Ron came up with the science part of the solution. Don’t mask the smell with perfume or deodorant. Keep the good part of the sweat -those amazingly communicative pheromones. Get rid of the stinky part. Ron wanted to call his bio-chemical product “protex.” As in “pro-tection” and “tex-tile” – protect the fabric. But I added, if I must say – and I will – what Corinne told me was “the distilled essence of genius.” I convinced him to add one little letter to the name which will spell all the difference in the world: the letter “h.” We will call it “Prohtex.” Get it? “Proh-ibit” and “tex-tile” – as in prohibit [the bad sweat on] the fabric. Well perhaps not everyone will get it. But when they do we’ll be rolling in it. Or rather they will. Must run I feel another idea coming on. This could be the big one.
Me (January 2010, age 57): Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea
I don’t know exactly what happened when Marshall McLuhan and his nephew pitched one of the big companies like Johnson & Johnson. But I’m sure the brand guys dined out regularly on the story. It is a wonder that the writers on “Madmen” don’t go more to the life of McLuhan for inspiration. As you might expect nobody in the business world wanted to buy this idea. Perhaps business people today might be more interested, providing that is that the product does not prove to have unwanted and fundamentally deal-breaking side-effects, for example the attractions of the sexual attention of people you don’t want to be sexually attentive. (Tomorrow I’ll take a look at more of McLuhan’s amazing business ideas that business kept on turning down.)
Was the name the problem? Or was it the product? Say that it worked, would you use a product that kept the good sweat –sent the chemical messages of attraction – and got rid of the bad – the stinky part?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
W. Terrence Gordon. Marshall McLuhan: Escape into Understanding, 1997, pp. 268-269.
Trying to sell Snow to sell the Galaxy
Marshall McLuhan (February 1, 1962, age 50). C.P. Snow’s the bloke!
My editor at U of Toronto press, a canny Scot, came up with a great idea for the dust jacket testimonial for The Gutenberg Galaxy of which I hope to see the page proofs in the coming weeks. We will get C.P. Snow – Sir Charles now – to write something complimentary. Turns out he, and Lady Snow, met Walter Ong – my former student – at Wesleyan University and they had a meeting of minds. How delightfully serendipitous are the ways of fate. As you may know we are both Cambridge men and individually represent the opposite divides of the Two Cultures he has banged on about to great effect and acclaim. The Gutenberg Galaxy is at heart about the making of the two cultures; two being one more than there was before the advent of printing. I hope he agrees. It will certainly make a world of difference to the sales of good old Galaxy if we can get the author of the Two Cultures to go to bat for me. Must go, I have a letter to write.
Me (January 2010, age 57). I don’t think Snow had a hard time saying no.
C.P. Snow did not write a phrase for the dust jacket of the Galaxy. As far as I have been able to learn he did not reply to McLuhan’s letter. In that letter McLuhan writes, somewhat obsequiously, “The Gutenberg Galaxy … undertakes, almost as a sequel to your Two Cultures, to explain the historical divergence of these two cultures, both before and since Gutenberg. I dreamed, therefore, of seeing a phrase of yours on the jacket.”
If Sir Charles bothered to read the page proofs of The Gutenberg Galaxy – assuming that McLuhan actually went to the trouble and expense of sending them to him as he promised in his letter - it is difficult to believe that Snow would have seen himself as a natural dust jacket testimonial writer for the book. The first two opening sentences alone I suspect would have had this plain speaking Yorkshire man shaking his head: “The present volume is in many respects complementary to The Singer of Tales by Albert B. Lord. Professor Lord has continued the work of Milman Parry, whose Homeric studies led him to consider how oral and written poetry naturally followed diverse patterns and functions.”
McLuhan might have found it crystal clear that Snow’s Two Cultures correspond to Lord and Parry’s “oral” and “written” “patterns and functions,” but I don’t think Snow would have found it either obvious or enlightening.
What was McLuhan thinking? That, of course, C. P. Snow would want to be a part of the Marshall McLuhan fan club? What should he have done differently? (I can think of quite a few things. For example I imagine the last thing Snow would have wanted was to see the page proofs to the Galaxy.) Perhaps the real lesson of this story is that McLuhan was at this time totally consumed with the ideas he was creating. What do you think?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, pp. 282-284.
Things change but we do not know it (continued)
Marshall McLuhan (November 18, 1961, age 50). The medium is invisible.
As I was saying no one sees the medium at work. It is invisible. It does its work on us and we go on differently, but do not see that everything has changed.
Me (January 2010, age 57). Another example?
PowerPoint has not only changed the world of work it has also dramatically changed the world of education. Consider this. Most lectures at universities – even in graduate school – are given using PowerPoint. Lecturers (or should I say PowerPointers) like it because they feel more in control of the lecture process. It gives them more confidence to have the slides at their command when they stand up to speak, say, for 1 to 2 hours in a large lecture hall. Students (the PowerPointed), however, also like it because it gives them more control over what they have to learn. How? PowerPoint typically reduces what students have to know for “the exam.” More and more, by tacit agreement between professor and student, what students are required to know is what is on the slides. And the slides reduce what students need to know. Conservatively, the maximum information you can reasonably get on a slide is 125 words. (Half the number of words you can fit on a single type-written, double-spaced 8½-by-11 inch page. But this is far in excess of the ideal of educational PowerPoint. The ideal is 5 to 7 bullet points each with no more than 5 to 7 words (The 5X5 rule or the 7X7 rule). The ideal reduces 125 words to 25 to 49 words a saving to students of 60.8 to 80 percent.
The medium of PowerPoint may be one of the more powerful and unseen forces that has driven the much-discussed decline in university education over the last generation. In education, unlike architecture or design, less may not be more.
Do you agree? Is PowerPoint enabling students to get by knowing less?
Cordially, Marshall and Me
Reading for this post
Letters of Marshall McLuhan, 1987, pp. 280-281.