Ramble: Top Influential Lists and Time Out...

Taking time out from Santa Fe routines to ramble around has been good for the soul.  Soon I'll be back into routines and will ramble through my digital images once I get caught up and catch up on blog reads.

Time's top 100 most influential list, is just out (this is a good way to keep on top of our culture's ideas and trends). Jeff Han, inventor of the multi-touch screen (if you watch CNN election coverage, you've seen it and it is the new hot thing) is my only mention.  I think his ideas are behind Apple's touch screen innovations.  The best way to flip through the people is this list (it saves you time). Seeing who touts who is as interesting as the people and the ideas they represent. For example, Michael Bloomberg writes the article on Titan Jamie Dimon and Michelle Obama writes the one on Oprah.

UK's Telegraph has a list of the Top 50 Most Influential U.S. Pundits.Karl Rove, Chris Matthews, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, John Harris and Jim Vandehei, Matt Drudge, Tim Russert, David Brooks, Mark Halperin, Stephen Colbert, Bill O'Reilly, Keith Olberman, Chuck Todd and Bill Maher round out the top 15.

Foreign Policy's list of Top 100 Public Intellectuals is out. The majority are from Europe and the U.S. with most being in the field of politics and I don't see any duplications on the Time list. Ones I've read recently, some for media and communication theories, are mostly theorists: Noam Chomsky, Umberto Eco, Jared Diamond, Malcom Gladwell, Jurgen Habermas, Steven Pinker, Robert Putnam, and V.S. Ramachandran.

U.K. Times list of Top 100 movies: Casablanca #1 and There Will Be Blood is #2.  With crude topping $120/barrel yesterday and going over $121/barrel today, guess I need to see There Will Be Blood for a reference to the oil booms.  My cousin, a Texas oil and gas producer, said he didn't like how that movie disparaged his business.

Cognitive Surplus: This idea is from another thinker and is worth a read. I've had little time to keep up with news, media and blogs while on the road, but did come across the stats for our television consumption.  Can you believe that we watch an average of 8 hours per person a day? Clay Shirky's (author/thinker involved w/ an NYU venture) speech on Gin, Television and Social Surplus talks about the concept of cognitive surplus -- the idea of what happens when we become active and engage versus being passively numbed. During the Industrial Revolution in England, people got snockered on gin, numbing themselves during that huge social shift.  As technology hit us with mass communications and the information revolution, we numbed ourselves with television.  Now, with the media being about pull rather than push (think about how the fact is that more people read blogs than newspapers), and people can share, produce and interact with content, the cognitive surplus left over from the numbing effect will be huge, if people become actively engaged. What would happen if the average amount of tv watching went down by just one hour/day?  I take some cognitive surplus to blog and I'm taking some to figure out how to be more sustainable (those posts are coming up in the next week or so).

Girls and young women are now the most prolific web users and that is true in our family, looking at three generations.

Road Cheers!

Comments

[carron e.]

Loved this list of most influential. For me there are some standouts...I love Robert Downey,Jr. and am so impressed with his sobriety after so many set backs. He's an incredible artist and very articulate. Oprah...need I say more...using money for good. Barack Obama...the dreamer; whether or not he gets the nomination, hope he doesn't become discouraged by the politics of America. Dalai Lama...one word...peace. Why can't we all just get along? Elizabeth Gilbert...In her book, Eat, Pray, Love, I was so impressed with the fact of how she was so willing to show us all her warts; so willing to let us in to see her raw emotions. Great book. The real most influential people, however, are those un-famous people who go to third world countries to help the poor and oppressed. Those that bring medical care to the dying children and food to the starving. They are out there doing their thing with largely no attention to their lofty endeavors. Saving the human race one person at a time. I applaud the big names that do this too...like George Clooney and Brad and Angelina. Using their notoriety for the good of others. As a nurse, that has always been a dream of mine...faraway places helping the sick. Maybe someday.

[susiej]

Interesting point about the women... well, your entire post is fascinating, but I'm intrigued with women being the most prolific web users. What does this mean for the future of e-commerce, bloghing, and news? A great deal, I'm sure.

[magpie]

But wait! Do I have to cut out gin & tonic this summer? No, it can't be!!