Dean Preece, distinguished faculty and staff, honored guests, family and supporters; and \u2026 above all \u2026 members of the class of 2014 \u2026<\/p>\n\n
I can\u2019t believe I am lucky enough to spend this special time with you. Thank you for such an honor.<\/p>\n\n
You have reached the end of the iSchool version of \u201cReal World\u201d \u2014 month after month locked away in HBK with no access to outsiders or to Adderall \u2014 and, still \u2026 you look amazing.<\/p>\n\n
I\u2019m told, though, that you guys totally screwed up your end of the reality-show deal by being the most drama-free \u2026 and most avid sharing-and-bonded group ever to attend the iSchool \u2026<\/p>\n\n
Even though you have met all the requirements to graduate, I have three last assignments for you.<\/p>\n\n
The first is to ask you graduates to stand up \u2026 and wave your thanks \u2026 and love \u2026 to your families and supporters in the audience.<\/p>\n\n
The second assignment is to pull out your phones right now \u2014 I know you have them turned on \u2026 and send thank-you texts to your favorite iSchool professors and tell them what they meant to you.<\/p>\n\n
Finally, point your phone towards me, take a picture, then Vine it, Tweet it, Facebook it, Instagram it or Snapchat it and describe how sensational this speech has been so far \u2026 using the hashtag: #RainieIsKillingIt.<\/p>\n\n
Now that you are part of the 1% \u2014 that is, the small fraction of those who REALLY know what the heck is going on in information spaces \u2014 people will expect you to solve the greatest challenges that the digital age has tossed in our path.<\/p>\n\n
One of the biggest is information overload, a phenomenon that began to be chronicled by psychologists during World War II.<\/p>\n\n
One well-documented episode involved a Chindit soldier in Burma who literally fell asleep as machine-gun bullets splattered around him. Researchers discovered later this hadn\u2019t been caused by fatigue. Instead, it resulted from the soldier\u2019s information-overloaded brain circuits. [1. This story is repeated in Alvin Toffler\u2019s Future Shock<\/em>, Bantam Books, 1970 p. 177]<\/p>\n\n A more 21st<\/sup> Century version of information overload was covered by The Onion in a 2006 story<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n [information emissions]<\/p>\n\n\n If you believe The Onion and also listen to my friend, the wonderful communications analyst, Clay Shirky, the real problem here isn\u2019t so much information overload as it is a \u201cfilter failure.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n We don\u2019t have the right mechanisms to sort through the hyper-abundance of information to get to the good stuff \u2014 the stuff that will make us smarter, help us make better decisions, and allow us to nuzzle up even closer to wisdom and truth.<\/p>\n\n How do you build filters for wisdom and truth? I have no earthly idea. For Pete\u2019s sake, that\u2019s why you have PhDs and master\u2019s degrees now. You\u2019re supposed to figure it out.<\/p>\n\n The good news is that we\u2019ve built fabulous filters before in situations of information overload:<\/p>\n\n As you think about new filters for this new age, there is at least one clue from our Pew Internet data: You\u2019ll need to build those filters around social networks and new social processes like crowdsourcing, open-source mechanisms, transparency practices and platforms that are enabled by the internet.<\/p>\n\n Traditional cataloguing and sorting systems can only get you so far when more than two-thirds of the people in this country are themselves creating content. Or, again, as The Onion noted this past February:<\/p>\n\n Online Content Creators Outnumber Consumers 2,000 to 1<\/a><\/p>\n\n And I quote:<\/p>\n\n \u201cFor every one viewer, there are dozens of fully staffed companies churning out articles, videos, blogs, vlogs, and countless social media posts hoping to lure that person to click.\u201d<\/p>\n\n It\u2019s a very sad world where all these content creators spend their days \u201crepeatedly hitting the refresh button to see if anyone else has looked at their work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n As you build new filters, be very careful not to OVER-filter by designing systems that minimize users\u2019 access to accidental discovery and enchantment.<\/p>\n\n We are all victims of the bias that behavioral economists describe as \u201cWhat You See is All There Is.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n It\u2019s a universal human trait that we create definitive \u2014 but flawed \u2014 judgments from too little information.<\/p>\n\n One story highlighting this trait comes from Eduardo Galeano (Gal-EE-Ano), the journalist, writer and novelist, who was for a time a political prisoner in Uruguay in the 1970s. As he told it in his Memory of Fire<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n Uruguayan political prisoners may not talk without permission, or whistle, smile, sing, walk fast, or greet other prisoners; nor may they make or receive drawings of pregnant women, couples, butterflies, stars, or birds.<\/p>\n\n One Sunday, Didasko P\u00e9rez, a schoolteacher, tortured and jailed for “having ideological ideas,” is visited by his daughter Milay, aged five. She brings him a drawing of birds. The guards destroy it at the entrance of the jail.<\/p>\n\n On the following Sunday, Milay brings him a drawing of trees. Trees are not forbidden, and the drawings get through.<\/p>\n\n Didasko praises her work and asks about the colored circles scattered in the treetops, many small circles are half-hidden among the branches: “Are they oranges? What fruit is it?”<\/p>\n\n The child puts her fingers to her mouth: “Ssssshhh.” And she whispers in his ear: “Silly. Don’t you see their eyes? They are the eyes of the birds that I’ve smuggled in for you.”<\/p>\n\n I hope you\u2019ll find ways to make filters that are good smugglers \u2014 filters that will help people unearth hidden gems.<\/p>\n\n If I could twist the dial for the optimal smuggler filter I\u2019d turn it to the setting marked \u201cMaslow Stage 6\u201d \u2014 the setting for the most sublime human interactions.<\/p>\n\n As you may recall, the great 20th<\/sup> century psychologist Abraham Maslow is famous for creating a 5-stage pyramid that he called a \u201cHierarchy of Human Needs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n He was trying to explain what drives people\u2019s behavior as they progress through stages of life and as civilizations advance.<\/p>\n\n At the lowest level of Maslow\u2019s hierarchy is what he called \u201cPhysiological or survival needs\u201d \u2026 He argued that people can\u2019t think about anything else until they have been fed and sheltered.<\/p>\n\n At the second stage, humans are motivated to address \u201cSafety\u201d concerns. They want law and order.<\/p>\n\n The third stage is \u201cBelongingness and love needs.\u201d Once humans are fed and safe, they can find new fulfillment by connecting to others and groups.<\/p>\n\n After people establish group affiliations, they can then move to the fourth stage \u2014 and attempt to meet what Maslow called \u201cEsteem needs.\u201d He saw that humans strive for greater happiness through gaining recognition and achieving things.<\/p>\n\n For you, graduating from this program today is a huge part of your Stage 4 game plan.<\/p>\n\n Finally, Maslow noted that after humans are fed, safe, connected, and successful they often try to jump to a fifth stage \u2014 what he called \u201cSelf-actualization\u201d \u2026 or a point in life where they seek ful\ufb01llment of their personal potential.<\/p>\n\n Think of this as your avocation \u2014 the thing that really lights you up.<\/p>\n\n That\u2019s where many textbook entries about Maslow stop \u2014 at 5 stages of the pyramid.<\/p>\n\n\n