From 'Don' commenting over on Rantburg:

Of course none of them have access to the actual OPLAN and know nothing of its flow or phaselines. Even I can detect that there are units which are in country and not accounted for, so stuff is going on we can not see. This is the classical 'fog of war' of which CENTCOM has far more resources to see through than any of the talking heads regardless of their employment background. It would have been far more effective, IMHO, to have retired historians from the Center for Military History or the history dept. of West Point to do the color commentary and fill the air time than many of these technicians. They can set the parameters to the media wanks 'setbacks' with the "as compared to what" reply.

BTW, the lower ranking officers are being misused to discuss operational issues when they should be employed to address the human element at the grunt level. That's where they can add something to the flow of information to a public which is generally ignorant of what it means to soldier.

11:02:38 AM    

On the heels of yesterday's post on texting vs. IM, arrives a story in the SJ Merc on 'away messaging' in colleges. The 'away message' is what your IM presence reports when you are not there or not responding, and it's becoming a means of expressing attitude and personality.

Consider for a moment the interacting social and technology context of the phenomenon. This sub-channel of messaging couldn't arise without the idea that the message device is something that will commonly left behind, or at least ignored. That's here. Contrast to Tokyo. Your messaging device is a keitai, and the social expectation is that it's always with you. Major faux pas to let the batteries die.

This matters a lot, because it creates a network effect in the social domain, which is a substantial barrier to marketing of technologies that violate the social expectation. Trying to sell texting in the US? You're up against an alternate approach that is already in market and beginning to lock in socially. Push IM in Japan? Same problem.

Perhaps as importantly as economics and regulation, social expecations are becoming a major driver of global divergence in devices and networks. Standards like IP and HTML maybe be popping up everywhere, but they are being used in differing fashions based on the local culture, social context, and prior technology path.
10:54:40 AM