2012 was a good year for Crowd. One of the rewards of our hard work was the luxury of a new office. We wanted to make the space our very own, and brainstormed how we were going to make out work space beautiful, and more importantly, meaningful.
I decided that we should commission the very talented local graffiti artist, Andrew Woodward, to create a unique and thought provoking piece. The result is the largest wall that splits the main office from our meeting room, has been transformed by his fair hand into a bespoke and stunning backdrop which we now work with. Every day it inspires us, is a talking point for our clients and visitors, and makes the office feel like home for us.
Within the collective brief we gave Andrew, I sifted through some of my most thought provoking literature and quotes. Words with weight that meant something to us personally and as a business. Mr George Orwell was right up at the front, and for us, it was a no brainer to allow him into the mix. He now sits smack bang in the middle of this wall, immortalised in a 21st century urban style, reminding us daily that we need to choose very carefully whether we create a utopian, or as Orwell declared in his 1984 novel, dystopian future.
Many say Orwell’s classic fiction work, 1984, was actually a prophetic piece that declared a controlled society, with technology playing a large part in this. Where governments and “Thought Police” meant a system that punished and eradicated free thinkers. The luxury of privacy was removed from daily existence; he wrote of “Big Brother” and “Newspeak”.
Many now compare these analogies to the tightly controlled society we live in today, with conspiracy theorists comparing global events such as 9/11, as an example of exactly what Orwell penned in the 1940’s. In the wake of these disasters comes fear, and the subsequent creation of surveillance, extreme security and control by governments, all in the name of protection.
The largest contributing factor to the loss of privacy, some would argue, is the impact of technology in our daily lives. We can now choose to give away reams of personal data, in exchange for access to better connections, advanced online processes and a supposedly more streamlined existence.
What would Orwell make of how we use technology today?
I suspect he would declare the mighty Facebook, and probably Google, the embodiment of his Big Brother. The amount of personal data that is owned and held by such tech giants would probably even go beyond what Orwell’s vision of the future might be like. The difference between the predictions of 1984 and today of course, are that we do have free will. We can choose what we do submit in terms of data and personal information. There is no law enforcement that states we have to use tools like Facebook, or even the internet itself.
The irony is, we have never had so much freedom. We have access to every library in the world, every person we choose to connect with, and none of it restricted by geography, or space or time – and all available from our smart phones before we even getting out of bed in the morning. This has created massive opportunity for society, and has seen oppressive regimes overthrown and brought pressure to bear on governments globally. Never before has the individual had so much power.
We now exist in a transitional period of technological advancement, where the line between control and freedom is forever shifting.
Given that Crowd’s work is technology based, we are always having these discussions within the office, and also with clients that are looking for reassurance and direction on how to manage and mitigate risk within this environment. By making informed decisions on what you share online you have to take responsibility for your publishing.
This responsibility by default, should make any individual or business, think very carefully about what they publish online. It means we now call for, and expect, a greater degree of transparency and truth. The issue that remains, and will continue, is that we must have a utopian, not dystopian, mindset around the impact of technology on society today. In times of political, financial and economic confusion, it is even more important we are educated and remain informed.
Orwell’s famous quote, tattooed onto our office wall, “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” has possibly never had so much meaning when we put this into technological context, and the media industry today.