Lecture Comment: "The Search"

I enjoyed the information about Shepard Fairey. Some of my friends from high school started a band when we were juniors called Avatar and they had a bunch of stickers made. Those stickers ended up almost everywhere they went - on street lights, car bumpers, on walls of shops, guitar cases, and bar bathrooms just to mention a few. Some of these stickers can still be found in downtown New Haven, CT. They were never caught for 'branding' themselves in this adhesive form, but the stories behind it still resignate when we get together. The band no longer plays together but the memories from those days will never die.

Those sticker provoked questions from viewers. Who is Avatar? Where do they play? What sort of band are they? Are they even a band? For a couple high school kids just wanting to jam, they did not ask themselves the deeper questions that came along with branding, they were just having fun. Sure there was a promotional aspect involved, or even hopes to become famous or recognized through the 'placement' of those stickers. It is in this want and need for individuals to be recognized that art and communications is created. People want to be remembered. People want to be famous. How do we get there? I guess the sticker can be a start.

Then there is the SEO. Optimization is still a new concept to me but I am beginning to see it's importance. Original thought into wording, meta descriptions, and tags play a good part in standing out or even above the competition. I would rather be found through specific searches than broad searches; this way I know people were looking for me and my product rather than just choosing from the 'top of the list'. I have found in searching Google that not all the best information I need is in the top 3 slots, but being within the first couple pages is important. No one wants to search more than 3 pages of results, and in most cases may not go beyond the first. In this cases priority is very important.

"The best thing you can hope to be in the future is that better argument."

I agree and disagree with this quote. I happen to know some people who are very agreeable and present little to no arguements. One of them happens to be a lawyer. I myself am baffled by this. Maybe it is because he has to present better arguments at his job - and when we socialize he is the opposite. I also have a friend who is very argumentative and always seeks to be right. Between the two of them I find myself, balancing in the middle, of most arguments. Perspective can always throw any stance into its own category, leaving little room for argeement or resolution of an argument. If someone, no matter what they know about a topic, chooses to see things the way they want, does that make them worse at arguing? Does having an opinion make you right or wrong? Is it the unique voice that matters the most rather than how we argue?