Aloha friends,
As most of you know by now, we are building a social media company. The initial idea of the ‘Iwahai App’ now called VoiceMarkr was to be able to leave messages on a map - to combine the power of voice and place. I’ve always been aware of how important voice is - from my days of DJing and producing a morning radio show to my time as a Marine Corps Air Traffic Controller - the power of voice has always been obvious in my life.
It’s one of the reason’s why social media has never really hooked me - it’s always lacked a fundamental power that exists in the real world and on radio. When I write, people tell me that they are able to hear my voice. I write like I talk - at least I try to, sometimes there are some horrible flubs in the process because let’s face it inflection, tone, volume, and gait are each a means of conveying important information. They are generally missing from print - though some writers like Mark Twain are extraordinarily good at inferring them. I believe this is one of the unsung reasons that podcasts have taken the world by storm. Back in 2007, I was one of the first 1000 podcasters in the world - but the medium seemed to die out - the bandwidth just wasn’t capable enough yet. When I returned to the USA in 2013, I was astounded to see how popular podcasts had become. It was purely a result of increased bandwidth 4G. Now we are on the verge of something else entirely with 5G and to be honest, I don’t think anyone knows exactly where it will go.
1G was telephones. 2G was data. 3G was more robust data with the ability to send audio and pictures -even movies with packets. 4G gave us the modern world with YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Tik-Tok. 5G - we don’t even know. There is reason for concern.
What we do know is that social media has become a problem. If you haven’t yet watched the Social Dilemma, I recommend it without having watched it myself ( I don’t have Netflix) but I have delved deeply into the ideas and dangers presented in the film through podcasts, books like Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff, and a lifelong suspicion of capitalist products that are offered for ‘free’. I don’t remember who said it but ‘Free is often the most expensive price.”
If you’ve read this far, I don’t blame you for scratching your head in confusion. “Hey, wait a minute? Aren’t you the CEO of a social media company that was presumably set up for capitalist gains and to make a profit for yourself, founders, workers, and investors?” Yeah, all of that is right.
And that brings me to the title of this newsletter (and the film). We find ourselves in a bit of a social dilemma as a company. We are trying to build a company that brings the authenticity of voice and place to social media connections. We want our company to be profitable. We want to be successful. The difference is that we are not willing to do it ‘at any cost’. In fact, if one teen kills or harms themselves because of our platform at some time in the future - then we have failed. Our mantra is to “Do no harm”. My personal mantra is similar - it is “Stop doing bad things. Start doing good things. Help others to stop doing bad things and start doing good things.” That is what we are trying to do.
Social media offers some wonderful benefits. Human beings can stay connected, meet people who share their passions, and learn about new and exciting things from both strangers and friends. We want to keep that. That’s the good stuff.
What we want to stop encouraging is people staring at screens instead of interacting with other people in real life. We want to make people more accountable for their actions on social media. Voice is a way to work towards both of those things. Voices are personal - and you don’t have to be staring at a screen to hear them. In fact, you can listen while you see the beauty and wonder of the world around you.
We also don’t think that social media companies should ever put profits ahead of the well being of people. That’s what has happened in our current world and it’s something we intend to fix. You can’t have social without people - so the people need to come first. That seems simple - but apparently (looking at the world) it’s a simple lesson that many CEOs and boards have missed.
Here at Iwahai we want to help create a better form of social media. We want to be a better form of social media company. To do that, we are starting at the beginning with the right mindset. We don’t want to put an ethics board in place after we’ve already caused immense harm to people! We want to avoid causing that harm in the first place.
We have recently reached out to several people and organizations that we think will be able to help us with that and right now, I’m also reaching out to you. We want you to be a part of this journey. Please don’t hesitate to share your hopes, fears, or mistakes you think we might be making.
I know this is a busy week for many of you. There is a lot going on. I wish you the best. Be well and for those in the USA - if you haven’t already, be sure to vote. Oh wait - that reminds me of one more thing -democracy is a bit like the law of averages - if a jar is filled with pennies, it is unlikely that any one person will guess the number of pennies correctly - but if you have many people guess and then you average it out - you are going to end up closer to the number the more people you have guess. That’s the reason why it’s important that as many people as can vote, do. Sure, some are going to be way off in some direction - but the average is what will guide us forward to the correct destination. Aloha to you all.
I hope you all have a wonderful week.
Christopher Damitio
CEO - Iwahai, Inc.
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