What Poppy Did

You know you're interested.

How about some FaceTime?

I try (emphasis on the word 'try') to avoid being too ranty, but I am almost frothing at the mouth with anger after seeing the FaceTime promo vid on the Apple website. 

 
For those who are unfamiliar, FaceTime is the new video calling feature on the soon to be released iPhone 4. No, it's not revolutionary. No, Apple are not the first people to introduce video calling. But hey, let's let them market it as if it is.
 
I'm looking forward to getting my iPhone 4, but regardless of how it's promoted I really don't like the idea of FaceTime. As hard as it may be to believe from my incessant tweeting/WIWTing, I'm actually pretty private. I don't like people knowing where I am and have never really seen the appeal of Foursquare and the like for this very reason. I'm very suspicious about what people know about me. I'm not too far off thinking Russian spies live in my mirror. I pretend trips to the shop are missions from MI5. I'm a complete loser and very paranoid.
 
When I'm on Skype, it really annoys me when people ask me to put on the webcam. I don't want to see the people I'm speaking to or, to be more accurate, I don't want them to see me. If I'm working from home then the chances are I'm in my pyjamas looking like a complete trashbag. Why does anyone need to see that? A least using webcam on Skype doesn't have to be reciprocal, being able to view without having to be viewed is a definite plus. If someone wants to show me their new shirt or kitten or baby or whatever then they can do so without having to be offended by my bed hair. On FaceTime, video calls have to be reciprocal.
 
Skype is (nicely) limited by the fact that you're unlikely to be using it if you're not at your machine somewhere fairly mundane, but the idea of someone being able to say to me at any time "let's see where you are" makes me gag. 
 
People need their privacy.
 
I can't even begin to think of the strain this will put on relationships. I can just imagine the paranoid partners doing a "So you're working late are you? Huh? HUH?!? PROVE YOU'RE NOT SLEEPING WITH YOUR COLLEAGUE RIGHT NOW BY TURNING ON FACETIME RIGHT NOW AND GIVING ME A 360 DEGREE VIEW OF WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW. RIGHT NOW!" Ugh. I understand the notion of "if you've got nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear" but come on. We've all said we're on our way home when actually we're having a cheeky extra gin. (Haven't we?) The idea that someone could ask me to prove where I am at any given moment makes me feel very uncomfortable. Maybe that's just me being Poppy Paranoid, there's a reason that's a nickname of mine, but I do genuinely worry about how FaceTime can be exploited by controlling partners in abusive relationships.
 
Of course, you don't have to answer an incoming FaceTime request if you don't want to. But then you have to explain why you don't want to FaceTime, which isn't exactly ideal. What if you call in sick to work and during the call your boss asks to take a look at you on FaceTime? I guess most bosses wouldn't be that jerkish, but I don't like thinking that they *could* ask.
 
So setting aside my feelings on FaceTime being a somewhat effed up feature to begin with, let's see how Apple are marketing it and whether they can make me come around and think it's aces.
 
Cue Apple's FaceTime promo vid.
 
 
Ahhh now I get it. It's awesome because when I'm having my first ultrasound scan, the father of my unborn child can just stay at home and watch via FaceTime! Yay! And then when our baby is older, he can watch me play with it via FaceTime rather than actually bothering to be there! Double yay! And of course when I'm not being a Mum, I can show my girlfriends my latest jeans via FaceTime. Triple yay! SHOPPING AND BABIES ARE ALL THAT I CARE ABOUT SO THIS FEATURE WILL CHANGE MY LIFE. YAAAAAAAY!
 
Seriously, how is this not patronising? Or am I overreacting? It's very possible that I am. I'm very tired. But I just find the notion of these absent men connecting with their families via a fucking phone really annoying. Heaven forbid a woman might have been using FaceTime to aid a conference call. Or to do anything other than be a Mum/go shopping.
 
I appreciate that parents can't always be with their children and that FaceTime can be a nice compromise for the parent who can't see their child face to face, but I don't like the way Apple have positioned it. Why couldn't the Mum have been checking in with the Dad who has the kids? Couldn't the Mum be in the hotel? I really hate this kind of marketing, essentially playing on the emotions of parents who know they don't see enough of their families. It's not dissimilar to the god awful BT adverts were the little girl can never get hold of her dad at work but, of course, if the Dad changes BT packages they'll be a happy smiley family again.
 
FaceTime will be fully banned in my relationships. Hopefully that way I can look a mess in private, have an extra gin in private and have my man present when I'm giving birth as opposed to having him watch it on FaceTime whilst down the pub.
 
I will be very interested to see the take up on this feature, I think there'll be a lot of unhappy boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, bosses, employees, teenagers and parents. But hey. Maybe we'll all love it and embrace it. Who knows :)
 
I'll repeat what I said earlier though, people need their privacy.
 
 
UPDATE: Having re-watched Apple's promo vid I realise that the 'absent father' in the ultrasound scene is actually a military man who obviously can't be with his lady, as opposed to a lazy jackass as I imply above. So I can see in this instance where FaceTime would be an amazing feature BUT this doesn't change the fact that I hate how Apple are marketing it. Women can do things other than rear children and shop for jeans and, in my humble opinion, FaceTime is not a substitute for actually being with your family. More to the point, I see its main use being as a spying tool rather than for anything loveydovey and family related. That or phone sex, obviously.

 

I asked for feedback on my ideas...and I got it!

Just under a month ago I posted on here and on WIWT that I was looking for feedback on some ideas I had. You may have read it. (If ya did and offered help - thanks!). The post got just under 4000 views and I received well over 100 emails and phone calls, let alone tweets and FB messages, from bloody awesome people who were all happy to lend an ear.

I have to say, it was pretty damn humbling and fantastically flattering.

I don't know what I was expecting to achieve by posting what I did but I certainly never expected to be quite so inundated with messages of 'good luck' and 'how can I help?' - especially from so many people who I admire the work of and who I know are extremely busy with their own projects. I was inundated with responses and I'm eternally grateful for everyone's encouragement and kindness.

Thank you <3

Whenever you post something publicly, you open yourself up for critique. I've been pratting about online for long enough to realise this and I don't take anything too personally. But as much as I was surprised by the overwhelming positive response I received, I was also pretty surprised by the number of people who thought that my asking for feedback from multiple people was a doomed idea from the get go.

I had a number of emails 'warning me' that my plan to spend a week bouncing ideas off of a range of people would leave me a confuddled mess (well ya know, more of a confuddled mess than usual). And then I had others suggesting I spent 15 minutes with one 'guru' and that would be all the feedback I'd need. Seriously internet, have we not moved past this 'guru' nonsense yet? And then others suggested I didn't tell my ideas to anyone or at least not without an NDA. Maybe I'm too trusting, but I'd feel like a bit of a douchebag if I made someone sign an NDA before I chatted concepts with them over a Starbucks. If I'd invented something groundbreaking then fine, but I have the faith that it's my execution that will make these ideas work (or fail) and therefore I wasn't about to start getting precious with saying my ideas out loud. Anyway, an NDA is pretty meaningless if you don't have the dollar to actually fight it in court.

So.

I was pretty convinced that speaking to lots of people over the course of a week was in fact a productive thing to do. If there's anything I've learnt from working in startups it's the dangers of assumption, the rolling out of features nobody in the community ever asked for, the 'if we build it they will come' mentality. (Note to self: add Field of Dreams to LOVEFiLM queue). One of my fave t-shirts from those crazy cats at VCWear is this little beauty...

Vcwear_momshirt
And of course it's bloody true. One person likes your idea? La de da! You may as well start picking out that super yacht right now. Make mine a large one. 

Snarkiness aside, you really do need a range of people's opinions and feedback before you know if your idea has legs. I value my Mother's opinion, but she also thinks Greece's Eurovision entry was the best song she's heard this millennia. I needed advice from people whom I respected (no offence Momma D) and from people who come from a diverse range of professional backgrounds.

So I started replying to the emails I received and before I knew it I had booked myself breakfast meetings thru to dinner meetings for five solid days. I even ended up having one meeting over cheesecake in Manhattan. I met with amazing people. Talented people. Inspiring people. The kinda peoples I wanna be when I grow up. (Again, thank you a zillion times over to those who met with me.) It was a fun week, bloody tiring, but fun. 

But was it productive?

YES!

I am so unspeakably pleased that I conducted the week the way I did, if only just for the great practice it gave me of explaining what my ideas are to new people. Being able to convey your ideas effectively is crucial, so after 30 or so meetings I think it's safe to say that I have that pretty nailed now. I was basically pitching rough concepts at the beginning of the week, but as the week went on these were shaping into something much more tangible as I was able to make sense of the advice I was receiving along the way. Yes, I was sick of my own voice by the end of each day (yep that's possible, even for me) but everyone's feedback was so valuable and from such different starting points that it was impossible to get tired of the whole process.

So where am I now?

Four ideas have become three and there is a clear hierarchy in the way the three ideas will be tackled. They're pretty different (a book, a website and a TV show concept) but they have a running theme which appeals to me greatly. 

Do I think this post has rambled on for far too long?

Yes. Yes I do. So I guess you'll have to hear more on the big ideas later :)

If you read to here then you're pretty cool, have a cup of tea and a biscuit and bask in your awesomeness.

And again, thanks for your support :D

xxx