{"id":737,"date":"2005-02-06T10:50:58","date_gmt":"2005-02-06T15:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alevin.com\/?p=737"},"modified":"2005-02-06T10:50:58","modified_gmt":"2005-02-06T15:50:58","slug":"the-21st-century-butler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/?p=737","title":{"rendered":"The 21st century butler"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One tactic that comes to mind for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lifewithalacrity.com\/2005\/02\/dunbar_triage_t.html\">managing online connections<\/a> is the automated equivalent of an 18th\/19th century butler, who mediated social interaction for the wealthy at a time when the intrusive, in-person visit was a primary method for making social contact.<br \/>\nThe butler has broad and nuanced knowledged of the circumstances in which the Lady is to be acknowledged to be IN.<br \/>\nToday&#8217;s online presence indicators are flat; they tell everyone the same message; that one is working, or eating ice cream in front of the television, or AWAY.<br \/>\nA butler would understand whether one is working or not, and would put through different connections at different hours.<br \/>\nA butler would understand the understand the nuances of one&#8217;s social circle, and admit some people automatically, allowing others to wait, and requiring still others to leave a message.<br \/>\nWe also need the 18th\/19th century interface to the Butler, the calling card, which conveys by its printed message and accompanying whether the caller is a longlost relative whom the butler may not remember; a recommendation from a reputable source; a specific message about the urgency of the visit.<br \/>\nAlong with butlers and calling cards would come social norms for interpreting the signals &#8212; when a calling card is a polite formality; when to interpret the declining of a visit as a crippling snub and when as scheduling circumstance.  Even with a butler, there will be mistimings and misunderstandings, yielding to new materials for comedy and drama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One tactic that comes to mind for managing online connections is the automated equivalent of an 18th\/19th century butler, who mediated social interaction for the wealthy at a time when the intrusive, in-person visit was a primary method for making social contact. The butler has broad and nuanced knowledged of the circumstances in which the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/?p=737\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The 21st century butler&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-software"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prDRq-bT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}