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Steve Gillmor’s Intentions

Looks like I am not the only one who doesn’t fully understand what Steve Gillmor’s idea of ‘gestures’ is all about. Ian Landsman says that he has tried, but failed to understand and so have I. Listening to the Gillmor Gang today, I heard a lot about gestures all the time, but it just won’t come together for me yet.

Have a look at the opening of Steve’s latest post:

Gesturemania is showing sure signs of breaking out. The last few days have brought a flurry of attention (cough) about an attention specification, Kim Cameron’s gesture grokking as channeled by Doc Searls, and the entrance of Google Reader into the RSS attention commons.

I like to think of myself as a halfway intelligent being, but what is this about? Are gestures the same as ‘attention’? And what is attention? Is it about measuring where I spend my time? What I look at? Anything but clicks? Is it a gesture when I send an email? Delete a feed from my Google Reader?

Please Steve – could we get a short summary of what the idea ‘gestures’ is about?

Source: Steve Gillmor’s GestureLab » No Prisoners

Perhaps it’s just a genius idea to draw attention to himself. Get everyone talking and linking about something which is in fact nothing. Just a bunch of gibberish which he doesn’t even understand. Or maybe he does understand and will make a boatload of money by consulting to the marketing companies which will use my personal information to help me make “better” decisions.

Ian – I am not sure about that. Steve seems like a straight talker to me.

I just wish he would explain this concept a bit more as it seems so important to him.

Maybe he is suffering from exactly that. It is so clear in his head that he feels it needs no explanation – just that it is not clear to anybody but him right now. Or maybe the announcement tomorrow will give us a better idea what this is all about.

Gestures are one step further than attention, because when you gesture, there is an intention underneath you action. Attention can be passive.