Customer Reviews

Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live

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If the style Jeff Jarvis uses to write Public Parts (a bit of a play on Howard Stern's book "Private Parts") is any indication, I'd imagine that Jeff was the kind of kid in school that was perpetually being told to get back to his seat and sit down, and to quiet down a bit. But you know...it works. Jarvis has much to say about the fantastic challenges to commonly held ideas of privacy that the massive hyperdrive toward connectivity in the 21st century poses. His approach to getting it all out in this fairly short book is a bit frenetic, and his never-a-dull-moment journalism can be energizing, or off-putting, depending on your own preferences. Jarvis's approach is far more the shotgun than the high-powered rifle, which allows him to encompass a wide pattern of topics.

While Jarvis acknowledges that privacy has its uses, he is a gigantic advocate of openness, of public access to information, rather than containment. He backs his advocacy with examples that range from the very personal level (where we hear about his urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction after his prostate cancer surgery) to the international level, where he argues that "governments should be public by default, private only by necessity". Good governments, he says, are transparent. Bad governments are invariably, and often lethally, private. While conscious of the collateral damage that can occur with making some forms of information public, I think he would agree with the thought that when all is said and done, when all the dust is settled, when all the fires of public outrage die down, being public with information is a large net gain to society compared to a culture of privacy.

Particularly enjoyable to me was Jarvis's review of the stages of increased communication that humans have gone through: development of language, development of the written word, development of the ability to copy and distribute the written word (think Guttenberg), ability to cast the written word to millions of people simultaneously over the radio, ability to reach millions (now billions) over TV, and now the ubiquitous connectivity of Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, SMS texting, and whatever the newest iteration of ramped up communication will be. And each time (at least once history was being written down), the naysayers and the prophets of doom predicted (only slightly exaggerating here) the end of society as we know it. Which, of course, the prophets of doom were right about: society has ---now and many times in the past--- come to an end as we knew it. Few even wish it otherwise, Jarvis would guess. Millenials, who often have little interest in NRA slogans, would resonate deeply with "You'll get my cell phone and my Facebook away from me when you pry my cold, dead fingers off my keyboards/keypads!"

Flaws? Jarvis likes to use the word "I" and "my" quite a lot. He's more attached to name-dropping than a smoker to nicotine. Just in case you've forgotten that he has a blog, he reminds you of this fact with more insistence than the "Your headlights are still on" chime in your car. Ping, ping, ping. But don't let this ad hominem stuff distract you from this truth: Public Parts will challenge you to think, and regardless of your convictions before you start the book, you'll find yourself with new perspectives by the time you end it. If you don't have time to sit and read it, get the audio download version, and listen during your commute or during your daily (right?) exercise period. Privacy, as we've known it, is dead. How to handle information going forward will be a series of decisions we'll make as a culture and a country. If you're in the camp that likes to make informed decisions, rather than shoot from the hip/lip, Public Parts is a fun, fast primer to get you up to speed.

Jeff Jarvis has written a provocative book that will force us to have a serious conversation about the trade-offs between enhanced privacy rights and "publicness" -- which he defines as the benefits that come "from being open and making the connections that technology now affords."

Some will bristle at the notion that privacy "rights" should be balanced against any other right or value. If we desire the benefits of a more open and transparent society, however, it is a conversation we need to have. As Jarvis correctly notes, publicness improves interpersonal relationships, empowers communities, strengthens social ties, enables greater collaboration, promotes transparency and truth-seeking, and helps enliven deliberative democracy, among many other things.

Of course, new innovations in information technology -- the printing press, cameras, microphones, and now search engines and social networking -- have always spawned new privacy tensions. Ultimately, though, they also bring tremendous benefits, Jarvis correctly notes. The Internet revolution and all the angst that it entails is just the latest in this reoccurring cycle. We're going through the same growing pains our ancestors did with previous technologies and it's important not to overreact.

Whatever your view on privacy and the law governing it, it's always good to hear the other side of the story. Jarvis delivers it here with gusto and makes a powerful case for re-framing the way we think about these challenging issues going forward. Incidentally, those who find this topic of interest should also check out "The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us To Choose Between Privacy And Freedom?" by David Brin, which also makes the case for increased information sharing and publicness.

[My longer review of "Public Parts" can be found at Forbes.com]

By the end of my presentation about the dangers of social media, some of the audience had left. My aim was to tell about something I call the Privacy Paradox - to me the heart of Jeff Jarvis' book Public Parts.

Let me define the Privacy Paradox. People love to share personal details with total strangers. But there is outrage when these strangers misuse personal information.

I was hired by information specialists of high schools. The ones that left thought they just witnessed the result of some serious hacking into personal databases. They simple didn't believe that the information was published voluntarily. By their own students.

I took the insignificant personal details of one single person from Twitter and Facebook, combined them with some marginal geodata from Foursquare, mixed them with a few more particularly unnewsworthy facts from other networks (with the help of Spokeo) and made a narrative of them. I told a story. A real story. The sum of all these public parts ? A naked person. He told us where he lived, what he loves, what he hates, why he does things, what his cell phone number is, where he works, his family and friends, everything.

Did this person intend to tweet or post personal details? Yes. Does the person hate that a stranger makes his whole life public? Yes. That's the Privacy Paradox.

The definition of privacy is shifting, says Jarvis. That's ok. We just don't want our data used against us. Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, hated that someone published a ton of personal details just by .. Googling him. We want to express ourselves, we want to find information about other people, but want to control our own information. Which we can, but we don't because we want to share.

I think the openness is great. In a transparent world, wonderful things can happen. I love my Flipboard where I can make my own magazine about niche topics that are extremely important to me. I read thoughts that are fresh and at the same time fragile.

I can follow the first thoughts of gatekeepers in `journalism',' internet research for reporters' and even `people who design internet research courses for reporters'. I can read how new ideas are conceived. I can participate.

Even specialists will sooner or later talk about what they ate, their holidays or the weather or how great their newest book is. But thanks to intelligent filters and the curated web, I won't know. I can ignore the personal details. But if I want to, I can make the person behind the specialism come alive with all the mediocre details of daily life.

University of Amsterdam, introductory tour. After the first student introduced herself, I said: "Hold on. Let me do this". I show the students their own public details from Facebook and Twitter. Your mother's birthday is tomorrow. You want bigger breasts. You only slept one hour last night. You killed your cat.

Again, some are shocked. But all of the details are from authentic posts. The solution to the paradox is not to protect people from themselves with more privacy laws. It's about the misuse of personal data, not the personal data itself.

Do we need more privacy filters? Do we need more laws? Must Facebook be stopped? How evil is Google? In the few seconds that it took you to read these questions, over 100,000 people typed "Can gonorrhea be cured?" into Google and they were happy to find a companion who is transparent and honest.

Another 10,000 people just searched for "I lied to my boyfriend about my age" and found real people with the same problem.

The risk of transparency is not the loss of our privacy. The risk is that we lose ourselves in a virtual world of personal tidbits and we are shocked when it leaves that world.

Jeff Jarvis wrote a book that will be required reading for my students. With great skill he proves, yes proves, that the current privacy debate is too simple.

That we shouldn't concentrate on what is there, but on how we use it.

Mr. Jarvis is to be commended for the clarity of thought and honest passion in examining the ever-evolving complexities and challenges of living in the internet-connected world. The power of these rapidly expanding interfaces and their influence on both individuals and societies is indeed revolutionary, and the author speaks knowledgably from both personal experience and the world stage to provide examples, assessment and guidance.

To hell with the handful of naysayers in academe who criticize brilliant minds like Jeff Jarvis and Clay Shirky for being "Internet Intellectuals"; they think deeply and are able to relate their important insights in a fashion that the average person can grasp.

Public Parts is a must-read for anyone. Period.

Not just business pros, though they'll doubtless benefit from the discussion of how the era of Radical Transparency can benefit business. Not just netizens, though they'll find the discussion of civil rights in the digital space invaluable in protecting themselves and advancing their own ideas. Not just PR pros, though they'll be comforted by the litany of case studies that will help them justify "doing the right thing" to the C-Suite.

Jarvis provides a succinct and well-organized argument on why sharing more can improve everyone's life - though the metrics for what constitutes improvement is of course, debatable. The arguments are fairly compelling; however, compared to Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age and Here Comes Everybody: How Change Happens When People Come Together, Jarvis fails to inspire the reader with a sound theoretical argument or detailed examples. His focus on personal experiences derived from his blog (a must-read) and somewhat petty criticisms of his critics mar the value of this book.

Nevertheless, one can find nuggets of information that clearly show the potential impact of business models that rely on sharing (e.g. - TinyURL resulting in more clickthroughs than direct search on Google - showing the latent potential of Facebook-like platforms on monetizing connections/sharing and the increase in effectiveness of marketing, more relevant targeting). Readers familiar with the domain may not significantly benefit from the discussion on other applications such as Foursquare and many others that are focused on sharing purchase information. Overall, Jarvis makes the argument that sharing information will eventually lead to better targeted more relevant ads, that in turn increase the click-throughs - a win for the advertiser and the platform - and presumably for the target. The discussion on sharing health information had the most potential - while he discounts the reasons for resistance to sharing, he could have focused more on the health/wellness domain - providing the perfect intersection of security/privacy and regulation constraints.

The clear standout chapter is one that outlines the "ethics" of "privateness" and "publicness". In fact, if the book had been organized around these ethics, with specific examples on success (and failure) stories, the reader may have been better served. The first-person narrative style forcing repetitive self-referenced attempts at humor and the earlier-mentioned 'petty' squabble with a critic blogger is likely to mar the interest for most readers. Overall, an above-average read - but Shirky's works in this area is more compelling.

Privacy vs. "publicness" is often positioned as black and white, but in reality all of us today operate in various shades of gray. In fact, we can adopt various strategies for different parts of our lives (personal, work related, and so forth), and achieve different goals.

The author provides a number of great examples of how "greater publicness" can bring great benefits both to individuals, and to communities and even entire societies: improved social ties, greater collaboration, transparency, and so forth. Likewise, as Jeff Jarvis points out, these discussions (even though the "privacy pundits" would love to have you believe otherwise), are nothing new: we've had same outcries with introduction of cameras, radio, TV, and so forth.

Overall, a great read if you are interested in the subject.

I've listened to Jeff Jarvis for two years as he ruminated about the making of Public Parts so it was a no-brainer buying the Audible edition of Public Parts to hear the whole story. Jarvis offers important observations and measured endorsements of living online by sharing the trivial, engaging in the compelling and appreciating social signals. Because I have to teach these concepts in several third level (university level) courses in Ireland, Public Parts now occupies two spaces on the library shelves. Actually, the books aren't on the shelf--they've been continuously checked out since arrival in County Tipperary, Ireland.

The Jarvis premise of the essential nature of sharing online is made more credible by Jeff's easy access to key players in our online world. Because his examples blend with an easy-listening style, I've played several chapters from my Kindle for lecture hall audiences. If I shared the view of the audience, you would see rapt attention.

I also work with students I label as "Cellphone Amish" because they might have the smartphones but they don't have any inclination to open up and collaborate electronically. They tell me that they fear the rabble of the online world. Jarvis says that's real life. And although there's no guarantee that these Cellphone Amish students will convert to a more social style online during their immersive colelge experience, reading and listening to Public Parts makes the transformation more likely. And that's why Public Parts is an essential reading in two of my college courses.

Disclaimer: I have been a fan of Jeff Jarvis for over a year, mostly due to his weekly show, This Week in Google.

As the majority of the Facebook and Google users will acknowledge, privacy is a hot issue right now. Privacy advocate groups are everywhere, so a different opinion is needed to balance the world. And that's where Jeff Jarvis' book comes in.

The book starts out with the example of Germany and the dispute over Google Maps. Well, before that, there is the introduction... but you know what I mean. Throughout the book, he provides some interesting "good" points for being "public" online. However, near the middle, he succumbs to the benefits of being "private" online. In a sense, this book is, essentially, a compendium of the benefits and weaknesses of removing your privacy online. There are rather in-depth interviews and examples to help explain the deeper reasons for our need for privacy, or lack thereof, which is good.

Mr. Jarvis has written an acceptable book that will certainly help readers understand the struggles of privacy online. 4 stars.

"Public Parts" is a play on Howard Stern's book, "Private Parts." Jarvis parallels this with his choice to reveal everything about his prostate cancer. In his book judgments about good and bad, right and wrong are skirted however. Yet judgment is central to how and when to choose publicness over privacy. For example, he seems to lionize Stern simply for being public -- stereotypically public -- regardless of content? Jarvis on the contrary serves as an example to his "friend" of going public to good purpose: his cancer becomes a bridge to community and help.

I would prefer the title of Professor Jarvis' first book, "What would Google do?" (a play on "What would Jesus do?") as this latest book's title, because it hints that the questions of ethics and purpose are central to choices about privacy or publicness.

Jarvis calls for less fearful reactiveness to the unknown future. He could have said something about fear being a question of character. He emphasizes our responsibility to go public. We owe something to each other.

I think inclusion of literary figures or actors would have moved us into a much deeper discussion. What would Hester Prymme of "The Scarlet Letter" do? Why did she stay in that town despite all the shame of the huge A on her dress? She chooses to stay outside the town but still part of the town. What does that tell us about public responsibility? What would Bartleby the Scrivener do? He was "safe" in his private narrow world but oh what a boring and unfulfilled life.

Jarvis' does not ask the deeper questions that are central to privacy and publicness--philosophical questions. For example, if he were to ask, What is it to be a human being? Then he might begin to ask, Is it truly possible to take privacy away from a human being? Think of Orwell's Winston Smith... think of cameras watching you all day long (need that reveal anything about your inner reality?), think of someone in prison sharing space with others and being watched/or recorded, think even of a chat or tweet fanatic trying to share every possible thought all day long. Those individuals still have privacy--inexorably and inevitably--one really cannot escape one's separate deeper self by attempting to continually broadcast it. It is ineffable. The discussion we are having about privacy in the internet age is trivial relative to the profound phenomenon of being human.

If you know what cannot be taken from you: your integrity, your values, your self-respect -- whatever you want to

call the ineffable in you. And you make a distinction between that and what can be taken: your reputation, (if you have one, Jarvis may well add). At least you won't put the cart before the horse. What is or is not seen by others is secondary, what you truly are is primary.

Jarvis does come through as someone who realizes this in his own life, but in my view he does not make it explicit, hence readers may easily come away with superficial stances. Whether you are moving away from or moving toward greater publicness is meaningless unless you are continually asking deeper questions of human identity and choice based on judgment.

It cannot be argued that this was not his topic of concern. One of his main points is that all the other developments and technologies through history have been met with the same fear, yet the fundamentals of human life always remained essentially the same. Well...what are these fundamentals? We are all left with our own unquestioned assumptions.

I thought the book was verbose here and there so I tried to skim rapidly through, but then decided to slow down instead. As I read, I looked up references online and had fun finding things I never imagined. This alone made the book worth reading.

Nonetheless I ask: Shouldn't people who are so plugged in to the internet with all its attractions write "books" differently -- with even more commitment to absolute conciseness? We all have limited time. Cut out every chapter and every sentence that is not necessary, please.

In summary, "Public Parts" is well-written, edited, and researched (building on definitive scholarship from a by-gone age) but feels verbose to me.