Music The Mystic Wave / Photo & Essay John Fraim

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The time was the years living in Sonoma County and its Valley of the Moon.

I had written two unpublished manuscripts about symbols. I didn’t have time to pursue marketing them because of my full-time marketing position. But I did get a few interesting letters from the two publishers I sent the manuscript to.

One of the great hopes for symbolism was in the “electric symbols” searched for and rated in our new digital world. Interests of products and ideas in culture are shown by words rising and descending below the surface of of Google search. It is a technology behind their brilliant success.

This new start-up called Google created the world’s greatest target marketing company. It was obvious with their technology they offered a new source of identifying symbols and symbolism in the modern world. There has never been a global search engine like Google that’s offered a type of central “clearing station” of word ratings and product searches and categories of questions.

I still can’t believe that I created the below on my old Mac computer. Around 2002. Reading the article again, so much of the below rings true today.

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The publication of my article “Electric Symbols” in First Monday was a real coup for me. I felt good about it as it was a hugely tech oriented publication that I had little credentials to be in. Yet there was my article in First Monday. Then, and, still there 25 years later. Maybe Electric Symbols offered a type of Cliff Notes to understanding something for many at this time?

In the first week after my article Electric Symbols appeared in First Monday, I received a number of emails and phone calls. I spent a lot of time responding to them. Most were very supportive of the ideas in Electric Symbols. One of the voice-mails I received was from the VP of Publicity at Google who invited me to lunch at Google.

I drove down to Google around 2002 to meet with the VP of Publicity for Google. I took a good friend of mine Bill with me. We were greeted by the VP and given a tour around Google at the time. It was little like the traditional workplace of the world at that time. It was for very bright people. The brightest in the world. We sat down at a picnic table in the courtyard of Google. A day in March iat Googles first headquarters. The VP told me they were interested in ideas expressed in Electric Symbols. We exchanged cards.

There was a back and forth discussion between the VP and others at Google against me at the time. It was not that Google didn’t believe in my ideas. Rather, they simply wanted claim over the ideas expressed in Electric Symbols of 2002. Any analysis or prophecy of culture today is wise to take into account the basic ideas and thoughts of this amazing little essay with illustrations I created in the early part of the 21st century.

https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/957/878