Hand me your credit card, please.

There are those moments when you first encounter a new technology that you just know it’s going to be transformative. It just feels perfect. Some examples for me were the first time I ran a BASIC program on my TRS-80, the first time I signed into CompuServe, that fateful day in college when my friend told me he “saw this place on the computer, you go to an address and you can see it”, that first time I held the iPhone and recently upon peeling back that case to reveal the iPad 2. These speak to something within us and instantly make a connection. There’s something magical about these technologies.

Of course most technologies either never get there, and if they do, they usually take much longer to spark that moment. Perhaps it’s that we change along with the technology, and only months later do we realize its implications. Twitter was that sort of technology for me, I (somewhat famously around Arc90) spent a fair amount of time talking crap about it before it completely changed how I communicate with the world.

I’d Like to Introduce You To…

I was lucky enough to encounter one of those moments at this year’s SXSW: a super-slick hardware, software and network integrated solution that reimagines a core concept that drives our economy. The most impressive aspect of the technology, as is often the case, wasn’t the technology itself, but the social implications born from its invention. So where was I introduced to this technology? At the Convention Center? A new app launch? At the Trade Show? No, a much more interesting place – over a beer at The Ginger Man.

Home of the real conference & trade show

My late night routine was to hang out at The Ginger Man and talk to people, some old friends and plenty of new ones. On this night, Chris Fahey introduced me to Nick Disabato and the subject moved to Nick’s Kickstarter-funded, self-published book on interaction design, Cadence & Slang. Nick had a copy in hand, and I took a look through it. It was beautiful. I’d have bought it on its beauty alone, but Chris highly recommended it and I have a soft spot for self-published books, so I mentioned that I planned to buy a few copies for Arc90 when I returned to the office. To which Nick replied, “hand me your credit card, please.” I complied, he then swiped it into a small white device attached to his iPhone, I then signed his iPhone screen and got an email instantly confirming the purchase.

Another Form of Communication

If you haven’t yet heard of Square, you will. As far as technologies go, it’s stunning. The entire experience around purchasing has been considered, which is far more expansive than just swiping a card. As Jack Dorsey, Twitter and Square inventor, has said:

“Payment is another form of communication,” he says, “but it’s never been treated as such. It’s never been designed. It’s never felt magical. About 90 percent of Americans carry cards, but almost nobody can accept them. We want to balance that out and just make payments feel amazing.” Dorsey talks about how Square must be “pixel-perfect,” and staffers tell stories about him agonizing over the exact location and thickness of a line on e-mailed receipts.

Another form of communication is exactly what struck me when I first encountered Square at the bar. Sure, the technology is interesting and the experience is thoughtful. That will take them quite far. But the social interaction that it gave birth to is what is really fascinating. Purchasing a book from its creator over a beer, no publisher in tweed coat or distribution middleman anywhere to be seen.

We’re in an age where people are getting back to creating things – from metalworks shops in Brooklyn to home-based businesses creating product sold through Etsy to Kickstarter-funded publishing efforts. What Wired, somewhat annoyingly, calls “The DIY Revolution”. But for the DIY Revolution to really take-off, creators must be able to sell their wares. And if the last 20 years have taught us anything, selling on credit is a powerful force. Now the little guys are on equal footing with the big guys, at least when it comes to collecting payment.

In the 00s, everyone became a publisher, perhaps in the teens, we’ll all become merchants.