Be Careful What You Wish For

When I finally made up my mind to pursue making a documentary on the history of the metric system in the United States, I had a sense there was an underlying current of interest. After all, the subject of using the metric system in this country pretty much died when we disbanded the U.S. Metric Board way back in 1982, but I also knew there were other baby boomers who were told it was coming (and became familiar with it in school) but were never quite sure what happened after that.

This 30 years of neglect has meant that there was been no crystallization point for this interest so it’s been left to individuals who feel strongly about it to do what they can in ways that make sense to them. I don’t know that I can become the rallying point for a pro-metric movement, but I sure as heck want to try to raise awareness of this issue within a wider audience and try to move it forward with what skills I have.

Since I started researching, tweeting and blogging, I’ve also become more aware of some of these 21st-century metric pioneers. One person who has been a source of information and inspiration is the Metric Maven (http://themetricmaven.com/). Even though we don’t always see eye-to-eye, at least we’re moving in the same direction. I’ll list some of the other folks in upcoming posts but, right now, I want to turn my attention to something that happened this week before I bore you to death. (Too late?)

I was in the process of updating someone on the project via email when I saw that I gotten 77 hits THAT DAY. (I had previously gotten 84 for the week, and I thought THAT was real progress.) By the time I went to bed the number was 150 and when I woke up the next morning, it was 250. The activity was centered on a post I had written a couple of weeks ago on “Why I like the metric system.” There was also a comment where someone had taken exception to something I had written. I went ahead and approved the comment for posting before I went to work for the day. (You can look at the comments on that page if you are interested in this exchange.)

Apparently, someone under the moniker Metrication  (http://www.reddit.com/user/metrication) had posted the above-mentioned blog on Reddit (http://www.reddit.com/), and it was driving people to this site. By the time the blog reset itself to zero that evening, I had received 463 hits. I received another 50 or so the next day. (Totally skewed the scale for my stats, I can tell you [see below]. Everything else looks puny now, not that I’m complaining.)

Current statistics by week

What this tells me is that people are interested in this subject or my blog wouldn’t have gotten all that attention. And that was for a fairly bland essay. Just imagine what this subject might attract with something that’s actually interesting! It is my sincere hope that over time, and through the documentary, that I’ll have some more interesting things to say. I hope you’ll stay tuned.

So, thanks Metrication for helping confirm that people are interested in my subject matter so the next time a hit a stumbling block, I’ll know I need to power through it to tell what I consider a profoundly interesting and important story.

In related news, I have a meeting on Friday with the person who I hope will be doing my animation. It’s critical to the piece but expensive. How else can I adequately convey that a meter was designed to be 1/10,000,000 of the distance between the North Pole and the equator? A “talking head”? My mantra has always been: “Talking heads are boring.” After more than a couple of seconds, people need to see something else even as the interviewees continue to speak. In some cases, it’s going to be animation to visually illustrate the point they’re verbally making.

They’re really are times when you get what you pay for.

Linda

House of Genius Presentation

Wednesday evening I made my presentation to House of Genius in Albuquerque. It  went very well.

The House of Genius goal is, in it’s own words: “to assemble brilliant, diverse groups of people to focus their collective creativity and experience to explore, discuss and solve important problems.”

I thought it might be a good resource to get feedback and possibly connections that would help me move forward with my U.S. metric system documentary. One friend compared it to a focus group. Yes, but the folks in the room had business and other experience which makes it a super-powered focus group.

You are allotted five minutes for your presentation, then the panelists ask questions, make suggestions, etc. without your knowing exactly who these folks are until the end of the session.

While some of the comments where things I had already considered, I felt it would be best if I just shut up and listened. So that’s pretty much what I did.

I did get a variety of useful comments including using Reddit (which I don’t know much about) and the possibility of holding an essay contest for children on a metric-related topic such as “Why should America switch to the metric system?” Apparently there are places where you can get prizes for such activities. (Getting kids involved, possibly media coverage, these are good things.)

All in all, it was time very well spent (even with all the time I spent figuring out how to use Prezi for my messaging) since there was another data point I walked away with: everyone was very interested in the project. This continues to confirm for me that people are willing to listen to this story and consider whether it’s time that we review our current metric isolation. But first, people need to know it’s an issue and most people don’t.

I’ll get written notes on my session so I can fully digest everything people had to say. If you want to view my Prezi slides (without the narration of course) go to: http://prezi.com/en5nbkbdi4bq/mile-behind/. Feel free to comment.

If you’d like to learn more about House of Genius (they operate in about a dozen cities in the U.S. and one in Singapore), go to http://houseofgenius.org/.

I don’t know whether I’ll blog next weekend due to the holiday, but maybe that’s a good time to post since people will have additional time off to read my drivel.

I’ll mention new posts on Twitter and my brand-, spanking-new facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/milebehind

Enjoy you week and the holiday. Share it with people you like and your relatives.
; > )

Linda

Hunting for Wild Experts

Since my metric history documentary will be interview based, it’s important that I have the right people to interview. I have some sectors already represented but I still have others I need to find. Right now, I’m looking for experts in the areas of American culture (to help explain why Americans have been so resistant to the adoption of the metric system in general during the last 200+ years) and another who understands the culture in America during the 1970s (which I believe could have played a contributory role in our failure to adopt during our last big push in the mid 1970s).

One of my thoughts was to locate authors who had published books on the subjects I need covered, thinking that not only would they be documented experts in their respective areas, but it also might also be worth their while to appear in my documentary so that they can “plug” their books. (Cross marketing is a good thing.)

I did locate one author who has a book out on American culture and emailed him a couple of weeks ago. He did respond to me pretty quickly but said he didn’t know much about the metric system and indicated “I suppose there is some vague hand-waving that can be done about American insistence that we know best, but nothing specific.” Oh well, at least he got back to me.

At that point, I continued to search for current books on Amazon that covered the topics I needed covered, but in multiple cases where I thought I had found possible authorities (based on their published books) I was unable to locate any contact information for them after multiple search attempts on the Internet. I did locate contact information for one woman, but unfortunately she’s now publishing children’s books, so I didn’t think she was the best person to approach for my project.

One I realized I was going down a blind alley, I decided to take another approach. I did an Internet search for colleges and universities with strong American Studies programs. I will now start to look through the faculty lists etc., beginning at the most prestigious ones like Harvard and Yale, in an attempt to locate someone who has the background that I need and is willing to talk on camera about why as Americans we tend to push back so hard on something like the metric system. (Granted, frequently during past Congressional hearings on the topic many, many people have gone on the record taking the pro-metric position but others have dug in their heels and done everything in their power to resist, often even while admitting that the metric system real advantages. This perplexes me.)

The U.K. Metric Association was nice enough to retweet my request for experts but I never heard anything. Cheers to the U.K. Metric Association for trying to help me with this.

So, if you are (or hope to be) a published nonfiction author, you won’t be interviewed and have an opportunity to plug your book if no one can find you once it’s out. Have someone try to track you down through your Amazon listing (though I certainly used many more attempts than that) and if you can’t be found, you probably won’t be. Just a thought.

Linda

A Little More Research

Well, I carried out my research, as promised last week, to see if I could find any general American history books at the library that referenced the metric system. I exhausted the section and was only able to find one reference. The other sections bore no direct relation (as in history of American wars, etc.).

I found the mention in the bound issues of American Heritage magazine shelved with the books. I would have totally missed it had not the librarian brought over the index that covered most of its years (The index was in the reference section, so it wasn’t shelved there). I had passed the metric item over because the piece wasn’t listed in the index. The item in question is on page 112 of the August/September 1979 issue but the index only goes up to the “Postscripts” section on page 110. Curious.

The one-page piece is called “Presidential Measures” and relays how various presidents felt about the metric system including correspondence from James Madison to James Monroe on the need to “establish universal standards” of measurement and that our third, fourth and fifth presidents would have been happy with the (then) current trend toward the metric system. I’m not sure the editorial feeling about the situation was as strong.

While there, I asked for an interlibrary-loaned copy of For Good Measure: The Making of Australia’s Measurement System. This was recommended to me by the Metric Maven (http://themetricmaven.com/) as apparently Australia has it’s metric act very much together. Only four copies were found at other libraries in the United States and since buying a copy through Amazon is $88, I opted to have them get me a copy that I will have to use within the library’s confines. (Thanks Mesa Public Library!)

The amount of material I have to read is staggering, to say the least, and I suppose I could rely on others for their expertise (and I will) but I feel it’s important that I have a really good grounding in the subject matter or how can I tell a compelling story that does the subject matter justice?

G’Day everyone

Lost American History

Just for the heck of it, I visited a bookstore yesterday and went through about 10 shelves of American history books looking for any possible references to the metric system. I also went through biographies of the presidents sitting at the various points during the last big metric push (Ford, Carter, and Regan), and books on sociology.

In the various indexes, when I got to “Mexico” (as I often did), I knew I wasn’t going to find anything. I didn’t really think I’d find anything in the bios of Ford and Regan (sorry Carter, nothing on you there yesterday) but I didn’t think it would hurt to look.

Nothing in the sociology section either, except in a book called: Here’s Looking at Euclid: From Counting Ants to Games of Chance – An Awe-Inspiring Journey Through the World of Numbers by Bellos. (See it in Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Heres-Looking-Euclid-Counting-Awe-Inspiring/dp/1416588280/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349537496&sr=8-1&keywords=here%27s+looking+at+euclid)

No wonder people don’t know anything about our history with the metric system in America, since few ever include anything on it. Granted, people setting out to write a history of our country wouldn’t necessarily go out of their way to include the rather obscure (yet with huge implications) failure of metric adoption, but it certainly has seemed to be self perpetuating. I’m not saying no one has included the metric system in their American history:Measuring America: How the United States Was Shaped By the Greatest Land Sale in History by Linklater is a notable exception. (See it in Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Measuring-America-United-Greatest-History/dp/0452284597/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1349538108&sr=1-1&keywords=measuring+america [Hey, I’m trying to be American with Disabilities Act compliant.] I’m sure there are others but not on the bookshelves of that particular store.

Now that I’ve gotten this far, I’ll need to spend time at the library in town and see what I find. The exercise above took me about 45 minutes. I expect a foray into the library’s section will take considerably longer.

Heck, I have a long weekend. I’ll let you know what I find when I post next weekend. Stay tuned.

Linda

A Little Light Reading

So, right now I’m trying to get through my research that includes: (Not in any particular notation style or order.)

The Measure of All Things, Ken Adler (A history of the development of the metric system) 350 pages without notes. 2002

A History of the Metric System Controversy in the United States, U.S. Metric Study Interim Report (Covers 1790 to 1968) 268 pages without appendixes. 1971

Getting a Better Understanding of the Metric System: Implications if Adopted by the United States, Comptroller of the United States (Says we should adopt) 700 pages without annexes. They’re word, not mine. 1978

A Metric America: A Decision Whose Time Has Come, (Title pretty much says it all)  Report to Congress, Daniel De Simone, 148 pages. 1971

Metric Transition in the United States, Volumes 1 & 2, National Science Foundation, about 238 pages to read. 1979

Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy, Andro Linklater (Has bits about the metric system in it.) 266 pages without appendixes, notes, and index. 2002.

Smoots Ear: The Measure of Humanity, Robert Tavernor, (History of measurement systems) 192 pages, 2007

There’s more of course. I also have lots of articles from newspapers and other documents.

Just in case you want to read along……

I also owe a HUGE thanks to the Los Alamos Public Library System for all the help I’ve gotten acquiring these and other documents.