i just signed up to be an Explorer for Google Glass, me and a gazillion other people. The form had a drop-down menu of choices for the reason why I wanted Google Glass, but hey! I’m a writer, so I want another chance with more words. If Google is as all-knowing and all-seeing as some people think they are (sometimes seen as good, sometimes seen as bad), maybe this will get read by someone who can do something about my dire need for Google Glass. Here is both why I want it and why I would be a good first-generation user for Google Glass.
To begin, I am an associate professor of English at a large public university. My specialty area is Computers and Writing, so I am intensely interested in how technology and rhetoric interface. Along with that area, I also teach and write about science fiction and fantasy literature. Finally, I am a published poet and an editor for a non-profit press. As one who is a scholar, editor, and creative writer, the line between personal, public, private, scholarly, and no-so-scholarly can get pretty darn blurry. Inspiration comes from unexpected connections and places. Rather than being a drawback, I believe that makes me an exceptional candidate for this device.
Of course, as one who first encountered science fiction in 1964 in a children’s novel by Isaac Asimov, I dreamed about this concept decades ago. Okay, I was kind of thinking of a chip and perfect vision so that glasses wouldn’t be needed, but since contact lenses can no longer correct my vision and I have to wear glasses anyway, this is fine. What I like about the idea of wearing Google Glass is how different streams of thought and image can mesh. In the Explorer application, different projected uses were given, and although I think it is a good idea to track intended use for research, I believe the power users for this device, the ones who really test out what can be done, will be the people who fundamentally do not differentiate between personal life, research interests, and creating art.
Art was not one of the choices, but the act of creating content could be a powerful motivation for using Google Glass. I know I get ideas all the time, and they are not always text. The trigger for what may later develop into a scholarly article, a poem, a video, or something else may be intensely visual, but also needs a spoken/written note. Right now I looked over at the mini blinds on my corner windows. The light creates a marvelous cross-hatching, and I stopped this post to take a photo. 
Of course, this isn’t enough. Everything is a part of it–the silence, the wisps of bird nest blowing in the corner–everything. This is a video from the small camera I use. It would be great to have my eyes be my tripod for the times when a moment is the shot, not a planned set-up.
What a blessing it would be to go straight from vision, whether internal or by eye, to actuality, or at least the pieces of it that will be assembled into something greater than the whole later. That is the thread that ties the different things I do together. I see, think, connect, and then create. Google Glass can help with that, and it is no surprise that I want it badly.
Lanette Cadle 