Green sandbox

Applying constructivist learning principles to citizen engagement

2010-11-17T19:00:00.000-08:00

Gov 2.0 and new engagement models have in part been fueled by people interested in inverting the social pyramid. The stuff at the bottom of the pyramid tends to be... small and dusty. But, with attention, this can change. Students, intellectuals, various marginalized people can benefit from this inversion, and maybe political outcomes can improve too.

But if it's just an opportunity for getting a bigger volume of good ideas, or a new breed of digital natives elbowing in and getting a bigger slice of attention, don't bother waking most people up for that.

I think we need to worry less about short term results, "Better parking" and worry more about creating and enriching platforms for learning (about advancing citizenship, about being a human in society). Not sandbox environments: real environments, where people learn as they go.

What do these learning political environments look like?

Based on my experience at Bowen Island, Nings, live blogs, and in person open space meetings seem to work well for governance - they can help create dynamic open data environments that are learning environments. But much depends on execution.

What does a learning environment look like? Loosely transcribed from the Elearning curve podcast

"These 5 conditions must be met for a learning approach to work: (Driscoll)

1. Complex learning environments need to be provided – to mimic real life. For learners to be prepared to solve the kinds of problems in real life, they need to learn in authentic environments, with authentic activity.

2. Social negotiation must be encouraged.; Learning is a cultural interchange between members. Collaboration lets users get multi inputs, perspectives, leads to enhanced understanding.

3. Learners must be able to look at materials from multiple perspectives – and with multiple modes of representation. The same content thru diff sensory modes.

4. Reflexivity must be nurtured. Ie. let students know their own role in the knowledge construction process, in order to take ownership of their own learning and learning processes.

Reflexivity and by extension, critical thinking, is central to constructivist methodology: it enables learners to understand how and why cognition creates meaning. This results in the learners’ ability to perform reasoning, understand multi perspectives, and defend and expressing their own beliefs.

5. Emphasize student centered (“discovery”) learning. Learners get knowledge on their own. Discovery learning environments constitute cognitive structures that provide meaning, and let people go beyond the info given – instead, users decide the frontiers of their own learning.

Looking back - over 2 years

2010-10-27T08:55:00.000-07:00

The Bowegover.ning site is approaching 2 years old, and the notions that spawned it are throughout this slideshow from June 2009. What stands out to me is the Safe Ride Home initiative - which Fitch, Robert, Ron and others have fleshed out into LIFT in recent months.

Unbundling Governance

On Mutual Aid

2010-10-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

Ian Gormley has another good thesis on public service and cooperation.

Ivo Gormley "Formats for Mutual Aid" (Lift France10 EN)
Uploaded by liftconference. - Videos of the latest science discoveries and tech.

Finally getting back to presenting

2010-10-19T22:44:00.001-07:00

I am training, presenting alot now at work. Which brings together a lot of elements, writing, explaining, analysis, discovery, and performance. Presentation Zen is such a good book, read a few years ago, and now I'm getting back to it again, reinvesting in doing it well. Sharing this.

Empathy vid

2010-06-16T22:13:00.000-07:00

Software for linchpins

2010-04-05T07:44:00.000-07:00

Seth Godin proposes that humanizing the workplace, 1) by removing dehumanizing factors - like rote responses, and unwavering chains of command - and 2) by promoting intrinsic entrepreneurial action. His latest book touches on Krulak's Law:

...the more you are willing to push decision-making and responsibility down the organization and the more you’re willing to hire and train people to thrive in this kind of organization, the better off you’ll be in a 2010 world of inter-connectivity, social media, and online reviews. - Jeff Sexton

I work for a software company that sells to chain restaurant businesses. The early gen appeal was "software to reduce the human factor, to automate etc". To make your factory run. But efficiency through pure automation is easy to value but only goes so far. Businesses, business support systems, and business support staff, that help front line workers become linchpins of their organizations are more valuable than ever. Ask Krulak et al. That is our value proposition. Assisting development through interaction - that's easy to stand behind, because it values human beings and actual efficiency.

The majesty of the wilderness

2010-02-06T16:36:00.000-08:00

Next to nothing is a lot

2010-01-18T06:26:00.000-08:00

Here in the Dominican Republic, you are a maid, or have a maid; there's not much in between.

Wonderful

2010-01-16T15:49:00.000-08:00

Ian, my nephew. :)

Contender from Ian Macdonald on Vimeo.

Welcome to the bubble

2010-01-12T03:09:00.000-08:00

When I’m in the US, I cant help but look at the impact of values. In fact, any visit to a foreign place can do the same.

The news is: this may be another bubble (recent Economist story)

The article makes two interesting points. The first one is probably bereft of ideological bias: “The American market is around 25% below the level it reached in 2007. But it is still nearly 50% overvalued.” The second includes a value judgment and is perscriptive: “Markets are too dependent on unsustainable government stimulus. Something’s got to give”

I personally don't agree with the value judgment and indirect perscription, but I do agree that "Something's got to give." That is, the adjustment may not mean the burst of a bubble as we know it. In any case, we have to get out of bubble behavior. That is, get out of unsustainable behavior.

- When you walk into a grocery store and the shopkeeper knows very little about vegetables but a lot about product placement, something has to give.
- When you get a ride from someone who is only thinking about his tip and the dishonesty of “politicians and big business crooks”, and is driving without much regard for the road or other drivers, something has to give.
- When you look for dinner and can only find high sodium, high fat food, something has to give.
- When everyone’s watching TV and all that’s on is about brand, story and publicity something has to give.
- When the only glimmer of freshness on faces are on new hires, something has to give.
- When the climate of business is the climate of fear, something has to give.

Crash or no crash, bubbles are symptoms and results of these problems, and we'd be foolish not to give our attention to what's at the root of these problems. Something does have to give - we do.

Cost without value is bubble economics; erosion of social capital and not measuring the loss is bubble economics.
Moralism not backed up by self analysis & hard work is also, well, just blowing bubbles.

Xmas reprise

2010-01-04T09:10:00.000-08:00

This is nice. Improv everywhere again.

Self interest

2009-12-22T07:44:00.000-08:00

Collage

2009-11-22T19:51:00.000-08:00

Second chance

2009-11-20T06:00:00.000-08:00

Arriving late at the Jeanne Robinson Benefit in September, I missed Jeanne's dance.
No longer. From the Stardance Movie Blog

Expanding our moral imagination

2009-11-01T07:50:00.000-08:00

So much about better solutions and better governance is covered here by author Robert Wright

Community Open Space

2009-09-13T20:46:00.001-07:00

Chris Corrigan led us through a Community Open Space on Bowen today. Some very very encouraging results. We all have skin in the game. But Wes' point holds.

Cartoon by Hugh @gapingvoid.com

Coming to Bowen Island Aug 30

2009-08-15T21:14:00.000-07:00

Anila is an incredibly kind Tibetan nun; it's a privilege hosting her here.
The event is open to everyone, Sunday, Aug 30

Dreaming for Jeanne

2009-08-15T17:35:00.000-07:00

A dear friend of ours, Jeanne Robinson, is not well. There's a fundraiser/ benefit coming up in her support. All the best Jeanne

Since 1971

2009-08-11T21:12:00.000-07:00

Social scientist Herbert Simon wrote in 1971

IN AN information rich world, the wealth of information means the death of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence the wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.

- quote pulled from Chris Anderson's latest book, Free.

Back to the perfection of wisdom.

Help with work

2009-07-24T12:44:00.000-07:00

Olive, the ferret, is our newest addition. Not very handy with the keyboard yet. But a very nice animal just the same.

Coming true

2009-07-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

Three years ago, deep in the late Bush era, Tom and I came up with this cartoon. The idea was to sell it to a men's magazine. Well, we didn't get there. But it's nice to see the cartoon coming true.

I bought my oldest daughter an electric version as a grad present, and it has been a joy for all of us. It's waiting, plugged in outside as I type this.

Unbundling is cool

2009-06-22T08:06:00.000-07:00

One of the many memorable bits from Obama’s stump speeches was a promise to make politics cool again. A new citizenship aesthetic; the rebirth of cool.

IMO, cool politics comes from scraping away old notions of what is not ours, and recovering our sovereignty in the process. At the same time it is about giving. Just ask the jazz greats.

The Vancouver Changecamp is over. It was cool. Lots of enthusiasm, and a new commitment to engagement.

The slidedeck from my piece on ungovernance is below. Click on the title for slideshare tools to enlarge etc.

Unbundling Governance

View more OpenOffice presentations from mtbaldyred.

Government - the problem is in the language

2009-06-10T08:26:00.000-07:00

Jeff Jarvis, in his new book, What Would Google Do, and on his blog, demonstrates that there is an inverse relationship between control and trust.

This is an issue for governments: the more control I have of the ship... the less citizens trust it...the more disenfranchised citizens feel...the less they get involved (tax avoidance, declining volunteerism, poor voter turnout)... now the government tries to "get more involvement" from the citizens so that the government has more legitmacy, more clout. Or, in some cases, the government happily goes about what it wants to do anyway, while people are looking the other way.

The problem is in the language. A government governs. That is, Government drives.

You can't say that a government that is elected with 60% of the vote, in a 25-40% voter turnout has a mandate. Imagine instead government as something that we all do. That the seat of government is distributed. City Hall is there to help people govern themselves. Better outcomes.

Vanchangecamp unconference is coming to Vancouver.

Giving to get

2009-06-01T19:57:00.000-07:00

The problem with 'social media' is that it largely isn't.

'I do this for you in order for you to do that for me' describes a relationship that has mutual utility; it's a pale imitation of a caring relationship, and may describe the subtext of traditional business relationship.

We get surplus vitality from giving. Is giving to get social? What does this attitude do to social capital?

Godwin 2.0

2009-05-26T15:07:00.001-07:00

At Queen's University I studied some political theory, and spent a term thinking about William Godwin. He was married to feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft, and their daughter was Frankenstein author Mary Shelly. Overachiever.

At school, I was enthralled by his notion that "government by its very nature counteracts the improvement of original mind" - a thought that would have Godwin characterized as an early anarchist. He was writing at a time when the paint hadn't dried on representative democracy, and was full of ideas about forms that encourage truth and beauty. That old rub.

Govt 2.0 includes a web enabled surge of expectations, and the ability to concretely participate more effectively in our government. We are seeing decentralized governance in the deconstructed, modern workplace; the reformation of government can't be far behind.

As we begin to get more access to, and take responsibility for, our politics, cynicism is dealt a blow because government no longer has to be seen as something outside of us. This is a big change: the way we govern ourselves in private and in our neighbourhoods can, with tools for distributed governance, dovetail into broader involvement in political governance.

Government becomes less to do with influence peddling and more about empowered individuals: lots of them. I make friends with my neighbours; my conduct enables the cohesion or lack of cohesion of a self-forming neighbourhood group; we come agree on some fundamental issues (e.g. need a better way of removing snow on our steep hill), and we participate in the bigger community on this same issues using meetings and the open web; we see where our thoughts can fit into the reformation of the Official Community plan.

Because govt 2.0 isn't inherently oppositional, there is no antipathy to government - there is no anarchy. It's stable, and trustworthy...interesting to see that the people involved in the BOWEGOV project on Bowen Island are split, left and right leaning. The ooutcome is a tighter fabric, and more affordable one, because work, responsibility and reward are more evenly distributed.

John Godwin, Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, John Locke, - all those writers had a zeal for human potential, and political forms that would encourage an examined life. They were humanists. In much of the Govt 2.0 thinking there is a similar sensibility; it could be that web enablement has rekindled a kind of useful idealism. The culture of openness, fail safe, & distributed intelligence is changing the workplace. It may also be providing us with a base to realize the same root of compassion that gave 17th and 18th century political theory so much resonance.

- photo via Wikipedia.

Talking to Michael Cayley

2009-05-11T16:25:00.000-07:00

Since publishing my ChangeThis manifesto, I've had the chance to speak to some great folks - including a call and follow up repartee with Toronto thought leader ( Social Value Capital Add and memetic brand) Michael Cayley.

Michael has characterized the new mediascape as IAM – "Individual as Medium", where shared perception is shifting from channel-based to social-network-infrastructure-based.

Today, messaging that tries to sublimate the target with the might of the message and its image quickly becomes obnoxious to us. Branding of this type, which I will call conventional branding, runs counter to the new sense of freedom that user controlled media delivers on. In short, this won't work. The power of the symbolic brand must make room for the power of the brand's actual social capital.

The symbolic brand will stay on as an important signifier on the supermarket aisle: we’ll continue to reach for reliable brands on the market shelf, and reject ones that we think deliver less value.

The message that lies as the heart of my paper, 'Built to Fade' is this: possibly the most egregious application of conventional branding is on supposedly “green” products. If green has to do with attention to the environment, the displacement of actual engagement with the spin of the me-brand embrace is a major disjoin; the resulting sanctimoniousness that comes with being a green “buyer” is a disjoin too. When conventional symbolic branding is applied to green products the result in the market is cynicism, and a tarnished brand. Green companies are better off exploring a different tack; those that manage the transition in messaging will blaze a successful trail.

It's natural to reach for all kinds of sedatives to sublimate our unease. Distributed networks can be this drug, as much as television, with their own promise of pseudo belonging. Companies that capitalize on our wish to live unexamined lives will do so, but this capitalization is not the same as the earned, long term trust that reliable brands will earn.

Michael notes in SCVA, that “Human capital is the primary source of competitive intangible earnings for today’s corporations.” It could be said that Social Capital Value Add has to do with the accumulation of social merit.

The brands that we reach for or are willing to pay more now have to be authentically aligned with social values, as opposed to arbitrary values dreamed up by some marketer. In the context of the environmental crisis that we face, "zero is the new black" will have, in the words of Michael Cayley, incredible memetic qualities. Looking for comapanies to explore this new aesthetic with. Michael is too.

House for rent on Bowen Island, BC

2009-04-30T06:46:00.000-07:00

We're visiting my parents, and renting out our house, July 3-10.

5 minutes to the beach. Looking for a good holiday renter.

Imagine no belonging

2009-04-21T09:02:00.000-07:00

I had a provocative conversation with the COO of a large PR company here in Vancouver. He read the Biodegredable Branding manifesto. He asked, what about the need for belonging?

Beat.

The answer is that belonging has to be more deeply realized as an expediency. We belong to little league, then we don't. We are a Lulu Lemon user, then we aren't. The big brands, from the Catholic Church, to Uncle Sam, to GM, have always been pecking at us with messaging that has taken a piece of us. They can't do this now, going forward, if they want to succeed.

Ephemeralization, in a sped up world, has cracked fundamental belonging. No-one born today will be a lifelong Mason, or Democrat, or anything else, come to think of it.

The excitement of social media can boil down to the excitement of re-living how to be a child again. We don't; can't belong in a concrete sense. Belonging, even the notion of belonging to a particular community, is temporary, an expediency. Ultimately, there is no community or state to belong to, and a sped up world rips the covers off of cocoon of belonging at increasingly regular intervals.

The critical path is managing temporary but meaningful association without excessive attachment. Crack this, and a deeper sense of belonging unfolds.

If we try, we can imagine unbelonging. And practicing this, and practicing this in the branding profession, is a next, difficult step.

Shine and fade

2009-04-09T19:38:00.000-07:00

It's not a very complex idea, but probably needs explanation. We want to shine and twinkle, we want our projects to shine and twinkle, but forget that what gives the twinkle its twinkle is not just the shining: it is the fading and the shining, then bursting through the obscuration of light.

Shine that persists is glitz.
Shine that persists is glitz.

Glitz is on the TV, in the magazine, in the everlasting smile on Tony the Tiger's face. In reality, persistence isn't possible, of course; our life is cyclic, and uninterrupted shine that endures usually involves some toxic residue.

Suggesting that the persistent branding approach doesn't work for green products and services; it may be that it's well into the cusp of failing globally for conventional products as well.

It's an end to class as we know it, and I feel fine.

2009-04-07T21:41:00.000-07:00

Open infrastructures mean an end to class as we know it.

Take photographers. There used to be a stereotype, maybe perpetrated by Antonioni and others, that equated photographer = the guy with the scarves and the bags under his eyes. The David Hemmings character in Blow Up was, if you like, a class archetype. The photographer class had its own brand identity, and various scarcities that helped keep people in this class in a bubble.

The photographers' bubble has recently burst, of course. The positioning of self as “photographer” was probably always a reductionist piece of foolishness, but now more than ever this kind of positioning is stripped bare. Specialized, private know-how is open to anyone with access to a browser. Camera technology is also available to most people, and, though the significance of artistry and experience still hold, amateurs and aspirants can always concentrate, and often catch a wave; anyone can take great pictures, sometimes.

If you make a living doing something, people will still say, “S/hes a [insert career brand here]” But no amount of scarves and attitude and equipment will help someone who wants to be classified as a photographer if that person doesn’t make a living at it – any more than a someone who doesn’t create or build a restaurant can be considered a restauranteur. To call someone who doesn’t make a living at it "a photographer" means he could, by the same token, be called a dishwasher if s/he washes a few dishes.

In more open systems, class barriers break down. An author was once considered truly an author when s/he was published. Now anyone can publish. The author class, now stripped of barriers, is gone. If Bob makes $4,000 a year writing, is he in the writer class? I guess, but he is, put more accurately, a "bunch of things."

Similarly, as political systems become more open, the walls of the “legislator” class fall down, and what is left is just people who contribute to legislation. Some get paid to do it, and we often call them "legislators" when they do, but in fact that is a kind of shorthand that doesn't tell the whole truth. They do other things too. The legislator class, in a world of open access, is disappearing.

We are, depending on how you look at it, getting rid of the wankers, or gaining a population sized load of them.

What the change means is not the end of the professions, but the end of the professional class. This doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with a decline of quality, but it is, arguably, pointing to the end of self-as-career stereotyping and the end of many other types of spurious protectionism.

Bluetrain

2009-03-27T09:27:00.001-07:00

Things are going well at MonkeyMedia and in our local self governance, vanchangecamp initiative. Great folks.
Today my Bluetrain print (76 of 85) arrived.
Good times.

Go epic

2009-03-24T11:38:00.000-07:00

Pic from Ariel Waldman. Slide from ShaderLab

Thinking about Jefferson

2009-03-19T16:06:00.000-07:00

Bowen Island Ourselves is up. Will see what people do with it.

Really interesting review of a really interesting looking book - Jefferson's Moose. The book is " is a conversation with Jefferson’s ideas about building representative, republican government and the implications of those ideas for cyberspace."

Not the kind of sustainabiity I had in mind.

2009-03-13T14:07:00.000-07:00

Second comic in the new series.

The best of times

2009-03-09T21:00:00.000-07:00

“You can get this burst of wealth that we have created from this rapacious behavior,” added Romm. “But it has to collapse, unless adults stand up and say, ‘This is a Ponzi scheme. We have not generated real wealth, and we are destroying a livable climate ...’ Real wealth is something you can pass on in a way that others can enjoy.”

Thomas L Friedman, "The Inflection Is Near?" in today's New York Times.

When bigger and better are thwarted, you reach a difficult point; we're there.

Shifting more green, community gardens

2009-03-04T20:48:00.000-08:00

Here on Bowen there is a small permaculture movement brewing. Hat tip to Peter Rawsthorne for David Holmgren's excellent post on Permaculture Principles.

Just one month before this speech, Laura and George Bush were in the US white house:

"I'm a big believer in community gardens, both because of their beauty and for their access to providing fresh fruits and vegetables to so many communities across this nation and the world." - First Lady, Michelle Obama, Ferbruary 19th 2009 Full transcript of remarks by first lady Michelle Obama to u.s. department of agriculture employees

Shift happens etc.

[UPDATE via James Glave: So, Now the Vancouver Mayor is converting the lawn of city hall into a community garden]

New ecobitz series

2009-03-02T21:15:00.000-08:00

A week ago Tom and I started a new Ecobitz series. Feeling stretched.

Why govt 2.0 is green.

2009-02-24T08:07:00.000-08:00

Note on govt 2.0 as a green aesthetic.

Govt 2.0 is like web 2.0 - an aesthetic of mass enablement.

The notion of the City Hall building with its corinthian pillars and whatnot being = "government" melts down. Our mental association of govt changes: not pillars, but connectors.

Governance appears anywhere there is input and decision-making on the use of public space. In govt 2.0, that can be all over - policy making wikis, discussion groups, or in a physical place like neighborhood parties that are busy planting flowers. The place, appearance, and membership isn't static.

People have had church basement meetings, and translated action to City Hall for ever. But the difference with govt 2.0 is, City Hall may take more of a backseat in terms of decision making. The seat of power has to do with the way intelligence is aggregated. The form is not that place on 7th and Cambie. It is non persistent. This changes things.

This is connected to the jag: persistent forms are not green.

Distributed governance: what it means to Us, now

2009-02-13T10:47:00.001-08:00

David Eaves, whom I met at VanChangecamp on Wednesday, is involved in panel discussions on the Future of the Public Service stories. A good gig.

What's needed are public service illustrations of Here Comes Everybody (the fact that Shirky appears in the US Now trailer is not a fluke) - i.e. they are stories that have to do with recognising and using distributed intelligence in governance.

As in all times of upheaval, the political center is not holding - if only for financial reasons. It makes sense that in this new climate, we leverage better what we have - in governance, as in all things, we see a move to optimizing distributed intelligence. Wikipedia applied to governance...

The Bowen roads tool story is proof of concept/ illustration of distributed intelligence in action, that enhances public service. That the Govt should share data and everybody use it ( the 2005-6 TTC story) is also a good thread. Note that the Bowen tool thread is a little different: an example of ground-up data production that impacts governance.

Hypothesis: over the next few years, big changes in
- the average politicians' job and psychographic profile
- the average govt beurocrat's administrator's job and psychographic profile

Overall, less to do with making policy from nothing, at the central level, and more on facilitating and filtering it.

There are many positive impacts of better use of distributed intelligence. For example: Open and accessible tools can do more make us aware that there are lonely people in our neighborhood: they engage us in solving this problem. What a (paid) municipal agency would do in this case is not clear, but if some of its role is taken back by citizens, it follows that the agency would need less funding.

So, we can plan both for role changes at the administration and political level, as govt make room for Everybody. We can also expect to require fewer municipal employees.

We are in a world of wild culture

2009-02-11T08:55:00.001-08:00

Inspired by Peter Rawsthorne, who is consulting for lawyers while pointing to the end of the gated community that is lawyerdom. Others chime in .

Which brings me to review the term "Wild culture". Wikipedia and self governance are examples of wild culture in action. Wild but not ineffective anarchy: they use some very unobtrusive and effective pruning mechanisms, thanks to social media.

We too often refer to the "amateurization" of governance, encyclopedias, publishing or lawyerdom, but Wild culture is also about the efficiency of wild dissemination.

In fact, there will be lawyers, politicians and publishers. But "lawyerdom" and "publishing" and "governing" as we have known them are not surviving Wild culture.

There is no public/professional firm division any more, caused by a self-perpetuating barrier to entry, and sustained by cowardice and greed. We are seeing the efficiency of wild culture instead. That is:

People will probably use legal means, and governance, and publishing resources, more than ever. Because they are empowered to do so, and are not put off by a $400/hr clock ticking against them.

The "pros" ( eg lawyers, copyrighted publishers and politicians/ political administration) may be in less demand, and sherpa-like agencies (e.g. book, info subscription, blog or learning consultant, wikis)in greater demand. Because with participative learning resources, self education, self representation, and self publishing - 98% of issues can be handled by my wild self, thank you.

This means efficiency, access, democratization. To climb the mountain, I can walk up as high as my lungs will carry me. There is no sentry at the base of the mountain asking for your membership card. I can hire a sherpa, and in special cases, a "professional" (lawyer, big book publisher) to traverse the segment I can't. But these people don't own the entire journey any more. It is my own unique journey, and though the so called "professionals" may quiver and quake, the world is enlivened by the enabled wildness of it all.

People who care

2009-02-10T11:07:00.000-08:00

A two minute movie I did about a Dancing Deer Baking Company, food company that gives a damn. MonkeyMedia paid me to make this, hats off to them too.

In the US, there are 700,000 mothers who rely on homeless shelters. This can change.

Saving seeds - as if your life depended on it

2009-02-08T21:12:00.000-08:00

Michelle just bought his book, along with Dan's local, heritage vegetable seeds from Salt Spring Island. Really going to work at it this year, as are many people I know. Juxtaposing how I feel about this and what many of the chain restaurants are still doing. Still think that a chain that makes strides in localization could thrive.

From the TED conference: Green technology

2009-02-05T02:36:00.000-08:00

Nope, not at the TED conference, but I do have a pass for streamed content. Trying to re-jig my schedule to watch two session today.
2 very smart guys with stuff I barely understand. But it is green technology - shown in the 2006 conference. The first one is very short. We are not necessarily screwed etc.

ZenBiz Radio

2009-01-29T12:35:00.000-08:00

Taped Tuesday, Jan 27 on Zen Biz radio - Peter Rawsthorne talks about self governance.

Player by Podbean.com

Off the wall

2009-01-27T20:17:00.000-08:00

Social media/ web 2.0 is just beginning.

Unglibbing ourselves

2009-01-14T11:45:00.000-08:00

Listening to CBC Radio in the car this morning - a young couple describing her ('their') pregnancy in a witty way: "It's kind of like science fiction..."

Oh?
(turning radio off)

Science fiction can be fairly described as an Image, a reduction, or a projection of the life we live. Skipping along the surface of our life, and its births, marriages, and deaths, in a glib, culturally schooled way, allows us to disregard the actual content of our life, or treating it as an aberration.

Web 2.0 doesn't have to be about more and thicker streams of glibness. There is alot of glib out there, and the glib filters are coming onto the way we use websites, IM, Twitter, Facebook, emails, Skype calls...

Thinking this morning: What's valuable is still valuable. For any person in any group, whether it's the CBC, my company, or your business, that real, humane, and direct communication is not just valuable, but a prerequisite - or it'll be filtered out.

Leaders embrace their own transformation

2009-01-13T07:29:00.000-08:00

Worth rebroadcasting:

"The benefits of the information revolution can be fully realised only if governments play a central role in this transformation. It is imperative that they reassess their roles and functions, both to transform the way they function and how they relate to internal and external actors. To play this central role, governments need to begin by embracing their own transformation."

Great article by Nagy Hannah

On the road to Enterprise 2.0

2009-01-11T15:40:00.000-08:00

The Road status tool was built by volunteers, during the bad weather. It is a small, simple example of realizing a potential that we rarely quantify, by making use of new social media tools.

The map with its road segments can be reused for other applications. Our next step, after completing the geo-tagging of roads, is to enable ad hoc loading of photos as well as text to the map. By anyone.

There are other next steps.

Implementation of simple new tools and initiatives such as these can only accelerate in the next few years. It is all about fulfilling the emergent expectations of participation among people within and without the enterprise - in this case, the government.

Enterprise 2.0, defined by Harvard Business School's Andrew McCaffee as "The use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers" helps fulfill the organization (in this case, the govt administration)'s strategic objectives, with limited overhead. It also potentiates people on the margins - in this case citizens. In old corporatespeak terms, this is win-win.

Issues of ownership and liability have to be ironed out along the way; one role of the organization is to trade off sole responsibility and ownership for the involvement of many. This give and take has to be negotiated with awareness and some grace, and in fact negotiating the changing relationship is a large part of the communications exercise. The humanizing notion that lubricates this change is the growing notion that we are in it together.

What is emergent is not a new socialism, but a new recognition of, and ability to deliver on, the nature of group behavior. Along the way, the nature of the org and the constituency changes; we need to measure this change to maximize benefit.

On BOWEGOV, very interesting work so far, and I am pleased to be part of it. Finding some fascinating & rewarding group/personal interactions all along this road.

Political Studies 330

2009-01-04T10:38:00.000-08:00

It was a pretty boring Political Parties course, and it was 1977. Some students were discussing how to encourage more voting - people weren't getting a voice because they were apathetic. Voter apathy is the enemy of democracy etc. Good people were asking, how can we get them involved.

Well it struck me that this concern about voting was a kind of specialized obsession. Shouldn't citizen engagement be something much more wholesome and fulfilling than this, after all.

That self governance will be better enabled using web tools is probable. After all, there are economic drivers ('more for less') propelling it. But probable success factors are all about money and efficiency and intention, spirit and design. Thinking the litmus test is - does this BOWEGOV etc help people come home to themselves. How to measure this may be 'happy' indices, or, put another way - 'spirit of giving/sharing' indices.

Heading for the world of the 4 year old

2008-12-31T19:56:00.000-08:00

" - more people will take for granted that they can interact." Man, good stuff.

Happy Holidays

2008-12-24T09:51:00.001-08:00

Here Comes Everybody: The Big Deal is Groups

2008-12-23T11:27:00.000-08:00

Enabling groups changes everything.

Conventional business and governments behavior is giving way, and the Internet is helping.

Worth watching and re-watching IMO:

Surowiecki Shirky and BOWEGOV

2008-12-21T12:50:00.000-08:00

Clay Shirky's "Here Comes Everybody" provides some great input to our self governance effort. The book's observations are very bookmarkable - 'remarkable made reusable'... It builds on some of what James Surowiecki uncovered in 2004's Wisdom of Crowds.

James Surowiecki says distributed groups whose members aren't personally connected often generate better answers, as they pool both knowledge and intuitive wisdom without having to come to intrapersonal agreement. The k and iw are, as Peter Rawsthorne would say, 'tacit.'

Surowiecki recommended ( from the wikipedia entry):

* Keep your ties loose.
* Keep yourself exposed to as many diverse sources of information as possible.
* Make groups that range across hierarchies.

Chapter 11 of Shirky's book is called Promise, Tool, Bargain.

The Promise - is the basic WHY for joining and contributing to a social group. Linus Torvald got it right; others have too. A statement of intent that is neither daunting nor mundane, that satisfies a basic human need.

The Tool - What has to be satisfied is "Will I like using this tool" and "Will enough others be there, or use this, so that this thing succeeds?" There are slot of people using the Bowen Island Forum, but, Shirky says, smaller groups are better for convergent thinking. People seek agreement in smaller groups, and that is what they very good at. The Bowen Island Forum is arguably not a great tool for 'wisdom of crowds' self governance because it is about personal interaction.

The Bargain - The Bargain for Wikipedia was that the material created by writers could not be alienated from them - i.e. it couldn't belong to Wikipedia Inc.

BOWEGOV's tools are emergent, but we can think about what is the Bargain. Any thoughts?

Here's what I have on the Promise of BOWEGOV:

Exploring freedom in self governance

Seems the Open Source movement shares the same foundation as the Slow Food movement and the self governance movement.

The common foundation, platform: exploring the intrinsic value, the healthiness, the developmental benefit to feeding ourselves and our community, as opposed to being fed by a vendor or a government.

Chances are we will still rely on a municipal administration and elected officials and currency to get basic things - just like Slow Foodists usually dont mill their own flour. But we've gone overboard with the division of labor: industrialization of our food supply, the division of labor, and the professionalization of governance.

The really key things, like our meals, like what is going on in our backyard, like where our taxes go - these are too basic to give away.

Tweetdeck

2008-12-20T11:13:00.001-08:00

Two things: filter by tag/content and filter by trusted group. Enabled in tweetdeck

closing the gap

2008-12-14T11:55:00.001-08:00

Closing the gap between producer and consumer.

My 14 year old daughter makes graphics for other nonprofit sites, designs her web pages, blogs. Not a prodigy, she's just like alot of kids her age. It's fun to do, making things. There is no money changing hands, so where is the economy? It's a barter system, people trading off influence, friendship, work, developed knowledge.... and people growing together.

As we engage in this kind of work, which is about getting and sharing the things we make, the GNP figures sag. But these funky knitted slipper socks that my 72 year old neighbor gave me contradict those numbers anyway.

you, me, them: us now

2008-12-05T10:41:00.000-08:00

Governing together
Promo for documentary, "Us Now"

Mondrian rules

2008-12-05T08:55:00.000-08:00

Employment situation isn't good. We shall overcome.

Design for generosity

2008-11-29T09:21:00.000-08:00

There are no experts. We all have a piece of the puzzle, so managing ways to bring these pieces together is a worthy task.

Part of the good design for governance on Bowen Island jag.

Entire Pop!Cast here

Good governance tool?

2008-11-27T12:48:00.000-08:00

Teaming up with Peter Rawsthorne today. Discussion boards abound, and they take on their own character. But this character isn't necessarily useful for governance and policy development. We're looking to engage in a participative good gov prototype for Bowen Island. What tool/s to use? Ivar has suggested www.redmine.org but there may be a more visually satisfying platform. Or maybe a series of platforms.

We imagine clouds of tagged content, with identifiable participants. For instance, for assisting a positive, sustainable hitchhiking culture on island, a good aim might be to
1) Create a cloud of post links and wiki pages tagged with bowen hitchhiking culture
2) Be able to pull out optimal content, with minimal noise for use in policy development.

We are less and less interested in the broadcast of expert opinion in social or other media. The primacy of expert artifacts gives way to the primacy of developmental process. We need social media enabled as a process for community use. Bowen has a lot of potential for this type of activity - politicized people with time. The question is, how?[added: Peter R will post on this too]

- image by Hugh McLeod at gapingvoid.com

Roads are not just for monsters any more

2008-11-26T21:47:00.000-08:00

Helping a young student with her essay tonight - contrasting Hitler and FDR's infrastructure building. The US built a lot of roads in the 30s. Staring at all those roads eventually stimulated a monstrous demand for cars, presumably to get the hell away from where people were at the time.

That good things will or should happen to the Big Three automakers is hard to imagine, or even wish for. You have to think that the psyche of Americans and Canadians is being gouged by this recession, and will reform in a new way. And maybe after that we won't have such an appetite for monstrous cars.

Sustainability at last

2008-11-24T19:04:00.001-08:00

Today, we find ourselves in a perilous economic situation. We don't want to suffer, and we don't want those around us to suffer.

You could predict this, but it still comes as a new experience: just as the helix of industrial expansion and my own consumer habits unravel before my eyes, I begin to appreciate the food in front of me, the warmth of the fire, and suddenly recognize the polite gesture by a person across from me who's in obvious pain.

Since we were in primary school we've known that our ways of making & getting have accelerated the world towards an ecological precipice. This is the opportunity we've been waiting for, the opportunity to express our human potential.

Podcasting

2008-11-24T11:27:00.000-08:00

This is something I did for MonkeyMedia.net. An interview with Vance Carlton from Einstein Noah's.

I LOVE the musical theme my nephew wrote for Monkey. Ian leads the band Jake Jasmine, ( check out their single, "Still" - superb) is scoring a movie, is finishing a music degree and still had time to give it. Awesome.

The interview's good, though my voice... ah well. It's just a slice of life, nothing glossy. The tools are simple today, and hopefully don't make us fall into the trap thinking we're "broadcasters." Nothing replaces deep thinking and real collaboration.

Finished the Ecobitz book!

2008-11-21T09:55:00.000-08:00

Yes friends, the Ecobitz book of 72 cartoons is complete, and now: see what to do with it.

The Chicago Tribune reports an 8% rise in McdDonalds consumption over the past month; maybe I should approach them and see if they'll wrap the burgers in our cartoons.

The kind of antidote the world needs?

Obama's closing statements

2008-10-27T19:22:00.001-07:00

Pretty good, for an anti american

is technology changing us

2008-10-10T18:22:00.000-07:00

Worth rebroadcasting this, just because you gotta love what Clay Shirky is on about. His new book is on its way to my house...

Waiting to exhale

2008-10-10T03:21:00.000-07:00

All minds are on the stock market. We want it fixed, and it fixed only. It's almost always this way, and to our peril. It'll take a special government to respond.

The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU-commissioned study.
They put the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion.[BBC story...]

To be liberal always was cool, but now it's seen that way

2008-10-09T10:09:00.000-07:00

To be liberal is cool again. Just in time for the election.
A little ad was made for my local liberal candidate. It's easy to do this kind of thing nowadays. Media in the hands of people. It's good for us.

Our human environment: street people

2008-09-30T05:40:00.000-07:00

Here in Vancouver we have a big sustainability problem: we don't sustain interest in some people.

My current gig has me sitting at a desk sits across from a subsidized housing high rise, that is full of skid row-ers. Sounds like a value judgement, and it is. It's also quantifiable: I count 54 windows, and not ONE has curtains on it. Pieces of plywood, towels, plants, flags and signs, sure. There are 2 sets of broken looking blinds, but no curtains.

People who live here have almost no foundation to stand on. Prematurely over the hill. Mentally ill, no job, addicted, in many cases, friendless. Crippled, with very little ability to muster restraint. At least they have a place to live. If they look out now, they can see this guy who's in front of a large flat screen and is getting well paid to tap on a computer - me.

There's a guy that I've been watching on the 5th floor who seems to never wear a shirt. When it's sunny he comes up to the window and presses his big white gut against it. There's a flip up window at eye height; and he sniffs at it like a hamster, and puffs on a cigarette. At first the sight of him repulsed me. But now, as I see him doing this more and more, thoughts change.

The fact is, the sun is out and he's pressing himself up against the glass. No one is different, our children are the same. Pressing themselves against the glass, moving towards God.

(cartoon by gapingvoid)

Tools for choice

2008-09-26T05:28:00.000-07:00

Elections. In the US there are 2 parties, and the enviro choice is obvious.

In Canada, we are having an election too. Here, with multiple parties, there is only one republican-type party, and lots of greener parties where the vote gets split. So there is a potential for a very unrepresentative right wing majority.

This very handy tool is up, helping enviro types vote strategically - if they like.

Find your riding on the map, see the recent polls, and make a call. Great stuff. Got to love what some people do with the Internet.

Social Capital Value Add

2008-09-25T19:59:00.000-07:00

Torontonian Michael Cayley wrote me a nice note of encouragement on my changethis proposal. In fact, quite a few nice people have contacted me about it. A hidden bonus to all this.

A few months ago, it was Michael who had a changethis proposal; now it is no. 5 on the current changethis manifesto list. Go Michael.

BTW I have a few words from Michael's piece attached to my desktop, as I type. All about the memetic brand Vs the symbolic brand. A very well researched, good read.

The end point of my changethis adventure will, hopefully, be an ebook like Michael's - which can be downloaded on changethis or by visiting his site. Click here to get there, or click on the big yellow brick road image.

Adventures in mind pollution

2008-09-24T11:52:00.000-07:00

I am experiencing what, after all, my Changethis proposal is about: trying to signal a message without spamming people.
I want to show people this proposal; if people think it's worthwhile they will vote, and it will get made. That is the theory.
In practice, how the site measures 'people think it's worthwhile' is by counting votes. Which is to a large extent a function of one's networking position. So far The Advent of the Biodegradable Brand, which started at number 1 of 20, is number 3. The current vote leader, according to Fast Company, has an email newsletter that reaches 7,000 people each month. Wow. I admit this has me twitching a little, and I catch myself reaching for the "spam" button.

The advent of the biodegradable brand

2008-09-15T16:51:00.000-07:00

ChangeThis.com has posted my proposal [link expired] that's tentatively titled: "Fifty years after Boorstin and Warhol: the Advent of the Biodegradable brand."

It looks at green economics and social media, and considers the sustainability of persistent brand footprints - the modern versions of Warhol's soup cans. The point? - my buy-in to these brand images results in enhanced and persistent rise in self esteem: that is the point the brand builders were trying to achieve. But this new identity actually displaces my relationship to the environment. Green branding then, causes a conflict, and may be the most fundamental type of greenwashing of all.

"I park my low impact branded vehicle and go for the best brand name Free Trade cappuccino but don't connect much. I walk up to the QSR rep and blithely give my order. As I pull out my macbook pro, my brand alignment is deeper than I think. In fact, I may be unwittingly living in a brand cocoon. I feel good about myself, and I dont notice that the 'bag lady' across the street is actually in tears."

Green Business Expo - wow

2008-09-10T16:15:00.000-07:00

Got all enthused, on the day I put my gas car powered on the market, and went to the Green Business Expo put on by Frogfile.

Yup, gonna get a used electric moped. Not because I'm doing my part, or any of that hooey. But because whether the oil companies have ruined oil for me, or whether the science has hit home or what, Im sick of the car body and the gas engine and all the stuff that goes with it.SICK - of -it.

And yup those are our Ecobitz cartoons that Gil and Co. used. .

Experiencing Ourselves to Death ( reprise)

2008-08-20T13:15:00.000-07:00

The economy, globally, is in a shambles; can't help wondering if the shakedown has to do with redefining real value.

The old way of defining and extracting value has been defined and enriched in books like the Enrichment Economy... A for instance - to give a customer a better experience on a plane, ensure their preferred beverage is available on a flight - so they don't have to substitute. As the reader is walked through several examples of this scale of ameliorization, s/he cant help feeling sick in the stomach.

Because the fulfillment of petty desires is not actually desirable, let alone noble. It seems to me that these Disneyesque experience architects have alot to answer for. The author doesn't explain why people pay to have limiting experiences - adventure holidays, family camping, religious retreats. He might want to renovate his theory to accommodate this, but perhaps it is more than a cosmetic issue - maybe it's an Achilles heel. The experience economy maximizes pleasure volume, and averts the customer from sacrifice. What about meaningful sacrifice?

The beauty of green economics is that it is about goodness.

Just when I thought..

2008-08-02T22:34:00.001-07:00

Just when I thought I'd learned all I could from Seth Godin, he's created a gated community I'm really absorbed in. Triiibes

Free membership. Just buy the book.
Meanwhile you know Seth is peeking over the wall and watch it all unfold, like Gulliver, gaining more and more insight into the social networking phenom. Hat's off ,Seth.

monkeymedia

2008-07-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

Have been working on MonkeyMedia.net for a few months now.
We just launched the new site. Now what.
Time to start dancing I guess.

Content, design patterns and relationship porn

2008-07-12T10:40:00.001-07:00

Listening to a speaker talk about News. And what news is.
It’s a seminar on Social Media by the good people at Geist. It’s a great event, good value. And as the speaker goes on it occurs to me that News is worse than we thought.

The pattern of content delivery, whether it is the CNN News musical intro, or New York Times masthead and navigation structure, is the brand that has the value. It is “high concept.” Like a sitcom bible and story arc, it is King, it is the primary design pattern that earns the most money. The content writes itself under that banner.

But people today are stepping past the brand banner and are entering a world that is about designing-my-own-interface. They are picking out “content” according to what they want, and putting it on their blog, facebook profile page, igoogle page, and browser home page. It is a collage of brands and branded content and floating stories.

But in the end, even this doesn't do much for us...what lies under the hunger for stories, is as critical as the relationships that hover under our bits of gossip. This strata is independent of publishing, independent of story. The real deal isn’t concrete content, or even my brand pattern.

Maybe we like bits of news content, because they distract us and feed our desire. If so, fair enough. But there should be a struggle IMO: probably worth considering thinking, in the background, that as I consume this content, that what I am building and reading is a kind of relationship porn.

An Ecobitz design pattern gag:

Back from Swtizerland.

2008-06-26T16:20:00.000-07:00

University Masters world cup winners. Well, it is something.

Everybody's organic

2008-06-01T08:18:00.000-07:00

Shopped for homeopathic medicine at Whole Foods on Saturday. Of course, they had it. Everyone shops there now, not just the rich or the self obsessed or the trendy. It's an amazing success story.

When blogs go sideways...

2008-05-27T07:59:00.000-07:00

... you get back to things you love. Love this song.

Managing green with KPIs

2008-05-03T07:28:00.001-07:00

Either by a lack of self belief, or by lack of belief in the ability of numbers to sum up a person's contribution, Ive never been a fan of numerical key performance indicators. But People love numbers. How old are you? How many square feet does your house have? etc.
Now Seth Godin makes a compelling case for the value of having a number attached to a green product. Interesting. Carbon footprint = distance from source to source x tranportation medium could be one example.
Miles from home could be a simpler, but less accurate measure.
Well, here's Seth's compelling post.

Clay Shirky on Blip

2008-05-02T10:46:00.000-07:00

On Cognitive surplus, from Blip.tv

Someone with relatively cheap tools has a better chance of carving out attention from humanity's "cognitive surplus" than ever before.
"media that targets you but does not include you [ and invite your participation on ] may not be worth sitting still for."

Glass tile finale

2008-04-28T09:56:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the VFS students who created this video.

Lots of great people in the world.

2008-04-20T20:08:00.000-07:00

Well, blogs are overrated. But sharing media, can't ever get enough of this.

"Look at this"

2008-04-07T09:01:00.000-07:00

Marketing tells us to "look at this".
That is, we are asked to displace attention that is currently put elsewhere.

If paying attention doesn't benefit the prospect, there is a problem. Marketing is taking something from people.

Not a problem if we were busy with nothing, or wasting our time, before Marketing came calling. But if marketing takes us away from significant things (our families, connection to the environment etc.) and hits us with unimportant, trivial or destructive things... there is a real disservice done.

And it is hard to forgive the brand whose Marketing department displaces our attention from a real bear approaching... we could be in peril.

OK, so I have simply repackaged Seth Godin's post, that's not a crime is it?

Greed is what got us here...

2008-03-05T12:12:00.000-08:00

... and greed won't lead us home. From the Washington Post:

Congregation of the Church of the Holy Organic, let us buy.
Let us buy Anna Sova Luxury Organics Turkish towels, 900 grams per square meter, $58 apiece. Let us buy the eco-friendly 600-thread-count bed sheets, milled in Switzerland with U.S. cotton, $570 for queen-size.
entire post here

Liberalism needs to be retooled, and I'm afraid that the Hillary and her Bloomingdales-to -shop/ WAL*Mart-Board-of-Directors-to-work axis isn't going to cut it.

Carbon credits

2008-02-27T13:03:00.001-08:00

The immunization of free.

2008-02-26T11:19:00.000-08:00

Probably not an intent of the Clinton campaign, but it seems that Obama's message of freedom and equality is quickly being immunized against negative attacks by the Clinton campaign.

Meanwhile, Chris Anderson is blazing a trail on the free economy.

For a democratically minded person, it's a fun period :>)

The best part of the Sundae

2008-02-02T05:22:00.000-08:00

There's a section in Seth Godin's Meatball Sundae that talks about Josiah Wedgewood's marketing revolution.

Even economic history, let alone the present, tends to flatter the people we think are influencers ( see Herd's great new post) but to my mind Wedgewood blazed a trail that is still impressive. He revolutionized production, and marketing/distribution; reading it gets the juice going.

We suffer from a tragic and brutal sense of entitlement. In the West with our cars and money and education - we have already done well, thank you. And we want to keep that going. But future prosperity is uncertain, esp because the old tricks aren't working, and India and China work harder than we do.

I can read about Josiah Wedgewood all I want, but I wont necessarily be part of the next wave. Change takes sacrifice. The question is, what kind of sacrifice. Seth Godin has his ideas. What'll 'I' do?

Seems that bringing up empowered and reflective people, and responding to needs with sincerity - these things aren't frills in the emerging economy. And who knows, Green and local may prove to be a protectionist ethic that is a bastion of our economy.

Meatballs no more. We have to get better.

[aside: A nice permission marketing clip... ]

Who am I kidding. I love everything about this vid.

Nike says

2008-01-18T08:08:00.001-08:00

Jeff Staple posts on the anatomy of designing a great new Green Product : the new Air Jordan. Yes the limited edition is $230 dollars. Which places it in the realm of green cachet, which has its pros and cons.
Nothin's perfect. The shoe is interesting.

A poster child product. Wondering, though, if torn old runners, runners we wear longer, and use just to get around in, will ever come back in fashion. Thats up to the network, I guess.

Pulses on corpses

2008-01-15T22:49:00.000-08:00

Today I went to a very peculiar seminar. The presenter described how software as a service was gaining momentum, while IT investment was flat. Maybe it would pick up , he said, but no one was confident about that, in the half empty theatre where we sat. Nope, unless you're fortunate enough to pick a nice ripe niche, it doesn't look good for IT investment, it doesn't look good at all. Pretty much stagnant. The presenter's eyes flitted to the audience and back to his podium. He continued.

Back when the news was that advertising spending was flat, and possibly dying, Google and Amazon were about to take over the world but the Internet was something you just couldn't make money from. Advertising wasn't in fact dying, but some of the old guard were. Advertising was simply changing. And today it is still changing, to the point that

" the Idea must be embedded into the experience of the product itself. Once again, what we used to think of as advertising or marketing is pushed deeper into the organization."

Nowadays, of course, Google Adwords is considered advertising. Amazon is considered one giant selling and advertising mechanism. Advertising isn't dead.

Of course, the presenter is wrong about IT being dead too. He has been taking the pulse on near corpses. IT spending is on a very very steep upward curve. So steep we can barely keep up with it. When we are measuring IT investment with dumb metrics, like the IT outlay in businesses we track, we get misled; things appear stagnant and boring - when the world moves fast, and we don't.

Thing is, the notion of IT as a service, ad-based applications and the open source/gifting movement are happening all at once. We are using them all the time. For instance, here people once spent time and money finding contacts or buying things they would be better off buying elsewhere, or often buying inferior products and services, now they get it "free". They are paying with their attention. They are reading the adwords and looking at their gmail account and search results pages.

IT investment at the producer end is going crazy, in small companies (they all start small), in peoples' spare time ( got to keep the day job), and on college campuses ( Facebook anyone?) people are investing time and effort and are changing the world. They just don't tell us about it right away. Too busy.

Metrics are applied to what has come before. Now there are click through metrics - and Google searches are part of the establishment. But things don't stop there.

Linux and Google may have started it, but there is now a swelling, latent expectation among consumers. IT can get much much cheaper, ad appear free. Can't help thinking that companies that fulfill or exceed the expectations that have been raised will continue to do very well.

Sharing our time together

2008-01-13T22:40:00.000-08:00

Consulting on an exciting and ground breaking social media application. Great people, great business. Absolutely fantastic.

How do you succeed and make money with social media? My thought is that it all boils down to sharing and growing together. Social marketing means clients are peers, not adversaries.

So when I hear messages like the voice recording that is always the same, blatantly lying to the customer: "Due to unusually high caller volume, all of our operators are currently busy..." - I know I've come to wrong place. The web is revealing how people really change together, and we can have fun building mechanisms that work with us as we really are.

There is no web

2008-01-12T21:15:00.000-08:00

Mark Earls is all for verb-izing nouns:

... linguistic distortion helps misshape our thinking (or maybe reinforces the pre-existing distortion in our thinking) about human networks. We make them sound like things: like wires, pinned to a board and this leads us to buy all kinds of ludicrous notions (like the 'super-influencer' idea that barely reconstituted comms folk have to sell us their media on the back of).

I like the "Barely reconstituted comms folk" bit - right on the money. The entire post reminds me of a quote and book by Buckminster Fuller,

I live on Earth at present, and I don't know what I am, I know I am not a category. I am not a thing - a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process - an integral function of the universe.

There is no web 2.0. There won't be an official release; you won't be able to get the CD. The web is a flux thing, and even if you could take a snapshot of it, that's all it would be, and in a sense, it would be meaningless.

We have to forget the web as a thing. It can't be found.

Of course, we can try to use the web to get ahead, but this is a bit like striding into town and trying to get laid. Fun, yup, but less welcome, the more established and intimate the community. If you want to use the web to get ahead, maybe try getting into the online gambling, pornography businesses - their clients aren't wanting to access actual intimacy. They'll be great for you.

So, less "making the most of the web" , or even "optimizing exposure thru social marketing." And more, webbing together. Advice to client: We are webbing all the time. My webbing is very different from yours. Let's see if we can web better.

Better use of walls

2008-01-08T11:09:00.001-08:00

Seems a great movie, a spellbinding novel, beautiful music, are good and powerful things. But they aren't instances of "social media" - they're broadcasted; they dont provide tools for collaboration; they strongly delineate "creator" and "audience".

Social media is NEW, is empowering, is democratic. As such, it is something to believe in. And the market for something to believe in, as Hugh MacLeod says, is "quite large."

The newness of social media is bound to fade. In many cases, its instances are already overwhelmed by various forms of pollution, including the mindless chatter that we engage in on social network sites. Not a surprise: social media are platforms where we can stage a banal self serving talk, or a great and thrilling play. Our choice.

CG Jung: 'The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him. As a human being he may have moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist he is 'man' in a higher sense - he is 'collective man', a vehicle and molder of the unconscious psychic life of mankind.'

CG doesn't seem to be referring to the typical content on a typical Facebook wall. But a wall is a useful object, and can be used as a projection screen for all kinds of good things.

An American reformation

2008-01-04T14:49:00.000-08:00

Well this strikes me as great and sincere political communication.
Hats off to Barack Obama.
"Your voice can change the world." A message behind youtube, behind all social media, a voice that finds itself opposed by monopolists of our attention.

Man's a head

2008-01-04T10:26:00.000-08:00

...It may be the coffee, or the Iowa primary, or Seth's free seminar .

But I'm glad.

Here is Seth at his best - giving something for free, and discounting a useful, prescient book that he is selling through Amazon. Leading by example, he is simply ahead.

Social media is not antisocial

2007-12-21T14:31:00.000-08:00

I posted a link to a movie trailer on my nephew's Facebook wall all the other day, and an application automatically generated another link to the same movie studio-hosted place, with the name of the studio on it. Someone is getting paid to get in the way.

You don't go to a cocktail party and talk about your Yaris' fuel economy and add "act now and you can receive 1.9% financing. Until Dec 31. Some conditions apply." That would be antisocial. When Facebook apps mimics this behavior, well, it ain't social either.

The term "Social media" is in danger of being appropriated by the overbearing types in old school Marketing. Go figure.

For 2008: who knows how things we call social media will look, but when I see propagandistic, slimy, hyped up, anti social marketing - I'll resist calling this social media, just out of principle.

...wishing our ruling party would get with it.

2007-12-19T15:18:00.001-08:00

- ( favorite Ecobitz cartoon )

Splunking by sink holes

2007-12-18T08:12:00.000-08:00

Fab post at "Talent Imitates.." on Skype phones and interim times.
- of the weight "pushing back on us from the future".

In Canada we already have Voip LAN phones that are all upside - (way) cheaper, clearer, easier. Our house adopted Voip, and we'll never go back. But we are still in a HUGE minority, though clearly the old platform is built above a growing sink hole. Same with cell phone networks - the North American companies are absolute dinosaurs and thieves - but financially successful. This means something.

In a speeded up world of shifting tectonic plates and melting icecaps, sink holes form more quickly. Understanding Mark Earls' and others' insights on herd behavior seems vital now, as successful businesses are ABOUT making the most of these sink holes. So what if this platform is decrepit, and will collapse? There is still business there, and there may not necessarily be money in the new solid platform.

Of course, many of us adopt ahead and forget to make the most of these sink holes - perhaps overwhelmed by anxiety.

Is squidoo social?

2007-12-17T12:05:00.000-08:00

Seth Godin is the man, and when I heard that Google had "flattered" him by creating a competing product, I um, celebrated by creating a Squidoo lens on installing glass tiles. Heck, I do know some things after all.