Wirearchy

2003-03-18T15:40:00.000-08:00

Even More Excitement

Don't quite know what's happening - but the stars must be aligning. First, I got offered a job yesterday, and today I got a call to appear as a panelist on Leading Innovation at an upcoming conference at The Banff Centre.

I'll be sure to frame whatever I talk about in the context of The Support Economy, Xpertweb, blogging, the battles over Digital Rights and Digital Identity, and so on.

Hmmm....lots of preparation and focus for what will probably be a 3-minute soundbite. What the hell.

Truly Exciting

I have posted several times on The Support Economy, in which Zuboff and Maxmin have stated that the digital infrastructure (is (or will be, eventually) in place to enable the "next episode of capitalism".

Now, some proactive deep thinkers are taking the next step. Britt Blaser has done some superb thinking through how buyers and sellers can interact based on need, expertise and reputation (maybe like eBay but for a wider range of needs and services ?). His proposal is called Xpertweb.

Xpertweb has attracted the interest and energy of Flemming Funch and Mitch Ratcliffe, and managed to attract the attention of Doc Searls, who thinks the architecture and the capability it implies are very significant.

It seems to me that if Xpertweb or its derivatives work, and if The Support Economy eventually becomes the next form of capitalism, the organizational forms that are spawned will not operate on hierarchical principles. This model will create an understanding of wirearchy, and how it operates. For now, the means to bring wirearchy into being are being explored, and the blueprints are being pored over by the architects, engineers and contractors.

2003-03-17T07:50:00.000-08:00

NetPolitik

New Aspen Institute Report Examines How Internet is Altering
Diplomacy and World Affairs

The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program (C&S) released a
report today on the impact of network structures and technologies on the
conduct of world affairs. This timely report, The Rise of Netpolitik: How
the Internet Is Changing International Politics and Diplomacy, reflects the
insights of top-level leaders from the worlds of politics, diplomacy,
finance, high technology, academia, and philanthropy who met at the Aspen
Institute to consider new ways of understanding how information technology
is changing the powers of the nation-state, the conduct of international
relations, and the very definition of national security.

"Netpolitik is different from Realpolitik or global interdependence," said Charles M.
Firestone, executive director of the Communications and Society Program. "It
focuses on the primacy of the network structure as an organizing principle
for the conduct of world affairs. In this complex world of blurring borders,
flattened hierarchies and heightened ambiguity, the new rules of diplomacy
involve the astute uses of social, media, financial and other international
networks. The US is, after all, at war with a network. How do we combat
terrorism and other modern degradations without using all of our various
network resources in this new environment?"

The Rise of Netpolitik also looks at the role of storytelling in a world where the Internet and other
technologies bring our competing stories into closer proximity with each
other, and where stories will be interpreted in different ways by different
cultures. In the way it distributes these myths and stories, the Internet is
changing the environment for understanding cultures throughout the world

2003-03-16T11:04:00.000-08:00

Duct !

At approximately 11.00 a.m. (PST), 2.00 p.m. (EST), Bush and Blair have declared the opening of World War III.

They're blaming France and The U.N. for not cooperating.

The debate is over.

2003-03-13T11:25:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of CNN, CNBC and George Bush et al

Via NY Times, Bob Herbert

I interviewed a number of people in the vicinity of Independence Mall about their views of a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. No one I spoke with was particularly well informed. But what struck me about those in favor of invading Iraq was the cavalier way in which they talked about it. Their message, essentially, was: "Saddam's a bad guy. It's time for him to go."

I got no sense that they thought of war as a horrible experience. No one mentioned the inevitable carnage. No one spoke as if they understood that war is always hideous, even if it's sometimes necessary.

How bad will things have to get before it becomes transparent that consent has been manufactured?

2003-03-12T18:27:00.000-08:00

No Kidding !

Found at Always-On Network (Lose the pop-ads ! So clueless)

The Social Risks of New Technologies
It's becoming increasingly clear that a huge challenge faces the Always On world

2003-03-12T11:34:00.000-08:00

For All Of Us - Not Just Korea's Cyberspace Generation

Why human discourse on the 'Net must thrive and evolve

2003-03-12T10:55:00.000-08:00

If The World (Was/Could Be) Run By Software

Wonderful - Found on Joi Ito's Web

2003-03-12T06:50:00.000-08:00

Control Versus An Open Society

Via Ming, John Perry Barlow on Digital Rights Management (DRM) and some key aspects of wirearchy:

"There are three things at stake. The first is, extending a monopoly to a few large organizations about what people can or cannot know and express. This is really about the control of information and it has the potential to become over time a kind of private totalitarianism. That is not an exaggeration since it has already happened in the United States. The reason that the U.S. is behaving in the completely irrational and dangerous way that it is, is because we have erected private totalitarianism and are suffering a reality distortion field that is as dangerous as the one erupted in Germany in the 1930s. But not being driven by the government, but being driven by the media. Being driven by ourselves. I fear erecting a system which highly advantages a very few corporate channels for human intellectual exchange.

Secondly, I fear that Digital Rights Management today is Political Rights Management tomorrow. That embedding these kinds of technological controls into the very architecture of computing has the capacity to become a form of political control in the not so distant future. Because you're putting at a very basic level surveillance capacity, control over what information may or may not travel, and a whole range of things in the architecture that can be very easily used to suppress dissent.

Third, I am very afraid, that by wrapping a large amount of human knowledge up into bottles that can no longer be opened except at a price, much of it will be wrapped up in crypto bottles that in a very fairly short time cannot be opened even at a price. A huge amount of human creativity will simply be lost for future generations."

2003-03-11T13:26:00.000-08:00

Conversations That Work

Via JOHO

Cliff Figallo talks about "Putting conversation to work." He's one of the founders of The Well.

"Attention is energy," he says: the person being attended to gets energy from it, including people who are being jerks.

Conversations that work, he says, are different than ones where people connect for enjoyment. He's thinking of conversations as something that organizations do to get their jobs done. "Power imbalances destabilize conversations." In business conversations, there's often an imbalance. Thus a "subtext" develops in which you can read the disenfranchisement. To keep a business conversation going, the business has to evolve into something more egalitarian. But within the conversation, first you have to acknowledge the power imbalance. Second, you should have a "full value contract": everyone agrees that they're going to listen to one another, respect one another, and do what they can to encourage one another speak.

2003-03-11T06:36:00.000-08:00

Mitch Is Not Into THAT Groove

From the NY Times (again)

Software Pioneer Quits Board of Groove

Mitchell D. Kapor, a software pioneer, resigned from the board of Groove Networks after learning the company's software was being used by the Pentagon for surveillance.

2003-03-11T06:09:00.000-08:00

I M, U Am, We Is

From the NY Times, an article about the rapidly-growing pemetration of Instant Messaging into the workplace

Clique of Instant Messagers Expands Into the Workplace, By AMY HARMON
Instant messaging, long used by teenagers, is moving into the workplace with an impact that is rivaling rival e-mail and the cellphone.

2003-03-10T18:52:00.000-08:00

Only The Agreement(s) Matter

From Britt Blaser's Escapable Logic, a post titled "Only the Schema Matters" contains this:

The reason the schema is the big deal is that it does for economics what all the Internet's equipment does for electronic transmissions—enforce an agreement on how to play nice with each other. That's a bracing thought: unlike anyone else, Xpertweb people are subject to an overarching economic agreement enforced by forms and scripts conforming to their agreement

The previous set of agreements we had about how to govern, how to exchange value with each other - didn't foresee the 'Net. Hierarchy was the dominant form of structure, because there were no easy mechanisms (physical or social) to share a wide range of information. Sure, you could whisper and gossip, but the main forms of distributing information favored the rich and powerful - and our laws have reinforced this.

In the 'Net Age, our agreements will become our structures.

2003-03-09T19:36:00.000-08:00

The Way The Words Blog Together Makes The Mind Whisper

Very interesting - Joi Ito sent his paper on Emergent Democracy to Dee Hock.

Dee replied. An excerpt below

It is futile to directly challenge such institutions, political or commercial, for they have an oligopoly on power, money and instruments of compulsion. Nor do they hesitate to use them if threatened. However, they will prove to be vulnerable, rusted out hulks if confronted with new and better ideas of organization which transcend and enfold them. Ideas that excite the very people they expect to remain passive.

What they cannot resist is the searchlight of informed public opinion. Once the public begins to withdraw relevance from them they are helpless, as Gandhi so ably demonstrated in India. While I don't begin to understand Blogging, your paper set something turning in the back of my mind that whispers it may be one of the keys to the puzzle.

At the end of his reply, he added a "PS", in which he suggests that the organizational structure and dynamic of Visa - The Organization is not unlike blogging, hence chaordic, embracing both chaos and order, and designed to support emergent behaviour.

Blogging today is maybe a Flashlight, on its way to growing up - into a big Searchlight.

2003-03-09T19:03:00.000-08:00

Now the Cracks Are Beginning to Show

From Leonard Cohen's CD "The Future" , and the song of the same name :

Give me back my broken night
my secret room, my secret life
it's lonely here,
there's no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every living soul
and lie beside me, baby
that's an order !

Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that's left
and stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin Wall
Give me back Stalin and St. Paul
I've seen the future, brother:
it is murder

Things are going to slide in all directions
Won't be nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned the order of the soul
When they said REPENT
I wonder what they meant (refrain)....

You don't know me from the wind
you never will, you never did
I'm the little jew
who wrote the bible
I've seen nations rise and fall
I've heard their stories, heard them all
but love's the only engine of survival
Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold
It's over, it ain't going any further
And now the wheels of heaven stop
you feel the devil's riding crop
Get ready for the future:
it is murder

Things are going to slide in all directions.....

There'll be the breaking of the ancient western code
Your private life will suddenly explode
There'll be phantoms
There'll be fires on the road
and the white man dancing
You'll see the woman hanging upside down
her features covered by her fallen gown
and all the lousy little poets
coming round
trying to sound like Charley Manson

Give me back the Berlin Wall
give me Stalin and St. Paul
Give me Christ
or give me Hiroshima
Destroy another fetus now
We don't like children anyhow
I've seen the future, baby:
it is murder.

Things are going to slide in all directions...

2003-03-09T18:47:00.000-08:00

I've Got A(nother) Theory About Blogging

Via "TheObvious ?" blog:

Who will bring the news to an American public that has been in a torpor of consumerist feeding, with the media peddling an exceedingly vacuous and disconnected "good life." While we've slept, we've crept down this path, since WWII, ever rightward through Democratic and Republican administrations. We have been so enthralled with the latest toys and technology - so jazzed by our bank accounts and BMWs -- that we've never stopped to consider the undercurrents, the fact that our rich and pampered life has been purchased at gunpoint.

Now the cracks are beginning to show, as we push the agenda to the extremes. The breakdown of the community of the American people, the increased militarism, has reached full flower. Community, democracy, humanity, hope - call it what you will - is being bombed and murdered as surely as thousands of innocents have been and will be with America's military hardware.

It's so hard, in today's polarised society, to have a conversation in real-time 3D about big issues - issues that demand context and involve philosophy or ideology. The evdence that large change has happened and is continuing to happen is all around, but don't dare engage in deep conversation about it.

The positions come out, the beliefs show up, and before you know it - it's one position "shouting" at the other, and vice versa - and everybody goes away feeling "righteous", but de-energized. How will we all get along? How can we grow better and new .......?

I think blogging lets hordes of people who don't necessarily fit into the mainstream have a place where they can exchange ideas, dialogue, find friends and foes, argue without the need to feel "real-time righteous". This then allows for the building of points ofv view, whether held in common or divergent and opposed - but shared nevertheless.

This, done widely and over time, can only be good - particularly in societies where the mainstream, which has control of the publicly-sanctioned ideology, shouts down the other points of view.

Maybe a historical view from 10 years hence will show blogging to be the 00's version of the '60's "Power to the People" dynamics?

2003-03-09T18:20:00.000-08:00

Mmmmm - Tasty - But What Was That Last One ?

From G ! - the blog

An example of the Napster Generation's corporate humor:

Management First

Several cannibals were recently hired by a big corporation. "You are all part of our team now," said the HR rep during the welcoming briefing. "You get all the usual benefits and you can go to the cafeteria for something to eat, but please don't eat any of the other employees." The cannibals promised.

Four weeks later their boss remarked, "You're all working very hard, and I'm satisfied with you. However, one of our secretaries has disappeared. Do any of you know what happened to her?" The cannibals all shook their heads no.

After the boss had left, the leader of the cannibals said to the others, "Which one of you idiots ate the secretary?" A hand rose hesitantly, to which the leader of the cannibals continued, "You fool! For four weeks we've been eating Managers and no one noticed anything, but noooooo, you had to go and eat the secretary!"

2003-03-08T19:50:00.000-08:00

Influential Words Burst, by John Patrick

The "mainstream" is indeed coming along. When I read this, I didn't expect the date to be as recent.

John Patrick is just catching up with the world of "blogging" - and this from a guy with Net Attitude ??

2003-03-08T13:57:00.000-08:00

Moving Into The Mainstream

Here's an example of a blog that's building a new business model. Note the first line of "About Always-On Network".

"The AO Proposition
In the next wave, media companies will have to share control with the audience they serve. eBay taught us the power and profitability of that idea in the first wave. But giving up control is a huge challenge for an old, crusty and entrenched industry. At AlwaysOn, we invite some of the smartest chiefs, geeks, investors, boosters and wonks to come play in our spontaneous and uncensored arena."

Oh yeah !

2003-03-07T12:25:00.000-08:00

In These Troubled Times

"When in despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won; there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall."

-- M.K. Gandhi

2003-03-07T12:04:00.000-08:00

Bye-Bye Pension

Soon hundreds of corporations may slash pensions by as much as half.

This article on Fortune.com outlines new changes that will be coming soon to a corporation near you.

I don't have a pension anyway.

2003-03-07T11:11:00.000-08:00

Ceci Est Tres Cool (This Is Waay Cool)

A map of blogs in France

I wonder what such a map would look like for North America, and for the world. An interesting visual exercise, no doubt.

2003-03-07T09:39:00.000-08:00

When Calling Americans Names, Canadian Elected Officials Influenced By God

Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Heaven, God went missing for six days. Eventually, Michael the archangel found him, resting on the seventh day.

He inquired of God, "Where have you been?"

God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds, "Look Michael, look what I've made."

Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said, "What is it?"

"It's a planet," replied God, "and I've put LIFE on it. I'm going to call it Earth and it's going to be a place of great balance."

"Balance?" inquired Michael, still confused.

God explained, pointing to different parts of Earth, "For example, Northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth while Southern
Europe is going to be poor; the Middle East over there will be a hot spot. Over there I've placed a continent of white people and over there is a continent of black people," God continued, pointing to different countries. "This one will be extremely hot and arid while this one will be very cold and covered in ice."

The Archangel, impressed by Gods work, then pointed to a large landmass in the top corner and asked, "What's that one?"

"Ah," said God. "That's Canada, the most glorious place on Earth. There are beautiful mountains, lakes, rivers, streams and an exquisite coastline. The people from Canada are going to be modest, intelligent and humorous and they're going to be found travelling the world. They'll be extremely sociable, hard working and high achieving, and they will be known throughout the world as diplomats and carriers of peace. I'm also going to give them super-human, undefeatable ice hockey players who will be admired and feared by all who come across them."

Michael gasped in wonder and admiration but then proclaimed; "What about balance, God? You said there will be BALANCE!"

God replied wisely. "Wait until you see the loud-mouth bastards I'm putting next to them...."

2003-03-07T07:03:00.000-08:00

Why The Internet Will Change (Even More) The World We Know

David Weinberger and Doc Searls have just published a site (World of Ends) that I think might become a sequel to The Cluetrain Manifesto, in that it will probably be widely read and widely forwarded/cited.

And, as interconnectedness approaches ubiquity and everyone uses the 'Net to communicate, the impacts will accumulate - the impacts due to the fact that there are individual humans at the end of each connection.
Check it out.

2003-03-07T06:44:00.000-08:00

Blogging Is Mass Customization In Action

Sorry to get all jargon-y here. About 15 years ago, Stan Davis (among others) identified the principle of Mass Customization as the long-term result of applying information technology's capabilities to human activities - work processes, learning, and so on.

In simple terms, mass customization means taking something that is done en masse, and making it able to be customized a la individual. So it is with Personal Web Publishing - it is a "mass production" activity, but it now can be done easily, cheaply and in infinite variation according to the philosophy, aesthetic and drive of an individual.

As blogging begins to make its way into the corporate world, or the education world, and is used by organized groups of people in many (all) arenas to reflect a wide range of voices, mass customization will have arrived as one more component principle of a world organized for wirearchy.

2003-03-07T06:32:00.000-08:00

Let Them Hate As Long As They Fear

Thomas Krugman, in today's NY Times, interpreting the Bush Administration's stand on Mexico (and the rest of the world. It's becoming clearer and clearer that John Perry Barlow's suggestion is correct - that Cheney's Pax Americana is the strategic thinking driving the Bush initiative to "transform the world":

So oderint dum metuant it is. I could talk about the foolishness of such blatant bullying — or about the incredible risks, in a multiethnic, multiracial society, of even hinting that one might encourage a backlash against Hispanics. And yes, I mean Hispanics, not Mexicans: once feelings are running high, do you really think people will politely ask a brown-skinned guy with an accent whether he is a citizen or, if not, which country he comes from?

But my most intense reaction to this story isn't anger over the administration's stupidity and irresponsibility, or even dismay over the casual destruction of hard-won friendships. No, when I read an interview in which the U.S. president sounds for all the world like a B-movie villain — "You have relatives in Texas, yes?" — what I feel, above all, is shame.

2003-03-06T15:07:00.000-08:00

Future Perfect, Revisited

Stan Davis wrote, in 1987, an important book titled Future Perfect in which he accurately forecast much of what has come to pass in the world of organizations invaded by information systems.

From the book:

"Electronic information systems enable parts of the whole organization to communicate directly with each other, where the hierarchy wouldn't otherwise permit it. What the hierarchy proscribes, the network facilitates: each part in simultaneous contact with all the other parts and with the company as a whole. The organization can be centralized and decentralized simultaneously: the centralizing mechanism in the structure, and the coordinating mechanism in the systems.

Networks will not replace or supplement hierarchies; rather the two will be encompassed within a broader conception that embraces both. We are still a long way from figuring out the appropriate and encompassing organization models for the economy we are now in. At the very least, it is clear that we will have to reconceptualize space, transforming it by technology from an impediment to an asset." (pp 88-89)

2003-03-06T12:58:00.000-08:00

Blogs Help The Answers Find Us

I love this phrase, found on tins:::Rick Klau's Web Log - a blog about blogging in the legal field.

Here's the inspiration for the phrase.

2003-03-06T11:08:00.000-08:00

Voice of the dark corners

We talk a lot, in the blogosphere, about voices. It's never more important to hear a wide range of voices than when staring a major crisis - that might yet be prevented - in the face.

From the Guardian, in Tony Blair's Britain, is commentary by Fidel Castro on the current situation. He uses George Bush's own words to offer readers another perspective on how Dubya sees the world.

That is what we are: dark corners of the world. That is the perception some have of the third world nations. Never before had anyone offered a better definition; no one had shown such contempt. The former colonies of powers that divided the world among them and plundered it for centuries today make up the group of underdeveloped countries.

There is nothing like full independence, fair treatment on an equal footing or national security for any of us; none is a permanent member of the UN security council with a veto right; none has any possibility of being involved in the decisions of the international financial institutions; none can keep its best talents; none can protect itself from capital flight or the destruction of nature and the environment caused by the squandering, selfish and insatiable consumerism of the economically developed countries.

After the last global carnage in the 1940s, we were promised a world of peace, a reduction of the gap between the rich and poor and the assistance of the highly developed to the less developed countries. It was all a huge lie. We had imposed on us an unsustainable and unbearable world order.

Right next to this article is a piece in which Blair, parroting Bush, announces that they don't need to respect the vetoes of the UN. Today China said it's siding with France, Germany and Russia.

How can we possibly expect things to get better if the US invades Iraq ? Is saving face that important, for George and Tony ?

I don't care what anyone else thinks - I'm naming it. World War 3

2003-03-05T17:08:00.000-08:00

Hey - There !

Shoshana Zuboff and James Maxim recently published a book title "The Support Economy - Why Corporations Are Failing Individuals and the Next Episode of Capitalism"

In it they call for a new enterprise logic, and new business models, that will provide support and help for individuals, who are the triggers that release the cash. As soon as new ways of obtaining what they want or need are available, in thoery individuals will flock to use them, as the current corporate models are adversarial to consumers and often painful for them to use (see The Cluetrain Manifesto for a summary).

An article in the just-out Business 2.0 titled " Your Next Customer Is Virtual, But His Money Is Real" offers us a glimpse of the emerging possibility offered by a new startup, There Inc.. The premise is, I think, to make it easier for consumers to get what they want and/or need.

My sense is that There Inc. might be an early signpost of a metaverse in which consumers do indeed find it easier and more fun to get what they want or need. If the model works, look for many more versions in many more sectors over time.

2003-03-05T16:54:00.000-08:00

Thumb Screws, Water or Bright Lights ?

Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor, has stopped just short of proposing that the recently captured Al-Qaeda mastermind should be tortured.

The story is here

Some people might suggest that the policy structure of the global economy is a form of torture already, and a core component of the ongoing rise in terrorism. Others will argue, even while the thumb screws are being tightened, that "free-enterprise market capitalism" is the only permissible way to go.

2003-03-05T13:38:00.000-08:00

Blogging, Clueing In And Evolution

This feels to me like what I feverishly imagined when I started thinking about how the interconnectivity afforded by the 'Net would cause fundamental change to our human structures and dynamics.

From Stir, the blog:

nobodies, really

Jeneane is looking for a way to sum Blogging. She writes in the comments on this entry on Allied:

I have promised to make some VIPS a list of articles and blogs that will somehow wrap the largeness of all of this into a single email. So far I haven't been able to do it. The importance of it, really, is that human voices--nobodies, really--are resonating farther and longer through this medium than the power structures of institutions like corporations, big media, government, religion... It's the bottom up thing that's important. I'm not saying we'll TAKE OVER any of those institutions, but we will penetrate and change them.

try explaining that to someone who wants to know what a blog is. yeh.

I dunno, I think you just did...

Blogging is undoubtedly in its infancy. And it's already had some amazing impact.

Let's put that together with...the continued evolution of information systems, upcoming generations who are learning to cognate very differently than those of us over 35 or 40 years old, increasing bandwidth, the "Save" button and archiving, the permanent loss of employment security, wearable and embedded computing, mobile computing and smart mobs, and what will we get ?

More penetration and change than we can imagine. And a real need for principles that will help us all live and work together effectively, such as ...the ability to truly listen to each other, the essential need to collaborate in constructive ways to deal with the sure-to-continue issues of power and control.

We will need a give-and-take flow of power and authority. Top-down, centralized authority alone won't be able to carry the day. It's not inclusive enough, and won't be able to cope with the need to honour the diversity of human need and human ability.

2003-03-04T19:13:00.000-08:00

Lost And Forgotten

Another thing I could rant about...

In the midst of the American preoccupation with Iraq, and to a lesser degree North Korea, I think most of us tend to forget about the state of affairs elsewhere - Afghanistan, Venezuela, Argentina, the continent of Africa, Brazil, and....

It's kinda like a drift drive (in scuba diving). They plop you in the ocean in a spot where a strong current is flowing past a beautiful, teeming-with-life coral reef and pick you up a couple of miles down-current. If we consider the continual flow of propaganda, news, opinions, lies, half-truths and images as the current we all drift in, and our world as the coral reef....well, you get the analogy.

Greg Palast is an award-winning journalist who has just published a new book, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy", and he's hosting a conversation on Salon's Table Talk. Here's a snippet:

You're not stupid, they just talk to you that way.

I'm amazed about the number of intelligent questions about Venezuela. I'm sitting here with Linda and with Phil Frazer, co-editor of the Hightower Lowdown. We are killing some cheap-o vodka amid the wreckage of the twins' birthday party and grousing about Iraq, the Weapon of Mass Distraction -- no one seems to care about Venezuela, the IMF and Argentina . . . then here you are on Table Talk getting right to the good stuff.

Venezuela - Just four days ago, the New York Times ran a photo of "thousands of marchers protesting Hugo Chavez." Yes, indeed - when I was in Caracas, I saw those thousands -- rich white folk in a huff. What they don't tell you is that every day the anti-Chavez group marches, the pro-Chavez marchers outnumber them two to one. And their color is brown.

The best way to understand Chavez is as the Nelson Mandela of Venezuela -- evening up the score of 500 years of economic apartheid imposed by the 20% of the population which is white and privileged.

Of course, it's Chavez' curse to face the rage of the oligarchs while he sits on top of Exxon's oil. They are going to kill him. You read it here. That concerns me because he was supposed to write the intro to the Spanish edition of my book. Talk about a "dead line...."

Argentina The new book has all new stuff on both Venezuela and Argentina's defenistration by the World Bank and IMF. Not surprisingly, my writings on the are front page news in South America - no page news in the USA. Yep, there's my article in Harper's, if anyone noticed.

What a crazy world ! Not likely to smoothen out any time soon.

2003-03-04T18:42:00.000-08:00

Straight To The Heart Of The Matter

As much as I like to complain about American hegemony, and so as painful as it is for me to admit this - I think Britt Blaser's point of view regarding the inevitable necessary of creating closure in the current "street fight" is correct.

As I read it, it brought to mind a book I read several years ago titled "The Fourth Turning - An American Prophecy". The authors suggested that we were on the path to a monumental crisis which would force the creation of their (early) version of The Obvious Society, with the attendant strict moral codes, regulation of behaviour, and so on - necessary to "manage" the complexity of the new world order in which we found ourselves.

They carried out painstaking research which showed that history has unfolded in cycles, and that once every 105 years or so (if my memory serves) there is a saeculum (a major turning, from Awakening to a High, through an Unraveling, into Crisis). They suggested (in 1998/99) that we were in the late stages of Unraveling.

Place your bets.

2003-03-04T15:40:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Ming - pointing us to a nifty, improved application that meets the main criteria for "future-friendly" - open source based Zope.

For me, this statement of capability:

"Zope enables teams to collaborate in the creation and management of dynamic web-based business applications such as intranets and portals."

which connects with a snippet offered in today's Gurteen Knowledge Newsletter. He dusts off a 1998 (!!!) piece by David Weinberger titled "The Death of Documents and the End of Done-ness"

" We are seeing a massive cultural shift away from the concept of done-ness. The Web allows for constant process and enables open-ended groups of people to be
invited into the process. Things on the Web are never done, and the damn "under construction" sign is implicit at every site. Why should anything be declared "done" when that means taking responsibility and arbitrarily picking a place to freeze a process in a context that is always always always changing"?

I've always wondered about this. Nothing is ever "done", really - just on the way to somewhere else. However, for some reason lots of people don't think this way. They look for and believe in completion, finality, close that one and move on. Years ago, as an organizational design and strategy consultant, I always wondered why businesses I worked with thought "this next re-structuring we'll finally get it right" as if they weren't going to do another one 12 or 16 months down the road.

The Web, of course, changes this big time. It's a flow - life is a blogaret, my friends - and it looks like Zope could be pretty cool. Look at the words in the one sentence above:

Teams ..... collaborate ..... dynamic ..... web-based ..... intranets ..... portals

All that and open source to boot - what's in it's way, and how can we help remove whatever obstacles there are ?

2003-03-04T10:52:00.000-08:00

A Different Take On Advertising

If we will always be subjected to advertising and marketing....I like what St.Luke's stands for, and how they do it.

Under "Who We Are", check out their Story and their Social Philosophy. From their Story:

"From the beginning, it's focus has been on the personal growth and development of it's co-owners and a burning desire to change the DNA of business"

I've followed this company for five years now - great to see that they haven't faltered, and are growing. And I like their web site a lot.

2003-03-04T10:19:00.000-08:00

USA, France and Canada - 3 Different Perspectives

Maybe inappropriate (if you're easily offended) and not pertinent (as opposed to impertinent), but kinda funny depending on what kind of mood you're in:

The Penis Study

In 1993, the American Government funded a study to see why the head of a man's penis was larger than the shaft. After one year and $180,000.00, they concluded that the reason the head was larger than the shaft was to give the man more pleasure during sex.

After the US published the study, France decided to do their own study. After $250,000.00, and 3 years of research, they concluded that the reason was to give the woman more pleasure during sex.

Canada, unsatisfied with these findings, conducted their own study. After 2 weeks and a cost of around $75.46, and 2 cases of beer, they concluded that it was to keep a man's hand from flying off and hitting him in the forehead.

2003-03-03T19:09:00.000-08:00

A Moving Reality

Anyone besides me worried about how the "official" conversation is what is creating reality? From disarmament to regime change to post-Saddam Iraq?

In the words of our estimable Prime Minister, "who's next" ? Or "what's next" ?

As I posted several days ago, looking more and more like a large-scale 3D version of the board game Risk. Life imitates games.

2003-03-03T18:16:00.000-08:00

Tribalization, De-tribalization, Re-tribalization

Much back-and-forth on several A-list blogs about Identity and Anonymity, transparency and the obvious society.

Well, of course. I think that Eric Norlin's point is a good one:

"Namely, I see a shift occurring --- our Networks of Anonymity are inexorably moving (like tectonic plates) toward being Networks of Identity. Furthermore, this movement is actually a result of one of the initial conditions of the Net -- the fact that it moves everything toward the public domain."

It brings to mind one of Marshall McLuhan's key points: the oral tradition of communicating information begets tribalization, the literary tradition de-tribalization, and the electronic form re-tribalization.

Networks of Identity seem like tribes to me. On the 'Net, if you let someone know who you are, for whatever reason, you are accepting them enough to grant them virtual membership to the tribe you are travelling with through cyberspace. Absent the connection afforded by the 'Net, communicating information via the literary tradition - magazine, book, newspaper, flyer, speeding ticket - there is a degree of materiality that separates reader from author, that de-tribalizes. You can consider yourself part of "the tribe", in your own head, but you have to seek out some other physical means - fan club, phone call, letter - to express your relatedness, and make your identity known, to the author and other interested parties.

IMO, the public domain was fundamentally different, pre-Internet.

2003-03-03T16:52:00.000-08:00

Obviously, We Will Act Like Humans ?

Britt Blaser's Obvious Society offers us a glimpse of what we're heading for - unless we want corporations and the software and integrated systems they use to streamline and homogenize our collective and individual behaviour. Mitch Ratcliffe is involved, he being another individual who saw this coming a long way off.

From Ratcliffe Blog:

The nature of collaboration, whether for political, social or economic goals, is one of constant dynamism--our relationships evolve over time, so our tools cannot lock us into a mode of interaction and leave us there.

Hierarchy is often one way we "default" on responsibility. Let's not let wirearchy become a default setting for our social behaviour in the wired world, by letting corporate systems architecture and code over-control how we interact and live.

2003-03-02T18:36:00.000-08:00

When Will The Tsunami Arrive?

This opened my eyes! Up till now, it has just seemed logical, and it was also a felt sense - mostly a feeling of banging my head against a very sturdy brick wall. The people I try to convince about networks and network dynamics, in order to get consulting work, are usually around my age or older.

I have consistently said that the digital generations will change the workplace more in the next ten years than it has changed in the last twenty.

Take a look at the age distribution curve for people involved in blogging, the best knowledge-creation tool going.

2003-03-02T10:36:00.000-08:00

Mr. Intellectual Capital Says...

How is interconnectedness changing hierarchical structures and dynamics?

From JOHO, a report on Tom Stewart's point of view:

Tom Stewart — the intellectual capital guy and editor of HBR — is giving the keynote at the DigitalNow conference. He says that although the Internet bubble has burst, the Net has indeed changed everything. He backs it up with examples from the business mainstream. Cool.

Tom points to four transformations:

1. Speed. We can buy whenever we want. We can communicate whenever we want. A faster economy challenges executives who have to make faster decisions.

2. "There's no commerce like ecommerce." E.g., Wyeth is saving 25% by buying electronically.

3. King Customer. A substantial shift in power from sellers to buyers largely because of the Internet.

4. Loosely Coupled organization. (This is what I call The Hyperlinked Organization.) The line between inside and outside is no longer clear. E.g., 90% oF products with Cisco's name on it have never been touched by someone whose paycheck comes from Cisco.

The audience — heads of associations — absolutely needed to hear this message and responded to it enthusiastically.

2003-03-02T10:21:00.000-08:00

Watching A Cat Play, As The World Prepares To Watch A Large-Scale 3D War Video Game

Scrolling throught the Topica.com psychohistory posting list, I came across this - it caught my eye, and this person's style of writing (slightly plaintive, worried, very human/humble and enquiring), made me read further.

How much have "we" forgotten that Dubya probably should not have been elected? I wonder if "the terrorists" would have attacked NY and the financial center in the same way had Al Gore been elected President - and the wonderings go on and on.

Here's some of what this lady, who admits she's concerned and confused, had to say. To me, it feels like it could touch a spot in many of our psyches. It's the last paragraph that suggests to me that this is how many of us are dealing with the impending enactment of a made-up horror - we watch our cat attack a cactus plant.

And last, a few thoughts about George W. Bush. To me, I can't think of
a more dangerous person at this moment, given the circumstances and what
I've read in the list and in the paper. Mainly, it frightens me to
think of this man in this position of power, delagate for the group and
its fantasies. It is still very debatable if he was in fact "elected."
My own opinion is that if the vote-counting could have been sorted out
and finished in a fair and legal manner, Gore would have won the
electoral vote, as well as the popular vote, but by a very tiny margin.
Still, that the vote was SO close and contested, that leads me to
believe that there is no real majority of a group or psychoclass. If
there is, I think growth panic/response to the indulgences and expansion
of the '90s ("too much wealth and freedom") have leveled out any
differences somewhat.

President Bush has fewer real credentials to hold office, or any
important job, than many people I know. My impression is that he is a
man of not-so-great intelligence, perhaps with a learning disorder, who
has never really achieved or done anything on his own, and failed at
many of his ventures. Following in his father's footsteps is likely to
amplify any sense of self that he has, be it grandiosity or shame or
whatever he harbors in his heart and emotional universe. What does that
say about America? Where can this all lead? I dread my own feeling
that Mr. Bush (I still hesitate to call him President, as I don't
believe he won fairly, and doesn't quite deserve that appellation)
simply cannot contemplate anything other that his war, since a peaceful
resolution by diplomacy or otherwise will seem overall like a loss of
face, another failure, and that would be intolerable. And, there are
still, as often written on this list, plenty of people in the U.S. (and
vicariously in the rest of the world) who have a profound emotional need
for war at this time.

Sorry to be so bleak. As a friend said, "Reading this list can really
drag you down."
So I shall end by saying that here, my crocuses are starting to bloom
and my cat just attacked my husband's cactus plant, Mr. Chubby, for his
own catty, inscrutable reasons. Silly thing.

2003-03-02T08:48:00.000-08:00

A New Organizing Principle ?

On Doc Searl's weblog, he quotes John Udell. editor at Byte magazine:

The connected computer is fast approaching ubiquity. We've created cyberspace, but we haven't yet really colonized it because we lack the organizing principle to do so. Having abolished time and space, nothing remains but identity. How we project our identities into cyberspace is the central riddle. Until we solve that, we can't move on.

Project is the right word, not protect.

How about:

Wirearchy - a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority, based on knowledge, credibility, trust and a focus on results, enabled by interconnected people and technology.

1. A two-way flow of power and authority - seems obvious that this is happening, in ways big and small, every day - a blog here, an uncovered e-mail there, and new source of information on a web site, a distribution capability that opens up due to the Net.

Millions of words have been written about how the "customer", now connected ubiquitously to other customers, has gained considerable power - no doubt there's more to come?

2. Knowledge, trust, credibility and a focus on results - We are all exchanging information of some sort or other, which can lead to the creation of knowledge. The Web makes things transparent, but it insists (eventually - someone WILL check it out) on credibility. The Web demands trust, because the transparency makes the absence of trust both malevolent and dangerous. And there must be a focus on "results" - beyond just conversation, exchanges of information, opinion and desire create...friendships, new opportunities, new ways of getting things done, access to energy and resources that plainly would have been unthinkable in pre-Web days. Examples abound.

3. Enabled by interconnected people and technology - What can I say? It's happening, it's there and it will keep growing. More networks, faster transmission, more bandwidth, Google + Blogger, and so on.

2003-03-02T00:34:00.000-08:00

Get Smart - Update 2003

Will phones in the heels of their shoes be next ?

OK - when, but when will it become obvious to the great silent majority in the US that their current government is just plain over-the-top? This is a complex world, there were (and are) some reasons other than pure evil on the part of some Islamic fanaticists that something like 9/11 happened - and yes, the world has not and will not be hte same.

But, really ...

From the Manchester Guardian

Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote
Secret document details American plan to bug phones and emails of key Security Council members ahead of crucial vote over war on Iraq.

2003-02-26T15:09:00.000-08:00

Recalling The 2000 Election - Bush By A Nose

This animation and site are to the point

2003-02-25T20:50:00.000-08:00

Blogging - A Millenium Tool For The Workplace

My opinion:

Google and Blogger together provide the capability, for organizations, to do what people at work do by sending each other e-mails - but in an easier, more central, and more useful way and place.

This provides organizations with the ability to develop the cultures many of them say they aspire to - but it would require them to honour openness and sharing, not just pay lip service, and punish points of view or information which is not "politically correct".

Imagine - blogs where employees and customers can have conversations, and inform each other.

2003-02-25T20:44:00.000-08:00

On Blogging As The Agent For Wirearchy

From Tom Matrullo at ImProPrieties, a post that hints at the ongoing evolution of wirearchy - the confluence of tools and human activities:

I knew Jeneane Sessum was smart. Now I believe she's seeing something in the conjunction of Google and Blogger that's both very important, and that appears to be escaping others who have commented on the union. She's writing inspired stuff about it.

You don't think that you and us and them talking and linking and listening have magnitudes of power, and have momentum to power change? If not, why are we here? Or maybe it's just me.

If it is ''just her,'' she'll change that. But it's not just her. Others see it too. Here's Phil Wolff, from an email he sent me, quoted with his permission:

I haven't given much thought to the community services Google could whip up. Great catch!
Dynamic blogrolls, based on my last 5 posts. On my entire blog. On my physical neighborhood. Translate my blog.

Bloggers cluster. Show me other clusters I should watch, so I can be a bridge. Understand that comment systems are also bridge material, associated strongly with the commentor's blog, medium with the subject of the comment, and loosely with the other commenters.

Create a composite page of pictures (and related links) posted by people in my neighborhood. Perhaps a screensaver.

Now imagine this in specific org contexts. Team workgroups. Project launches.

Google's agents have 3-to-4 fewer orders of magnitude less filtering to do. So, better quality, faster response. More tacit knowledge.

Jeneane's already started a blog to explore all of this and more. It's called Stir. Keep an eye or a voice on it.

2003-02-25T19:10:00.000-08:00

Googlogger

There is a rapidly-growing amount of commentary (and "forecasting") about what the tag team of Google and Blogger will make manifest.

If the tinder catches fire, I believe force will be created - a force of transparency, a counter-force to the spin and propaganda of the powers-that-be. Veteran bloggers have been suggesting this, hoping for this, trying to create this since the obvious power of "Push-Button Publishing For The People" came into being.

The means exist for beginning to create something other than the monied, closed-connections dynamics of the ruling hierarchy. Perhaps it's not the Internet that is the new revolution to rival Gutenberg's printing press, perhaps it's the distribution, collection and indexing capabilities offered by:

Googlogger ? Bloogler ?

that will allow tapping into the emergent and self-organizing properties - perhaps this will be "The Experiment" that tests whether or not Emergent Democracy is something that collectively we humans aspire to and/or possess ?

2003-02-25T17:46:00.001-08:00

Straight From The Schoolyard, Via The Roman Empire Instruction Booklet

By way of JOHO - a piece by John Perry Barlow, Sympathy For The Devil, in which he suggests there is a Cheney Master Plan (execution by Bush and Powell) that is intended "nobly" to lay the groundwork for lasting peace - by making every one else scared enough to not challenge the USA. He compares this to the Pax Romanus wrought by the Roman Empire, in much the same way this current initiative may unfold.

I suppose it can and will work - for a time. It's like the 14-year old bully that rules the schoolyard because he's actually built like a 21 year-old who's been lifting weights (and buying steroids with the $$$'s he either steals from Mom or the other kids). His mantra: "this schoolyard is mine - wanna try to take it away from me? And you, over there in the corner - I seen you buyin' some steroids - throw 'em away and prove it, or I'm a gonna come and get you".

However, how long can the rest of the world want to live under the American way, which they (the rest of the world) may not agree is the best way to live? And, is this the best way to fragment and crush terrorism, or is it perhaps the best way to ensure that additional inventiveness and desire - to terrorize the bully - are created ?

Well...I'm not saying or thinking anything new - many, many others have already thought and said as much and more. Just adding my voice.

2003-02-24T08:52:00.000-08:00

Bloggers and Brains

They said it. From Corante.com comes the following judgment call:

Paul Andrews explores Google's new foray into weblogging with its purchase
of Pyra Labs, provider of Blogger. "There isn't much money in weblogs,"
writes Andrews. "But there is probably a lot of money in aggregating and
leveraging weblogs in concert with other information sources." He says
blogs "provide a huge public service when you consider the collective
publishing prowess of an estimated half a million to 1 million active
sites," most operated for free. Google's purchase of Pyra gives Google,
continues Andrews, "access to a powerful technology, to the web's cerebral
cortex and to a ready conduit for providing its own blogging service."

http://www.corante.com/internet/redir/17196.html

2003-02-23T10:10:00.000-08:00

Clueing In and Connecting For Our Future

Britt Blaser's post yesterday at Escapable Logic is thoughtful - for me it brought to mind the powerful hypnotizing effect money has on most of us, and how it (IMO) prevents most of us (or at least a critical mass of "us") from engaging in making real and constructive change.

Rather than remaining the pure mechanism for reflecting exchange of some value, money has become the lifeblood of 21st Century society. And more....it has become "everything" - the means to focus what we do and why we do it (a generalization, I know !!).

Money is also what creates the ruling class today - those who can and are eroding our civil rights (how many of the elected officials in the USA are less-than-upper-middle-class, at worst ?).

The continuing hope that clueing in will someday reach critical mass is (I think) what continues to drive many people who haven't completely capitulated to mindless numb consumerism - and I think the 'Net is that idea and place where building a critical mass is possible. This may not happen super-consciously, as there is so much system and inertia conspiring against it - but it may appear as an emergent and evolutive phenomenom. If not, we're hooped (IMO).

Money has become the instrument for creating hierarchy - either through election to positions of power and control, or through compensation schemes where height in the hierarchy is rewarded in over-proportion to contribution.

Wirearchy will be about the possibilities offered by concerted, purposeful thought and action that is enabled by people being connected to each other - to bring into being together, to co-create - rather than follow what someone up there has said they should or will do.

2003-02-20T20:25:00.000-08:00

At various blog rinks (areas of the blogosphere frequented by me) there's lots of conversations going on about the Google-Pyra announcement. As one cynic stated, at least the VC's will know learn about blogging to some degree.

It's also likely that many more blogging tools will arise - from Doc Searls, here's an announcement about NewsMonster

2003-02-19T07:14:00.000-08:00

At ImProPrities I found a Flash animation engrossing enough to watch to the end at 6.45 a.m., while my partner was

a) getting ready to go to work, and

b) getting ready to go to the Dominican Republic in 11 hours

And here I am watching this Flash animation !!

Check it out - it's called WW 2.5 , and it's about the war we're gonna watch on a screen near you - any day now

2003-02-19T06:40:00.000-08:00

This is very nice - via Michael O'Connor Clarke:

Web chat 911 saves life

"As an antidote to the dreadfully sad story blogged by Jeneane about the live online death of Brandon Vedas, comes this remarkable story of Darlene Laurie, net-savvy grandmother who suffered a minor stroke whilst chatting online and was rescued as a result of people in 10 states of the US working together to track down her address and alert the RCMP.

From today's Globe & Mail:

"Someone in Pennsylvania had a phone number for Ms. Laurie; someone in Connecticut had an address. Someone in Kennewick, Wash., contacted the RCMP in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby.

The police sent a patrol car to Ms. Laurie's home and, after receiving no response, the Mounties forced their way in.

Less than two hours after she lost consciousness, Ms. Laurie, who is housebound with an autoimmune disease that is progressively damaging her eyes, kidney and heart, was under medical care at a local hospital for a minor stroke.

A lot of people dismiss a computer as an impersonal machine, Ms Laurie said yesterday in an interview. "It is not. There are real feelings in there."

That's it. A Small Piece, Loosely Joined - kept alive by the connections.

2003-02-18T20:05:00.000-08:00

I wonder if Switching Off will turn into a major movement some day - when WiFi is all around and computers and connectivity are wearable, will we be able to make the bigger switch-off - not interacting with the wired world for any period of time?

Lest we forget.

2003-02-18T16:22:00.000-08:00

Here goes. Chris sent me this when I sent him a strong new piece of work by Joi Ito

"Wow, yeah. Very cool.

I was wondering something…time and so on being what it is, how would you feel about changing our approach to the blog a little so that we didn’t just paste links with a bit of commentary, but instead tried to make some conversation happen there? It might start with a “Chris, have a look at this piece by Joi Ito. What do you make of the section on trust?” To which I might reply that Ito nails it when he talks about trust coming from within rather than through externally imposed codes.

I could add a comments server to the template, so others can put in their two cents worth as well.

This would probably make what we’re doing with the blog a little more interesting, engaging and also helpful in advancing thinking along the lines of the book.

And if we titled each entry with one of a set of agreed upon subject headings (say chapter heading from the outline) then we could eventually aggregate a lot of the writing under the various subject headings and have something like a draft.

I love the conversations we have, and miss the way that my thinking gets sparked when we’re not in the same space together. We’re preaching wirearchy, how about we try practicing it there too? Whatcha think?

Chris"

To which I reply that I think blogging will become a new social construct for exchanging e-mails, ideas, images etc.in which we write, sing, paint our personalities and relationships. And so yeah we should and will practice.

Come to think of it - if there weren't so much fear and politics inside organizations, and between them and their customers, blogs are the natural evolution for the clustering, clumping and cross-semination of information and process in organizations.

2003-02-18T15:55:00.000-08:00

The PowerLaw and Blogging

From the Guardian Online, a piece that cuts across a strict statistical interpretation of "the power law" -

It argues that blogging can and does build relationships, ties - and the interaction between strong ties and weak ties can lead to something more than a statistical (and rigid) hierarchy of connectedness and distribution.

2003-02-18T09:25:00.000-08:00

I agree that this seems like the best reason for Google buying Pyra Labs

2003-02-18T09:11:00.000-08:00

Of the essence, via Ming

Joi Ito on Emergent Democracy

In an age of transparency, what can be the alternative(s) to some form of direct democracy. The medium forces the issue.

2003-02-18T09:07:00.000-08:00

Google eats Blogger.

Glooger ? Bloogle ? Blooger ?

2003-02-15T17:57:00.000-08:00

These two posts, by Brit Blaser about Personal Flight Recorders (PFR's) and an Age of Transparency, and Ming about how people get together on purpose - are for me important elements of how wirearchy will function and what it will mean to us.

2003-02-15T16:04:00.000-08:00

Postmodernism is Dead: Now What? Distributed culture and the rise of the network age by Samuel R. Smith

Nice context piece on the shift from metanarratives to network stories.

2003-02-14T17:52:00.000-08:00

I think this is just great, very interesting - Britt Blaser is a smart guy, I think (there' s some context at his blog that is useful):

The Top 10 Characteristics of the Productive Few

They put their head around the entire problem.
They find it easier to do something than to describe it.
They master many skills.
They're not interested in the periphery of productivity—reports, regulations, politics.
They resent superficial thinking—the denial that God is in the details.
They think that results matter, so they admit and fix mistakes.
They're not usually impressive to others nor do they try to impress.
They're a little mystified by the pecking order and most people's dedication to it.
They want a quiet place with good tools to do their work.
They usually work for, and enrich, people who are precise opposites of these traits.
There's more, but ten's my limit. What's amazing is that the Productive Few are here at all.

Through most human history, we've not had the means to even remember what preceded us, beyond myth and propaganda. The dominant male, the type that has none of those 10 characteristics, directed all activity but in a vague way, and no one considered alternative actions, cause and effect, etc. With the Atomic Age, TV and, of course, the Internet, we believe that mistakes can be both deadly and avoided, and we see the results of our deliberations in the newly shared archive. This has triggered a more fundamental instinct than most: the fear of embarrassment. Being "found out" may be our most basic fear, because it can lower you on the pecking order, so it's now vital to not only be in charge of your organization, but to have it do the right things.

2003-02-14T08:33:00.000-08:00

Blix and El Baradei have just delivered reports to the Un suggesting substantial cooperation and progress regarding the Iraq inspections.

At least it will be blatantly obvious (as if it wasn't already), when the US attacks, that this is a Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Powell initiative and that they are ignoring what the rest of the world wants.

2003-02-13T23:07:00.000-08:00

Via Joi Ito

Bush has a new song.... he composed it himself.... Must be sung to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands":

If you cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq.
If the markets are a drama, bomb Iraq.
If the terrorists are frisky,
Pakistan is looking shifty,
North Korea is too risky,
Bomb Iraq.

If we have no allies with us, bomb Iraq.
If we think someone has dissed us, bomb Iraq.
So to hell with the inspections,
Let's look tough for the elections,
Close your mind and take directions,
Bomb Iraq.

It's "pre-emptive non-aggression", bomb Iraq.
Let's prevent this mass destruction, bomb Iraq.
They've got weapons we can't see,
And that's good enough for me
'Cos it'all the proof I need
Bomb Iraq.

If you never were elected, bomb Iraq.
If your mood is quite dejected, bomb Iraq.
If you think Saddam's gone mad,
With the weapons that he had,
(And he once p*ssed off your dad),
Bomb Iraq.

If your corporate fraud is growin', bomb Iraq.
If your ties to it are showin', bomb Iraq.
If your politics are sleazy,
And hiding that ain't easy,
And your senates getting queasy,
Bomb Iraq.

Fall in line and follow orders, bomb Iraq.
For our might knows not our borders, bomb Iraq.
Disagree? We'll call it treason,
Let's make war not love this season,
Even if we have no reason,
Bomb Iraq.

2003-02-13T23:02:00.000-08:00

Very interesting stuff from Clay Shirky - about the dynamics of attention and power in the Blogosphere. Not yet digested all of it:

2003-02-13T22:53:00.000-08:00

From AKMA

How About This?

Why don’t we settle this in the good, old-fashioned way? Let’s put George II and Saddam in a grassy field surrounded by cheering spectators. No weapons—just bare knuckles (or gloves, I suppose). If Saddam knocks George out, the US leaves the Gulf and we let the inspectors do the work that the UN has commissioned them to do, without browbeating the UN to start a war that only the US wants to start. If George wins, Saddam steps down and the UN oversees a peaceful transition to a new, hypothetically-democratic regime. No more than two people get injured this way (unless they start rioting in Oakland), and it makes about as much sense as a war. George looks to me as though he’s in better shape.

2003-02-11T19:16:00.000-08:00

I learned today that an acquaintance from my neighbourhood, Duncan MacDonnell, committed suicide several days ago.

I met Duncan about 6 or 7 years ago, as we were both going to meetings of various interested people, trying to find place where we could connect. Connecting is often a tough thing for people who are a bit different. If you're smart, well-read, extend different-than-mainstream ideas or challenge people to think differently, it can be very difficult to find a way to hold a job, make a living, or find somewhere (such as connection and acceptance within a social circle) that feels like your place in the world.

Duncan was clearly very smart and aware. He was a university grad in Communications from a well-known college in Nova Scotia. He was obviously from an upper-middle-class Canadian family, one of those quintessentially Canadian families that values education, citizenship, social democracy. He was also polite, well-informed, curious, eager to be helpful and socially extroverted - just not ever very sure of himself - so, just like 98% of the rest of us.

I tried a number of times over the years to extend a hand, get to know him better, ask questions that might be useful for him to chew on - it was not easy.

I felt a sense of having something in common with Duncan several times when I talked with him - both of us had fathers were very well-educated highly opinionated men (Duncan's father was a Supreme Court judge in Nova Scotia). I often felt I recognized, in Duncan's struggles to find himself and fit in, my own feelings of discomfort in attempting to find a voice for myself - and a platform (such as a job), and I believe we shared a sense that such struggles come from our deeply-embedded belief that we must find a way to please and/or prove ourselves to our father.

As part of his journey, in the last couple of years Duncan became very interested in Celtic mythology and ritual - no doubt because of his heritage, and no doubt in an attempt to find something with which he could become deeply involved and use as a way to make meaning for himself.

He also went to Yoga classes, and from checking in with him every once in a while, I know that he explored self-development through therapy, personal development courses and writing (poetry and articles).

Namaste, Duncan

2003-02-11T17:06:00.000-08:00

Here's a report, via the Guardian on the Politics of Code conference at which Larry Lessig and others explored the evoution of what William Gibson called our "consensual hallucination".

Dozens of speakers confirmed our worst fear. Not only is the old-fashioned nation state alive and well but the virtual nation we call the net is increasingly under attack from the real world.

If the Internet was ever a nation unto itself, then the borders are being torn down now. The message from the conference was that, far from being an offshore utopia, floating off from the real world and not subject to its laws, the net is going to be subject to greater control and more stringent regulation than we ever imagined.

The culprit is "code", the zeros and ones from which everything in the networked world is necessarily made. Code - the rules embodied in software - will provide governments and corporations with the tools they need to lock down the net, eliminating important real world concepts such as "fair use" of copyright material and imperilling the fragile public domain itself.

2003-02-11T12:56:00.000-08:00

Britt Blaser on some of the macro effects of wiredness on the nature of work and orgnizations, and the type of socio-cultural impacts that are emerging:

An interesting point of view.

2003-02-10T13:45:00.000-08:00

From a knowledgeable and respected source - James Gleick (I wonder how this eventually work out - or if it will)

James Gleick delves into the monster that is spam, a "bane" with "no promise of a happy ending." The president of a large ISP: "Spam has become the organized crime of the Internet... more and more it's becoming a systems and engineering and networking problem... It's more depressing than you think. Spammers are gaining control of the Internet."

The article: "The cost is now widely estimated at billions of dollars a year. The social costs are immeasurable: people fear participating in the collective life of the Internet, they withdraw or they learn to conceal their e-mail addresses... The signal-to-noise ratio nears zero, and trust is destroyed." Depressing.

2003-02-09T09:11:00.000-08:00

Several colleagues - Carol MacKinnon, Ken Milloy - and myself "played" with colloaborative decision-making software a fair bit in 1995 and 1996.

We set up an immensely successful "Electronic Lounge" at the 1995 Canadian Human Resources National Conference (CCA), and I trid to introduce the capabilities of Grouputer to the tiny market here in Vancouver.

Grouputer is from Australia - it was (maybe still is ?) way cool - you could have up to 48 or so people (less, of course) in groups of 4 around one of 12 keyboards. On the screens/monitors were the application interface - the top hals was one space, and the bottom half was up to 12 individual spaces (depending upon how many keyboards were being used).

In response to issues/questions, you could see the various responses as they occurred in the individual work spaces. Then, a facilitator would work with the group to develop the responses into consensus (or other uses, if desired).

This tool was great for "levelling the playing field", in terms of peoples' inclinations to either speak up or hold back - lots more rich input, much less domination by ego. AND, it was different han using e-mail. The combination of electronic input with face-to-face interaction was always very positive and constructive.

I don't know why it wasn't used more often - personally, I think it was because "back then" it made it too obvious that there was a power shift just lurking - if we always did things this way, wouldn't it be quite different ?! in the remembered words of one participant.

In yesterday's Toronto Globe and Mail, the "e-Insider" brings us up to date on the increasing use of a technology that has been around for at least 7 years. It looks like it's getting mainstream.

Is that the social equivalent of Moore's Law - that innovation takes at least 7 years to begin to be widely adopted, when it has direct impact on engrained social habits and structures ?

Here's the article.

2003-02-09T06:44:00.000-08:00

A new blog, by Sarah Lai Stirland, at Corante.com, on things wirearchical,

An early post offers a manifesto of sorts.

2003-02-02T17:05:00.000-08:00

The Global Brain: neurons by Wirearchy

2003-02-02T00:40:00.000-08:00

CNN.com - Bishops seek saint for Internet - Feb. 1, 2003

Fed up with hackers, a flood of spam and lousy connections, Italian Roman Catholics have launched a search for a patron saint of the Internet. And they hope their online poll will yield a holy Web protector by Easter.

Will it be Archangel Gabriel, whom the Bible credits with bringing Mary the news that she'd give birth to Jesus? Or Saint Isadore of Seville, who wrote the world's first encyclopedia? Or perhaps Saint Clare of Assisi, a nun believed to have seen visions on a wall?

So far, about 5,000 visitors are casting their votes daily on www.santiebeati.it, something that delights Monsignor James P. Moroney, an expert on prayer and worship for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"Everyone needs patrons in the Kingdom of Heaven, and perhaps the Internet as a very young child needs the interventions of a saint all the more," he said...

Whether the Vatican will heed the results of the Web poll is not clear. Their press office had no official comment on the matter.

"We know that names have been discussed here and there, but as far as we know there's nothing official going on," a press officer said.

How could the Catholic Church NOT heed the results of the Web poll for crying out loud?

2003-02-01T21:55:00.000-08:00

How computer code dictates learning loads at Simon Fraser University. Some dark side stuff. Wirearchy morphing out of good intentions...

2003-02-01T19:26:00.000-08:00

A practical application of wirearchy. John Snyder. a recording industry executive, waxes eloquent on Salon, about why sharing is inevitable...and good for business:

People want what they want and they have made their choices. They will still buy CDs, but they want to download music. The failure of the music business to provide a comparable alternative to peer-to-peer networks is the most logical explanation for the "illegal" downloading of music. And rather than address the problem by examining their own behavior, the music companies declare the consumer to be their enemy, support intrusive, overreaching legislation, and act precisely against their best interests. This remains true even in the face of the recent truce the RIAA agreed to with several technology groups. Rather than realize the profit potential of that about which they complain, they try to kill it, then they try to control it. Now they're trying to control the consumer. As O'Reilly points out in his final paragraph:

"And that's the ultimate lesson. 'Give the wookie what he wants!' as Han Solo said so memorably in the first 'Star Wars' movie. Give it to him in as many ways as you can find, at a fair price, and let him choose which works best for him."

2003-01-31T17:33:00.000-08:00

One of the things I have been trying to articulate as I struggle to bring the concept of wirearchy into existence is the fact that virtually all regular human activities are, at a minimum, aided and abetted by software, if not controlled in some way by the design of the software. And we are surrounded by software and interconnectedness - I mean surrounded !

So far my guess is many people have believed that the effects of being surrounded, and of most activities being supported by software, are relatively benign.

However - there's a dark side !

We also live in a grouping of societies (around the world) where money is the medium of exchange, and usually represents our ability to control property of some sort. Money and control and power are closely related - they support, nourish and feed off one another. At the most crass level, that's what politics is about, what belief in one system or another is about - you could argue religion belongs in there, but that's also about power IMO.

So...given that we now live in an era where there's a new set of conditions and capabilities - interconnectedness and digital content - it's obvious that the battles about power and control are defining many aspects of the landscape.

Via Ming's Metalogue, here's John Perry Barlow on some of the deep structural mechanical aspects of whatever "wirearchy" will be - either proprietary control of content and distribution, or some form of open "democracy" in which the user has much more choice on an ongoing basis.

"I think that anybody who cares about the future of technology -- anybody who cares about the future, period -- ought to be awfully concerned about this. But people who work in technology have been agnostic on the subject so far. They need to recognize that they're going to be faced with a fairly stark choice, which is a gradual concentration around certain trusted platforms that cannot be broken out of and are filled with black boxes that you can't code around and can't see the inside of.

You have to get politically active and stop it from happening, because Congress has been bought by the content industry. The choice is being made at a very complex and subterranean political level. It's being done in standard settings, with the FCC, in amendments to obscure bills in Congress, in the closed door sessions to set the Digital Broadcast Standard. It has very significant long-term effects [for] the technical architecture of cyberspace, because what we're talking about embedding into everything is a control and surveillance mechanism for the purpose of observing copyright piracy, but [it] can be used for anything."

For the core issues pertaining to the music industry and the political aspects of control (A&R's role), see Clay Shirky's article "The Music Business and the Big Flip"

For my POV, see points 13, 14 and 15 of "The Unassailable Truth" on Wirearchy.com

2003-01-30T11:15:00.000-08:00

Eric Norlin, writing on the Uncharted Shores blog, has been at the center of the Digital Identity debate for a while.

A recent post:

The reshaping of all of technology around the organizing principle of
digital identity will radically affect the world in which we live. It
affects the underpinnings of democracy -- as suddenly the dangers of some
Orwellian surveillance society becomes imminently possible. It affects the
realm of the law -- as the liabilities associated with transactions begins
to shift. It affects intellectual property -- as the problems of copyright
and public domain become solvable. It affects personal privacy -- as the
individual faces a future wherein they could either control their personal
information, or find it owned almost solely by governments and big
businesses. It affects the operational and strategic aspects of business. In
short, it affects nearly aspect of the society in which we live.

Digital Identity holds forth the promise of a future wherein business,
government and social interaction are forever altered -- shifting the
majority of power to the individual. Similarly, it holds the perils of a
future wherein all anonymity has been sacrificed in the name of "security."
Digital Identity will alter the future of all citizens, just as the Internet
has. The only remaining question is how.

2003-01-30T05:12:00.000-08:00

And in the wake of Shrub's State of the Union address, Bob Herbert offers this point of view in a NY Times OP/Ed piece:

The Bush administration is changing the nation in fundamental ways. However one feels about a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, over the long term a bullying, go-it-alone foreign policy wedded to a military doctrine of pre-emption is a recipe for destabilization and paranoia around the world.

......

As the most powerful nation on earth, and the world's only superpower, the United States has a particular obligation to use its might wisely abroad and to distribute its benefits fairly at home.

That is not an easy mission for a hard-right-wing administration, which is why the Bush administration puts such a premium on the rhetoric of compassion.

Behind the veil of rhetoric is a Darwinian political philosophy that, if clearly understood, would repel the majority of Americans.

2003-01-30T05:06:00.000-08:00

Amongst many other things, here's something I clearly don't understand:

As Dubya's shoulders hunch forward, his lips sharpen and his eyes narrow and he tells the American people that Saddam is mean, a killer and a clear danger to all us, lying about possessing WMD,

isn't the best way to greatly increase the chances that Saddam will use said weapons to convince him that an attack is certain ?

Talk about creating a no-win situation !

2003-01-29T10:31:00.000-08:00

At Britt Blaser's blog:

"There's a lot of despair among so-called progressive liberals, who seem to have been blind-sided by the power grab the conservatives spent 20 years engineering, accomplished with blow-job politics and anointment of the runner-up by the high priests of our judiciary.

The over-arching conservative agenda, as Doc's friend George Lakoff teaches us, is Patriarchy—a strong parent model for society. Patriarchy is the sponsor of fundamentalism, which makes a lot of us rightfully crazy and which directly sponsors blowing people up as needed.

The controlling liberal agenda is what Lakoff calls the nurturant-parent model, but I think of it as node-parity—every node in a system has equal value, must be respected and nourished, and the links among the nodes are more important than the brilliance or dysfunction of any single node, or all of them. This makes the patriarchists crazy.

I suggest we don't have time for a single leader because the culture lacks the traditional handles such a leader might pull, so no "charismat" is likely to appear.

...

Collectively, the new tools of power are called the Internet. But we who seem to most believe in it are still not using it as we might. I'm convinced it's because the real uses of the Internet are not yet clear to us.
We'd like some short cuts to universal rationality, but there are none. If we believe in the network, use the network. If not, we should go to work for a political party."

Nicely said

2003-01-27T13:28:00.000-08:00

From an interview with the author of "The Internet Society" (The Economist, January 27, 2003)

A discussion with David Manasian, Legal Affairs Editor, The Economist

“Software that can analyze huge chunks of data will become more powerful, the cost of storing is going to decline, the points at which interactions are recorded are going to multiply tremendously. What are we going to use all this data for? It's going to bring truly wonderful things, make society much more efficient, increase productivity, increase convenience in lots of ways. It's also going to create a lot of dilemmas related to privacy, the reach of government, how we govern ourselves, how we pursue our own private lives.”

Wirearchy, anyone?

2003-01-27T13:23:00.000-08:00

The Economist has just published a Survey titled "The Internet Society". It suggests rather directly that, notwithstanding the lull of the last couple of years, and the clenched-jaw wrestling offered by the RIAA, Eldred vs. Ashcroft, the blatant attempts to manage Digital Identity for us and so on, the "long, strange trip" is far from over.

A snippet from the survey (emphasis added):

"But whatever happens, the power of computing and communications looks set to continue to grow, and its price to fall, at a steady rate for the next few decades. That will make it possible, at least in rich countries, to record most human interactions, wherever and whenever they take place, and to store and analyse this ocean of data at low cost.

For the sake of argument, this survey will assume that we are heading towards a networked society of ubiquitous, mobile communications capable of constant monitoring. Whether this arrives in 20, 30 or 40 years does not really matter. The point is that the destination seems not merely possible, but probable, so it is not too soon to ask: what do we want this technology to do? "

John Perry Barlow - It's just the top of the second inning !

2003-01-24T12:18:00.000-08:00

As interconnectedness continues to spread and penetrate into our daily life's activities, the ways to effect control are becoming more important - to the powers that be and to all the rest of us. That battle is shaping up in the arena of Digital Identity.

There are folks that know lots about this, and they are making it their lives' focus to inform us and play a role in shaping what will become manifest.

Eric Norlin provides us with important points of view here and here

David Weinberger jousts with Eric here

2003-01-21T07:44:00.000-08:00

Is this a sign of things to come? Will the kids of today (Homo Zappiens ?) no longer need "organization skills" in the ways we learned life should be organized ?

From Flemming Funch, at Ming's Metalogue:

"The thing is that the world we live in is no longer hierarchical. Any piece of information fits into a bunch of different structures in different ways, depending on what I'm trying to do. If I go and drop the item in a file in a folder in a filing cabinet, in the place that seems logical at the time, chances are I won't find it next time I'm looking for it. So, yes, maybe there is no good way of easily storing it multi-dimensionally. Maybe the best is to store some concise information about the information (which is called metadata), such as date, person, relations to projects, interests, etc. and then leave it up to an efficient search engine to find things by those keys later on."

2003-01-16T12:44:00.000-08:00

f rA m e 6 - N e t : S p i r i t

As I write this in England on 3 October 01, we are not sure what the future holds, but unless there is some inconceivably drastic change it seems inevitable that the internet will continue to function so long as there is a source of electric power to drive it. But even if the net itself were destroyed, what pathways might it leave behind? How has it changed us, even in the short time since we all began to share its infinite space? Could there even evolve a post-internet internet? And what would it be like? Now that we are wired, who can unwire us?

The power to connect is where the spirit of the net resides. Every node, every cable, every hub, every packet, is permeated with fragments of the animus of this planet. The internet is indeed alive. It is alive with all of us.

2003-01-10T17:13:00.000-08:00

Breaking news - using e-mail to bypass and/or undercut hierarchy !

I've just been watching CNN (cringe, cringe...), and they've just reported that:

The Pentagon is using e-mail, with phony return addresses, to send messages to the Iraqi military leadership urging them to "Give Up". This must mean that the Pentagon doesn't think Saddam will bow to the pressure to depart for exile, and so the next best thing will be to try to collapse his sources of support.

A quick reply from JOHO

"If they're going to do this, "Give Up" is the best they can do??? We should get some spam-marketers involved since they're the ones who know how to manipulate behavior!"

2003-01-08T18:04:00.000-08:00

Here's some good news, IMO. I created a definition of "wirearchy" about a year-and-a-half ago - it goes like this:

"A dynamic two-way flow of power and authority, based on knowledge, trust, and credibility, enabled by interconnected people and technology"

It seems that two blog-land heavyweights (Dan Gillmor, Dave Winer) agree. From Dan's blog post of January 8, 2003, titled "Read-Write Web":

Dave Winer's First (DaveNet) Essay of the Year is about many things, but it may boil down best to what he says in the first section:

" The Web uniquely wants to be used by everyone, not just for the purposes of big companies and their profits and paranoia. This is a foundation that I think we agree on."

It's a fine summary of how what he calls the "Two Way Web" is evolving. I think of it as the multi-directional Web, but the idea is the same. And the bottom line is that it's coming along brilliantly due to the tools he and other programmers and engineers have been developing in recent months and years.
I believe this is the year when the pieces will truly come together. We are seeing the rebirth of what Tim Berners-Lee envisioned when he created the Web in the first place.

The enemies of this vision are going to fight all the way."

2003-01-08T13:55:00.000-08:00

From a stimulating article in strategy+business on Network Theory. The article suggests that understanding the "laws" and dynamics of networks will be of enormous importance as the world (and its economies) grow more and more interconnected. Well, yeah.

"Reputation marks the spot where technology and cooperation converge," Rheingold writes. "The most long-lasting social effects of technology always go beyond the quantitative efficiency of doing old things more quickly or more cheaply. The most profoundly transformative potential of connecting human social proclivities to the efficiency of information technologies is the chance to do new things together, the potential for cooperating on scales and in ways never before possible."

And yet, when novel "networks of scale," as Rheingold describes them, actually emerge, Barabási and Buchanan insist they will be shaped by the algorithmic imperatives of small-world theory and power laws. People can't break these laws of networks any more than they can violate Newton's laws of motion.

However, mathematical laws can be slavishly obeyed or cleverly exploited. Indeed, as Newton himself once remarked, "To master nature, one must obey her." Scientific laws can empower even where they seem limiting. Entrepreneurs and innovators will figure out how to master networks while obeying their (apparent) laws.

2003-01-04T17:15:00.000-08:00

While I've been playing with the concepts and practice of social networks for a while, I've just discovered Ross Matfield's interest in this emerging area.

From his blog, where he's tracking a SNA project regarding the connections that have developed in a network of blogging communities:Social Network Feedback II

More feedback on the mapping project:

Adina Levin on weblog clustering: The reason I get all all excited about weblog clustering is that the "winner-takes-most" aspect of the log scale graph is NOT what is most interesting about weblog networks... The weblog network is a mesh of communities with overlapping and shifting memberships; each subcommunity has its connectors and popular voices.When we focus on identifying the "most central node" of the network, we turn a world with multiple centers into a hierarchy.

2003-01-04T10:09:00.000-08:00

Trawling through a blog archive, found reports on last year's TED conference (Richard Saul Wurman). This one, on Nicholas Negroponte's presentation, reinforces for me the clarity of the adage "First, we shape our structures - then, our structures shape us".

Why do "we" continue funding the education process as we do, when there's so much evidence it could and should be different? Is it because it's such a large employer, and a big line item in state and provincial budgets? Is it more accurately an instrument of state socialization (questionable as to how well it's working, n'est-ce-pas?).

Here's Negroponte on education (thanks to JOHO archive):

Nicholas Negroponte wrapped up the sessions by predicting that in 1-2 years, we will see the development of a "viral telecommunications network" based on 802.11 wirelessness, a single installation serving an entire neighborhood. This will go beyond merely enabling multiple connections to the Internet, Negroponte predicts, resulting in a peer-to-peer network that parallels the current Internet topography. Further, he suggests that establishing wireless networks in areas of strife will enable children to reach past their parents' stupidity.

He connected this with our culture's odd idea that at the age of 5 children should stop learning by playing and start learning by facing forward and being taught. Give kids a connected computer and they will teach themselves and others by exploring the Internet. Pointing to his experience building schools in rural Cambodia, he said: "People say it's not sufficient to give kids computers and connectivity. You know what? It is."

Damn good stuff."

2003-01-03T21:43:00.000-08:00

An integrated "nervous system" for managing (note - NOT leading, although the name would suggest otherwise!) an organization can be found at Leadership.com. It's built by Trilogy, a leading software development firm.

When I first came across this, I recognized an operational version of a "design" I suggested to a large telecom corporation about 6 years ago, in a white paper I was commissioned to undertake. The corporation asked me "how might we use our TQM process to go from being good to great?". I suggested building an interactive "nervous system", using the TQM criteria (e.g., leadership. operational excellence. customer focus, etc. - the usual stuff) as the criteria for feedback from employees and customers - aggregated into ongoing dynamic "soundings".

These days, I would be more circumspect - mainly because I think such a capability would be used to control and maintain power, as opposed to maximizing both human and organizational potential in service to both societal and economic good (see www.thesupporteconomy for an intro to "the next episode of capitalism").

In the new Post 911 dominator era we all find ourselves living in, this capability now bothers me more than it helps me feel optimistic.

This capability will either be used to develop a more open and trust-based corporate culture, or it will evolve into a clear example of corporate fascism emphasizing the daemonic side of high performance (ref. C. Jung).

However, it, and other apps of similar scope and capability, seem inevitable.

2003-01-03T21:27:00.000-08:00

Found on Scarlet Jewels

"It’s important to realize that the I-Net Revolution disrupts and erodes the power elite top-down hierarchies that still dominate our mainstream social, political and economic institutions. The Net is a horizontal diffusion and redistribution of power, often to the benefit of weaker and smaller actors in direct challenge to elite power trips. It crosses borders, redraws the boundaries of offices and responsibilities, and generally compels closed systems (power elite monopolies) to open up.

"In short, the Internet is like David taking a shot to the 3rd eye of the power elite Goliath (and Congress lackeys) who value scarcity through monopoly controls within mainstream media, medical, management and marketing institutions that have been bought off by the perks of prestige, profit and power-to-control above all. This Goliath feels extremely threatened by the freedom and opportunity on the Net that "levels the playing field" and challenges the old money-is-power rules that have usurped, co-opted or otherwise subverted our individual and collective sovereignty in order to keep self-governing accountability FROM the people rather than “of, by and for the people”.."

Well ??

2003-01-03T16:51:00.000-08:00

Karen Stephenson's Quantum Theory of Trust

A core competency for people working within wirearchical structure:

Much has been written about the value of trust. Such social scientists as Francis Fukuyama, Mark Granovetter, and Robert Putnam have made strong cases that high-trust societies have an enormous competitive advantage over legalistic societies, in which suspicion of people is a cultural value, because the transaction costs go down. In high-trust organizations, transaction costs are similarly lower. For example, if people in two different departments or regions (say, marketing and sales, or Asia and Europe) feel enough trust to speak candidly together about their impressions of the market, the quality of work processes, and ways to improve the work, then they have many more opportunities to innovate and think together. The cost of new projects goes down accordingly. Whether high trust applies to a country or a company, the outcome is the same: More value is created when expensive, unwieldy oversight is reduced.

Professor Stephenson’s concept, which she calls the “quantum theory of trust,” explains not just how to recognize the collective cognitive capability of organizations, but how to cultivate and increase it. At age 50, Professor Stephenson is the most visible member (particularly in business circles) of a small but growing academic field called social network analysis. Originally derived from the complex math used to explain subatomic physics, it is being used to understand and manage the ineffable forces of human interaction within an organization’s walls — particularly those forces that can’t be captured in formal structures, such as pay scales and reporting relationships, but that implicitly govern the fate of every enterprise.

“The organization chart basically shows you the formal rules. But the ropes of the organization, how it actually works, is the human network,” says futurist Thornton May, one of Professor Stephenson’s former colleagues at the John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management at the University of California at Los Angeles, where she taught for most of the 1990s. “Karen, more than anyone else, knows how to make it visible.”

2002-12-30T04:11:00.000-08:00

vnunet.com When the web starts thinking for itself

Through enabling easy, widespread publishing the web has had enormous social consequences, dramatically altering human behaviour and expectations in information retrieval, knowledge sharing and collaborative working. However, the web as it currently exists makes searching and data exchange difficult.

In September 1998, Tim Berners Lee, the creator of the web, outlined a vision of how it could evolve to address this flaw.

A primer on the semantic web

2002-12-25T15:32:00.000-08:00

I recently spent three 10-hour days in Chapters, reading The Support Economy, a new book by Shoshana Zuboff and James Maxim.

It's an important book. It delves deeply into why and how "managerial capitalism" has run it's course, and is rapidly losing effectiveness as a fundamental assumption for how our economic system and society work. It also explores in depth why interconnectedness can be made to achieve support for people in our society while enabling capitalism to find its next evolutionary form.

According to Zuboff and Moxim, the outdated hierarchical structures and dynamics - of decision-making, heroic control, and success through workaholism - have lead to this:

Today people at every income level are increasingly frustrated and enraged that even the most basic customer service remains an empty promise. Consider the last time you approached your bank, insurance, HMO, computer or telecomm company with a problem. Recall the wasted hours, endless phone loops leading nowhere, and unresponsive untrained staff. Most people report feeling ignored, abused, and ripped-off. The self-interest of corporate management has created adversarial relationships not only with consumers but with shareholders and employees as well. Across the board, corporations are failing to meet the needs of anyone other than their own top managers.

With deep support as the purposeful focus for socio-economic activity, the authors argue that we can (and will?) usher in a dynamic new episode of capitalism, more focused on helping people build and lead better lives, rather than getting and accumulating mor ematerial goods.

Kinda the same argument, at a societal and economic level, as David Weinbereger's Small Pieces, Loosely Joined - the Web is about helping us express - and serve - ourselves into a more humane and connected sense of "being".

From hierarchy to wirearchy?

2002-12-23T13:35:00.000-08:00

I was reminded of David Weinberger's astute observations about how leeway (having some slack with which to be human) is being encroached upon by everything Digital when I found this site outlining a new integrated platform for "Enterprise Performance Management"

I pointed David to it via e-mail. Here are his comments:

"Thanks. Not aware of it. Why do sites like this immediately knot my stomach? The magical belief in technology. Scary and depressing. Although I haven't look at it carefully. Maybe it's really really great shit.

Nah."

I agree.

2002-12-19T03:44:00.000-08:00

religion - universal church of the interactive network

It was only a matter of time before there became a wirearchy religion.

2002-12-09T17:17:00.000-08:00

New Agoras of the 21st Century

Wiring up democracy...

The agoras of ancient Greek city states were “public spheres” where true democracy was lived each day by citizens who made collective decisions about issues affecting their lives. Inspired by their story, we have initiated a project to bring about a vision of a purer democracy that may now be possible in the information age. To that end, we propose to reinvent the public sphere as an assemblage of "New Agoras" that exist both face-to-face and in cyberspace.

The social contexts of the New Agoras are the families, neighborhoods, community groups, and organizations within which we live and work. Operating as a New Agora, individuals in these these contexts organize themselves as evolutionary design communities and collectively envision their ideal futures. Then, they design evolutionary guidance systems that can steer them toward those futures. Ultimately, these specific local agoras will be able to join together in a virtual agora on The Web and facilitate the guided evolution of society.