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July 18, 2007Why Web 2.0 is a godsend to poltical activists
...while Web 1.0 was invented so that theoretical physicists could publish research online, Web 2.0 was created so that people could publish cute photos of their cats. But this same cat dissemination technology has proved extremely helpful for activists, who've turned these tools to their own purposes. So while Flickr should be used for displaying pictures of cute cats, it's also proved an effective tool for avoiding keyword filtering. Activists in China are using Flickr to disseminate images that contain words that get blocked by keyword filters - a simple tool built by Zhang Erning allows a photo of Einstein at a blackboard to be annotated with arbitrary text that won't be blocked by the Chinese firewall.... Posted by Allan Jenkins at 04:36pm in Politics, Regulation, Social Media, Social Tools, Society | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0) April 27, 2007John Naisbitt: "Don't get so far ahead of the parade that they don't know you are in it."
Crossposted from Fremtidens Relationer. I first "met" John Naisbitt at about 0200 on a Sunday morning in 1983, in the bowels of the US Naval Intelligence Processing Systems Support Activity (NIPSSA) in Suitland, Maryland, USA. Looking for something to read on a slow mid-watch, I borrowed Megatrends from the senior watch officer. What an awakening! 24 years ago, few spoke of globalization or the deindustrialization of the US, EU and Japan. Few contemplated how hierarchies would be affected by the rise of networking. Nobody said stuff like "the new source of power is not money in the hands of the few, but information in the hands of many." Yet, these concepts and more are the running themes in Megatrends. More to the point, they are the running themes today, in 2007, in The Economist, Fortune, Wired, the Financial Times, and the Hindustan Times. I wish I could say reading Megatrends was an "A-Ha!" moment for me. If I had been perceptive enough to give the book far more thought, I might have made some very different choices at an age where even small choices have great effect. But I was 21, a Cold War was on, and while I helping run a communication network most civilians wouldn't see the likes of until the late 1990s, I hadn't the imagination to mull over what would happen when it did go mainstream. (An aside: roll forward to 1995, IABC's International Conference in Boston. Jeff Hallett gives a speech on networked communication that prompts more than one communicator present to think seriously about how networks, the Internet, will affect business. I realize, now, it's no coincidence Hallet is the first person Naisbitt acknowledges in Megatrends.) So Naisbitt's keynote at CIFS' Don't Stop 02 conference was a must-hear for me. Naisbitt, who speaks without slides, notes, lectern or podium, sketched out several trends or "mindsets" from his new book Mind Set. Visual on the rise, text receding Globalization is a big driver here. Globalization means almost any ordinary good can be produced so cheaply that almost no one can compete on price. Quality, too, is no longer the preserve, and thus the competitive advantage, of the few. So design, an entirely visual attribute, and one inherently unique, is now far more important. Sequence is the enemy of making connections 4..14..23..34..42.... what comes next in this sequence of numbers? I'll get to it, but first.... Naisbitt explained that, at the end of the 1800s, Queen Victoria was told that London would stop growing at population of 4 million, as it would simply be impossible to remove the droppings of the horses required to service a larger city. Already then,100 tons of dung were carted away daily. London's population today is 8 million -- Victoria's advisors failed to foresee the automobile, even though it had been invented. Naisbitt: "look at things as a picture puzzle, a jigsaw puzzle. Nothing sequential here. If you look sequentially, you won't make connections." If you are looking for a mathematical solution to the problem Naisbitt posed, you may as well give up. 50 is the correct answer, and the sequence is the stops on the 8th Avenue Express of the New York subway. "Sequence is the enemy of making connections." Naisbitt: "people can be divided into opportunity seekers and problem solvers." The Indian IT industry is an example of opportunity seeking. When Y2K loomed, IT labor capacity in the West was tight. So the Indians, seeing opportunity, offered Western companies an enormous pool of IT skills. When the dot-com bubble broke, Western countries slashed their IT budgets -- and the Indians, seeing opportunity, offered to provide the same services as Western providers, but at much lower cost. Naisbitt calls Hillary Clinton an example of a problem solver. When President Clinton was elected, Hillary Clinton used enormous political capital trying to "solve" the US health-care problem, a problem that simply cannot be solved. He calls Arnold Schwarzenegger an example of an opportunity seeker. Usually, it would have been impossible for him to climb the ranks of the California Republican party to become governor. But by seizing the chance offered by the recall referendum on Gray Davis, he leaped past the Republican organization and was elected after a 76-day campaign. Another opportunity-seeker is Fred Smith, CEO of FedEx. While US policy makers debated how to "solve" the problems of US Postal Service, Smith saw and exploited an opportunity to build a new, private service based on time and reliability. More Naisbitt Mind Sets to come in a later post! Posted by Allan Jenkins at 01:39pm in Books, Business, Conferences, Management, Society, Writers | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (3) December 07, 2006How the gift economy pays off
Dave Pollard over at How to Save the World discusses the virtues of the gift economy. Let me snip his opening paras: "Our society puts a value on human activities only when they can be monetized - when a transaction involving an exchange of money occurs. We tend to equate our time with money: If the 'market value' of an hour of our time exceeds the cost of hiring someone else to mow our lawn or make a present for a loved one or look after our children or our home, we conclude that it makes sense to buy those services and to work longer hours to pay for them. "This false economy leads us to buy what we don't need, which requires us to work harder to pay for those unnecessary goods and services, leaving us even less time to look after ourselves and our own needs and forcing us, in a vicious cycle (cycle 1 in red on the chart [below]) to 'outsource' even more of the things we might be doing for ourselves.... "By contrast, the Gift Economy does not value monetized activity more highly than un-monetized activity. It suggests, on the contrary, that our time is invaluable and that therefore we should 'spend' it, as much as possible, doing things we love and things that are our personal responsibility, and only buy goods and services we cannot possibly provide for ourselves. In doing these things ourselves, we learn to do them better, more efficiently, more effectively and more economically, saving the cost of outsourcing them to a third party. For me, it is certainly true that the vicious circle is often tempting and the virtuous one is attractive. But how to get off the treadmill? Pollard offers only hints at answers, but the article (and those that spawned it) are good reads. Below is the diagram illustrating the idea. Posted by Allan Jenkins at 07:32pm in Economics, Society | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1) March 28, 2006Dallas students use MySpace to prompt pro-immigration rally
From Jake McKee comes this nice nugget about 4000 Dallas highschool students organizing themselves via MySpace, walking out of class, going to the park and protesting the growing anti-immigration sentiment in the US. Scene from a Dallas home tonight: Mom (sobbing) "I just don't know what happened to her... one day a good student and now she's protesting for.... little brown fruit-pickers!" Dad (angry and impotent): "It's that daymed innernet!" Mom (brightening): "Oh, by the way, Safeway has got fresh peaches on sale for half-price. I wonder how they do that?" Technorati Tags:
Dallas, immigration, social software, MySpace.com, protests Posted by Allan Jenkins at 07:18pm in Social Tools, Society | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (4) February 28, 2006“Don’t Stop” Business Innovation Conference asks Desirable Roasted Coffee to blog (and I said “yes”)
I love all my clients, of course, but I have particular affection for the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies. My other clients are typical businesses: the halls are buzzing with folks rushing around to the next meeting, wrapping up from the last meeting, whacking out emails about that meeting, slapping their foreheads as they read the minutes from that other meeting they were too busy to attend. Now, I don't want for a moment to imply that people at my other clients aren't "gettin' it done" -- they most certainly are -- but over at CIFS, you tend to see people just sitting quietly reading books. Staring dreamily out of the window. Writing books. Because what they do is peer into the mists of the future and report back what they think they see. And not just for some ivory tower purpose; no, no -- their job is guiding businesses (including some of my other clients) into the future. Pretty cool job, when you think about it -- being paid to think. As Seth Godin et al note in the Big Moo, most of us run around all day frantically putting out fires and responding to other people. Just having an hour or two a day to think, to imagine, to wonder what if, would be immeasurably valuable for both ourselves and our companies. So imagine having that for a job! So when CIFS asked me to blog and podcast from their upcoming Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow conference, I didn't need a second invitation. I'll contributing to the Don't Stop blog leading up to the conference, too. Client Gitte Larsen posted her interview with speaker Adam Morgan, director of eatbigfish. Here's a taste: "Why is it important continually to think about tomorrow?
Adam Morgan: There are probably obvious answers to that, but my interest is in challengers. I think one of the things that characterizes continuously successful challengers rather than those who fade away after a while, is that they are very restless people, naturally, and they are continually looking and searching for new opportunities to reframe the way they engage consumers on the respective markets. I think that restlessness and hunger are some of the things that certainly characterize continued success..." Indeed, I believe that restlessness and hunger are two of the very few motivators for innovation -- whether you are a corporation or a home gardener.
Technorati: dontstop01, CIFS, Copenhagen, Denmark, futures studies, Adam Morgan, eatbigfish, Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
Posted by Allan Jenkins at 06:18pm in Conferences, Copenhagen, Denmark, Desirable Roasted Coffee, Management, Politics, Society | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (2) February 02, 2006What does the Denmark vs. Islam story teach us?
What started as an example of appallingly poor judgment by a provincial Danish newspaper has become multipolar diplomatic crisis. Go figure. The story thus far: * back in September, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten ran a feature that included satirical cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammad. That was a serious breach of good manners, since the editors of the paper knew that Islam considers it blasphemy to create images of Mohammad. * Muslims, both in Denmark and abroad, complained. The ambassadors of several Muslim countries called on the Danish Prime Minister to "do something" about the newspaper. Rightly, he replied that they would just have to suck it up -- in democracies, governments don't interfere with newspapers. * the situation has escalated weekly since then. The latest: boycotts of Danish goods across the Muslim world, fatwas, death threats, more calls to punish the newspaper, burning of Danish flags in the Gaza Strip (that's a new one). * in response (the high minded call it solidarity, the cynical call it circulation-building) papers across Europe have been reprinting the cartoons this week, resulting in even more fatwas, flag burnings, death threats, etc. What's to learn from all this? One obvious lesson, one that most learn by age 6, is that it is rude to mock other people's religious beliefs. It insults them, and that's just not nice. Another obvious lesson, usually learned about the same time, is that some people are too easily insulted. Yes, any one of us would feel hurt to see a cherished belief demeaned, but the faith of the faithful is only strengthened by the brickbats hurled by the uncomprehending ( so I am told -- I'm a happy secular humanist). A more appropriate response than flag burning and beatings is "Oooooo K... last laugh's gonna be on you, brother!" But the other lessons... what are they? What do communicators need to think about in a world where an article in an obscure newspaper calls down boycotts on your company? When a controversy like this can leave employees pulled in several directions: loyalty to religious faith, a desire to do a good job, a desire not to be beaten at the factory gates. And make no mistake: the controversy is pulling Danish business leaders in several directions, too. While none have called for out and out curbing of press freedom, there have been some hints. Should managers put profit over principle? Should governments curb freedom of speech so business can go on "gettin' it done"? Do we sack the religious faithful, uncertain of their loyalty? Do we sack the religious faithful because it's safer for them if we do? Do we try to dissemble, saying "Our HQ might be in Denmark (France, USA, Japan) but we are not really Danish (French, American, Japanese), so don't blame us"? As globalization progresses (a good thing, I believe), these incidents will become commonplace. Professional communicators need to be considering strategies now... before it comes to their town. Posted by Allan Jenkins at 07:55pm in Bizarre but Expected, Civil Liberty, Current Affairs, Denmark, Is Tedious in the House?, Journalism, Society | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (15) November 18, 2005Europe's Digital Divide: no surprises
Eurostat released "The digital divide in Europe" earlier this month, an eight-page analysis of the demographics of European computer and Internet use. As you would expect, the affluent, employed and better-educated tend to use computers and the Internet more than the poor, unemployed and under-educated. The report carefully avoids drawing any conclusions from this fact, and rightly so. I suspect the use of almost all technology and media tracks pretty closely with affluence and education. Hat tip to Fredrik Wackå
Technorati Tags:
digital divide, europe, eurostat, demographics
Posted by Allan Jenkins at 09:41am in Society, Technology | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0) November 11, 2005Will you read your newspaper -- or Communication World -- in three years?
Update: this post bothered Steve Crescenzo, so he trashed it here. I gently lead him on the path of righteousness here. The other day, I found myself in the middle of a fairly enthusiastic discussion about the future of communication. There's much more. John hits several points, but one that caught my eye was this: Will [young people] ever read a newspaper? Wait three months for a newsletter to arrive in
the mail? Spend a second of time -- or a dime of money -- on content they aren't
passionate about? John, I'll go you one better: will I read a newspaper? Wait three months for a newsletter? Spend time or money on content I'm not passionate about? No! 1) Newspapers: I read two, Berlingske Tidende and Børsen -- two Danish dailies -- because they are so hopless in digital form. But as soon as they wake up and provide RSS feeds to subscribers, I won't touch their paper form. 2) Wait for a newsletter: emphatically no. In fact, I find myself furious and disgusted every time IABC's Communication World comes through the door, or its monthly e-edition hits my inbox -- since I have written for CW, I know the article appears weeks or months after the blogosphere has thoroughly dissected the issue. Any day of the week, any IABC member can go into the blogosphere and find 50 better articles than CW publishes in a quarter. Note to IABC: Communication World is a member benefit only for those who don't use the Internet. 3) Spend money on generic content? No, never, why should I? Why should anyone? Again, turning to IABC: its Communication World magazine, a thin thing with lots of irrelevant graphics, is free to members (who pay $200+ a year), but costs $150 a year otherwise. In other words, IABC members wouldn't be out of place asking IABC to lower their dues and skip the CW -- why pay for content that would otherwise be free? Links: John's article: On Message from Wagner Communications: More Examples Of How The World Is Changing For Marketers. IABC: IABC
Technorati tags: Posted by Allan Jenkins at 12:01am in Communication, IABC, Society | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (3) | TrackBack (0) October 11, 2005Recovery 2.0 Fiddles While Kashmir Burns: "We Don't Have the Tools" is OUT as an Excuse (Reprise)
Friend Neville Hobson urges us to Help Victims of Pakistan Earthquake. With a death toll climbing north of 20,000, the October 2005 Kashmir Earthquake knocks the entire Atlantic Hurricane season into the corner. After the earthquake & tsunami last year, the SEA-EAT blog/wiki project -- an entirely grassroots effort -- organized and swung into action within hours. After hearing Dina Mehta describe the effort at Reboot, I wrote about it, saying "We Don't Have the Tools is NOT an Excuse". Just as they did in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (my post here), many of the same team spontaneously assembled behind the South Asia Quake Help effort within hours of the quake: ("News and information about resources, aid, donations and
volunteer efforts after the South Asia Earthquake of October 8th, 2005.") And are doing an outstanding job. You can volunteer, by the way. These three efforts in nine months point, unfortunately, to the sluggishness and bureaucracy already clogging the arteries of Jeff Jarvis' Recovery 2.0 effort, which is aimed at doing what the SEA-EAT team already does far better. After weeks of talking about it, Jarvis managed to convene a meeting to talk about the project. The results of this meeting? * We need to work on standards and APIs for the tools and data bases people create
to help in disasters. The peoplefinder
standard is already underway and some of the folks from Yahoo at the meeting
— who had experience on the ground in Houston and also at the Red Cross network
operations center — are working on improvements. At a minimum, we need to do a
better job harnessing the internet to help people find each other. * We need to meet face-to-face with government, NGOs, and business to offer
help and coordinate. There is a meeting in Washington on Oct. 17 about just
that. In the meantime, the Kashmir was being leveled by an earthquake, and the South Asia Quake Help team organized itself and got to work. No meetings, no discussions of software options, no meetings in Washington. Jeff Jarvis: You have great influence; the members of your group have great influence. Instead of reinventing the wheel, why not use your influence to push funds and volunteers into the group behind SEA-EAT, Katrina Help, and South Asia Quake Help? The money your group has spent on travel alone -- just on the BART -- could fund any of these efforts. How about it? Technorati tags: Recovery 2.0Recovery2.0
pakistan+earthquake Posted by Allan Jenkins at 10:52am in Citizen Journalism, Current Affairs, Katrina, Online Media, Pakistan Earthquake, Smart Communities, Society, Tsunami | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (5) | TrackBack (2) September 27, 2005Google Adopts Prediction Markets
First published, in slightly different form, at the MarComBlog of Auburn University. Last week, I wrote some about prediction markets. These are markets where hundreds, even thousands, of participants, each armed with "some" knowledge, pool their thinking to make better predictions than pollsters, better decisions than "experts". (Note: Wikipedia's Prediction Market article is a good starting place if you want to learn more, as is James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds (search inside at Amazon).) But what applications do prediction markets have for business and PR practitioners? The evidence is thin to date, but last week, Google announced it's using prediction markets to make better internal decisions: At Google, we're constantly trying to find new ways to organize the
world's information, including information relevant to our business.
Building on the ideas of Friedrich Hayek and the Iowa Electronic Markets, a few Googlers (Doug Banks, Patri Friedman, Ilya Kirnos, Piaw Na and me, with some help from Hal Varian), set up a predictive market system inside the company. Google claims the prediction market is working: prices quickly reflect what's likely, and entropy declines significantly over time. Just as you would expect in a functioning market. The next step (and Google doesn't say if they have or will take it) is to use prediction markets to make better management decisions. To do so would be a significant departure from management doctrine, which is that -- no matter how "flat" your organization -- most important decisions are made by the CEO/COO/CFO. But if markets, no matter how much the participants are laypeople, make better predictions than experts, then that's the logical next step. Looking back on my own tenure as CEO of a 125-person agency, and as Finance Director of a 13,000 member association, I am pretty sure the "market" -- had we had them -- would have made some different decisions than I and my management colleagues made. I've had only a few clients where a prediction market could have been deployed effectively (it takes a fairly good-sized pool, I believe), but I've no doubt the market would have made some of our marketing decisions easier and faster. Posted by Allan Jenkins at 09:53pm in Advertising, Communication, Corporate Management, Economics, Prediction Markets, Public Relations, Smart Communities, Social Tools, Society, Technology | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0) September 22, 2005Attention Saudi Dawn & Drew Fans: this Book is for you
My September paper copy of Wired has a spread on "countries that censor Web content -- and what really offends them (oddly, the article does not appear in the online edition). The list of offenders isn't surprising, but what scares them can be. Saudi Arabia blocks 100% of porn, for example, but also takes a hard line on humor, making it doubly hard for Saudi fans of Dawn & Drew, I suppose. Uzbekistan doesn't like porn either, and bans gmail. China is soft on porn, but bans Wikipedia. The criminals that run Burma really hate email -- and don't even think about eBay. "Bloggers are
often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media
is censored or under pressure. Only they provide independent news, at
the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest. Reporters Without Borders has produced
this handbook to help them, with handy tips and technical advice on how
to remain anonymous and to get round censorship, by choosing the most
suitable method for each situation." It's available in English, French, Chinese, Arabic, and Persian. Posted by Allan Jenkins at 04:42pm in Books, Citizen Journalism, Civil Liberty, Journalism, Law, Online Media, Society | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0) September 19, 2005Trying Out the Wisdom of Crowds
"Summer Reading" is usually more of a wish than an accomplishment. But I managed a lot this summer; indeed my June Amazon shipment is wholly depleted. I like to read two or three related books in tandem, for the joy of serendiptity. That doesn't always work, but in July it did, and in a odd corner: how crowds, individuals, and society collaborate and "know". The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few and how collective wisdom shapes businesses, economies, societies and nations. James Surowiecki. Short take: a collection of people with ordinary knowledge will generally make better decisions than any expert. The Company of Strangers: A natural history of economic life. Paul Seabright. Short take: Most primates are only minimally social. Man figured out reciprocal trust, which allows anonymous transactions. Blink. Malcolm Gladwell. Short take: if you know (about) what you are seeing, your first instinct is is the right one. If you stop to analyze, you may well go wrong. I won't give longer reviews; all three have been reviewed to death, by better critics. A common theme: Surowiecki and Seabright both support the idea that "financial" markets, composed of independent "traders" are better predictors of future results than TV pundits. One of the markets they cite is NewsFutures, where a punter can "bet" on outcomes of current events: Will Schroeder stay on as German Chancellor? Will a hurricane hit Texas before November 30? Will John Roberts be confirmed? The thinking is that players, who have definite, though small, financial incentives to bet correctly, will, as a group, bet correctly. No individual will have the "answer". But the collective smarts of 20,000 individuals, with money or rewards at stake, should be a good guide. As an example, let me show you where I am. I have a stake in NewsFutures. Here was my status a few hours ago: As you can see, I'm backing Schroeder heavily to be re-elected Cerman chancellor. I'm spitting in the wind, obviously, but the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish papers -- all of whom traditionally have very, very good sources in Berlin, are tipping a Schroeder government. Right? Wrong? I don't know. The "market" seems to think I am wrong (but since I took this screen shot, the shares have jumped from X$9 to X$29... as the US papers start to pick up on the European analysis.) I also have a stake in Yahoo's TechBuzz Game. Here, I am on less solid ground, since I am not privy to tech buzz. But I have spotted a hole: there's a hurricane market. Meteorology fascinates me; and weather that affects the South deeply concerns me. So here I've confidently invested in Rita and Stan (who doesn't exist, yet). Rita is going to be all over the papers for a week or more. Stan will or won't develop. Still, I won't lose much by giving him a wager. Now, if you've stayed with me this far, you may be thinking one of two things: What are the moral implications of "betting" on hurricane strikes (or whatever)? None, that I can see. I don't cause a hurricane strike; indeed, if it looks like the hurricane will die out, I'll take the other position. I've flipped on the Schroeder thing twice. I lost my butt on Phillippe. Takeaway: the market is heartless & makes better decisions when it is heartless. But you aren't affecting anything. Nope, just reacting with great interest. Takeaway: the "market", given its incentives, is a better news gatherer than any professional news gatherer. I have a lot of links to fill in here, and will do so over the next day. In the meantime, a Google Search will probably get you where you are going Posted by Allan Jenkins at 07:56pm in Books, Communication, Desirable Roasted Coffee, Ethics, Gadgets & Toys, Smart Communities, Social Tools, Society | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (1) September 13, 2005Girls Aren't Into Tech? I'd be in Deep Trouble if I'd Written This
My 12 year-old daughter has a blog & and a website & keeps pestering me for a Gmail account. My partner runs a complex factory full of clanking, loud stuff that can either yank your arm off or boil you in two seconds, depending on its mood. In other words, the girls in my life are into tech. So I'd be boiled here at home if I'd written this piece of... dung. "Manufacturers will have to take a more girlie
approach if they want to get women turned on to the latest gadgets,
says Rachel Forder "Would
you rip files at a high or low bit-rate? Do you prefer AAC, WMA or MP3?
If you are completely baffled by these questions, you are probably a
woman." Hat tip to Shelley Powers. Posted by Allan Jenkins at 09:05am in Society, Technology | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (4) | TrackBack (0) August 30, 2005Following the Intelligent Design Debate? Here's Something to Snack On
Intelligent Design is the big thing in educationally-circumscribed circles, but what can you do? Belief is belief. Now that the Hat tip to friend Lisa. Posted by Allan Jenkins at 07:48pm in Scams, Science, Society, South | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (3) | TrackBack (1) August 21, 2005Conversation Clouds vs. Blog Rankings & Page Rank
PubSub recently finished tearing up and replanting its LinkRanks service; I, for one, like the new look & the results presentation. And while I don't understand how the rankings are calculated, a few test runs on the bloggers I know indicate to me that the rankings are pretty valid. At about the same time, the Feedster 500 was launched. Another ranking service (congratulations, Neville and Shel). I don't want to be provocative: But how much should rank matter? I know the Blogging For Benjamins crowd is intensely interested, because more rank could mean more "reports" sold. The well-known political bloggers of the left and right are also intensely interested because, ironically, it gets them more coverage on MSM. But who else cares what your PubSub rank is? If you care, should you? Should I? What does my rank have to do with standing, reputation, place in the community? Everyone in every steel town in America once knew who Andrew Carnegie was, but who had the highest standing in their community? Probably the corner grocer, who helped you at church or building a house (And, lest anyone go astray, Shel and Neville are where they are on these ranks because they help the PR community). Dina Mehta -- and I wish I discovered her blog long before Reboot 7.0 -- discusses in her easy, inclusive way why the idea of rankings is flawed. In her post, she's commenting on another post by Adina Levin, that argues for the idea of Conversation Clouds as a better way of understanding relative influence. As Adina tells it: The cloud is built from a data set over a time period; the user
should be able to scale the time (conversation over a week, a month,
six months) The conversation cloud would need to provide ways to
navigate through conversation space. If you click on a blog, perhaps
you re-center around that blog's conversations. If you click on a tag
or topic, you search based on that. You'd need to experiment with
several ways of allowing browsing out from the first cloud. This type of picture would not measure rank. Instead, it would illustrate the connections within subcommunities. Cloud-browsing represents a pattern of blogsurfing. A reader might start with Mary Hodder's post on blog metrics, and then traverse to Dina Mehta, danah boyd, Stowe Boyd, Ross Mayfield. The cloud would show in graphical form what a Technorati or
Blogpulse search would -- who linked to the post. And it would also
illustrate the repeated links and cross-links as people reply. If you
zoomed out the time horizon, you'd see some relationships become more
obviously dense, with repeated patterns of links and counterlinks. I think this sort of presentation would get more of what we're
looking for -- a picture of the relationships in a community that
reveals participants, both loud and quiet. The ability to browse the
conversation. And as Dina comments: I think this would very nicely integrate values that I hold important
in blog conversations - relevance, integrity and credibility, interest
and empathy generated, stretch in teasing boundaries, intimacy with my
audience, respect and amicability - rather than blog rankings and
ratings. Making 'invisible' conversations and clusters and communities
of interest visible as a result. I'd love to see comments at posts
integrated into these clouds in some way too, as many who comment donot
necessarily blog, and often the comments enrich the thought in a post
much more. I'll certainly follow this conversation. Might (don't we wish) kill the A-list meme. And describe what we know to be true: our "cloud" is far more influential than any "top-100" list. Posted by Allan Jenkins at 08:45pm in Bloggers, Blogging for Benjamins, Communication, Online Media, Public Relations, Social Tools, Society, Taxonomy of Cyberspace | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (2) | TrackBack (1) August 16, 2005On Digital Divides: Aren't They Artefacts of Cultural Divides?
Seth Godin identified a digital divide a few months ago. Among other indicators: people who use Firefox are just not on the same side of the ditch as those who don't. You either read Doc or you don't know who he is. it’s increasingly important to understand the difference between the mass market and the micro markets that are emerging. Sometimes your audience is shopping at WalMart, other times they’re at Trash American Style hunting down that elusive Black Flag EP. But why? & how do we tell them apart? Tip of the conversational hat to Parmet. Posted by Allan Jenkins at 04:26pm in Marketing, Public Relations, Society | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1) | TrackBack (0) June 01, 2005Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries?
When you remember that political conservatives pretty much run the US, it's unsettling to read their list of the 10 most harmful books of the last 200 years. The first three are predictable, but the Kinsey Report shows up at No. 4. Take a deep breath and go view the list. Tip of the hat to things magazine. Posted by Allan Jenkins at 06:05pm in Books, Politics, Society | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0) May 31, 2005Certain to Irritate: What Good Are The Arts? by John Carey
"What good are the arts?" asks John Carey. David Lodge reviews John Carey in the Sunday Times Online: "Regular readers will know that John Carey is that rare creature, an academic who
writes shrewdly, wittily and economically on a wide range of subjects in a style
that non-specialists can understand and appreciate. There is a principle,
central to the British tradition of philosophical discourse, known as Occam’s
Razor, which forbids the unnecessary multiplication of facts. Carey’s favourite
argumentative tool is more like a machete...." Carey's book machetes, among others, the myth that appreciation of art is somehow ennobling. Posted by Allan Jenkins at 08:53am in Art, Books, Society, Writing I Enjoy | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0) March 18, 2005Halley Suitt's Touching Request to Diversify the Blogosphere
I'm a white guy who writes in a blog, so I hope you will excuse me while I sit here and dominate the blogosphere. Yes, apparently that's what I (well, not me, but other white guys, those guys on the blogger A list) do, according to MSNBC's Steven Levy and blogger Halley Suitt. Halley Suitt thinks it's time to fix that. Here's Halley's touching request -- that we all link to Ten New Voices (she means blogs; I had to look that up, too) this month: "Here are the rules: 1. They can't be male if they are white; Ironically, I think the toughest
criterion to meet here will be NON-AMERICANS. We bloggers are very
provincial in this respect." It's the last paragraph that flummoxes me. There's nothing "ironic" in anything she says, but that's my silly pedantry. But what's glaringly stupid is that she writes those lines in apparent ignorance of the hundreds of thousands of blogs written by "non-Americans" (whether she's being loose or tight with that definition does not change facts), yet remains smug in the belief that "we bloggers" are a close little group. What she really means is "non Americans whose languages I understand".... otherwise, she has no way of checking. Moreover, I'm good in her book if I link to them. That I praise them or roast them is of no interest. Just that I link. Sorry, Halley.... that's not quite on. Halley... I link to great posts, bad posts, ignorant posts, posts that make me wish I'd dreamed of them, posts that are so instructive they should be seen no matter how badly they frighten the children. Your post goes under "Bizarre but Expected" and "In Defense of Elitism". Unfortunately, trackbacks are impossible, and "Post a Comment" seems to be disabled. Via friend Gunnar Langemark. Posted by Allan Jenkins at 01:13pm in Bizarre but Expected, Bloggers, Civil Liberty, In Defense of Elitism, Online Media, Society | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (5) | TrackBack (1) March 14, 2005Rushdie Too Dangerous for Airlines
Bizarre story from D Magazine. Apparently, Salman Rushdie was having a hard time getting to Dallas because he's "too dangerous to board an airplane." Does this happen to Rushdie every day? "Salman Rushdie has apparently been denied a flight to Dallas, where he is scheduled to speak tomorrow night to 800 people at the DMA for Arts & Letters Live.
Mr. Rushdie is apparently too dangerous to board an airplane. Well,
he's not dangerous, he's a pussycat, but you get my meaning. So if
anyone knows anyone with a private plane who happens to be coming back
from New York tomorrow, the DMA would love to hear from you." Luckily, Rushdie hitched a ride. Posted by Allan Jenkins at 08:33am in Society | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0) February 01, 2005Folksonomy Sans Frontières
Sinking further into the quicksand of taxonomy/folksonomy of the Net, I can only commend Peter Van Dijck's Guide to Ease to your attention. Specifically, his series starting with Translating Taxonomies and Categories looks at the problems of classification across languages and cultures. Much of the debate I have read so far, at other sites, takes it for granted that the tags and sites are in English. And certainly the problems of classification are huge even if we only had one language to deal with. But leaven that with a mix of cultures and languages and -- and I believe my fellow expats would agree -- and.... well, it's not my field, but this layman sees huge scalability problems. Via friend Gunnar Langemark's quirky blog. Posted by Allan Jenkins at 12:16pm in Blogging, Society, Taxonomy of Cyberspace, Technology | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0) January 31, 2005Tagging and Folksonomies: My Head Aches But Other Heads are Thinking
Earlier this month, Steve Rubel admonished us all to pay more attention to tags and folksonomies, because they show what people are thinking about: One of the most important social media trends to watch this year is the
increasing influence of tags, also known as folksonomies. According to Wikipedia,
folksonomy is the collaborative categorization of user-generated content using
simple tags. Folksonomies are wildly popular on Flickr, a photo sharing site, and
on del.icio.us, a social bookmark site. Although tags are far from perfect,
you should nevertheless be using them to keep your finger on the pulse of the
American public. Right now, at a minimum, you should be monitoring your
company/brand tags on Flickr as well as your competitors' folksonomies. I wrote
about this last week. Jeremy Zawodny smartly advised
marketers to take in del.icio.us as well. Since Steve is usually ahead of the curve, I've been trying to take his advice by learning what I can and noodling how to a) apply the idea to Desirable Roasted Coffee and b) advise clients about it. I keep running up against two issues. First, since tags are self-applied by tens of thousands of Flickr users and other bloggers, I suspect we are bound to end up with common categories too large to be useful (Parties, Dogs, NewYork) and, because no one need agree to any one taxonomy, a plethora of tags that refer to the same thing (insulinpump, insulin_pump, insulininjectiondevice). Second (but related) is how we bloggers can discipline ourselves to apply tags judiciously; moreover, how will and should tags affect how we design blogs. For example, Technorati already interprets Typepad categories as tags. Does that mean Typepad bloggers should drastically expand their category lists? It would seem to be a good tagging idea, but it would also render "categories" fairly worthless. None of which means I am giving up on the idea; it simply troubles me. It also seems to trouble Shelley Powers at Burningbird. In Cheap Eats at the Semantic Web Café, Powers examines -- in what I believe is the longest blog post I've ever read (and one of the most thoughtful) -- seemingly every aspect of tagging and folksonomy. Extensive quotes from Weinburger, Doctorow, Rebecca Blood, Clay Shirky, Julian Bond, and a host of other thinkers. Clay believes that ultimately ontologies will fall to folkonomies, as the
latter gain rapid acceptance because of their low cost and ease of use; I
believe that ultimately interest in folksonomies will go the way of most memes,
in that they’re fun to play with, but eventually we want something that won’t
splinter, crack, and stumble the very first day it’s released. What we don’t need are more cheap solutions, and ultimately, I find that
Technorati Tags are a ‘cheap’ solution, though a compelling one, and useful for
generating conversation if no other reason. And I don’t want to deginerate
Technorati’s efforts with this, because I feel in the end Technorati is going to
play a major role in our semantic efforts. Still, no matter how many tricks you
play with something like tags, you can only pull out as much ‘meaning’ as you
put into them. What we need, instead, is a way of making richer solutions more accessible to
people, and in that, I do agree with Clay–lower the barrier of participation. In
the email list for the Identity Commons effort, the members talked about how the
URL which serves as identifier within LID is also a URI, which forms the basis
for XRIs, and how the group should look at ways of achieving synergy with this
new effort. Rather than being disdainful, they sought to turn LID into an
opportunity. Finally, most of the conversation the last month at Many-to-Many has been about tagging and its applications. Many minds working hard on this issue. Go read. Posted by Allan Jenkins at 06:55pm in Blogging, Society, Taxonomy of Cyberspace, Technology | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0) January 27, 2005 | |||||||||||
