Community Mobilization

Bruce Sterling and the Virtues of Tags

Bruce Sterling did an interview with Chuck Olsen of Rocketboom for today's episode and he focused on the value of metadata regarding shoes.  Well not just shoes but mainly consumable products who, in fact, spend the overwhelming majority of their life in a trash heap after they are rendered useless (or out of style). The value of products is not lost - simply diminished and we are throwing out much value when we discard raw materials such as leather, rubber soles, and cotton laces.  In a sense we are taking recycling to the next level by making us completely aware of the contents of our objects. The idea of Spimes is tracking object through space and time.

He continues on to make commentary on the goods and evils of a tagged / metaverse world.  His points are interesting and very valuable to those interested in the field.  Go watch the video!

Innovation Markets

The free market has been a fairly good predictor of successful ideas.  The wisdom of crowds help to weed out the valuable from the lumps of coal.  A New York Times article details how at Rite-Solutions, a military control systems manufacturer, their CEOs have set up an internal idea market where employees voice their opinions by buying or selling shares in the idea.  They even volunteer their time to work on the project if they choose.  what this translates to is a a solid predictor of good and bad ideas, and those that buy options reap financial rewards in the long term if the idea matures and becomes a business or process solution.

In recognizing that they were not the most innovative folks in the company, the CEOs ere able to fully tap the creative energies of their employees and reward quality innovation through financial and social rewards. This concept of harnessing creativity from all levels is the basis of the American Cancer Society's Springboard program, and ACS is experiencing similar success.  The Society is reaping the rewards of engaging its employees and rewarding them for innovative thinking and action.

'Space' to replace 'ster'.

It is now apparent to me that 'space' is the new 'ster'.  We are trading in our Dogster for Dogspace.  The explosion of MySpace was sure to be followed up by numerous spin-offs or replicas trying to capitalize of of the name.  This looks similar to what we saw a few years ago with Friendster.  In all honesty, can you take anyone serious who has a hamsterster account?  No you can not.

The comedy is this complete sharding is odd since tribe.net had the infrastructure to do exactly this.  It allowed and encouraged a whole second level of interaction with the community by encouraging users to create affinity groups around cars, dogs, hamsters ... whatever.  I guess Tribe was just ahead of its time. 

Feeling a Bit of Loss

My step-mother's parents were married for over six decades.  They met and married in a period of two months.  Grandma passed away earlier this week and was laid to rest yesterday. I think this is a typical story of a typical relationship in the atypical times of the early 1940's in the middle of war and economic recovery.  Somehow without computer dating advice, and without the benefit of social networking services they found each other - just down the block from each other.  They say life was simpler then, easier then, less complex then, and maybe love was as well.  In today's infinite choice, and on-demand everything, have we lost touch and sight of the fact that true love is a function of two people working together and not something you can buy off line or meet in a chat-room.  My wife and I met in a sort of old fashioned way - at a party with friends - and we work very hard at our relationship.  Being at the funeral I realized how much hard work must have gone into grandma and grandpa's relationship.  I though about how many late nights, discussions, and disagreements there probably were in those 60+ years. Then I saw how rich and vibrant their love for each other is partly  for having had worked so hard at it. My aunt said being married is like having a second job but it is one you look forward to going to, and you never want to retire. It is sad that it takes a funeral to make you realize how lucky a life you have that you found someone you can love and depend on.

SMS and Justice in India

This morning there was an NPR story on Justice and SMS in

India

. As the story goes a 34 year old Model was murdered in a night club by the son a well know political. After months of trial, many witnesses, and missing evidence the suspect was let go with a not guilty verdict. In response the Indian middle class mobilized using SMS and their cell-phones to protest the injustice that was delivered.

More than a technology event, this signals a cultural shift in

India

. There is now a clear recognition of the power of new middle class and the unwillingness of this new class to tolerate corruption of the rich elite. This new class is hungry for cell-phones as social capital, and they are employing this technology to force positive change in their society. This was a clear grassroots push, spurred on by a growing discontent of a whole class of society. As a mobilizing technology SMS proves, once again (G8 protests in

Seattle

), that it is an inexpensive yet tremendously powerful community mobilizing tool.

Purimpalooza the new New Judaism

Thanks to Marc For pointing this out so I could comment on it.  Matisyahu, the beautifully talented reggae Rabi, may be the new new Judaism.  For almost 5 thousand years of beautiful tradition, Judaism has evolved and adapted to its surroundings while keeping intrinsically core values.  Doug Rushkoff has a fantastic view of this very phenomenon in his book Nothing Sacred.  Something with such broad appeal, and so plugged into the core of what it means to be Jewish may be a strong uniting force for the fractured religion.  One can only hope that something so wonderful can bring together so many people.

RSS Ray covers AMA Hot Topics

RSS Ray has a snippit on his radio show where he talks about the AMA hot topic event that went on in Pheonix a few weeks ago.  The RSS Communications link (go to the third Link American marketing and AMA Hot Topic) to listen  tothe intro abd information about the AMA Hot Topic Event. 

Why Dodgeball is so Great

I have been a fan of Dodgeball for a few years and even hung out with one of the founders a few times - but I never 'got Dodgeball'.  But when I got to SXSW I activated and got into it very quickly.  It was a tremendous tool for organizing disbursed groups of your friends.  SXSW had a number of evening events all over downtown Austin and instead of calling each friend one at a time we would just announce where we were on Dodgeball and our friends would come, or call us over to them. 

See here in Atalanta the city and my friend network does not really support the use of such a system, but at conferences where people are all over a small area it is premium. As a mass selected communication platform it is brilliant.  The urban density has a lot to do with the success of the system which is why the system is spreading so well in major cities.  I have yet to think of a very useful application for this in the non-profit world except at large scale events such as our Celebration On The Hill 2006.

Conference witch curse

Conference witch curse
Originally uploaded by randalcmoss.

I was cursed by the conference witch today. I was given the conference witch tag and according to the rules have passed it on to some unsuspecting person. Muhahahah!
The rules are fairly starightforward.
1. You have to take a self portrait of you and the badge and post it to Flickr with the tag - Conference Witch Curse.
2.You have to pass along the curse badge at a conference or pass it to someone going to a conference.

If you get th badge the rules are on the back. beware and participate!

A Business Model Based on the Long Tail

Joi Ito is talking about a new business model that he thinks will be the new way of things. The key is to sell exclusively to the higher end market – niche materials.  If you look at it here in the US EOS airline, Maxjet airlines are flying all business class seats.  In Japan and China, Joi is saying that almost 90% of the CD sold are burned and rip-offs.  The 10% of originals are purchased by the fans – at premium prices. The higher end will keep industry afloat allowing the company to give the long tail away, or at least have it subsidized by the top 10% in a sense.