Most memorable were Cornell West, Avital Ronell, and Slavoj Žižek. But probably only because I already knew about them. In fact, I’ve been carrying around Ronell’s The Telephone Book for the better part of twenty years now. I’ve never been able to understand it. Because there’s a lack of philosophy on the streets (see paragraph one). Anyway I only bought the book because of the design and typography. I had to have it. Richard Eckersley was brilliant. In fact, this was the first book he ever created using a computer. From his obituary in the New York Times:

In 1989, however, Mr. Eckersley made a radical departure from his signature restraint, shaking up the field with his design for Avital Ronell’s “Telephone Book: Technology, Schizophrenia, Electric Speech,” an unorthodox study of Jacques Derrida, Martin Heidegger and the philosophy of deconstruction. This was the first book Mr. Eckersley designed on the computer, using new page-making software programs to interpret the author’s complex postmodern ideas typographically.

Although the stark black-and-white cover of this long vertical book was rather quiet, he radically dislodged the interior text from conventional settings, and the book’s layout sometimes upstages the text by deliberately impeding the act of reading, which is just what Ms. Ronell wanted. Throughout the book there are unexplained gaps and dislocations between sentences and paragraphs, forcing the reader to work at reading. On one page is a mirror image of the page that faces it. On another, snakelike trails of space that come from careless word spacing (called rivers) are intentionally employed. Some words are blurred to the point of being indecipherable; one line runs into another because of the exaggerated use of negative line-spacing.

Though some adventurous graphic designers were experimenting at the time with idiosyncratic computer type design, this was first attempt to apply a “deconstructivist style” to a serious book.

Well maybe I suck at philopophy and reading hard books. But at twenty I could pick out rocking design. Clearly I’m all about looks ;)

I digress. The point here was to focus on Žižek and to share with you this video.

Thanks to Hugh for blogging the movie.

Sharing content with empathy. This is a key practice. We must provide sufficient context and metadata in order for our content to be findable and usable.

and

You may also want to add more detailed information to help others create works about similar topics or issues. Documenting who or what is in the picture, why it’s important, and giving a sense of the context will help others immensely. (We like to call this “extending empathy forward”.)

The idea is to make it easier to build on each other’s work.

Then today I heard Nora’s full interview with Ed Burtynsky. There it is again. It also brings up many of the issues around archiving and digital work, which Theresa Rowat has been explaining to me. Theresa is currently the director of the McGill University Archives. She is an amazing. She makes archiving come alive — especially the issues surrounding digital records. I can listen to her for hours. (Seamus Ross summarizes these issues in another conversation with Nora.)

The 10,000-year clock is a project of The Long Now Foundation. Which was part of the inspiration for Neal Stephenson’s book, Anathem, which Mike was telling me about. That stayed with me for a number of reasons. One being that I feel like much of what I do is point to ideas and connect them. Not that that’s bad. I like connecting people and ideas. But I’d like to balance it with being able to do some deep thinking of my own.

Sometimes I feel like everything is connected.

The Internet of Things is the second issue in the series of Network Notebooks. It’s a critique of ambient technology and the all-seeing network of RFID by Rob van Kranenburg. Rob examines what impact RFID and other systems, will have on our cities and our wider society. He currently works at Waag Society as program leader for the Public Domain and wrote earlier an article about this topic in the Waag magazine and is the co-founder of the DIFR Network. The notebook features an introduction by journalist and writer Sean Dodson.

… Rob van Kranenburg outlines his vision of the future. He tells of his early encounters with the kind of location-based technologies that will soon become commonplace, and what they may mean for us all. He explores the emergence of the “internet of things”, tracing us through its origins in the mundane back-end world of the international supply chain to the domestic applications that already exist in an embryonic stage. He also explains how the adoption of he technologies of the City Control is not inevitable, nor something that we must kindly accept nor sleepwalk into. In van Kranenburg’s account of the creation of the international network of Bricolabs, he also suggests how each of us can help contribute to building technologies of trust and empower ourselves in the age of mass surveillance and ambient technologies.

There’s a launch party in October, if you happen to be in Amsterdam. Kudos to Léon & Loes for the great design.

As you may imagine from my writing lately (here, here), the word “Bricolabs” caught my attention. From their site:

A distributed network for global and local development of generic infrastructures incrementally developed by communities.

A global platform to investigate the new loop of open content, software, and hardware for community applications, bringing people together with new technologies and distributed connectivity, unlike the dominant focus of IT industry on security, surveillance, and monopoly of information and infrastructures.

This reminds me of Mike’s work with Ile Sans Fil, and some of the stuff I’ve read on this ex-blog. See especially his infrastructure posts and interview with John Udell.

Once you look at it as a problem of infrastructure, you realize the problem isn’t going to be solved with everyone having their own server. It’s about having the connections between us (bridges and roads) being free and open.

Back to the book. You can go to the Institute of Network Cultures blog to download a copy and learn more about it.

Via Karl.

Listen to him on EarIdeas or read the text of the talk on the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce (RSA) website.

He’s writing theory. And like all good theory, it’s simple. Thompson lays out five “fundamental modes of societal life” —  hierarchical (government, public goods), individualistic (markets, private goods), egalitarian (equality with fettered competition, common-pool goods), fatalistic (inequality with unfettered competition, club goods), and autonomous. He does not talk much about the autonomous mode, I assume because it means opting out — not engaging.

The problem, he says, is that we’ve been stuck swinging back and forth between the hierarchical and individualistic, the old public versus private debate. He calls this “the pendulum model” and explains that it is inadequate and misleading. Instead, he suggests we imagine the four modes as four different colours of algae competing over the surface of a ping-pong ball. When one gets bigger the others shrink. The edges are constantly changing. It’s possible for one to take over the whole ball. This is a dynamic model — a “transactional sphere” — that allows for deeper debate and the development of a broader range of solutions to social issues.

Take, for example, the Brent Spar oil storage structure, the deep ocean disposal of which was proposed by the market actor – Shell – and approved by the hierarchical actor – the British government’s regulatory agency. Had there been only markets and hierarchies, the Brent Spar would now be mouldering in its watery grave. But of course it isn’t. Another actor – Greenpeace – from a third way of organising (egalitarianism), forced its way in by audaciously, and very publicly, landing a helicopter on the structure as it was being towed out into the Atlantic. The disposal plans were abruptly abandoned by Shell (motorists, particularly in Germany, having stopped buying its petrol) and the British government was left with egg all over its face (John Major, the prime minister at the time, called Shell’s senior managers “wimps”). Shell then entered into lengthy discussions with Greenpeace and the Brent Spar has been cut up into cylindrical sections to form a ferry terminal in Norway. Those British citizens who managed to remain ignorant of the whole affair (and there were many) or who found themselves convinced by whomever they happened to have last seen arguing their case on television, were evidently bound into none of these ‘active’ ways of organising – individualism, hierarchy or egalitarianism – and constituted a fourth and rather inactive way – fatalism – assuring one another either that ignorance is bliss or that “nothing we could do would make any difference anyway”.

What’s interesting about this? Five things. First, the dynamic push and pull: each approach attempts to disorganize the other, each needs the other to organize against.  (Reminds me of the Amity-Enmity Complex). Second, it allows for difference to be creative and constructive. Third, it provides a framework for thinking, arguing, and coming up with the best solution (or re-solution). We need more deep, intelligent debate. To explore all options. No more ad hominem arguments — against individuals or groups. Fourth, it shows that we can make a difference — Greenpeace succeeded in changing the course of events. Fifth, the concept of “clumsy institutions”:

So, are there any practical guidelines that we can draw, once we’ve detached ourselves from the inadequate and misleading pendulum model and embraced this indeterminate and disequilibrating table tennis ball? Yes there are, and I’ll mention just two of them. First, Ashby’s law of requisite variety tells us that a control system must always contain a variety equal to that which exists within that which it aspires to control. In other words, if one or more of our coloured patches are being reduced to points (as they likely will be if the control system we are applying lacks the requisite variety), watch out! And this principle, slightly more elaborated and tied-in with the classic theory of pluralist democracy, leads us towards the somewhat counterintuitive notion of ‘clumsiness’. Clumsiness is where each voice (each of the policy stories that are generated by the four ways of organising) is (a) able to make itself heard and (b) is then responsive to the others (see Figure 2).

Here’s Figure 2:

See? Isn’t that a nice way to imagine making decisions and developing policy? Clumsily fighting and finding a good solution. Together whether we like it or not.

Finally, there’s Thompson himself. Read his bio or see him on video: soldier, himalayan mountaineer, anthropologist, researcher, environmentalist, thinker. Amazing cool guy. Would I ever like to find a man like this ;)

It’s Bare — a conductive ink for skin. A collaboration between Bibi Nelson, Isabel Lizardi, Matt Johnson, and Becky Pilditch. I am at once fascinated and frightened. Will take time to think and articulate why.

I found it via one of Howard Rheingold’s tweets, which linked to a Yanko Design post. Here is a video on how it works:

And as for tattoos here’s who I found in Montreal who is doing interesting work: Yann, Emilie Roby, and some of Sylvie’s work. If you know of anyone else let me know. Looking for artists who do fresh and authentic work.

Funny. I just got my favorite jeans repaired (two pairs, the bottoms went out on me), as well as my favorite fuchsia heels. I had to go to three shoe repair shops. The first dismissed me, the second told me to throw them away, and I managed to convince the third one — although I had to dig through a dirty old box to find the right heels. Now they are black — more character. “Will your husband mind?” said the guy. Uh-huh, right.

This also makes me think of the whole cradle-to-cradle idea.

Then, there’s Ryan Paul’s piece in Wired on hackable hardware:

Open source hardware is designed to be reprogrammed or physically modified to make it easy to install custom firmware and software to create entirely new products. The big idea: crowdsourcing hardware development will encourage innovation in unforeseen ways, much like how Creative Commons licenses have enabled artists to remix existing content to create new works.

… Not all gadget makers embrace this trend and a growing number of them are fighting back by blocking installation of custom software or slapping on warranty stickers to discourage would-be developers from opening up their gear and tweaking the electronics. (Apple has been particularly aggressive about discouraging iPhone hackers.)

Then there are companies like OpenMoko, a spinoff of Taiwan’s First International Computer, established to build an open source touchscreen smartphone.

“For the people pushing this project, an open phone is not really even a product. It’s the very embodiment of our vision of technology,” OpenMoko CEO Sean Moss-Pultz wrote in 2007. “We absolutely, passionately, believe that something as fundamental to our lives as the mobile phone must be open.”

The hardware schematics, CAD files and source code of the OpenMoko mobile phone handsets have all been made available under open licenses so they can be freely modified and redistributed. The project quickly attracted attention in the open source software community and became a hub of activity for open smartphone development.

Will follow this with interest.

Of course social reporters can use add the #PCamp09 tag to their tweets, which are aggregated on front page of their website.

Great use of social media and attention to virtual participants: livestreaming video, twitter, skype. And of course great topic:

Democracy is a game in which we all make the rules. How do we make this serious game more inclusive, more fair, and more fun? Participation Camp will provide the spark for an explosion of sharing, experimentation, and collaboration around this question. Participants may attend a wide range of physical and virtual presentations (or deliver one themselves), compete in a conference-wide participation game, or roll up their sleeves in a hands-on workshop.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Iran has one of the world’s most advanced surveillance networks. Using a system installed last year (and built, in part, by Nokia and Siemens), the government routes all digital traffic in the country through a single choke point. Through “deep packet inspection,” the regime achieves omniscience — it has the technical capability to monitor every e-mail, tweet, blog post, and possibly even every phone call placed in Iran. Compare that with East Germany, in which the Stasi managed to tap, at most, about 100,000 phone lines — a gargantuan task that required 2,000 full-time technicians to monitor the calls. The Stasi’s work force comprised 100,000 officers, and estimates put its network of citizen informants at half a million. In the digital age, Iran can monitor its citizens with a far smaller security apparatus. They can listen in on everything anyone says — and shut down anything inconvenient — with the flip of a switch.

…

Other than trying to shut down many parts of the Web, we don’t know what, precisely, Iranian security forces have done in response to the online protest movement. It’s unclear whether they’ve actually planted disinformation online or tried to trace images and videos back to their original posters. But the uncertainty itself breeds fear. Several times over the last couple weeks, rumors have flooded the Web that the government had already gotten wise to Twitter and was actively seeding the movement with fake news. It was a stark example of how the psychological repression characteristic of authoritarian regimes — the constant fear, the inability to trust anyone — finds particularly fertile ground online.

…

On Wednesday, a reader alerted the Lede to an Iranian government Web site called Gerdab.ir, where authorities had posted pictures of protesters and were asking citizens for help in identifying the activists. That’s right — the regime is now using crowd-sourcing, one of the most-hyped aspects of Web 2.0 organizing, against its opponents. If you think about it, that’s no surprise. Who said that only the good guys get to use the power of the Web to their advantage?

Important stuff to think about. Michael introduced me to Darin Barney and this connects to what he writes about in The Network Society:

In the network society, power and powerlessness are a function of access to networks and control over flows. Access to significant networks is an important threshold of inclusion and exclusion, a condition of power and powerlessness…. Control over access to these networks becomes a crucial mechanism of power and domination.

Anonymous blogging is important. But we need more because it won’t help if the whole network is down. Which brings me to Foulab and other hardware hacker spaces, which I got interested in because of Beth’s involvement with a similar group in Seattle. Then I watched her talk at Berkman: User, Hacker, Builder, Thief: Creativity and Consumerism in a Digital Age. Beyond being fun to hang out at (Liam and I did a Pico Cricket workshop, and I did an intro to basic electronics and Arduino) I think they’re part of Plan B. Could you build an alternate network? Or do we go back to radio? Forgive my ignorance here — just trying to figure this stuff out.

And policy. And just a plain old basic understanding how things work. How do our networks operate? Who controls them? How? Knowing this is essential.

Knowledge workers are an investment rather than an expense. They not only desire considerable personal autonomy but also the responsibility and accountability for running at least some part of an organization. They need to be treated as partners or associates and not as typical Industrial Age employees.

I have often felt this. It’s part of why I work freelance. He goes on:

… the more people are given a voice and implicit control in managing a venture, the more the informal networks (present in every entity) will begin to function more in the open and start making appropriate connections with other emergent groups.

Ehin talks about the importance of tacit knowledge. How it’s difficult to access, share, and transfer to others without extensive personal contact and trust. How it’s based on habits and culture that we do not recognize in ourselves. And, most interestingly, how it emerges serendipitously as individuals or small groups confront new or unanticipated situations.

“People must first be surrounded by a supportive environment,” he writes. This is what I’ve been thinking too. This is why building connections and community within the organization matters so much. Why getting internal communications right matters so much. We not only have to do our work — we need to take time every once and a while to reflect on how we’re doing it. Especially in an ever-changing environment.

Ehin’s “organizational sweet spot” represents “the area where the formal and informal systems of an organization have reached “a meeting of the minds” over the fundamental goals, policies and processes of an organization. …What can be managed or adjusted is the organizational context or ecology that surrounds the sweet spot.” Makes me think of the New Institutional Economics. Incentives matter. Institutions matter. Especially the informal ones. Systems, culture, the framework in which we operate.

He goes on to outline two categories of organizational ecologies. I’m paraphrasing here:

• Controlled-Access System — Access to the resources of a group and its activities are controlled by one or a few select individuals. All other members of the organization must first get approval from these executives before any of the assets can be used. Compliance instead of commitment is prized.
• Shared-Access System — The resources of a group and its activities are dealt with by all members of an organization. All organizational members have considerable autonomy in decision-making and in resource allocations. Expert power instead of position power dominates. Emphasis is placed on situational leadership, open book management, and self-organization in solving problems or pursuing opportunities (read: “open organization”).

This example really hit home: “I would like to download a free Web resource which will help me perform my job better, but the IT Department will not allow me to do that.”

Oh boy. That is me. I did it anyway. Sorry about that IT dudes ;)