Radio Berkman

RB210: The New Knowledge Worker

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:18:44 +0000

Listen: or download | …also in Ogg As high school and college students transition into a knowledge economy they face both advantages and challenges with how they find information and engage with co-workers as teammates. As a recent study of US employers and recent college graduates discovered, some young hires are pretty good at finding [...]

RB209: Crisis Spotting (Drone Humanitarianism II)

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 15:25:31 +0000

Listen: or download | …also in Ogg What if you could witness a crime taking place from space, and even step in to prevent it? A group of researchers at Harvard’s Humanitarian Initiative are trying to do exactly that. As the nation of Sudan faced a complex crisis — a secession of the southern region [...]

RB208: The NetRoots

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 20:25:40 +0000

Listen: or download | …also in Ogg How have politically engaged organizations used the web to fundamentally change how people organize and engage politically? Why are left wing organizations more likely to succeed in organization online? Why are conservatives less funny than liberals? David Karpf chronicles the dozens of Netroots political organizations, both progressive and [...]

RB207: Hacking Censorship (Drone Humanitarianism I)

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 16:12:24 +0000

Listen: or download | …also in Ogg The Internet exists and persists on the border between helpful and harmful, between freedom and totalitarianism, access to knowledge and censorship. But as long as technology is adaptable activists will be learning and creating workarounds to spread information and promote change. Enter the Circumvention Tools Hackfest, a four-day [...]

RB 206: Unlocking Research

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 21:33:22 +0000

Listen: or download | …also in Ogg Disseminating knowledge was once a costly undertaking. The expenses of printing, distributing, and housing the work of researchers and scholars left most research in the hands of publishers, journals, and institutions in a system that has evolved over centuries. And the licensing model that has arisen with that system [...]

RB205: Remembering Elinor Ostrom

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 18:50:53 +0000

Listen: or download | …also in Ogg Nobel Laureate and Economist Elinor Ostrom passed away last month at the age of 78. Best recognized for her research into the management of common pool resources, Ostrom broke new ground with her findings that Commons were not inherently tragic, as previous generations of economists believed. In fact, [...]

RB204: The Art and Science of Working Together

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 19:50:50 +0000

Listen: or download | …also in Ogg If you’ve ever experienced the problem of a dead cell phone battery and only incompatible chargers within reach, you’ve experienced one of the minor frustrations of a non-interoperable system. This frustration — not to mention the environmental waste of having dozens of different charger types for the same [...]

RB203: From Digital Uprising to Digital Society

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 20:07:55 +0000

Listen: or download | …also in Ogg Lots of digital ink has been spilled about how and whether digital technology played a critical role in bringing about the Arab Spring. But it’s been 18 months since the spark of revolution was first lit in Tunisia, way back in December of 2010. How has digital technology [...]

RB202: Memeology

Fri, 18 May 2012 20:13:03 +0000

Listen: or download | …also in Ogg Two weeks ago, the Berkman Center co-sponsored the third – and, we learned, final! – ROFLCon. For the n00bz, ROFLCon is a conference named after the acronym for “rolling on the floor, laughing” and devoted to celebrating internet culture. Friend of the Show Tim Hwang co-founded the event [...]

RB 201: The 42 Streams (Rethinking Music X)

Fri, 04 May 2012 23:04:34 +0000

Listen: or download | …also in Ogg In today’s episode we wrap up our coverage of last week’s Rethink Music conference with a conversation between guest host Chris Bavitz and Kristin Thomson. In addition to her work as community organizer, social policy researcher, entrepreneur and musician, Kristin is a consultant at the Future of Music Coalition, [...]

RB 200: The Library Of The Future

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 22:27:47 +0000

Listen: or download | …also in Ogg The technological advancements of the past twenty years have rendered the future of the library as a physical space, at least, as uncertain as it has ever been. The information that libraries were once built to house in the form of books and manuscripts can now be accessed [...]

RB 199: Be Great. Go Viral. (Rethinking Music IX)

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 22:52:24 +0000

Listen: or download | …also in Ogg Dave Herlihy currently teaches music industry classes at Northeastern University and operates his own practice specializing in entertainment law, intellectual property, copyright, trademark, licensing, and new media. But twenty-five years ago he was the lead singer of O Positive, a Boston-area band poised on the brink of a major label record [...]

RB 198: The Community Supported Musician (Rethinking Music VIII)

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:23:05 +0000

Listen: or download | …also in Ogg Is there room in the music industry for middle-class musicians? Friend of the show Nancy Baym brought together three career performer/songwriters who all stumbled on the same analogy for how musicians can “make it” in the digital age: that of Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs). Kristin Hersh, Zoe Keating, [...]

RB 197: University 2.0

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 01:26:11 +0000

Listen: or download | …also in Ogg This week’s guest, Juan Carlos de Martin, readily admits that he is only the latest in a long line of thinkers to portend the end of the university as we know it. He almost gleefully cites Thomas Edison as one of his most notable predecessors. But Juan Carlos may be [...]