That said, I’d also consider myself a pragmatic idealist (thanks for the hint, Igor) in the sense that I think to reach certain idealistic goals it’s sometimes necessary (or even ok) to make compromises.

Examples: I use a Mac (closed) to feed my WordPress blog (open); I use Twitter (kinda closed) to promote open web ideals (open: duh!); my phone is powered by Android (open) but uses HTC’s Sense UI (closed).

So when we were about to announce an event that’s promoting the ideals of an open web (Drumbeat), we discussed how to best promote the event. We decided to complement the “official” event page on the Drumbeat site with a Facebook event page.

I insisted on having this second option, and for several reasons. One of those reasons is merely of the practical kind: it’s much easier to organize an event if you have any idea how many people are coming, and Facebook is very, very convenient to use that way. The other reason is more philosophical: I believe to reach out to new people, i.e. if you want to mainstream the discussion and get more people involved, you have to reach out to them where they mostly communicate. Facebook is an obvious choice, as you get access to a whole lot of people.

Like we almost expected, we got into a little flame war over this decision, including all the all-so-common personal attacks and insults. (My favorite being the statement that it’s “people like [me] who destroy the open web”, and that we’re “riff-raff”. I was surprised not to see Godwin’s Law invoked, but maybe that will happen in the next few mails?) To put one thing straight: I’m not even insulted, I find it very amusing to read a lengthy, hand-crafted personal attack. I appreciate, one could say, the effort people like this invest in personal trolling. (As long as – like in this case – it doesn’t even hit the mark and stays within certain boundaries.)

But it did get me thinking, and we discussed this a lot afterwards: To which degree is it ok to use a closed platform to promote an open web? And I stand by my decision, and would like to re-iterate: it’s not only ok, but necessary not to insist on personal moral high ground and being the true believer that knows everything better; but to go where the people you’d like to get involved really are and discuss with them. It’s not ok, and most likely damaging, to just assume everybody on the planet is thinking about these issues all day, and if they don’t leave all their bad habits behind they don’t deserve any better.

This kind of thinking is, from my point of view, arrogant, hypocritical and damaging. It devalues the ideals these same people strive to promote.

(I’m sure many other professions have to make similar decisions every day, like international development aid workers, who buy building materials on local markets to strengthen the local economy, even though they know that a certain share of those revenues go back to funding the same groups that caused the underlying structural problems.)

Long story short: For the time being I’ll keep doing it the way I’ve done it so far. I’ll keep using Facebook to promote events, I’ll stick to Twitter if that’s where I reach new people. But I’d like to hear your take on this!

We just moved Cognitive Cities to a new date: 26/27 February 2011.

My co-organizers and I explained our reasons for pushing CoCities on the Cognitive Cities blog, but let me sum it up very quickly here, too.

Most importantly, the move is a good thing. As only a very few of you know by know, there are some changes coming up in my professional life – of the best sorts, but I can’t really talk about them just now. These changes – and some other things – happen to coincide with the original dates of the conference. All of this takes up quite a few cycles and quite a bit of energy: Just the kind of cycles and energy you need to run a great event on the side while still doing your day job.

The team talked this over, and we came to the conclusion that we’d rather postpone the event than just winging it. We really want to get Cognitive Cities right, and we have high hopes and aspirations for this. And since we’re planning to have some really kick-ass people present there, we owe them the best possible event, too.

Moving CoCities to spring will give us just the time we need to get it right. The date seems right – just around the beginning of the conference season, well before SXSW and – most importantly – with a few months between now and then. (If you are aware of any other relevant event going on at the same time, please let me know!)

Also, if you are working on any kick-ass relevant project that you think might fit the profile, send us a brief note about it. Should you prefer email over online forms, feel free to email us at info@cognitivecities.com.

We will continue with the planning just like we did before, i.e. talk to speakers and sponsors, scout for the best projects and tweak the conference format further. To make it the best conference we’ve organized yet. Really looking forward to seeing Cognitive Cities take shape over the next few months.

As a former media and political science major, as well as a former editor, this stuff is pure gold to me.

First, what I am not going to go into: the Afghanistan conflict, its sense or legitimation or political implications; or the legalities of this kind of thing: does a leak like this break US law, and would that even be applicable? That’s for US lawyers to decide.

The basics first: What happened?
Wikileaks got hold of some 91.000 military documents regarding the Afghanistan conflict, from analyst papers to ground reports. (What is Wikileaks?) Before releasing these documents themselves, they gave them in advance to three traditional news media: New York Times (US), The Guardian (UK) and Der Spiegel (Germany). (All of the links go directly to the Wikileaks specials.) After these media ran their exclusives, Wikileaks went public with the leaked documents, called the Afghan War Diaries:

The reports, while written by soldiers and intelligence officers, and mainly describing lethal military actions involving the United States military, also include intelligence information, reports of meetings with political figures, and related details. (…)

The reports cover most units from the US Army with the exception of most US Special Forces’ activities. The reports do not generally cover top secret operations or European and other ISAF Forces operations.

So why is the Wikileaks story so big?
It’s big not just because it’s something new and a huge scoop, but because it touches on so many complex and highly relevant issues:

• the issue at hand, the conflict in Afghanistan
• the way the US government handles information
• … and by extension, the bigger questions of truth & trust
• the relationship between governments and their citizens
• the relationship between US government and their allies, and how information flows between them
• the way media work today
• the (new?) role that media play today (trust center verifying information scoops rather than gathering them)
• the way the internet changes politics and media (and how news media not bound to nation states operate under different circumstances than we are used to)
• Is it irresponsible to leak documents?

For some great background and discussion, I recommend you jump straight to Jay Rosen and Jeff Jarvis, both who have great write-ups.

Trying not to repeat to many of Rosen’s and Jarvis’ points, there are a few things I find worth considering.

Truth & trust, governments & citizens
The White House was clearly pissed off after seeing the Afghan War Logs emerge. Understandably so, after all those documents will clearly make a dent in the war effort, so to speak. However, legalities aside and assuming the documents are the real thing – the documents leaked are internal military documents. While it’s always painful to be called out on your own mistakes, it’s not job of the media to support certain policies; and it’s most certainly not the job of a whistleblower site like Wikileaks to support any policies. It’s their job to get out information so folks can make informed decisions.

It’s probably part of winning a military conflict to occasionally bluff and put a game face on. But it’s fair game to call that bluff; I’m guessing here, but I’d say that this can happen to a government just like to any poker player. These war reports seem to be such a case where the bluff (“the war is going kinda alright”) is called. The question is: Could the US government – instead of trying to clamp down on Wikileaks and the internal military source – try to make the best of the situation, for example by trying a crowdsourced effort to analyze the patterns of what has been going wrong in the conflict? (Might not work, but should be looked into by some of the smart folks within or around the US government.)

The new role of media
What I found particularly interesting is the new role that media played in this case. This is not a case of investigative journalism by the media, but by a third (non-journalistic) party. We are talking about three of the most distinguished media outlets world wide. Yet, they did not get the scoop here, they did not have the sources inside. They were not the address the military sources wanted to talk to. (Why might be a moot question, but an interesting one still. Get back to that in a minute.) Instead, the media were there to a) spread the news and b) verify the information, to lend credibility. They served as a trust center for another organization’s scoop. Once they got the information, the media then did what they do best: sift through the material and make it more accessible, as well as spread the information.

As Jay Rosen put it, referring to a New York Times editor’s note:

“At the request of the White House, The Times also urged WikiLeaks to withhold any harmful material from its Web site.” There’s the new balance of power, right there. In the revised picture we find the state, which holds the secrets but is powerless to prevent their release; the stateless news organization, deciding how to release them; and the national newspaper in the middle, negotiating the terms of legitimacy between these two actors.

So, why Wikileaks not New York Times?
We can only speculate why the internal source leaked the documents to Wikileaks and not to one of the major newspapers. But there are a number of considerations at play here: First, Wikileaks is much harder to subpoena than any traditional news organization that operates under US (or European) law. Second, Wikileaks is by nature very much distributed. They are a true internet-based, decentralized organization, making it harder to suppress information. Third, Wikileaks is independent, donation-funded, without anyone to report to. This can be good or bad, of course. And on certain topics, a political biased can be assumed. But again, it makes it harder to believe there could be a reason for Wikileaks to withhold this kind of information, much unlike the news organizations that also want to send their reporters into war zones as embedded journalists along the military. Fourth, Wikileaks knows about secure communications. Maybe Guardian, Spiegel and New York Times do too, but a source wouldn’t want to take any risks. Wikileaks are strong on anonymity. They are strong on crypto. They really know how to keep communication channels secure and anonymous. All of these combined make them a more secure place to go to than any single newsroom.

Is Wikileaks acting irresponsibly?
One could make the case for either the value of keeping information secret, or for absolute transparency. In a military conflict, that’s a tough one. But it seems to be like Wikileaks is going to great lengths to be as careful and responsible as the overall context allows (once it’s decided to publish leaked info, that is). They are holding back a significant number of documents until further review and clean up (think removing names etc):

We have delayed the release of some 15,000 reports from the total archive as part of a harm minimization process demanded by our source. After further review, these reports will be released, with occasional redactions, and eventually in full, as the security situation in Afghanistan permits.

Giving the documents to some trusted traditional newspapers of making sure the information is getting a decent journalistic treatment, followed by full disclosure of all the source material for extra vetting.

In other words, it’s a perfect example of getting it all right: Responsible dealing with the information as well as working the media right.

Jeff Jarvis raises an interesting point in his post: Will leaks like this incentivize organisations not to write down as much because they fear leaks, leading in the long run to less transparency? I certainly hope not, but it’s not a fear I share. Large-scale organizations need documentation, and where there is documentation there is a chance of leaks.

What I’d hope for instead is that the mere chance of leaks alone will lead to more transparency up front. After all, if an organization is more transparent the chance of getting called out on grounds of hiding information is a lot lower.

We’ll have to wait and see. Until then, if you do appreciate this kind of document leak, I do recommend you consider donating for Wikileaks.

After the first steps in Social Media, most organizations realize it’s time to get organized. Instead of every staff doing their own thing on the social web, organizations strive to speak with one coherent voice while preserving authenticity. This is where Social Media Guidelines (SMG) come in.

The SMG provide a framework that serves to provide direction for all social media activities. (And what on the web isn’t social these days?) They protect the company from rogue Facebookers, and they protect employees from their boss’ wrath.

Below I’ll list a few Social Media Guidelines that I find well-written, plus from a diverse set of organizations from non-profit to corporate to military. Please not that instead of “guidelines” they could also be called “social media policy”, “social computing guidelines”, “rules of engagement” or something completely different. What we’re looking at here is a document that helps define the rules for all activities regarding social media.

The list below is what I sent to a non-profit that had contacted me about drafting Social Media Guidelines – it seemed like the list might be useful for others as well:

1. Laurel Papworth’s List of 40 Social Media Staff Guidelines. One of the classic compilations. Plenty of food for thought here.
2. Intel Social Media Guidelines: A classic. Well written, knowledgeable, focusing on the practicalities.
3. IBM Social Computing Guidelines: What’s great here is that there is an executive summary outlining the basic rules of engagement, but also a lengthier, in-depth discussion right below.
4. American Red Cross Social Media Guidelines: Very detailed presentation that goes beyond just Social Media Guidelines. It’s more like a tutorial for your staff. Great stuff.
5. Social Media Policy des österreichischen Roten Kreuz: The Austrian Red Cross have both their guidelines as well as some more background on their website. Brownie points for also covering the potential issue of private vs business engagement as well as political statements. The only one in the list that’s in German.
6. Rochester Institute of Technology: What RIT provides here isn’t really a guideline, but rather an overview of which group inside the organization uses which social media channel. The Alumni Association? On Facebook and Twitter. The department of Software Engineering? You won’t find them on Twitter, but they’re on Facebook and YouTube. And so on. Very, very useful both internally and for external partners.
7. LA Times Social Media Guidelines : The LA Times Social Media Guidelines provide guidance not just for external communication but also for their own reporters and how they deal with information acquired through Social Media channels.
8. New Zealand State Services Commission: Principles for Interaction with Social Media: This document is basically a reminder that state servants have to act responsibly when engaging in Social Media just like in their offline workdays. Obviously state servants play a special role, and special rules apply. Don’t ask what your country can do for you in Social Media, but what you can do for your country’s engagement in Social Media!
9. US Air Force: Social Media Triage: This diagram shows how the US Air Force reacts to blog comments and other social media feedback. (I stumbled over the diagram in this great presentation by Altimeter first.) A simple, yet effective diagram that can guide your staff through the process of reacting to external reactions. Very well done, like so much of the USAF’s online activities.
10. Audible.de: Social Media Richtlinien: An example of Social Media Guidelines in German, from Audible.de. Short and sweet.

Copy & paste or write your own – just make sure they reflect your organization’s core values and you don’t over-regulate. Instead of trying to think of everything up front make sure to re-visit the guidelines regularly and, if necessary, tweak them. It’s not rocket science. It really isn’t.

Image: Agile Planning, a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (2.0) image from 7855449@N02′s photostream

But jokes aside, there’s some seriously disturbing stuff going on right now. Namely, two focal points in this conflict about who should make media and under what conditions, and how should media be consumed.

Focal point #1: Google vs FTC

The FTC published a paper as basis for further discussion (“Staff Discussion Draft”, PDF) to evaluate the situation of news media today and to draft policy proposals. One of them: additional intellectual property rights to support news media against “free riding by news aggregators”. This by itself is one of the dumbest things I’ve read in a while. News aggregators (read: Google News), of course, channel traffic to the media sites. There’s no cannibalization going on, it’s the other way round. It’s good to see – and just fair to point out – that the draft also states that “expanded IP rights could restrict citizens’ access to this news, inhibit public discourse, and impinge upon free speech rights.” Yes, that it might well do.

Google reply on their Public Policy blog and the response is well worth reading:

Comments to FTC 20 July 2010

If you prefer the summary, jump straight to Jeff Jarvis, who sides clearly with Google as well as I do: This is not really a legal battle, but one over business models. And protecting an old, broken system should not be in the FTC’s (or anyone’s) interest.

Focal point #2: German public broadcasters are “depublishing”

A similar problem is discussed in Germany these days, if maybe in slightly different environment. In Germany we’ve had strong (and well-funded, particularly compared to the US) public broadcasters. (Note: not newspapers.) These broadcasters have done a tremendous job in the past, and even though there has been a lot of criticism over budgets and spending and about certain areas of engagement, they have a fairly strong support on a societal level. They have a clear mandate to provide basic information in all areas (including entertainment), and at least kind-of-clear limits of their engagement (no dating sites etc). These limits are based mainly on protecting private companies from publicly funded competition.

And it’s this eternal conflict of interests (here: “the public” vs “private publishing corporations”) that’s at the core of the dilemma. Public broadcasters in Germany were always very limited on what they could do online. But now, content has to be “depublished”* after some time. (Depending on the kind of content, which is evaluated by a three step system of the more absurd kind of type, after a week, a year or some other time span.) The content won’t be deleted, but hidden.

(Links with some background in German: Tagesschau summary of the regulating Rundfunkstaatsvertrag, Tagesschau’s Jörg Sadrozinski’s take on Depublizieren.)

How much protection do private publishers need from the government?

Now this raises all kinds of interesting questions. (The biggest of which is of course: WTF? But let’s save that for another time.) Questions I cannot necessarily answer off the top of my head. Like: Should private broadcasters really be protected from public broadcasters? How much so? Are there certain fields where this protection should be stronger than others? (Sports? Mobile services?) But also: How can content that we paid for by our (publicly collected and handled) fees be locked away after we paid for it, and how can even more of our money be spent on locking it away? What happens to all the references in Wikipedia that linked to said public content? How can a generation of tax and fee payers be expected to pay for fees if the content won’t be available through the channels they use?

I cannot even remember the last time I watched TV at home, on a TV set, live, on the air. And I certainly won’t start now.

So we need to ask ourselves: How much protection do we want to give to publishers and broadcasters, and what price are we willing to pay?

There’s a war going on, and it’s not pretty.

* The word makes me want to invoke Godwin’s Law. But I’ll hold back, I promise.

In one, a Social Media strategy is planned and implemented and handed down inside the organization. Pro: top-level support. Con: not all that organic. In the other, employees take Social Media in their own hands and just push the topic themselves. Pro: It’s agile and organic, plus the employees are invested themselves. Con: Can be messy, and there’s no management buy-in.

I’d propose a third way, where the top-level management encourages Social Media engagement and provides a framework for it. Most notably, it must be clear that employees who dabble in Social Media don’t get into trouble for doing so, and they must be given the opportunity to get more resources if needed. Employees on the other hand should feel free to experiment and learn the ropes, then pass on their knowledge and insights to their colleagues. These evangelists should be given the freedom and resources they need, and should also be taken into responsibility to document and share their learnings. It’s a two way street, really.

One aspect I’ve heard over and over again when doing workshops with clients is that often there are people in all hierarchy levels of an organization that are in favor of investing (time, resources, energy) in Social Media, but there is not enough exchange across hierarchies and departments. It’s important to identify evangelists all over the organization, from assistant level to top-level management, and connect them in some way or another. Think round tables, email lists, wikis, meetups – whatever best fits the organization’s culture.

There’s tremendous potential inside every organization, you just need to find it and foster exchange – that’s the first step. The second step, once all parties are talking to one another, you can adapt the organizational structures to reflect the needs that are now more clear. From then on it’s a matter of smart iterations.

So why not start today and ask around in your company: Who is interested in engaging in Social Media? Who’d like to take a lead, who’d like to support? Then give these folks some time to discuss their ideas and needs, and start pilot projects for the most promising ideas.

Today, the final report was published. Download the report here (PDF, 1.9MB, language: .de).

Together with Henning Lesch of eco and I focused mainly on privacy. You can find the results and essence of the research under the headline “Datenschutz & Privatsphäre”.

What really struck me – in the expert group as well as in the survey and in the discussions we had with politicians – is how hard it is to come to any clear solutions in this field. It almost seems like we, as a society, need to have some in-depth discussion on which exact questions to even ask, and how to define all the buzz words. Do we need anonymity online? How much? Absolute or relative anonymity? What exactly does anonymity entail? It’s really not all that simple.

Although I will say that personally I strongly favor an internet that allows for anonymity over one where all action can be tracked. In fact, I believe that the opportunity to discuss open and free and without fear of repercussion (in other words: in anonymity) is an important basis of a strong and free democracy. (Luckily, many, many of the participants of our survey hold a similar view.)

Long story short: I tremendously enjoyed working with all these smart folks. And I hope this report can help foster a good discussion about where we’re headed and how we’d best get there.

As it is today, there is much to discuss, and not all of the folks in a position to make the relevant decisions seem to be up to speed. (And you can’t blame them, there’s just too much on everyone’s plate!) In the US, Code For America exists solely to support the decision makers in DC with external expertise in all questions related to the web. If there’s demand for something similar in Germany, sign me up. We as the web community shouldn’t stand back and complain about politicians, but instead offer a hand to work with them. There’s no other way forward.

Full disclosure: I’m a member of the Google Internet & Society Collaboratory and I worked with Google before.

It’s a truth that needs to be said, over and over again. And then once more: “Nobody is interested in your social stuff, as long as you do not interact constantly, honestly and wholeheartedly.” Great deck by Bart De Waele.

(via)

So, no Reboot conference this year. However, a small team stepped up to organize Ersatz Conference for those who crave a shot of Copenhagen this time of the year. (Guilty as charged.) So Igor and I headed over to beautiful CPH and spent a few days there and took a short break from day-to-day work. Ersatz was just the excuse we had been looking for.

Just a few notes about the trip.

First of all: Thanks, thanks and thanks to Claus Dahl for spearheading the efforts to have Ersatz. Thanks also to the whole crew at Ersatz for switching to English during the conference to allow Igor and me to participate. (Along with Gernot Poetsch, we were the only non-locals.) Thanks to all participants for sharing their stories. Thanks to Steffen Christensen, Thomas Mygdal and Mark Jensen for giving us the tour of the new 23 offices and for Mark’s guided tour through the city – great fun!

The conference was an intimate, personal affair. Great stuff actually: Over BBQ and brunch there was plenty of time to share stories and insights, in workshops we could go more formal where needed. Igor and I gave a variation of the talk “Playful Cities” that Igor and Johannes had given before. And found out that quite a number of the projects we showed in the talk are already more or less implemented in Denmark, at least to some degree. I joked that Denmark might be living in the future already and nobody had noticed; in hindsight, I’m wondering if there’s more truth to it than I thought at the moment.

But Copenhagen has more to offer than conferences, and with a few days on our hands we went about finding the best third wave coffee in town. And boy, did we find good coffee. There are two places I’d like to highlight:

First, Ricco’s. Ricco’s is a mini chain, kind of a four-store franchise, and it’s just like an urban coffee shop should be: nice, relaxed atmosphere, intense and interested baristas who care to help you find the best you might want to have, and, well, delicious coffee. Great, absolutely fresh snacks, too. It’s a pleasure. I was only at one of the shops, but I’m sure they’re all great.

Second, Kaffe & Vinyl. This is an entirely different atmosphere, but just as great. In its tiny-ness it might even be more social. Kaffe & Vinyl, like the name indicates, is a coffee shop & vinyl store. You get to listen to and buy a small, but on first glance very decent selection of records – which are also the source of the music played in store, of course – and an even smaller but equally good selection of caffeinated products. The shop is clearly a labor of love, and it shows. Folks cue up and don’t mind waiting a few minutes to get a cuppa and then sit mostly outside in the sun as there is space for no more than a few inside at any time. While I was there I ended up chatting with a few folks, one of them claiming that besides Bonanza Coffee Heroes (my favorite Berlin coffee shop) and Coffee Collective, Kaffe & Vinyl might be the best coffee shop in Europe. Quite a claim, and there are too many coffee shops in Europe I haven’t checked out (yet), but it’s certainly not crazy to assume that there’s a spot at the top with Kaffe & Vinyl’s name on it. I didn’t make it to Coffee Collective this time, but hey, there’s always a next Reboot and thus a chance to check them out.

Anyway, long story short: Next time your in Copenhagen, make sure to grab a cup at each of those!

Image: Ersatz Bike by Sten Jauer

Kind of because it’s not the real Streetview, but a slightly different take on the original idea, based not on Google’s own photo material but on user-generated photos. Let’s have a look.

But first, let me put it in perspective briefly. While sharing many privacy concerns regarding all kinds of online services, I find Streetview to be very much not a problem at all. All faces are pixelated, and it’s the public space. I’ll side with Jeff Jarvis who says:

I argue that what is public belongs to us, the public, and efforts to reduce what’s public steals from us. Journalists should be particularly protective of what is public; so should we all.

He goes on to state that once we start prohibiting private companies from taking pictures there’s a threat we’ll start doing the same with citizens, then journalists. You get the drift. Full ack. What’s public is public. We live in a state where politicians openly demand more video surveillance and even does the occasional biometric video surveillance pilot project – in my book, that’s much, much worse.

But back to the point. Below you see a screenshot of Streetview in New York. Please note the high-quality of the pictures, and perspective of the environment as seen from the street. You can “move” along the street. It’s useful. It’s not super pretty, but it does the job, which is help you get oriented.

Then look at the German flavor of Streetview (screenshot below). It’s based on user-generated photos (by ways of Panoramio), which isn’t necessarily bad, but doesn’t quite seem to work here. It’s not consistent, it’s all different perspectives, and it’s not all current photo material. Some of the photos submitted are clearly from the 80s or early 90s. Interesting, sure. Useful, not really.

What’s more, since the photos are user-generated and – I’m assuming – not automatically analyzed and manipulated, the faces aren’t pixelated like the ones taken by Google themselves. In other words: Privacy is much worse, as is the overall usefulness. We get the worst of both worlds.

I’m not sure if I should applaud Google for the pluck to go with this hack; if I should congratulate privacy groups for a success (if you want to call it that) in standing up to a large corporation; or if I should lament that our minister for consumer protection just delivered the worst possible result in this conflict, which means that neither user rights (privacy) nor user needs (useful navigation services) are met.

In a way, this whole play really summarizes all that’s skewed in the odd love-hate relationship that Germany has with the web.

Full disclaimer: I’ve worked with Google before and I’m a member of the Google Internet & Society Collaboratory.