Only Dead Fish

From Linear to Organic

 
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"Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution" Clay Shirky

I saw Sir Ken Robinson speak last year in London. It was without exception the best talk I've ever been to. Witty, erudite, fun, insightful and hugely compelling. A version of it has just been posted as a TED talk in which Sir Ken asserts the need to move away from an industrial, manufacturing model of education based on linearity, conformity and 'batching' people (sound familiar?), toward a model which is based more on principles of agriculture that sees human flourishing as an organic rather than mechanical process. You cannot predict the outcome of human development, says Sir Ken, all you can do is create the conditions under which it will flourish.

Which reminded me of this typically erudite post by JP Rangaswami on the desire for predictability in business. Quoting from The Power of Pull, he lists a number of beliefs and assumptions (what I might call Toxic Assumptions) that make up 'the philosophy of push'. Principles that have been the basis of management and economics thinking for the best part of a century:

• There's not enough to go around
• Elites do the deciding
• Organisations must be hierarchical
• People must be molded
• Bigger is better
• Resources can be allocated centrally
• Demand can be forecast
• Demand can be met

It is these last two that are particularly interesting since "institutions, particularly 'push' institutions, have grown up on the mother's milk of predictability, of smoothed-out forecasts, of a level of precision that is no longer sustainable in a 'pull' world." So organisations go to exceptional lengths to turn things that are  fundamentally unpredictable into something that is somehow more predictable, beginning with attempts to control the market (have a monopoly), and if that's not possible to control the customer, and if that's not possible to at least convince themselves that they have predictability (through habit, ritual and process), and as a last resort to try to convince others of predictability whilst not being convinced themselves.

And inevitably this leads to the 'planning horizon problem'. The incredible levels of precision in planning and outcome increasingly demanded by business militate against any concept of agility. A quality that I feel has never been more important in business and communication process. Sir Ken points out that real change is not about scaling a new solution born of the same thinking, its about creating a movement in which people create their own solutions but with external support. This theme of facilitation as opposed to destination is a point I believe many companies still miss. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb said: 'Make an omelette with the broken eggs'.

The Empathic Civilization

 
A few weeks ago I saw economist and author Jeremy Rifkin speak on his new book The Empathic Civilization at the RSA. It was a sweeping, provocative but affecting discourse on the nature of empathy.

Rifkin framed his argument within the context of two spectacular failures: the shut-off of the global economic engine that followed the price of oil rising to an unprecedented $147 a barrel in July 2008 precipitated by growing demand for diminishing fossil fuels from both the developed world and emerging economies ("That was the earthquake that tore asunder the industrial age built on and propelled by fossil fuels. The failure of the financial markets two months later was merely the aftershock"), and the failure of world leaders to reach accord in addressing the accumulated legacy of the fossil fuel age in Copenhagen, December 2009.

The real crisis, he argues, lies in the enlightenment thinking spawned over 200 years ago at the dawn of the modern market economy. Thinking that champions unlimited material progress, and assumes human beings' essential nature to be utilitarian, rational, detached, autonomous, acquisitive:

"If human nature is as the Enlightenment philosophers claimed, then we are likely doomed. It is impossible to imagine how we might create a sustainable global economy and restore the biosphere to health if each and every one of us is, at the core of our biology, an autonomous agent and a self-centered and materialistic being."

Yet recent scientific research into child development and brain science (including the discovery of Mirror-neurons) suggests that rather than being softwired for self-interest, utilitarianism, and aggression our natural tendency is toward sociability, attachment and companionship and that the first drive is the drive to belong. Rifkin talked about the expansion of empathy from blood ties, to religious ties, to ones based on national identity and then asks whether it is such a stretch to imagine that new connective technologies could enable us to make the leap to a connected, global empathic consciousness such as that which is now required if we are to resurrect the global economy and revitalize the biosphere. The pivotal turning points in human consciousness occur, he says, when new energy regimes converge with new communications revolutions. The distributed, networked internet combined with distributed, renewable energies make possible a sustainable, post-carbon economy that is both globally connected and locally managed.

"The information communication technologies (ICT) revolution is quickly extending the central nervous system of billions of human beings and connecting the human race across time and space, allowing empathy to flourish on a global scale, for the first time in history."

Rifkin believes that we have to rethink the human narrative. That connective technologies give us the opportunity to do just that. And that a younger generation is fast extending its empathic embrace beyond our legacy, artificial boundaries to include the whole of humanity and the "vast project of life that envelops the Earth". I hope so. I certainly believe that we have yet to appreciate a fraction of the meaning or potential behind a world with a wholly unprecedented level of connection between people (and things). Some highlights of Rifkin's talk are captured in the short film below, in the style of the RSA's excellent animate series. It's ten minutes well-spent.

Giving Away Footballs

I was going to write about something else today, but then I get an e-mail from Paul who left his job several years ago to found my favourite charity - The Great Football Giveaway . They're not a big corporate NGO, but a small group of people who simply want to make a difference, and what they do is inspiring. Each year they run a project to hand deliver thousands of footballs, pumps and spare valves to some of the world's most disadvantaged children, schools and orphanages in countries like Malawi, Uganda and Angola. Distributing the footballs not only spreads a little happiness, but it dramatically increases attendance levels to the schools that have them.

Paul wrote to let me know that this year they are launching a new type of project in rural Tanzania, giving small groups of volunteers the chance to run their own 'micro-projects'. So later this year, there will be 10 teams of volunteers going to some of the remotest parts of Tanzania to personally deliver over 6,000 footballs and netballs on behalf of friends, families and supporters. I think it's a wonderful thing that in the year that the World Cup comes to the continent, the project will be reaching more African children than ever. Children who will see no benefit from the billions spent in South Africa.

And they have just invested some time to launch themselves onto the social web. So stop what you're doing, and go and help spread some real happiness. Watch the film. Follow them on twitter. Like them on Facebook. Subscribe to the blog. Buy a football. It will be a good thing you're doing.

The Marshmallow Challenge

Johnny posted a fascinating TED talk by Tom Wujec that touches on some themes that I've talked about before, as well as some valuable lessons on collaboration. Tom has run more than 70 design workshops around the world with a variety of audiences from Fortune 50 CTO's, to business school graduates, to kindergarten children, and featuring an exercise called The Marshmallow Challenge. I'll not spoil the talk, but suffice to say that one of the most interesting lessons is demonstrated by the fact that kindergarten children outperformed the business school graduates by some margin in the task, brilliantly illustrating (as Johnnie also points out) the creative limitations of much business thinking, habits and training. I'm running a workshop on innovation this week and I'm going to try this out...

The Diaspora Project

 
Yesterday I invested in a tech start-up for the first time. The Diaspora Project is self-described as "the privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open source social network" and is on a mission to decentralise the social web and put users back in control of their personal data.

Started by four NYU computer science students, the new platform will operate via a distributed network of user's own computers (called "seeds") that connect to each other directly rather than going through centralised servers (like Facebook does). This means that users can aggregate their own and other streams of content in a similar way to Friendfeed, but retain far more control over their own data. As you'd expect the code is going to be released under an open-source software license (aGPL) and there will be a plug-in framework.

Diaspora is interesting for two reasons. In the first instance because of all the questions that are being asked about the complexity of Facebook's privacy settings and how far they have shifted in their treatment of user data. Danah Boyd wrote a typically comprehensive and articulate rant (which is an excellent read) on exactly why Facebook need to be far more transparent than they have been on the issue of user privacy: "The battle that is underway is not a battle over the future of privacy and publicity. It’s a battle over choice and informed consent." I get that we have a choice, and that protecting our data is to a large extent up to us, but I think she makes a good point. It's about informed choices.

Diaspora is also interesting in how it came about and the fact that it is now getting some serious attention from investors. Funding for the project is being crowdsourced through Kickstarter. The initial funding target was $10,000, but at time of writing they have secured funding worth $173,000 from 4,700 separate backers including (apparently) some fairly big names in the tech industry (and also me). And there is still over two weeks to go until the funding deadline.

The point is not whether it will succeed or not, the point is that it is there at all. And that it might do. And if it does it could scale quickly. It is a project born of four computer science students. Four guys who were building a Makerbot who started talking about what a distributed social network might look like. Four guys who noticed that the application they needed didn't exist, so they stopped talking about it and started building it. They "set out to fill the hole in our digital lives".

"With Diaspora, we are reclaiming our data, securing our social connections, and making it easy to share on your own terms. We think we can replace today's centralized social web with a more secure and convenient decentralized network."

For all those large, incumbent media businesses out there, this is your new competition. Young people who want to fill the holes in their digital lives and have the knowledge, enthusiasm and capability to do just that. If you ever doubted the need for your business to operate differently, to be far more agile than it currently is - there's your answer, right there.

This post builds on one I wrote about Diaspora over on The Wall Blog.

Think Video Keynote

So, yesterday I gave a keynote at a Google video event which featured an interesting line up of speakers followed by a good panel moderated by Matt Brittin, the UK MD. It was a lot of fun doing it. Google have kindly allowed me to put my presentation up here. It touches on many of the themes about which I've been obsessing lately plus some points that I've made before, but which I still think many media organisations are missing. My thanks to the people at Google for inviting me to be a part of it.

You Tube Think Video Keynote

View more presentations from Neil Perkin.

A Story About The Semantic Web

This is a fascinating 15 minute documentary on the semantic web, notable for its stellar interviewees including Tim Berners-Lee, Clay Shirky, Chris Dixon, David Weinberger, and Nova Spivack. Despite the massive potential behind the huge surfeit of data on the web, we still have to work hard to properly integrate and interpret it. The promise behind the semantic web is that it adds extra information to the links between stuff to add meaning to information so that links become relationships and data is contextualised.

But there's a really interesting discussion going on here between those that believe that the semantic web needs structures and ontologies and those who, like Clay Shirky, believe that what the semantic web is attempting to do is subvert the notion of making machines think like people, into the idea of describing the world in terms that machines are good at thinking about. The question that asks, says Clay, is whether it is possible to describe the world (or even sub-domains of the world) unambiguously, and in terms that most people will agree with? In other words, does the world make sense, or do we make sense of the world?

If the web is a subset of humans connected, then it is inevitable that it is a messy place, so the idea of a 'sloppy' or 'scruffy' semantic web - one where a little structure, combined with human intelligence, goes a long way - kind of makes more sense to me. Either way, its promise remains beyond our current imagination. "If we end up building all the things I can imagine", says TBL, "we will have failed". Fascinating stuff.

Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.

Convergence

 

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I'm giving a keynote at a YouTube event this week and as part of the prep for it I've been thinking about interfaces, prompted in part by John's excellent reviews of the iPad as TV, only more so. The launch of the iPad has already been pretty successful. Carl Howe asserted that, at less than 120 days since announcement, it will "likely take the crown for the fastest consumer product growth to the $1 billion revenue mark in history". Grant McCracken neatly identified the role that unique situational and cognitive contexts play in helping the iPad find its own market somewhere between the smart phone and the laptop, splitting the difference between those existing categories whilst respecting the way the consumer views modes of entertainment, recreation and contemplation:

"The iPad critics can't see this third space because they work from a utilitarian point of view.  For them, iPad will create economic value only if it solves practical problems.  But Apple has always seen the economic proposition as a cultural one, as an opportunity to speak to the entire consumer in all of his or her complexity, not just the problem solver."

It's a device that combines a screen large enough screen to comfortably watch long-form video content, with a personal feel and portability akin to mobile, and interactivity like a PC (only better). (Good) touch interfaces are simply more intuitive, more inviting, more fun. If you doubt that, watch this video of a two and a half year old making short shrift of getting to know an iPad (HT to John):

In Convergence Culture (one of my favourite books on media and culture), Henry jenkins talks about the 'Black Box' fallacy, the common argument that sooner or later all media content will flow through a single black box that sits in our living rooms or that we carry around with us, when actually convergence is more about content and people than it is about technology. The book describes a model of media defined by Lisa Gitelman that works on two levels: a medium is a technology that enables communication but it is also a set of associated 'protocols' - social and cultural practices that have grown up around that technology. Delivery systems, as technologies, may come and go. But media are also cultural systems, so the more interesting aspect of new technologies is the shift in protocols that they facilitate.

"Convergence does not depend on any specific delivery mechanism, rather, convergence represents a paradigm shift - a move from medium-specific content toward content that flows across multiple media channels, toward the interdependence of communication systems, toward multiple ways of accessing media content, and toward ever more complex relations between top down corporate media and bottom up participatory culture."

It's tempting to view the iPad in the terms of a technologically convergent device and to a degree it is. But this ignores its cultural significance, and rather than think about what it might replace it's better to get excited about how it might change the relationship people have with their media. Taking TV into new situational contexts, like John proposes. Or different ways of bridging the digital and real world in ways that our smartphones haven't been able, maybe through gaming as Paul suggests. Or new ways of bringing alive direct interaction with video content through a touch interface, perhaps using technologies like Annotations, like the example below (remember the ad agency with no website?)

A medium's content, audience and even its social status may shift, but they are rarely replaced. As Jenkins says, "Old media are not being displaced. Rather, their functions and status are shifted by the introduction of new technologies."

Post Of The Month - Aril 2010 - The Winner

 
Close race this month between Faris's excellent 'Digital Decade' and Bud Caddell's post on 'Getting Serious About Changing Behaviours' but in the end it was Faris that pipped it (just). Well done Faris. You get the props of your blogging peers and are entered into the ThinkTank Hall Of Fame. Don't forget to bookmark your good reads for next months nominations, and thanks again to everyone for taking part.

Post Of The Month - April 2010 - The Vote

Thanks for the nominations everyone. Another strong shortlist this month, and our vote is between:

A Decade Of Digital from Faris Yakob for The Marketing Society

8 Sins Of Nu Marketing Folks from Asi Sharabi

Thinking About Innovation from Noah Brier

If Data Is The New Oil, We Need A Bigger Drill by Simon Kendrick

Talked About Advertising from Steve Henry

Information Architecture For News Websites by Stijn Debrouwere

Getting Serious About Changing Behaviours from Bud Caddell

Selfish Is As Selfish Doesn't by Ken Robert

And you can vote below: