Hopper Analytical - Innovation

Collective Intelligence Book Arrives

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:40:45 -0400

Today, the book Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace arrived on my doorstep. I am fortunate enough to be a contributing author. My chapter is entitled Empowering Individuals Towards Collective Online Production, and focuses on the paradoxical notion of the importance of individual motivation in effective online collaboration. Works from several of my personal heroes appear in this compendium, including Yochai Benkler, Doug Engelbart, Pierre Levy, Thomas Malone, Howard Rheingold, and David Weinberger. I simultaneously feel incredibly fortunate and remarkably unworthy of sharing a book jacket with the likes of these folks, but here it is.

Social Technology and the Future of News

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:54:57 -0400

Slides and links from my presentation at PRI's The World.

Subject: Social technology and emerging uses in news.
Date: 3/27/2008
Location: WGBH, Boston

Download Powerpoint presentation

Links:

Arduino Homing Device Prototype

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:01:02 -0400

And now, for something highly dorky.

I have begun to play with DIY electronics. This is principally because it's tremendous fun. You should try it. Seriously. The possibilities are endless.

Here is a video of a range test for my prototype homing device built with an Arduino microcontroller module and an XBee radio transceiver. The portable, handheld device cost me about $60 to make, but theoretically could be a lot less if you designed a PCB and didn't rely on prototyping components.

Short-term, I hope to join fellow Boston Dorkbot members to build on this prototype and construct a location-based game. Stay tuned...

My longer-term goal is to develop a standardized radio/micontroller platform on which to load and share user-oriented software applications (like the homing software shown here) for proximity-based device communications.

The range for the "homing device" seems to well exceed the 300' that the XBee specs claim. Cool.

Please send me suggestions for improvements, other ideas, etc.

Idea Engines

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:07:03 -0400

In a long anticipated move, idea submit & rate engines are finally catching some meme-like popularity. They're certainly easy to build. In a follow-up post, I will tear them to bits for the flaws they introduce and the assumptions we make around their utility.

They do poke at some interesting aspects of Collective Problem Solving. Here are three:

* IdeaStorm

* My Starbucks Idea

* Ubuntu Brainstorm

Clay Shirky Speaks about His New Book: "Here Comes Everybody"

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:38:17 -0500

I had the good fortune to hear Clay Shirky speak last night at Harvard Law School. The event was hosted by Harvard’s Berkman Center as a lead-up to their 10 year anniversary celebration. The event also coincided with the release of Clay’s new book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. Clay spent the majority of the discussion outlining the book. He began by pointing out that the book is not necessarily targeted to just the folks in the room (various flavors of webophile), but rather to a wider and more generalized audience. His argument for this was that "the web is no longer a decoration on society, but a challenge to it," meaning that usage and adoption of the Internet has become ubiquitious and integrated into how we do things to the level that for many of us, the Internet has become "the dashboard for our lives". So, theoretically, the book should have more universal readership.

I attempted to Twitter the presentation. I tried to capture his sound bites and cogent points, but Clay is a veritable font of wisdom and one-liners. I ended up with a serious case of twitterrhea. Below is a slightly cleaned up transcript of my tweats over the course of about an hour. Shirky direct quotes are in quotes. Everything else that isn’t labeled as my own thoughts [Ed:] can be attributed to Clay Shirky.

From Clay Shirky website: "If I had to describe what I write about, it would be "systems where vested interests lose out to innovation."

Historically, media innovations that allow two way communications produce active groups. Broadcast technology... not so good at this.

If Clay had to boil the book down to one bullet point = "Group Action Just Got Easier"

"Groups get complex faster than they get large" [Ed: i.e. the network effect, Reed’s Law, etc.]

The Internet acts as a prosthetic for existing group activity.

New social tools on the Internet make group connections ridiculously easy to form

Email was an afterthought of the Internet

"Reply all" was the Internet's first social feature

Curiously, once the technology gets boring, the social effects get interesting [Ed: by this, he means once the technology gets out of the way, becomes commonplace, and slides beneath the radar of awkward attention, then it becomes integrated into how we function as social creatures and the most interesting social effects of a technology begin to emerge]

"Me First Collaboration" = social effects that emerge from self-serving behavior, e.g. del.icio.us lets me store my bookmarks, but ultimately becomes useful to all [Ed: Or Google extracting social relevance from individually created links]

The annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade is an example where amateur photographers leveraged ad hoc online sharing (via flickr)

HDR photography as an example of using a flickr group to accelerate innovation through a community of practice (what used to take 8 years for a technology/process to emerge from lead users to professional process to documented practice to trade magazines to amateurs to shared understanding now takes weeks)

"every URL is a latent community"

"Sharing + conversation leaves a residue of instruction"

A comparison of a Buffy discussion board moving to a new platform is like a hermit crab changing its shell

Sharing -> Conversation -> Collaboration -> Collective Action are things that require increasing amounts of synchronization of group action.

"Thinking is for doing" [Ed: by this, he means that the purpose for human thought is so that we can then take action; quote attributed to someone I’ve forgotten] => "Publishing is for acting"

"Flashmobs are the Flagpole sitting of 2003"

"Nothing says dictatorship like arresting people for eating ice cream"

Ridiculously easy group-forming improves sharing, conversation, collaboration, and collective action

Behavioral economics states that social behavior online is more than just enlightened self-interest, for example, see the ultimatum game and the self-defeating individual act of punishing defectors

Irrational individual behavior spent towards generating social cohesion cannot justifiably be explained away by enlightened self-interest

Social technology can be used for more than just good… case in point, YM magazine shutting down their discussion boards because pro-anorexic girls were swapping practical tips

What’s the future of investigative journalism and its impact on smaller cities that can’t afford newspapers who have historically played this role? "I don't yet see a way that blogs can create sustained observation that stops civic corruption"

There are no good examples of long-term collective action - institutionalization becomes a problem over time

What works with collective action right now [to stimulate participation and worldwide attention] are surprises... but they are a wasting asset

Where individuals change their behavior BECAUSE they're members of the group is the key definer of collective action

"Immersive games get us out of the hell of continuous partial attention"

Boston Fab Lab

Wed, 6 Feb 2008 18:40:32 -0500

A couple years ago, I wrote about Neil Gershenfeld’s cool MIT Fab Lab (fabrication laboratory). On Monday I was fortunate enough to join the Boston Dorkbot crew for a tour of the Boston Fab Lab. I’ve posted a photoset of a few machines. Pictured are three computer-controlled prototyping machines, including a room-sized router, a micro-milling machine, and a laser cutter. Missing from the photos is a sign/vinyl cutter, several non-computer-controlled tools, and a nicely-outfitted electronics workbench.

The mission of the fab lab is a noble one: to empower creative people to make things with the assumption that, well, we’re all creative. Exposing individuals to commercial prototyping machines encourages people to explore, learn and have a significantly wider range of choices – both in what we might envision and make, but also in how we view the world and imagine our role in its future.

Shifting Tolerance in a Hybrid Economy

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 15:34:45 -0500

In a neighborhood near my home, there is a school playground with an enormous three story chain link fence along one side – presumably as a barrier for errant basketballs. The fence is constructed inches away from an adjacent home. I thought to myself "that would suck - I would probably rather have broken windows than live behind that huge fence". Then I thought of all sorts of examples of aggressive organizational behavior in our society that is tolerated, even though their behavior could easily be perceived as unfair or intrusive. I'm not suggesting that all business behavior is universally tolerated, but rather that their fundamental commercial presence is often quietly accepted. For example, we forgive the school's fence because we deem urban play areas for children are worth the tradeoffs. We also forgive Apple's fierce closedness, Google's ads, and Nike's ubiquitous branding. What's most interesting to me, however, is that we don't have a single standard for what is tolerated. There are some interesting nuances here. For example, I doubt my neighborhood would have tolerated a condo developer building a fence like that, and ubiquitous branding around your religion’s holiday is generally frowned upon.

Looking carefully at our culture's relationship to commerce, every business in some way lives on an unspoken agreement by the community to tolerate an incursive aspect of its existence (I'm presupposing that of course businesses provide meaningful value to customers ahead of their potentially invasive aspects).

Now consider our emerging hybrid economy. An organization operating in this new hybrid economy sits between the commercial economy of financial transactions and the sharing economy that thrives on free and open distribution of value (think of sharing as found within Wikipedia and Open Source Software). Take Google - a business operating in the hybrid economy with, among other things, YouTube. They rely on people openly sharing video content while they generate revenue from the accumulated eyeballs.

The emerging hybrid economy now shines the spotlight more brightly on a business’s tolerated behavior. If people don't embrace all aspects of a business, individuals might not just stop buying their products, they might stop sharing, which is an altogether new and potentially more disastrous fate. Rejection of a business would mean defection from its associated shared commons – to the detriment of society, not just specific product consumers.

The obvious question becomes then, how do you construct a business that leverages a hybrid economy without poisoning the sharing and good will? Where can these businesses carve out a profit and advantage around commercial behavior that is culturally tolerated? What specific aspects of hybrid businesses are required to facilitate social tolerance?

Has News Innovation Stalled?

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 13:55:09 -0400

Has news innovation stalled? The last decade has seen significant shifts in how news is created and delivered: grassroots publishing and online news aggregators for example have resulted in shifting advertising dollars and widespread panic in traditional mass media outlets. However, fresh approaches both in traditional media and in new media exploration has felt scarce as of late. Most of the recent thinking around news delivery involves slapping the latest social technology idea or delivery device onto a news outlet and calling it innovation. Or worse, a retreat into potential profitability through a focus on niche or hyperlocal audiences. Of course, some exceptions exist, but there is too much opportunity tied up in new technology and the shifting demands of the public to slow down the exploration of new ideas.

I think this lack of exploration is due to limitations in our assumptions about where to innovate. For example, participatory media means more than just tapping first-hand knowledge and citizen footage. Why can’t low-cost production tools be utilized by professional journalists as well as regular citizens? And what about the content itself - why do we assume short-form written articles or anchor-delivered video segments are the only relevant news vehicles? As the lines between producers and consumers of news blurs, can we forge partnerships based less on clearly defined roles and more on where creativity and power surround a specific story? Perhaps this requires organizational innovation and cooperative production that is merely enabled by emerging communications technology. Please stop with the same old approach repackaged on twitter from mobile phones via facebook. It's time to get original again folks.

The Next Big Concern in User Participation

Thu, 20 Jul 2006 22:51:12 -0400

Call the trend what you will: crowdsourcing, democratization, decentralization, the mechanical Turk. It all riffs on the fast-growing idea of extracting the value out of people’s voluntary participation online. When Web 2.0 was first identified as a hot new buzzword it was all about AJAX, web-based software, and the Internet as a platform. But that’s shifting – it now seems to really be about tapping user participation. We finally understand that the latest round of web innovation is not in the technology, it’s in the people. Web innovators are figuring out new ways of organizing people to get stuff done. And the world will never be the same. Unless you’ve been sleeping at the wheel, you’ve already read about this. I’m more interested in what people aren’t writing about… yet.

Now that innovators have built the big new participation sites, the next round of discussions will be about what's working and what’s not. There are at least three big craigslist copycats and a dozen content contributor networks. Everyone’s plugging in a wiki or trying to apply the wisdom of crowds, but soon there will be industry head scratching around which models appear most functional, and why. How do we best apply collective contributions to create value? One person likes the model of EBay while another thinks Wikipedia is the answer, but no one model is probably better than another at its core.

The realization I am coming to is that each bottom-up business problem is unique and demands its own participatory framework. Each way of inviting user contribution begs a different model. How should we best incentivize our members? Should we expose peer ratings? List with ranking algorithms? Offer Tagging? Abuse flags? Meritocracies? What about contextual advertising? How can we best avoid gaming?

The participatory feature set is exploding. The concerns are new, but the decisions are still critical. This is a brave new world, and not many have figured it out yet. Those that do will win this round. Those that understand the deeper patterns will win in the long run.

The History of User Participation

Sun, 9 Jul 2006 13:56:12 -0400

About a year ago, the subjects of user-driven value creation and distributed amateur participation had only the beginnings of popular interest. To be fair, these ideas had already been explored aggressively by academics like Eric Von Hippel and had popped up in blog posts by pundits like Chris Anderson, but most of the popular thinking was only notes in the margins of larger and more familiar success stories. These initial successes, such as open source software development, paved the way for more modern ideas by triggering important realizations in the eyes of those that saw their ground breaking potential.

The curious success of Open Source Software Development got a lot of people wondering how they too could build software for free. A million Wikipedia entries helped us realize that fantastic content assets could be built by strangers scattered across the globe. Flickr and YouTube reminded us that content wasn’t only text. The rise of social networks like Friendster and Myspace showed that value can be in the connections as well as the content. The value in phenomena like tagging and Google’s search algorithm taught us that intelligent solutions can emerge from aggregate participation. User-driven product reviews on sites like Amazon nudged us to see that seas of people may be willing to expend valuable effort for reasons other than cold, hard cash. Posing as the poster child for The Long Tail, Amazon also created collective head-scratching around the potential of a million individually-driven niche markets and the idea of selling less of more.

Of course the list continues. Since I began writing on this topic about a year ago, several high visibility events have heralded in the age of the participant. But more on that in another post…

Whistle While You Work

Fri, 12 May 2006 11:13:01 -0400

Great Business Week article zooming in on the happiness factor of innovation and (yeah!) trashing traditional innovation rhetoric. Death to creativity consulting processes! Incidently, the article was written by Diego Rodriguez from Metacool.

The Pro-Am Revolution

Wed, 8 Mar 2006 21:48:13 -0500

Links to popular writings on The Pro-Am Revolution are long overdue. Here's a good lead-in post on The Long Tail and the real meat of the pro-am diet can be found in Demo UK's Downloadable book (PDF).

The Pro-Ams (Professional Amateurs) are "innovative, committed and networked amateurs working to professional standards." Pro-ams threaten to overthrow the entrenched professionals and corporations who once held undisputed control of our economy. Due to many factors, such as the plummeting costs of creative production and easy access to knowledge and distribution through the Internet, the popularity of pro-am activities and its subsequent recognition has grown significantly. There are many successful examples providing inspiration for burgeoning amateurs world-wide, such as the adoption of open source software and amateur astronomical contributions to eBay storefronts, blogging, and myriad innovative web solutions emerging from the social network of the web.

More Links:
BBC Article
Institute for the Future

Worldchanging.org

Wed, 1 Mar 2006 12:39:16 -0500

"Many of the solutions I and my colleagues seek out and write up have some important aspects in common: transparency, collaboration, an appreciation of science and a willingness to experiment. The majority of models, tools and ideas posted on WorldChanging encompass combinations of these characteristics."
- Jamais Cascio @ worldchanging.org from his TED Conference "Earthphone Speech"
Worldchanging.org

Electroplankton Noodling as Democratized Creativity

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 11:01:34 -0500

Wired just published an article on how Nintendo's new Electroplankton audio creativity game/tool represents a creativity toolkit for a new generation of audiophiles. The article compares the nascent audio tool to the word processing and Photoshop revolutions of the 80s and 90s, begrudging the imminent sea of mediocre amateur song output, yet heralding a future where this tool inspires a new level of audio fluency. Good or bad, I'm loving that Wired is writing about my passion.

Amateur Revolution

Sun, 5 Feb 2006 16:42:54 -0500

Another article has popped up today on amateur innovation. The authors make a case for the rising tide of digital content producers threatening established media companies being a sort-of post-napster Act II.

The majority of the article deals with the battleground of digital copyright law. An interesting point arises about government regulation interrupting innovation in an emerging technology landscape; making the case that iTunes would not have existed without unauthorized file sharing paving the way.

I'm most interested in what the rise of this empowered amateur will create:
"...distinctions between those who consume and those who create are disappearing"

In a point that I believe Nicolas also alludes to, if creative production helps drive our economy, how will widespread individual contributions distributed and adopted instantaneously through the net ultimately change the shape of organizations, business, and the very way stuff gets done?