I witnessed something interesting this morning at breakfast. (I am in a hotel in Columbus, OH). Normally people who know each other share tables, and most of the conversation tends to happen in those groups. Today, however, a conversation suddenly sprung up across tables. In fact several tables joined in. That is something we do not often see. The topic of course was the Wall Street bail out. (There I go, I too am using the word - 'bail out'. There was some comment somewhere this morning about how the choice of that particular word evokes a particular emotion and therefore influences choice.) It got me wondering - Here were people, perhaps strangers, spontaneously jumping into a discussion. There was more than interest - there was a passion, they all had a common base of information of course, and somehow they must have felt it safe to share opinion on something so potentially polarizing. Perhaps, people are more interested in finding a solution than hanging on to their positions here.
Jonathan Haigt, has an interesting talk posted on TED, about the differences between the left and right in politics, about the stereotypes and where they come from. He identifies five basic attributes, that are common across all cultures in the world, and how people differ in those attributes. He then comes to an interesting conclusion, about how people in the East reconcile their polarizing beliefs into an inclusive approach to reality. In any case, that is a must watch in my opinion. (While you are there, you might also want to look at Steven Pinker's talk on "The Blank Slate").
I have edited my post yesterday a couple of times since I put it out there. I have now decided to change that cryptic I came up with to X~N.g. This I believe is the more general form. The engineer and architect in me still cringes at doing anything that is not timeless in some way. That might be anathema to the way we think things should be done today. But, that I believe is a misunderstanding about what it means to architect. However futile the effort to build timeless things might be, I do believe that the notion of realizing purpose in a sustainable manner, requires giving thought to the notion of what might happen in future. OK now, before I digress too much into favorite topics such as architecture, and purpose, let me get back to the X~N.g. It occurred to me that the key idea behind that cryptic is transformation. What interests us in any of these discussions is the impact a new technology or any driver for that matter, will potentially have on the system X. The more transformational that impact, the more interesting it is.
If collaboration among people is what we are interested in, then it is those aspects of the system X, that the technology can hope to impact. Systems are notorious in the fact that one driver alone will not get you the transformation, though it could make a big difference under certain circumstances. That is where the fun begins.
Monday, September 29, 2008
I have been reading this book by Axel Bruns - "Blogs, Wikis, Second Life and Beyond" (http://snurb.info/) . I will probably review the book at some point of time, since I think it is exceptional. Unlike some of the popular books on these topics, here is a book that provides a deeper conceptual framework. Even though the frameworks I came up with are probably not in the book, they were clearly prompted or provoked by it. Several other recent books have provided what now is starting to form in terms of a more complete understanding of what is going on. A book called "The difference" by Scott Page is among them as is Infotopia.
One outcome of this understanding - a new cryptic thing I included in my signature block today. X~n.g. Replace X by Web and n by 2 and you will perhaps start seeing what I mean. What is intriguing is the '~' sign. Why would you say Web~2.0, when the world says Web2.0. Let me suggest you try something else. Replace X with "Enterprise", or "Supply Chain", or "fashion" and you might see what I am trying to capture here.
The n.g might become something else tomorrow - 3.1, 4.0.... Perhaps the 'g' should be replaced by '0', but that doesn't really add significantly to the meaning of what I am trying to convey. Whatever be the stage of evolution of the technology (it could infact be any other driver), what we are interested in is the intersection of that development with something else, the "X".
The "~" communicates something more too. I believe it incorporates in its waviness a certain ambiguity, an openness in terms of the potential of the intersection. The intersection of a particular stage of evolution of a technology, a certain paradigm, is different for different X'es. The X'es we are interested in are typically complex systems themselves. Which is one of the reasons that the intersections are interesting. I will touch upon this aspect some other time, but I think that itself, the notion of understanding systems, and their dynamics, and particularly their dynamics in the context of the intersection is what we really need to grasp, in order to make complete sense of any new phenomenon.
One last point - going back to the "~" - in its indeterminacy the symbol is in my mind loaded. It incorporates in the interesection dynamic, our frameworks, heuristics, beliefs and preferences. This Point of View (POV), has its own role to play in the shape this intersection will take.
Much has been written about the Web 2.0 phenomenon. A lot of the literature communicates awe and revels in overwhelming the reader with the cornucopia of forms and terms. Social bookmarks, tagging, folksonomies, collective intelligence, the wisdom of crowds, hive mind and so on. You are then left to make sense of it all. There definitely are some who go beyond this populist approach and provide insight. I think Axel Bruns is one of them.
Human Sociality has certain fundamental attributes. Several of those traits remain foundational, even as new forms emerge as we move sociality to new virtual spaces. An understanding of Sociality therefore is a must, before we start understanding the intersection.
One outcome of this understanding - a new cryptic thing I included in my signature block today. X~n.g. Replace X by Web and n by 2 and you will perhaps start seeing what I mean. What is intriguing is the '~' sign. Why would you say Web~2.0, when the world says Web2.0. Let me suggest you try something else. Replace X with "Enterprise", or "Supply Chain", or "fashion" and you might see what I am trying to capture here.
The n.g might become something else tomorrow - 3.1, 4.0.... Perhaps the 'g' should be replaced by '0', but that doesn't really add significantly to the meaning of what I am trying to convey. Whatever be the stage of evolution of the technology (it could infact be any other driver), what we are interested in is the intersection of that development with something else, the "X".
The "~" communicates something more too. I believe it incorporates in its waviness a certain ambiguity, an openness in terms of the potential of the intersection. The intersection of a particular stage of evolution of a technology, a certain paradigm, is different for different X'es. The X'es we are interested in are typically complex systems themselves. Which is one of the reasons that the intersections are interesting. I will touch upon this aspect some other time, but I think that itself, the notion of understanding systems, and their dynamics, and particularly their dynamics in the context of the intersection is what we really need to grasp, in order to make complete sense of any new phenomenon.
One last point - going back to the "~" - in its indeterminacy the symbol is in my mind loaded. It incorporates in the interesection dynamic, our frameworks, heuristics, beliefs and preferences. This Point of View (POV), has its own role to play in the shape this intersection will take.
Much has been written about the Web 2.0 phenomenon. A lot of the literature communicates awe and revels in overwhelming the reader with the cornucopia of forms and terms. Social bookmarks, tagging, folksonomies, collective intelligence, the wisdom of crowds, hive mind and so on. You are then left to make sense of it all. There definitely are some who go beyond this populist approach and provide insight. I think Axel Bruns is one of them.
Human Sociality has certain fundamental attributes. Several of those traits remain foundational, even as new forms emerge as we move sociality to new virtual spaces. An understanding of Sociality therefore is a must, before we start understanding the intersection.
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