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{ Category Archives } Social Impact

Dueling philosophies: social media vs. knowledge management

Venkat Rao of Xerox recently introduced an important argument about the underlying differences between social media and knowledge management approaches inside the Enterprise. Here’s the way I described them at delicious. Both are worth a look, a read, and some thought.
Enterprise 2.0 Blog » Blog Archive » Social Media vs. Knowledge Management: A Generational War [...]

Why do we continue to tolerate DRM?

The great folks at xkcd sharply summarize the fundamental problem with DRM (digital restrictions management in my view). I continue to be bewildered by the disconnects between the current legal environment, technological reality, and the pragmatic reality of making actual use of digital content.
Steal This Comic

Steal This ComicMon, 13 Oct 2008 04:00:00 [...]

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Tracing links to insight

An excellent example this morning of the wonderfully organic way that our evolving social and technological environment supports learning and sharing. I checked out Twitter this morning by way of TweetDeck and found this item from Liz Strauss:
I trust Liz so I check out Saul Colt on Twitter and go from there to his [...]

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Michael Wesch’s anthropological introduction to YouTube

[cross posted at FastForward Blog]
All the people whose opinions I trust have been recommending Michael Weschs most recent effort, An anthropological introduction to YouTube. Its a presentation he delivered in June at he Library of Congress. It will take you an hour, but it is definitely time and attention well spent. Wesch and his students [...]

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Thinkers you should know – danah boyd

Here’s a 14 minute video interview with danah boyd, who’s been working on a Ph.D. for the past several years at the Berkeley School of Information. She’s focused on understanding social networks and their interplay with youth culture. The video is an excellent introduction to her work. I’ve found her blog, Apophenia, a source of [...]

When does technology stop being technology?

I’ve frequently used Alan Kay’s definition of technology as “anything that was invented after you were born”. The following perspectives from the late Douglas Adams and from Bran Ferren are richer and perhaps more useful.
I found this material originally from Jenny Levine, The Shifted Librarian, who’s been following these issues for as long as I [...]

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Quechup is rotten: don’t accept invites

I got caught by one of these. My apologies to any of the (fortunately) small number of people in my gmail address book who might have been subsequently spammed by me.

Quechup is rotten: don’t accept invites

As blogged here yesterday:
While you were Burning / vacationing / spacing out offline this Labor Day weekend, [...]

More insights from Hans Rosling at TED 2007

Someday I will find a way to attend a TED conference. In the meantime, I hugely appreciate that they are making videos of the conference available to mere mortals. Hans Rosling returns for an encore to his 2006 performance (which I blogged about last year about this time) to offer new insights to be gleaned from statistics about health, [...]

Charles Stross on some possible futures

I’ve been a fan of Charlie Stross’s science fiction since I discovered it. Here’s a transcript of a talk he gave recently in Munich trying to tease out the potential implications in some pretty straightforward predictions about near-term technology change. As Larry Niven once observed, “Good science fiction writers predict cars: Great science fiction writers predict [...]

On the limits of intellectual property – Spider Robinson’s ‘Melancholy Elephants’

“Melancholy Elephants” provides powerful insight into the relation between an intellectual commons, the creation of news works of art, and the potential unintended consequences of perpetual copyright. It turns out that I’ve pointed to this story in the early days of this blog. It’s well worth reading again.
Spider Robinson’s Hugo-winning “Melancholy Elephants” online
Cory Doctorow: Spider [...]