Category: Culture

I’ve started blogging over at The Satori Lab

Here is an excerpt of my first post and a link to the rest of the article:

A few months ago, listening to BBC Radio 4, I heard a government minister use a word, or one of its derivatives, well over 48 times in a four minute segment. Well, I only started counting after I had heard it half a dozen times and I stopped counting at 48, but the barrage continued. The word in question: innovation. The problem was, not one of the instances where the word was used had anything to do with real innovation. The word was being loosely employed to denote some aspiration for newness or a mild departure from previous practice.

We have a habit of doing this with brilliant meaningful words and phrases. Casually employing them inappropriately with the effect that we drift from their true meaning and devalue them over time. Take public consultations for example. A beautiful idea in principle, that we should engage in a meaningful discussion between state and the citizenry before some policy suggestion becomes a reality for said citizens. Yet what we get is 180 page documents written in some impenetrable language that is only accessible to lobbyists and their lawyers. And then we scratch our heads wondering where the trust between the citizen and her government has gone…

Read the rest of this post.

Open Data in Local Government

Instance linkages within the Linking Open Data...
Image via Wikipedia

A few weeks ago I saw Chris Taggart of Openly Local talking about open data at OpenTech2010.  In recent days I’ve found myself with the opportunity to inform the thinking, of senior managers in a Local Authority context, about open data.  I am particularly taken by the way that Chris approaches the issue of risk aversion by managing to to frame the public sector taboo of failure as an opportunity to progress through failing forward.

I will certainly be using this presentation, with a view to that opening the door for us to get Chris himself, to articulate the opportunities that open data  present to a reform minded public body.

Open Data & The Rewards of Failure

View more presentations from countculture.
In aid of my ammunition gathering mission, if you have any thoughts on this subject, or indeed any ideas for further resources I might call on, please make use of the comments below, or contact me directly.
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#iranelection cyberwar guide for beginners

The purpose of this guide is to help you participate constructively in the Iranian election protests through twitter.

  1. Do NOT publicise proxy IP’s over twitter, and especially not using the #iranelection hashtag.  Security forces are monitoring this hashtag, and the moment they identify a proxy IP they will block it in Iran.  If you are creating new proxies for the Iranian bloggers, DM them to @stopAhmadi or @iran09 and they will distributed them discretely to bloggers in Iran.
  2. Hashtags, the only two legitimate hashtags being used by bloggers in Iran are #iranelection and #gr88, other hashtag ideas run the risk of diluting the conversation.
  3. Keep you bull$hit filter up!  Security forces are now setting up twitter accounts to spread disinformation by posing as Iranian protesters.  Please don’t retweet impetuosly, try to confirm information with reliable sources before retweeting.  The legitimate sources are not hard to find and follow.
  4. Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30.  Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches.  If we all become ‘Iranians’ it becomes much harder to find them.
  5. Don’t blow their cover! If you discover a genuine source, please don’t publicise their name or location on a website.  These bloggers are in REAL danger. Spread the word discretely through your own networks but don’t signpost them to the security forces. People are dying there, for real, please keep that in mind.
  6. Denial of Service attacks. If you don’t know what you are doing, stay out of this game. Only target those sites the legitimate Iranian bloggers are designating.  Be aware that these attacks can have detrimental effects to the network the protesters are relying on.  Keep monitoring their traffic to note when you should turn the taps on or off.
  7. Do spread the (legitimate) word, it works!  When the bloggers asked for twitter maintenance to be postponed using the #nomaintenance tag, it had the desired effect. As long as we spread good information, provide moral support to the protesters, and take our lead from the legitimate bloggers, we can make a constructive contribution.

Please remember that this is about the future of the Iranian people, while it  might be exciting to get caught up in the flow of participating in a new meme, do not lose sight of what this is really about.

UPDATE: Part 2 of this guide is now published.

A bright future for the spoken word…

Today I had lunch with a fascinating man…

He is a man with a passion for the spoken word, and a vision for how the fading oral traditions from around world will have a place to explode back into our consciousness, and feed a void that grows within us.

We now have the potential to connect with an infinite pool of like minded people without consideration for geographic boundaries or distance…  Social media can connect us to the people we need to engage with in a way inconceivable not a decade ago.  With new technology we develop new social skills, fitting for the society and tools we constantly evolve.

But what of the old society, what of the old skills, what of the old traditions that formed  the social human as it is now?

We talked of Saxon halls, Celtic roundhouses, and Scandinavian longhouses. Those altars where the basis for modern human communication evolved.   We discussed ritual, discourse, poetry, theatre and debate.  The forms of communication that, each in its own right, expanded the horizons of the human within and the potential of society evolve to the beyond.

image credit wili_hybrid - http://www.flickr.com/photos/wili/
image credit wili_hybrid - http://www.flickr.com/photos/wili/

I was reminded of a very dear friend, decendant of the shamanic traditions,  dismissed by a modern society as defunct and a lost cause.  He can be found most days anaesthetised from his rejection through the medium of booze.  Yet he is a keeper of all of the traditions that have brought us to this amazing present.  And in our modern connected online utopia we no longer value him…

A long time ago we sat around the fire in a circle and shared stories.  Now we tweet and blog them without ever needing to make eye contact.  It is the cherishing, the traditions, the forms, and the practice of the spoken word that have brought us from the fire to where we are now.

And the man I had lunch with today, he has a grand vision for the spoken word.  That its traditions be preserved, propagated, taught, championed, housed, and celebrated.  In some years time, when this vision has been realised, I know which fire I will be heading for.

The man I had lunch with today…, his name is William Ayot, and you will hear his name again.

DS4 International Digital Storytelling Festival – 17 June – Wales

DS4, the fourth annual International Festival of Digital Storytelling, is back with a vengance.

Acknowledged by the BBC’s Gareth Morlais (read his blog here!) to be one of the two ‘must attend’ gatherings in the calendar for practitioners or fans of Digital Storytelling, DSCymru looks forward to welcoming you to Aberystwyth in beautiful west Wales for a day of inspirational speakers, educational workshops, and invaluable networking time.

Programme details and online registration can be found at the festival website.

Featuring an excellent line-up including Bonnie Shaw from snap-shot-city and one of the most inspiring online community building outfits out there; adventure creator Annette Mees of Coney fame; and the wild man of digital storytelling himself, the inimitable Huw Davies who was (almost) tamed by the BBC, released into the wild, and now he’s back to report on his adventures!

I’m looking forward to seeing some of you in Aberystwyth!

Building Gods

When humans are limited to thinking in three dimensions, and robots develop the capacity to conceive of things in as many as ten or twenty dimensions… how do we reason with them?

When humans are limited to thinking in three dimensions, and robots develop the capacity to conceive of things in as many as ten or twenty dimensions… how do we reason with them?

A Philosopher, a Theologian, a Brain Builder, and a Cyborg discuss the potential implications for humanity when the technology we have evolved surpasses humans in super-intelligence and ability.

Ken Gumbs’ film certainly makes us question whether the discourse on the regulation of technological advancement is keeping apace with the implications that our progress will inevitable have on us a species in the future…

RSA – Clay Shirky – 18 March 2008

Clay Shirky 18 March 2008

Here Comes Everybody: the power of organising without organistions

Clay Shirky’s lucid and penetrating analysis will steer us through the online social explosion and ask what happens when people are given the tools to do things together, without needing traditional organisational structures.

via RSA – Clay Shirky – 18 March 2008.