Working on a wicked project right now, watching the pieces come together. More will be revealed on Monday, but for now this song expresses my excitement level pretty well.
One of my all time favorite people watching experiences is to go food shopping at the Safeway on Mother’s day morning. Every dad in the neighborhood has dragged their uncooperative progeny in the hopeful attempt to salvage a Mother’s Day breakfast. It is a site to behold. Kids screaming, father’s panicking, helium balloons being let loose in the store… Even if you’re not a parent this is worth checking out. I, of course, participate and like anything I do, it always more satisfying to do it 100%. So, I take a few extra steps to ensure I get the full experience.
Give the kids a little sugar before heading to the market
Only bring one toy and expect them to share
Promise to get them the shopping cart with the cool car attached knowing that it will already be taken
Walk slowly down the candy isle several times without buying anything
Check and recheck shopping list while muttering “I know I’m forgetting something”
Anyways, from me to all the Dads out there doing there best to survive an extremely hostile and unfamiliar situation (imagine landing in Bosnia under heavy gunfire like Hilary Clinton did), Father’s Day is almost here. Remember to clear your bubbles in combat conditions.
Clay Shirky is talking about the idea of a social surplus. At the start of the industrial revolution people spent a generation drunk on gin because they didn’t know what to do with the massive changes in society, since the end of WWII we’ve been watching sitcoms.
The transformation from rural to urban life was so sudden, and so wrenching, that the only thing society could do to manage was to drink itself into a stupor for a generation…And it wasn’t until society woke up from that collective bender that we actually started to get the institutional structures that we associate with the industrial revolution today.
Clay calculated that the time spent to create Wikipedia was about 100 million hours of human thought. That’s about about as much time as people in the US alone spend watching just commercials each weekend. So a slight change in how we use our cognitive surplus can have tremendous results.
It wasn’t until people started thinking of this as a vast civic surplus, one they could design for rather than just dissipate, that we started to get what we think of now as an industrial society.
I stopped watching TV (for the most part) and playing video games (entirely) a few months ago, and I feel like I’m undergoing a personal renaissance. I’m working harder than ever in my life on a project that just might change the startup industry. I’ve made leaps and bounds in the professional caliber of my work.
I’m actively studying Mideast geopolitics, Sinology, cultural anthropology, cognitive science, progressive hip hop, electoral mechanics, nanotechnology, startup business, dog psychology, alternative energy, biomimicry, mobile banking, quantum theory, third world economics, venture capital and transhumanism among other subjects. I’ve watched dozens of documentaries that have opened my world view and challenged my beliefs.
I’ve figured the first two books I want to write.
I’ve discovered a purpose and mission for that around the world trip I’ve always dreamed of taking.
Sounds crazy right? Well look at it in perspective.
Clay figured out that if the internet connected population of the US spent 1% less time watching TV, every year their collective cognitive surplus could create 100 projects the size of Wikipedia. Every year. Now your remote control is looking a little silly.
So what are you going to do with your piece of the social surplus?
Let’s Assume the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) metrics are an accurate assessment of the economy’s activity (it’s not, and neither was the now out of favor GNP numbers, but that’s a blog post for another time). The Reuters article, like many others today, Growth surprises but consumers stressed - Yahoo! News: leads off with “A buildup in inventories kept the economy afloat in the first quarter…” The fact that GDP grew at 0.6% in Q1 because of an inventory buildup is probably more troubling than if GDP shrank. What is likely happening is the the economy is decelerating quicker than businesses are able to react. Fortunately this article, in paragraph three states this possibility.
” Some economists said the report suggested the U.S. economy was on a bit firmer ground than had been thought, but others braced for worse times ahead as businesses ratchet back production further to try to sell off inventories”
While I’m not in favor of overly negative press accounts of economic conditions as there is some truth into “talking ourselves into a recession”, it is disingenuous to try and pass these numbers off as better than expected, which seems to be the trend of the day.
I’m a huge fan of TED Talks. I watch them obsessively. In case you aren’t familiar, TED is an annual conference where some of the world’s most amazing minds gather to talk about Technology, Entertainment and Design. You can watch all the videos online, it’s a world class education for free.
Two TED Talks about mobile recently caught my attention. The first one is about how cellphones play a daily role in people’s lives all over the world. The second one is about how aid actually hurts countries and new mobile banking systems are empowering people in developing nations. When I was in East Africa last year on an exploratory mission to figure out how to design a social network to combat the spread of infectious disease, one of my huge takeaways was how integral mobile phones were to African life. So both of these videos really hit home for me.
Jan Chipchase: Our cell phones, ourselves
Iqbal Quadir: The power of the mobile phone to end poverty
I’m not a big believer in Karma but I got a dash of it last Friday. For some cosmic reason in my life I’ve been a finder of wallets and purses and have always dutifully returned them directly to the person or some trusted authority. I actually had a threefer in college where three days in a row I ran across someone’s left behind wallet. Last one happened a couple months ago outside the Ikeda’s market off of Route 80 on the way back from a Tahoe ski trip where I flagged down an SUV just as it was pulling out of the parking lot.
The cosmic payback came my way on Friday when I dropped my wallet (first time in my entire wallet carrying life) outside the Redwood City Town Hall (I think it is the town hall) just outside the Theater district. I must have dropped it fishing something out of my pocket while I was eating lunch at the outdoor seating area there. I didn’t realize it was gone until that evening as I packed up to go home from work. I’d like to say I calmly got in my car to retrace my steps but there was no calm about it. Yet, as I approached the seating area I saw a young couple look as if they found a wallet and by the look on my face as I walked towards them they new they had found the owner. Much gratification and relief flowed profusely and incoherently from me.
So, to the young couple playing cards in the courtyard there, I owe you one. You have my business card. Contact me anytime!
I had a great time hanging out with the folks at Cambrian House in Calgary this week. It was packed full of goodness, but we even found 20 minutes to shoot a little cameo - so much fun.
Other Systems & Languages
