Jeff Jarvis sparked my thinking on this recently with his post on The Jobless Future. As Jeff so bluntly stated:

“We’re not going to have a jobless recovery. We’re going to have a jobless future.

Holding out blind hope for the magical appearance of new [...]]]>

Jeff Jarvis sparked my thinking on this recently with his post on The Jobless Future. As Jeff so bluntly stated:

“We’re not going to have a jobless recovery. We’re going to have a jobless future.

Holding out blind hope for the magical appearance of new jobs and the reappearance of growth in the economy is a fool’s faith.”

If that is the case in the US, and we have riots on the streets in the UK, Spain, Greece, north Africa and the middle east, then things are not looking good in large portions of the world. There will likely be flow on economic and social effects around the world, especially since Richard Florida is pondering if riots could come to Canada too.

Nouriel Roubini may be right in his assertion that “Karl Marx had it right. At some point, Capitalism can destroy itself.”

The inherent instability of markets in the US and Europe mean that jobs are going to be harder to come by, especially for the less educated and the less skilled.

All of this got me thinking about what skills are really useful in this new world that is developing before our eyes? What kinds of businesses and communities will be more resilient in the face of changing economic verities? How do we need to recast our expectations and aspirations for this new world that is unfolding?

That kind of thinking led me over to John Robb’s blog and one of his recent posts, Entrepreneurs and Open Source Hardware. Perhaps we are all about to become open source entrepreneurs?

The kind of economic environment that is emerging is one where sustainable and ethical business models can come into their own. Not large scale, top-down, industrial operations. Rather there is an opportunity to develop peer-to-peer and networked organisations. Social innovation, social enterprise and ideas like collaborative consumption become significant, and a return to older ways of organising businesses – like co-operatives and mutual associations – become critical.

We also need to find ways to create and exchange value in an environment where traditional mechanisms might no longer be available to us. This means creation of new means of value exchange, or even new kinds of currencies. Reverting to gold is not really feasible, after all it’s rather heavy to tote around. Thus virtual currencies might even come to replace some of the existing ones

If you consider it unbelievable that major currencies can fail then it’s time to go read some history. Just to put it in perspective there’s a great visual post by Jeff Clark over at The Daily Reckoning that illustrates the risk rather neatly: A Thousand Pictures Is Worth One Word.

There is a tendency to put the word social in front of many other words to day to describe some new use of technology. I remain uncomfortable with the way we have plonked the word ‘social’ in front of so many other things, for example; networking, media, computing, business, etc.

If you’ve got time it’s worth taking some of it to watch this interview with Jason and Gary.

Jason Calacanis, himself a serial entrepreneur, is a great supporter of startups with his LAUNCH Conference.

Gary Vaynerchuk is a well known entrepreneur who built up his family [...]]]>

If you’ve got time it’s worth taking some of it to watch this interview with Jason and Gary.

Jason Calacanis, himself a serial entrepreneur, is a great supporter of startups with his LAUNCH Conference.

Gary Vaynerchuk is a well known entrepreneur who built up his family business to a major player using social media and the force of his remarkable personality.

Having met both of these guys, one thing that stands out about each of them for me is that they are truth tellers. You might not like what they say, but they call it as they see it. The corollary is that they often put out a helping hand for people who are working on their own startups. Good guys, with good experience, worth listening to.

Gary raises some important issues about how social marketing is not about push. If you’re trying to sell stuff using social media then this is a crucial conversation to understand. As Gary says:

“If Content is King, then Context is God”

This is a fascinating interview by Parag Khanna (@paragkhanna) with Don Tapscott (@dtapscott). Tapscott discusses the potential upside and downside of collaborative revolutions for societies around the world and the implications for dissent, noting that:

“the Internet radically drops the cost of dissent”

This is a fascinating interview by Parag Khanna (@paragkhanna) with Don Tapscott (@dtapscott). Tapscott discusses the potential upside and downside of collaborative revolutions for societies around the world and the implications for dissent, noting that:

“the Internet radically drops the cost of dissent”

Tomorrow night I’ll be hosting a panel for Digital Citizens on Politics and Digital Activism in the Social Age. The panel has a fascinating and diverse group of people:

I had a chat with Stilgherrian (@stilgherrian) on ZDNet’s Patch Monday along with Open-source software advocate and developer Jeff Waugh (@jdub) and James Purser (@purserj) from Collaborynth, a consultancy that develops collaboration tools for business, government and not-for-profits.

You can listen to our discussion on this nifty embedded [...]]]>

I had a chat with Stilgherrian (@stilgherrian) on ZDNet’s Patch Monday along with Open-source software advocate and developer Jeff Waugh (@jdub) and James Purser (@purserj) from Collaborynth, a consultancy that develops collaboration tools for business, government and not-for-profits.

You can listen to our discussion on this nifty embedded player:

I rather suspect that some of the locals regard LeWeb as a kind of blowsy aunt who arrives in whirl, talks too loudly, drinks a bit too much, pinches their cheeks, and flies away again.

That said, I think Le Web is now a great conference.  It’s got [...]]]>

I rather suspect that some of the locals regard LeWeb as a kind of blowsy aunt who arrives in whirl, talks too loudly, drinks a bit too much, pinches their cheeks, and flies away again.

That said, I think Le Web is now a great conference.  It’s got some faults. But there are few conferences in Europe where such variety and quality of speakers is available together with such diversity of attendees from around the world.

In many ways it is still very much Loic and friends having a chat on stage.  And that is part of its charm.  Why not get friends like Michael Arrington to chit-chat with various web folks on stage in Paris if you can make it happen?

This year Le Web was at Les Docks venue again.  This enabled three separate halls to be running simultaneously, with the networking hall getting a good workout.

Unfortunately the snow made walking between the various halls somewhat of a challenge.  As did the unwillingness of Parisian cab drivers to deliver or collect delegates out in the boondocks of St Denis in aforesaid snow.  This meant that for those unfortunate enough to miss the coach shuttles to the nearest metro station it was a trudge through the snow.

The food, drink and heating were good this year.  Some American friends found some of the food tastes alien to their palate (which was amusing to watch) but I found the food tasty and plentiful.

Again the parties were fun and a great chance for networking and vodka and there were a number of late arrivals on day two after the partying.

This year my favourite thing was the Ignite style talks which included gems such as:

• a passionate plea from a Ricardo Sousa (on Twitter @ricardojrsousa), a teen entrepreneur, seeking for mentors for himself and his peers so that they can change the world;
• and a superb talk on twitter diplomacy from Matthias Lüfkens (on Twitter @luefkens) about the democratization of political access .

The Ignite model is a great way to bring diversity of voices to LeWeb and I hope that they continue it next year.

On the first day many of the keynotes and fireside chats were brand and product discussions with company representatives from Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Twitter, France Telecom-Orange, etc.  There was nothing earth shattering in any of these if you already follow the industy. Marissa Mayer proved herself, yet again, as one of the most polished players in this game.

There was also a startup competition – which seemed a tad disorganised compared to others I’ve seen – yet which provided a valuable opportunity to showcase some local talents.

On day two the stand out sessions for me were Jeremiah Owyang‘s overview of Social Media And Big Business: Trends for 2011 and Gary Vaynerchuck‘s session where he refused to answer Twitter questions so as to be present with the audience in the room.

One of the problems with having two plenary rooms that were physically separated by a snowy road is that I (and probably many others) did not get over to the Eiffel Plenary room on day 2. This is where Thomas Crampton (who’s apparently now gone over to the ‘dark side’ from journalism – aka PR) was hosting a series of sessions that looked quite interesting.

Thus I have no personal insight into those sessions (which did sound interesting):

• “Lean Analytics for Startups: what every founder (and VC) needs to watch”
• “Asia: Digital Life, Real Billions”
• How Social is Changing the Gaming Industry
• How to Grow Your Business through Platforms and APIs
• How to leverage social networking in your business
• How to build your own platform
• Hackathon Award Ceremony by Alcatel Lucent
• The Social OS and the Human API
• Photography: From Analog Artists to Digital Mainstream

I do think it would have been better to be able to merely walk from hall to hall within the one building given that LeWeb is held in a Parisian winter.

All in all for me the visit to Paris from Australia was worth it.  LeWeb is a good conference that enables me to see what is happening in another part of the world by bringing together a diversity of practitioners from across the world. Some interesting new ideas came up in conversation, the networking was amazing, the parties and dinners were fun, and it was in Paris (after all).

Here is the full text version of the paper co-authored with Brian Ballsun-Stanton and presented at the 5th ICCIT: 2010 International Conference on Computer Sciences and Convergence Information Technology.

Here is the full text version of the paper co-authored with Brian Ballsun-Stanton and presented at the 5th ICCIT: 2010 International Conference on Computer Sciences and Convergence Information Technology.

#c3t an Agreeable Swarm – Twitter , The Democratization of Media & Non-Localized Proximity

Here is the full text version of the paper co-authored with Brian Ballsun-Stanton and presented at the 5th ICCIT: 2010 International Conference on Computer Sciences and Convergence Information Technology.

Here is the full text version of the paper co-authored with Brian Ballsun-Stanton and presented at the 5th ICCIT: 2010 International Conference on Computer Sciences and Convergence Information Technology.

#c3t the Command & Control of Twitter – On a Socially Constructed Twitter & Applications of the Philosophy …

Malcolm Gladwell obtained the ire of many social media folks when he argued Why the revolution will not be tweeted back in October 2010.
I thought he was wrong then, and I still think he’s wrong in his analysis. However, in the light of two recent events [...]]]>

Malcolm Gladwell obtained the ire of many social media folks when he argued Why the revolution will not be tweeted back in October 2010.
I thought he was wrong then, and I still think he’s wrong in his analysis. However, in the light of two recent events I think he might actually be right in his conclusion, but for entirely different reasons. The two events are:

1. The editor-in-chief of The Australian accused a journalism academic of defaming him by her live tweets reporting what a third party said – this is being tracked on Twitter under the hashtag #twitdef.
2. The release by Wikileaks of a large quantity of US diplomatic cables (their domain used to be http://wikileaks.org but this is unlikely to work any longer) – this is being tracked on Twitter under the hashtags #wikileaks and #cablegate.

Gladwell attributed the non-tweeting of the revolution to his notion that real revolutions only happen offline and that new recruits to activism are brought in solely by people they know in real life. He seems that believe that only offline interactions can build “strong tie” commitment required for “high risk activism”. Gladwell seems unaware that loose tie interactions, like those afforded by Twitter, can give rise to extremely strong ties offline. In my experience Twitter has led to the development of many “strong tie” relationships that commenced with the loose ties typical of social networks.

Why I now think he’s right in his conclusions, but for entirely different reasons, has to do with the two examples mentioned above.

For a few years now the world of web 2.0, social media and social networking have been a ferment of new ideas, new ways of connecting and new systems of almost utopian belief in a good and great future enabled by the web. But that was before the internet of web 2.0 (what I refer to as the ‘social web’) was big enough to matter. Now, with the Wikileaks cable release going global and the ongoing anti-Twitter activism of some mainstream news media organisations, we can see that the social web matters.

It matters enough now that state actors are likely behind the moves to cut Wikileaks off from web hosting, DNS, money, and thus removing from them the ability to communicate further information.

We have seen the organisations that power much of the social web (like Amazon or PayPal) suddenly reviewing their Terms of Service and deciding that Wikileaks is in breach thus requiring them to withdraw access to their services. For example:

The other matter that grabbed my attention recently was the defamation claims by Chris Mitchell against Julie Posetti (Crikey is curating a list of references to #twitdef).

Here we see a traditional news media organisation fighting a rearguard action against new kinds of media, like Twitter. But we see many mainstream media organisations simultaneously arguing that Twitter is not publishing, nor is reporting of news possible by means of Twitter, yet they use Twitter for that very purpose. We are still evolving our ideas as a society as to what media like Twitter are; and Stilgherrian has summarised some of the tensions nicely on Crikey.

Another salient fact in my ruminations is a discovery today that trending topics on Twitter are not a simple first past the post system. Apparently they are managed by an algorithm that rivals Google’s in complexity. According to Angus Johnston, who asked the question Why Isn’t #Wikileaks Trending on Twitter, and Should We Care?:

“It turns out it’s tougher than you’d think to put together a trending topics list that really means anything. If you just go by the raw frequency with which words appear, you’re going to wind up with stuff like “the,” “and,” and “RT” at the top of the charts forever. And even if you exclude words like those, you’re still going to wind up with “lunch” trending every lunchtime and Glee trending every Tuesday. “

It all starts to come together for me. The social web is going mainstream, that means that incumbent media players are finding that their power base is shifting (along with their revenue base); and that they’re not happy about this.

In most businesses and startups distribution is one of the key challenges to be overcome. And for the social web distribution remains the challenge. The social web is dependent upon cloud providers for hosting, DNS, payments etc. Thus producers of content do not really own the means of production AND distribution in the same way that people could in the past (e.g. where they could purchase and setup their own printing press – it’s worth noting that this model tended to have distribution constraints). Modern content producers are reliant on third-parties who, based on the Wikileaks experience, might not always be there to distribute their content.

Further, the enormous quantity of data flying around the social web means that, even with the best will in the world, we might not be able to find out about something significant. Thus the case of Twitter trending topics and #wikileaks and #cablegate it appears that, without any particular malice, the algorithm does not find these hashtags interesting enough to include as trends.

It seems to me that the convergence of these trends might mean that it is quite possible that the revolution will not be tweeted.