Phase one findings from Bangladesh, Chile & Lithuania

August 18, 2009

The Global Impact Study has wrapped up its first phase, which included a year of exploratory fieldwork in three pilot countries — Bangladesh, Chile, and Lithuania. Country Research Teams collected data on several public access venues, looking at user groups and activities, venue characteristics, and the roles venues play in each community. This data provides a snapshot of regional information ecologies — community networks of trusted information sources — and will be used to refine our research design.

Communications: Thinking about a better way

July 31, 2009

“We do so much but no one knows about it. We have to do a better job of telling our story.” I’ve heard this again and again. So, why’s it so hard? I’ve come to suspect that part of it has to do with the structure of communications within organizations. The centralized structure is a problem. We need to figure out how to make a distributed model work.

Tim Hwang at Participation Camp: Can computer games increase citizen engagement?

July 21, 2009

Tim Hwang looks like a super cool guy. And he’s not just cool because Joi Ito took his portrait. Nope. Most important? He founded ROFLCon, the internet celebrity conference. Or maybe it’s his work at Harvard. Or maybe this awesome talk on video games and citizen engagement. Hmmmm, hard to decide!

Identica: Open microblogging & recipes in 140 characters or less

July 17, 2009

Identica’s commitment to open standards is hot. And all good technology shares this characteristic: People can figure out how to make it work for them. It’s hackable. Just look at Twyka in Kenya and Naijapulse in Nigeria. And as for me? Tonight I discovered a group that shares recipes in 140 characters or less. Bliss.

Freebase: Open code for open data

July 14, 2009

Introducing Freebase: “the easiest way to add free, community-curated, Creative Commons licensed content to your web applications.” Watch the video. Imagine the possibilities.

Iranian social media police

July 13, 2009

On passing through the immigration control at the airport in Tehran, she was asked by the officers if she has a Facebook account. When she said “no”, the officers pulled up a laptop and searched for her name on Facebook. They found her account and noted down the names of her Facebook friends.

Extending empathy forward

July 4, 2009

I got this expression from the first One Giant Leap film. From the section on time and the 10,000-year clock. I use it in my knowledge sharing work — when trying to explain why it’s important to document, tag, give context. The idea is to make it easier to build on each other’s work.

The Internet of Things: A critique of ambient technology and the all-seeing network of RFID

The adoption of he technologies of the City Control is not inevitable, nor something that we must kindly accept nor sleepwalk into. Each of us can help contribute to building technologies of trust and empower ourselves in the age of mass surveillance and ambient technologies.

Fix, Hack, Create

June 29, 2009

Once again Karl has been twittering awesomeness. (Thanks!) This is from some things he posted tonight… and connects to my Plan B post and some stuff I’ve been thinking about. First: The Repair Manifesto, from Amsterdam’s Platform 21. Funny. I just got my favorite jeans repaired (two pairs, the bottoms went out on me), as […]

ParticipationCamp: Just like being there

June 27, 2009

I wanted to attend ParticipationCamp in New York. Apparently I can. From Montreal. They have live video feed with great quality: Of course social reporters can use add the #PCamp09 tag to their tweets, which are aggregated on front page of their website. Great use of social media and attention to virtual participants: livestreaming video, […]