February 27, 2008 by sean.

I saw this a while ago and, until talking with a friend of mine over lunch, forgot how truly amazing it is…

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November 21, 2007 by sean.

New research conducted by Oscar Ybarra of the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research shows that social interaction impacts IQ as much as “more traditional kinds of mental exercise in boosting memory and intellectual performance”:

“We found that short-term social interaction lasting for just 10 minutes boosted participants’ intellectual performance as much as engaging in so-called ‘intellectual’ activities for the same amount of time,” Ybarra said [via US News an World Report].

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October 2, 2007 by sean.

Stephen Wolfram, creator of Mathematica, discusses his controversial book A New Kind of Science which suggests that all complex systems emerge from recursive applications of simple rules, with Charlie Rose [starting around 14:20].

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September 15, 2007 by sean.

Bernie DeKoven of The Coworking Insitute describes “coliberation“:

How we have found a viable alternative for everything that people used to call “work.” How we join each other in some kind of virtual, actual coworking effort, coworking environment, doing something together for fun, on this particular page of the world wide web, thinking about making it more fun, and maybe even profitable for people to work together. [via smartmobs]

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September 6, 2007 by sean.

“Corey Phelps, an assistant professor of management and organization at the UW Business School, and Melissa Schilling, an associate professor at NYU, “analyzed the innovative performance of 1,106 companies in 11 different industries over a six-year period. They examined the pattern or structure of strategic alliance relationships among companies in each industry. They found that how firms are connected to one another influences the number of patented inventions they obtained. Those that secured more patents were classified by Phelps and Schilling as being more creative.”

According to the researchers, “companies reap greater benefits when they are part of a network that exhibits a high degree of clustering and only a few degrees of separation, both of which are characteristic of a small world network.” [via zdnet.com]

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September 3, 2007 by sean.

From the Informal Learning reference on Wikipedia:

Learners get only about 25 percent or less of what is used at work through formal learning. The majority of companies that provide training are currently involved only with the formal side of the continuum. Most of today’s investments are on the formal side. The net result is that companies spend the most money on the smallest part - 25% - of the learning equation. The other 75 percent of learning happens as the learner creatively adopts and adapts to ever changing circumstances. The informal piece of the equation is not only larger, it’s crucial to learning how to do anything.

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September 3, 2007 by sean.

A few years, I worked with a group of professional artists who were working on a contract for a large consumer electronics “box” store who wanted to co-opt the “cool” of the local arts community.

What we originally planned to do was to create fun, low barrier, highly interactive art experiences for Gen Yers at some of the galleries and clubs that were looking to attract a younger crowd. Reasoning that most people who really get into music are often those who find a way to participate [even if they don’t become musicians], we set out to do something similar with visual and performance art.

Some of the events we planned included a contest where a local celebrity would (a) “seed” the beginning of an art piece or storyline that others would enhance or (b) record a digital musical track that others could transform. We also planned to create disposable sculptures on the outdoor mall downtown where passersby would be encouraged to take a minute and add or rearrange elements. We also looked at cross-pollinating works at diverse locations in an effort to expand the audience for the locations [classical music / jazz fusion at a theater, improv comedy at an ethnic art gallery, etc.]. We created a pre-Web 2.0 website that would list scheduled events, encourage visitors to rate submissions, allow community members to upload / download / discuss works in progress, etc.

The most ambitious idea included uploads of amateur screenplays under an unrestrictive Creative Commons license that would allow others to use any submission as the basis for storyboards, conceptual art, costumes, and short films where non-artists could audition for parts or act as extras. We wanted to see if we could have short films go from outline to edited film in 30 days or less. Web community members would then vote on the best submissions and the whole thing would culminate in a 2-hour film festival with awards for the highest-rated film. Amateurs were psyched at the thought of strangers building upon their work. The pros were much more cautious or even occasionally antagonistic to the concept.

What actually happened is that the artists leading the project began fighting within themselves over “creative control” [the exact thing we were trying to overcome so that newbies could find a way in] and ended up nearly getting kicked out of town. The gallery owners who were in the most financial trouble HATED the idea of non-artists participating in their world. Our project leaders later argued that the REAL problem was the lack of sophistication in the general population! What was supposed to be a series of fun, disposable events organized throughout the city became a LECTURE to berate the clueless, unwashed masses into better supporting the unappreciated geniuses struggling to survive.

What I learned from the overall experience first is that local arts communities are often NOT cool. Second,  amateurs tend to be more willing to collaborate and try new things just for fun [meaning they have little ego / reputation at stake] and that the guidance of pros / experts / would-be gurus can often be disruptive to a collaborative creative process.

Web 2.0 is all about participation in collaborative projects, whether that be ranking user-contributed content [ala YouTube, digg or truemors], turning ON comments re: fan fiction or building loosely-connected networks of friends [Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.]. No doubt that much of the content out there is only one step above spam [”You’re an idiot LOL,” “Guess what my cat ate for dinner?”] and that much of the hype about is overblown, but the potential for using these methods to make it easier to participate in creative endeavors [rather than learning to simply appreciate the results of others] might still be vastly understated.

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September 3, 2007 by sean.

Mesh networking [YouTube clip via Meshverse] is a major component of MIT’s One Laptop Per Child project:

Mesh networking is a way to route data, voice and instructions between nodes. It allows for continuous connections and reconfiguration around broken or blocked paths by “hopping” from node to node until the destination is reached. A mesh network whose nodes are all connected to each other is a fully connected network. Mesh networks differ from other networks in that the component parts can all connect to each other via multiple hops, and they generally are not mobile. Mesh networks can be seen as one type of ad hoc network. Mobile ad-hoc networking (MANet), and mesh networking are therefore closely related, but mobile ad hoc networks also have to deal with the problems introduced by the mobility of the nodes. [wikipedia]

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