It's always nice to return to the office to a pleasant surprise. Today's surprise came in the form of a package postmarked India, and bearing the imprint of the Institute for Chartered Financial Analaysts of India University. Perplexed but curious, I struggled with the packaging until out slipped a slim volume onto my desktop, entitled Blogs: Emerging Communication Media. I admit that I had completely forgotten I had given permission for two of my previous articles (one sole-authored, the other dual authored with the wonderful Jeremy Williams) to be reprinted in this tome. This little publication comes at a good time, as the final proofs and cover designs have been approved with the publishers of the book Axel Bruns and I have edited, Uses of Blogs, and that publication will be out and on the shelves in a matter of weeks. So that's two books and another few articles already happening this year!
April 2006 Archives
Back from another flying visit to Melbourne. Thanks to Mum for having me to stay for the night and for everyone with whom I've been corresponding for their patience with my slow responses to communications. Will be back on track tomorrow.
Anyone interested in 2 days of SPSS data entry work, please contact me ASAP.
EDIT: Thanks to those who have contacted me. Have passed on details to the person who needs this work done. Am definitely going to use this mechanism to find workers in future. I've never had responses this quickly!
Just wanted to post quick happy birthday and happy anniversary messages for all my much-loved April babies, brides and grooms... Happy Birthday and happy anniversary to my beautiful Kristen (and happy anniversary to Phil too!) for 1 April, happy 4th birthday to my Godson, Ethan for 3 April, happy anniversary to my fabulous brother, Andrew, and gorgeous sister-in-law, Eloise, for 11 April, happy birthday to the lovely Liz for 17 April, and happy 1st birthday today to dear little Amy Chamberlain.
Wishing you all the very best for your special days and for a happy and safe future.
*hugs and love to you all*
Last night I attended the latest BrisScience public lecture at the Judith Wright Centre for Contemporary Arts in Brisbane, as a guest of the convenor of the series, Jennifer Dodd. Speaker, John Drenann spoke about the value of electron microscopy in this country and the growth of the research network as a means of better understanding metallurgical, materials, biological, chemical structures at the atomic level. He demonstrated the live, internet-mediated Nanoworld microscope at the University of Queensland, and noted how important the research arising from this level of investigation can be for all matter of fields from architecture and construction, to microbiology, genetic engineering and environmental research. This is great work, though expensive, and it's clear that we need to raise the profile of this kind of research in order to cover the costs of running the equipment and facilities - in excess of A$2 million a year for the microscopes at UQ.
I'm convinced there are ways that we can maximise the use of these services more efficiently, but once again, it comes down to communicating the value of the research findings in terms of cost reduction and knowledge sharing to convince the commercial sector to invest in these services.
This series is an extremely valuable means of educating the public about science research being conducted around the country, and to raise awareness of the value and difficulties inherent in those research programs. I applaud BrisScience for their efforts in developing this public lecture series and I encourage all locals to go along to the next event at the end of May (on the end of the Universe!). These are free public seminars lasting an hour, and all attendees are entitled to a free beer, wine or softdrink at the end of the seminar. Signage rights are available for organisations who wish to sponsor the drinks component of the event (cheap and valuable advertising IMHO), and the series is sponsored for the year by the University of Queensland. Last night, around 150 people were in attendance, so it's another example of the fact that there really is an interested community of people who want to learn about the issues and achievements of our researchers, and to engage in public debate about the issues arising from findings.
I'd like to take this oportunity to thank Jennifer Dodd and the BrisScience crew for inviting me to come along to the event and to join them for drinks after the seminar. I'm happy to be an ambassador and advocate for the BrisScience program.
On this ANZAC day, I once again remember my family. My grandfather, Edward Jones, was at Gallipoli back in 1915, as a 21 year old soldier, and he dealt with the sheer confusion, horror and mad desperation that must have faced every one of the troops that landed at ANZAC Cove. Edward was one of the boys who did return, and he went on to have three daughters, including my Mum, Alison. And while I never met him, I've been told he was a happy and gentle man, much loved by all the women in his family. But approximately 50,000 allied troops did not return from the Gallipoli campaign, and today we have the opportunity to remember their sacrifice and that of all the other soldiers who have been sent to war over time.
Most of you know that I am opposed to the war in Iraq, and that I believe there is no constitutional nor democratic basis for that conflict. This does not mean that I do not appreciate and honour the efforts of all armed service men and women. Their collective contribution has always been worthy of the greatest respect. I honour them today.
I also want to remember my Grandmother, Glad Jones, who died a decade ago today. Here's to you, Ma.
Yesterday I attended the pop culture exhibition and seminar series, Supanova, in Brisbane at the RNA Showgrounds. It was - as usual - a celebration of difference and rebellion against the mainstream. Of course, in such environments, I'm always struck by the extrordinary effort that is demonstrated by those who dress up in the most bizarre array of costumes, from gothic (and twisted) Alice in Wonderland characters, to militaristic sci-fi infantrymen, fallen angels, sex kittens, giant chickens, ghouls, devils and heroes. It's like a United Nations for overdrawn characterisations. But even more interesting is the manner in which these people (my people, after all, in spite of my determination to appear mainstream in such collective rejection of the mainstream - We are all individuals! I'm not!) blithely accept the consumerist principles of the mainstream in the "long tail" of niche interests. In the trade fair section of yesterday's event, books, games, figurines, clothes, artwork, comics, music, movies and series were all being hocked at top price to a captured market, eager to spend, spend, spend on the "little guy" of popular culture.
This is, I guess, an illustration of what I see as the paradox of rebellion against mainstream commercialism. In order to rebel agains the mainstream, it is apparently necessary to do so en masse (a new mainstream) and spend a great deal on merchandise and ephemera to demonstrate that rebellon (consumerism). And the fact that this is all popular culture which makes it mainstream anyway just adds to the delicious irony of the practice. Of course, not all participants believe they are rebelling. Some are convinced that they are celebrating their unique consumerist culture, but if this is the case, then it's remarkable how little is actually "unique" about their culture. In one of the seminars yesterday, Summer Glau, who played River in the Joss Whedon series, Firefly, and the movie, Serenity, sat for an hour answering questions from an enthusiastic audience of fans. But were their questions compelling and representative of a departure from celebrity worship apparent in banal Entertainment Tonight interviews of mainstream content? Unfortunately not. The questions included which costume was her favourite, which actor she enjoyed beating up most and how much she enjoyed working with her director and cast. It could have been a series of questions drawn up by the most naive entertainment 'journalist' on the most mainstream of mainstream media. I suppose I ought to have done my bit to challenge the dominant paradigm and asked the two questions I would have liked to ask, but I looked around me and saw the joy and excitement on the faces of all those amassed, and I thought better of spoiling their fun. After all, if this is a niche popular mainstream, then who am I to set about to deconstruct it?
This brings me back to more of the issues I've been canvassing in recent blog posts about industrialism and open source, because to a large extent, it's the people who are part of the games cultures and niche interests at Supanova who are also major contributors to open source "cultures" and communities. I'm still trying to resolve my sense of the impact of proprietors and traditional commercial practices on meeting niche or minority contributions to a collective production market, but I suspect it's not that I believe that traditional commercialism can better address the full range of human desires... just that traditonal industrial structures are always fairly obvious in the manner in which they disenfranchise... so it's fairly clear where a niche might emerge, or how the needs of a minority interest group may be addressed. But in a mass production economy that is premised upon inclusiveness and network externalities, I'm uncertain as to how the needs of niche interests are going o be addressed.
As I keep saying, I need to explore this further, but as I'm about to start teaching Strategic Internet Marketing again, I find it timely to be considering how the needs of the many can accommodate a market of conversation, perhaps between just two interlocutors.
When you have my body, the virtue, and the curse of having a day of rest is that you sleep for less than four hours the next night.
*4am grumble*
To clarify, I wrote this post 40 minutes after the Quid Pro Quo post.
Seems that the latest rebuild of MT still hasn't worked out the difference between UTC and London time. Have reset my clock to UTC+9 (Japan time) rather than UTC+10 (which is actually my current time zone). But because MT seems to think whatever the time is in London is UTC (because those guys are on Daylight Savings), for the sake of accuracy of my time stamping, I have to modify the settings again.
This weekend is Supanova in Brisbane, and I'll be making a post about that tomorrow night, but today I want to discuss the issues that I have with the otherwise excellent work of Yochai Benkler in his Wealth of Networks and his article, Coase's Penguin.
I have to say, I've never been more conflicted in reading a work before. I think Benkler's work is watershed stuff... perhaps not quite so important as Castells's epic trilogy on the Information Age, but certainly the most important work describing a monumental change in economic power relations, as a result of human appropriation of networked technologies. Significantly, Benkler is adamant that human motivations are crucial in determining the manner in which open source technologies in particular are being diffused in business marketplaces. It is not the technology that is changing the world, but the manner in which the technology is appropriated and diffused that matters. Thus his vision is far from being technologically determinist. Instead Benkler's school of thought is decidely social constructivist.
I probably need to compose a full article to properly convey my concerns arising from this work, rather than a vernacular and glib blog post, but I feel compelled to use this forum to express something quickly and efficiently. Related to my last discussion on technology, innovation and risk, I have really been struggling with some of the key assumptions in Benkler's work and the oversimplification apparent in much literature pertaining to open source as being driven by a gift economy.
My problem comes down to motivation. As I have noted previously, the gift economy is a massive oversimplification of the nature of open source. It assumes that all participants in an open source community want the same outcome - a true realisation of an entirely socialist and participatory concept of shared community benefit. It also assumes that there are not differing perspectives on how that might be achieved or why it results collectively from those differing perspectives.
I'm really struggling here, because I acknowledge fully - as a product and advocate of the hacker ethic - that participation in open source communities does certainly look like a gift economy. Only it's not. And I know, because I'm part of it and I see it happening in such communities. I've seen this over and over. And I also know that people who are part of these communities continue to be blind to what is happening to leaders in such communities. This isn't just a gift economy. It's as hegemonic as any other structure. The only the difference is that the benefits accrued to leaders in such networks aren't valued in dollars. They're valued in reputation and personal ambition/fulfillment.
I don't know how else to approach this, so I'm going to focus on just two assumptions arising from Benkler's work:
1. The key question arising from large and medium scale collaborations in open source communities is how to understand these as instances of socially productive behaviour; and
2. Peer production provides an implicit evaluation system for determining the most efficient means of tackling a problem.
Pretty much all the rest of Benkler's work rests on these two assumptions. But I'm worried about both assumptions. Firstly I believe that the key question arising from the phenomenon of collaborative production in open source communities is not how we understand them, but the question of how similar these practices are to other activities in human society over time. This isn't actually new behaviour - and it's profiled as such. It's remarkably consistent human behaviour, rather than aberrant. And there are lessons to be learned as much from consistency of human behaviour as from aberrance. Benkler describes the open source movement as a decidedly aberrant mutation in economic development in the context of capital markets, and in that sphere he's certainly correct; from a business perspective, what is happening in open source communities looks a lot like the proletarians rising up against the bourgeois, in a technologically facilitated revolution. The trouble is that he's looking at open source through a very narrow window. Open source wasn't premised on productivity in an economic sense - or at least, it wasn't concerned with productivity that could be financially valued (and thus sold or insured). Open source was always regarded - and still is, to all intents and purposes - as exploratory and educative. Participation in open source communities was as much about recognition and affiliation with like minds as it was about perfect code and efficient outcomes. Further, participation was based not merely on skill sets and ableness, but on the determination of any community member to work faster, longer and more effectively than their fellow community members. Whether articulated as such or not, there has always been a substantive element of ambition demonstrated in open source communities. Exemplified by the ongoing quest for the most efficient and most functional code, or the most innovative vision for an application suite, this natural contest among participants in open source communities mean that the economic structure of these communities cannot entirely be attributed to a gift economy.
Even so , we come to the second assumption: that peer communities can naturally determine the best operatives for a specific task. This assumption worries me most of all. Yes, it makes complete sense that problem solving is best conducted by those with the skills to complete a task completely and efficiently. This is true for all tasks that are clearly defined, or that have no fateful aspects associated with them. But the trouble is that seeing problem solving as a finite activity, best served by skill is a decidedly defeatist perspective. It assumes that the natural hegemony of a community will resolve itself and solutions to problems will evolve naturally. Neither fate, nor curiosity nor democracy is being considered as a means of solving problems. No doubt I'll be lambasted by the strongest advocates of open source as being a kook for saying that open source communities can challenge democratic practice. But what we're seeing here is a reputation based outcome for individual investment. That might be fair, but possibly isn't democratic. What's more, the possibility of an inefficient but innovative perspective on a problem could potentially be marginalised when a meritocratic polity based on speed and skill takes precedence over democracy.
And that brings me to the last point I want to raise. Being involved in a collaborative project doesn't necessarily mean that a participant needs to derive personal or collective benefits. Hell, being involved in an individual project doesn't require benefits. A true gift economy is based on reciprocity. But human kindness (and in particular, feminine kindness) has historically been demonstrated to be based not on reciprocity, but on charity. It is possible, that some participants in open source communities give of their time and their skills, not because they benefit either reputationally, educatively, or financially. Sometimes people just give because they can.
Ah dear. I can hear the outcries already. Clearly I have contradicted myself. Well, yes in some ways I have. But my point is that the assumptions being raised as foundation characteristics of an open source economy in the work of Benkler are not quite as flawless as may appear on first reading.
Now I want comments on this post. if you have a point to raise, bring it up! Comment. Contribute. We need a better praxis to discuss this issue. Only by discussing can we hope to understand the society in which we are already so deeply entrenched.
I gotta get me one of these. No more worries about keeping my cups of tea a good two feet from my workspace. And sticky fingers won't matter - just gotta keep the kitchen spray handy for desktop cleanups every day!
Okay so I'm always going to be interested in an article that emphasises the value of blogging, given my specific research interest, but I think the article from the Guardian on Tuesday informing businesses that they should ignore bloggers at their peril, has some merit (light as it is). In a paper I'm currently writing, I'm facing the fact that increasingly, the term "blogging" is becoming what Bruce Sterling calls an archaelogism - a word that had meaning for the revolutionaries, but what it has come to represent is now so mainstream as to be virtually transparent: blogging architecture and its by-products (RSS, Trackbacks, etc) have been so seamlessly integrated into personalised systems as to be inseparable from them as distinct technologies. Nevertheless, the impact and reach of blogging is unchanged, regardless of whether bloggers and blog readers are aware of the fact that they are participating in a blogging culture. More to the point, the significance of perception is something that grows in importance in the post-marketing era. Organisations that ignore the messages disseminated through blogging architecture will suffer, and this is a symptom of growing consumer (produser?) empowerment.
In other (somewhat related) news, there's a useful post on a Unifying Theory of Web 2.0, that nicely captures the meaning of Web 2.0: that the intelligence attributed to the web (web 2.0) arises from us as we begin to communicate.
Yes, I have finally carried out the threat I made a year or more ago. I've recorded a podcast on my favourite science fiction films and placed it online. I'm releasing this under a Creative Commons licence, so you're welcome to download, adapt, mix, etc (if you ever get that bored), but I'm warning you now, it'll be only available for download for 14 days. It's too big a file for me to keep online. I'll keep a copy though, in case anyone is desperate enough to want a copy at a later date.
This podcast is full oh umms and ahhhs, all of which I'd normally delete (as a good producer does) but then it wouldn't sound so amateur ;) So I've left them in there for... well let's just call it "character". I've also done my damndest to leave the theory out of the podcast because otherwise I'd have been speaking for 3 hours, not just the hour. And I'd have bored most of you to tears. So I've tried to be conversational rather than distinctly literary. Of course, if you prefer, I can back this up with a paper at a later date ;) In any case, feedback much appreciated!
Thanks to all those who sent healing vibes and good wishes! I've had myotherapy today and am feeling a lot better. Special thanks to Ali for the gift of marjoram - you are such a lovely friend, Ali! *many hugs* I'm looking forward to feeling fabulous tomorrow after a satisfying night tonight. :)
*pitiful squeak* Ow. I just turned my head sideways and have completely locked my neck and upper back. This is going to be an extremely uncomfortable night. Will need to get a massage first thing tomorrow or I'll be incapable of typing at all for the next week. :'(
Please send healing vibes.
Day 3 of Conjure was highly entertaining - some great topics and the best speakers were fabulous. The ABC blog is still up at http://www.abc.net.au/news/arts/articulate/ and I'll provide more feedback tomorrow. I also have a bit of a surprise for tomorrow ... stay tuned.
Here's the raw text of my notes from Bruce Sterling's session at Conjure this morning. Was a fabulous literary exploration of changes in language as an indicator of changes in meaning. Great stuff!
I apologise for the problems with duplicated entries coming up on this blog. I'm having trouble with my server at the moment, and while I've successfully deleted the redundant entries, I can't rebuild my site to get rid of them whilst these internal server errors keep appearing. I'm on it, and hope to correct the problem later today or tomorrow but I am somewhat in the hands of my host... may be it is time to find a new one....
I'm also suffering from absolutely hideous neck and upper back pain and can't get to a masseur till Tuesday. So I'll be sleeping with a hot water bottle for the next few nights. Joy.
But on the bright side, I have been engaging with some interesting stories and seeking meaning in gaming and science fiction. I attended the Conjure National Science Fiction Convention today in Brisbane, partly to hear Cory Doctorow's second presentation on his tour downunder, but also to hear some new theories of game development and revisioning of the real versus the imagined self in online gaming. Cory's presentation was fantastic and varied dramatically from his Ideas Festival session, even though the subject matter was still associated with Digital Rights Management. In this new presentation, which is being groomed for delivery at the Ray Kurzweil Singularity Summit at Stanford next month, Doctorow considered the singularity direction that was being pursued by agencies of content production, and considered how the humans and corporations were going to respond to a period when technological capability will outstrip human intervention - essentially when the age when technologies no longer need the humans in the mix to solve problems or create content. Doctorow argues that this singularity event is not, in and of itself, feasible for the same reasons that digital rights management is no longer feasible. Content protection under digital rights management came about due to a culture of scarcity of content. At a crucial period in history, policy and content production came together to create copyright and rights management architectures to protect an industry of content production. Doctorow argues that industry is now mature, and the rights management system is now due to be retired. Indeed, he argues that attempts to accommodate rights management in a system that is technologically increasingly complex is actually killing innovation. He is adamant that complex systems require diversity and mutation in order to be sustainable, and he points out that even if that moment of the singularity event arrives, machines just don't do diversity well. He believes that the machines will still require the organic diversity of human interaction as a means of providing the content production sustainability, so Creative Commons and a philanthropic economy (as opposed to the more traditional concept of a gift economy - see last post) is likely to emerge. Some interesting theories there.
Later in the day today was a session on 'Game Theory and Emergent Behaviour/Divergent Stories', which I have to say I was a little disappointed in, because the discussion was more about which games were making money, not about which games had merit as arbitrators of divergent story telling. The speakers also really ignored the branch of mathematics which excited me in the session title: Game Theory as a strategic measure, designed to maximise returns for stakeholders. If the session had been more embedded in theory and less in financials I think I'd have enjoyed it more. Better (and more dynamic) was the session after lunch on 'Better than the Real Thing', which traversed the territory of the blurring line between reality and gaming. Questions about citizenship, participation, scenario mapping, corporate control and the exploration of a 3rd place/3rd way all peppered the session, and while insufficient solutions were proposed, the questions were much more pithy.
Tomorrow I'll be attending Bruce Sterling's lecture, which I hope will be a nice mix of his work on the hacker culture and his vision of science fiction as the semantic sweetspot for redefining culture. Stay tuned for a blog summary tomorrow.....
Not dead. Thinking.
For the past few days, I've been struggling to articulate some ideas about an emergent and participatory business culture. As a result of the recent final review of several projects at ACID, I've been thinking about research conducted for a market need, as opposed to research and product development occurring independently of any market need, and the associated difficulties with identifying a market for a product ex post facto as it were.
There are a few key issues that underline these ideas that I am going to propose, and I suppose my response to this emergent culture will generally be regarded as controversial. I'm going to phrase these proposals as business and technology theory mythbusting. If Adam and Jamie can do it to measure how much damage an embattled dummy called 'Buster' can take in a variety of explosions, accidents and free-fall ventures, then I can do it for strategy. Or something. In any case, I have three 'myths' (perhaps more accurately, 'misconceptions') that I want to dispel:
1. the internet and open source communities are examples of a gift economy (this is an oversimplification at best, and just wrong, at worst);
2. innovation is inherently financially valuable to organisations (an over-generalisation, and economically unsound, as I point out below); and
3. risk management is a cost-savings measure (this is a remarkably common, but decidedly insufficient interpretation of risk management).
I know there are some friends and colleagues of mine who will probably be gobsmacked about the above list. But it's not as bad as it sounds. To some extent there is a degree of truth in all the notions listed above, but in all cases, the dominant understanding of technology, innovation and risk is simply shallow. And that has meant that the implementation and application of technology, innovation and risk management has been seriously flawed. So, to explain....
1. The internet and open source communities are not based on a gift economy
As a hacker and an advocate of the many benefits of online communication systems, I've often extolled the value of the creative and participatory online community. And I still believe in the value of shared knowledge; I wouldn't be writing about social software, blogging and Web 2.0 mashups if I didn't see immense value in a user-driven (or as Axel Bruns would call it, a produser-driven) environment. However, I'm beginning to question whether cybercommunities are genuinely gift economies or whether they would be more accurately described as reputational economies. They're not gift economies, because they are not, strictly speaking, based in reciprocal sharing. Further, there is a degree in any cyberculture of exhibitionism and lurking participation which isn't adequately communicated by a sharing economy, or public commons. Sharing occurs, certainly, but there ultimately develops an hierarchy of contribution quality, such that maximum functionality and elegant design in open source software tools will experience much more widespread adoption than quick and dirty tools, and in cybercommunities and/or blogs or wiki, a natural A-list of writers and artists emerges. Doctorow's concept of 'whuffie' as a currency of reputation, based on perceived productivity seems a more accurate economic interpretation of internet based communities of interest.
2. Innovation is inherently valuable
Even at face value, this is an oversimplification across all organisations. But in strictly pecuniary terms, innovation may not actually deliver financial benefits. Innovation in an organisation can bring about process improvements, sustain interest of stakeholders in an organisational context, and permit idea development. (I should note that I'm not limiting this discussion to work place environments; this could be in artistic communities, cybercommunities, political parties and so on.) But when it comes down to measurements of the cost of supporting innovation in an organisation, it's an expensive and risky strategy, and it doesn't always generate improvements in purely financial terms. Indeed the financial value of innovation declines at a much faster rate than traditional 'productivity' for any organisational context. The point is that innovation can deliver some extraordinarily rich intangible benefits to an organisation, and these may have a trickle down cost to the organisation that is significantly more expensive than non-innovative productivity. So the value of innovation shouldn't be just oversimplified as it is in so many management texts. I think we need to be clear that the financial value of innovation is simply too variable to be defined.
3. Risk management is a cost-saving measure
This is probably the biggest 'myth' (or at least 'misconception') of the three. In so much corporate government and triple bottom line theory, risk management is seen as being a cost savings measure to keep Boards happy and companies free of (or at least less vulnerable to) litigation. The act of risk management is, and has been regarded as a form of insurance (it's not really - insurance is characterised by spending in advance for some future possibility of loss, and often involves greater spending than is returned for claims, where risk management is preventative). But risk management is not limited to a form of insurance or preventative medicine. Risk management is primarily about communication. It's a means of keeping track of systems, improving communications processes, and having details on hand when a process is challenged. It's a means of connecting all stakeholders in an engagement, and getting them to talk to each other to solve problems as Surowiecke intends in his Wisdom of Crowds. Of course there may be cost savings that occur as a result of this improved communications architecture, but risk management shouldn't be considered as a simple series of automated tools that save an organisation money. Risk management only works where the people who participate in an organisational or inter-organisational engagement are invested in the process, and are communicating freely.
These ideas may in isolation seem fairly obvious. (I can hear the chorus of "well duh" from here.) But I think some of the problems I'm having with the theories expounded in texts I'm reviewing at the moment stem from over-simplification of these ideas, and this is impacting on the robustness of conclusions reached. I think it may well be time to take a step back in our ruminating about the value of technology, innovation and risk, and consider just how the enmeshing of these phenomena is resulting in a somewhat flimsy rhetoric of hope.
The first bushfires of the dry season have begun somewhere off the coast of Queensland... The Sentinel site will have the details, but the smell of burning brush is thick in the air tonight. This wide brown land of ours - in drought and flooding rains - is once again demonstrating its fierce nature.
I'm going through a stage of complete absorption in my work and my reading, and am once again enthused about exploring ideas, thanks to some encouragement from some particularly fabulous people. But in the meantime, some interesting links await...
- JBoss has been acquired by Red Hat... will be interesting to see what happens to the open source development community as a result in the change of leadership
- Six Apart gives advice on how to prevent blogs from scaring people.... My advice would be not to reveal too much about your private life and don't bite the hand that feeds you (ie: criticise the comments sent to your blog)
- Related to the last link, Structuredblogging is now considering aspects of interaction design in blog posts... this should take off quickly - people like visual cues for content posts.
Just a quick taste... will be back to blogging after the Quarterly review tomorrow!
So on my first weekend "home" in a month, I have spent the majority of the day pulling my pc apart, putting it back together again and then proceeded on the painful journey of installing software. Now don't get me wrong - I love getting my hands dirty with my PC (there's always a rather concerning gleam in my eye, when I fire up my electric screwdriver to attack the tiny screws in my 3.5 inch bays), but the reason for this particular exercise of my geekgrrl technology construction skills was a combination of stupidity (on my part) and rather remarkable skills on the part of the programmer. To explain, upon arriving home from the Brisbane Executive Club's First Fridays drinks last night, I routinely fired up my desktop and started downloading the day's 100 or so emails. It's a laborious task of weeding out the mailing list spam posts I get every day for all the lists I manage, and all the pseudo-spam from the university notices that inevitably find their way through my many filters. So I admit it: occasionally I just click idly through the content of emails and follow the links to papers, ideas and sites recommended, without properly looking at what I'm supposed to be doing.
Don't try this at home folks. It's bloody stupid. It certainly was stupid for me last night.
As soon as I'd clicked the website in one message in the long list - whilst being transfixed by the still-downloading messages and catching a name I was keen to read an email from further down the same list - I realised some sort of e-card was opening... and my heart sank.
Another admission: I emitted several colourful expressions as my processor went into overdrive. Immediately I shut down the browser, but the move was too late - my pc was clearly overwriting, processing, scanning, and interrupting pretty much everything I was running. Immediately I downloaded the latest updates to my virus scan software, and managed to save it to the desktop, but of course, when I tried to run the installer, I had "no memory". I quickly launched Housecall, and got as far as accepting the terms of the agreement before the browser just shut down; first IE, then Firefox. Then in the space of 22 minutes I lost functionality on pretty much every system optimising program I had in my toolkit.
More cursing ensued. By now I was feeling thoroughly miserable because my geek pride had been seriously wounded. I knew better than to click on links in strange emails, risking the launch of trojans. I also knew better than to leave my virus definitions for a month before updating - a task I usually do every weekend, but because I haven't been home.... Anyway. I picked up my mobile and rang the two people who I thought would castigate me for my geek stupidity but who also would be prepared to help me think through the problem: Kevin and Hamish. I just want to thank you guys for putting up with me last night, whinging on the phone. Thanks to Kev for trying to help - hey the scan ran in Safe Mode, it was just that by then the virus had infiltrated all the scanning systems. And thanks to Hamish for saying "it happens to the best of us". That line made me feel a little feel less stupid. Thanks babe :)
Anyway, after exploring a few options to fix I just figured I'd buy a new hard drive. (There's nothing like the power of data storage to cheer me up.) So this morning after breakfast with Tracey - thanks for that Trace! - I zoomed off to work, picked up my laptop, and ordered a new hard drive before coming home, pulling my machine apart and installing a new drive. I figure I'll get the data off the old drive in the next few days. Since then, I've been ploughing through the whole installation process and it's taken hours.
So while installing I've been thinking about the virus itself, and more particularly the programmers who created it. This isn't hackerdom - it's crackerdom - the pointless and destructive use of technologies to disable others' (usually worthless) programs and data. So in most respects it's the ultimate expression of anti-social behaviour - not just because it's a remote power play to cause distress and damage, but because it effectively shuts off the channel of users of these affected technologies to communicate with the world. Not that I don't admire the functional elements of the virus; this was a particularly ingenious little series of programs that operated very quickly indeed, and I only found their trail when I accessed some error logs in rather obscure programs on my system. I just feel dismay at the use of this knowledge and geek cred for such stupid purposes. Yes I know, they're stealing passwords and bank account numbers and so on. So the 'purpose', if you like, is to steal. And yes, I also know there are people who are in desperate straits. But these are skills that can earn megabucks. So this isn't stealing to overcome economic inequity. It's probably more about attempting - in a rather oxymoronic fashion - to overcome social inequity. If the only way you can assert your identity and power in a world that worships the beautiful, the wealthy and the successful, is to devise a trojan that will temporarily shut down communication systems and spread misery and inequity, then I suppose that's what you go and do.
I love hackerdom. I regard myself as a hacker and am proud of it. It's fun. And yes, some of it is clearly illegal. But as Raymond has noted, there is an underlying ethic in the hacker culture which is about breaking systems, hierarchies and hegemonies. It's not destructive so much as it is metatextual and deconstructive. But crackerdom is just plain destructive. And it's probably proof that even in the hacker culture, there's a sickness of social inequity.
This is probably far too long a blog post but I don't care. I suffer for my art Windows installation, and now it's your turn. I guess the point I'm making here, is that I intended to spend today reading and writing and constructing. I ended up deconstructing and reconstructing my PC, and philosophising about the characteristics of crackers. So whilst I do come across as a bit of a git - both for being stupid enough to allow a trojan loose on my system, and for being led to this analysis - I still feel I got something out of the day. Now of course, I just need to creatively solve the problem of how to bring about a sense of social equity in the digital sphere, and help prevent the scourge of crackerdom.....
Wow. So much to blog; so little time.
Thanks to Kylie Murphy from the Ideas Festival for the most stunning bouquet of flowers as a thank you for my involvement as an Advisor to the Festival. This is the first bunch of flowers I've been sent in years, and it was an absolute pleasure to work on the Ideas Festival anyway, so this was just a lovely and most welcome surprise. Thank you, Kylie - it's been a privilege.
Thanks also to Pat Kane for a myriad of new resources, ideas, links and experiences he has shared with me - Pat, you're wonderful!
I seem to have spent the majority of today agreeing to write major business plans, draft strategic plans, CD products, articles and modules for study guides. Fortunately, most of them are paid gigs, so I'll see some ROI for my time, but it looks like it's going to be a busy Easter. After that, I'm up for some new consultancy work so anyone who wants to discuss new projects, feel free to contact me after Easter!
Well it's been a fabulous and stimulating four and a half days at the Ideas Festival, and I want to take this opportunity to thank each and every person who attended and participated in this extraordinary and important event. Sessions over the weekend were almost all full, and the engagement of viewers with the content was absolutely sensational. Highlights included the Ideas Debate on Wednesday, Consumption as a lifestyle choice with Will Steffens, John Quiggin and Ed Blakely, and Ode to Mrs Pugsly with Tim Goodwin, Wayne Hudson, Allan Luke and Larissa Behrendt on Thursday, my session with Tim Goodwin, Gisele Gass and Ingrid Van Beek, the Cory Doctorow lecture on digital rights management and Pat Kane's lecture on the Power of Play on Friday, Waiting for the Prince with Elspeth Probyn, Anna Haebich, Ngaire Naffine and Sallyanne Atkinson, Martina Sheehan in Modern Business, Ancient Wisdom and Julian Burnside speaking about civil rights degradation on Saturday, and Seven News Sins with Pat Kane, Jeffrey Masson, Johan Galtung and Paul Collins on Sunday.
Just reminding you all that sessions have been recorded and ABC Radio National and Radio Australia will be broadcasting some sessions in coming days and weeks, and the the Ideas Festival site is going to publish MP3 files of sessions over the next several weeks.
I'm delighted to have been an Ideas Advisor for this wonderful Festival - it was a privilege to work with my fellow Advisors, and with Festival Director, Kylie Murphy, and her crew. I do hope Brisbane and the public will support future Ideas Festival events. We can't lose this momentum. Let's continue to engage in new ideas, new opportunities and new connections.
At the half way point of the Ideas Festival, I'm checking in to say that sessions have been fantastic (in spite of the torrential rain yesterday) and this weekend promises to be just as fascinating as the past two days. Thanks to all my speakers for their efforts yesterday - Ingrid Van Beek, Gisele Gass, Tim Goodwin, Julianne Schultz and Cory Doctorow, and thanks to Pat Kane for his presentation and ideas at dinner last night.
I'm looking forward to my session with Martina Sheehan today on Modern Business; Ancient Wisdom, and to Julian Burnside's session tonight on the Cost of Yielding.
All in all, sessions have been well-attended and the audiences have been engaged. It's great to see so many people involved and participating. Thanks also to all my friends, colleagues and associates who have attended and participated over the past coupole of days - hope you have enjoyed this fabulous event. Of course there is more to come, so if you're in Brisbane and want to be challenged, come along to remaining sessions of the Festival. The program is available from http://www.ideasfestival.com.au/.
