When I started writing my book Living Networks in early 2002 I thought that it was important to demonstrate that the concept of ‘living networks’ was not just a metaphor, but a reality: we, together with the networks that connect us, are literally a new life form.
To show this I drew on the literature on autopoiesis, which was proposed as a new way of understanding the nature of life, and wrote a lengthy introduction to the book. My editor, very rightly, thought it was the wrong way to begin the book, and the introduction never saw the light of day.
This morning when someone mentioned living networks to me I remembered that this was a literal phrase that I had never explained, so here is the introduction, seen for the first time. We are indeed part of an emerging higher-order life form, and that is a wonderful thing…
Introduction: How Connectivity is Bringing Our World to Life:
We who are privileged to be alive today are participating in the birth of a new lifeform: the global networks. All the talk of the “new economy” in the late 1990s reflected many of the changes at play in our world. In truth they may well have underestimated the importance of the juncture we are at, which represents a complete change in the nature of society and business. Since the dawn of humanity people have been the dominant force on our planet, for better and—sometimes—for worse. Now people as individuals are being transcended by a higher-order lifeform, which is connecting and merging most of the people and all the digital devices on the planet into a single entity.
Read more →
The Economist on online freelancing and the future of work: crowdsourcing goes mainstream
By Ross DawsonThe Economist this week addresses the wonderful world of online freelancing and crowdsourcing, under the rubrik Work in the digital age. The full article is well worth a read.
The article points to the potential for online freelancing and piecework to account for a substantial part of global labor. While The Economist has touched on the issue before, this is now something that is a significant business issue which is going to start attracting a lot more coverage. The Economist notes:
One of the key issues is that work on these sites is no longer limited to graphic design and web development – larger, more sophisticated, more complex, and better-paid work is shifting on to these sites.
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One more reason why Australia is a global hub for crowdsourcing: Ideas While You Sleep
By Ross DawsonI was recently introduced to Yvonne Adele of IdeasCulture through a Twitter introduction from Tim Longhurst – a great connection to make!
Not long ago I wrote how Australia is becoming a global hub for crowdsourcing platforms: Freelancer.com, 99designs, DesignCrowd. Yvonne’s service Ideas While You Sleep adds to the burgeoning collection of crowdsourcing services based in Australia. Yvonne described to me how the service works.
The concept is that challenges submitted by 4pm will receive an pack of 100 ideas with an action plan by 10am the next morning, currently at an introductory price of A$495.
Ideas While You Sleep draws on 440 brainstormers, who are ranked in experience from apprentices to premium. As they successfully contribute to projects, they are promoted to a higher roles.
Teams are always designed with diversity in mind, so they include the full range of levels of experience as well as background. Team members are rotated as new projects come up.
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What Yahoo!’s purchase of Associated Content means for the crowdsourced (crap?) content industry
By Ross DawsonYahoo! has just purchased Associated Content, with price variously reported at $90 million (by All Things D) and slightly over $100 million (by AdAge).
Associated Content is the second largest player in crowdsourced content after Demand Media, which is looking at an IPO which is likely to be valued over $1 billion. AOL, which was originally considering buying Associated Content when it wanted to get into the space, decided to grow its own business called Seed, which is already a strong player. Other players include Helium.
The model is primarily of advertising arbitrage – identifying where advertising returns from search visitors can exceed the cost of content. Since online advertising doesn’t pay much, content costs need to be very low. As a result the quality is not always earth-shattering.
I wrote last year about how the proliferation of crap content, and how the rise of reputation systems will make it easier for us to identify content quality and reliability. However we don’t have these yet.
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Launch of online community SMETechnologyForum.com – join the discussion!
By Ross DawsonWe have been busy working on a number of major initiatives this year. One of the most important directions for Advanced Human Technologies is creating communities in which we provide useful content and a place for sharing and discussion.
Our first community is SME Technology Forum, which brings together community insights on leveraging tech for small and mid-sized companies. Check it out. And when you’re there please participate if you have anything to add to the discussions or comments.
We’re keen to get your contribution to the community. We’d love to post any useful articles you have. Also do let us know if you or anyone you know has learned valuable lessons on applying technology to business – we’d be happy to do an interview to write a case study. Full details on how to contribute to SME Technology Forum here.
We will be launching more communities soon, both ones dear to our hearts, as well as custom communities for companies that want to build a rich B2B community for their customers and prospects. Keep posted for more new communities – they’re intended to be valuable for you!
Autopoiesis and how hyper-connectivity is literally bringing the networks to life
By Ross DawsonWhen I started writing my book Living Networks in early 2002 I thought that it was important to demonstrate that the concept of ‘living networks’ was not just a metaphor, but a reality: we, together with the networks that connect us, are literally a new life form.
To show this I drew on the literature on autopoiesis, which was proposed as a new way of understanding the nature of life, and wrote a lengthy introduction to the book. My editor, very rightly, thought it was the wrong way to begin the book, and the introduction never saw the light of day.
This morning when someone mentioned living networks to me I remembered that this was a literal phrase that I had never explained, so here is the introduction, seen for the first time. We are indeed part of an emerging higher-order life form, and that is a wonderful thing…
Introduction: How Connectivity is Bringing Our World to Life:
We who are privileged to be alive today are participating in the birth of a new lifeform: the global networks. All the talk of the “new economy” in the late 1990s reflected many of the changes at play in our world. In truth they may well have underestimated the importance of the juncture we are at, which represents a complete change in the nature of society and business. Since the dawn of humanity people have been the dominant force on our planet, for better and—sometimes—for worse. Now people as individuals are being transcended by a higher-order lifeform, which is connecting and merging most of the people and all the digital devices on the planet into a single entity.
Read more →
SME Tech Forum Series: Getting Results from Crowdsourcing on 31 May
By Ross DawsonAfter the success of its SME Technology Summit last December, The Insight Exchange is launching an ongoing series of events in the space, the SME Technology Forum Series.
The series kicks off with a very exciting evening event in Sydney on 31 May on Getting Results from Crowdsourcing. Full details are on the event page.
The keynote panel discussion features the CEOs of some of the great companies that are making Australia a global hub for crowdsourcing:
– Matt Barrie of Freelancer.com
– Alec Lynch of DesignCrowd
– Yvonne Adele of Ideas While You Sleep
as well as long-time lead user of crowdsourcing tools
– Phil Sim, CEO of MediaConnect.
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Launch of Left Coast Festival and Rose Vickers’ Flohawk show
By Ross DawsonIt’s great to see Sydney’s continued rise as a creative hub, with the wealth of talent on hand compounded by the immense energy going into great events and festivals such as Creative Sydney.
This Wednesday 6-8pm Sedition Gallery is launching the 50 day Left Coast Festival, including visual works, installations, video, hybrid music / dance performances and more with an event themed Red, with unconfirmed ‘whispers’ that Laurie Anderson might attend while she’s in Sydney.
The event is also a launch for the talented Rose Vickers’ show Flohawk, about transience, mortality, the brevity of life’s stages – an image from the show below.
Maybe see you there!
Is Google a vampire sucking the blood out of media and the web?
By Ross DawsonHere is a nice video of the highly-respected Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand speaking at Web 2.0 Expo SF about how Google plays fair and less fair, giving a balanced view of the accusations of vampirism from media tycoons such as Mark Cuban and Wall Street Journal publisher Les Hinton.
The video is well worth watching. Each of the many examples show how Google is using and potentially abusing its power in specific areas. Small choices, for example in showing related sites against a company website, could point to competitors and thus erode value for advertisers even as they may help consumers. It is also very easy to favor its own initiatives. Why wouldn’t you? But if you lose trust that you are providing the best search results, you lose everything.
Danny suggests that Google doesn’t want to do evil, but its initiatives have an enormous impact. Many caught in its enormous field of influence feel squeezed by its actions.
He ends up by proposing that all search engines should honor the “content compact”: Give as much or more than you take. Danny believes that Google is giving far more than it is taking, particularly in terms of giving traffic to websites.
What is most important is that the quality of search increases. I have to say I thought we would have far better search than we do today. The degree of competition in search is not quite what it should be to push Google. Hopefully the state of search can get better faster as the right sort of pressure is put on Google – not from media empires, but from people searching for the information and services they want.
What Enterprise 2.0 means for the CIO and IT department
By Ross DawsonOur Implementing Enterprise 2.0 report is intended as a practical guide to how to create business value with web technologies inside the organization.
One of the key issues is the implications of these approaches for the organization and its key functional areas. Not surprisingly, there are a particular set of pressing issues for the IT department. These are covered in the report – we have excerpted Chapter 19 on the implications for IT below.
WHAT ENTERPRISE 2.0 MEANS FOR IT
Enterprise 2.0 has significant implications for the IT function of organizations. It is of course generally the responsibility of the IT function to facilitate the adoption of technologies that create value for the enterprise. However Enterprise 2.0 technologies both have significant cultural aspects to their use and uptake, and can have a significant impact on the underlying business processes and even value creation inside the organization.
Following are the primary issues that need to be understood and addressed, both by the CIO and his or her team, and the senior executive team and board of the organization.
1. Increased user expectations
One of the most important implications of Web 2.0 for organizations is that staff are increasingly exposed to very useful and well designed applications on the open web. The contrast with existing enterprise applications is usually stark.
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How IT analyst firms can learn from investment bank research pricing models
By Ross DawsonGideon Gartner has just posted a great article titled Advisory Industry, a future redesign: the “Payment” Model, in which he draws on investment banking research pricing as a model for IT analysts and their clients. Gideon writes:
He wraps up:
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