Blog – Page 128 – Ross Dawson

Where is privacy heading and who is driving it?

Here is a video of a very interesting interview of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg by Mike Arrington of Techcrunch.

There are a number of very interesting comments by Zuckerberg in the interview, including on how Facebook Connect is so fundamental to the company. He said that “obviously much more is going to be developed outside of Facebook than inside,” meaning that the development of Facebook into a platform is critical.

More controversial was Zuckerberg’s comments on privacy. At around 3:15 in the video he says:

“People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time. We view it as our role in the system to constantly be innovating and be updating what our system is to reflect what the current social norms are.”

This prompted Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb to write a long diatribe, saying:

I don’t buy Zuckerberg’s argument that Facebook is now only reflecting the changes that society is undergoing. I think Facebook itself is a major agent of social change and by acting otherwise Zuckerberg is being arrogant and condescending.

This is a fascinating issue. I and many others – including Zuckerberg – have been surprised through this decade by quite how much people have been prepared to share, given the opportunity by the rapid rise of Web 2.0 tools. Undoubtedly there has been a rapid evolution of social attitudes to privacy, as many people have discovered that they are in fact comfortable sharing some personal information.

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Trend map for 2010 and out to 2050

By Ross Dawson

For the last few years Richard Watson of NowandNext has created annual trend maps based on city subway maps. This year he has been more ambitious, creating a highly detailed map with five time zones, ranging from 2010-2015 out to 2035-2050.

For the previous three trend maps (shown at the bottom) I collaborated with Richard and we co-branded them with Future Exploration Network, however time pressures this year meant that I haven’t directly contributed to the 2010 map. It is still as rich and glorious as ever – spend some time delving into the trends ahead!

MEGATRENDS OF THE TREND MAP

– Ageing

– Power shift Eastwards

– Globalisation

– Localisation

– Digitalisation

– Personalisation

– Volatility

– Individualism

– Environmental change

– Sustainability

– Debt

– Urbanisation

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The top 10 trends for the 2010s: the most exciting decade in human history

By Ross Dawson

In his excellent book The Meaning of the 21st Century, James Martin asks when in human history you would most like to be alive.

For me there is no question that it is now. The coming decade will be the most exciting in human history. The very challenging year of 2009 that we are preparing to bid farewell to helped to tear up the fairly linear progress of the first decade of the century. Now, technological and social change are poised to accelerate far beyond what we have become accustomed to.

A critical uncertainty is how well we will respond to this extraordinary pace of change, both as individuals and as societies. Will we be able to adapt and change, or will severe dysfunctions emerge? Just one dimension is the manifold ethical dilemmas that are raised by gaining extraordinary technological capabilities.

Here are the ten trends that I believe will be most fundamental to the decade ahead. I hope to present these and associated trends in an interactive visual format before long. For now, here are the 10 trends for 2010.

1. Information Intensity

We will soon consume more media than there are waking hours, by virtue of multi-channeling at most times. Billions of people and places will be media producers, including video streaming from most points of view on the world. We are just at the dawn of an incomprehensible daily onslaught of news and information – some valuable, much useless.

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The 10 TENsions That Will Define 2010

By Ross Dawson

To anticipate what will shape 2010, we need to understand the TENsions that will define the opening year of the TENsions decade. The TENsions that are most prominent will evolve during the course of the decade. However the accelerating pace of change means that TENsions will inevitably define the decade, in myriad forms.

These are the 10 TENsions for 2010, the opening year of the TENsions.

1. Optimism – Fear

Many companies and workers are now daring to be optimistic as they put 2009 behind them, look forward to opportunities, and worry about getting left behind if things improve rapidly. Yet with the shock of the onset of the financial crisis still fresh, any optimism is subject to being shattered, resulting in wild swings in confidence.

2. Institutional work – Independent work

While many lost their jobs in 2009, sparking a rise in home-based work such as direct selling, many others gave up self-employment to return to the workforce. Over the long term more people are making the shift to work independently, by desire or necessity. However the temptations of self-employment can be replaced by desire for a steady pay packet, pulling people both ways.

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Amazing 3D video projections bring buildings to life and shape our environment

By Ross Dawson

When I was a child I dreamed of creating an immersive experience of light and images. I put a chair in a cupboard in which I intended to put up lights around me that would create an experience of being in a magical world. Unfortunately the technology I had available wasn’t up to the job.

Today we are able to control and shape our environment as never before. What is proving to be one of the most useful technologies is 3D animations projected onto external spaces. Buildings are the largest canvases on which artists can paint.

While I’ve seen a number of fantastic building projections over the years, 3D animation combined with mapping onto architectural forms is taking the art of bringing buildings to life to new levels. Prime practitioners of this art are the Dutch digital design firm NuFormer. The videos below show some of what they are capable of.

The first video shows how the contours of buildings are used to great effect in generating 3D animations. The second video shows how a large white wall can be used effectively to create 3D effects, in this case for a public show sponsored by Volvo. Well worth a look!

Projection on Buildings from NuFormer Digital Media on Vimeo.

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Top keynote speech presentations/ videos of 2009

Top blog posts of 2009: 6 on Twitter and the media

Amazing 3D video projections bring buildings to life and shape our environment

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