Using network perspectives to visualize changing culture and meaning

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I’m a big fan of Tim Stock‘s work, which weaves together a deep network perspective with a rich view of how culture is changing informed by semiotic analysis. I earlier shared one of his presentations in a post on how the culture of luxury is changing.

The slides to his presentation at SXSW today on Culture Networks and the codes that drive them are available below. As usual, they provide a lesson in beautiful slide presentations to accompany the rich content.

Culture Networks (SXSW 2012)

View more presentations from Tim Stock

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Is Manifesto the right word for our times?

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It strikes me that in these these confused and confusing times we should lay down clear thoughts about what we believe in. I am mustering my thoughts across a number domains to express what I think is important.

However one of the questions is what to call these statements. On the face of it ‘Manifesto’ is an admirable description.

From the political domain the Communist Manifesto (1848) and Anarchist Manifesto (1850) flowed through into artistic domain, with notably the Futurist Manifesto (1909) and Surrealist Manifesto (1924), and on into the social domain, with the SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto (1968) among the many marking the cultural revolution of the 1960s. Since then the technological domain has been rife with statements from the GNU Manifesto (1985) and Hackers Manifesto (1986) through to the bestselling Cluetrain Manifesto (1999).


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Will technology harm or help young people’s brains? A highly nuanced debate

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Pew Internet & American Life Project’s latest study on the future of the internet examines how young people will be affected by technology.

The study selected 1,021 “experts” and asked them to choose between one of the following statements, with no other choices, with these results:
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A vision writ large: The future, personality, and hubris

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I have just seen the video of Peter Weyland’s speech at TED 2023, shown below. It is a superb piece, bringing together ideas, performance, and production to create a powerful impression in a few minutes.

I had to do some research to find what the speech is actually promoting. At the end of the movie the logo and website for Weyland Industries appears, which takes you to this website that showcases the speech.
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The 14 ExaTrends of the Decade

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We released our Map of the ExaTrends of the Decade a while ago now. However the decade is still young, and all of these ExaTrends (which is a MegaTrend cubed) have a long way yet to play out.

We have created a set of slides to make the 14 ExaTrends easier to read and understand. The slides are better viewed in large size, so either view full screen or go to the slides on Slideshare.

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VIDEO – ExaTrends of the Decade: Reputation Economy

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A while back we released our Map of the ExaTrends of the Decade.

We are now releasing a series of short videos delving into the ExaTrends, starting with Reputation Economy.

Some of the issues covered in the video include:
* The amount of data we have now is enabling the measurement of reputation
* Influence and Reputation are different
* Klout, PeerIndex and their peers do not measure reputation, they are trying to measure influence.
* Other players in the emerging reputation space include LinkedIn, Honestly.com and CubeDuel
* Service marketplaces such as Freelancer.com, oDesk and Elance have internal reputation measures
* There is immense value to reputation measures, across many aspects of business
* Reputation is becoming central to business and society

You can download the full Map of the Decade including descriptions of each ExaTrend by clicking on the image:
MapoftheDecade_500w.jpg

Remote Sex: the perfect Valentine’s Day present

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Our online magazine FutureofSex.net explores this fascinating aspect of the intersection of technology and society.

The rise of our connected world has implications that reach into almost every aspect of our lives. I did many Valentine’s Day interviews back in 2003 and 2004, talking about proximity dating, one way in which technology is changing how we connect romantically.

This year we thought it would be worth putting out word to media about the fascinating topic of remote sex, as it is a topic in which their audience will very likely be interested. Here is our press release:

Remote sex – how distant lovers can still be intimate this Valentine’s Day

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Do you want to live forever?

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For any student of potential disruptive technological advances, life extension inevitably looms as one that could completely change the condition of humanity.

While there is heated debate about whether the current proposed approaches to life extension being proposed have any merit, there is no question that major advances are possible in the field.


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Sunrise: What to expect in 2012: transformation, social media divide, crowd work

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This morning I appeared on the Australian national breakfast TV program Sunrise in their ‘Ask an Expert’ segment, talking about the year ahead. Here is the 4 minute clip.

In the brief segment I draw on a number of the 12 Themes for 2012 I recently released. The key topics we discussed were:
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Will your privacy completely vanish? It depends how we use facial recognition

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We recently launched our 12 Themes for 2012, shown below, in which the third of the 12 themes is ‘Privacy vanishes’.

One of the drivers of privacy vanishing is the rise of facial recognition. As the 2012 themes document notes, while Facebook has prominently launched its facial recognition technology, Apple and Google have facial recognition capabilities that they have not yet launched. The landscape is now changing.
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