digital: collective surplus for good?

Having a conversation with an old colleague of mine Zoe Scaman about the idea of digital changing our cognitive process (for the worst) she introduced me to a recent article where suggested that "the case that technology increases our intelligence is at least as plausible as the gloomy idea that it is changing our brains for the worse, there are real downsides to the instant availability of torrents of information. The danger comes not from the information itself, or from how it could rewire our brains, but from the way we think about our own knowledge and abilities".

Social Media Theorist, Clay Shirky interestingly points out that new technologies enable a loose ­collaboration which takes advantage of “spare” brainpower enabled by the internet, which can change the way society works. In fact he believes for every way the Internet gives us to waste time, there is a way to increase the scope and diversity of our knowledge and to work collectively on problems not just on your doorstep or in your country but across the world - he uses the Ushahidi information collecting open source platform as an example of this.

And so why would someone want to share their surplus brain power? What are our intrinsic motivations? Clay explains that social constraints can create a culture that is more generous than a contractual one. Economic motivations may not align with our intrinsic motivations. The internet gives us the freedom to experiment which means the freedom to experiment with anything. It enables us to continue to consume, because that's what humans like doing and have been doing for a while but what it also allows us to do is create and share - two intrinsic motivations that are now not only enabled, but also, empowered in terms of breadth, scope and arguably time. So perhaps the interwebs are not bad after all.

philosophical about the interwebs

I realised today that I have been blogging in some shape or form for 12 years now (obviously not always under jectaspecta) and whilst time has passed me by, dial up has evolved to broadband, delayed to instant and private to public - I have grown up, to some extent and now in retrospect query my relationship with what has almost converged to become my virtual butler.

Nicholas Carr is a writer who commentates on how Information Technology is integrated in to our lives as a standardised practice. More recently he has been examining the cognitive and cultural consequences the internet has been having on our minds.

"I'm not thinking the way I used to think," Carr tells us. "I feel it most strongly when I'm reading." He relates how he gets fidgety with a long text. Like others, he suspects that the Internet has destroyed his ability to read deeply. "My brain," he writes, "wasn't just drifting. It was hungry. It was demanding to be fed the way the Net fed it."

The history of reading is an interesting one. Words were once written without spaces and punctuation, they required a lot of attention to understand. Books were read aloud and shared with those who could not read (to their amazement). Readers slowly evolved to become accustomed to ignoring the sounds around them (going against our nature of alertness) and thus the deep thinker was born with cognitive ability to concentrate on the written word. Following the advent of the printing press, in a virtuous feedback loop, the public became more literate as more books circulated. How our minds adapt. Note: I bet you won't read all of this.

Carr believes that encouraged by the frenetic, fragmented, hyperlinked web, our skills in deep thought are now diminishing. We are becoming easily distracted, pay less attention to books or articles for sustained length and our minds have become data processing machines.

Carr's assertions have increasingly become a fact of accepted knowledge: that our addiction to the web and computers is affecting the way we think. That is, our capability for "deep thinking", is limited without the time to process information and draw our own conclusions.

Scarily, this concept has been shown to have significant foundations amongst academic performance in schools, studies reveal that home computers have "modest but statistically significant negative impacts" on academic performance as measured by math and reading test scores. In addition: "The introduction of high-speed internet service is similarly associated with significantly lower math and reading test scores in the middle grades." Worse yet, "the introduction of broadband internet is associated with widening racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps." Attempts to close the "digital divide" by, for example, subsidizing PC purchases may actually end up widening the divide between rich and poor in academic performance. And we thought computers promoted development.

Few concepts have spread as rapidly as the ‘digital divide’ and with it, the hope of using modern IT to promote development. Groups from the United Nations to local governments, and private companies have seized upon the hope that the use of IT could enable even the poorest of developing nations to “leapfrog” their problems of development such as poverty, illiteracy, disease, unemployment, hunger, corruption, and social inequalities so as to move rapidly into the modern Information Age.

We know little about the factors that make for effectiveness or ineffectiveness of grassroots IT projects in developing nations. Thus, critics can point out that the cost of creating a working Internet connection in a developing nation is the same as that of providing immunization against six fatal childhood diseases to thousands of children. Others have argued that the introduction of ICT’s into communities otherwise unchanged will merely heighten existing inequalities. Do we really know?

Is knowledge and wisdom based on things like reason, experience, perception? Or is it now a commodity, or data, that can be applied for a given situation. Has it become devoid of humanity? Of deeper processing? Have we become lazy because there is a machine that can offer an answer quicker than we can ask it? Does that knowledge become less significant because of its accessibility and transparency?

Not only is it just the way that we garner information that has changed but also what we do with it. Increasingly we syndicate this data via social networks: "web-driven speaking tools that reduce our own communication to data piles, stacked with quick, surface-level proclamations".

And while we may be sociable online, the social aspect of those networks is only distinguishable by the ability to connect people to one another in the strictest internet sense - not physically scarcely audibly, but almost in abstract. In the end, as we place our focus in to the screen, we are facing only what we've directed these machines to do - that is, so to speak, we are facing ourselves.

Forgive what may come across as a geek staring at the stars but it is, essentially, the virtual manifestation of our intentions. Its a perpetual narcissistic feedback loop of enclosed interactivity. Its the social network of our online persona, controlled by our offline selves communicated via a small piece of equipment shining a rectangle of ironic interaction. Confused? I think I am too. This requires deep thought.

Simply, we are drawn to an interface by its proximity and emptiness that it begs us to fill. Its the blank canvas that allows for an aggregation of content which gives us a unique opportunity to make it our own, our individualistic way. Our fingers encounter something tactile (sometimes greasy) but in reality the image is always light years away at a unique distance that can only be described as unbridgeable by the body.

What we are communicating is a mirror of ourselves in a highly pix-elated form, existing only as far away as the fingertip to keypad and yet equally, not anywhere at all.

Perhaps we are in danger of becoming simply the same surface-level information that we have become slowly programmed to gather.

Has IT made us smarter and less wiser? Should we change the way we gather information or the way we communicate it?

Is it time to get an iPad?

australian digital landscape

Recently on my visit to meet the remainder of my team in San Fransisco, I presented an update on the digital landscape in Australia. It was a brilliant exercise and a great opportunity for everyone to share their thoughts, qualms and questions on the subject.

I've boiled it down a little for the purposes of my blog.

Australian Digital Landscape

View more presentations from Jessica Brookes.

You have a voice here - feel free to use it. Even if you just want to tell me it sucks and digital smells.

Exit Through the Gift Shop & Mr Brainwash (MBW)

I love the MBW concept which Banksy brings to life in his documentary "Exit Through The Gift Shop". A movie about street art... or is it? This movie makes you think a lot and without giving too much away (go watch it). We see a character, Mr. Brainwash, whose real name is Thierry Guetta, an eccentric French-born ex-pat living in L.A. become a famous artist over night.

Guetta had been attempting to make a documentary about street art when he met Banksy. The outrageous plot of the film is that Banksy was so horrified by Guetta's potential movie - there's even an over-edited, shamelessly shocking "first cut" of the movie shown - and so fascinated with Guetta, that he turned the cameras on him, only to be completely blindsided when Guetta rips off his style launching a huge exhibition in L.A via a factory style, churn and burn rips offs none of which is are created by himself. That's what the movie says anyway.

But what really happened when Banksy encountered the filmmaker? Did he convince Guetta to pose as a budding graffiti artist wannabe so he and Fairey (Obey) could "direct" him in real life - manufacturing a brand new persona that both celebrates and criticizes the over-commercialisation of street art (and gives them a persona to sell their own art under in the process?)



The movie brings to life all the flaws in modern society beyond what's articulated on a canvas through the intangible demonstration.

Branding can influence what we think and also what we believe is the experience. We know that people are so influenced by hype that they'll believe food tastes better, cigarettes smoke better and art IS better (worth hundreds and thousands in fact).

So are we merely sheep? Who's the biggest joke here? Is it art? Is it society? Is it Banksy/Obey? Is it MBW? If art is a visual representation of where we are today - what does this say about the world we live in? I think Mr. Brainwash nails it sadly... and I hope Banksy and Fairey do something damn good with the money.

Poor rich people

This is a "communications idea" that came about recently which I felt compelled to research a little further.

I look to address the different perceptions and behaviour associated with giving and spending. It interests me because both consequentially have a similar emotional response and yet are communicated and perceived so differently.

I think its important to exercise a fresh perspective, to have a lateral approach and so whilst a part of me thinks this may just be one of those exercises to help me hone this - quite selfishly - it'd be great if it could spark some inspiration elsewhere.

I’m hoping an awesome agency/charity will be interested in bringing it to life, but I could be dreaming. I would obviously be happy for someone to take it and make it their own so long as it were true to the objective (actually, I'd be incredibly flattered!)

I'm not precious about it whatsoever; so please look for holes in it and bring it to my attention - its all part of the process.

I recommend looking at it big screen.

Poor Rich People - Changing the perceptions of giving

View more presentations from jectaspecta.

Augmented Flashmob in Amsterdam

Amsterdam residents got together at Dam Square yesterday for the first ever augmented reality flashmob. Darth Vader, The Beatles, Superman and various other awesome characters were in attendance.

Love the concept but its just so bizarre to see it in practice. There's no real interaction between the attendees as they're all engrossed with the interfaces of their mobiles.

This dude summed it up nicely ;)

How to start a movement

Here are some learnings from Derek Silvers TED Talk:

• A leader needs the guts to stand out and be ridiculed
• If you’re the lone nut who starts a movement, who goes out there alone, nurture your first few followers as equals – its about the movement not about you
• The first follower is an underestimated form of leadership in itself - he shows the others how to follow
• A movement must be public, new followers emulate the followers not the leader
• Leadership is over glorified; the first follower transforms the lone nut in to a leader (if we’re all trying to be leaders it’d be ineffective)
• As more people join in, its less risky, so those who were spectators now have no reason not to get involved - they won't stand out, they won't be ridiculed, they may be part of the in crowd if they hurry (Tipping point)

So, find your followers, embrace them as equals and have the courage to follow and show others. how to follow

The Future of Publishing

A very clever way to demonstrate the change publishing is undergoing at the moment. It says embrace your customer as partners in the process, let them inspire creative ideas to guide and validate the content you produce, regardless of the packaging.

And seriously, lets all get over Gaga.

The Internet of Things

"The Internet of Things" talks to how the internet has become a nervous system to our planet which can transform data and glean wisdom to create efficiencies in our every day lives.

I wonder what this means? Will humankind become lazy? Will this give us an opportunity to focus on different things such as innovation and creation?

(Thanks Conrad)

Demented Augmented

"The latter half of the 20th century saw the built environment merged with media space, and architecture taking on new roles related to branding, image and consumerism. Augmented reality may recontextualise the functions of consumerism and architecture, and change in the way in which we operate within it.

A film produced for my final year Masters in Architecture, part of a larger project about the social and architectural consequences of new media and augmented reality."

- Keiichi Matsuda

IBM Colour Sensitive Interactive Billboard

Color Sensitive Interactive Billboard from milton cj on Vimeo.
Interesting use of digital signage. One might even call it 'smart'...

(via Fubiz)

Look at the monkey

This student film I stumbled upon on YouTube quite simply makes me happy. Cool track, funky animations and strangely addictive!

Props to:
Animation - Thomas Hicks
Music - Aaron Lampert

Wireless communications

Its insane how rapid mobile is evolving. Mobile phones have fast become a phenomenon. They're no longer a medium for making voice calls but a platform to communicate in a ubiquitous world.

They're a tool that keeps you constantly in the present. They wake you up in the morning, facilitate gaming, stream movies, music, connect you to your proverbial social sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. Furthermore, mobile commerce is evolving from early innovation to mainstream adoption.

Current mobile trends:

- Mobile will soon be able to stream movie content (via iPhone)

- iPhone and Android are becoming a platform of choice for developers

- iPad follows closely behind (iPad is mostly attractive to iPhone users)

- 73% of Android users are guys

- 78% of iPod touch users are younger than 25

- iPod touch users love apps and download an average of 12 a month, spending 100 minutes a day using them (37% more apps than iPhone and Android users)

- When it comes to solely paid apps, iPhone users lead the pack (half of them buy at least one app a month)

MOCOM2020 is an open think tank about mobile media worldwide. Their goal is "to develop a visualized vision of the future of mobile media in the year 2020". They also track the latest buzz on mobile communications.

AdMob serve ads for more than 15,000 mobile Web sites and applications around the world (and stores and analyses the data from every ad request, impression, and click) and offer a snapshot of its data to provide insight into trends in the mobile ecosystem.

Recently they ran a survey to AdMob publishers to understand how they are thinking about cross-platform development. The key takeaway from the survey is that 47% of publishers said they plan on developing on more than one platform in the next 6 months. Among those who plan on developing for another platform, Android was the top choice (caveat Blackberry is not included in the survey).

'In the same vein' they published results of a survey from Appcelerator which measured mobile developer interest on different platforms and found a similar strong interest in Android:

I predict in terms of the breadth of offering and functionality, mobile phone users are going to see their pocket device become increasingly dynamic and depended on in the years to come.

The challenge for brands is how they will facilitate this, using relevant content to work within a world where the primacy of once-virtual communication is transforming as, increasingly, the virtual and the real combine.

What Is Missing? By Silvie Bolcher

Sylvie Blocher is a famous French video artist. I went to her exhibition today at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art and I was totally blown away by the stunning visuals, insights and stories she presented. Her work What Is Missing? features people from Penrith unveiling their unspoken needs, hopes, dreams and desires, and was created while Sylvie Blocher was in residence in Penrith as part of the C3West Project. It talks to identity, culture, meaning in life and what people feel is missing in Australia.

Is the digital revolution sustainable?

“There are potentially large and early gains from better utilization of known technologies, goods and services…” Ross Garnaut, The Garnaut Climate Change Review, Final Report.


So in my previous post, I made some predictions about the media landscape of the future, of how the convergence between the 'traditional' and the 'new' will progress through the proliferation of media (from an advertisers perspective).

As someone who cares about the environment, its important to realise what this 'digital revolution' will translate to if information and communication technology (ICT) doesn't evolve quick enough and companies continue to have an incumbent approach to sustainability. Hence this post, from a Greenie's perspective.

There's no denying that digital presents great opportunity to limit footprint but its important to remember that whilst there's an element of intangibility, digital data needs to be stored somewhere in the real world (aka 'Cloud').

Presuming the over reliance on non-renewable energy continues, what will be the impact within ICT?

Well at present only 25% of the world is connected to the internet. This is due to change, Africa is one of the latest continents to become 'connected' and adoption is going to continue to grow exponentially in the coming years.

There are more than one billion PCs and laptops currently in use, and that number is expected to grow to four billion by 2020 - that's an increase of 400% in ten years. A lot of people perceive the internet as a given or a right, but we must remind ourselves in the Western world- we still represent a minority.

ICT emissions are the same as the Aviation industry and yet for some reason ICT is largely ignored in the debate on emissions (even though its predicted to increase to 6% by 2020 - equal to the output of the Steal Industry). Is it because we can't see it? We certainly think about it when printing on paper or catching a plane. In one year it is estimated that an average server produces as much CO2 emissions as a family car... To put this in to perspective; Google is said to have somewhere between 700,000 to 1 million servers.

Lets look at 'emerging media' Google Search in more detail...

“The global search market continues to grow at an extraordinary rate, with both highly developed and emerging markets contributing to the strong growth worldwide,” said Jack Flanagan, comScore executive vice president. “Search is clearly becoming a more ubiquitous behavior among Internet users that drives navigation not only directly from search engines but also within sites and across networks. If you equate the advancement of search with the ability of humans to cultivate information, then the world is rapidly becoming a more knowledgeable ecosystem.”

What does that mean in terms of emissions? Well according to Google, one Google search is equivalent to about 0.2 grams of CO2. In 2009 there were 2.9 million searches conducted per minute by internet users over 15 according to commScore (an annual growth of over 40%) and Google accounted for 66.8% of these. Using my incredible mental arithmetic here: that's 1,937,200 Google searches per minute which according to them; equates to nearly three weeks worth of the average US households electricity consumption. That - all in one minute!

Source: Google blog

Within the advertising industry we've seen more content rich websites, 3D gaming, the advent of augmented realities and witnessed the progression of the ubur connected individual through social networks. This (much to my excitement) a demonstration of the breadth and evolution of digital communication and yet, often overlooked, consequently puts greater demands on data storage and energy use.

“Data centres are among the most energy-intensive facilities imaginable,” says Evan Mills, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Banks of servers storing billions of web pages require power and lots of it! This is obviously not limited to search but across the internet infrastructure, its massive, behemoth and growing really really really fast.

Needless to say digital technologies do much to also limit carbon output, digital content and tools enable us to do many things quicker, with better quality, using fewer resources. But we must also consider the increase in e-waste and electricity consumption created as a consequence to the digital revolution. The challenge is to improve the environmental sustainability of the digital technologies we use and to use technology effectively to reduce resource consumption at the same time.