Posted 22 October 2009
by dator at 8:36 AM
*Social Media Rule!*
And, faster than a speeding bullet, Google responds to the concerns
expressed by the Market Researchers as I represented them yesterday--and
even faster, Twitter joins in too!
---------------------------
/Web 2.0 Summit: Google Unveils Social Search/
Users of Google's search engine will soon have the option to include
content created by friends in search results lists.
By Thomas Claburn
/InformationWeek/
October 21, 2009 07:53 PM
<http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/google/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=220900052&subSection=News>
In a surprise announcement at the Web 2.0 Summit, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) VP
of search products and user experience Marissa Mayer revealed an
upcoming Google product called Social Search.
"We've been thinking about social networks for a long time," said Mayer,
without any hint that the meteoric rise of social networks might be a
source of concern at Google.
WOWD debuted its search oriented product at Web 2.0 saying that it
provides more "discovery" than "search," and demonstrating how it pulls
the crowd into search results. Web 2.0 Chair John Battelle tries to pin
down Evan Williams, CEO of Twitter, on the company's potential revenue
models. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts provides his view on the net
neutrality debate, saying that he welcomes the dialog.
WOWD debuted its search oriented product at Web 2.0 saying that it
provides more "discovery" than "search," and demonstrating how it pulls
the crowd into search results.
Social Search, said Mayer, recognizes a fundamental need for real-time
information and demonstrates Google's commitment to innovating in search.
Social Search will be launched in a few weeks as a Google Labs
experiment. As its name suggest, it integrates information created by
people in a searcher's Google network -- defined by one's list of Google
Contacts -- into Google search results.
Mayer demonstrated how a search for "New Zealand" produced a list of
search results that included relevant content created by friends
midway-down the search results page. Among the search results were links
to a Gmail message that referenced New Zealand and a FriendFeed entry,
each from a different friend.
In order for Social Search to work, users much have a Google Account, a
Google Profile, and friends listed as Google Contacts.
The existence of Google's Social Search service appears to validate
claims made earlier on Wednesday afternoon at the Web 2.0 Summit by
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. "There is a very fundamental shift going
on from the information Web to the social Web," she said.
Google clearly wants to be a part of that shift.
Mayer also confirmed an announcement made earlier in the afternoon that
Google had reached a deal with Twitter to include tweets in its search
index as a way to improve access to real-time information.
---------------------------------
Jim Dator
Posted 21 October 2009
by dator at 9:06 AM
I have just returned from The Market Research Event, held this year in Las Vegas, where I gave a keynote address full of my usual equal measures of hope and doom.
As always, I learn far more from attending events like this than I imagine I share in return.
From the workshop presentations I dropped in on, I discovered that market researchers are as inspired and confused about the consequences of the new Social Media on their work as futurists are.
The Manoa School for many years has used a formula for identifying trends and emerging issues that Graham Molitor published in the mid 1970s.
That was a pre-Social Media era, to say the least.
Molitor correctly said at the time that emerging issues (future problem/opportunities just barely popping into view) can be found only in extremely obscure and often unsavory places. It takes a lot of rooting around to find them. Once they emerge, if they survive at all, they then go through a series of predictable processes of growth from emergence, to take off, to becoming a raging trend, to becoming an all-apparent problem/opportunity, and then either persisting as such, or dying, or cycling down only to emerge at some later point in time.
Using Molitor's scheme, we at the Manoa School prided ourselves on developing good scanners who produced useful emerging issues before many other futurists did.
It turns out that market researchers are short-run futurists of a particular kind: they are trying to discover what new products customers will buy and consumers use, and they are interested in discovering what customers and consumers think about new products.
Surely, then, the new Social Media are a gold mine for both futurists and market researchers.
Indeed, they would seem to be a market researchers dream come true: millions of people very willingly trying out new products and expressing their opinions about them and everything else. All that valuable information just hanging out there for anyone to see. No need to go to the difficult process of identifying and interviewing random samples, or assembling focus groups, or using other traditional survey research methods. Instead, with blogs, et al, getting opinions is like shooting fish in a barrel, right?
On the Internet, and specifically on blogs, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and the like, everyone is eagerly revealing their innermost thoughts (and bodies) for anyone who wants to read, hear or look.
Hoo Ha!
But that is just the problem: everyone is online expressing a million opinions in a million different places. Holy Infoglut!
Well, how about surfing the blogs of blogs or the other many services telling you (for a price, and with proprietary software that may or may not exist) what the blogs are saying?
But are complainers more like to speak out than praisers, or those who are neutral?
It also turns out that an unknown number of bloggers are being paid to say they like (or dislike) a product (or a candidate, or a policy), seriously skewing the results.
And then there are the "everyones" who are NOT online but who still are customers and consumers. Are their opinions similar or different from the ones online?
And so on.
So market researchers are in a quandary, trying to figure out how to use the goldmine to find gold and not gigantic amounts of dross.
We futurists are in the same situation as we look for true emerging issues.
Any suggestions as to a solution?
Especially since yesterday's hottest thing--say, My Space--becomes passé before many people even learn how to use it, and there is no reason to assume YouTube, or Facebook (especially), or even Google (currently proclaimed the Emperor--often without clothes, but still the Emperor--by several market researches) will be The Next Thing next year. The learning curve is so great and the half-life of The Next Thing is so short, that many appear to be giving up and going back to watching TV.
Leaving the truly weird and out-of-it crying away in lonely cyberspace.
Ah! Just the place to find Molitor's old emerging issues!
Jim Dator
Posted 29 September 2009
by dator at 10:04 AM
Recalling that Wendy Schultz used the metaphor, "Surfing the Tsunamis of
Change", to capture the magnitude of challenges racing towards us from
the futures, and the limits and strengths of our ability to respond to
them (by surfing, rather than ignoring, them), Cody Clark was inspired
to write this poem:
:SURFING::
This is not a time to be nonchalant about your lives!
Things are happening that are both horrible
and wonderful beyond our imagining.
Animals are being cloned for your consumption.
Computers are being woven into your socks.
They're inventing new flowers.
And new ways to live and die.
(Are you paying attention?)
Hate is spanning continents.
Borders are dissolving.
War is a media event —
The next genocide will be televised.
(Will you be watching?)
Clever diseases are adapting
to sidestep new cures.
New microbes are being patented;
Old ones are learning new tricks
(What are you learning?)
Pigs will grow new hearts for us
While our old hearts will grow fond of
faces over wireless rivers of bandwidth;
Hearts to be broken by virtual lovers.
(Where is your heart?)
Soon we'll glide on hydrogen chariots
and Stirling scooters and maglev trains
Superconductors will take the reins
And move us faster, ever faster.
(But, do you know where you're going?)
Turbulent data is flooding the culture.
Information is boiling, steaming our vision
While wisdom becomes a commercial commodity
And knowledge is power and power is an oddity
To most of us regular folks.
(Do you know who you can trust?)
Yet billions of people rely on each other.
They trust their elders, their elected offcials.
Billions of people do not use computers;
they do not see them as anything special.
(Do we pity Them? Or do they pity Us?)
You must be alert because time is accelerating
At different speeds in different places.
Is what you hold onto moving you forward?
Or holding you back while "progress" erases
Your every anchor, your every point of reference.
(You must pay attention now. To everything. All the time.)
You will learn to surf or you will drown.
So watch for clues that swirl around
In the currents of our times.
And paddle like hell
when you feel the swell.
Boy, I hope
you can afford
a board.
----
I had no sooner posted this when PBS announced that a tsunami had hit
Pago Pago, American Samoa, and might hit Hawaii by 1 pm today.
Better wax up my board, if I can afford to buy one!
Posted 21 August 2009
by dator at 3:12 PM
Peter Diamandis is one of the most dynamic people I know.
He (and two other MIT graduate students) created the International Space University 20 years ago and it is now a thriving enterprise.
He and Ray Kurweil created Singularity University and the first summer session is nearing completion now.
He created and obtained funding for The X Prize in its various evolving forms in order to encourage humanity to move into space faster and better than lumbering space bureaucracies are doing.
It is a fantastic person.
I just received from him what he calls "Peter's Laws". I pass them on to you.
I do not necessarily agree with all of them. But that might explain why Peter has done what he has done and I have not!
Years ago I became angry at Murphy's Law ("If anything can go wrong, it will") and decided to write my own Law… ("If anything can go wrong, fix it… To hell with Murphy!"). One law quickly became 12, then 20, and now 30. Below and attached is my last iteration of Peter's Laws (Top 30). Most are original, some are adaptations. Enjoy!
Warmest,
Peter
Peter's Laws ™
The Creed of the persistent and passionate mind
1. If anything can go wrong, Fix It!!... To hell with Murphy!
2. When given a choice… Take Both!!
3. Multiple projects lead to multiple successes.
4. Start at the top then work your way up.
5. Do it by the book... but be the author!
6. When forced to compromise, ask for more.
7. If it's worth doing, it's got to be done right now.
8. If you can't win, change the rules.
9. If you can't change the rules, then ignore them.
10. Perfection is not optional.
11. When faced without a challenge, make one.
12. "No" simply means begin again at one level higher
13. Don't walk when you can run.
14. Bureaucracy is a challenge to be conquered with a righteous attitude, a tolerance for stupidity, and a bulldozer when necessary.
15. When in doubt: THINK!
16. Patience is a virtue, but persistence to the point of success is a blessing.
17. The squeaky wheel gets replaced.
18. The faster you move, the slower time passes, the longer you live.
19. The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself!
20. The ratio of something to nothing is infinite.
21. You get what you incentivize.
22. If you think it is impossible, then it is… for you.
23. An expert is someone who can tell you exactly how it can't be done.
24. The day before something is a breakthrough it's a crazy idea.
25. If it were easy it would have been done already.
26. Without a target you'll miss it every time.
27. Bullshit walks, hardware talks.
28. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
29. The world's most precious resource is the passionate and committed human mind.
30. If you can't measure it, you can't improve it.
Copyright, 1986, 2009, Peter H. Diamandis, All Rights Reserved. Laws # 14 & #18 by Todd B. Hawley. Contact info: peter@xprize.org
Posted 11 July 2009
by dator at 10:55 AM
For several years now, I have been advising researchers in communications technologies that the next big thing for them will be when someone learns how to manipulate biological and chemical processes for human communication purposes the way the physical electron eventually came to be used to revolutionize human communication.
The "electronic revolution", which most futurists understand to be the major technological development of the second half of the 20th century, followed the classic "S" curve of development which Graham Molitor identified as underlying "emerging issues analysis", a fundamental tool of the Manoa School of Futures Studies, and many other futures groups.
It is now possible to see that a similar process is underway for biological and chemical processes.
While I have not tried to determine the first emergence of the idea, or its initial early steps, a major push of the issue up the "S" curve came in 1999 when the highly-respected journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Science, began publication of a separate journal that they titled Science's STKE. STKE stands for "signal transduction knowledge environment" which itself is defined as "the biochemical processes by which cells respond to cues in their internal or external environment. Because signal transduction mechanisms are the natural control circuits that regulate biological systems, they provide potent targets for development of therapeutic agents to combat disease or otherwise alter the behavior of biological systems."
Science changed the name, but not the focus of STKE, with the weekly publication of Science Signaling from 2008. Among other things, the fact that it is published weekly indicates that it is moving even more quickly up the "S" curve.
Yet, according to what I have been able to discern, most research us still in the basic science area, attempting to discover how cell signaling processes work. And most applications are still envisioned to be in "development of therapeutic agents to combat disease", and not yet in the "alter the behavior of biological systems" category. I have seen nothing so far that suggests using these biochemical processes for human communication in ways analogous to the electron and electronics.
But I suspect the time can't be far off.
Two recent items (among many others) suggest why.
One example is in Science itself (Vol. 324, May 29, 2009): A review essay by Christina Smolke titled "It's the DNA that counts" (1156f) and the technical article by Ari Friedland, et al., titled "Synthetic gene networks that count." (1199-1202).
The abstract to the latter says, "Synthetic gene networks can be constructed to emulate digital circuits and devices, giving one the ability to program and design cells with some of the principles of modern computing, such as counting." The authors still see this ability primarily as giving "bioengineers and molecular biologists" the ability "to construct therapeutic agents." But can other uses be far behind?
The second item is an article in Science News (June 20, 2009, pp 16-19) by Susan Milius, titled "No brainer behavior." It is based on a series of essays in the journal, Plant, Cell & Environment, of June 2009. The issue, which "is devoted to plant behavior, even begins with a paper that uses the term 'plant intelligence'," shows the many ways in which plants seem to move (sometimes with 0.5 Mach speed), communicate, deceive, fight, cooperate with other plants and animals intentionally, often apparently relying on memory of past experiences while doing so. If "intelligence" can be defined as "a capacity for problem solving" (as Anthony Trewavas of the University of Edinburgh does (and I agree), then the evidence seems to show that at least some plants are intelligent.
In spite of a spate of talking with and singing to plants by hippies in the 1960s, the scientific basis of plant intelligence is new and controversial. "A 2006 manifesto" introduced "the field to readers of Trends in Plant Science," aiming at understanding "how plants process the information they obtain from their environment."
Objectors abound. David Robinson of the University of Heidelberg says, "I see no reason why one can't simply talk about signal transduction in plants." There is no reason to infer intelligence or even intention, he says.
Nonetheless, whether plants cogitate or not, "signal transduction in plants" is quite enough if it enables humans to learn how to use those processes to augment our own cogitation and communication--and that of our artilects.
Jim Dator
Posted 20 June 2009
by dator at 5:38 PM
Reduce crime by sentencing criminals to movie theaters:
"Laboratory experiments in psychology find that media violence increases aggression in the short run. We analyze whether media violence affects violent crime in the field. We exploit variation in the violence of blockbuster movies from 1995 to 2004, and study the effect on same-day assaults. We find that violent crime decreases on days with larger theater audiences for violent movies. The effect is partly due to voluntary incapacitation: between 6 P.M. and 12 A.M., a one million increase in the audience for violent movies reduces violent crime by 1.1% to 1.3%."
Source: Does Movie Violence Increase Violent Crime?, G. Dahl, S. DellaVigna, DOI: 10.1162/qjec.2009.124.2.677, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 2009, Online 2009/05/19
Posted 13 May 2009
by stuart candy at 12:01 AM
05/13/2009 -- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Gaming the flu crisisLife imitates art in Coral Cross
, Hawaii's groundbreaking pandemic preparedness gameHONOLULU – As uncertainty over the H1N1 ‘swine flu’ virus spreads around the world, a Hawaii-based project is resorting to an innovative strategy to engage people in protecting themselves and their communities: online gaming.
Designers at the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies (HRCFS) are staging a collaborative game called
Coral Cross, using game techniques to encourage participants across the islands, and beyond, to become better informed and share their views about the health crisis, including priority groups for an eventual vaccine.
“The only thing that spreads faster than a virus is information,” said project lead Stuart Candy. “Players will take concrete action trying to outpace swine flu, by spreading pandemic-preparedness knowledge faster than the disease can travel.”
Commissioned by the Hawaii Department of Health in 2008, and funded by the US federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
Coral Cross was originally intended to simulate the effects of a near-future global influenza outbreak on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, and to collect critical public feedback. At the time, would-be players were generations removed from the experience of a pandemic, so the designers chose to create a ‘playable scenario’ to immerse people in a hypothetical global flu pandemic.
However, in late April, just weeks before the game was scheduled to launch -- and with other parts of the Hawaii Health Department’s pandemic preparedness effort already live -- an astonishing coincidence occurred. The real flu crisis struck. "The day after our production team filmed a mock pandemic press conference set in 2012, we were watching a real one," said Candy, "It made our alternate reality premise redundant, and called for an urgent change of strategy."
HRCFS is now retrofitting
Coral Cross to ‘game’ the current swine flu crisis, and although the launch date remains unchanged, the project now aims to support real-life pandemic preparedness against the backdrop of current events. In late May, the public will be able to decode pandemic-related health information, collaborate around emergency preparedness -- and potentially influence policy. Although the strain of H1N1 currently circulating is less deadly than feared at first, the World Health Organization and CDC have cautioned that it is infecting people of all ages, and a mutation in the fall or winter could see a fiercer strain take hold in a subsequent pandemic ‘wave’.
The genre of so-called ‘serious games’ offers an increasingly popular way to engage and inform participants around hypothetical situations, and to prepare for alternative futures. In recent years, ‘Alternate Reality Games’ like
After Shock and
World Without Oil have proved effective in helping people imagine how their lives could be affected by large-scale systemic changes, such as an earthquake or oil crisis. Building on this genre, and with years of experience consulting on alternative futures, the HRCFS team spent months of research and development creating a plausible scenario, with accompanying media and artifacts from their hypothetical pandemic.
In the spotlight was the Coral Cross of Oahu, a fictional emergency preparedness and response agency, which was established in September 2011 after a category 5 hurricane hit the island. “The Coral Cross of Oahu was imagined as a grassroots network, a product of Obama-era public service and web savvy, organizing community responses ahead of large-scale government intervention,” explains designer Matthew Jensen. “It also played on current trends in social media and gameplay to encourage vigilance in the face of a long-term pandemic threat – perhaps an idea ahead of its time.”
These core principles, part of the narrative pre-design, now guide the redesign process. “
Coral Cross switched from being an Alternate Reality Game to an Emergent Reality Game when the pandemic emerged as a real threat,” adds Jensen. While the design team has aimed to make this a fun, rewarding play experience, they also see it as an opportunity to provide real service to communities, families, and health authorities, spreading knowledge and responsible behavior in the midst of an actual health crisis.
"The Coral Cross suddenly went from being a future story element to a prototype for what a real, bottom-up emergency response could look like," says project consultant Jake Dunagan. "So, as the future invaded our present, we found ourselves asking 'What would Coral Cross do?'"
According to experience designer Nathan Verrill, the Coral Cross would motivate citizens through whatever means possible. "Even in the face of a real threat, gameplay influences behavior in a fun and engaging way," says Verrill. "We believe that gaming principles will help keep participants focused over a longer period of time, helping spread useful knowledge, while we crowdsource ideas and feedback that can influence public policy."
Though the H1N1 pandemic may not yet evolve into the global catastrophe that the 2012 ‘alternate reality’ narrative originally related, the designers are confident that their Emergent Reality Game will expose citizen-players to key possibilities, encouraging the kind of collaboration and skills that will help to keep them safe, whatever the future may hold.
Time will tell.
Participants can pre-register for
Coral Cross at
coralcross.org.
For additional information or interviews, please contact project lead Stuart Candy via scandy at hawaii dot edu or +1-808-956-2888.
About the Hawaii Research Center for Futures StudiesThe Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies, established by the Hawaii State Legislature in 1971, is a world-renowned institution for futures research, consulting, and education. It has been instrumental in training generations of futurists, in the development and spread of judicial foresight, and in bringing foresight and futures thinking to organizations, agencies, and businesses around the world. The Center, in its theories, methods, design and practice strives to be the living embodiment of futures studies.
